Past Memories

In a world where everything is based off of what has worked and what has not, shows that no idea can ever be completely original. It is all about taking on the challenge of what has worked in the past and using it in the present to make it work for the future. No idea should ever be the same, the work should never be done. What worked yesterday will not work today, but parts of it still do work. For example… think of a friendship between a man and a woman (or however you want it). The basic plan was friendship, dating, marriage, kids, grow old and happily ever after. Take that rearrange that different for each person and that is what you have today. It was an idea that somebody has contemplated on how relationships were suppose to work for us, and it worked for centuries.

Now take this music industry and how it is working today. It is a mutated plan on what has worked in the past, no longer do the majors have the pull that they have used to monopolized the industry. The indies have come up from bands managing themselfs to smaller versions of majors with less overhead and more chances at free publicity but at the cost of the battling between thousands of others. At what cost will the music industry take to get back into the original form, or a mutated one with the same results? Do we give up on plans to recreate the original results thanks to everybody’s true love, the internet? Or do we not only change the process, but our expectations and expand the process to include other ways to at least recreate success period?

Do we change success? Like back to the relationship issue. Some woman just want to be mothers, some want independence, and some want to marry rich. Some men just want to be fathers, some want to fly solo with a few stops on their travels, and some want to make it rich just to be able to get close to the models knowing that otherwise they never would have. In music, can success be the music that is heard by millions of people, making a million bucks, or just having a huge crew that live and die by your side?

You live by the past, you die by the past. These industries, no matter which one you are in, you need to take past memories that you have experienced to allow a change. I’ve always said out with the old, in with the new and I was only partially correct. Out with the original blueprints, but in with updated versions. You need to take the past memories to change them into something that is new rather than just follow the old plan.

Yesterday, everybody is on myspace. Today, take it and add the friends and than converse with them.

Yesterday, people started to write blogs. Today, take your blogs and converse with the people who comment to argue your point.

Yesterday, we had a president with another generation of experience. Tomorrow, we need change

Yesterday, we had a business strategy that worked, made people billions. Today, that same plan does not work but people still pimp the old way. Tomorrow we need change

Take your past memories and expand, but never let the memories die

From the mind of

Keveeno Reeverts

A Blanket license to keep warm or spread disease?

There has been talk about a blanket license to cover all music everywhere. So instead of 99 cents a song it would be added to your taxes or possible your internet charges as a way to pay the labels, managers, ISP, and maybe the artists. Now I don’t know anybody like this, but maybe you do. Somebody who just does not like music, they prefer silence over something like soothing jazz like Coltrane, classical music like yo yo ma, conscious hip hop like Talib Kweli, Indie rock like White Light Riot or even nature sounds like the forest and you. I believe other countries are trying out an optional blanket license from what I read here at ars technica.

Now if they are successful we may not know for awhile, but I believe that if we payed a music tax, or something called a Creativity tax we could allow artists to be payed by the government and allow more time to the art of creating music rather than contracts and lawyers. Figure out an algorithm to add the radio plays, restaurant plays, cd sales, internet sales/ plays and pay them to the indie or major labels where they would have a new department where they figure out their percentage of the figures the government gives. Billboards top artists in plays across the board would finally mean something, rather then this artist got 1.6 million downloads with 5 thousand legit downloads. All downloads would be legit, and would all be paid out by the government by the creativity tax. I’m sure they can make it sound better, but technically this would take the majors pull that prevents breakouts of usually better artists.

The downsize is of course the tax part. Like i said before about the people who do not like music, (If you know anybody like this get them help, a psychiatrist or maybe an ear transplant) they may resist the tax. Another maajor downsize would be how much is the right amount? Take a percentage of how much you make or have a standard amount? In the website I mentioned above they have also been trying a 3 strike rule; Where if they catch you downloading illegally 3 times they sue you. This is where it gets difficult and all the benefits get thrown off the 35W bridge. How would you regulate who pays and who doesn’t? There will be people who fight the tax, fight the 3 strikes, fight the man, fight the bull, and even the artists who will fight for the excess of money that they have seen in the past.
The only way to see change is to start over. New plan and new strategy. Possible an overhaul of the whole system, and not just small changes of the body that could lead to ugly results… right Michael Jackson? I don’t have the statistics at hand to get into detail about how much this plan would either keep the artists nice and warm at night, or prevent further growth that could spread like disease. I’m just saying that it would be a great idea and help fight against what the industry part is trying to blame for the fall of music, when in reality it is jsut the fall of excess money in their laps

From the mind of

Keveeno Reeverts

Why Myspace is still essential, and tools to use it still.

**I found this statistics on http://techradar1.wordpress.com/2008/01/11/facebookmyspace-statistics/

Alright so I have a lot of artists who come to me, and ask if they still need myspace. Some come to me and ask if they still need any physical distribution of their music. Personally, I say why not do both, but just like in college have a major/ minor. Figure out which one you will devote 80% of your time/ money, and 20% to the other. Going in 50/50 has gotten a lot of people fucked (excuse the language, but its just the truth). Going 100% in one direction is no good either for your losing revenue from a potential of millions. A potential because it all depends on talents and consumers tastes of style.

Now comes to myspace. This to me seems a little low, but all the statistics are from January 2008. Myspace has over 110 million users around the globe, with an average of 300,000 new people a day. There has been over 14 billion comments, and more than 8 million artists.

How do you stand out with 8 million artists? Easy. Be better than them. Have the 7 second rule for your starting song, if the song just doesn’t catch my interest within 7 seconds I move on. There has been a few successes, but do not use your myspace as a selling tool for your album. You can promote it, but don’t have people buy off myspace, you should link them to your official page. Myspace is really a promotion site for your artists, not generally a selling tool. Every artist I have seen selling off their myspace using snocap or something else doesn’t know of the better tools like Nimbit.com, reverbnation.com, or even amazon.com. Plus why should I be interested in your music if the artists themselfs do not invest the time/ money to put into their art? I mean doing a little research can be great, and you can find so much great stuff  that can be essential to an artists career, but not too many people do that? Why? They think Talent alone can get you a deal and make you money. Wrong! You need sites like myspace/ facebook and other social networking websites to network, and get your music in the ears of listeners.

I mean its been so oversaturated that everytime I get a bands request now on my personal page, I just decline it unless they have a cool name, or their front page looks legit. On my business page, I accept everybody but rarely check their music unless the friend request is followed up with a comment or a message. That shows your interested in every fan you could receive. Mass friend adds is last year, and now you have to add a personality with the message. Anybody can copy and paste and work to make it personal, but what if you search for… let me say a random artist, Jay-Z. Lets say I still hate Jay from the studio beef between him and Nas, so in my favorite artists section I put, “Nas is the best, fuck Jay-z” (excuse the profanity again, that was taken from somebodies profile as is.). Now you do a search of profiles for Jay-Z fans, and my name pops up, and you say Hey, saw your a fan of Jay, I sound similar check me out. I would probably delete and report spam just because your trying to be personal and your not.

So pretty much, use myspace for a marketing tool to promote for your music/ shows and have links to those pages where to purchase the music/ tickets. Merchandise is in the same boat. If you do all of the above and  you still are not getting a piece of those 14 billion comments from your fans now “friends”, than check your style or just the people you send the request to. You do hardcore rock, and you sent a request to some 87 year old man in Virginia whose favorite artist is Willie Nelson and stated in his profile his distaste for Harcore rock. That really is not gonna work out now is it? I mean, you can send it but don’t expect an accept. Be smart with your myspace, and myspace will pay back. Be dumb with your myspace, and your one of the people who still think it doesn’t matter. its just a tool, use it, don’t live it.

From the mind of

Keveeno

The breaking point

I am a avid blog reader of the music industry. Before I even thought I was reading blogs, I was enjoying them. The original blogs are reviews. Thats what blogging is right? A review of a certain point, a product, or even a review of how people dress. Well I loved reading music reviews, editorial reviews in magazines, and even reviews in the comment section of what people thought of that review. All that was what blogging was back in the day. Now its a market, with an industry, with people making a job out of it. I don’t know the exact figures but I’m pretty sure its competitive with newspapers and magazines going out of business. Which brings me to my point, I’m here to review a collection of blogs I’ve read over the past 2 years that have a similar topic, but is missing something. They all say that the record industry is failing miserable with failed attempts to make profit, and they lose 20 some million dollars every year. They are all missing the breaking point.

When a business loses money, they look to find a way to keep their doors open and if they don’t they close the doors. I wonder if people finally realize they can make their own coffee (or cawfee, however you pronounce it), would Starbucks close their doors? They closed 600 of them, but if people stopped giving them money and eating it like off of the Quiznos commercial (or drinking it for my previous example), then what would their breaking point be? Would Starbucks close all of their doors? Or would they finally go back to their roots and make coffee thats actually coffee? Will KFC ever make non genetically mutated chickens if people learned how to genetically mutate chickens them selfs? I mean people already know how to make music them self, how to get it for free, how to burn and bootleg it, and even how to get free promotions from fans. What is this breaking point that will come of this industry? I said it before, I’ll say it again, downsize to Indie labels or do it your self if you want to work business and music which is difficult as hell. Now when I say downsizing I don’t mean that in a bad way, I just mean there are people who do one thing then retire, and they should not be getting more than a quarter of a percent of royalties. Thats why I like Indies, because from what I’ve seen everybody is a family working together. The majors pay a lot of people and here is some stats I got from Coolfer.com, from their Tuesday Business link section, and their other blogs.

“Digital distributor The Orchard reported a loss of $800,000″

“Napster has an accumulated deficit of $199 million.”

Thats just this week on their Q3 earnings. Every week though, they state who was #1 artist this week from billboard, and always compare it to this time last year in sales and it has dropped. At this trend will their be a year it just stops. Nobody buys music anymore, and people just go to shows, but even those have dipped recently with rise of gas and even ticket prices. I can go on about this forever, about how the major industry’s are failing, if their going to collapse, how Indies are increasingly becoming a much better option, how even though Michael Jackson looks like an ugly woman he still does better music than most people, and how this reccession is messing everything up (I won’t get into politics because I get enough of it in life but I’ll just say that every business has a breaking point. Ex, Tower Records and Simon Delivers. What is the Record Business’s Breaking point?

From the mind of Keveeno

WMG mafia tactics

This just in, Warner Music Group wants more money for music video game sales!

Just when things look up with rock bands 12 million sales of tracks, WMG’s chief executive, Edgar Bronfman, states, “The amount being paid to the music industry, even though their games are entirely dependent on the content we own and control, is far too small.”

That all may be true, but isn’t it a little late? They already sold 12 million tracks for the game, do you think that in later games people will be willing to pay a larger price? Price from what I’ve seen is already around $1.99x + $159(special edition). Add a dollar to the equation and chief up there thinks “whats going to be the difference?”

Money drives all industries, and I’m sure the company that owns Rock Band is using the money to expand on their games, which will help push more artists for majors and indies. Just because WMG’s stocks have fallen, Sony BMG is now SMEI, and indies have grown past what was expected, they want to increase their prices to a successful business in mafia like standards. I would think that if Rock band, Guitar Hero, and other games like that helped raise awareness of bands, increase record sales, they would keep the cut they are getting or charge less to get more benefits later on from improved games.

Hey, chief, I guess in that nice business chair that maybe lost a wheel, or that nice fedora hat that let a screw drop out your head, you are getting nervous that a growing trend in the music industry is making more money than you thought, so you want a larger piece of the pie. I’m not going to lie, if I was expecting to make a small pie, and it ended up bigger than I thought, I would want a larger piece too. At least I cooked the pie, and didn’t just take a larger slice when I saw my friends slice may be comparable to mine.

From the mind of

Keveeno

Are majors becoming obsolete?

With the rise of the indies being years in the making, and the fall of the majors being decades in the making, is it time to call majors obsolete yet? The majors still monopolize the billboards, with a few indies breaking into the boards, but sales are down. Top of the lows is what the majors control now, and indies making record sales because of the rise of talent through cheaper recording practices. Who needs that Major deal anyways? Everybody knows its a scam. They pay you money, and your happy. You do a lot of drugs, and now your broke. You think, oh, I’ll just keep making music and I’ll get money. No. You owe the label all the money they gave you that you sniffed away.

Who didn’t see this coming? With the internet age, just about anybody except your grandmother can be posting music online. While your grandmother is still trying to download MP3’s on a typewriter, the next next big indie label is going to step up and possible outsell the majors. Artists are wising up and working with indies since it is more of an incentive deal, you do good you get paid and you don’t… you don’t. Simple. You do better next time. Majors are still on the, you get paid, you do good, they bleed you dry till they find another. You do bad, they drop the artist and they never touch music again unless its on mixtapes, reunion tours, or a reality show.

In Conclusion, majors are not close to being obsolete though since they own TV, Radio, Venues, Stadiums, and you. They have investors, and people who believe it can change, and little do they know record sales are a bubble that started a few decades ago, and when that internet needle came and popped it, indies jumped on life rafts that were significantly smaller but they are making some waves. The last major waves from the majors get smaller everyday, while the indies grow from their small ships. So Indies haven’t taken over yet, they just haven’t hit their bubble yet.

Inspired by HypeBots prank, Major record labels are obsolete

From the mind of

Keveeno