Investors, Making It, The State of the Music Biz

Reply to: comm-558736896@craigslist.org Date: 2008-01-31, 5:27PM EST ORIGINAL POSTER

Having followed the OP and subsequent responses to her search for an investor, I figured I'd throw in my 2 cents. I am motivated as much by her attackers as by posts from young, ambitious players who dream of making it in the music biz.

DISCLAIMER: I don't claim to be an authority of any kind. I have been involved with, worked around and been in touch with the music biz since I was a teenager. I started out playing garage band stuff like a million other kids, I worked in retail record shop management, commerical music radio, I worked with major labels from a marketing perspective, have worked with nightclubs and promoters, and I have been published in mainstream and trade pubs writing about music. I tell you this as a point of reference -again, I am not trying to be any kind of authority, but simply someone who has some experience and background with the music industry. I offer my opinions for whatever they're worth to whomever might find them useful.

Rarely has the cliche, "it was the best of times it was the worst of times," been more appropriate than to the current state of the music biz.

Clearly for the major labels it is the worst of times. Staggering double digit losses in sales, tighter restrictions of airplay, fewer broad based outlets for traditional exposure of new artists, major artists making high profile departures from labels with whom they had long time affiliations, bad press regarding the RIAA and the whole illegal downloading scapegoat they use to explain their problems. The results - layoffs, fewer and worse signing deals for unknown artists, lower revenue, falling stock prices, and no way to really fix it. The model is broken.

For the unknown, unsigned artist there is some good news. Thanks to the internet and technology there

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has never been a better and more affordable opportunity to record music and push it through non traditional, ground level marketing avenues. In some ways the playing field has been leveled like never before. Where there was once a huge chasm between the brass ring of a major label deal/release and being an unsigned band, now there are tons of options in between and they don't have to lead to a major label to spell success. In fact it is becoming less desireable to be with a major all the time. They don't have the resources they once had, they are out of touch with the street and they don't have the towering hits they once had to carry the young acts and actually nurture them and build an audience.

So, what can an unknown, unsigned artist do to have a shot at "making it," in the music business today? Here are a few ideas and advice that will no doubt be dismissed as tried (and to some tired) but are none the less true:

First and foremost, be about the music and care about your audience. Think about the magic of music for yourself. What inspired you? What excited you and turned you on? What made you want to listen to that tune over and over again? What made you want to do this in the first place? Hopefully you want to make it in the music biz because you have talent, passion, drive and something to say that people want and need to hear. It's your job to inspire. That means doing all the basic things to build and improve on a foundation of what you have to offer. It means doing the grunt work. Practice, practice, practice. Listen, listen, listen. Get the skills to make yourself great. Find your own unique voice. It should be your goal to NEVER have anyone say, yeah, he/she/they sound like a young (fill in the blank). Write, perform, do whatever you do earnestly based on that unique thing YOU have that no one else has. Your job is to put yourself out there, not what you think will sell, not what you think someone wants to hear. Passion, conviction, belief, commitment should be your guiding mantras; exceptional performance and delivery your goal. Nothing less, nothing else. You do that, the rest will follow. Without it you'll join the thousands of mediocre artists who either never go anywhere or at best a flash in the pan and those are becoming shorter lived and more forgettable by the second.
NOTE: In practical terms in the music biz, people have to understand something about what you are and most importantly who you will appeal to, but you should define yourself and your music in that regard by who you will appeal to, NOT who you sound like. Think AUDIENCE, NOT ARTIST COMPARISON.

Music - Don't record until you know you are ready. That means all the elements have to line up:

You have to have great songs, period. Sure there are novelties, and mediocre songs that are played everyday, but you, as an unknown have to have something better. How do you know you have a good song? Well it's a little hard to codify, but for a start, you should be able to play it on just a piano or guitar and have it work. Having it work means it's interesting, it's compelling, solid evidence of song structure is there, a great hook, lyrics that aren't tired and cliched, chord changes and structure that doesn't sound like 10,000 other songs. All that and a dose of that magical thing that is as elusive as chemistry between a man and a woman, and MAYBE you have a good song.

<>You have to be able to play/sing them exceptionally well, you have to have the right arrangements, the right musicians. You have to have the right engineers and recording. You are better off having one greatsong that is representative and perfect than 2 or 3 or 10 songs that you have to make excuses for. Demos doesn't mean it gets to sound lousy. There is never an excuse for being out of tune, straining to hit notes, lots of "clams" not having solid time and meter. IF your goal is to sell songs to other performers then they should be stripped down as described above so the basic song can be heard. The performer or producer you are trying to sell will be able to hear what to do with it, they don't want it obscured with your "vision" or "arrangement" especially if it isn't top notch.

If you can't afford to have your incredible song recorded perfectly then either wait or work out an arrangement of the song that can be recorded to sound great. If you have a band including a drummer and the place you are recording doesn't know how to mic drums properly, then go somewhere else or figure out an alternative...do an acoustic version with percussion limited to what can be recorded properly to sound good. An acoustic, small setting of a great song that is well recorded will always be more impressive than a full band recording where there are obvious shortcomings and flaws, even if the musicianship is great but the recording quality isn't. Your goal has to be to let people hear your stuff without excuses. That doesn't mean you can't tell them you intend to record it with a full band, it means you don't want to have to say "the drums/acoustic guitar/whatever doesn't sound so great, but we're going to do it again."

When playing live, have some stage presence. That doesn't mean you have to drss like Kiss and spit fire, but connect with your audience. Miles Davis was about the only one who could come out and disregard his audience and have it add to his mystique...but you ain't Miles Davis. Be accessible to your audience, especially when starting out. A literary agent once said of writers, "today anyone with a word processor thinks he's a writer," and the same is true of music - everyone with Garage Band on their Mac thinks they are singer songwriters. Point is the whole "rock star" thing has changed - it's about accessibility.

3. Promotion - There are more outlets than ever before to promote yourself. Myspace is a given, your own web site should be too. If like lots of "artistes" you don't have it together to do self promotion then you should figure out how or find someone to recruit who believes in you and knows how to do it. You need MP3s/samples of your great, well recorded song(s). I would suggest if you want to do a video, like the audio recording, if it can't look pretty slick and sound great then don't bother. I can't tell you how many half assed home camcorder videos I've seen of some band playing live, shot from a single cam, often handheld, from the same angle, sound from a condenser mic, people walking past the band/stage, etc. and it's boring and in some cases downright awful. If you can't get a decent video, then get decent still shots. Perspective club owners are harsh and they get hit by a zillion unknown bands everyday. I've sat with them looking over press packs (including clubs in this town that you all know and many would love to play). The band/artist gets about 30 seconds or less before the cassette/CD/MP3 is shut down and the press package trashed. Your stuff has to look and sound great and be representative...but more than ANYTHING it goes back to the music. Bands that look good and don't sound good rarely get far (other than some mediocre cover bands).

Some ideas for promotion: Myspace, web site, cross promotion with other bands, flyers, street teams, email lists, sending to labels big and small, sending to ad agencies for commercial exposure, send to people creating web content for exposure, film companies, create pictorial videos with your song as the bed and put them on youtube.com, send to internet radio stations. Figure out the best radio formats for

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your music and find out who programs them and how to submit, NPR promotes unsigned bands, offer to play charity gigs, make yourself available to play for local events and promotions by local radio stations, play open mics, host open mics, look for sponsors, endorsement deals, offer your music for promotional purposes. Figure out alternative ways to get paid for making your music downloadable for free. Come up with deals to bring audiences out to see you like telling your audience that at the live gig that they can download some, any, all your songs, the one you just played, whatever, to their device right NOW or point them to where to go later. Send your stuff to the any/all the appropriate web sites and magazines among the tons of them out there that review music. Come up with reasons why they should review you...you are coming to town, your song just got used, 10 zillion people just caught you on myspace, youtube, whatever. Buy a tee shirt, get an EP/CD, code for free download, whatever.

These are a handful of off the top of my head ideas, some are obvious. You have to do all the above and anything else you can think of and do it continuously for the long haul. Then MAYBE you get a shot to make it.

Finally, to the woman looking for an investor - you may find yourself frustrated by trying to find and investor to give you a bunch of money to record when you don't have an audience (if that is the case). Recording is pretty affordable these days. I don't know how good they are but there are studios who advertise here every day/week with deals to go in for a few hours and record for in some cases as little as a hundred some dollars. If you plan properly and have it together any band/artist with a normal number of players, say 3-6, should be able to go into a studio and come out with at least a song or two within four hours. I know, I've done it without even that much prep. This may be a bold statement, but if you can't nail something within under 10 takes, then you aren't ready to be recording. Ask for samples of the studios work first. Ask about engineers, understand the setup. Really question all micing of acoustic instruments, especially drums which are hard to mic. Listen to how they sound on other recordings from the studio. Find realistic examples of production and recording work you like and sounds you would like to have and ask them to listen to them with you and be honest about their ability to get that sound. Every studio is a little different, but there are so many software packages and tools out there today to alter and emulate after the fact that you should be able to get pretty much whatever you want/need if it was recorded properly upfront.

Good luck, thanks for reading. I hope there was even one little nugget of value for your time.

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RE:Investors, Making It, The State of the Music Biz

Reply to: see below Date: 2008-02-01, 9:00AM EST WAM RESPONSE 1

Good points... Here's a bit of my rant I posted a while back to some "industry folk":

How many sports figures, in all the pro sports, make over $100,000/year? How many do that well in the music industry? How is the sports industry able to pay that many people that much?

Why does the sports industry have no problem in jiggling loose an ever shrinking entertainment dollar from a consumer that has the highest short-term debt load we've ever seen?

Especially in a market with so many things vying for that shrinking entertainment dollar?

And the core entertainment product they produce is sponsor-driven. Consumers don't directly pay-per-performance for the actual media delivered.

Short of the chronic gamblers (is poker on ESPN a fad or a real sport?), even MILF's are into a crazed frenzy during football season...

Why is it that even someone like me - that grew up in the drug-induced daze of the 60's-70's when a perception of pro athletics was one of being part of the "establishment" - willing to spend $350.00 for four NFL-licensed shirts?

What are the differences in the way pro sports markets their product vs. the major labels?

After asking myself these questions I sat there with two web browsers opened up side-by-side. On the left, espn.com. On the right, either Billboard or Rolling Stone.

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The first thing you’ll notice is the difference in the amount of people listed on each site. On the left, tons of well recognized names; each known to be making zillions of $$$. On the right I see the same 12 names, some I’ve seen for the past twenty years.

What gives?

It seems to me that the main difference is that pro-sports doesn't rely on some stale-ass pre-recorded product for their revenue stream.

They market human ability, not so much the last touchdown, the last basket, etc...They market a very dynamic product, one that emphasizes what the pros are capable of, not just what they’ve done in the past. I think that’s the basis for the success Dave Matthews, the Dead and other musicians have tapped into with their live shows.

And unlike the record industry, they've educated their consumer as to how difficult it is to be really good, then have skilled people ("scouts" as you will) look for actual talent that the consumer can recognize with their newly found knowledge of sports.

Good musicians can do it too…

Everyone's thrown a football, played basketball, and knows it's not easy to dedicate your life to it. They even encourage it, through high school and college, for people to try; then the process weeds out those that, even though they have some talent, can't cut the mustard as to ALL the work it takes to actually be good at it. And the consumer seems enamored by human achievement and the issues that surround these “pro’s” doing their thing.

I mean, if ESPN can make poker a “sporting event” why can’t the music exec’s get their act together and actually start doing similar things?

Now, what does the record industry do in response to shrinking revenues?

Elvis has left the building…

Figuring they run their business model similar to when Elvis was still alive, when there were only three networks stations, books/magazines, and movies (in theaters mind you) competing for the 200/yr per capita debt load consumer entertainment dollar.

They, again, try to rely on the old glitz and glamour, shallow things at best, and pull the wool over people’s eyes with what they deem as “safe product development”, sexy kids with totally contrived presentation.

So what to do?

My feeling is that with Karaoke nights, easy home studios so that 30,000 titles are released a year (vs 3000/yr), American Idol like shows, and the proliferation of WAN technologies, it will educate the consumer and allow that consumer to have many more choices and more exposure to truly be able to recognize developed artists that ARE at the top of the heap. Then market and merchandise it, with recorded music being only a small part of the ROI. Similar to how the games are on ESPN/network TV.

So now that the industry no longer has their revenue emphasis on prerecorded material, post the expansion and shrinkage typical of industries going through this type of change (from railroads to autos they've all been there), the file sharing and such are not as major a concern.

I mean, yea they'd be pissed if people we're to share digital clips of the Super Bowl (am I allowed to even write Super Bowl without a license?) illegally on the internet, but hey it's old news.

And that's not their main revenue generating element anyway... they present fresh material daily from pros that are worth the consumer’s $$$$.

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RE: RE:Investors, Making It, The State of the Music Biz -

Reply to: comm-559363209@craigslist.org Date: 2008-02-01, 10:13AM EST ORIGINAL POSTER REPLY1

OP here. Some of your concepts are interesting. Although there are common elements between sports and music both from a consumer and business model standpoint, there are some major differences that account for a lot of the great financial success of sports.

For one thing, since as you correctly point out, people watch sports on TV more or less for free, as opposed to purchasing music, the sports francise major revenue streams come from other places. Those revenue streams are paying for a lot of those salaries:

Broadcast Fees - The networks that run various sports francises pay an enormous amount of money for the right to be able to broadcast those games, ususally exclusively. They do it because they know the audience is there and they sell tons of local and national advertising to pay for those games and a profit. In some cases, like Fox in the beginning, they overpaid just to get those francises because the viewers it brought and the perceived credibility and prestige of having NFL attracted attention, got them press/ media coverage, access to coaches, players and the creation of other shows, pre-post, etc. and last and certainly not least, it brought lots of views during the season and Foxes numbers in the ratings shoot up. Today's Nielsen ratings are used to buy tomorrows and next years advertising. Higher viewership today projects to higher viewership tomorrow and thus higher costs for advertisers. Right or wrong, that's how it works.
Sponsorships - Sure, some rock bands and tours get sponsors, but it is nothing compared to the multiple advertiser/sponsor, ongoing committments made to sports organizations. Let's not even talk about the huge endorsement bucks sports players make for being spokespeople for products outside of sports directly. Other than endorsement deals from musical equipment companies to musicians, you don't see "Hi, Charlie Watts here for Menthelatum Deep Heating Rub. After a big night on stage, my back is killing, my shoulders are shot, that's when I count on MDHR to bring me back from the brink." Just doesn't happen...yet.

Granted, the music business has done a terrible job in arguably the last couple decades, but I think part of their problem and part of the problem by deemphasizing the actual music is that the focus on things other than the actual product is a bad thing. It has to be about making great music and getting it exposed. It hasn't been for a long time. There are no doubt tons of groups/artists that are great and never see the light of day.

In sports it's a limited number of players on a limited number of teams. People watch/consume because of the nature of what it is. It is less subjective than music or film or art. It isn't as open to debate about what is good and what isn't. You are either into a sport or you aren't. Sure, you have favorite teams, and maybe games/teams you won't bother to watch, but in music it's different. There is no "every week" expectation to consume what you like. You don't turn on the radio and spend hours sitting around waiting to hear your favorite song.

For better or worse, music is egalatarian. Exposure is a wild card, but theoretically with determination, great music will be discovered. The major labels have lost sight of this. They are public companies. Their loyalties are to stockholders. Their view is short term. This single, this quarter. They went in just a few short decades from being smaller organizations that were driven by the passions of owners, artists and producers for the music first and foremost and they became divisions of huge public companies run by people who don't really get it.

When you lose focus on your product, you can't expect the consumer to consume.

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RE:Investors, Making It, The State of the Music Biz

Reply to: see below Date: 2008-02-01, 2:36PM EST WAM RESPONSE 2

Yea, but the main point is this - Product. What is the product?

In my opinion, once Edison invented the wax cylinder, confusion set in as to the "product". As a recent Dow TV ad states, "... the Hu factor..."

The manifestation of music being a tangible is contrary to thousands of years of music being communicative. The problem is that we, as a society and probably due to the music industry’s desire to productize and package, the consumer seems confused as to what’s important – the recording or the musician. Or if they’re [more likely] separate entities to themselves and should be treated as such.

Many possibilities as to why this happened:

-Recording sound was such a novelty in the early 1900’s, that it developed a whiz-bang allure

-Convenience; in that before audio recording, one had to endure horse-drawn carriage rides over mud-rutted fields in order to hear someone that had mastered the art – either that or learn/do it themselves.

-Packaging and emphasis on “product” in order to make it easier to market, especially since it now being a tangible, those that market it can too, shine in the glory of the art.

I will say that recording is an art form in itself; having dedicated many years of my life to both development of recording technology as well as producing/engineering music. But I feel the distinction of it from all that music has to offer as a performing art form has been blurred, especially with the last 50-75 years metering “success” as to how many recordings a particular artist sells.

<>For instance a lot of bands get really hung up on covers, trying to make their performance sound like the “record”, and audiences of non-musicians they play for seem to gauge how good the band is by how closely it sounds to a recording they heard. Especially a recording that previously had “communicated” to the listener in a way that just so happened to be in their current realm of perception, possibly due to an emotional time in said listeners life. Instead of fostering a true appreciation for the art form in all its facets; from the basic elements of song construction, through to the individualized interpretation one can give, the music industry has developed this desire for tangibility; one that allows all the “big business” as you so well stated, the ability to try and neatly package something that itself is intangible and individual, especially in its communicative form.

For instance, if I were to approach a female and say “Drop your panties” I’d be slapped and arrested; if Sean Connery or Brad Pitt were to do the same, the results would most likely be different. The layperson has never been given the inducement to actually learn what a polyrhythm is, even what a quarter note is, as they have to what a first down means. More people know what a safety does as compared to what a drummer does.