A Victory For The Boss Becomes A Disaster

Bruce Springsteen wants to sell you live recordings of his concerts. On the surface this sounds like a giant win for the Boss, since fans have long been clamoring for official recordings of his shows. But execution is everything, and it looks like Team Springsteen really missed on this one at least at first, but are trying their best to make it right. The only question is if it's in time to avoid some bad blood within the fanbase.

It all started when the Boss's management announced that in order to buy a concert recording you'd have to buy a $40 wristband with a USB flash drive attached to it. After you received it, you then had the privilege to purchase a single concert within 48 hours, using the flash drive as an encryption key.

This sounds to be on the expensive side, and considering that the concerts are available in MP3 format instead of a lossless format like FLAC, it really is. The Springsteen community was outraged, since Pearl Jam, Mettalica, John Fogerty, et al, only charge $10 for an MP3 and $15 for FLAC file. To make matters worse, you were also charged $8.95 for postage, unless you purchased the wristband at the show.

The good news is that as a result of the public blowback, Team Springsteen has now relented, dropped the wristband idea, and rolled back their prices to match those of other artists.

The sad part of this is that Bruce's common man image has taken a hit from this. You can't be for your hard-working fans when you're trying to gouge them. Everyone knows that Bruce is wealthy well beyond what the vast majority of his fans will ever be. Trying to wring a few extra bucks out of your fanbase never sits well them.

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Follow me on Forbes for some insights on the new music business.

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Spotify Streams Soar After The Grammys

It used to be that an appearance on the Grammy's was a sure way to sell big loads of vinyl or CDs the following week. That's no longer the case, since large amounts of streams have taken the place of sales. Spotify provided some early numbers for those who appeared on the show on Sunday night.

• Daft Punk's "Get Lucky" up 205% (estimated at over 300,000 streams)
• Chicago's "Does Anyone Really Know What Time It Is" up 150%
• Metallica's "One" up more than 125%
• Beyonce's "Drunk Love" up 52%

But in many cases, an artist's entire catalog actually got a boost from the Grammy exposure.

• Paul McCartney's catalog up 126%
• Kendrick Lamar catalog up 100%
• Macklemore & Ryan Lewis up 65%
• Taylor Swift catalog up 65%
• Lorde's up 46%

But perhaps the biggest winner of the evening is one of our greatest musical icons. Stevie Wonder's "Another Star" was up a whopping 635% as of Tuesday.

I'd say these numbers prove that streaming is here to stay (like we needed any proof already).

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Help support this blog. Any purchases made through our Amazon links help support this website with no cost to you.

Follow me on Forbes for some insights on the new music business.

You should follow me on Twitter and Facebook for daily news and updates on production and the music business.

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Who Were The Most Pirated Artists In 2013?

Piracy is way down since the mid-2000's but it does still happen. Here's a list of the most pirated artists on BitTorrent in 2013, according to MusicMetric.com. I think you'll find few surprises in terms of the most popular artists.

rank	artists	est. downloads
musicmetric.com
1	Bruno Mars	5,783,556
2	Rihanna	5,414,166
3	Daft Punk	4,212,361
4	Justin Timberlake	3,930,185
5	Flo Rida	3,470,825
6	Kanye West	3,199,969
7	Eminem	3,176,122
8	Jay Z	3,171,358
9	Drake	3,139,408
10	Pitbull	3,138,308
11	One Direction	2,920,445
12	Maroon 5	2,857,652
13	Zed	2,828,764
14	Nicki Minaj	2,681,177
15	Adele	2,594,275
16	Avicii	2,562,151
17	David Guetta	2,441,235
18	Linkin Park	2,352,385
19	Pharrell Williams	2,336,996
20	Katy Perry	2,318,740

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Help support this blog. Any purchases made through our Amazon links help support this website with no cost to you.

Follow me on Forbes for some insights on the new music business.

You should follow me on Twitter and Facebook for daily news and updates on production and the music business.

Check out my Big Picture blog for discussion on common music, engineering and production tips and tricks.

Free Social Media Basics Video Course

Learn how to promote your music online with my lynda.com video course Social Media Basics for Musician and Bands. Watch it free through February 7 when you “like” the lynda.com Facebook page:

1) Visit the lynda.com Facebook page: www.facebook.com/lynda

2) Click on the “AUDIO free course” image at the top of the page

3) Click Like at the top of the page

4) Enter your email address to keep up with lynda.com news

5) Click Watch course now

6) Share this free course with your Facebook friends—and enjoy!

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Help support this blog. Any purchases made through our Amazon links help support this website with no cost to you.

Follow me on Forbes for some insights on the new music business.

You should follow me on Twitter and Facebook for daily news and updates on production and the music business.

Check out my Big Picture blog for discussion on common music, engineering and production tips and tricks.

Grammy Performances: Hits And Misses

I can’t believe that I’m saying this, but I come to praise the Grammy Awards Show, not bury it. It’s easy to criticize the Grammys, and I’ve done my share in the past, but if you take into consideration what this show is trying to accomplish, it’s amazing that it comes off pleasing anyone, let alone the vast majority of viewers. Can you imagine trying to present a show with such a wide constituency of musical genres, many of which are diametrically opposed? Long-time producer Ken Ehrlich does a great job of walking that tightrope every year. 

Still, there are always hits and misses and this year’s production is no exception. Let’s look at them.

The Hits

Image Dragons and Kendrick Lamar rocked the house and were a perfect combination together. Perhaps they put on the best performance of the night.

Daft Punk with Pharrell Williams (a big winner on the night), Nile Rogers and Stevie Wonder were also a good match, but what were the Daft Punk robots doing while the band was playing? It sure would have made me feel better about them getting so many awards if I saw either one of them playing an actual instrument.

Sara Barielles and Carole King were magic together, as both were in top form. Of course, Carole is a pro and she elevates everyone around her, as she did in this case as well.

Macklemore and Ryan Lewis, Trombone Shorty and Madonna worked as well. One of the things I like most about Macklemore is that I can understand what he’s rapping, which goes a long way towards enjoying the genre.

Paul McCartney was his usual great self with Ringo looking a little lost on the drums. As a friend once commented, “It’s like watching Beethoven.” That said, perhaps the best part of the performance was the bow that he and Ringo took at the end. Read more on Forbes.

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Help support this blog. Any purchases made through our Amazon links help support this website with no cost to you.

You should follow me on Twitter and Facebook for daily news and updates on production and the music business.

Check out my Big Picture blog for discussion on common music, engineering and production tips and tricks.

Spotify Now Sells Your Merch

In another bid to outflank the hype from the newly launched Beats Music, Spotify announced that it will now sell allow musicians and bands to sell merchandise on their Spotify profile page. Not only that, they won't charge a fee for it either.

Artists will be able to display images of T-shirts, vinyl, concert tickets stickers or anything else that they sell, which will then link back to the site where the merch is available for sale.

This is actually a joint venture between Topspin and Spotify, so it means that you need a Topspin ArtistLink account to begin showing your merch first. ArtistLink is free, and you can sign up here.

Since this move doesn't cost you anything, I'd say it's a no-brainer, especially if you're an indie act.

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Help support this blog. Any purchases made through our Amazon links help support this website with no cost to you.

Follow me on Forbes for some insights on the new music business.

You should follow me on Twitter and Facebook for daily news and updates on production and the music business.

Check out my Big Picture blog for discussion on common music, engineering and production tips and tricks.