Stymied: Music and Marketing

be your own record store!

Thu, 13 Jul 2006 13:50:43 GMT

So to follow up last week's discussion of the trouble that major labels are in, here's another stick in their spokes (and those of record stores this time too!). Shawn Fanning (of Napster fame) is back with his company SNOCAP and has come up with MyStore, a way for anyone with webspace to allow and encourage other people to buy the music they reccomend without having to leave their site. Specifically, a box with the songs from the album or artist that the site owner reccomends contains song titles and check boxes. The user checks the boxes of the songs they want, buy them as if they were in the iTunes or similar store, and download the mp3s.

I'm happy to say that the first band to join in on this new service is the ever-forward-thinking The Format. (I've tried to add their SNOCAP box below, but am not sure msn spaces allows such things to be embeded. Just go to myspace.com/theformat to see it in action.) For just $.79/song (an honest steal), you can download their new AMAZING album Dog Problems from anywhere that embeds the little box! The album has been playing virtually nonstop in my car and computer for the past month, so naturally I suggest all of you pick it up as well.

This technology helps small bands avoid the need to be in record stores altogether. Most people don't realize how costly distribution is. Not only do you have to print, ship, and promote tons of discs, but you have to pay the record stores a good chunk of change to get your name on one of those pretty little dividers in the racks. Score one for the little bands with only enough money to pay for their instruments and the gas to tour! And maybe, just maybe, this will knock off a few more of those outdated places like Sam Goody and FYE. Pretty please?

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<http://store.snocap.com/a/s/T3-31324-LYTCN323PR-5.swf>http://store.snocap.com/a/s/T3-31324-LYTCN323PR-5.swf" />

The Singles Scene

Fri, 07 Jul 2006 18:21:58 GMT

I had written a while back about the lack of one-hit wonders. Well, an article in July's WIRED magazine takes a slightly different angle, which i agree with. While the ClearChannel-dominated radio market is very much a safety zone for artists once they make it there, the internet (with sites like myspace.com and purevolume.com) has become the new media outlet for emerging artists. Thus, small bands are getting far more exposure than they used to. Also, the iTunes store (along with Napster and other music downloading services) is killing full album sales, since users can spend $.99 on the one song they like and not waste the extra $10 on songs they don't know (sure, some of us throw our arms up at the idea of not giving the band a full chance, but my bet is that well over 90% of albums bought over the years have been bought with knowledge solely of one or two songs).

This makes for a million opportunities for smaller bands, and a million headaches for major labels. One of my favorite examples of the power of the internet for bands is Panic! at the Disco. This time last year, they had never even played a show. Now, they're selling out almost every show on their headlining tour. No major label press. Even at their first shows, kids were singing along. They didn't have an album out, how did the kids know the words? Well, starting about a month before their album came out, they began posting songs to stream off purevolume.com. And stream they did. Over 8 million times. Since then, very few days have gone by when Panic! wasn't the most played artist of the day on Purevolume. Then the word spread. And now you can hardly go a day without coming across their songs somewhere, be it MTV or radio. Even some ClearChannel stations are playing Panic!, despite the lack of major label backing. Why? Buzz.

Every successful company, like every successful band, has buzz surrounding it. The more people talk, the more people are going to find out about your company. The key to starting great buzz is to go to the insiders first--the folks that are experienced and passionate about products in your market. These days that often means bloggers. Sure, they might not be buying your product (which is why so many companies overlook them), but they are the ones who other people go to to find the hype on your types of products. Thus, you need to market to them better than to the general public. Pamper them, show them your best stuff. Do whatever it takes to start some good buzz. Because buzz grows.

As for the record industry, what are major labels to do? I wish I had the answer. Whoever makes the best use of the internet and other new media will certainly be dominant in the future of the music industry. I think it's going to take a total restructuring of the labels to spread themselves out more and sign more bands to smaller contracts. They will also have to launch some sort of internet-based initiative to either utilize or compete with myspace (depending on what Rupert Murdoch does with the site) and direct consumers to some sort of legal downloading service. I would also reccomend selling a discounted "3rd single" compilation, mixing in a couple hit singles from their bands with a bunch of tracks from deeper in their albums (showing the consumer that the bands have other good songs and thus encouraging them to buy the full album). But that's just me. I'm sure they'll come up with better ideas. The labels' lives depend on it.

band branding

Wed, 31 May 2006 22:06:59 GMT

Thanks in part to helping my friend Mary Katherine draw up business plans for her jewelry business (website coming, hopefully), I've been doing a lot of thinking lately about branding. More specifically, I've been thinking how a business gets to a point where the brand is sold more than the products and the products must try to keep up.

This phenomenon is also prevalent in the music industry. A band is a brand. Let me rephrase that--once a band signs with a record label, it goes from a business to a brand. They're no longer selling music, they're selling the band. They try to build brand identity with tours and music videos.

Let's think about music videos for a second--why do bands make videos? It's simply an ad, showing off their product. They make no money off the video directly, and often record companies and artists invest thousands of dollars into making a video and getting it on air. And it's all to build a brand. If the customer likes what they see and hear in the video, they will buy the cd.

They also expect the brand to maintain said identity. That's why bands say they're taking risks when they divert from their standard mold of music (case in point: "Time of Your Life" by Green Day vs. Vanilla Ice's hard rock efforts). The world went up in arms when Dylan picked up an electric.

Some bands embrace the mold. Emo-rockers Hawthorne Heights followed the success of their first album by proclaiming their second album would be as similar as possible. The result? The album peaked at #3 on the Billboard Hot 200 charts and #1 on the rock charts. What's the number one album/song/video right now? Red Hot Chili Peppers' umpteenth track/album about California that sounds exactly the same as all the previous songs and albums.

Have you noticed that when artists wish to make a different kind of music, they start side projects? Probably my favorite example of a side-project-gone-right is The Gorillaz. Damon Albarn broke completely from his one-hit-wonder band Blur in order to do something totally different with Gorillaz. And he further hid his identity behind animated characters representing his "band." He created a new brand that people came to know and embrace and did so without any association to his previous brand. Had the Gorillaz's albums been released under the brand of Blur, what are the chances they would've had that success?

It's a sad state, but the truth is Americans love their comfort zone, and once you're in, the only way you get out is by straying from what they know and like. The key is getting your band (or brand) into that zone.