The Music Specialist Speaks latest edition with Erykah Badu's controversial video now at:
http://ping.fm/C38ct
Tuesday, March 30, 2010
Saturday, March 13, 2010
Tuesday, March 2, 2010
Independents New Era in Sales
For many the dream of staying an independent, never joining a major label stable and making it in the entertainment industry never gets realized. For the first time in history an independent band, with no prior chronicle of major label attachment has debut Billboard Top 200 album charts at #1. This is no fluke but an orchestrated business plan that has encompassed 3 years of promotion, marketing and fan building.
Vampire Weekend is classified as an American rock indie band, however there music is influenced by both classical music and African popular music. Their biggest single released in 2007 “Cape Cod Kwassa Kwassa” is basically Congolese soukous music and was covered by Peter Gabriel former vocalist of Genesis.
Singer-guitarist Ezra Koening and keyboardist Rostam Batmanglij (both music majors at Columbia) brought the African sounds into the band — particularly soukous music, one of the styles made famous in the West via Paul Simon’s Graceland album. When they formed the band, Ezra was listening to a compilation of Madagascar guitar pop music called Madagascar Guitar Vol. 2,. At the same time, Rostam was listening to (South African singer) Brenda Fassie a lot.
In 2007 Cape Cod Kwassa Kwassa was ranked #67 on Rolling Stones list of the top 100 songs of the year. Being a touring band has made them interact with their fan base and in 2008 Spin magazine claimed them the Best New Band of the year making them the first band to be shot for the cover of the magazine before releasing their debut album.
Vampire Weekend is a group of Ivy League guys that are not afraid to make fun of their upbringing and neighborhoods. Using the Internet and live shows to keep their fan base alive has worked for these four gentlemen. In 2008 their debut album ranked #15 on the UK charts (over 100,000 sales) and #17 on Billboard, after selling 28,000 copies; its tally now stands at 498,000. First week count on the new album Contra stands at over 124,000 within the United States.
Kudos go out to the band but even more kudos go out to XL Recordings an independent record label which was launched by Tim Palmer, Nick Halkes and Richard Russell in 1989. Originally a UK based dance label, it also released drum and bass, techno and rave music. Tim Palmer retired in 1994 and Richard Russell’s vision started to take command. One thing that Mr Russell has always done and that is work with artists he saw as creative and inventive thus bringing XL Records to the forefront of Independent labels within the UK and himself as one of the most influential people within the British music business.
The diversity of XL Records is apparent once you look at the rooster of acts now on the label:
• Adele
• Badly Drawn Boy
• Basement Jaxx
• be your own PET
• Beck
• Blue Roses
• Cajun Dance Party
• The Cool Kids
• Damon Albarn
• Devendra Banhart
• Dizzee Rascal
• Elvis Perkins
• Friendly Fires
• Jack Peñate
• Giggs
• Gil Scott-Heron
• Golden Silvers
• Gotan Project
• Holly Miranda
• The Horrors
• Kicks Like a Mule
• Kid Harpoon
• Lemon Jelly
• M.I.A.
• Magistrates
• Peaches
• The Prodigy
• Radiohead
• The Raconteurs
• Ratatat
• RJD2
• Sigur Rós
• Tapes 'n Tapes
• Thom Yorke
• Titus Andronicus
• To My Boy
• Vampire Weekend
• Various
• The White Stripes
Since the late 1990s expanding into other genres such as freak-folk, alternative rock , hip-hop and UK Garage, XL Records has maintained a TOP three (3) sales place on the US, UK and Canadian record charts.
Good business sense, coupled with increasing online and offline fan base reach has propelled this label to new never before heard of heights.
Surprising what a little work and education will do.
Monday, March 1, 2010
Thursday, February 25, 2010
Thursday, February 18, 2010
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There is a new opportunity available for musicians, artists, producers, radio DJ’s and talk radio announcers. Internet radio, podcasting and video casting are becoming a huge commodity worldwide. International audiences want to know what other countries and artists are creating. They are listening and viewing more and more Internet based programming and recent developments have made the creation of Internet programming even more important.
Within the past few weeks the United States most listen to Internet radio streams have been silenced outside of USA borders. The initial reasoning is that the music royalties being charged for Internet streaming outside of the US is cost prohibitive, I however see another reason. American companies are not interested in buying advertising that is streamed to International audiences who are NOT interested in their products. The United States system is based on ad impressions and non-US ad impressions is simply not warranted. The largest Internet radio streams Pandora, CBS Radio (which includes AOL Radio and Yahoo! Radio), and Clear Channel Radio, all are dependent upon advertisers to pay for bandwidth used for the streams. Thus closing the streams down will save the companies bandwidth plus they maintain their advertiser base. In addition to music based sites, talk radio streams have been silenced also. This is due to the CBS / AOL software platform. It is impossible to separate the talk stations from the music stations so everyone is off.
The best part of this International shutdown is that the market will be looking for alternatives to the BIG 3. The ability to start developing your own shows, creating playlists of independent artists and becoming personalities can once again be accepted by International audiences without the BIG 3 marketing and promoting smaller companies out of the business.
CBS Radio and Clear Channel Radio both have another issue that will be affecting their operations and that is local advertising.
Pandora Radio, the Internet based streaming company that uses advanced logarithms to determine the type of music you program it to play and finds additional music for you to listen to, is now available in automobiles and on cell phones. You can find the Pandora platform on iPhone, Blackberry, Palm Pre, Android and now available on Windows Mobile. With that can of layout it was only inevitable that Pandora created an initiative to target local radio advertisers. Here is where Pandora really attacks CBS Radio and Clear Channel Radio. Pandora has the ability to be genre, cult and community specific and since the listener basically programs their individual station local advertising will be centered around the listeners taste and not that of a national, regional or local sales director.
The possibilities are almost endless and if the Pandora sales force, which I assume will be current or ex radio station sales people or advertising account sales people, understands their local advertiser than sales will increase almost immediately. Surgical targetability in advertising has been promised via Internet for years, now it is physically possible to pinpoint your audience and sell directly to that audience needs.
The advertising and programming business as created by CBS Radio / Clear Channel Radio is now changing and the slowest company to change will be the loser. Now is the time to create your company to develop programming and think of new ways to deliver advertising to this audience.
The future is yours to command.
Tuesday, February 16, 2010
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