Putting Labels on Artists: a Thing of the Past
August 20, 2009 by BrentWoody · Leave a Comment
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If you do not regularly check out Jason Feinberg’s excellent posts on the music business over at the PBS Mediashift site, you are missing out on some of today’s most relevant commentary on the state of the business in light of the digital revolution. Jason’s most recent post provides an outstanding summation of the state of the labels, where they’ve been, where they are and where they might be headed. He answers some questions and raises others. But what one comes away with is the crystallization of what we’ve known for while. That is, labels are in trouble, labels are not the future of the industry, the time for imagining and implementing new business models is now, and the field is wide open. More than ever, I’m convinced that there’s never been a better time to be an entrepreneurial artist and to pursue the artistic dreams that seemed so far out of reach for so many very talented artists.
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Free, RIAA and other Musings
August 12, 2009 by BrentWoody · Leave a Comment
Continuing our discussion of music business paradigms, strategies and success, check out a couple of links. Trent Reznor talks about his preference of giving music away while Moby, in this video, discusses label behavior. It occurs to me that the technology-driven shifts in the recording, delivery, monetizing and philosophies of making and selling music, have moved the discussion of the business of music, from the board room to the living room. The Coldplays, Nine Inch Nails, Radioheads, etc., of twenty years ago didn’t weigh in on this whole topic, because, perhaps, there wasn’t that much to talk about. These days, artists who are living some of my clients’ dreams are talking directly to my client, from a variety of perspectives, about the business of music – and it’s a conversation my client can participate in. I think that speaks of progress, not only in creating more points of entry for artists into the business of music, but in making for a deeper, more intimate and more intelligent conversation about what was, what is and what can be in the lives of those who create.
To YouTube or Not to YouTube
June 24, 2009 by BrentWoody · 3 Comments
Recently, I spoke with two artists with opposing views. One believes that getting all the web exposure he can possibly get will work to his benefit in the long run. Greater web presence equals greater awareness equals greater fan-base equals more downloads and so on. He’s not the least bit concerned that putting his songs up on youtube or myspace will dilute the market for his music. He cares not one bit about whether his fans infringe his copyrights by downloading his songs, making copies and giving them to all their friends. In fact, that’s just what he wants them to do! The other artist says, man, if he puts these songs out there, even for purchase, no one will buy them because once someone gets one, all the potential buyers will just make illegal copies and pass them around and no matter how big his fan-base is, he won’t be able to make it without traditional CD sales.
I know this discussion isn’t quite this simple. But, still, at its core, we’re talking two different music-sales business models. Which one makes more sense? Which works better in the digital space? And here’s a thought – is the answer different depending on the artist?
Seth Godin writes that “[t]he only way your organization is going to make an impact is to market in the way only you can. Not by following some expert’s rules or following the herd, but by doing it in the way that works. For you.” Wow. Isn’t the way we market as musicians just the opposite? We wait to see what is working, then we plan within that particular business paradigm until it doesn’t work anymore, then wait to see how it changes, and so on. Should artists be following the herd or blazing their own trails?
“So, do you think I’m good enough to make it?”: The Scope of Duty in the Representation of Musicians
May 12, 2009 by BrentWoody · Leave a Comment
He’s twenty years old, oozes confidence and hipness and coolness and lots of other ‘nesses that haven’t been made up yet. He’s a musician. His demo tape is ridiculous. Everything about him promises multiple revenue streams, if the public ever gets the chance to react to him.
He’s forty-three years old. Two-hundred twenty-three pounds. Five foot four inches tall. He’s a musician. His demo tape is rough. It’s not rough; it’s scary.
You are a lawyer. Both of them visit your office within a few hours of each other. Both agree to pay your $5,000.00 retainer to perform work on various issues related to their careers in music. One of them asks you to shop the demo to major and indie labels at an hourly rate. The other only wants you to do copyright, trademark, contract and general business work. You are a musician, too. And you know, with reasonable certainty, that the hip twenty year old has the potential to go somewhere. You also know with equal certainty that the forty-three year old does not. If you take the forty-three year old on as a client, do you have a duty to tell him what you think about his talent and the odds of achieving his dreams of success? Should you listen to the demo tape before cashing the retainer check? Or is the talent level or your opinion irrelevant? Suppose later on the forty-three year old asks you to leverage your hard-earned major label connections to shop his scary demo. Do you risk your rep with your label folks? If not, what do you tell the client, if you’ve already billed $3,000.00 worth of work? “I thought it was okay to charge you a lot of money to set up a career that I knew was never going to amount to anything.”
Or, as my friend RJon Robins mentions in his comment on my previous post, suppose you’re a manager or other professional entertainment industry advisor? Are you duty-bound to advise the old guy that he’s not going anywhere? Or do you just perform the tasks that are requested, take the money and let the chips fall where they may, keeping in mind, of course, that Kenny G has sold a lot of records.
My thought is if the client only hires me to perform certain tasks related to setting up business structures for furthering her career and protecting her intellectual property, then whether she can sing or play is irrelevant to me. If a client is a plumber and I perform legal work related to his business, I don’t render an opinion on his ability to work on toilets and, thus, the prospects for his career, before I do the requested tasks.
I have encountered this as a producer, actually fairly often. Someone hires me to produce his project and along the way, asks me whether I think his music is any good. If I say “no,” maybe he doesn’t finish his project with me and looks for a producer who will “believe” in him. As a result, since I don’t want to lose the business, I learn to tap dance. And the really perceptive client will tell me that I have no future in tap dancing.
Fame and Misfortune
April 21, 2009 by BrentWoody · 1 Comment
After a recent meeting with a client, I was thinking about the wisdom of the sign-with-a-major-label/achieve-fame-first, then-develop-a-longterm-career approach to a life in music. There is no doubt that it can happen this way: An artist signs with a major label, attains enough success through the label to become well-known (even though the artist achieves very little, or no, financial gain), then builds a longterm career from that foundation, independent of a major label. Now, admittedly there are numerous pieces missing from this hypothetical. But what about the validity of the theory itself?
Next post will ask this question: Is a lawyer obligated to tell his musician/client, if the lawyer thinks the musician/client is terrible and has absolutely no chance of succeeding in the music business?
Finally, if you have not checked out the very excellent blog wrtten by my friend, Bill Vincent, get on over there and do it!
Trent Reznor Interview
April 8, 2009 by BrentWoody · Leave a Comment
So, if you are an up and coming artist and you wonder whether your future lies with Internet distribution or a label, check out this interview with Trent Reznor of NIN. Reznor ties his response directly to the goals and objectives of the artist, which is what many of us have been talking about. He has some interesting things to say about the current state of radio as well. Tune in. I think you’ll enjoy it.
Radio
April 1, 2009 by BrentWoody · Leave a Comment
It occurs to me that for most of us, a component of artistic success is that a reasonable (or unreasonable) number of people hear, see or otherwise experience our artistic expression and react positively to it. For pop musicians, that component has traditionally and largely involved radio airplay. After all, how many fewer listens will a song get if it does not receive airplay? iTunes and other digital music services have changed the breadth and nature of distribution, but I think the fact remains that overall, with respect to popular music, radio is still the leading medium for significant music exposure. If this is true and a musician wants to be significantly “known” or recognized, and if radio is the sine qua non of significant artistic exposure, maybe a young artist should sign with a label just to get that exposure (assuming a label deal would even accomplish that), even if the artist could achieve greater financial success by doing it themselves. Now, there are several premises here that may be flawed and I’ll be looking at those in the next day or too. But for a young musician or band, I think the general fundamentals are in place enough to make the question still valid.
Label, Indie or DIY?
April 1, 2009 by BrentWoody · 5 Comments
In a few hours, over a latte, I’ll meet with a prospective client. As prospective clients go, I really enjoy this kind – young, talented musician, who is beginning to understand early on that there is a web of issues, legal and otherwise, related to a successful run at a career in music. This unsigned musician is enjoying some social media success, leveraging available Internet technologies and working from a solid regional and online fan-base. The result – significant pre-sales of an upcoming EP.
So, put yourself in this young artist’s place in today’s world. Is there a future on a major or independent label? Is this a classic do-it-yourself? What are the upsides of either? I know, I know, you’re going to say, well, it depends. Yes, of course, it depends, on a lot of things. But I’m asking, based on what I’ve laid out here, based on your experiences and knowledge, what are your thoughts?
If retained, my job won’t be to give them the “right” answers to the questions, but to help them evaluate the various implications of the answers. What do you think?
Success and a Digital Landscape
March 25, 2009 by BrentWoody · 8 Comments
Jason Feinberg of Music Business Blog has a great post at PBS’ MediaShift suggesting five tips on how to leverage technology (and the alleged declining value of the separation of artists and fans) in order for an artist to more effectively engage his fans in the digital space. Wherever you are on your artistic trajectory, I suggest you take a look at the article and think about what it means for you, if anything.
Like anything, the opportunities resulting from advancements in technology are only as valuable as the effectiveness in which we use the technology. Moreover, effectiveness is inextricably linked to what we hope to achieve. That is, goals and objectives drive the decisions we make, the way we allocate resources (time, money, energy, etc.) and how we measure success. Granted, especially as artists, those goals and objectives, will change along the way. (Shoot, mine have changed four times already this morning.) Still, what we hope to accomplish at the end of the day should determine the direction we decide to head in, the tools we use along the way and the way we measure our progress. (Keep in mind that goals will not determine our direction; we determine our direction and our direction will determine our destination.)
I used to think there were two fundamental (and not necessarily mutually exclusive) expressions of success for the musician. One, become famous. The other, make a living with music. Traditionally, those two avenues have translated to two directions. That is, to become famous, an artist pretty much needed a major label. To make a living (and often a better living than one could as a label artist), an artist could create a local or regional fan base, record and manufacture CDs, do live shows, sell merchandise and promote accordingly. I now realize that for many artists the way they define success involves neither of the foregoing objectives. In fact, they’re happy with playing music on the back porch with the rest of the family. Or they’re cool teaching part-time. Or maybe it’s jamming with friends in the evenings at the local pub and carrying mail by day. Nonetheless, I think it’s true that for many of us, seeing our artistic expressions reflected in the faces (and perhaps, wallets) of others is important and a fundamental piece of whatever it means to be successful.
You all are songwriters, film scorers, performers, producers, jingle-writers, publishers, arrangers and engineers. Has the internet changed your trajectory as an artist? Do new business models and digital venues for artistic expression give you new hope? Does it change your music? Where you once thought your future was in the hands of a label, if one would just pick you up, do you see new new independent opportunities? Have you experienced a label’s response to the paradigm shift by getting into a bad 360 deal? Are you tired of that embarrassing scratching while you wait in line at In-N-Out Burger? Hope to hear from you soon.
Defining Success
March 18, 2009 by BrentWoody · 9 Comments
Technology has changed the music business. Or the music business has changed technology. Or economic realities have changed technology and the music business. And the law runs along behind, like a yapping dog, trying to keep up with all these changes, perhaps in the most cynical respect, trying to stay relevant, and from the most altruistic standpoint, hoping to protect artists and careers and businesses and consumers. And then there are artists – bands, solo acts, songwriters, film scorers, producers, studio musicians and more. And then music business people – labels, publishers, merchandisers, and so on. Whether or not it’s a brave new world, it’s without question a new world. I am blown away by how much is written today about music in the digital age. One blog after another articulates the various perspectives on yesterday, today and tomorrow on the emerging personal and commercial music landscapes. Brilliant. Insightful. Controversial. Informational. Whatever else this blog purports to be, I don’t really hope to add anything to those discussions. Honestly, there are better places to go.
I am an artist. About a hundred years ago, I sat across the console from a producer in California (who shall remain nameless, mainly because I can’t remember his name) and he told me that the song I had written was going to be a hit. I was twenty-one years old at the time and playing in a wonderful band in the Sacramento area, and as far as I can remember, I felt successful that day. No, I’m pretty sure I was successful that day. And I was pretty much successful the next day. And the next. And after a few more next days, we couldn’t get a hold of the nameless producer (maybe because we didn’t have enough money to keep paying him to tell us about our success, although I don’t really remember that either) and pretty soon, I wasn’t successful anymore. Truth is, not only did I not have a clue what I needed or wanted to be successful, I wouldn’t have had a clue how to get there, if I had known. So, a few soothing, complimentary comments from a no-name producer (and, by the way, I’m not knocking no-name producers – I’ve been one for years) were enough, at least for a few days, to bring me a level of success, if only a fleeting, emotional high.
Today, I think, it’s different. You, the artist, have never had a better handle on what’s going on with the business of music. You are more sophisticated then ever. You all have iPhones. What more can I say? And more than likely more of you have a clearer idea of what constitutes “success” in your lives, your careers and your families, than I did at twenty-one.
But it is also true that when I was twenty-one, even if I couldn’t identify it, the scope of what amounted to success was far more limited than it is today. To say that there are multiple ways to achieve success in music today, is merely stating the obvious. New ways to achieve success in any endeavor is a good thing. That’s obvious, too. But what isn’t so obvious, at least, to me, is how an artist determines what “success” looks like to her. Maybe it’s the same dilemma I had at twenty-one. Maybe it’s even more complicated, defining “success.” Because, while there are many more avenues to earning money in the the music business (and more pitfalls), there’s still that thing of the heart of the artist, that at the end of the day, even if there’s a good paycheck, may not feel successful.
Leveraging all the technology, information, economics and all else that provides opportunity today, won’t bring you success, if you don’t know what success looks like for you. Because real success lives in who you are as an artist, not in technology, not in downloads, not in fan bases, not in what you achieve. And that’s one thing that hasn’t changed from a hundred years ago (actually, it was about thirty years ago). None of us knows all the answers to these questions before we head out on the journey. But if we’re not thinking of these things along the way, we may miss those side roads that take us to vistas that no paycheck can replace. Indeed, we may miss the exit that would take us to a freeway that leads to our greatest dreams. We may miss the country lane – alright, alright.
In spite of the preceding bloviation, this blog is for your stories. Your mistakes, close-calls, failures and comebacks. Your no-name producers (please, no libel) and your dreams. We’ll also talk about your experiences in today’s (and tomorrow’s) music world. Labels, indies, uploads, downloads, the whole gamut. So, I’m wondering: What is “success” to you and how did you get there? Or how do you think you might get there?