the dotmatrix project

Obviously, we’re not going to go to the, uh, you know, superstars and say, “We want a percentage of your…” They’d be like (makes a dumbfounded face)

It must suck to watch your industry fall apart at the seems. Hell, I experienced it in 2001 working in Silicon Alley. Too bad for the music biz that their problem isn’t as simple as the net bubble burst with overzealous investors saturating an immature market.

That’s a correction at worst, not a complete redefinition of industry.

Is the 360 deal the silver bullet? I doubt it. It reads as a way to stop the bleeding, not the necessary organ transplant of the business model. One Golden Goose (record sales) dies, so Flom and company pilfer the remaining geese — that’s robbing Peter to pay Paul, not changing the foundational approach of what it means to be a music label in 2008.

They’re not getting to the heart of the matter.

The music industry’s problem is that too many people can make, find, enjoy, experience and share music without ever needing to step foot in their marketplace. They can sign bands to 360 deals until the cows come home, but the fact of the matter is that we’ve moved away from a world of massive record sales and sold-out stadium shows to a world where free music online leads to well attended, yet cozy venues and small festivals.

We are living a more personalized, fun and affordable music experience.

Of course there will always be superstars, and they’ll demand a higher price point across the board, but marketing teams won’t be the genesis of their popularity moving forward. The web enables decentralized power through the aggregate of individuals — whether the individuals are musicians or fans — so our “chock full of choice” world is now aligning along the edges, not within the artificial heart of where the music industry dictates.

The 360 deal is a short-term play for industry executives to keep making coin, not a long-term solution to evolve their business.

Labels, in the business to serve musicians, need to do more with less because the ratio of revenue delivering superstars to nominally successful acts is becoming a smaller integer as each day passes. Indie labels without aspirations of world dominance can swing that transition because they’ve been working smart, sleek and forward-thinking all along.

How does a major label — with all of its bloated, corporate structure — compete in this dynamic environment?

They don’t.

(via KOAR)

Michael Arrington at TechCrunch breaks news of a $5 “tax” that Warner Music is cooking up to impose on ISP’s — per individual customer — to guarantee protection from future liability caused by their customers downloading music, regardless of the fact that only a minuscule fraction illegally download music, let alone download music through proper channels at all.

Admittedly, this degree of hubris reaches a new level for the Industry, but dying business models will be dying business models.

The important question to focus on is: What’s going to replace these dinosaurs?

Cause there’s no way this scheme will ever fly.

In the comment thread, Dennis Ramirez makes a few good points:

[…] no, a band does not need a manager nor a label to play a local coffeeshop nor VFW hall. sometimes, they may even be able to organize a small tour for themselves.

if they are content with that, fine. more power to them.

but the majority of artists themselves are not, and there are only 24 hours in a day, so it is much more efficient if a band can hire someone to route touring, get them P.R., reviews, solicit labels or investors, etc., so the band can find time to write songs and record them.

a couple can do it, like Ani DiFranco, but they are overwhelmingly teh excpetion, not the rule.

and the manager needs to be paid (i dont know where you get the 25 manager thing from, bands only have 1), as does the booking agent, the recording engineer, the producer, the artist who designed the cover artwork, the web designer, their rent, their bills, etc. etc.

and that’s if they distribute everything themselves.

a music label can help a great deal with that, just like a VC helps a great deal in getting a startup off the ground. it’s not hard to understand that.

Ramirez names at least eight disparate communities that must be involved in an artists world to assist them in their quest for exposure and compensation. Right now, that’s what the label offers. So what could take its place?

Sounds like the perfect storm necessary for creating an industry-specific social network.

Sketching…

(originally uploaded by Ben Brown)

Bob Lefsetz: SXSW

Can an unsigned band get noticed? And, do we even bother to use that term anymore, “unsigned”. Do you want to get signed?

I mean what are the chances that the cognoscenti are going to care about your band when R.E.M. and even Van Morrison are shilling for attention. Oh, it makes you feel good, to rent a U-Haul, sleep four to a room and perform a set no one cares about. The same way it makes you feel good to send a CD to me! It’s amazing what people will do to make themselves feel good, make them believe they’re making progress.

[…]

Don’t worry about the short term money. If your music is good, if you play well live, the money will come. But sending me a CD or schlepping your equipment to SXSW isn’t going to make your music any better. If it’s good, put it on the Web, energize your fans, they’ll spread the word. But you probably suck and are looking for the easy way out. And crying that you just can’t make any money. Boofuckinghoo.

As much as I dig Lefsetz’s perspective on the realities of the music business, this no skin-having, binary, pessimistic position he pins on musicians trying to make a living while gaining exposure is BULLSHIT.

If You Love Music, Then Love The Music

Yes, Bob, you’re right about the labels. We get it. We know it through and through — signing on the dotted line doesn’t mean shit anymore. But only a fucking lawyer, one who NEVER MADE A DIME creating or building something born in their soul, would shit on such people who send him a CD for a listen.

You can’t have it both ways, Bob. If you’re so fucking into the music, if life is all about the music…

You know, the music, man
The thing that reaches into your heart
Past the Boss suit and fake tan
And sets your soul on restart

…then you must take CDs being sent to you as a SIGN that people want to connect with you because they think your taste in music MEANS SOMETHING. Quite possibly, they’re so caught up in the possibilities of this decentralized world that you so often rant about that they view YOU as a beacon of light, an avenue for advice or even exposure on some level.

Don’t sing the merits of music being at the soul of everything, reveal in detail the type of music that speaks to you and then SHIT on artists who expose their sound to you.

The people who feel like they’re MAKING PROGRESS when they post their music to the internet in an attempt to build community are probably the same type of people who would send music to an industry visionary they feel a connection with.

This attitude you’re conveying is as guarded and old school as any crap dropped by the head of a major label. That’s not too surprising since your blog is as closed of an experience as MTV proper, but I gotta say, man, the last few lines of your post are fucking reprehensible.

Should A Band Not Try To Make A Living?

There are probably acts that fit such a description to a tee — I’m referring to Lefsetz’s reference of weak acts looking to cut corners and then bitch about not making money — but such a gross generalization of PEOPLE shines a light on him that isn’t even becoming of a fucking DEFENSE LAWYER.

“Don’t worry about short-term money” has no relevance WHATSOEVER to an artist’s conception of “short-term money.” Lefsetz is talking to musicians about compensation with a label’s definition of ROI in his mouth.

$35k a year to pay the rent, eat decently and fill up the gas tank is “short-term money” to a vast majority of musicians. What do you call that, Bob?

If musicians need to build community in this world driven by the internet — that is your position, right? — then why SHIT on people who travel across the country to a music festival to expose their craft to a new audience WHO HAS ACCESS TO THE SAME INTERNET?

Great, unknown acts all over the world play their hearts out live, upload music to Last.fm, Amie Street, iLike and/or MySpace and still struggle to pay their rent. New connections and avenues of exposure in the meat space matter JUST AS MUCH in this brave new world of interconnectedness, ESPECIALLY for bands with a great sound.

SXSW isn’t about the back room dealings of major label A&R folks anymore. Do you realize how many bloggers converge on SXSW each year? How is getting a gig at SXSW these days not in line with your approach to building community online around the music?

Bands have always juggled their local and regional touring strategies with long-distance gig opportunities. In these days that decision is even more relevant to building a diverse following online. They’re working whatever channels they can find, particularly ones that expose them to people who publish intra-day, like yourself, and that’s a problem for you to watch or participate in?

WTF?

UPDATE: Bob’s blog minion moderates trackbacks, so this post isn’t appearing on his SXSW post. None of my past posts referring Bob’s letters had a problem getting through the moderation queue. I guess they only make it through when people agree with him.

So much for understanding online communities.

As I popped around town yesterday, looking to knock a few errands off my seemingly never-ending list of shit to get done, I caught a NPR segment about a relatively new book publisher making waves in his industry.

The grand idea behind Jonathan Karp’s TWELVE is actually quite elegant:

TWELVE was established in August 2005 with the objective of publishing no more than one book per month. We strive to publish the singular book, by authors who have a unique perspective and compelling authority. Works that explain our culture; that illuminate, inspire, provoke, and entertain. We seek to establish communities of conversation surrounding our books. Talented authors deserve attention not only from publishers, but from readers as well. To sell the book is only the beginning of our mission. To build avid audiences of readers who are enriched by these works – that is our ultimate purpose.

Karp spent 16 years at Random House Publishing Group prior to founding TWELVE, beginning in 1989 as an editorial assistant, working his way up to Editor-in-Chief. I’m guessing that during his run, he probably noticed something peculiar about the structure of a major publishing firm that interfered with the creative process.

From a 2005 BusinessWeek interview, Cutting Through The Noise:

[…] I’m going to personally edit every book. I’ve learned that you have the most fun and you can have the most impact when you work directly with the authors. I think I’ll have better publishing ideas because I’m also editing the book. I’ll be close enough to the content and spirit of the book that I’ll be able to communicate what’s special about it to audiences […]

Sound familiar?

Well, it sounds familiar to me.

Over the last few years — after making a huge life change leaving NYC to setup camp in Greensboro — I’ve slowly altered the definition of dotmatrix from strictly being an online design and strategy consultancy to include what I now like to refer to as a “next-gen music label.” Forget the consultancy aspect of the equation for this particular conversation (to my current and potential clients: I’m still in the game); I’ve been stressing about what I should call my work with promoting shows, local musicians and, in particular, Molly’s career.

And the term label just doesn’t sit right with me.

Why?

My mental model of what a “label” represents has been corrupted over the years to be squarely centered around the business of making money, much more so than the business of enabling the growth of musicians. That said, I’m not about trying to create some kind of old school, micro-managed, opaque, middle-management, tired ass A&R tiered nightmare organization to pull down a buck while skimming over artist development and promotion. Hell, I don’t want to “sign” artists to anything even closely resembling the notion of a contract; I want to empower them to make it happen for themselves.

Bob Lefsetz weighs in on the future of the label:

Will there be labels in the future? Sure. But they won’t look like and won’t have the same names as the big four companies today. Because the new labels will be about building acts and maximizing revenue in all areas of exploitation. They’ll be about transparency. They’ll be run by geeks as opposed to mini-mafiosi. There will be a level of trust between performer and businessman. All things today’s majors abhor, which will contribute to their marginalization.

Lefsetz is on the right path here — transparency, non-mafioso business types, trust — but there’s still a degree of traditional thought buried in his perceptive noggin’; the percept that an artist needs a businessman to make shit come together.

See, I’m thinking that what replaces the traditional label will most likely be more of a service — something that brings together and overlaps all communities of the current industry in a way that enables artists, producers, engineers, venues, merchandisers, lawyers and fans to self-connect, collaborate and/or support one another — rather than a business model where non-musicians represent the artist simply to play matchmaker, get muddled up in the creative process or push avenues of exposure on artists that might be more about their own agenda.

Jonathan Karp experienced the craziness within his industry and created TWELVE as an answer for dealing with the insanity. As a relative outsider to the “music industry,” I don’t have the muscle memory of 15 years within the business, but my goal isn’t to replicate this diseased model locally or to arrogantly focus on a new angle based purely on assumptions derived from creating information architectures for the live web over the past 10 years.

Over the next year I’ll be digging in locally to promote shows, expose artists, book acts, learn how to both mix sound for a show and a live recording, read up on copyright & revenue sharing and push the edge as far as possible in freeing up music and media in order to build community.

In other words, I’ll be asking questions, listening, supporting, learning, getting my hands dirty, modeling, designing… then building.

(originally uploaded by evie22)

Bob Lefsetz

[…] Do you want to make a deal with a major, for their theoretical infrastructure, or sell to your core and make eight bucks a record? That’s the new game. Instead of selling your soul to reach everybody, concentrate on your base, growing your base, organically. There’s plenty of money in the music business today. Just stop swinging for the fences. A bunt gets you on first too.

Yeah, but a home run gets you home with a guaranteed score, instantly.

That’s the promise the industry has sold to potential talent for years, and it’s what talent dreams about when taking a shot at making it within any industry — put in the work and come home with stuffed pockets.

It’s a calculated business promise to fulfill an understandable desire, but as Bob alludes to, it’s an even greater long shot for success in this day and age.

Consider the recent changes at play within the music business:

• Music videos have become a relatively weak form of promotion with the death of MTV as a full-time video channel, and the explosion of decentralized video online
• FM radio has become a wasteland for mainstream retreads and bottom-line enhancing rotations
• CD sales are dropping year after year, as people no longer buy into the $12+ price point of an album
• Sold out mega-concert are primarily limited to dinosaur super-acts while being supported by old people with cash to burn
• Online radio, such as Pandora and Last.fm, is gaining larger and larger communities each year
• Music event listings can be created with numerous online services, which greatly increases competition for the entertainment dollar
• The web allows people (artists, producers, merchandisers, venues and fans) to easily connect with one another, which reduces the need to participate within big label infrastructure

There will always be acts willing to turn over creative control for a gamble at a quick road to celebrity, but majors labels aren’t the equivalent to the employers of your father’s 40 year-long, one gig career. Majors don’t cultivate the longevity of an act unless the act breaks big and/or sells consistently well… and that has become harder and harder to sustain through industry marketing.

Once we all moved beyond the boob tube and FM radio as our primary introduction (and reinforcement) to new music, the majors began to lose their ace in the hole for generating buzz. And while that programmable market still exists, it has shrunken considerably. Even more disconcerting to the majors must be the fact that many of those people who dodge the one-way sales pitch of traditional media go on to rebel against the machine by simply participating and uploading their own media files online.

By default, the two-way nature of the live web expedites the evolution of our perception of industry as a one-way street to a partnership — the antithesis of the type of consumer any industry wants. More and more, people want to connect with the artists they support and on levels deeper and more far reaching than simply buying an album and playing it over and over again deep into the night prior to hitting a show.

I don’t know if I’d use the same metaphor of a bunt to describe the choice of embracing community over signing away one’s soul shooting for the aggregate, but advising musicians to work on building their own careers by interacting with the people that dig their sound?

Rock on.

(originally uploaded by ginthefer)

A hint for the music industry: STOP FORCING GARBAGE ON US

A November 28, 2007 2:38 PM comment by Sabocat on the c|net article,
The recording industry should thank Apple:

I have a theory that what is killing the music industry is not downloads or piracy or people taking “their” product in any way at all. I think that maybe, just maybe, the fact that the biggest musical promotion (supported by bill boards plastered all over) that the industry is currently offering is… A Greatest Hits of the Spice Girls album.

Reheated warmed over formula music has a lot more to do with flagging sales than new media could ever begin to accomplish.

Give us music to buy and we will buy it.

And on a slightly more real level, there’s this comment by Jay Stone on Bol’s post,
Helping massa build a new house:

Like someone above me said Limewire is the shit. Unless the album is classic (Nas exception) there is no way I’m gonna cop it when you can download it for free. […]

ABSENTBLUE comments on the Gizmodo post,
Radiohead, Saul Williams and the Inevitable Rise and Liberation of the Music Industry

[…] Digital media in any form is easy to pirate, but that doesn’t mean there aren’t enough people like myself who are willing to pay for something legitimate. All in all, big business is going to lose and the common man is going to win. Quality is still quality and can only be created and obtained by certain means, a talent with merit will still stand out against a flood of trite crap without the record industry.

Traditional artists still do after all, and how easy is it to get a JPEG? Very, but I’ll still go out and buy the book or poster if I like it enough, same goes for music. […]

Clear enough?

Doug Morris said something in the Wired article the other day that I completely let slide in my quasi-review, but I think it’s a stance that’s important to understand because his take on the perceived value of music is indicative of how the corporate mindset hijacked music into serving as a cash cow for men with capital a long time ago:

“Really, an album that someone worked on for two years — is that worth only $9, $10, when people pay two bucks for coffee in Starbucks?”

A cursory read of that quote will probably leave most people in agreement with Morris — that the hard work that goes into creating an album is worth much more than five cups of coffee. Read it again and I bet you’ll agree that the argument is a strawman.

In classic bean counter fashion, Morris is aggregating the average cost of an album, across thousands of artist’s products, and comparing it to a product that has an absolute perceived value to a return customer based on a history of consistently met expectations.

The difference between two randomly poured cups of coffee isn’t anywhere near comparable to the taste of any two random artists. The creative output of people isn’t a natural commodity — a packaged good with explicit value — no matter whose hands are on what levers of industry.

Maybe twenty years ago, but not today.

It’s easy to understand why some people choose to pay exorbitant prices for a box set of their favorite artist’s music, while others choose to download, rip and trade to avoid the markup of prepackaged crap. It’s called free will. And now that our will lives in a world chock full of ways… well, you know the cliche.

We’re all now empowered with the ability to track, retrieve and experience the most discrete traces of information scents — not only the prefabricated packets of promotion-powered product — so common sense would dictate that it would behoove industry executives who care about the vitality of their industry to think long and hard about their strategy to serve only their prehistoric definition of a bottom-line.

Keep pushing crap on us, from ringtones to pre-fabricated personalities, and we’ll move beyond simply circumventing your mechanisms of product pushing to engaging directly with and supporting the source of our inspiration and redemption; the artists themselves.

(originally uploaded by twm1340)

Trent Reznor has been in a fight with the copyright team at Universal over putting up a remix site for his fans to mashup his tunes. Universal’s greatest fear is that people will mix in songs from other artists (and other labels) and that they’d be held liable.

Well, up until last night, the legal monkeys had held him at bay. Today, on his blog, Reznor simply writes:

Sometimes you just have to say… “fuck it.” The remix site is UP! Have fun.

remix.nin.com

This will be interesting.

Jermaine Dupri’s recent Huffington Post article is a classic spin job; a call for revolution by “artists, producers and label executives” to halt the sale of individual tracks on iTunes in order to get back to the good old days of albums being sold as product — all under the cover of defending artist’s integrity.

Here are a few choice quotes (with my emphasis and commentary):

[…] He’s not the first. He’s not the lone cowboy in all of this. Radiohead and AC/DC have turned their backs on iTunes for the same reason. Doug Morris, the CEO of Universal Group, has been fighting Steve Jobs on this for a minute now. But Jay is at a level people are going to pay attention to. He’s had 10 number one albums. He may run Def Jam but he’s also an artist who put his heart and soul into something that he wants people to hear all the way through. As the creator and investor, he has every right to demand this. […]

In what world can anyone demand that someone experiences product exactly the way the producers want them to, particularly music? This isn’t the 1970’s; we have options nowadays.

Hey Jermaine, ever hear of the iPod Shuffle? Do you even have a clue as to why Apple was successful in turning a feature of the iPod into a product of it’s own? It’s because they have a finger on the pulse of how people listen to their music.

Don’t get me wrong; I’m not an active paying customer of iTunes because I won’t pay for a DRM product and a $.99 digital track is too expensive, IMO.

But when people have a library of music at their disposal, they want the option to add to that collection in a way that matches their listening experience — as if they’re chilling in their favorite pub with a killer jukebox rotating through tracks in the background.

Similarly, when I jog, I don’t want to end my run on the same verse of the same song each time I lace up my sneakers (I have a watch for that experience); I want a brand spanking new jogging soundtrack to occupy my thoughts instead of feeling the deja vu that occurs when I step off a particular curb while Chi Ali drops the same line from Pass The 40.

Why? Because monotony sucks, even when it’s a dope track or album.

The same desire for playback diversity is applicable to the experiences that Pandora, Musicovery, Last.fm and any number of free internet radio stations provide in this information age. Shit, CD shuffle has been a cheap replacement option for a live DJ since 1988.

Dupri doesn’t support the modern-day CD shuffle sales equivalent because a CD (album) isn’t always being sold.

Talk about throwing out the baby with the bath water!

In this day and age, only dedicated fans of artists (teenagers and hardcore listeners) buy albums, rush home, read the lyrics and listen to an album from front to back. That context scenario hasn’t represented a large demographic of music listeners / buyers for a long time now. And because most albums are often rushed to release by a label demanding that bottom-line deadlines are met, many people have lost faith in the album as a commodity.

Illmatic was dope and I’m still listening to it over and over again as an album. Now, name another Nas album that has even come close as a holistic experience.

Not every album is worth full market value. People are simply fed up of being duped and are now enabled by technology to do something about it.

Good for people!

The premise of this article is bullshit to begin with; iTunes allows people to purchase both the entire album and individual tracks. So don’t try to jive us with this move by Jay-Z as being something about “protecting artistic integrity” when it’s all about a price point disagreement.

No matter how much Doug Morris wants this age to retro-fit his business model, it just isn’t happening. People want what they want; either give (sell) it to them or they’ll take it (P2P download).

More Dupri:

[…] More artists and producers are gonna take back control of how their art is sold because his strategy has paid off. Maybe Hova coulda sold another 100,000 to 200,000 units by playing it iTunes’ way, but he still had the number one album last week. He STILL sold 425,000 units. Even more, he’s proven you can still sell an album without those guys. […]

The music industry (read: many labels and tons of artists) are hemorrhaging sales revenue and Jermaine Dupri is pointing to an example of Jay-Z missing out on on a 23% - 47% increase in sales as a good thing? All for the greater good of controlling how a musician’s voice is heard?

What the fuck is Dupri smoking, ’cause I want to make certain that I never put that shit to my lips.

How fucking elitist are these guys? Indie artists and small label acts need all the support they can get nowadays to expose their sounds:

• MySpace or Facebook profile song adds by people serves as viral marketing
• Song or album purchases helps spread the word while putting money in the pockets of artists
• Tagging up artists or their songs greatly increases the chance of exposure in this 2.0 world

That’s not even getting into post-event media creation and online sharing necessary to draw people to shows.

I know for a fact that Molly cherishes and appreciates every bit of positive feedback and support she receives. To present Jay-Z’s decision to stiff arm iTunes as a revolutionary move for the industry — to lead artists in controlling how people listen to music — is not only a fucking smokescreen to Dupri and Jay-Z serving their boss’ business interests, but it’s offensive to musicians who aren’t living in the clouds.

Dupri continues:

[…] Jay made everyone realize that iTunes taking what we give them and doing what they want with it isn’t the way it has to be. He put the light on and made other people realize, “Oh these guys are just selling our music, they ain’t making it.” If anything, WE made iTunes. It’s like how we spent $300,000 to $500,000 each on our videos and MTV and BET went ahead and built an entire video television industry off of our backs. We can’t let that happen again. These businesses exist solely because of our music. So if we as artists, producers and label executives stand up, those guys at Apple can either cooperate, or have nothing for people to buy and download on their iPods.

Apple thinks that’s never gonna happen. They think that we as the record industry will never stick together. But Universal sells one out of every three records. All it’ll take is for Warner Music to say, “You know what, I’m with you,” for us to shut ‘em down. No more iPods! They won’t have nothin’ to play on their players! We can take back the power if we’re willing to sacrifice some sales to make our point. […]

And there, my dear reader, is the nut of this posturing; Dupri and Co. want to ratchet up the war against their own market.

The classic part of this bravado is Jermaine Dupri’s call for executives to support his burial of the music industry — keep paying him mad dollars while he sacrifices — to allow him to participate in this revolution to disenfranchise both real and potential customers.

These guys are boycotting iTunes for no other reason than their belief that they’re not getting enough control or money. And who can blame them, because if you really think about it, Jermaine Dupri and Jay-Z created the most popular music service (iTunes) — from the most popular brand in America (Apple) — by getting paid for rapping about bling, booze, broads and bucks for the past 10 years.

Right.

If Universal and Warner both pulled out of iTunes tomorrow, Jobs could shift his focus to the relatively untapped, global long tail market of unsigned and small label acts in the wild. If he made it easier for such acts to upload music to his arena, he could pocket the cut (53%) that once went to labels like Universal and Warner, turn off DRM (the only reason he’s using it is because the big labels insist upon using it) and start a price war that even four gas stations at an intersection haven’t seen before.

You think labels are struggling now? That kind of a move would truly revolutionize the industry. And Jobs wouldn’t have too much to lose as it’s the iPod — not iTunes music sales — that is Apple’s revenue darling.

Who needs whom?

Dupri:

[…] These days people just assume that you need a number one single to have a number one album. But look at what’s really happening. Soulja Boy sold almost 4 million singles and only 300,000 albums! We let the consumer have too much of what they want, too soon, and we hurt ourselves. Back in the day when people were excited about a record coming out we’d put out a single to get the ball going and if we sold a lot of singles that was an indication we’d sell a lot of albums. But we’d cut the single off a few weeks before the album came out to get people to wait and let the excitement build. When I put out Kris Kross we did that. We sold two million singles, then we stopped. Eventually we sold eight million albums! […]

He’s so fucking out of touch with reality, that he referenced Kris Kross — a pre-internet act — as a business case example and Soulja Boy (who?) as someone who lost sales, instead of someone who should be thankful that he ever sold 100 albums, period.

Anyone who wants to crash and burn in the age of the internet, Mr. Jermaine Dupri — husband of the former artist Janet Jackson, who allowed herself to be exploited on national TV in a desperate move to give her name media attention — is speaking loud and clear. Follow at your own peril.

More:

[…] Did consumers complain? Maybe so. But at what point does any business care when a consumer complains about the money? Why do people not care how we - the people who make music - eat? If they just want the single, they gotta get the album. That was how life was. Today we should at least have that option. Yeah, it’s about the money, but it’s also about quality. Creating each album as a body of work that means something gives the consumer something better to listen to, It’s that simple. Otherwise all anyone would care about is making a bunch of ringtones. […]

That “eating” line has me doubled over in laughter. When was the last time Jay-Z or Jumaine Dupree missed a meal? Who elected Jermaine fucking Dupri to be the national spokesperson for starving artists and musicians?

I’d bet my bank that an indie artist would jump at the opportunity to have their album/tracks available in as prime of a spot as iTunes with a $.29 price point per song. If I have $10 to spend on music, I have $10 to spend on music. Set a market-friendly price and watch sales jump through the roof while illegal downloads decrease, overnight.

Of course, the majors will never back that move because illegal downloads are only a threat to the perceived market valuation of individual tracks. These greedy bastards are holding so tight to their price point, that they’re willing to sacrifice the future of the industry.

So be it. Music industry 2.0 will be dope for artists, producers, venues and fans. Fuck the middleman.

I do love how Dupri reminds himself midstream that this conversation is also about quality, which of course leads into his whining about how fucking brilliant he is as a producer:

None of this is new. Every record is in some way a concept album. The whole always strives to be better than its parts. I dedicate a whole chapter in my book to this process. Every thing I produce is a product of me spending time with the artist and getting to know where his or her head is at. Usher’s Confessions album was all about where he was at that point in his life. Same with Mariah’s Emancipation of Mimi.

So now I’m supposed to feel guilty for all the morons who disrupted the genius flow of Mariah Carey’s last album by buying an individual track? Dupri is essentially saying that anything thrown together is a “concept album” because, well, they conceived an entire album, therefore selling individual songs “ruins the experience” which naturally stems from the overall creative processes.

To quote my fellow ‘Cuse alumni, Derrick Coleman: “Whoop-de-damn-do!”

Would somebody please introduce the concept of postmodernism to Jermaine Dupri? Being that the internet is not a modern construct, I think he might need to understand the basics of our current reality in a connected world before trying to speak for an entire industry.

[…] Apple, why are you helping the consumer destroy our canvas? We don’t tell you to break up your computers into bits and pieces and sell off each thing. When you go to the Apple store you may only need one thing, but you have to buy all their plug ins and stuff. You have to buy their whole package, even if you don’t necessarily want it, or your equipment won’t work. We’re just saying, if you have the audacity to sell your products like that, don’t treat our products as something less than yours. […]

Forget the fact that Jermaine Dupri is still insisting that the music industry can control how people listen to music… he just compared selling individual tracks, which are designed to function as an independent object on a CD — allowing for next track fast-forwarding and rewinding, shuffling, individual play, copying, etc. — to Apple not allowing partial sales or the tweaking of Macs with other equipment?

Because it’s impossible to install more RAM from another reseller to a new or old Mac. Or are you referring to how Apple doesn’t “allow” people to install hard drives into their products, Jermaine? And Apple themselves don’t sell individual parts of their computers either, right?

Apple can be a controlling company and will design themselves into a corner at times, but this comparison is ridiculous.

I’d rather not be so harsh, Jermaine — if you guys want to limit your distribution options and cause grief for the people looking to buy your product, so be it — but there are artists out there whose careers might never see the light of day because of these types of ill-informed perspectives.

That said, sometimes you gotta keep it real and call a spade a spade.

Holla!

Other opinions:

• Jermaine Dupri On The Huffington Post
• Music producer is right to defend bad business
• Jermaine Dupri Takes A Stand Against Apple
• David Brooks almost gets it; Jermaine Dupri doesn’t
• cash. money. records.
• Quote of the Day: Jermaine Dupri
• Jermaine Dupri’s Message To Music Fans
• Jermaine Dupri is a Corporate Tool
• Helping massa build a new house
• Jermaine Dupri, rapper, hates iTunes and thinks consumers are dumb

(originally uploaded by rahen z)

Gene Simmons

[…]

The record industry doesn’t have a f*cking clue how to make money. It’s only their fault for letting foxes get into the henhouse and then wondering why there’s no eggs or chickens. Every little college kid, every freshly-scrubbed little kid’s face should have been sued off the face of the earth. They should have taken their houses and cars and nipped it right there in the beginning. Those kids are putting 100,000 to a million people out of work. How can you pick on them? They’ve got freckles. That’s a crook. He may as well be wearing a bandit’s mask.

Doesn’t affect me. But imagine being a new band with dreams of getting on stage and putting out your own record. Forget it.

[…]

There’s so much crap in that blurt, I almost don’t know where to begin. I agree 100% with Simmons that the music industry has had no clue in evolving their business model to work with the open mechanisms of the internet since its inception… but that’s where we go our separate ways.

1. The music industry should’ve dropped the moniker “record” as soon as digital tracks became available. No one buys records to listen to records anymore. It’s apropos, though, that someone as musically irrelevant and ancient as Gene Simmons still uses that language.
2. There is no henhouse. Never has been. The internet as a protocol is close to being P2P native, but software designed to transfer files across the internet in a collaborative fashion simply took advantage of music as a file format, like any other document of bits. Who do you sue for that?
3. Suing fans into perpetuity does nothing to improve “record” sales or halt the evolution of technology and culture. A better approach would’ve been to figure out how to make money off P2P instead of trying to eliminate it while ostracizing the market with fear tactics.
4. Who is this class of 100,000 to a million people out of work? Throughout time and across industries, the middleman has never enjoyed a guaranteed existance with technology in play. And if Simmons is referring to artists, he’s on crack. Artists — of any kind — are not guaranteed a career by anyone, in any medium. If they were, I wouldn’t be a commercial artist to pay the mortgage and an artist on the side to fulfill my soul. Simmons is still experiencing a coke high from the seventies with that perspective.
5. People who copy files that were designed to be copied are now crooks? Either lock the goods in the safe (DRM) and change the very DNA that defines a digital document or monetize the actual process of being “looted.” There’s no in-between and the market is clearly not buying into the future of DRM.
6. Hey Gene, hate to break it to you, but bands are still hitting the stage and they’re more empowered than ever to make a “record.” The difference? They don’t live in an age where long tongues, fake blood and platform boots can sell millions of copies of a two-hit record for $10, all the while being fronted big cash by a label who could sell an igloo to an Eskimo and get him to pay an extra $100 to see a grade B act fill a Colosseum show. This is the information age; those days have been dead for years now.

I do love you in Gene Simmons Family Jewels, though.

The title pretty much sums up Edgar Bronfman Jr.’s take on how the music industry ended up in the place it is now — missing out on the digital revolution and instead of thriving in a forward-thinking model, busy instead suing their own customers for loving and sharing music with others.

Speaking at the GSMA Mobile Asia Congress in Macau, Bronfman said:

“We used to fool ourselves,’ he said. “We used to think our content was perfect just exactly as it was. We expected our business would remain blissfully unaffected even as the world of interactivity, constant connection and file sharing was exploding. And of course we were wrong. How were we wrong? By standing still or moving at a glacial pace, we inadvertently went to war with consumers by denying them what they wanted and could otherwise find and as a result of course, consumers won.”

Three Four things I want to point out:

1. No shit
2. “Your content” has never been the issue (though I’d argue that no matter what contracts have been signed with artists, the music is not “your content”). The issue has been with you unnaturally twisting “content” by controlling the format, price point, distribution and promotion of music to a degree that the market found insulting. It started with omnivore music fans in the nineties questioning the holistic value of albums hitting the market at a $15 price tag while MTV was simultaneously dropping off the radar as an alternative vehicle for artists to explore their creativity and gain fans. On the heals of the death of radio, digital tracks became available for preview & sale and the jig was up; everyone could see that the emperor had no clothes. YouTube and it’s Web 2.0 cousins are simply another nail in a buried coffin
3. It’s interesting to hear an executive speak of constant connection as being such a revelation, but I guess it’s understandable. I mean, back in the day, I couldn’t get my music fix until I got home from school and turned on MTV or hit my room to blast the latest Men Without Hats on vinyl. And the only connection I had then was one way, through either the TV or my speakers. Apparently, when industry can program a market — via TV, radio, controlled sales & format — people up top can get fat and lose sight of the shifting earth.
4. Another slip: “consumers won.” I’m sorry, but what exactly have “consumers” won? The RIAA is not only suing kids, but trying to extort universities into feeding this industry hand to mouth under the threat of shutting down federal financial aide. Where’s our consumer trophy for living in a state of fear, where we can be set back thousands of dollars because absolute proof of guilt without a shadow of a doubt isn’t an issue? And what would the opposite scenario look like? You know, where the music industry “wins?” Probably something very similar to the warm, bloated, cash cow feeling these guys had in the 70’s and 80’s, a time when “consumers” were being taken advantage of because we loved the product so much and would do anything — pay anything — to experience it. Until the very language the music industry uses to describe their customers changes — consumer describes this stud, not me — I don’t foresee the music industry “winning” anything again anytime soon.

The really sad part of this speech comes later on, where Bronfman tries to sell the idea that albums packaged with ringtones is an example of a forward-thinking content bundle that meets the needs of a digital “consumer”:

“By packaging a full album into a bundle of music with ringtones, videos and other combinations and variation we found products that consumers demonstrably valued and were willing to purchase at premium prices. And guess what? We’ve sold tons of them. And with Apple’s co-operation to make discovering, accessing and purchasing these products even more seamless and intuitive, we’ll be offering many, many more of these products going forward.”

Don’t you get it? Since we all have cell phones, there must be a segment of suckers willing to buy these bloated packages of “content” just like the suckers who bought a Corey Hart album based on one catchy single in 1984 (yes, I was one of those suckers).

So sell naive folk bloated crap and sue anyone with a clue.

They’re still trying to win, not partner with or serve their market.

VRM, anyone?

Other reactions:

• Beating the RIAA: Warner Music boss regrets attacking consumers
• Warner Music CEO Fesses Up to Music Industry’s Mistakes, Slams Mobile Operators, Pats Self on Back
• Music biz bigwig Edgar Bronfman tells mobile industry to get lively, music-wise
• Music exec regrets going “to war” with consumers
• Putting the “DRM” in “drama”: Bronfman changing his tune?
• Warner Music Boss: We Were Wrong
• Edgar Bronfman admits to “inadvertently” going to war with music consumers
• Warner Music Do As We Say Not As We Do
• Music Executive Makes Startling Deathbed Confession: “We Were Wrong”
• Bronfman’s Epiphany an Insult