Former Taylor Swift Manager Rick Barker On My Latest Inner Circle Podcast

This week's guest on my Inner Circle Podcast is Rick Barker, who helped launch the career of Taylor Swift as her first manager. In the interview, Rick provides an overview of how Taylor became such a huge star, and gives us some insights into how the music business has changed since she hit the scene.

Rick is now is the social media mentor on American Idol, and offers a great Social Media For Music video full of tips and tricks on how to use Facebook, Twitter and YouTube to help you promote your music. Rick is cutting edge in this regard, and taught me a few things I didn't know myself.

In the intro I'll take a look at how the record labels are now changing their marketing strategy away from the short product release window to a "continuous loop," and how the fifth Beatle Sir George Martin changed the finances of the music business.

Remember that you can find the podcast at BobbyOInnerCircle.com, or either on iTunes, Stitcher and now on Mixcloud and Google Play.

---

Any purchases made through our Amazon links help support this blog at no cost to you (just click here).

The 20 Top Grossing Tours Of 2015

One of the cool things about the music business in 2016 is that it looks like analytics have finally caught up to the business to the point where it doesn't take months to get the big picture. It used to be February or March before we would see yearly sales figures, but now we're seeing them within the first couple of weeks in January.

A good example of this is Pollstar's annual top grossing tours. Here are the 20 tours that made the most money in 2015.

1. $250.4 - Taylor Swift

2. $210.2 - One Direction

3. $180.0 - AC/DC

4. $152.2 - U2

5. $127.0 - Foo Fighters

6. $125.1 - Fleetwood Mac

7. $117.3 - Ed Sheeran

8. $116.4 - Kenny Chesney

9. $114.9 - Garth Brooks

10. $109.7 - The Rolling Stones

11. $88.4 - Madonna

12. $82.2 - Kevin Hart

13. $77.7 - Paul McCartney

14. $77.6 - Elton John

15. $76.8 - Violetta

16. $72.0 - Maroon 5

17. $71.8 Luke Bryan

18. $69.9 - Billy Joel

19. $69.0 - Shania Twain

20. $68.0 - Neil Diamond

A couple of quick notes.

• A bad sign for the business is that over half of the top money-making tours were from legacy artists.
• Comedian Kevin Hart probably personally made more than everyone but Ed Sheeran, as his overhead costs were particularly low.

---

Any purchases made through our Amazon links help support this blog at no cost to you (just click here).

As Always, Female Buyers Still Fuel Pop Music Sales

What do Adele, Taylor Swift, Ed Sheeran and Sam Smith have in common? Most of the buyers of their albums are female, according to an article by Hannah Karp in the Wall Street Journal based on data from a number of market research firms.

While this info is probably no surprise to music execs who’ve inherently known this for decades, the new-found ability to have a greater understanding of an artist’s fans syncs more with the conventional industry wisdom than previously thought.

Take Adele, for instance. First of all, she’s an artist that goes completely against the grain of what the music business currently considers a pop star. She’s a full-figured women who has a relatively small social media footprint and no bombastic big-production stage show, yet she’s been crushing sales records by doing it the old fashioned way - with great songs and performances.

If you look closely at the demographic profile of her fans though, the sales records begin to make perfect sense.

According to the article, a Nielsen study funded by Sony Music found that 62% of Adele’s fans are female, between the ages of 25 and 44 years old, and have children. In other words, they’re soccer moms. What’s more, a majority of them work in the health care industry, drink light beer and Aquafina water, and are 80% more likely than average to read Parents magazine, for whatever that’s worth. To take it a step further, 28% of her fans are in the 50+ age bracket, according to music consumer research company Music Watch. Read more on Forbes.

---

Any purchases made through our Amazon links help support this blog at no cost to you (just click here).

This Is The Revenue From A Single Taylor Swift Concert

If you ever wondered where the money goes when an A-list artist gives a concert, the Tampa Bay Times laid it out pretty well.

Most of the time the income and expenses for a concert are hidden, but in this case the venue (Raymond James Stadium) is publicly owned and operated so most of the data is readily available.

This is financially what happened during a Halloween concert given at the venue by Taylor Swift:

• The show was a sellout at 56,987. Swift received 100% of the ticket sales, which initially amounted to almost $4 million, including a $2.75 million guarantee.

• But there's some intrigue here, as at the last minute Swift's production company became the concert promoter, which means she may see even more money in the end since the final income from tickets was actually more like $5.8 million.

• $843,947 of that was split between the Tampa Bay Sports Authority and Tampa Bay Buccaneers football team.

• Merchandise sales brought in $40,784 (which sounds low to me).

• Food and drink sales amounted to another $244,626.

• Parking is always a big money maker at concerts and this one was no exception at $127,798.

So the concert brought in about $6.2 million and Taylor Swift kept over $4 million of it, which just goes to show how much money is generated by an A-list artist on the road.

---

Any purchases made through our Amazon links help support this blog at no cost to you (just click here).

Survey Finds The Music That Label Execs Hate

Billboard Magazine just conducted an anonymous survey of label execs and the results are interesting, to put it mildly.

• Taylor Swift is the artist that most would like to sign if just starting a label, followed by Lady Gaga and Adele.

• Speaking of Gaga, she was named the artist that isn't running a label but should be.

• 62% said they had a better handle on technology than the average 14 year old (I don't know if that's something to be proud of or not).

• 54% said that they'd take a job with Apple or Spotify if the money was the same as what they're making.

• 71% said Jay-Z's Tidal streaming service would last less than a year.

• 58% of execs admit that the music industry is unfair to artists.

• There was one topic that was a little surprising. When asked which type of music they hated the most, Rap/hip-hop was #1, followed by EDM and pop.

The survey also asked a few gossipy questions that had many execs up in arms, the most salacious being "Who do you believe, Kesha or Dr. Luke?" Kesha has taken legal action against Dr. Luke (her longtime producer) accusing him of a variety of sexually related charges.

So there you have it, a short but interesting look into the psyche of the executives running the music business today.

---

Any purchases made through our Amazon links help support this blog at no cost to you (just click here).

Apple Spins, Taylor Wins

You have to hand it to Taylor Swift - when she speaks people listen. After an open letter criticizing Apple for not paying artists and songwriters during its free 3 month trial period on Sunday, the company has decided to do the right thing and pay up.

While Taylor Swift has a huge audience, this amounts to more damage control by Apple than anything. The noise on the subject from indie artists had begun to swell last week in the news and was getting louder by the day, but Ms. Swift’s argument that artists and songwriters should be paid put it over the top.

The one thing that Apple can’t afford right now is any negativity floating around Apple Music, and with the launch only a few days away, it was imperative that the story turn positive. Inaction would have caused the negativity to linger and even grow, and the company needed to eliminate any reason for consumers not to try the new service.

The fact of the matter is that with a war chest of $178 billion of cash on hand, the money paid to artists and songwriters over the trial period is a drop in the bucket that the it could easily absorb. It’s also a fact that the Apple could have done nothing and survived the inevitable blowback that would happen as well.

But give credit where credit is due, the biggest music star in America took on the biggest company in the world and won.

It will cost Apple a little money that it should easily recoup should Apple Music reach the expected subscription levels, but in the end everyone is a winner with this decision. 

Consumers will find a larger catalog filled with many more of the artists they love, artists and songwriters get paid for their hard work, as do the record labels and publishers, and Apple Music gets some positive spin right when it needs it most.

Originally posted on Forbes.

---

Any purchases made through our Amazon links help support this blog at no cost to you (just click here).

Some Interesting Names Are On IFPI's Top Global Recording Artist List

The IFPI recently released its yearly sales report and among the things it revealed was the top global artists for 2014 in terms of aggregate sales and streams. This includes all of the artists releases in every format from CD sales to YouTube video streams.

Although the usual hot music properties make the list (Taylor Swift is #1, followed by One Direction), what's interesting is the names in spots 4 through 7.

There you'll find some "classic" artists that you wouldn't expect, namely Coldplay, AC/DC, Michael Jackson and Pink Floyd.

Here's the list.

GLOBAL RECORDING ARTIST CHART 2014

1	Taylor Swift
2	One Direction
3	Ed Sheeran
4	Coldplay
5	AC/DC
6	Michael Jackson
7	Pink Floyd
8	Sam Smith
9	Katy Perry
10	Beyoncé

What this means is that many of the legacy artists still have a lot of sales life left in them, but it also makes a statement about some of the current music, which looks like it's not filling some obvious holes in the market. That is, progressive rock, hard rock, r&b and prog rock.

There are plenty of current acts that fit the bill, they're just not being discovered at the rate that they probably should be. Then again, these legacy artists are some of the best of all time and their music still endures.

---

You should follow me on Forbes for some insights on the new music business, Twitter and Facebook for daily news and updates on production and the music business.

Albums Don't Sell Anymore, Unless They do

The 2014 sales figures are in and album sales have dropped another 11%. If you look at that figure you'd think that the album as a concept is done for, except that there are 3 examples that shows that the right album by the the right artist can still sell even in this Music 4.0 age of streaming. For instance:

1. Up until November there wasn't a single million selling album by an artist (the Frozen soundtrack aside) and none were even close. Taylor Swift then released her 1989 album and sold more than 3.6 million copies in less than 2 months. Sam Smith's In The Lonely Hour also edged above 1 million at the last minute.

2. Adele's 21, which was released in 2011, went on to sell more copies in 2014 than releases by Mariah Carrey, Sia, or Skrillex. The total sales now exceed 30 million units, which many said would never happen again.

3. The best selling compilation album of 2014 was one that was released 30 years ago! It was Bob Marley and The Wailer's Legend.

Also interesting was the fact that 41% of all albums were digital downloads last year, the same as 2013.

What this goes to show is that there are fans who will still buy music if it touches them in just the right way. Unfortunately, just as in the rest of music's history, no one can predict what they way is as it's a constantly moving target.

The 10 Biggest Bombshells In Music In 2014

We’re almost to the end of the year and it’s always instructive to take a look back at the biggest stories that occurred in the music business. The ones that happened in the first two quarters seem so far away now, but that doesn’t mean they were any less important to the overall evolution of the business. I’m going to provide an arbitrary ranking of the top 10 stories from most to least important, but the order can easily change depending upon your outlook or station in the industry, or the current news that’s trending today. Here we go:

1. Apple purchases Beats Electronics and Beats Music. As I said at the time, I think this was more about acquiring the talent (meaning Jimmy Iovine and Ian Rogers) than the company, infrastructure or products, but time will tell. Not much has happened since the purchase in May, but look to 2015 to see how both Beats Electronics and Beats Music are implemented into the Apple ecosystem.

2. Streaming is way up and downloads are way down. Although there’s still a pretty healthy business in CDs and downloads in terms of total revenue, it’s dropping off rapidly as streaming has finally breached the threshold of consciousness for most music consumers. Look for this trend to continue to gather steam in 2015, with the next big battle being between streaming platforms rather than the different delivery systems.

3. YouTube’s Music Key service is finally announced. Rumored for more than a year, Google’s Music Key subscription service was announced and launched as a closely held beta in November. With no ads, offline listening, and access to the entire Google Play catalog, the platform has the makings of a formidable competitor to iTunes, Spotify and every other streaming service. 2015 will tell the tale.

4. Taylor Swift pulls her music catalog from Spotify. This story would rank a lot lower except for the public uproar, as it’s really more of a money grab than a philosophical stand. Swift claimed that she was standing up against the low royalty rate that Spotify was paying, yet her music remained on other streaming services, which contradicted the argument. The real reason for the hubbub is that her record company (of which she owns a piece) is angling to get acquired, so selling more CDs would help the bottom line a lot more than additional streams. The controversy and the fact that many fans were driven to buy the CD because they couldn't access the songs on Spotify took care of that.

5. U2’s free iTunes album giveaway backfires. Both Apple and U2 proved to be both short-sighted and out of touch when a copy of their latest Songs Of Innocence album showed up in every iTunes account. The problem was that everyone under the age of 30 felt that they were spammed. Hopefully the lesson was learned that music is only valuable when it's wanted. Read more on Forbes.

Spotify Gaining Ground On YouTube

While YouTube is still the king of the online music stream, it looks like Spotify is gaining ground, a development that might mean more money to songwriters, artists, labels and publishers alike.

According to Billboard, the on-demand streaming marketplace has risen by 50% in 2014. This means that Spotify has delivered about 413 million streams this year so far as compared to 274 million in 2013.

Spotify's market share in the streaming market has gone from 22% to 33% this year while YouTube's has decreased from 66% to 58%. That said, 91% of all on-demand streaming traffic is from these two services.

One of the more interesting aspects of YouTube's market share is that it can fluctuate greatly depending upon the posting of a hot new video. For instance, there was a large spike in activity in August when Taylor Swift's "Shake It Off" and Nicki Manaj's "Anaconda" were released. "In fact, Anaconda" now holds the Vevo record for most views in 24 hours at 19.6 global views.

With the introduction of YouTube's new Music Key streaming service next year, you have to wonder whether the market share numbers will increase at Spotify's expense instead of the current trend. Then again, there's always Apple Beats that can change the equation yet another way when it's released in full in 2015.

One things for sure, the music streaming market will continue to be one of the most interesting aspects of the music business next year.

----------------------------------

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

The Logic Behind Taylor Swift Fleeing Spotify

Taylor Swift and her label Big Machine made a bold statement today by pulling all of her music from Spotify. Here’s another case of a music superstar railing against the new delivery norm, as consumers increasingly move that way, and artists and record labels complain about it.

It’s ironic that Ms. Swift has such negative feelings toward music streaming (as evidenced by her recent Wall Street Journal editorial), yet has long been a champion of social media, using Facebook and Twitter to its utmost to build her fan base. Her engagement is through the roof as she walks the walk and makes her fans feel like they’re a part of her life and she a part of theirs, which is really difficult to do with 46 million Twitter and 70 million Facebook followers. That said, if she’s really all that socially aware, she of all people should know that streaming is where the future lies, as more and more music consumers move that way every day.

Already there’s somewhat of a negative blowback from her fans, with many reacting with outrage via Twitter to label Swift as greedy. After all, a huge amount of her fan base does live there, with 16 million of the company’s 40 million subscribers having played one of her songs in the last month, and 19 million having her on their playlists. And now her music is gone, and to what end?

If I had to make a guess, I would think that the thinking behind this decision was to try to eek out every last sale of her new 1989 album as possible, and maybe there’s actually some sound reasoning behind that. The opportunity to cash in on a physical product might not be possible the next time Swift drops an album, as tastes and trends move on, so it makes sense to sell as many as possible while there’s still a market for it. Read more on Forbes.

----------------------------------

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

The Dumbing Down Of Taylor Swift

The music of female pop singers, not to mention the pop singers themselves, is so interchangeable these days that it’s difficult to tell them apart. Jesse J, Miley Cyrus, Rihanna, Demi Levato, Ariana Grande, Rita Ora - unless you’re a 14 year old girl you’d be hard-pressed to identify which is which when played back to back. The last star we expected to fall into this crowd was Taylor Swift, but there she is, dumbed down like the rest of them with her latest release “Shake It Off.”

In a world where the music on the radio increasingly sounds the same, Taylor Swift stood out from the rest. She wrote her own music, and was able to share the details and feelings of her life in a way that was overwhelmingly relatable to her audience. Not only that, she had a personal relationship with that fans that was fairly unique amongst pop stars today. She wrote about the things they cared about, but she was also reachable by social media, just like they were, and had the most amazing and enduring quality that any music star could hope for - she was her audience.

It’s fair to say that the measure of an artist isn’t necessarily their singing or musical ability. What really makes an artist into a star and provides for a long career is the ability to write songs, a rule of stardom that virtually every American Idol winner has managed to prove. Of course, songwriting has been Ms. Swift’s strong suit, and she certainly had her hand in “Shake It Off,” as evidenced by the lyrics. Read more on Forbes.

----------------------------------

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

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).

----------------------------------

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.

Music Celebs Extend Their Brands

It used to be that a celebrity musician was loath to do anything commercial for fear of "selling out."

If you were successful with your music, you risked all of your credibility with your fans if your music appeared in a commercial, or your image was found on a consumer item.

Those days a long gone, as music celebs everywhere do whatever they can to extend their brands. It's a money grab that's now condoned, accepted and even expected by management and fans alike. And all without any stigma whatsoever.

I've posted about musician's private brands and even custom items like toothbrushes and clothing (even Jimi Hendrix!),  but once again we have multiple examples of music celebs reaching way beyond the music that made them famous.

Take for instance, Beyonce and Taylor Swift becoming the new faces of Pepsi and Diet Coke respectively. Depending upon which study you use, these are mostly unhealthy products endorsed by women who exude health.

Then we have Sean "Diddy" Combs and Mark Wahlberg investing in the premium water AQUAhydrate for fit, active party people. At least it's healthy.

Hip hop girl group OMG Girlz are the new spokespeople for Wat-AAH, another premium water product.

Pop-Water, a new flavored low-calorie product (I thought water is supposed to have zero calories) is backed by Lady Gaga manager Troy Carter. Then there's Golnside, a tea product, courtesy of manager Kevin Liles (Nelly, Big Sean, Trey Songz and a dozen others).

The fact of the matter is that success in music is merely a departure point to consumer product success for most artists these days. But can you really blame them?

In the days when "selling out" was considered taboo, artists weren't used to making or spending the kind of money available to them today. And those that did actually make that kind of money in music could have it sustain over long periods of time because the business was healthy, selling more product than ever, and even growing at the time.

Today, with the industry roughly half the size that it was before, success is much more fleeting, and the money that's here today probably won't be there tomorrow, which makes artist's desired to catch whatever financial wave they can more understandable. Plus, management is smarter than ever at exploiting every opportunity and even creating new ones for their artists.

That doesn't mean that some self-aware artists understand that expanding their commerciality beyond their music isn't inherently good for their brand. That still happens, and those artists should be applauded, but even those they will look for products that best fit with their brands, even it they won't be found on a convenience store shelf.

So to all you old school people longing for the "days of artist integrity," get over it. It's a new world. You may not like it, but it's not going back to the way it was any time soon.

----------------------------------

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

Interested in the Music 3.0 archives? Buy The Music 3.0 Guide To Social Media. The best of over 800 posts.

You should 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.

Top 10 Earning Women In Music

Shakira - #10 on the list

Forbes just released their top "10 earning women in music" list and the results are far from surprising. If you look at the pop charts you'll see that's it's mostly dominated by women, and the major artists are easily able to take advantage of that popularity with touring and endorsements. One of the things to take notice in this list is the number of music women who have their own fragrance lines, something that isn't as readily open to men.

Here's the Forbes list:

1. Britney Spears - $58 million, thanks to touring, endorsements and a new fragrance line.

2. Taylor Swift - $57 million, from $1 mil a show and endorsements from Covergirl and Sony.

3. Rhianna - $53 million, from touring and endorsements.

4. Lady Gaga - $52 million, from touring, fragrances and music sales.

5. Katy Perry - $45 million, from touring and music sales.

6. Beyonce - $40 million, and she was mostly inactive this year. Doesn't include her new $60 mil endorsement deal with Pepsi.

7. Adele - $35 million, from touring, sales and publishing from her 25 million album sales of 21.

8. Sade - $33 million, thanks almost exclusively to touring. Maybe the biggest surprise on the list.

9. Madonna - $30 million, endorsements, fragrances, shoe line and royalties.

10. Shakira - $20 million, endorsements, touring and fragrances.

As you can see, there's plenty of money to go around once you enter the superstar region of the business. The big problem is being able to get to that point, of course, and it never seems to get any easier. Each of the above is a fairly large business unto themselves and requires a commensurate infrastructure, so the star's ultimate bottom line is far lower than their income. There are a lot of 5 and 10 percent deductions along the way.

----------------------------------

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 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.

Women Singers Dominate Highest Paid Under 30

Forbes has recently posted their highest paid entertainers under 30 list, and it's probably no surprise that so many women make up the list. The interesting thing is that so many of them are singers. Here's how much person on the list made in the last year.

1. Taylor Swift - $57 million. Her concerts now bring in about a million a night.

2.  Justin Bieber - $55 million. He's also a venture capitalist, with investments in Spotify, Stamped and Tinychat.

3. Rihanna - $53 million. She gets big money from endorsements and sponsorships.

4. Lady Gaga - $52 million. But down from $90 mil last year.

5. Katy Perry - $45 million. Still hot even though her film bombed.

6. Adele - $35 million. 21 is still on the charts and going strong.

7. Kristen Stewart - $34.5 million. Film stars still do make money.

8. Lil Wayne - $27 million. The bulk of his income comes from live shows, earning about $600k per.

9. Taylor Lautner - $26.5 million. Twilight was bigger than we thought.

10. Robert Pattinson - $26.5 million. Again, Twilight was far bigger than we thought.

It should be no surprise that the audience for most of those on the list was teen and pre-teenage girls. What is a surprise is how much spendable cash they have.

-----------------------------------

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 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.

Music's Top 10 Moneymakers

Billboard Magazine recently came out with it's top 40 moneymakers of 2011. Here are the top 10, which probably won't be much of a surprise. Keep in mind that these are not gross numbers, just estimates of the final rounded off net that went into the artist's pocket.

10. Adele - $13,000,000

9. Jason Aldean - $13,400,000

8. Celine Dion - $14,200,000

7. Bon Jovi - $15,800,000

6. Sade - $16,400,000

5. Lil Wayne - $23,200,000

4. Lady Gaga - 25,300,000

3. Kenny Chesney - $29,800,000

2. U2 - $32,100,000

1. Taylor Swift - $35,700,00

Interestingly, Journey came in at 12, the Cast of Glee at #11, and Foo Fighters at #31. Also, The Beatles came in at #24 just on the basis of CD and download sales alone.

Read the full list for yourself here.

-----------------------------------

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 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.

What's A Grammy Win Worth?

While many discount the relevance of the Grammy awards, there's no doubt that a win is still a career accelerant. Not only do album sales usually get a bump, there are some other hidden benefits that go along with a Grammy award win as well.

According to an article in Forbes magazine recently, producer fees for a Grammy winner can jump as much as 100 to 150%, which is also frequently the case with songwriter advances as well. In fact, the so-called "Grammy bounce" averages about 55% in the year following a Grammy win.

Even though sales jump a bit, it's on that road that most artists make out. Ub tge tear after grabbing Grammy #1, Bruno Mars average nightly gross went from $130k to $202k (+55%), Esperanza Spalding swung from $20k to $32k (+60%), and superstar Taylor Swift from $125k to $600, (+380%), which eventually rose to $1.1 million the following year.

Banner, who made his name as a hip-hop artist, found that he was better able to find work outside the rap world after his win, and has since gotten lucrative gigs scoring music for movies and commercials.

"When I score, I'm a Grammy Award-winning producer," he explains. "They don't say that I'm a Grammy Award winner for rap. A Grammy is a Grammy."

Which is why that, despite the many failings of the Grammy show and organization, winning a Grammy is still a goal worth having for any musician.

-----------------------------------

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 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.

Bad Music Sales Get Worse

The news just keeps getting worse in regards to music industry sales. Last week the #1 album on the Billboard 200 chart by the band Cake, "Showroom of Compassion", sold just 44,000 copies, which is the lowest for a #1 since Soundscan began tracking sales in 1991.

The #1 record the week before, Taylor Swift's "Speak Now", was the previous all-time low at 52,000 (it was down to 35,000 this week), but this week managed to be a lot worse than that.

That being said, Britney Spears "Hold It Against Me" had a great debut atop the Digital Songs chart with 411,000 downloads sold, which was the largest debut ever for a female artist, topping Taylor Swift from about a year ago by almost 100,000.

Overall physical sales are down 11% from last week and 15% from this time last year. Then again, where are you going to go to buy a CD these days? With one of the last remaining CD retailers, FYE, about to shut its doors, it's not easy to buy one of those round pieces of plastic even if you wanted to.

That being said, digital sales are not terribly robust well, with Bruno Mars' "Grenade," at No. 2 (219,000; down 21%). Wiz Khalifa's "Black and Yellow" at 3 (190,000; up 3%), Katy Perry's"Firework" at 4 (184,000; down 20%), and Enrique Iglesias' "Tonight (I'm Lovin' You)" at #5 (182,000; down 5%). Overall, digital sales are down 8% from last week, but they are up 8% over last year at this time.

What's the upshot? CD album sales were the cash cow of the industry, but that cow is dead and slaughtered. It's now a singles world, but there's a huge difference in cash flow from 400,000 singles as compared to 400,000 albums like in the golden days. That doesn't necessarily mean that we'll never go back to album sales. It just means that's not where the music industry is at currently or in the foreseeable future. If you're an artist, you just gotta roll with it.

-----------------------------------

You should 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.

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

Taylor Swift's New Sales Strategy

Taylor Swift is using an interesting sales strategy for her new album, "Speak Now." You can download all 14 songs from Amazon for only $3.99, while the CD is available for the now standard $9.99.

Then if you head on over to iTunes, the download price is $13.99 for all the entire album, or $1.29 per track. It will be very interesting to see the breakout of which distributor actually sells more product.

That being said, it's probably not so much about the pricing strategy as it is about Swift's popularity, since the album is expected to sell more than 1 million units it's first week out. That would be a record for a country album, and a most rare sales occurrence these days.

Despite all the gloom and doom around the music industry, this performance proves that there's still an audience willing to purchase music if it's a product they like.

-----------------------------------

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.