Buddy Holly's Label Problem

As long as musician have been signed to record labels there's been misunderstandings about what's in the contract, almost always by the artist. What's unusual is when you actually have an audio recording of the disagreement. What's even more unusual is when this recording is from way back in 1956 and it involves the legendary Buddy Holly.

Here's the setup. Buddy and his band were spotted by a talent scout opening for Elvis and signed to the Decca label out of Nashville. Decca had them record 5 tracks with famed producer Owen Bradley, but no one liked the result, so Decca declined the option on Buddy's contract when it came up for renewal. Buddy was OK about being released, but wanted to be able to use the songs that he recorded, so he called the president of Decca to get permission. He also secretly recorded the call, which is what you're about to hear.

Decca refused to let him use the songs (which included what became his huge hit, "That'll Be The Day"), which is understandable since they wanted to recoup the money they spent. Holly eventually got around the deal by recording the songs for a subsidiary of Decca under the name of the band "The Crickets," which is probably why Decca never took him to court, which they probably had the right to do.

I spotted this video on the great Musicianscooler blog. Dave Jackson of Musicians Cooler recently did a couple of interviews with me regarding my Music 3.0 and How To Make Your Band Sound Great books. Thanks, Dave! I'll post the links when the interviews go live.

4 Predictions About The Web Of The Future

Predictions are usually left until the end of the year, but there are some trends that seem to be giving us an idea of what we'll find commonplace in an Internet world not that far away (5 years or less). All of these are good news for musicians, by the way. So if I may, let me give you my 4 predictions about the Web of the future.

1) Speed will no longer be an issue. Depending upon which study you read, the United States ranks between 13th and 28th in the world regarding Internet speed. That looks to be addressed soon with initiatives from the FCC to raise the bar to 100mbs, and from Google to significantly top that. With much of the rest of the industrialized world already over the hump in terms of a big speedy pipe for media delivery, it will be interesting when that limitation is finally breached in the US. While we already watch short videos with no problem at all, and even the last bastion of media limitation, the long form movie, is already being delivered with regularity, full 1080p (and not the severely compressed kind) and 3D movies with full interactivity beckon as we hit the blazing speeds of the future.

2) The computer will not be our prime interface. You might think that this prediction is based upon the upcoming release of the iPad, but our Smartphones have already pointed the way. In the not too distant future, our computers will be used for what they do really well, which is input data, while everything else will be used for access and viewing of Web content, including phones, tablets, the new generation of televisions coming on the market, and some other "output" devices that hasn't come into every day view yet. 

3) Social Networking will continue to dominate. Just about all social networking is still rising all over the world and that won't stop any time soon. Humans are social by nature so connecting via the Web is just an extension of what we already like to do. Even those that are normally anti-social in the physical sense are able to interact via social networking. As Internet speeds gets faster and we get more and more devices that we can use as an interface, expect that interaction to increase, but also expect new ways to interact via a host of new apps.

4) Piracy will finally be held in check. Not completely eliminated (when has that ever happened?) but somewhat thwarted via IPv6, a technology that's been around for some time but never fully utilized. Internet Protocol Version 6 (IPv6) will finally replace Internet Protocol Version 4 (IPv4 - what we use today to assign a specific address to a website) simply because we running out of Internet Web addresses. But along with more addresses than we can ever use (79 octillion more!!) via IPv6, we get the ability to put a unique code on every frame of film or video every made, every second of every song and every paragraph of text. There are a lot of very smart people (some of which I know personally) that have this worked out already, and pretty soon the timing will be right as the world realizes that new websites are no longer possible with IPv4. This one technology has huge implications on so many facets of our connected world, so it will be a lot of fun to see how it plays out.

The future for the Web is indeed speedy and bright. Can't wait for it to get here.

EMI Trying To Spin Off It's Parts

As noted in a number of previous posts, EMI Records has been in pretty tough straights since it was purchased by investment fund Terra Firma a couple of years ago. The reason was the TF played fast and loose with Citibank's money, who put up most of the funds for the sale.

Now Citi wants its money and TF doesn't have it, so EMI has been in a slow death spiral. It can't pay it's bills and it can't get new artists or keep old ones since they have no money for support. What can they do? Sell off parts of the company, of course.

EMI recently tried to sell it lucrative publishing arm, but the sale was stopped by Citi. In the end, it will eventually happen anyway (it's publishing an catalog are the only things worth anything these days) as this once giant of industry dies a slow and unbecoming death.

But one thing it can sell is the revered Abbey Road Studios, according to an article in the Financial Times. The studio was purchased in 1929 for about $160,000 but reportedly will bring in tens of millions of dollars, since the brand name is worth far more than either the studio or real estate. That will hardly put a dent in the more than 5.5 billion dollars still owed to Citi, but the studio is bound to prosper more away from EMI than within it. If you're not much into music history, Abbey Road is where some of the biggest selling records of all time were made, including most of The Beatles recorded output, Pink Floyd, Radiohead, and many many more.

So if really want to buy a studio, take a tour of Abbey Road.



If you read my Big Picture blog, sorry for the cross-post, but I thought the topic fit for both.

When Information Is More Important Than Music

David Frey, manager for Cheap Trick, hit upon an interesting point in his post on the Tunecore blog the other day. He stated that Neilsen/Soundscan (the company that measures CD and digital sales), Amazon, Ticketmaster and a host of other entities own all the information of the band's sales, and that they then sell it to whomever wants it. Of course, the band doesn't get a piece of the sale but that's besides the point here.

Frey was taking issue especially with Soundscan, who would sell that info and the end result was to the detriment of the band. Whenever Cheap Trick would self-release an album, a new re-issue would suddenly appear from the band's former record labels which would in turn cannibalize the sales of the band's new release. How would the labels find out? They'd buy the info from Soundscan.

So Frey and the band decided to try to get around Soundscan, this time by releasing the album through Tunecore and specifically requesting that it not be reported to Soundscan. But Soundscan still managed to get the data. Since they could no longer collect it, they'd buy it from the likes of Starbucks, the major retailers like Best Buy and Wal-Mart, iTunes, Amazon, and any number of other sources. Soundscan then was able to sell the info once again to anyone that wanted it, and so the cycle continues.

Cheap Trick has been a more-or-less music business constant for over 35 years so this incident doesn't apply to most artists and bands just entering the business or trying to get over the visibility hump. Still, it does illustrate that your information (both the sales data and meta-data) is an important product in Music 3.0, and that's it's difficult at this time to control and near impossible to make money from.

I predict that data and meta-data ownership will become a huge battleground in the future as more artists become aware that they own own a lot less of their information than they think.

10 Music Marketing Ideas

Here are 10 music marketing ideas from the Music 3.0 guidebook. It’s easier to sell your music if you add extra value to it, so it helps to think outside the box when it comes to distributing your music. Thanks to Bruce Houghton of the great music blog Hypebot for numbers 7 through 10.

1) Develop a package - This could mean anything from a CD and a vinyl album, to a digital download and album with all alternative mixes, to a boxed set of CD’s or anything in-between (Trent Reznor’s Ghosts I-IV is a great example). The idea is to go beyond just the typical CD and digital offerings.

2) Sequential numbering - Numbering a physical product (for example; "#5 of 1000") gives it the feeling of exclusivity. The product becomes a special edition and a must-have for the true fan.

3) Tie it to merchandise - Offer a physical product that contains the code for a free download of your album. Mos Def was so successful with the T-shirt release of The Ecstatic that Billboard magazine even began counting it as a music release on their charts. Other artists have sold their music via codes on such items as golf balls, bandanas and even canned food!

4) Release a “double-sided” digital single - Rhino Record's digital releases celebrating 60 years of the 45 RPM single set a fine example for this format. For between $1.49 and $1.99, Rhino provided the original hit song, its B side (the flip side of the vinyl record) and the original artwork. You can do the same by providing two songs for price of one - an A and a B side.

5) Release on an old alternative format - We’ve seen some artists (The Decemberists Hazards of Love come to mind) release a vinyl-only physical product to great success. Cheap Trick did it on the old 8-track format from the 60’s, and some bands have even recently released on cassette tape. Releasing on a older format can be good as a publicity tool (as long as everyone else isn’t doing it) and who knows, maybe you can start a trend?

6) Release on a new alternative format - A new alternative format that’s getting some traction is flash memory, or the common USB memory stick. Once again, Trent Reznor met with great viral success by planting unmarked memory sticks in bathrooms at Nine Inch Nail’s concerts, and Sony even released the 25th anniversary of Michael Jackson’s Thriller on the format. Everybody uses these things so you’re bound to get at least a look, which you can’t always say about other formats.

7) Three Sides - Offer a song in an early studio version, the final mix, and then captured live.

8) Radical Mixes - Offer two or three very different mixes of the same song, perhaps even done by the fans.

9) Two Sides of (Your City) - Two different bands each contribute a track to a series chronicling your local scene.

10) “Artist X” Introduces _____ - Add a track by your favorite new artist/band along with one of yours. This is similar to a gig trade-out with another band that many bands use as a way to play in new venues. The idea is that the band you feature will also feature you on their release as well.

The Artist And Google Buzz

You might've heard about the recently introduced Google Buzz, a social network add-on to Google's G-Mail. While half the Web wonders why in the world Google would want to get into social networking and thinks it a bad idea, the other half is intrigued (it's still in beta so not many have been able to actually play with it so far).

I personally think that Buzz will provide a great opportunity for the artist who's a practitioner of Music 3.0, and now is the time to get in on the ground floor. Here's why:

1) Buzz seems to offer much of what Facebook and Twitter currently provide, only better in many ways (see the video below).

2) Buzz could be a game-changer in terms of decreasing some of the time that the artist currently needs to dedicate to social media management, so many apps are integrated.

3) Because it's all tied to your G-mail account,  Buzz can make it a lot easier to integrate your social media with your mailing list with your rich media (once again, see the video below).

Google has fallen way behind on the social front and as a result, they're about to throw their overpowering resources at this area, so it would be foolish to underestimate the consequences of ignoring Buzz. Wherever the app is currently deficient, Google has the means to catch up quickly. If they're really serious about social (as it looks like they are), they will become the 800 pound gorilla in the space in no time, given the number of people that already have G-mail accounts.

We'll discuss Buzz and its uses in detail in upcoming posts, but first, here's a short video introduction to just what Buzz offers.

Expensive Music Sells Slowly As Predicted

Last year when the the major labels finally got their way with variable pricing on iTunes, industry pundits were pretty unanimous about the idea being a poor one. Why increase the price of hit songs in the middle of the worst economic times since the Great Depression? Why increase the price for the hits to $1.29 when the $.99 was proven to be a workable model?

But that's not how major record labels work, who seem to have knack for doing the exact opposite of what's best for them, their artists, and their customers.

While the first month after the price increase already showed a decrease in downloads, the labels were quick with their spin, saying that revenue actually increased despite the lower sales figure. This is ultimately only a short-term business model in that revenue is not the end-all in Music 3.0. The idea is to expose the music to as many people as possible. A larger audience means more catalog sales, more concert attendance and more merch sales, so anything that lowers the sales numbers is counter-productive.

Now comes a backhanded admission by Warner Music's CEO Edgar Bronfman that the strategy was misguided, suggesting in his comments on the company's recent earnings call that if nothing else, the timing of the increase was poor. This coming on the news that iTunes digital track sales in December grew only 5%, down from the usual double digit growth even in the midst of the Christmas buying season. Bronfman also confirmed that Warner's digital sales growth had slowed to only 8% over the previous year, which was up 20% over the year before that.

Are digital music sales flattening as the market becomes mature? Yes they are and it was bound to happen. But raising the prices have appeared to accelerate the trend. It's all downhill from here until digital music subscription reaches the tipping point.

The Importance Of A Short Release Cycle

If you've read my book, "Music 3.0: A Survival Guide To Making Music In the Internet Age," you know that one of the things that I recommend to artists and bands is to release music in a far more timely manner than we're used to today. In order to stay relevant to their fans, an artist must release a song or two at least every quarter (preferably every 6 to 8 weeks). This keeps the fans involved and has the added benefit of giving the fans a chance to absorb each song, instead of gravitating to only one or two when an album is released. Indeed, the days of the 2 year wait in between albums is over if an artist wants to keep his fan-base.

Now it seems that Warner Nashville has gotten the message and is now prepared to release 6 song albums on a more regular basis.  In face, Warner's is dividing Blake Shelton's "Hillbilly Bone" as a "Six Pak," a 6 song album of new material to be released on March 2 that will be followed by another six-song release in August.

Warner Music Nashville SVP of Sales and Marketing Peter Strickland told Billboard that the Six Pak will enable artists "to deliver music to [fans] on a much more regular basis at a value price package." The only thing they've not told us yet is how much the package will cost, which will be a major key to its success.

Headed For Only 3 Majors

With EMI in a death spiral due to a huge debt burden that it can't possibly pay, it looks like the 4 major labels (dubbed "The 4 Ugly Sisters" by former EMI exec Rupert Perry) will soon be 3.

If you think that the other majors are right behind EMI though, think again. Sony Music just had a great sales year thanks to Michael Jackson's untimely demise and ultimate huge boost in sales. Warner Records, for all the predicted doom and gloom (including from yours truly), is actually gaining market share and their stock price is rising, and Universal Music Group is still the king of the music world in terms of sales and ancillary income streams.

The venerable EMI was a special case among the majors in the last couple of years. Private equity investment group Terra Firma bit off more than they could financially chew at the peak of the market, thinking that if nothing else, EMI's enormous catalog would see them through. With the stock market tanking last year, major talent like Paul McCartney and Radiohead leaving in droves, and with the label's decimated staff not capable of bringing in new acts with hits, this once great and well-run label became a shell of its former self.

At this point, it looks like a long shot that EMI will survive as a label, although its enormous catalog is worth a lot of money (just not enough to allow it to prosper). Still, sometime in the near future, the major label ranks will shrink to 3.

The State Of The Internet - Part 2

A few days ago, we posted The State of The Internet numbers that looked more at Internet users than anything else. Pingdom recently posted some amazing stats about "Internet 2009 In Numbers," that are more about the Internet itself. Here are some highlights.


There are:

• 1.73 billion Internet users worldwide as of Sept 2009; 18% increase in Internet users since previous year.

• 81.8 million .COM domain names at the end of 2009; 12.3 million .NET and 7.8 million .ORG

• 234 million websites as of Dec 2009; 47 million were added in 2009.

• 90 trillion emails were sent on the Internet in 2009. There are 1.4 billion email users worldwide.

• 26 million blogs on the Internet.

• 27.3 million tweets on Twitter per day as of Nov 2009.

• 350 million people on Facebook and 50% of them log in every day. There are more than 500,000 active Facebook applications.

• 4 billion photos hosted by Flickr as of Oct 2009. 2.5 billion photos are uploaded each month to Facebook.

• 1 billion videos served by YouTube each day, and 12.2 billion videos viewed per month. 924 million videos are viewed per month on Hulu in the US as of Nov 2009. The average Internet user in the US watches 182 online videos each month.

The Internet and its use continues to grow at breakneck speed. Let's see what the next year brings.

Social Media Management

Let's face it, social media is complicated, especially for a musician who would rather be playing or writing than dealing with something that can be so abstract. It wouldn't be so bad is there was only a single network like MySpace or Twitter to look after, but the fact of the matter is that the typical artist or band has a presence on at least the following:

• MySpace
• Facebook
• Twitter
• YouTube
• Your email list

Plus you could add in Sonicbids, Reverbnation, blogs or any of the nearly 100 other social networks with over a million subscribers.

In order to use these tools efficiently so there's enough time left in the day to make some music, an artist/band needs a strategy to make social media into an effective tool of growing an audience and communicating with them. Social Media Management (SMM) is not only the overall strategy for using all of these social tools, but the way you use them as well.

Here are some of the strategic points that SMM covers:

1) How the email addresses of friends and followers are harvested to a central list
2) Which social media networks will be used and when
3) How the artist/band website integrates with the social networks
4) How social PR (public relations) will be used in conjunction with the social networks
5) How SEO (search engine optimization) will be used in all text copy
6) Crafting and controlling the message
7) Crafting and controlling any additional media
8) Measuring and analyzing the above

In upcoming posts, we'll be looking at the various aspects of social media management and how they can be employed to increase you audience and keep them happy without it taking 20 hours out of your day.

The State Of The Internet

Focus.com offered this great graphic that tells exactly who uses the Internet, what they do with it, and how often. Unfortunately, the graphic won't go any larger than you see on the left in Blogger, so you'll have to go to Mashable to see it in full.

Here are some of the interesting points that the graphic makes:

- Internet use is as even as it gets. 74% of men use it, but so do 74% of women.

- 93% of people ages 18-29 use it, 70% of people 50 – 64 are online, but only 38% of people 65 and older.

- The higher the income level, the more someone has broadband access.

- 94% of college graduates are online (that low?), while only 39% of people with less than a high school education are.

- Just like you'd expect, Internet use is up significantly in just the past five years. In 2005, 27% of people surveyed used the Internet “several times a day.” Now it’s 38% (once again, that low?)

- 58% of users have a desktop computer while 46% have a laptop.

- Ages 25 – 44 make up the majority of people who blog. Only 7% of people under 25 do but people 55 – 64 make up 14%.

- 54% of bloggers consider themselves experts on whatever it is they’re blogging about, 15% are "confessional" and 16% are "snarky." 41% are journalistic while 44% are "humorous."

- Norway has the highest level of Internet penetration, while the United States is in fifth place.

- Japan has the fastest Internet connections on average with the average speed at a whopping 61mbps!!! The US is 15th with an average of only 4.8mbps.

- The average mobile Internet connection is only about 700 Kbps, which is no surprise if you own an iPhone and you like to surf the web.