Happy New Year from Headliner.FM!
Updates from December, 2009 Toggle Comment Threads | Keyboard Shortcuts
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Nick
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Nick
A Week In The Life of A Tour Manager
David Scheid is the tour manager for big time alt rock groups like Dinosaur JR, and Broken Social Scene. Check out this article in the New York Times where Scheid details the day-to-day events involved in running a successful tour. What does being a tour manager involve? Mostly a lot of flying and fixing problems. In the article, Scheid reveals that he took 170 flights over the course of the last year, including a trip across Europe to retrieve a forgotten passport. Check it out here.
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Nick
Delays Continue for Qtrax
Qtrax is a company which offers free downloads to consumers while profiting by selling advertising. At least that is hypothetically what Qtrax does, right now it seems Qtrax does not do much of anything. After a planned roll out of the Qtrax service for Asian/ Pacific countries was pushed back indefinitely Qtrax’s planned December 24th press conference was also canceled. Qtrax now plans to roll out their service in January, but with a Spotify US release on the horizon Qtrax will have difficulty maintaining the confidence of major label executives in the neccesity of giving away their music for free. Although digital downloading continues its torrid pace it seems like labels owners are still not ready to compromise with digital distributors on a price per track that would enable an ad supported free legal download website to survive. For more statements from Qtrax click here.
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Nick
ECM Article in The New York Times
The New York Times has an article out today about pioneering German Jazz and classical label ECM. ECM, which stands for Edition of Contemporary Music, was founded in 1969 and featured early releases by avant garde Jazz artists including Keith Jarrett. As the label matured, its roster grew to include international Jazz notables like Pat Methany and Chick Corea. ECM was notable for its approach towards the music business; it gave artists incredible creative freedom, and also took the aesthetics of packaging very seriously. Check out the article here.
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Nick
Droid Applications Poised for 2010 Push
An iPhone would have been an awesome Christmas gift this year, but the grinches at Droid are trying their hardest to steal Apple’s whole steez by offering a competing product and application platform. A new survey by Comscor predicts a coming explosion in Droid purchases. According to the survey, 17% of consumers who are in the market for a smart phone plan to purchase a droid. This gives Droid 3% less than the 20% of consumers who plan to buy an iPhone. Artist iPhone applications are all the rage right now, but 2010 could see a handful of savy artists profit by releasing Droid apps.
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Nick
Grassroots Campaign Defeats Industry Giants
Tools to market a song or an artist are becoming increasingly accessible to the average person. No example makes this trend more evident than the holiday victory scored by Rage Against the Machine’s single “Killing in The Name” over crooner Joe McElderry’s “The Climb” in the battle for UK Christmas Single of the Year. The campaign to drive the 1992 Rage single to the top was put in motion by Jon and Tracey Morter, a couple unaffiliated with Rage, but fed up with manufactured pop domination. To win, the Morters created a Facebook-centered attack that went viral, much to the chagrin of UK super-producer Simon Cowell who had helped Joe McElderry craft the eventually 2nd place single. That a previously unknown British couple was able to drive an 18 year old single to the top of a Christmas chart indicates how egalitarian marketing tools have become.
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Nick
Headliner’s Top 10 Music Industry Predictions For 2010
1) Bands and Artists Will Take a Greater Role in Marketing and Promoting Themselves.
Record labels, especially majors, will dramatically reduce the money they spend on marketing. Concurrently, the tools necessary to efficiently market an artist are rapidly becoming more accessible and economical. 2010 will be a year in which artists get in the driver’s seat.
2) The Cost to Reach Millions of New Fans Will be Accessible To Bands and Artists of All Sizes.
When rap group Get Busy Committee released their album online, they offered a discount on iTunes to anyone who tweeted about it. The resultant tweets made their song “My Little Razorblade” the most tweeted about song that day. The move was an effective gimmick, but within the next year, standardized programs will allow artists and bands to reach millions of fans through social media for less than the cost of a new amp.
3) The Web Will Become a More Real-Time Medium.
News happens all the time. Why wait until the day after a concert to read about it when you can read about it now? Why email a spreadsheet to a co-worker in California when you can work on it simultaneously, on different computers 3000 miles apart? Google is retooling its search results to include shit that gets Tweeted about. GoogleWave, Live Blogging, Microblogging, iPhone and Droid applications will all make the web more of a real-time medium in 2010, making it easier than ever for fans and artists to interact.
4) Real Time Promotions Will Become More Effective Than Email Marketing.
With more analytic tools, such as Headliner’s available at low or no cost, musicians will be able to more effectively target audiences. Real time promotions through social media will become more effective than email marketing in 2010.
5) The Online Music Video Industry Will Continue to Grow.
How a station can operate under the “Music Television” moniker when its greatest attraction is watching gel-heads roid rage on the Jersey Shore is beyond me, but it is certainly profitable. MTV has already done away with TRL, its former flagship TV show, in a successful move to boost ratings. While TV music video shows are quickly becoming a thing of the past, the costs associated with making a professional quality music video are dropping. Vevo started airing videos by Universal this fall, but look for independent artists to make awesome videos in 2010 as online music video watching continues to rise.
6) One or More Major Labels Will Merge.
The bankers who own EMI at Citibank have announced that they are seeking buyers for EMI’s debt. Warner has coveted EMI for a while, so an EMI Warner merger seems the most plausible. Other transactions between the Big 4 are not out of the question. Look for the Big 4 (EMI, Sony, Universal and Warner) to become the Big 3 by year’s end.
7) The Music Making Process Will Be Turned Back into the Arms of Passionate Executives and Music Will be Better For It.
More targeted promotions will make it possible for artists to reach fans in the small niches who are passionate about their music. Making music that 1 in 10,000 people feel passionately about, but alienates the average consumer used to mean being a commercial failure, a cult classic destined to fade into obscurity. With more effective methods of targeting the minority of people who would love your music, cult artists will be able to generate more revenue. Think fans of Yeasayer will like your music? Only target them. Have a show at the University of Delaware? Target people who live there. This shift will allow more personalized music to succeed and industry veterans who put music first, ala Ahmet Ertegun, will regain control.
8 ) Data Will Become the New Online Currency
Knowledge is power and data on trending topics will be as valuable as gold in the coming decade. High powered analytics will become increasingly prevalent and accessible, and artists will have more scientific means to track the success, failure and click through rates of their online reach outs.
9) Vinyl Sales Will Continue to Increase
2009 marked the highest year in vinyl sales in two decades. When people want a physical product they are increasingly attracted to the aesthetic allure, characteristic heft, and sound quality of vinyl. Look for vinyl sales to increase in 2010 in the face of flagging CD sales.
10) Bands and Artists Will Be Able to Leverage and Manage Their Social Net and Mobile Promotions From a Single I-Phone Application
ArtistData, Topspin, ReverbNation and Bandcamp all already provide artists with the tools to efficiently manage everything your band does from a single site. Headliner.fm gives you the power to cross promote with other artists to reach new fans at a cost any group can afford. Some of these companies will flop, and some will succeed but artists will be managing all of their social media from one dashboard by year’s end.
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Nick
Susan Boyle Still Dominating The Charts
British reality TV crooner and feel-good story Susan Boyle still has the top selling album after 4 weeks. Boyle’s debut “I Dreamed a Dream” at impressive sales of 2.46 million is closing fast on Taylor Swift’s “Fearless.” at 2.93 million for best selling album of the year. Boyle’s success confirms her vocal talent and the appeal of her real life middle aged Cinderella story. It also reveals that the demographics of CD buyers skew towards older Americans as young people increasingly use alternative sources such as iTunes and illegal downloading to procure their music.
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Nick
Blazetrak: Getting You Access?
We may be in the worst economic recession since the great depression, but that certainly hasn’t stopped a plethora of music industry entrepreneurs from starting new companies. Blazetrak is a new business that gives access to music industry stalwarts in exchange for cold hard cash. Amongst the insiders involved are Big Boi of Outkast and John Rich of Big and Rich. Seems a little crass to me, but then again who knows? Maybe it makes sense for aspiring studio musicians to pay successful producers to listen to them audition.
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Nick
Last.FM Chart Shows Habits of NYC Listeners Vs. Listeners of the World
New Yorkers like to believe they are more cultured than the average American. Taste is subjective, but what isn’t subjective is the fact that New Yorkers have disparate listening habits in comparison to listeners in the rest of the world. Last.fm published a chart today graphing the listening habits of New Yorkers vs. the rest of the world, and the results confirm what everyone already knew. What’s hot on the streets of New York these days? Animal Collective, Grizzly Bear and French rockers Phoenix scored big points with New Yorkers for their albums this year. Worldwide, British prog rockers Muse tore up the last.fm scene after the release of their album Resistance. Despite Girl’s NYC popularity, and a swooning endorsement from indie tastemakers at Pitchfork, the California based rockers have only sold 26k of their latest album. I guess making it here doesn’t mean you can make it anywhere.
Sebastian 1:49 pm on December 24, 2009 Permalink |
I think this is an excellent idea considering the fact that you pay $1000′s of dollars to attend conferences and seminars on “how to make it”. This is just a shot in the arm to get a response directly from the person of your choice. It’s no different from you paying an attorney or physician to “give you advice” based on their level of understanding and profession. What’s even more interesting about this is the pros on Blazetrak are not “charging for advice”. They are charging for you to audition for an opportunity. Look at it this way. When you applied to go to college, you paid an application fee. The only thing you received was a letter of acceptance or rejection. Imagine if you could apply for college through the Blazetrak system and get a video response directly from the Director of Admissions explaining why you were excepted or rejected? This is what you are paying for. You are paying for the “professional” to spend time responding to you. Besides, I would easily pay Donald Trump to review my business plan and consider my idea for an investment, especially if I received a video response DIRECTLY from Donald himself. You are fooling yourself if you think otherwise.