November 20, 2011

Digital Parasites & Their Free-Ride on the Culture Business

By magicpiemusic

Robert Levine’s new book, ” Free Ride: How Digital Parasites and Destroying the Culture Business and How the Culture Business Can Fight Back“, published October 25, 2011, explores the symbiotic relationship between media and technology. I am nearly through the entire book (I’m in the middle of the chapter on ‘collective licensing’ – something I will be explore here this week).  It is an easy read, though very informative; and it is clear that Robert has done the research and talked to the right people. While decidedly written from the pre-determined conclusion that companies such as Google and Boxee are taking advantage of technological innovation and the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (“DMCA”) to push down the cost of ad-space, the book also is also reasonably fair in giving the “free-culture” perspective its fair shake, too.

Now, you’ll just have to go and buy the book to find out what Robert is really writing about – this is no book review, merely a spring-board for my own views on the subject. (But seriously, go read it – it’s a great way to spend $25 and be knowledgeable)

Briefly, what is want to talk about is this idea of “free culture”. I really don’t like that term – “free culture”. Or the oft-quoted Lessig-esque rallying-cry “Information wants to be free” (which, in truth, is only one sentence from a larger speech by Stewart Brand who was discussing the tension between the ever-decreasing costs of distributing information versus its perennially high value in society. I also don’t necessarily mind Lawrence Lessig, either – I particularly like his support for a collective licensing scheme). I don’t like such types of vague epithets because they aren’t descriptive of anything, really – they just make for good sound bites and can be used as political fodder in editorial pieces.

Yes, culture should be “free” –  in the sense that everyone has the right to participate in, contribute to, and consume it (this is the distribution side of the tension Brand was alluding to). However, it is not financially “free” because it is holds an economic value (in that people are willing to pay for it through, say, ordering HBO or a subscription to Slackr radio) and because there is a cost involved in producing (read: contributing to) culture.

And, of course, “information wants to be free” – but not financially free. Rather freely distributed. Free to be easily shared between us. But, of course, it is not available for $0. Nothing in this life is.

Thus, the idea that “culture should be free” and similar types of meaningless generalizations are missing the point. The digitization of media has revealed how utterly raw  and visceral this tension is: the Internet makes information incredibly “free” from a distribution standpoint (which is good); but it also erodes at the economic eco-system of that information (which is bad).

But don’t get me wrong – once in digital format, music, movies, and books should be able to be chopped-up, remixed, sold, re-sold, shared, given away, or otherwise used without the “owner” of said material having an ability to say much in the matter. That’s what technology and the Internet have changed – the right to have 100% control over when, how and by whom your material is consumed. But, (and this is an enormous ‘but’) the owner should be paid – perhaps not for every single use of her material, but enough such that whatever uses occur downstream will not jeopardize her right to be remunerated for her creativity. For her “contribution” to free culture.

Levine’s book does a great job at illustrating this tension using examples from the content industries. The way the book publishers are fighting Amazon’s attempts to replicate Apple’s move into music by pushing the price of e-books to the floor, but making money selling hardware. The way Boxee is trying to encourage people to cancel their cable subscriptions but keep watching those same shows using Internet TV that does not compensate the creators & producers of these shows.

The book is quite a revealing look at the different forces at play. So, in the interest of participating in and consuming this “free culture”, go read this book. I ordered in from Amazon. But thanks for stopping by here first.

Our next post: a series on collective licensing in the music industry…

 

Leave a comment | posted in Digital Distribution, Tech Policy

November 14, 2011

E-Vinyl

By magicpiemusic

This came across my desk this evening while I was listening to some classic James Brown (side note: it’s songs like this that make you really understand how truly valuable copyright in music actually is…it’s gold, really).

There’s a new format coming out from L.A. The idea is ” a cross between an e-book with a traditional record”.

Check it out here: http://bit.ly/uNM4Am

What this project is trying to do is combine the physical with the digital. To re-create the days of my (our?) childhood, where I’d buy a CD (before that, a tape even – shocker!), take it to my room, press play, and listening to the entire thing while reading the liner notes and day-dreaming about the pictures.

Now, there is value in that experience. However, one of the things music fans have lost over the past 10 years is the ability to go a bit deeper into the music and connect with messages in the album. Of course, this was all before the digital, 99-cent song from iTunes, when people were actually willing to buy and listen to an album, and musicians were actually quite willing to make albums that were complete works onto themselves.

There is nothing wrong with the a-la-carte digital sales model that is  currently the order of the day. The casual listener would only buy an album for one or two songs anyway, so might as well give it to them. Good.

But one casualty of this new type of sales model was the experience of going deeper in the album. Because the good ones, they never just write music just to write it – there’s always a message, always something communicated. Part of that communication is the music. Part of the communication are the pictures and the words and the artwork.

Ever open White Zombie’s “Super Sexy Swingin’ Sounds” http://bit.ly/veoezu ? I spent hours looking through those liner notes. Hours. (If you know the album, you know…) But apart from the Austin-Powers-esque eroticism, the liner notes were part of Rob Zombie‘s way of taking his band a bit less seriously. A way to be more honest, perhaps, and explore a different part of the White Zombie. The trance theme of the album showcased the band’s more complicated rhythm structure than you are able to appreciate through straight metal. The album was a remix album, after all….

Or what about Nirvana’s “In Utero“? Did Kurt waste all his time playing with doll parts to make the art work?

No, he didn’t.

So this rich experience is what e-Vinyl is trying to give back to us. Will it work? I’m not sure. Is it a good idea? Yes, definitely – the experience it’s trying to replicate is definitely worth the trouble.  I think e-Vinyl might for the person with a tablet and the younger fan who is always on a laptop. But for an older music fan? I think the train has left the station, so to speak. But there’s no need to split this issue on generational lines. We’ll all just have to wait and see.

Above all, however, e-Vinyl is thinking outside the box about how musicians can engage their audience with content.

P.S. And ‘content’ is not just music, anymore…

James Brown – It’s a Man’s Man’s Man’s World. God damn, what a song.

Leave a comment | posted in Digital Distribution, Music Strategy

May 11, 2011

Google Music Beta, Skype, Microsoft and Zune

By magicpiemusic

With its acquisition of Skype for $8 billion and change, Microsoft moved into the telecommunications arena. Almost at the same time, Google unleashed its new music service, appropriately named Google Music Beta.

Coincidence? Well, yes, but we see how the two corporate strategies are competing for the same eyeballs and eardrums.

By acquiring Skype, Microsoft declared its intentions to become a player in the digital telecommunications space. Sure, but what does this mean for music?

Microsoft also runs a music service – Zune. It’s been around for a while, but has yet to take off in any significant way. We think that one of the things they might bring to Skype is to integrate it with Zune – so that you can access Zune through Skype without leaving the Skype interface. One reason we think Microsoft will integrate the two services is because a) it just makes sense; and b) new releases of MS Office will be offered through the cloud to compete with service like Google Docs, and, indirectly, Dropbox and Amazon’s cloud storage.

Microsoft may be looking to compete directly with Google for ad dollars, eyeballs and eardrums. And, Google has been already making moves of its own. See, Google wants you to never leave its iGoogle interface – with voice, chat, mail, music, reader, calendar, YouTube there’s no reason to ever leave once you’re there. Google Music will be another big reason to stick around. And Google gets to track and mine your data, and you get your music streamed to any phone and any computer.

Another reason why Skype and Zune will be joined together is the Windows 7 phone. Offering Skype for its phone will provide add a new selling feature to the phone. Do you see any similarities to Google’s Android?

Essentially, while the two moves are distinct, there is the converging strategy emerging here. What does it mean for music? That all remains to be seen at this point. However, this is the latest development in telecommunications and digital media that will seek to integrate music and culture as a core part of its service offerings. This means only good things for musicians from the point of view of digital distribution.

Leave a comment | posted in Digital Music, Tech Policy, Telecommunications

April 24, 2011

Do Cover Songs “Cover” The Original Song?

By magicpiemusic

Does a new version of a previously recorded song reduce the value of the original work?

Prince certainly thinks so. Talking to George Lopez, he commented that:

“You see, covering the music means your version doesn’t exist anymore.  There’s this thing called the compulsory license law which allows artists to take your music at will.  That doesn’t exist in any other art form – there’s only one version of ‘Law & Order,’ but there are several versions of ‘Kiss’ and ‘Purple Rain.’”

The specific law to which Prince is referring is Section 115 of the Copyright Act which provides the option of a compulsory license from the publisher for any song that has been previously recorded and released in the United States. Conversely, you can also negotiate a license separately with the publisher if you wish. However, should you choose to go down the compulsory license route, then you just have to pay the mechanical license rate of 9.1 cents for every copy distributed.

To be clear, the compulsory license gives you right to record your own version of the song. It does not give you the right to release any part of the actual recording of the original song. The recording of the original song is part of a separate revenue stream and is generally owned by a label. To use the recording (i.e. as a sample in hip-hop track) you need to get permission from the copyright holder.

Covers can be part of a larger Strategy

Releasing a cover song can be a great tool in a broader music strategy. For one thing, it can be used as a hook to get people interested in what you’re doing. It’s usually a song that is already within the popular consciousness. It’s familiar – people know it and can sing along to it. So pick a song that you know and love and do your own version of that

In addition, cover songs offer a great opportunity to showcase your creativity. While you aren’t performing your own original music, you can put your own spin on a cover. This is your own interpretation. Maybe you do a classical version of the song. Or, maybe an a-Capella version.  Slow the tempo, change the key, or sing it with your own feel for the music. No two will be alike.

One guy who’s great at this is Jef Kearns, a soul floutist from Toronto who does killer flute covers of “Lollipop” by ‘Lil Wayne and “H.A.T.E.U.” by Mariah Carey. This was part of a larger strategy we carved out for Jef and it’s worked well for him so far. Playing the songs with flute adds an element that people don’t expect. We generally associate the flute with classical music, but applied to R&B and hip-hop, it absolutely kills! Plus, Jef’s just an incredible floutist – not anyone flute player can play with the soul and feeling he does. When you do something that people don’t expect, you always get a great audience reaction. Check out Jef whenever you can, it’s definitely a show you’ll be telling your friends about.

Our friend Rafe does an awesome job breaking new talent with cover songs on YouTube with RafeFM. Check out Lynzie Kent’s cover of “Use Somebody” by The Kings of Leon. It’s unreal. Plus, thanks to the cover song, we all know who Lynzie is and how awesome her voice is.

Plus, by recording and releasing digitally, you can get your covers out very quickly and efficiently.

If You Want to Make Cover Song

If you want to make and release a cover song in the United States, the Copyright Office provides the following guides here and here.

RightsFlow also offers an excellent on-line tool for licensing music called LimeLight. It’s easy to use and an overall great service.

Is Prince Right?

The short answer is: no, Prince isn’t right.

The long answer is: well, it depends from where you sit.

Compulsory licenses for cover songs encourage creativity by eliminating the publishers’ ability to charge a high for a license. It also helps out the original writer and recording artist because new versions of songs keep the music relevant and alive in the public consciousness. When people cover your music, it’s because they’ve connected with it on a deep level and the song has acquired meaning in their lives. It’s not only because the song is “popular”. You wouldn’t cover a Justin Bieber song just because it’s popular – no, you only cover it if his music has influenced you and you want to share it.

But, it depends from where you sit. Perhaps Prince would like to see moral rights recognized in U.S. Copyright Law (basically, moral rights allow a copyright owner to object to any modifications or other uses of their music that alter the essential character and meaning of the work). Perhaps Prince would prefer to scrap the compulsory license and license “Purple Rain” at $10,000 per.

Either way, Prince’s true intentions aren’t clear. But that doesn’t matter for you. You probably think cover songs are awesome…because they are.

And, by strategically selecting which songs to cover, how to cover them and where and how to release them, you can this compulsory license as part of a broader branding strategy.

1 comment | posted in Digital Music, Music Strategy

April 7, 2011

Music vs. Cereal (Part 2)

By magicpiemusic

Music vs. Cereal (Part 2).

Love to get a vibrant discussion on this issue, which is still a hotly contested one because it bring together issues of fairness, morality, economics and culture. Awesome.

This is our bent:

WHEREAS

no new/indie/unsigned band – what have you – is going to benefit financially from the album-replacement era that fueled CD album sales throughout the 90s and pre-Napster. Among those who rode this wave of people include the biggest and “established” 90s musicians & bands we all know and love – ‘Tallica, Usher, Biggie, Greenday, BonJovi, Radiohead, Pearl Jam, Alanis, U2, Shania…to name just 7. They are big now because they sold records then and used that money to tap into the eco-system of producers, labels, marketers, songwriters, etc. that helped them improve and release new music. It was a great time. But that era is gone. I`m sorry, it just is.

and, WHEREAS

album sales have decreased for nearly ten years, even though sales of individual digital tracks has increased but recently leveled off. P2P and new streaming services like Pandora, Spotify and Slackr have contributed to this decline in legitimate downloads, even though they`re a good thing for the future of digital music. Plus, IFPI reports that only 16.5% of online users in the US purchase music online. Why? People download it all for free. So, in effect, you are competing with free music from the biggest names in the business – how confident are you that you can charge for your music, especially if people don’t even know who you are yet?

and, WHEREAS

Established bands like Radiohead (Rainbows) and Grammy-winner Trent Reznor are tinkering with digital distribution strategies and either giving away their music or offering fans the ability to pay what they want.

and, WHEREAS

an entire generation of young music fans – from about 10-16 years old – have grown up in a world where it is culturally acceptable to download and share music for free. They`ve never paid for music in their lives. No tapes, no CDs…hell, even iTunes is fueled largely by an older customer demographic. Kids don`t understand the value of music because they`ve never been forced to.

BE IT RESOLVED that, many artists (certainly not all, but many) should seriously consider of distributing their music either for free or for a nominal charge ($2-5…or an e-mail address)

————

Get your stuff out there. Great music always rises to the top. And you can`t ever replace the experience of a live show (i.e. Mumford and Sons). And music is about sharing. And people love to share music they love. And no one goes to a concert by themselves.

Making music is special. It`s important culturally, socially and economically. The people making music must be compensated for what they do. We strongly believe that. If you can do that through straight album sales, great. Good for you and you deserve every cent.

However, if you can`t, then you should consider other ways to monetize what you do.  And there are other ways to monetize creatively.

It`s not that your music isn`t worth anything. Just the economics aren`t the same anymore. Innovations in technology have made music easily transferable across borders and transferable for a marginal cost of zero. Nothing. Never before in the course of human history have we been able to make an infinite number of perfect copies of something, store that something and distribute that something at a cost of nearly zero. Deal with it.

Blame Napster. Blame the labels for not moving fast enough when Steve Jobs approached them for a license to sell content on iTunes. Had they seen the coming change in distribution, labels should have demanded a much higher price for songs listed on iTunes. They eventually tried to do this but then faced an uphill battle when iTunes immediately dominated digital sales. Jobs never cared about music sales – he sells hardware.

Things could have been different. But they`re not. The genie`s out. It`s 10 years later. Deal with it.

Leave a comment | posted in Digital Distribution, Music Strategy

April 2, 2011

3 of 4 artists searching for a record deal

By magicpiemusic

This just came out this week on Digital Music News (DMN)

http://digitalmusicnews.com/stories/032511unsigned.

Reverb Nation and DMN surveyed nearly 2,000 artists to get their position. Overwhelmingly 75% of them indicated their goal is to be signed. Pop, rock, hip-hop, alternative – the genre doesn’t really matter. They all just want to be signed.

Why?

With all the tools out there for musicians, why is their such a desire to be apart of the label machine? You can make videos yourself, you can record for very cheap with quality equipment and you can make your own merchandise. You can market yourself on YouTube, Twitter, Facebook. You can do this all yourself.

Or, you can pay someone (like Reverb Nation) to do it for you. You can sign up with Bandcamp and sell your stuff on-line if you don’t want to build your own website.

My point here is that there is no need for a label. But let me qualify that point.

Your need for a label depends on your goals – your music strategy. If your goal is to become Linkin Park or the Foo Fighters, become an international success and dominate the industry, then perhaps a label is for you.

What does a label offer?

The main advantage in signing with a label is the eco-system that comes with the label. The label eco-system is the network of marketers, distributors, managers, producers, radio promoters and lawyers that will work on your behalf. If the label wants to push you, they will. They’ll put all their might behind you, using their connections to get you radio play in foreign markets and maybe (*maybe) help you on the road.

This eco-system is a great thing if you want to become an international star very quickly. This is especially so if you’re signed with a giant like Sony or Universal.

The other side to the eco-system is that your career exists at the whim of the people “working” on your behalf. You might be dropped (it happens quite a bit) because you’re no longer “commercially viable”. Another younger, hipper, better artist might come along and take up the label’s focus. And then, it ‘s basically you and your lawyer (if you even have one) knocking on the door trying to get your “best efforts” clauses enforced. Guess what: no one’s going to talk to you. And have fun getting any royalties owing to you. The labels are historically terrible at paying out (example: the recent $47 million settlement from the Big Four labels to copyright holders in Canada for non-payment of mechanical royalties)

Never mind that labels are broke. And the label machine is broken. Never mind that A&R budgets are the lowest they’ve ever been (http://www.brand-m.biz/ar-spend-to-slump_9105.html, http://www.deloitte.com/assets/Dcom-Global/Local%20Assets/Documents/TMT/Predictions%202011%20PDFs/8855A%20TMT%20Keeping%20LB1.pdf) with A&R reps being fired left, right and center.

And, most importantly, never mind that the label will want exclusive rights to your music, and more recently, to your touring, merchandise and on-line brand through a 360 deal). The NY Times wrote an interesting piece on the 360 phenomenon a few years ago.

So never mind that you’re signing away the rights to your music. To your livelihood. You’ll regret this later and try to get them back. They all do.

If, however, you don’t need to become a mega-star selling 10 million records, you can do this all yourself. Through the correct marketing, distribution and – most importantly – the MUSIC, you can find 40,000-50,000 people around the world willing to pay you for your art.

Take a sec. Do the math. 40,000 fans across the world x $20 each (for merch, music, art, etc)= $800,000 a year. Isn’t that enough for you? Do you have overhead costs more than $800k? No, you don’t. Maybe you have $10,000 in production costs and a couple grand of merch costs, maybe some touring debt. Nothing close to that.

Or maybe it’s only 10,000 fans x $20 each. Which is still $200,000 dollars. Again, your costs aren’t that high – this is enough for you.

But never mind the dollars. Because it’s all about the music. It has to be all about the music. All about the music. If the music isn’t great, isn’t life affirming, isn’t the music that makes people pause, stop and think about the human condition, then you won’t make it. Your music has to be great. That’s what your selling. This isn’t retail – you’re not selling a brand image or a lifestyle. You’re selling music. You’re selling an experience. And that experience has to be sufficiently compelling for people to want to own it and make it apart of their own lives.

So why do you want a label?

You don’t need one. Look at Arcade Fire. All Indie, took the Grammy’s and the Junos and the Brit Awards. Look at Datarock. Look at Phoenix. Check out their history of 6 albums over 10 years before finally getting some mainstream recognition.

These bands mucked it out in clubs, playing shows to whoever listened, gaining fans one at a time.  Because you don’t gain fans overnight. It’s an organic process that is painfully slow. Like evolution. It takes years.

So if you think a label will blast you to stardom overnight, then go ahead and make that your goal. But it won’t happen. Trust. Because if you’re really that good – that good – the labels will come knocking our your door. You won’t have to go to them. If you’re Gaga, playing in dusty NY bars, and you’re that good, again….the label’s will find you.

But if you’re about the music and the art, then you don’t need a label.

Why?

Because you’d play for nobody.

Because you play because you have to.

So man up and do it yourself.

Leave a comment | posted in Music Strategy

March 28, 2011

Music < Cereal: Why $5 for a digital album is too much

By magicpiemusic

Music > Cereal.

Thanks to Aftertheshow for highlighting this connection. Although I do disagree with their underlying premise that digital music should cost more than a box of cereal.

Here’s why.

Major labels – and anybody else who tries to ply you a CD – is getting you to buy the packaging, distribution and marketing costs that they have incurred in producing the CD.

These costs correspond to about the overwhelming proportion of the CD’s actual value.

Music is information. Again. Music=information.

The marginal cost of distributing information, once created or gathered or reduced to some distributable form – is zero. For example, there is no additional cost for you to teach your neighbor about diesel engines any more than if you were to give that knowledge to 1000 more people.

However, if you were to take that knowledge, dress it up with fancy marketing and distribute it at the learning annex for $159.99, then you are creating artificial scarcity around the value of that information.

Because, again, the marginal cost of you sharing that information is nil (beyond the cost to you of actual talking and teaching)

Music is the same. Once you’ve create and distribute it digitally, there is no cost to you of making each additional copy. When you charge $8.99 for a digital album, really, what you’re trying to do is recoup any expenses you’ve incurred in the making of that record and setup a neat little profit for yourself.

However: that’s a very different set of reasons for charging $8.99 than the idea that it costs you something like $5.99 to make that additional copy, leaving you with a tidy profit of $3.00.

The cereal is the same. Yes, there is a cost in producing the actual cereal, but with modern manufacturing processes and global wheat sourcing, the cost is in the pennies. And yet, it costs you upwards of $5.

Why?

Post or Kellogs has spend millions on getting you to buy the cereal (marketing) and getting the cereal to your location (distribution).

With music on the Internet, these marketing and distribution costs can be reduced to virtually nothing.

You market your music by giving it away to friends, who share it via social media with their friends. It doesn’t cost you anything to make additional copies and distribute them on-line. You just press “Copy” or “Start”.

However, being the savvy business person that you are, you see your recording costs, rent, equipment costs, etc. as all being recoupable from that one $5 album.

Well, guess what?

That’s not an economic reality. The economics of the situation just don’t lend themselves to that kind of math.

Give your music away. If not free, then cheap. If it’s good, your friends and fans will share it and distribute it for you. Hell, if its garbage, your friends and fans will share it and distribute it for you. See our post “Lessons Learned From Rebecca Black”.

You can monetize in other ways. And trust us, there are many of other ways to connect with your audience.

But your music is a sample. Like the samples at Costco or SamsClub. Try the food for free, maybe you’ll buy the whole box. Try the song for free, maybe you’ll buy the concert ticket or the t-shirt. Or the novella. Or the artwork. Or the pub crawl….

So, in a Forest Gump way of saying things, music is like a box of cereal…except your friends actually want to share it with you and it’s not boring, mass-produced consumer foodstuff.

 

3 comments | posted in Digital Distribution

March 28, 2011

Lefsetz sees lessons from Rebecca Black

By magicpiemusic

The Lefsetz Letter. The last word in music analysis, strategy and the inside track to the entertainment world.

http://lefsetz.com/wordpress/index.php/archives/2011/03/25/rebecca-black-lessons/

Just like us here at Magic Pie Music, Lefsetz understands that the train-wreck that is Rebecca Black was indeed derailed on purpose.

And, just like the drivers on the 401 series highways – the busiest in the World, as it happens – make traffic worse by slowing down to check out car accidents, music fans and interested people will always take time to open their minds – and their wallets – to look-at-me-I-want-to-be-a-celebrity-but-I-can’t-sing-act-or perform music wannabees.

Dissecting four points made by Lefsetz. We have to say that we said it here…first!

1. If you want to make an instant splash, you’re better off starting online instead of hiring a publicity agent and using old wave apparatus to dun old wave media

Rebecca Black and Ark Music were prepared to profit from their online assault. There was no PR stunt, no tour at book stores, venues or coffee houses, no requests for an interview with Good Morning America or The Daily Show.

These media outlets don’t matter – well, that’s not at all fair, because once on-line media gets a hold of something, the old guard is always there to follow suit.  Truth is, though, old media plays second fiddle to social media.

Many people – often the execs and suits in charge of money – make the mistake of thinking that social media is only just that – “social”. It is therefore not “mainstream” and not “relevant”. Yes, it is social, but it is social by definition. This type of media experience allows people to share in the stories that interest hem and to share these stories with the people who interest them.

Social media is all about personalization. It’s a “pull” experience, whereas old media is all about “push”. Do not make the mistake of dismissing social media as a fad or as a mainstay tool of “the young”.

It’s all about personalizing the communication of information. Ark Music gets this. Put something out there on-line and allow people to share it for themselves. Don’t push it on them through campaigns of nonsensical, fake advertising shenanigans. The 2011 consumer is smart. She knows the difference (and, yes, she’s a “she”, but that’s for another post).

2. Shelf life online is forever.  Like a land mine waiting to be stepped on decades later, if you can Google it, it can always blow up.  In other words, a spin on radio evaporates, a YouTube clip is waiting to explode

By putting something on-line, not only do you get it out there, but you make sure it stays out there forever. It’s like a perpetual PR campaign that never really dies, but just goes into hibernation from time to time. If it’s on-line, people can “pull” it from the Net and watch it and love it forever.

3. Music and video production are cheap.  Rebecca Black’s mother paid Ark Factory two grand and got not only a song but a video. Not only does this beg why major label productions are so expensive, it reinforces the fact that anybody can play.  In other words, if you’re bitching about needing money to make it in the music game, you’re playing by the old rules

This is the DIY era in entertainment. Especially music. And when digital movies become even more popular than they are today, making our own digital movie will be available to you as well. Technology is cheap. The medium’s are there. Use them.

Just because it’s DIY doesn’t mean it’s not also a good idea to have someone help guide you down the path to greatness – and that’s where we come in. But all the tools are out there for you.

4. If you’re twentysomething and have been slugging it out for years trying to make it don’t complain about Rebecca Black.  She lives in a different world.  To make it and last in music takes longer than it has since the seventies.  The MTV era made stars overnight, which faded almost instantly.  Now you gain traction slowly, only your fans know you, they spread the word online and you pray that you never gain a Rebecca Black moment, because that means you’ll be ridiculed and be toast.

“To make it and last in music takes longer than it has since the seventies”.

I’ll repeat it again so we all understand.

“To make it and last in music takes longer than it has since the seventies”

Black is a flash in the pan. She’ll be gone in a few months, likely gone forever. Sure, she’s famous because of her terrible video and worse music. She’s famous now, but because she has zero talent, she’ll never have any amount of staying power. There’s no question about it.

Ark Music and Black have maybe 1/3 of the equation figured out. Be connected. Offer it all to your fans on-line, let them share it. Donate your profits to earthquake relief, as she did.

If she had talent, she’d stick around. She’d be the next Gaga and have LiveNation and UMG lining up to meet her. Because she basically did all this for cheap – all this, distribution, recording, marketing – all by herself.

Suddenly, people in the industry pay attention.

….but when they figure out she’s a terrible singer and a horrific dancer, they back away into the shadows from whence they came….

but notice how they came out!

Leave a comment | posted in Music Strategy

March 20, 2011

What We Can Learn From Rebecca Black

By magicpiemusic

By now, I’m sure you’ve seen this video – “Friday” by Rebecca Black.

Released by Ark Music Factory, a label/artist management company based in California, this is an interesting story for several reasons.

While, yes, the music is tuurrrible, the lyrics are inane and ridiculous and Rebecca looks like she’s trying way too hard while the thirty-something rapper driving the car might have just started rapping last week, there are several important lessons we can learn from the Rebecca Black saga.

#1: Creating a digital profile

We didn’t know you Rebecca Black was two weeks ago – now, we’re all taking about her:

It’s all about having a digital profile. Getting yourself out there. Making yourself stand out. Black managed to stand out because her music is absolutely terrible and the video is even worse. But still – millions of people know who she is. We’re all talking about her. Sure, some of the feedback (okay, maybe *most* of the feedback) is scathing and derisive, but still – millions of people know who she is.

Her YouTube video now has over 22 million views – sometimes 50,000 in a single night!

Black’s Twitter account has more than 13,000 followers almost overnight.

This video stunt was completely part of a larger strategy of increasing her digital profile. There’s no mistake here…well, except the music…and the video….

#2: Branding and Brand Management

Say what you will about the cheesy video, but it’s very clear who Black is targeting with her music: young, internet-savvy pre-teen girls. The lyrics are all about having fun with your friends on Friday, being apart of the “cool” crowd, hanging out, having fun.

It’s not for everybody. And that’s the entire point.

Your brand isn’t about appealing to the masses – if it is, well, good luck with that. Creating a brand means using your values, style and image to carve out a niche market where you interact with your fans. There are many ways to go about doing this, but the first step is realizing that you have to be true to what you stand for and play on that through branding and marketing.

#3: Monetize your Brand

“Friday” reached as high as no. 19 on the iTunes Top 100.  And Ryan Seacrest is apparently on board also.

You get something out there, make it available and make it stand out – people will find it and share it.

In other words: she’s monetizing her work. The strategy worked.

———-

Clearly Rebecca Black can teach us a few things on how to use the Internet and other digital tools to develop your brand and monetize your creativity.

Make no mistake: artistically, this girl is a joke. The music’s terrible and the lyrics are worse.

But are you no. anything on iTunes?

Artistic ability and real passion and creativity are the things that will give you a lasting career in the entertainment industry.

But they won’t help you get discovered all by themselves. You need a branding strategy behind you.

Rebecca Black will not be around even 6 months from now because she has no musical ability to stay on our radar…but she’s around now, making money….and we’re all talking about her.

Magic Pie Entertainment does exactly this – developing brand strategies to get you paid online.

Leave a comment | posted in Music Strategy

Follow

Get every new post delivered to your Inbox.