Category Archives: A to Z of Making It

A to Z of Making It, Music, My Stories, Piracy, Stupidity

All Things Music And Metal

The RIAA record label industry body a few weeks made an announcement about how are losing billions of dollars because of streaming and that Vinyl sales generate more revenue. The announcement then led to headlines across all of the news outlets.

The New York Post had the headline “Artists make more off vinyl sales than streaming services”.

Billboard had the headline “Vinyl Sales Made More Than YouTube, Spotify and Soundcloud Ads Combined”.

The Australian Financial Review had the headline “Some artists blame music streamers for shrinking the business”.

Fortune magazine had the headline “Record Industry Continues its War on Free Music”.

Mashable had the headline “Music streaming is getting bigger and bigger, but artist revenue isn’t keeping up”.

It’s safe to say that the RIAA got what they wanted with their report.

“This is why we, and so many of our music community brethren, feel that some technology giants have been enriching themselves at the expense of the people who actually create the music.”
Cary Sherman, Chairman & CEO of the RIAA.

“Last year, 17 million vinyl albums, a legacy format enjoying a bit of a resurgence, generated more revenues than billions and billions of on-demand free streams: $416 million compared to $385 million for on-demand free streams.”
Cary Sherman, Chairman & CEO of the RIAA.

 

This is the RIAA being as dishonest as you can get.

They are basically comparing gross retail vinyl sales against the net streaming revenue amount earned. In truth the net vinyl revenue is a lot lower than the gross $416 million quoted. And the $385 streaming revenue was $0 before 2011 due to copyright infringement/piracy.

As an article at Fortune.com states;

“Sherman is saying that because ad-supported services—or in fact, any alternative music-distribution method—don’t pay as much as some other music services, they must be flawed and/or stealing from musicians and record labels. In other words, the music industry’s largest negotiating body assumes that any new distribution method or infrastructure for delivering music to consumers must by default generate as much revenue as the industry used to get from records or CDs. And if it doesn’t, that means there is a structural error in the business that the RIAA needs to fix.”

And streaming companies like Spotify have a battle being profitable.

Remember that the streaming services pay the record labels a licence fee to have the music the record labels hold copyrights too on the service. These monies are never passed onto the artist. Hell, Spotify doesn’t even have long-term license contracts with Universal and Warner Music. These labels are cashing in on licensing deals on a month to month basis.

Then based on listens, the streaming services pay 70% of their streaming revenue to the record labels and publishers and based on the contracts the artists and songwriters have with their labels/publisher, these monies are paid back to the creators in cents. Meanwhile, the record labels are rolling in billions of dollars from streaming.

Maybe that’s why Spotify needed to get a billion dollars from investors.

The money will be needed for further expansions, acquisitions of tech companies and other investments. In my opinion, for Spotify to survive long-term they need to get into the record label business themselves sort of like how Netflix is creating its own content and using that content to sell their service. That is why HBO went from licensing movies from the studios (which wasn’t profitable) to creating their own content. And now look at the company.

There is no way around it for Spotify. They are under increasing pressure to remove their free tier and the latest research from the RIAA (mentioned above) is being used as evidence to build a case against ad-supported free music.

And poor old Google is always the punching bag when it comes to the RIAA.

If Google isn’t taking flak for not censoring the internet based on what the RIAA or the MPAA see as wrong, then their YouTube service is attacked for not paying enough.

So what we have is a coalition of artists and music groups asking for the lawmakers to write new laws to support their business models. Just think of it as another Lars Ulrich/RIAA vs Napster battle. And how did that turn out.

As the article at Techtimes states every law is open to abuse and while the DMCA was never intended for censorship, it is being used exactly as that:

“Over the past few years, however, the DMCA has been a cause of controversy. On one end, holders of rights to content are saying that the law does not do enough to protect content creators, while on the other end, there are warnings of abuse and censorship if the law is further tightened.”

And speaking of Lars Ulrich, in case you have lived under a rock, “Master of Puppets” from Metallica has been added to the National Recording Registry in the US as a cultural, artistic or historical significant recording.

Basically anyone can nominate a recording to be considered via sending an email to recregistry@loc.gov.

Once the nomination is sent, the lobbying starts.

Don’t get me wrong, “Master of Puppets” is a great album (although I do prefer “Ride The Lightning”), but is it really a defining cultural, artistic or historical significant recording. Although Metallica is seen as leaders of the thrash metal movement, the truth of the matter is that the movement is much bigger than one band.

I would even say that the “Metal Massacre” compilation that featured Metallica (spelt incorrectly as Mettallica mind you) is more culturally significant than “Master of Puppets”. But hey, Brian Slagel, founder of Metal Blade Records, is nowhere near as important as the biggest band. Because all history is written by the winners, the ones that have the most money.

And for Metallica albums, you cannot escape the “Black” album.

That one album killed off glam rock/metal, introduced a new heaviness to the mainstream that opened the door for bands like Korn, NIN, Disturbed, Godsmack and many others to exploit in the Nineties to great success.

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A to Z of Making It, Music, My Stories

Where Should An Artist Be?

Megadeth’s “Dystopia” has 1,529,342 streams on Spotify. On YouTube, the audio clip has 1 million views and the video clip has 722K.

“Symphony Of Destruction” has 14,728,297 streams on Spotify. On YouTube there are a few fan created uploads that have around 4 million views, proving, once again, that fan uploads are good for the artist. They get paid from these videos as well. And the cumulative number on YouTube is close to the streams on Spotify, but it’s fragmented and quality varies.

“Hate By Design” from Killswitch Engage has 1,375,919 streams on Spotify. On YouTube 1,386,177 views.

Meanwhile, “My Curse” uploaded back in November 2006 has 14,730,324 views on YouTube and on Spotify it has 21,940,706 streams. Remember that Spotify launched in the US in July 2011 and it was first launched in September 2008. So on a service that has been operating for a shorter period and even shorter in the main US music market, it has racked up more streams.

This is telling me that once the promotion marketing run of a new song for Killswitch is over, the fans of the band gravitate to Spotify to consume their catalogue.

Now let’s go to Dream Theater’s “The Gift Of Music”. It’s got 938,792 streams on Spotify. On YouTube, the Official Video clip has 595,906 views and the Official Audio clip has 1,249,834 views.

However, an older song like “Pull Me Under” has 5,543,276 streams on Spotify and on YouTube, the official video has 4,193,933 views, the “Live At Luna Park” has 2,449,343 views and a fan upload has 1,591,017 views.

Dream Theater is a band with a small but highly profitable hard-core fan base that purchase the music of the band in CD, Vinyl or MP3 format. So the streaming stats of Dream Theater would always be lower than others because of that ownership perspective.

Bullet For My Valentine new single, “You Want A Battle” has 8,698,284 streams on Spotify and an older song like “Your Betrayel” has 21,322,709 streams on Spotify.

Meanwhile on YouTube, “You Want A Battle” has 4,166,841 views on the VEVO video clip and 1,009,159 views on the VEVO audio clip. “Your Betrayal” on the other hand has 30,619,555 views on the VEVO video clip.

Trivium’s new single “Until The World Goes Cold” has 5,249,262 streams on Spotify and the title track of the album has 3,055,965 streams. Meanwhile on YouTube, “Until The World Goes Cold” has 4,311,064 views on the VEVO video clip and “Silence In The Snow: has 3,533,303 views on the VEVO video clip.

Five Finger Death Punch’s new single “Wash It All Away” has 8,796,100 streams on Spotify. The lead off single from the new album “Jekyll and Hyde” has 19,147,912 streams and an older song like “Far From Home” has 24,575,975 streams.

Meanwhile on YouTube, “Wash It All Away” has 10,711,212 views on the VEVO video, “Jekyll and Hyde” has 17,718,384 views on the VEVO video and “Far From Home” doesn’t even rate a mention apart from some fan uploaded clips.

It just goes to show the artist and their label how the fans can take a song and make it as big as a single. All by listening.

One track that is killing it on YouTube is the clip to “The Wrong Side Of Heaven” which has 66,552,910 views.

Shinedown’s “Cut The Cord” has 9,251,338 streams on Spotify and their big hit “Second Chance” has 32,160,803 streams. Meanwhile on YouTube, “Second Chance” has 12,967,621 views on the video clip and “Cut The Cord” has 13,346,588 views.

So…

For an artist, you have no idea how your fans like to listen to music. You might want them to purchase a CD, but the truth is, each fan is different and you need to cater for it. The beauty of Spotify and YouTube is that songs that are not singles become as big as singles based on the listening patterns of the fans. Artists should take note of what the fans like.

And metal and rock fans are still loyal enough to purchase music when they like it but the days of purchasing blindly are over. I’ve streamed the new Killswitch Engage album to death. Eventually I will purchase it to add to my collection. but there is a higher chance that I would purchase a concert ticket first before I purchase the album. That’s just the way it is.

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A to Z of Making It, Music, My Stories, Unsung Heroes

Michael Schenker

The Eighties was very different from today. All the energy came from MTV. Once MTV broke you to the masses, radio then took over and promoted you. The labels priority shifted. A&R and allowing an artist to build a fan base was gone. In its place came the search for that elusive hit.

We all knew who Michael Schenker was from his time in UFO and Scorpions, but none of us could name his MSG tunes correctly.

Because we didn’t own the albums. He wasn’t on MTV and there was no Spotify, no YouTube, no BitTorrent, no internet where we could go and look up his MSG output. Radio in Australia never played MSG. So basically if you didn’t own his albums or know someone who did, it’s like he didn’t even exist. But he was all over the guitar magazines. That is how I came across him.

Was his coverage based on his past glories with UFO more than his MSG career. Or was it due to the emergence of shredders in the Eighties who credited Michael Schenker as an influence.

The first album came out in 1980 and it stiffs in the major U.S market. Japan is another story for Schenker where his popularity has remained high.

The second album came out in 1981 and it did nothing as well. Something had to change. Someone had to be blamed. So original singer Gary Barden was fired in 1982. Graham Bonnet fresh from his stint in Rainbow was hired. Album number 3 came out the same year (along with the Live at The Budokan album) and again, it did nothing. Bonnet was fired and Barden was back in for the tour. Album number 4 came out in 1983 and a live album followed in 1984. Again nothing. Barden departed again.

So Michael Schenker changed direction. He pushed aside his unique fusion of blues/rock combined with European classical music that morphed into Euro Metal and embraced the commercial hard rock sound that MTV was promoting. “Perfect Timing” was released in 1987 by the McAuley Schenker Group. It was three years in development and it cost a lot of money. Andy Johns (an expensive producer) was on hand to produce. That appointment cost money. Even more money was spent on the marketing, the MTV video clips and the glammed up look.

And suddenly Michael Schenker wasn’t what he was presented as originally. Rather than the blues rock euro metal slinger, he was just another faceless guitarist playing mediocre riffs and solos to suit a video format all in the search of that crossover hit, that one song that could turn a mediocre album into a Platinum seller. After three albums, Schenker and McAuley parted company.

And when Michael Schenker returned to who he was, his own style, very few people noticed. There was enough interested to keep him on the road, but not enough to bring him back to prominence.

Schenker is a musician, unlike so many of today’s stars. He really could play the guitar, he did have roots and he did have a style. He inspired a whole school of 80’s guitarists. And like the classic bluesmen who preceded him, Schenker had his ups and downs. But he stuck with it. He delivered for those who cared. Even though he is too often overlooked, he is still working.

The truth is every career is unique and Michael Schenker is a product of the records era. A soldier in the rock and roll army when only the best and the brightest were signed up.

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A to Z of Making It, Music, Unsung Heroes

Stevie Wright

“I’m self-destructive if left to my own devices.”
STEVIE WRIGHT

Stevie Wright passed away on December 27, 2015. He’s not as big as David Bowie, or legendary like Lemmy or a pop culture icon like Glenn Frey. But he is important to Australia and the music scene within Australia.

And he his life is one of those stories you need to tell.

Stevie was born in England and came to Australia when he was nine. He became the lead singer in a band called “The Easybeats” in 1964. The band had George Young (another migrant to Australia from Scotland, who is also the older brother of Malcolm and Angus Young) on guitar and Harry Vanda (another migrant to Australia from Holland) also on guitar.

The Easybeats were signed to Albert Music. Anyone who is Australian is aware of Albert’s contribution to finding the “Australian sound” in the Sixties and in the Seventies. The Easybeats were the first big act from Alberts paving the way for other artists like Billy Thorpe, AC/DC, Rose Tattoo, The Angels and The Choirboys.

“She’s So Fine” was an early hit for “The Easybeats” from the first album “Easy” released in 1965. Stevie Wright co-write it with George Young.

The intro riff from George Young grabs you straight away. It’s just a few chords (that Nikki Sixx used for “Kick Start My Heart” in the verses), but the break in between the chrods for the singing is genius. That is what AC/DC built their career on.

“Sorry” is another riff heavy song for the era. The beauty of the Australian sound is an amalgamation of US Pop and Rock Music, US Delta Blues and UK Rock, Blues and Pop. “Funny Feelin’” and “You Said That” fall into the amalgamation of US and UK sounds.

When The Easybeats first went to the UK, their label United Artists told the guys that they will not be releasing any of the early songs as they didn’t feel that the lyrics were good enough. All of those lyrics were written by Stevie Wright and from that point on, he never wrote another lyric for The Easybeats.

And of course, the big international song from The Easybeats, is “Friday on My Mind” written by Vanda And Young. Everyone knows it, and a lot of artists have covered it. Gary Moore even had a hit with it in the Eighties. It was actually Gary Moore’s version that made me do some research into the song. Bon Scott admitted in the late Seventies that “The Easybeats” were the last rock band that he liked and that AC/DC is taking over where they left off.

But it’s hard to follow-up a hit song and by 1969, The Easybeats had broken up. Vanda and Young returned to England and started their song writing/production career in an attempt to pay off the debts they had accumulated in the UK during the last two years of The Easybeats existence. Stevie stayed in Australia and tried to form other bands, but it didn’t work. He had to start over again, but he wanted the adulation he had with The Easybeats. By 1971, Wright found himself without a job, a home or any real inspiration.

Fast forward to 1972, Stevie Wright is cast in the Australian stage production of Jesus Christ Superstar and introduced to more rock and roll excesses, this time, heroin. Drugs were the norm. A lot of bios I have read mentioned that most musicians turned to drugs because they just didn’t know how to deal with fame. They’d go on stage, play to the audience, experience the high and then they had the endless travel and the comedown from the gig. Drugs and the party lifestyle filled in the gaps between shows.

“It was fabulous piano playing that was out of this world. And I couldn’t believe it. And I said, ‘What’s with him?’ And somebody said (whispering) ‘He’s on heroin’. So that’s it, I got into it and it made me violently ill. My illness lasted for nearly three days. And I still got up and thought ‘I’ll have another go at this’, you know, ‘I’ll win, I’ll beat it’. And by the time I’d beaten it, it had me.”
STEVIE WRIGHT

It was “Superstar” that re-established Stevie Wright in the eyes of the public. Fast forward towards the end of 1973 and Wright was signed with Albert Productions. Ted Albert invited Wright to listen to some songs and the Harry Vanda and George Young penned “ Hard Road” that told the story of a teenager leaving home to follow his dream of being a rock and roll star stood out immediately.

In April 1974, he released his debut solo LP, “Hard Road”, which featured the Harry Vanda and George Young 11 minute penned single “Evie (Parts 1, 2 & 3)”. The song became a hit. And what a song it is.

The three-part movement covers so many different musical styles, it became impossible to not like. Part 1 is all Blues/Rock. Part 2 is ballad folk rock. Part 3 is Soul/Funk/R&B. Brilliant.

Lyrically, the three parts tell the following story;

Part 1: Evie (Let Your Hair Hang Down) captures the initial courting phase of a relationship
Part 2: Evie: describing a wonderful life together
Part 3: Evie (I’m Losing You): the emotional loss during childbirth

No one forecasted or predicted the response “Evie” got. It remained at number 1 in the charts for half a year.

But the album did have some other nasty rock cuts and “Hard Road” is one such song that deserves some attention. If you want to compare it to something, it is basically an AC/DC song that AC/DC didn’t write. The song also features Malcolm Young on guitar.

Well my Mum and Pop they told me boy you know you’re just a fool yes they did.
When I told them I was leaving home and I was leaving school, yes I was.
So in a couple of hours I found myself heading’ down a south-bound road.
With everything I own upon my back, I carry such a heavy load.

Ooow, well it’s a hard, long road that I travel.
Yeah, it’s a hard, hard road that I travel.

Kids today don’t understand that once upon a time in order to pursue your rock and roll dreams you needed to pack up and leave the comfort of your home.

“Movin’ On Up” and “Commando Line” are both written by Stevie Wright and even though the songs pale compared to “Evie”, they are important as it showed that Stevie Wright can still write songs.

The personnel on the album is a supergroup of musicians. Stevie Wright (The Easybeats) is on vocals, George Young (The Easybeats) is on bass, Harry Vanda (The Easybeats) and Malcolm Young (AC/DC) are on guitar, John Proud (contributed uncredited drums to AC/DC’s “High Voltage” album) is on drums and Warren Morgan (Chain, Sherbet, Billy Thorpe, etc) is on piano. And you can hear the power that this supergroup produces on the recording.

But the star of the album was and still is, the full 11 minutes of “Evie”.

Another Vanda & Young produced LP, “Black-eyed Bruiser”, followed in 1975, but it failed to do anything, which is a shame because “Black-Eyed Bruiser” is one helluva of a song. Of course it’s also written by Harry Vanda and George Young.

The riff to “Black-Eyed Bruiser” is a recycled version of “You Really Got Me” from The Kinks. Vocally, Stevie Wright is basically Bon Scott.

“You” is another classic song, in the vein of “Knockin On Heaven’s Door” with a big “Hey Jude” ending written by Vanda and Young. How can you not love the ending, when the female gospel choir takes over with “All I Want Is You”.

Atlantic Records in the U.S had a plan worked out to market Stevie Wright, but that monkey on Stevie’s back was not letting go. He overdosed and he made some attempts to get clean. A visit to Chelmsford Hospital would affect him forever. Chelmsford was notorious for a treatment known as deep sleep therapy, which led to the deaths of patients during treatment and many more killed themselves within a year after treatment. Stevie had fourteen electric shock treatments and his mental health suffered further. The psychiatrist, Harry Bailey, committed suicide when his therapy was exposed as a fraud.

There was the Concert of the Decade on the steps of the Sydney Opera House in 1979 and a reunion of The Easybeats in 1986. In between it was all craziness. Addictions merged with crazy people. There was a time when Stevie lived with an underworld drug lord/murderer. He became an alcoholic. He was caught by the police attempting a robbery. He had drug charges against him when he was caught. He was in a nursing home close to two years, stamped to never come out.

But he did get out, because that is what Stevie Wright does. He gets knocked down and he gets back up again. A tablet prescribed from a neurologist got him back to reality. It’s worth noting, there is no Stevie Wright story from the 80’s onwards without Fay Walker, the woman who stuck by him all the way to the end.

But there is no denying, that his Easybeats friends, Vanda and Young went on to become rock and roll royalty in Australia and honoured by the industry while Stevie’s fortunes, hit rock bottom. But without Stevie Wright, there would be no Easybeats and the Australian Rock Sound.

Rest in peace, your hard road has come to an end. And thanks for the memories and those emotive performances.

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A to Z of Making It, Music, My Stories

Lifers and Record Labels

Once upon a time, the record labels searched for talent. Known as the self-appointed gatekeepers of culture; if they believed you were good enough, they would sign you and market you. They would give you money to go away and write songs. Some of those songs would end up on album, some as b-sides, some would be given to other artists and some songs would just remain as demo’s.

What the labels failed to tell the artists, is that the label would own all of those songs and the money the artist received as an “advance” would need to be repaid back to the artist.

Today, the labels are a very different beast. All they want is something they can sell. And they do that by copying what is successful.

So what we have is a plethora of acts that all sound the same.

Sound familiar.

Of course it does. Go back to the Eighties.

In 1983, Motley Crue broke out and suddenly the labels signed bands that looked and sounded like Motley Crue.

Quiet Riot, Ratt, WASP, Kix, Krokus and Mamas Boys are a few bands that benefited from Motley Crue breaking out of the L.A Sunset Strip scene. The labels even made bands that didn’t look like Motley Crue, look like Motley Crue. Accept, Fastway, Helix, Saxon, Kiss, Tygers of Pan Tang and Dokken are a few bands that had a “look and feel change” to their wardrobes.

Then Bon Jovi breaks out towards the end of 1986 with “Slippery When Wet” and suddenly we have the labels signing bands that look and sound like Bon Jovi. Plus they also make bands that didn’t sound like Jovi, create albums that sound like Jovi. Kiss delivering “Crazy Nights” is a perfect example of a pre-existing band delivering a Bon Jovi sounding album.

Then two years later, Guns N Roses breaks out and suddenly we have the labels signing bands that look and sound like Guns N Roses. Roxx Gang, Skin N Bones, Bullet Boys, Plus they also make bands that didn’t sound like Guns N Roses, create albums that sounded similar.

Thrash metal as a moment broke out by 1985 and suddenly we had a plethora of labels signing bands to write thrash music. Then Metallica breaks out commercially with the Black album in 1991. This time the labels didn’t sign any new acts, but all of the trash bands on labels were asked to deliver albums that sounded like the Black album.

Then Nirvana breaks out and brings the sounds of Seattle to the masses. So what do the labels do? They drop nearly every hard rock/metal act and go and sign acts that play the Seattle sound. They even get existing bands to look like Seattle. I remember Megadeth wearing flannel shirts in 1994. Same deal for Motley Crue with Corabi on vocals. Metallica went even more Gothic/Surrealism/Industrial  like with their look in 1995.

See a trend happening here.

The labels didn’t give a shit about the artists. Once the artist stopped selling, the A&R reps stopped calling.

So what do we have in 2016?

It’s all about the money. The label is only interested if you can generate dollars, right off the bat because in the past, all of the money was in the recordings. But the artist also wants to be paid as soon as they put up a song or an album for release. What happened to the saying “It’s all about the music”?

Sure, money is important, but in reality (and between the Seventies and the late Nineties), only 1% of acts who crossed over, got paid some serious dough. The others got advances, which they had to pay back from sales. This in turn led to a lot of artists classed as unrecouped. And while in the past, the money was in the recordings, today the money is in the touring and all the rest that comes with it.

But the money tree is changing. There will be more money from recordings again as streaming gets more market share and revenue rises. The labels are making more money now than they’ve ever been.

While a lot has changed, one thing that hasn’t changed is that good records still sell and remain in the charts and in the public conversation for a long time. While in the past, MTV made bands into Platinum stars and built their careers overnight, today’s quest for stardom is more in line with that of the Seventies era, which was run by rock bands.

And what did the rock bands do?

They wrote music, played shows from city to city. TV was irrelevant for success in the Seventies and it’s irrelevant again in 2016. The only time TV sold music was during the Eighties and Nineties when MTV led culture.

In the Seventies, you built up your career, from band to band, city to city, cover band to cover band and whatever else you could do that put you in front of a live audience. Today you build up a career online, from YouTube video to YouTube video, from Facebook post to Facebook post and whatever else you need to do to get your name in front of people.

We’re never going back to the past. To participate in the present, it’s all about earning and maintaining attention. Financial rewards come many years after, but you need to be around to capitalise on it, building that ongoing relationship with your audience.

Which means you need to be a lifer in music.

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A to Z of Making It, Copyright, Music, My Stories, Piracy, Stupidity

The Past Is Done. The Future Is Here.

The Internet age.

Where everything is thrown against a wall and whatever sticks, ends up lasting forever.

In other words, first week sale numbers don’t mean a thing. The scorched earth publicity and marketing push by the label for an album release don’t mean a thing.

If any artist is focusing on the here and now, its contra to the way  the music business works in the connected Internet era. We’re (the fans) are only concerned with what lasts.

But the media tries to sell it so that everybody who is involved in music deserves to be rich from music. But how many are willing to do the work, especially when nobody’s paying attention to them.

Being in music isn’t about the highs or lows, winning and losing. It’s about surviving.

Here is a little secret.

The ones that end up winning in the future are creating their catalogues away from the radar, in stealth mode.

And it’s not easy.

Every musician is competing against the means of production. The costs to create content are low and we (the people) are overwhelmed.

What do we read, what do we watch and what do we listen to?

Everybody’s got a book to read, a documentary to watch, a track to listen to and no one’s got time to do it all. The last four years of my Guitar World subscription are still in the plastic wrappers the magazines came in.

Unopened. As a subscriber since 1986, I thought I would keep it going until this year is over. So January 2017 is my last issue.

The last time I read the magazine, it sounded like the article was written by the PR company instead of the actual journalist. There was no guts to the story and there was no in-depth analysis. Nothing at all. Gone are the days when Wolf Marshall used to go In Deep into players styles and so forth.

But the press over the last fifteen years believes it must promote everything and is rarely critical. And the press is missing the point how we are in the midst of a revolution, living in an era of chaos that will not last forever. But no one is reporting it. It’s all about piracy, copyright trolls, Spotify royalties or something so far removed from the real issue.

Fewer people will be successful from now on than before, despite everyone being able to create. We are going to have just superstars and niches.

And for all of those rock bands and metal bands, guess what, it’s still about the one song that hooks people in. But not all people. The entire world doesn’t live and breathe music. Remember that in your quest for global dominance.

And one last thing.

Spotify is not the problem, YouTube is. YouTube has more visitors and pays less. At least on Spotify you get the whole album along with the “song” that draws people in. Notice on YouTube it’s never the whole album. Yeah I know that some user accounts on YouTube have the whole album up but you need to look for them, go deep. So if you are in the album game, then you want your fans going to Spotify. But not a lot of artists are willing to say that.

But the album is fading. Yeah I know it makes great profits, but a 70 minute album with two good songs is a bad fit for today’s listeners. We don’t have time to listen to an album twenty times to get it. That’s what we did when we had no cash and could only afford one disc. But that was in the past. You don’t see the telegram and analog mobiles coming back.

The past is done. The future is here.

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A to Z of Making It, Music, My Stories, Piracy, Unsung Heroes

RIAA Certifications

There is just so much hoopla about certification these days. The usual media outlets are reporting how difficult it is for artists to achieve a certification due to piracy/copyright infringement. And if the artist is on a major label, the yelling is even louder. And when artists do get a platinum certification these days, it is reported by everyone.

Of course, the certification process once upon a time was based on SALES and sales only. It took into account the people owned the music they purchased and really liked it. The fact that people might not have listened to the music over and over again, didn’t matter.

However, as streaming services have shown due to piracy/copyright infringement, people also like to have access to music instead of owing music. So what we have is the following situation;

  • Ownership of music -> registers a sale, which counts for certifications and generates a lot more money for the artist and the label then streaming services do.
  • Access to music -> registers a sale by following a formula. 1,500 streams equals 10 tracks which equals one album purchase. The one album purchase counts for certifications and the streaming equivalent of sale doesn’t generate as much income for the artist and label then the sale of a mp3 or a CD or vinyl does.

Five Finger Death Punch has a PLATINUM certification from the RIAA. Seven years after the album was released.
FFDP_Platinum_Cert

For a band that plays to a niche audience this is exceptional and proof that metal and rock fans are avid music consumers. The viewpoint from the past always was “if your album goes Platinum, it means the public has accepted it” and when others see the love that people are giving the album, more people are going to go and check it out.

Music is and always will be about longevity.

Will people still be interested in the music, many years after it was released?

Apart from selling a decent amount of product, Five Finger Death Punch are also one of the bands with decent streaming numbers. This tells me that people are listening to them on a consistent basis.

“Fantasy” from Aldo Nova went Gold within the same year it was released in 1982. But it wasn’t until 1989 (seven years later) that it was certified platinum and by 1994 (12 years from when the song was released and 5 years from its Platinum certification) it was certified double platinum.

If you apply that formula to FFDP, then “War Is The Answer” should be certified double platinum by 2021. Is this such a bad thing? According to the ones that want to be paid straight away it is.

For a lot of bands, a loyal fan base is monetized to maximum effect.

Dream Theater and Machine Head are two bands that have a small (compared to other bands) but high net worth fan base. Dream Theater only has a Gold Certification (they have other DVD/Video certifications), that came three years after “Images And Words” was released. This sole certification hasn’t stopped Dream Theater from having a career.

BB_Gold_Cert

Another band, Breaking Benjamin is also the same as Dream Theater and Machine Head. Breaking Benjamin also received a Gold Certification last year for an album they released back in 2002. Yep that’s right people, an album released 13 years ago is still in the public conversation. But what Breaking Benjamin has going that the other bands don’t is the singles. Their singles are pushing on double and triple platinum certifications.

Remember what I mentioned earlier. Music is about longevity and will people still be interested in the music, many years after it was released. But to the ones that want to be paid straight away, this is a problem.

Volbet_CertVolbeat is one of those unsung heroes here.

A hard-working band, that tours like crazy, building their audience, city by city, state by state, country by country.

Known in Europe, it wasn’t until Metallica put them as openers in the U.S Death Magnetic trek that Volbeat started to get traction in the U.S.

And then their albums started selling.

And then they went out on their own, and the shows kept on selling out.

Certifications are nice to have.

But they are not the be all and end all to have a career in music.

Longevity and people listening is the key.

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A to Z of Making It, Classic Songs to Be Discovered, Influenced, Music, My Stories, Unsung Heroes

Warsong

When any artist starts off in music, their vision is all about the music. Focusing on the music is the be all and end all. Then they start to gain some fans. And they like it.

They want more.

They are frustrated that they can’t reach more. But they plug away and eventually they get a record deal. They release an album and it doesn’t set the world on fire. Even back in the 80’s the music market was overrun with choices. But then bands started to have “hits”. Blame MTV.

So how do they have another hit?

In the case of Alice Cooper and Aerosmith, they realised, for their careers in the 80’s to be revitalised they had to work with songwriters of quality, like Desmond Child, Jim Vallance and Diane Warren. There was a pretty good chance that if those three songwriters were involved, the song would be a “hit”. But what happens if you turn down a chance to work with those songwriters or never even considered it. Furthermore, what happens to a band when those songwriters didn’t meet the angst coming from Seattle?

Call Seattle and Grunge what you want. What is clear is the Seattle angst was all around the world. But in 1992, it was the sounds of Seattle that brought it to the masses and into the mainstream. And to be honest, hard rock, glam rock, whatever rock you want to call it, got a bad rap, since Grunge came out, but it kept on percolating and eventually it came back.

It’s hard to follow-up success.

After “Big Game” failed in the eyes of the label (500,000 in sales was seen as a failure as “Pride” sold 2 million before), White Lion went away and spent a long time and a lot of money, building the beast that would become the “Mane Attraction” album.

By the time “Mane Attraction” came out in 1992, it was way too late in the eyes of the rock public, even though the album had some genius tracks and a few bona-fide hits.

While the label tried to sell the album with “Love Don’t Come Easy” and “Broken Heart”, they ignored the deep, insightful stuff that fleshed out the rest of the album, like “Warsong”.

“Warsong” is one of those songs that is cult like. Like “Lady of The Valley” before it. Story songs, that pull you in. And in most cases, it was the album cuts that made you a fan. The hits would draw you in, but it’s the album cuts that we bond with.

After the helicopter sounds, the double kick comes in. For 10 seconds it’s just the rolling thunder of the double kick and then Vito kicks in with a stop start riff.

I got the call one summer night
He said you’re on tomorrow’s flight
My mother cried my sister too
My father said I’m proud of you

If I have a gripe about White Lion on occasions, it’s due to the lyrics of Mike Tramp. Now, why would a person who has been in music since his teens, say that he got the call to go to war. And the way the song transitions from the I, to the WE and then to a young man who returns from war is silly. Is the song about the I (self), the WE (the populace) or a third person story about a young man returning from war. Basically, Tramp’s lyrics are all over the shop.

What are we fighting for
When the price we pay is endless war
What are we fighting for
When all we need is peace

The chorus is strong. Dave Mustaine sings “The quickest way to end a war is lose” in “Dystopia” and in a way it is true, because the actual people on the ground, don’t really want to be there.

Man that shred lead break from 2.30 is chock full of Vito’s style. I love the way it ultimately transitions at 3.09 to a ballad.

And that lead break at 3.50.

Wow.

If someone tells you they are not moved by it, they are lying.

A young man returns from war
Where he didn’t know
What he was fighting for
The streets remained the same
But people’d changed
The medals on his chest
Didn¹t mean a thing

This is the part that talks about a young man coming home from war. With music like this, you need better lyrics to hammer the message home.

And then the music starts to accelerate at the four and a half-minute mark back to the rocker it was.

Warsong is one of those songs that would never have been a hit, but a classic it deserves to be.

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A to Z of Making It, Music, My Stories, Unsung Heroes

Change Is Slow But Evolving

In Australia, an unsigned band, charted very high, purely on digital sales and streams.

There was no marketing budget and they trumped artists on major deals.

And yes, they did move physical product, however the game is rigged by the big legacy players who set rules in place a long time ago to control the game. In turn, those rules meant that the online store of the unsigned band (which is Polaris by the way) that was selling the CD with no bar code meant that the physical sales couldn’t be tracked and therefore didn’t count towards their chart position. Talk about a technicality.

So what does this tell us?

  • There is so much more power in the hands of the fans than ever before.
  • If fans listen to their favourite artist via a streaming service, it all adds up.
  • If fans purchase their mp3’s via a digital service, it all adds up.
  • The media can publish reports about artists slamming streaming services. Meanwhile the fans move on to what is convenient. Some will purchase, some will download illegally, some will stream for free and some will stream on a premium subscription. The bottom line is fragmentation.
  • There is no difference between an EP and a full album anymore. As an artist you don’t want to be out of the market for too long, crafting this magnum opus, only to see it drop out of the conversation, weeks after its release. 10 songs every two years, doesn’t cut it anymore. Four songs every 3 months should be the new norm. All of the Classic Rock bands from Seventies, released an album each year and in some cases two albums.
  • There is a connection with their fans. The band distributed the album out of their bedrooms and sent out each pre-order with hand written messages to the fans.
  • If Polaris, keep this momentum going and if they keep on replenishing their fan base, the possibilities are endless.
  • There is no sure thing in music. Just because you have a label deal, it doesn’t mean you will make it. Just because you are an independent artist and unsigned it doesn’t mean you will get a deal or even get noticed.
  • Everyone involved in the recording industry are still clueless. The labels still have no idea what constitutes a hit or what they should sign and promote. No one saw Adele coming six years ago, or Five Finger Death Punch almost ten years ago. No one expected Mumford and Sons to move millions upon millions of product or Shinedown and Thirty Seconds To Mars to be consistent sellers.

See how the media is trumpeting Adele again and how she has sold 8 million albums in the U.S. Every news outlet is reporting.

Big deal.

Whitesnake sold 7 million plus on the U.S on their 1987 self-titled album. It doesn’t mean those same 7 million people are now listening to the album over and over and over again. Poison sold millions upon millions of albums between 1987 and 1994. It doesn’t mean they have millions upon millions of real fans. If they did, they would be playing arena’s and creating new music. Instead Poison is resigned to an opening act that plays the jukebox hits.

Some might say that the success of “Polaris” is a one-off. Back in August, another metalcore band from Australia called, “Northlane” actually topped the ARIA Album charts, beating out Lamb Of God among others. This band was signed to an independent label from Melbourne and Rise Records in the US.

But in saying that, how relevant are the charts these days.

In most cases, bands that chart in the Australia Top 10 have moved less than 10,000 in product.  It’s because the old guard still focuses on sales as the main metric of success and bands still like to report their chart position like it means something. Once upon a time it did, but not in 2016.

So again, it comes back to the same old question.

Are people listening to the music?

That is the metric that matters. Listens, not sales. I listened to Polaris on Spotify and I don’t mind them. For a metalcore band there is a lot of competition for people’s attention. In the same way the early Nineties had way too many hard/melodic rock bands, the two thousands and ten period is littered with a lot of metalcore bands. Eventually only a handful will survive the cull when it happens. It’s the way of the business.

Bon Jovi’s “What About Now” charted at Number 1.

Black Sabbath’s “13” also charted at Number 1.

And if I ask fans of the band to name me all of the songs on each album without referring to the album in the exact chronological order, they would struggle.

Hell, none of the songs are even in the Top 5 Popular List on their streaming accounts. Which is very different to Five Finger Death Punch’s account, which has three songs from their most recent album in the Top 5 Popular List.

And that is why Five Finger Death Punch still move product. They are constant on Active Rock Radio, their music is being listened too and as a by-product they keep on selling.

Change is slow but evolving.

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A to Z of Making It, Music, My Stories, Unsung Heroes

What Does A Million In Sales Mean?

It may be a long way to the top, but it’s even harder staying there. A lot of artists talk about the glory days, of selling a million plus albums and “having success”. They are loved and they are all over the press and magazines. Then their “fanbase” based on sale metrics move on and suddenly, the record label is not returning their calls.

Dokken, Ratt, Warrant, Poison, Love/Hate, Slaughter, White Lion, Anthrax, WASP, MSG, Stryper and Yngwie Malmsteen come to mind.

It doesn’t matter what artists did in the past. If their new album isn’t getting played on radio, (not Pandora Radio, actual DJ programmed Radio) then it’s the hard sell of the road for them. And if they don’t have the means and the smarts to hit the road, then it’s even a harder sell.

Y&T is still cleaning up on the road, despite never being on the covers of the magazines, or darlings of MTV or even having a number one mainstream hit. It’s because they are a band made outside the record label system. It was all about touring and gaining fans, city by city, state by state, country by country. Add to that list Tesla.

You notice that the acts that continue to sell and have high streams are constant on radio.

Shinedown, Five Finger Death Punch, Pop Evil, Disturbed and Seether have the top 5 songs on Active Rock Radio right now in the U.S. As a by-product of the radio play, the bands are moving product. Volbeat is another that continues to sell.

This is what Nikki Sixx meant. He saw no point in Motley Crue spending time writing and releasing an album, when Active Rock Radio would just ignore it and the Classic Rock stations would just play the old Crue songs.

Radio was never the be all and end all. The best bands developed slowly. No classic rock band was an overnight sensation. The MTV era, killed off a lot of bands by setting the expectation that all of the artists it played had millions upon millions of fans. MTV video clips sold advertisements. As a byproduct records got sold as well. That led to recorded music revenue.

Recorded music revenue, never got to the bands. Sure the bands got advances to record their albums and they probably felt like rock and roll stars during it, but the truth is the $500K advance or even the $1MIL advance, (that had to be paid back anyway) pales to the revenue the record label got in return. If an album sold a million copies at say $10 gross; that is $10 million in gross sales. Of course some of it would be kept by the record store, some of it by the manufacturers of the LP and all the rest would go to the label and somehow the band would still be in debt.

When Bon Jovi started writing the songs for “Slippery When Wet”, Jon and Richie were still living with their parents and had a million dollar debt to the label, even though they had two albums certified “Gold”. Pretty glamorous right.

In 1987, White Lion released their second album and their first on a major label, “Pride”. It had the single “Wait”, which on release did nothing. It was followed by “Tell Me” which also did nothing. However, the band was still on tour, opening up for Frehley’s Comet, Aerosmith, Ozzy Osbourne, Kiss, AC/DC and Stryper. It was during this touring cycle that “Wait” started to get some serious MTV rotation, seven months after it was released. Hot on the heels of “Wait” climbing the charts, the label released “When The Children Cry” which ended up pushing the “Pride” album into the two million mark. “All You Need Is Rock ‘N’ Roll” followed and the White Lion tour in support of the album, ended in August 1988. High fives all around. Vito was in every guitar magazine and Mike Tramp was posing in every other magazine. Pretty glamorous right.

By August the following year, “Big Game” was released. The album went Gold right off the bat, based from the goodwill that “Pride” created. The band went from 2 million U.S sales to 500K US Sales. “Little Fighter” didn’t catch on, nor there cover of “Radar Love”. “Cry for Freedom” is one of their best songs, however it looks like their serious subject matter about Apartheid just didn’t resonate with the hard rock community. “Goin’ Home Tonight” also came out as a single and disappeared quickly. The band toured, however as Vito Bratta stated in his Eddie Trunk interview, the songs just didn’t resonate with the audiences. The Monsters of Rock bill that had “White Lion” sandwiched between other bands sealed the deal in Vito’s mind that they needed to go back and write some real rock songs. The downward spiral was starting. Vito still had the Guitar covers but he was questioning how to write a “hit” as the label asked them to do. Pretty glamorous right.

So White Lion took a million bucks and went away to write and record their fourth album, “Mane Attraction”. It came out in 1991 and six months later it was all over. It received no radio play. The real fans of the band loved it. But the band wanted the 2 million fans from “Pride”. The label wanted 4 million fans. As I’ve mentioned before, a lot of the casual listeners like songs more than they like the artist, especially songs that crossover. “Wait” and “When The Children Cry” crossed over and fans of other genres picked up the album. It didn’t mean that White Lion had 2 million loyal listeners. So fast forward to 1991 and White Lion can’t even move, 500K units on their new album. Actually they get nowhere near that figure. They are seen as a failure.

“Love Don’t Come Easy” didn’t sell the message of the new listening public. “Lights and Thunder” came out and no one knew what the hell Mike Tramp meant when he sang, “There’ll be lights and thunder”. The re-recorded version of the band’s debut single “Broken Heart”, also didn’t resonate with the listeners at large. Atlantic Records dropped them not long after.

Once you’re in the spiral vortex, it is not easy to get out off it. And the audience, like it or not, always gravitates to what is successful. Tastes change and moods change. Life becomes complicated. The thing is when an album doesn’t outdo it’s predecessor, it’s labelled a flop. And no one, even the record label can understand why. Once upon a time, the label would probably go for another album to see what happens. Today, as soon as it starts going wrong, no one from the label hangs around. They move on.

So what does the artist do?

They doubt their creative process, quit the business or soldier on for a few more years. But the lifers go on forever.

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