I'm With The "Brand"

It seems that as a music star becomes more popular, so too does their desire to cash in on their fame through non-musical business moves. Then is so opposed to the spirit of what a popular musician used to be that it leaves those of us from that era more and more incredulous. UK paper The Independent just did a nice article on the subject and here are some of the examples that they came up with.

• Rap star Kanye West has his own internet search engine (it's called Search With Kanye West).

• Aerosmith guitarist Joe Perry has his own line of "hot sauce".

• The R&B singer Usher teamed up with Mastercard to launch a range of credit cards.

• Justin Bieber has, curiously for a 16-year-old boy, his own line of nail polish called "One Less Lonely Girl".

• Madonna opened the Hard Candy Fitness centre in Mexico City, the first of what she hopes will be a worldwide chain of "first class" gyms.

• Lady Gaga has released her own range of Heartbeat headphones.

• Jennifer Lopez sold the first pictures of her twins Emme and Max to People magazine for a reported $6 million.

• Beyoncé is now focusing on her clothing ranges, House of Dereon and I Am Sasha Fierce.

• Jay-Z has non-musical business opportunities including the clothing label Rocawear and the New York nightclub 40/40.

• 50 Cent, Eminem and P Diddy all have their own clothing ranges, while P Diddy has also carved out an extra source of income for himself in promoting the vodka brand Cîroc.

• The popular Guitar Hero game now has Metallica and Aerosmith versions, while stars such as Ozzy Osbourne (who made himself into a product with a reality TV show about his home life) are playable characters.

• X-Factor winner Leona Lewis was signed up by the game Final Fantasy XIII, where she appeared in advertisements for the product and allowed one of her songs to be used in the game.

• Last year, pop star Katy Perry said: "I have a job, I know my responsibility and I'm always trying to take it to the next level ... most of these bitches just hawk breath mints or shoes. No offence to them, but maybe I'll hawk shoes later in life." She seemed to have forgotten all that, however, when she debuted her own perfume, Purr, last month.

Once again, celebrity seems to mean more these people than being an artist.

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Soundgarden's Game Gamble

To most established musical acts, licensing songs to a game is strictly an ancillary revenue stream. That might change now that Soundgarden has sold over a million copies of their new "Telephantasm" greatest hits album that was bundled with the new "Guitar Hero: Warriors of Rock" game.

This is the first time that a new album was released with a game before the physical CD release, and it went platinum (1,000,000 units sold) thanks to a new type of certification from the RIAA that recognizes game sales as part of the overall sales picture.

After a one week exclusive with Guitar Hero, the CD and downloadable album was released on October 5th. It will be interesting to assess the sales of the standalone album to see how the game impacts the stales.

While the music game fad has worn off, there are still enough players that are interested in both Guitar Hero and Soundgarden to register some big sales.

While this certainly isn't a path that a new artist can take, it does indicate that the album sales landscape has changed significantly, and every avenue must be explored even for established artists.

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Follow me on Twitter 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.