Thought to dwell on for the day. In the age of direct relationships between fans and artists, why aren’t multiple fan-created release covers more common? Let’s say you have some fans and you’re putting out a new ep. Why not go threadless and have fans submit artwork. The top three could be used and you [...]
Lala.com, another music service which sells digital music is changing the game by offering 10 cent tunes. It has the blessing from the major labels and 170,000 indie labels according to Wired magazine. It also claims to offer no advertising according to Cnet. Lala sounds like a pretty good deal, until you hear the last [...]
Came across a new post on TorrentFreak about how newer artists are embracing BitTorrent and using it to spread their music instead of focusing on selling it. It’s a good read, but one of the anonymous comments struck a chord in relation to the fan’s perspective. “To alot of people.. we’re just thieves.. Although copying isnt stealing.. [...]
So I’m having dinner with some cousins who just came into town and the conversation about downloading and piracy comes up. I say I buy music only if I think the artist is worth it (all their songs, if not most of their songs have to be great to me). I don’t buy single songs [...]
With the playing field levelling out, everyone and their Grandma can record a song and have it online. It used to be about trying to win-over the interest and attention of a label, but now it’s about winning the interest and attention from music fans. There’s so much choice, it’s overwhelming. You have to stand out and be recommended by a [...]
Gerd Leonhard, co-author of The Future of Music was recently interviewed by The Downloader. If you haven’t heard of Gerd, you probably haven’t kept up with what’s going on with the digital world of music. No worries, you can start now. I’ll let you read the interview yourself, but two of the most important things [...]
Song BMG is no more. The 4 year partnership/merger ended when Sony recently bought out BMG’s interest in the company for….. $1.2 Billion. With declining recorded music sales, you would think it’s a dumb move. However, SONY is also acquiring the publishing companies, from which they can tap into for advertising campaigns (Playstation anyone??). Not only [...]
image credits: www.drownedmadonna.com/ So you may have heard of this Katy Perry girl who’s being talked up because of her catchy single, “I kissed a girl”. Apparently Perez got the buzz going on her and now she’s popping up everywhere. Good for her….. but let’s talk about the point of this post. Industry Analyst extrordinaire, [...]
Our most entertaining music industry analyst, Bob Lefsetz, recently made a post on his infamous blog regarding sacrifice and entitlement. He is a bit harsh, but that’s Lefsetz’ personality. He tells it how he sees it regardless of what anyone thinks. His point is resonating clear. Just because you play an instrument and can put [...]
Rewriting, Reflecting, and Releasing
As we gear up to release The New Rockstar Philosophy Book, it made me reflect on how many times we re-wrote the book. We thought we’d have it done months ago. It’s not as easy we thought. People need to be able to read the book and make sense of it. You can’t just write [...]