Tag Archives: digital music

A to Z of Making It, Music, My Stories

Everyone Is Building Their Business On The Backs Of Artists

So all the news outlets are glossing over the 1.3 million sales of the new Taylor Swift album. As is the norm everyone in the mainstream media is trumping up the irrelevant and they are totally ignorant to the reality that exists in the music business. The reality is that more and more people are using streaming services.

So where do all of the profits go to from the 1.3 million sales. There is a common viewpoint put forward by the record labels that the music industry (which is funny how they refer to the recording industry as the music industry) is in dire straits. They blame piracy. The artists blame streaming services even though Spotify pays 70% of every dollar they get to the record labels and the music publishers. Pandora pays about 55% to 60% of every dollar they get to the record labels and the publishers.

In music, the deals between record labels and artists have two levels; a) a royalty percentage for recorded music that is sold like a CD, a VINYL album or a digital download and b) a different percentage for music that is licensed for use in a film, and other types of promotions like commercials, sporting events and so forth.

Different artists have different deals. Imagine being an artist, and the retailers get 30% of your music while the record labels keep more than 80% of the money they receive.

In the digital world, many artists like Enimen and Dave Coverdale have successfully argued that digital services are being licensed by labels and thus the licensed royalty amount should apply. Def Leppard couldn’t agree with their label and that is why their output is not on digital services. However we have current forgeries that the Def Leppard band re-recorded.

Retailers have built their business on the backs of artists. The record labels have built their business on the backs of artists. The live tour promoters have built their businesses on the backs of artists. The music publishers/rights organisations have built their business on the backs of artists. Radio has built its business on the backs of artists. It looks like everyone is building their business on the backs of artists except the artists themselves.

And how does all of this tie in to what fans of music want.

A digital music study that came out of the Nordic countries is being forgotten at this moment in time. For the uninitiated, the Nordic countries Denmark, Sweden, Norway and Finland are the earliest adopters of streaming services in a mainstream way and their growth of their recording industry is seen as a model for the rest of the world to follow.

So what we have is Spotify who has an estimated 7 million users in Denmark, Norway, Finland and Sweden. This is about 18% of Spotify’s worldwide reach. The takeaway is that 78% of Nordic Internet users are digital music consumers (an estimated 13.8 million), having used services such as YouTube, Spotify, Wimp or iTunes for accessing music content. Of those 78%, 20% said they had paid for some form of digital music, either downloads or streaming. YouTube was the most popular.

Fans of music like to listen to music for free and with each generation growing up this is more prevalent. However all of those organisations that built their businesses on the backs of music sales don’t like it. Got to give it to the technology retailers for adapting to an ever-changing marketplace. iTunes downloads are down however Apple are preparing for it with their own streaming service. Spotify is now offering one family account, which makes total sense, so expect Spotify’s premium user base to rise.

It’s a brave new fragmented world and it will be for a few more years, until streaming services in the large North American markets take a real foothold. Then watch out for a new battle to begin between artist and record label for unpaid monies.

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

A Metal Heads Guide To The Key Of Music Success

The technology of today allows for convenient costless copying and transportation of large chunks of data across the internet. Before the rise of streaming, people were still given a raw deal when it came to digital music and forced to overpay. In Australia, an iTunes song costs between $1.69 and $2.69. This price remained the same, even when our dollar was stronger than the US dollar.

Then the ACCC, our competition watchdog launched an inquiry into these geo-blocking price restrictions. Apple went in front of the commission and stated that they didn’t set the price for music in Australia and that the price was set by the Record Labels. It was found by the Commission that there should be no reason why Australians should pay more for software and music. However, nothing has changed in relation to the prices.

When music is offered in a convenient and low-cost legal alternative, the rate of piracy drops because most people do want to support artists and the various research out there points out that is the case.

For example, let’s look at TesseracT, the band. They released a great album in “Altered State”. It didn’t sell huge amounts in the U.S, so based on the record label success model, the album is a fizzer. However, the band knows that touring is where they make their money. And that is what they are doing. Musicmetric data showed (before it went behind a pay wall) that TesseracT’s music was downloaded the most in North America via peer-to-peer Torrent networks. So guess which area’s TesseracT have toured?

Yep, North America. They are touring there again from March and April 2014. The previously toured North America between September and October 2013. Coincidence. Maybe.

In relation to Spotify, they have a combined album stream count of 1,705,734. What this means, is that if you tally up all of the album songs shown in their popular list you will get to that number.

Go on YouTube and you see that the “Nocturne” (OFFICIAL VIDEO) by Century Media Records has 302,002 views. My favourite track from “Singularity” on the Century Media Records channel has 260,817 views compared to the 130,835 on Spotify. These numbers matter. Especially for a band that plays to a niche market.

What about the band Volbeat? They fall on all sides of the equation. They are one of the most streamed metal bands out there, plus they are downloaded a lot via peer-to-peer networks and in addition to all of this, they are still selling albums in the U.S. Their “Outlaw Gentlemen And Shady Ladies” album was released on 5 April 2013 and as at 29 January 2014, it is still selling in the U.S.

Yep, that’s right, in an era were physical sales of recorded music are non-existent, Volbeat has been selling consistently for 42 weeks straight. Prior to the release of “Outlaw Gentlemen And Shady Ladies”, their previous album “Beyond Heaven, Above Hell” was still selling up to and past the release date of the new album.

From a record label point of view, this is pure gold. They have a band that can consistently sell albums and Volbeat has been doing that each week for the last three years in the very competitive US market.

That is why they are hitting the U.S market again for the third time, this time with “Trivium” and the best DIY independent band out there in “Digital Summer”.

Look at their song “Still Counting” on Spotify. It has 21,193,159 streams. On the YouTube channel of Tomas Grafström “Still Counting” has 11,725,300 views.

My favourite song “Fallen” has 12,392,089 streams. On the VolbeatVEVO channel, “Fallen” has 4,583,706 views.

“Cape Of Our Hero” from the new album has 5,838,326 streams. On YouTube, “Cape Of Our Hero” has 2,999,070 views on the VolbeatVEVO channel.

Another band that is doing great numbers both in actual sales, streams and peer-to-peer downloads is Skillet. The album “Rise” was released on June 25, 2013 and at this point in time, 31 weeks after that, it is still selling. That is what the labels want, bands that can sell week in and week out. What does the band want? They want people to listen to their music.

To compare to the current mainstream rock band, none of these bands come close to Imagine Dragons. “Night Visions” came out on September 4, 2012. 73 weeks later, the album is still moving physical albums. At this point in time the album has sold over 1.8 million copies in the US. The main songs are high on Spotify’s streaming chart. They are also very high on the peer-to-peer download lists.

Seriously their Spotify numbers are insane. “Radioactive” is at 172 million streams compared to 128 million views on YouTube. “Demons” is at 73 million streams compared to 50 million views on YouTube. My favourite “It’s Time” is at 75 million streams compared to 59 million streams on YouTube.

Music is now a game of data. The key to any artist is not how many albums or songs are sold. The key is this;

ARE PEOPLE LISTENING TO YOUR MUSIC?
ARE PEOPLE SHARING YOUR MUSIC?
ARE PEOPLE TALKING ABOUT YOUR MUSIC?
ARE PEOPLE DOWNLOADING YOUR MUSIC?
WHERE ARE THESE PEOPLE LOCATED?
MUSIC IS A RELATIONSHIP BUSINESS. DO YOU HAVE A RELATIONSHIP WITH THESE PEOPLE?

If you answered YES to the first question, move on to the next question. If you haven’t answered YES to the first question, take a step back and start writing more music.

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