The Music Data Problem

John Loken’s blog post a couple weeks back got me thinking about a post I’ve been meaning to do for months, but have been too swamped to actually spit out. The post, titled “More Metrics Please,” is, as the title suggests, a plea for metrics on par with the TV business.

Some of this data has been collected in the past, but for various reasons (the biggest of which being the market and channel control by the majors) almost all data points beyond Soundscan and Billboard charts seem to have been ignored. Now, however, there is a perfect storm for music data: more artists than ever before, more listeners than ever before with easier access through more channels than ever before, and more technology for data collection than ever before.

Put simply: music data is both more important and more available than ever before.

This shouldn’t come as a surprise, and John is not alone in asking for more data. Companies are springing up left and right to help answer her prayers. Companies like Next Big Sound, BandMetrics, and Music Metric are busy collecting third party data from around the web in single dashboards. Companies like Bandize and Artist Data are helping bands organize their own data. Companies like HypeMachine and Elbo.ws are aggregating marketing/A&R data in the form of blog and Twitter charts. Companies like Songkick and Gigulate help fans track basic concert data and music news, respectively, creating interesting data sets that are sure to surface soon.

The issue isn’t in the data collection or availability, it’s in the connecting, processing, and understanding. Like all data, the points themselves are completely irrelevant without context – a MySpace play doesn’t inherently mean anything, nor does a friend on Facebook. Data can only be understood with relevant ratios.

Connecting the data might be the biggest obstacle at the moment, but I’m hopeful that will change. It’s primarily an issue of a few major players (namely, the retail channel) not having open APIs, or sharing any of the data with the artists – when a fan buys an album on iTunes, that fan data belongs to iTunes and iTunes doesn’t want to part with it.

The other obstacle in connecting the data is the breadth to which music discovery, engagement, and purchasing have spread. You used to get your discovery metrics solely from radio numbers, your engagement metrics from concert tickets, and your purchasing metrics from Soundscan. Now discovery can span blogs, P2P, internet radio, and beyond, engagement can be a play on a blog, a MySpace page, an iPod, or anywhere else, and while record purchases are still largely covered by Soundscan, records are an increasingly small portion of the overall business picture for an artist.

Pulling all that data together is not easy, but I think it can be done as long as those collecting the data are ensuring it’s clean and are willing to make it accessible. Purchases should be easiest, as long as retail channels come around. Last.fm and Twones are handling engagement fairly well (though neither has all the necessary channels covered, by any stretch). Discovery is incredibly tough without having the engagement piece nailed – if you don’t have a view of all a fan’s engagement data, how do you know the first time/place they interacted with an artist?

Progress is coming, but only as a stream of one-dimensional data points. More radical change is needed in order to get to the ratios that are truly relevant and key to making informed business decisions. We need to be able to close the loop on fan data – how fans move down the funnel from discovery to engagement to purchasing. Knowing that you had a spike in MySpace plays around the same time you had a spike in iTunes sales shouldn’t be surprising, and is thus practically worthless (if you didn’t see a spike in sales, it would indicate a strong PR effort but not a high enough quality product for fans to take out their wallets, so the data isn’t totally worthless). Knowing that the majority of the folks who purchased your deluxe edition CD through Amazon first heard your song on Pitchfork and downloaded your EP through P2P is highly valuable.

The technology to make this happen is not expensive, nor particularly difficult to implement, with APIs and OpenID or OAuth. Thanks to the web's ever-expanding processing power, we have far easier access to more data than ever before – it’s no longer reserved for the major corporations who can pay hundreds of thousands of dollars to market research firms to run surveys. We just need to have the right technology implemented properly in order to make the data connection easier.

If we can connect all the data collection points properly, the processing isn’t horribly difficult – it’s merely implementing techniques that economists and social scientists have used for ages to slice and dice large data sets. Everyone should be able to be armchair statisticians (as Google Analytics has enabled web hosts to be), the winners will be the ones who have the deepest understanding how to find the most relevant data and take the most appropriate actions as a result.

The understanding is the place where I fear the music business will have the most catching up to do. From my personal experience, data analysis seems to be a new concept to many industry veterans. Many are excited by the prospect of data being available, but few seem to know what to do with it – it serves as little more than eye-candy, another blurry trend chart at a corporate meeting (to be fair, it's not yet easily available in relevant and easy-to-read format without some tech savvy and excel skills). Layer on top of that the fact that people in the music business seem to be among the world’s biggest optimists, and you’ve got a recipe for disaster when it comes to biased or outright incorrect interpretation of data.

The winner of the data wars among the music startups will be the one who can provide the deepest insights, not just the most data. They will preemptively answer both questions of “What does this mean?” and “What should I do?”

The biggest winner will also have the tools to power the “What should I do?” actions. This means marketing, ecommerce, and access to relevant channels. These tools need to empower the artist, but also add value. In the end, I believe success may be measured as some variation of the following equation (would love to hear your feedback on improvements to the equation), and the winners among the startups will be the ones who can prove to consistently impact the quotient the most:

(Engagement + (Investment x Demand Generation Execution))^Quality = $$$

Note that quality is hyperefficient and falls almost entirely on the artist. Even the best data analysis in the world can’t make up for a product that doesn’t appeal. But it can tell you why your product isn’t selling as well as your competitors, and what you can do to make incremental improvements from a business perspective. And that makes data incredibly valuable, and a worthwhile pursuit -- it will undoubtedly unlock a plethora of new business models for music, and allow artists to figure out their own optimal model.

Collective Patronage: Your next advance is from your fans

Collective Patronage is not a new concept (heck, a quick Google search turned up this article from 2001 -- the author says "I can think of four local San Francisco-area bands, and one each in Minneapolis and New York, to whom I would happily give $25/year to support their music"), but only now is it beginning to be properly realized in the music industry. The idea is a return to the days of classical music, when composers were paid by their wealthy patrons to compose music that everyone could enjoy.
In a perfect world, someone richer than you would pay for your favorite bands to make lots of great music for you to enjoy for free. However, we live in a democracy with a free(ish) market, so we all have to do our part.
Artists are no longer confined by a physical medium (CD, cassette, vinyl, etc) as their flagship product, and fans have many options to avoid paying for music. Yet many, if not most, of us still pay for music that we like. In talking to others who work in the industry, the standard routine seems to be to download a number of albums without paying, take them for a few spins, and pay for the ones you like.
Had I said that 5 years ago, I would've had the RIAA all over me. As it stands, however, much of the fear of file sharing has subsided -- heck, there are even "marketing" companies who will seed your album on torrent sites.
While many of the barriers to entry for artists to produce and distribute music have diminished, they have not disappeared. Artists still need to cover recording costs, equipment costs, gas costs, etc. Claiming "oh, they can make that money on the road" only applies to a select few bands (and that number is diminished with high gas prices and harsh economic conditions).
Artists need fans, and they need some of those fans to pay some money. Yes, those "some"s are intentional. Fans can pay in many ways (eg - pay attention, pay permission to market to them, etc), but some of the fans do need to contribute money for the band's survival.
Some services have sprung up with the concept of Collective Patronage in mind -- SellABand.com, SliceThePie.com, etc -- but those are focused exclusively on unsigned, relatively unknown artists, and instead of fostering a true relationship between artists and fans, they are more of a game for the fans and a one-time "make or break" for the artists. In other words, they're not focused on long-term, sustainable growth. They also fall short in extending the concept of Collective Patronage to larger, more established artists.
"Oh, but the big artists have labels to cut them big checks!" Sure, sort of. But even large artists could do better for themselves taking checks directly from their fans rather than from labels. Think about it: with how much they're struggling, and with all their bureaucracy, would major labels make a major investment were they not almost positive they could recoup? Not likely.
Take the David Byrne - Brian Eno release Everything That Happens Will Happen Today -- by contract I can't speak to specific numbers, but the goal was to recoup recording costs and make as much as they would have made from a major label advance. Perhaps that was a bit audacious, considering the amount of marketing money a major label would have dropped, but guess what? The album hit that goal in well under the three months it's been out -- long before it even hit traditional retail outlets or iTunes/Amazon. Not only that, but both artists draw from a slightly older fanbase that isn't as likely to dig for music online.
Even ETH was a fairly traditional release -- digital only, digital plus CD, and digital plus limited edition tin with bonus disc. To move to a system truly based on Collective Patronage, a group of fans would all pay an agreed-upon sum to an artist each year to ensure that artist continues to produce music. In exchange, they receive access to all the artist's output for that year, plus maybe a few extra bonuses. Essentially, it's a subscription or membership to the artist.
Josh Rouse posts an album of some sort each month for his patrons (okay, subscribers) to download. Jubilee recorded an EP, gathered patrons based on that EP, and put the money they collected towards further recording (which, of course, the patrons receive for free).
I've probably belabored the point more than I need to, but I encourage fans to become patrons of their favorite artists, and artists to seek out patrons -- we all want to make each other a little bit happier and bring a little more beauty to the world through music. Some have the talent and inspiration, others have the money.

Why Trent Reznor Rules

I hope this shows up decently. If not please view it at: http://www.flickr.com/photos/factoryjoe/2877586803/sizes/o/

Artist Idea #3: TXT for Video

This is the third in a series of relatively short posts of potentially crazy, potentially profitable ideas for musicians to use. If you use them, you don't have to give me any credit, but please do write in and tell me how it worked for you.

Here's an idea that is best enabled with Topspin, but is worth running by any means necessary. Get a phone for the band (or, alternately, get an SMS receiving number/account online), post the number at concerts (tape it on your amps for full effect), and have fans text you their e-mail addresses. At the end of the night, or in the van the next day, compile all the e-mail addresses (and their phone numbers) you received. Put them into a list titled the city or venue you just played so you can keep track of where they are for future communications.
Finally, give them a reward! My recommendation is a private link to a video of the previous night's performance, but I know not everyone travels with video cameras (you should! get the merch guy or someone in one of the other bands to tape you). Alternately, a personalized message would be nice, an exclusive song download would be better, and encouragement to tell their friends if they had a good time is always good policy.

Artist Idea #2: Dedications

This is the second in a series of relatively short posts of potentially crazy, potentially profitable ideas for musicians to use. If you use them, you don't have to give me any credit, but please do write in and tell me how it worked for you.
I don't know what it is about chatting it up with my friend Adam, but I always wind up with new artist ideas while talking with him. The next three are all from one conversation about ideas for Mondo Pr!mo's new release, 2FN HOT, and upcoming tour with The Pink Spiders.
Start by emailing all your fans and let each of them pick a song to have dedicated to them on your next tour stop nearest to them.
If you scale like crazy, it would be tougher to keep up with the dedications (perhaps start selecting fans at random, or fans with the best reasons for why they deserve the dedication), but while you're still building, the satisfaction and excitement of a personal dedication is a huge reward for your initial core fans.
Sure you might make a dedication anyway if someone asked you outside the venue before the show, but by offering the opportunity in advance, the fans will get more excited to go to the show and more excited about bringing friends to hear that song dedicated to them.
THEN you follow up with them, having brought a video camera on tour with you, by posting that song, with dedication, on youtube and email them the link.
Then they share that to all their friends who didn't go to the show, those folks hear your songs, get hooked, and, from the details of the youtube vid, know where to go to buy your stuff.

#1s

Katy Perry's hit single, "I Kissed A Girl," recently tied The Beatles' "I Want To Hold Your Hand" for the longest reign at #1. While we can all sit around all day and all night debating the merits (or lack thereof) of each, I would like to point out the difference in culture surrounding these hits.
Namely, the fact that I eat, sleep, and breathe music, work in the music industry, am young and relatively "hip" (okay, the fact that I just put that in quotes takes me out of the running), yet have never heard this "I Kissed A Girl" song. In fact, every time I hear it mentioned, Jill Sobule's classic 90's hit by the same name comes to mind.
I could rant about how this is a sign of the changing landscape of music made possible by the digital medium and infrastructure, but you know that already. Instead, today I'd just like you to sit back and think about what it really means to have a #1 single these days--Katy Perry has sold fewer cumulative albums in 7 weeks than The Beatles did in 1.
The lowest common denominator will always exist, and will always sell. It's human nature to be attracted to artists and songs that other people like. That market won't disappear. The difference is not that people aren't buying music--music sales are still well above what they were in the 60s (and 70s and 80s and 90s)--it's that not everyone has to buy the same albums. They have different ways of discovering music, and more music to choose from.
As an artist, you should view this change as a boon--you no longer have to conform to a "norm" to get a coveted record deal and thus sell records; you can make whatever music you want and there will, more than likely, be a market for it. In a world where #1 means much less, being down the list a bit doesn't look so bad anymore.

Artist Idea #1: Taco Truck

This is the first in a series of relatively short posts of potentially crazy, potentially profitable ideas for musicians to use. If you use them, you don't have to give me any credit, but please do write in and tell me how it worked for you.
It's a well known fact that the way to a (wo)man's heart is through (her) his stomach. It's also a well known fact that selling cheap food near concert venues is almost always a home run. Why not utilize both of those facts and cook for your fans? If you want to go all-out, buy yourself a taco truck (or similar food-serving vehicle) and use it as your tour van. Alternately, you could get one of those dorm-room pizza ovens and plug it in by your merch booth. The key is to have something easy to make and easy to sell, and the means by which to do both. If you cook it, they will come.

Quick Follow-up

Just thought it was worth mentioning that a month after I posted about Foxboro Hot Tubs (Green Day's label-less side project) playing to a crowd of maybe 500 in Dallas, my cousin told me they played to a sold out Wachovia Center in Philadelphia. Word of mouth? Yep. A little help from radio? Sure, but it's not like it was a label pushing the track on the radio.
They've proven they can migrate a fan base from a major to no label, the next question that still remains is: How does an independent artist effectively grow their fan base without the advent of traditional label backing? There are no easy answers, but three things that help a lot are 1) good music (a good product sells itself); 2) patience (the days of the debut album megahit are largely over); and 3) luck (see post on randomness).
I can try to offer suggestions of ways to help get attention, but ultimately those three principles pervade in any success. The harder you work at making a quality product and growing your fan base organically (read: great, ongoing, two-sided communication with your fans), the more likely lady luck is to smile on you.

Randomness and Predictive vs Social Forces

In traditional media marketing, there's a sense that one can predict consumer preference (and those who do the best job of this make the most money). Unfortunately for many who have made careers out of this line of thinking, their processes have relied largely upon situational factors that have allowed their success--with few media outlets (eg- TV, radio stations), those who could spend enough money to get placement for their acts would see great returns.
But times have changed. As Leonard Mlodinow says in The Drunkard's Walk: How Randomness Rules Our Lives :

That is the deterministic view of the marketplace, a view in which it is mainly the intrinsic qualities of the person or the product that governs success. But there is another way to look at it, a nondeterministic view. In this view there are many high-quality but unknown books, singers, actors, and what makes one or another come to stand out is largely a conspiracy of random and minor factors--that is, luck. In this view the traditional executives are just spinning their wheels.

Mlodinow goes on to tell of a study in which 14,341 participants are asked to listen to, rate, and if they desired, download 48 songs by bands they had never heard of. Some got to see how popular the songs were, in terms of their peers downloading them. These folks were further divided into 8 groups, and could only see the data from the folks in their own group. Then there was a group that got to see no data whatsoever--this group was considered to be determining the "intrinsic quality" of the music, without any outside influence.

If the deterministic view of the world were true, the same songs ought to have dominated in each of the eight worlds, and the popularity rankings in those worlds ought to have agreed with the intrinsic quality as determined by the isolated individuals. But the researchers found the exact opposite: the popularity of individual songs varied widely among the different worlds, and different songs of similar intrinsic quality also varied widely in their popularity.

One song ranked 26 of 48 in "intrinsic quality," but was #1 in one world and #40 in another. As one song or another, by chance, got ahead early in downloads, it's apparent popularity fueled others to find it appealing.

The influence of others will always be important to us--we inherently trust the recommendations of other humans more than anything else. Traditionally, the only music recommendations we had access to came from the DJs and VJs who played what the major labels asked them to. There were a few "tastemakers." Now we have all the music options we could ever ask for, plus the option of getting recommendations from anyone and everyone--it's a reactive market now where hits aren't made by radio, but by our peers.

Understanding the New Economics of Music: Three Necessary Realizations for Artists

Same essay as last post, but in downloadable and shareable format. Please feel free to pass it around!


Understanding the New Economics of Music: Three Necessary Realizations for Artists - Get more Business Plans

Understanding the New Economics of Music: Three Necessary Realizations for Artists

The music industry is changing. Actually, it already has changed. Technology has transformed everything from production to marketing and distribution. The business side is still trying to catch up with technology, with major labels suddenly trailing the pack.
But if you’re anywhere near the music industry, you know all this already. The question is “How can I survive in the new music economy?” The answer is not easy. It requires a complete change of mindset from traditional music business thinking.
As an artist, there are three basic realizations you need to come to in order to understand and survive in the new economics of music: your band is a business, the traditional model is broken (for good), and your fans are your best assets.
I’ll lead you through these necessary realizations, but much of the rest is up to you. The beauty of this shift is your creativity gets to spill over from music into the business side of things more than ever before. There will be plenty of people to help you along your way, but ultimately it’s you making decisions for yourself.

Realization #1: Your band is a business
Take a minute, let it sink it, get comfortable with it. It’s difficult because you think of yourself as an artist—don’t lose that! The key is that you are an artist who needs to make a living. You are an employee of your band. Pretty sweet job, eh?
Traditionally, bands have at best been brands in a larger corporate label structure (yes, even the indie labels). If you weren’t in one of those structures, you weren’t a professional musician. Well guess what-- labels, in the traditional sense, are irrelevant today (a point we will hit in greater depth later). With the labels gone, you are your own entity.
The thought might be scary at first, but the fear should become an element of excitement for the opportunities this freedom affords you. You now have complete control over everything related to your music, and for the first time you can realistically make a living while keeping that control—there are no more middlemen.
Sure, you will have to learn more about the business aspects of music, but there are many of us here to help. Just remember, as your own business you are no longer fighting for the attention of a few label execs who will magically make you huge, you are fighting for the individual ears of every possible fan out there.

Realization #2: The traditional business model is broken. For good.
In the traditional model, a band worked for the attention of major labels, as the labels collectively had near monopolistic control of all distribution channels. This control allowed them to essentially dictate who succeeded and who did not.[1] Additionally, the only way an artist could get a quality recording made was with the financial backing major labels offered.
The result of all this control was a set of contracts that meant any band that was good enough to get signed, but not good enough to sell literally millions of records wound up in debt to the labels. For an overview of how a band can sell 250,000 copies and still lose money, see: http://www.negativland.com/albini.html[2]
I added the “For good” part to the section title because major labels still seem to be desperately grasping for every element of the old model that still remains. They don’t understand the new economics. In fact, Doug Morris, CEO of Universal Music admitted in an interview with Wired:
"There's no one in the record industry that's a technologist," Morris explains. "That's a misconception writers make all the time, that the record industry missed this. They didn't. They just didn't know what to do. It's like if you were suddenly asked to operate on your dog to remove his kidney. What would you do?"[3]
Now is your opportunity to get ahead of the majors. Kick them while they’re down and reclaim total control in the name of artists everywhere.

• Talking Point #1: You don’t need a label
  This is a tough one for most bands to realize—all your favorite bands growing up were on labels, and you may have dreamed of being on the same label as they were. But think of what a label’s primary functions are: financing recording, handling distribution, and providing marketing support. Well guess what: you don’t need any of that anymore.
  Recording is practically free. Yes, you still can shell out loads of money for studio time at the best studios with the most famous producers, but with the advent of Pro Tools and other recording software, the costs of doing so now generally outweigh the benefits.
  Distribution is practically free. Self-distribution options, selling directly to your own fans, are coming very soon. In the meantime, you can pay TuneCore what you’ll make on two or three copies of your record and they’ll distribute your music to all the major online retailers (I’ll hit on the advantages of self-distribution later, but both options are important).
  Why has the traditional distribution structure broken down? Simple: physical space in stores (and in warehouses and delivery trucks) costs money, digital space on servers essentially doesn’t. What does this mean to you? It means that instead of getting at best 7-10% of record sale profits (after paying back the record label in full for recording and distribution investments) through royalties, you get about 70% of all sales. Period. In a best case scenario on a major label, you still have to sell upwards of 10 times more copies to make the same amount of money.
  Marketing is dead. At least in the traditional sense. Marketing is no longer direct advertising, as labels still believe it to be—people have become immune to traditional advertising. Andy Sernovitz, author of Word of Mouth Marketing, states “Advertising is the price of being boring.”[4]
  So what are the new goals of music marketing? Enable and encourage existing fans to help build your brand, and know your potential fans better than they know themselves, so as to get them to discover you in the way in which they are most susceptible to being hooked. Are people finding you through MySpace? Are they passing mp3s around between each other? Are they avid blog readers? What blogs? I’ll touch more on the importance of your fans later, but it’s your job now to know them as well as you possibly can.
  
• Talking Point #2: The pricing model is broken as well
  You’ll see this more in the next section with “The 80/20 Rule,” but static pricing is not reflective of the real value of music.
  Let’s look at an example: One fan listens to your album multiple times daily, it’s struck such a chord that she knows every line and her MySpace screen name is one of your lyrics. She’d drive hundreds of miles and pay hundreds of dollars to see you live (she already watches all your live videos on YouTube, over and over). Another fan had your music recommended via Pandora, heard a song, decided to buy the album on iTunes, put it on his iPod, and listens to it about as often as anything else. If you come to town, he might go if he has nothing else going that night.
  In the end, both fans paid $10 for your album and $20 to go to your concert. For one, it was every penny he was ready to invest in you (if you put on a great show, maybe he bought a $20 t-shirt as well, and maybe you began to convert him to be more like Fan #1—each individual product he buys (music, live show, t-shirt) strengthens his ties to you). For the other, she would’ve gladly spent hundreds more dollars on you had she been given the opportunity (you only print 3 styles of t-shirts and she owns them all already).
  The situation with Fan #1, which happens far more often than bands realize, is called Consumer Surplus—in economic terms, the demand exceeds the supply. In real terms, this means lost revenue for the band.
  The ideal solution is a sliding scale pricing model. The issue with adopting such a model initially is that fans wouldn’t know where to start—they are unsure of how to value your music as well. A compromise is to offer more options—sell your B-sides, make a live DVD, print collectors-edition posters. Unfortunately, those kinds of compromises are just that: compromises.
  One possible implementation of a sliding scale involves touring. With gas prices rising, more bands are going to have to get more monetary support to justify going on the road. Now say they asked their fans to help them come on the road. The top fans, like Fan #1, those who would stop at nothing to see the band succeed and to see them live personally, would donate. The fans like Fan #2 would not.
  Beyond simply asking for donations, the band could offer simple rewards for donations and let the fans know how their money is being spent—say, everyone who donates money gets a personalized picture of the band using your money (holding a sign with your name on it—it could be in the tour van if they spent it on gas, or in a restaurant if they needed food). To help the fans visualize what their money will be used for, you can set up some suggested donation levels and examples of expenditures from each: $5 buys a band member a burger, $20 buys new guitar strings (if you don’t get them free), $50 fills up the van with gas (okay, maybe closer to $150), etc. Perhaps the bigger donations warrant a phone call from the band as they spend the money. Perhaps an extra-large donation gets a private acoustic session for you and your friends. None of these interactions inflict any extra cost on the band, but they let the fans know how their money is spent and make them feel wanted, which in turn makes them more likely to spread your word even further.
  

Realization #3: Your fans are your biggest asset
“But wait,” you say, “how can someone I’m just selling stuff to be an asset to me?” And there’s the trap: you don’t have to merely engage in single, one-sided transactions. Your relationship with your fans shouldn’t end when they put you on their iPod—if they like your music, they don’t want it to end there, and neither should you.
There’s a phenomenon in Economics that goes by a number of names: The 80/20 Rule, Pareto’s Curve, Zipf’s Law. Traditionally the rule meant that the top 20 percent of companies in a given market controls 80 percent of the revenues in the market. But as distribution has changed in music, so too has The 80/20 Rule. Now the rule takes on new meaning: your top fans are responsible for the majority of your marketing. As a rule of thumb, the top 10 percent of your fans carry about 90 percent of the weight.
So who are those 10 percent and what can you do with them?
Have you looked in the front row of your concerts lately? Have you seen those screaming fans who melt when you make eye contact with them or hit that high note in the bridge of their favorite song? Do you have any idea how early they bought tickets, how early they got to the concert to make sure they were as close to you as possible, how late they’ll stay after the show in the hopes of catching another glimpse of you as you disappear into your tour van? Do you know how many friends they’ve told about you and how many message boards they’ve posted on about you…in the last week? They would do anything for you.
All you have to do is ask. Help them help you.
How can they help you? We already established that traditional marketing is dead. Your existing fans are your best outlet for generating new fans. They’ll put your songs on mixes, bring friends to shows, talk you up on blogs and message boards, and anything else they can do to spread the word. Additionally, they are likely to be your best individual sources of revenue.
Up to today, much of online distribution has mimicked physical distribution, just in a more accessible format. However, as previously stated, there’s no reason the relationship between artist and fan should end when the music is purchased and put on the fan’s iPod—neither side wants it to end there.
Think of the information Amazon, iTunes, and Ticketmaster get from the fans that you as artists never get to see: e-mail addresses, locations, what else the same fans bought (or listened to and didn’t buy). Many fans want you to have some of that information so you can best stay in contact with them and cater to them, but they don’t want to go through the hassle of looking for where and how to give it to you.
iTunes recently started releasing specifics of sales by zip codes through a service on TuneCore.com. This data can help you get a better idea of where people who are buying your music are located, but it still doesn’t give you statistics across all mediums of consumption (ie-Amazon, MySpace, imeem, etc), nor any way to get in contact with those individuals apart from booking a tour nearby and hoping they find out about a show and come.
Soon artists will be able to sell their music and other wares directly to the fans, possibly on a sliding scale, and receive and maintain the personal information the fans want to share. Artists will be able to utilize that information to increase communication to their existing fan base and maximize their reach to new fans.
However, ditching the existing outlets in favor of nothing but selling directly is also generally a mistake. Remember what we said was the new marketing ideal? Know your potential fans better than they know themselves, so as to get them to discover you in the way in which they are most susceptible to being hooked. This means you need your music to be accessible to as many of your potential fans as possible—forcing them into a single distribution method puts you in the same trap the major labels fell into, and you’ll lose many potential fans in the process.
You can try to influence new fans to see the advantages of doing business directly with you (via links on your MySpace and YouTube videos, and encouraging your existing fans to drive their friends to your site, among other ways), but if they don’t want to go beyond simply buying mp3s through their favorite retailer and throwing it on their iPods, they’re frankly not worth your time and effort. Yes, it’s great that they bought your music, and it would be great if they came to a show, but remember our version of The 80/20 Rule—if they aren’t willing to put in the effort to count themselves among your top fans, they have a relatively low utility to you.
Concentrate on your top fans—they will help you the most in any number of ways.

Case Study: The Format made the new economics work for them
The Format was dropped by their major label, Atlantic Records. Twice. Many bands would pack it in, but best friends Nate Ruess and Sam Means weren’t giving up on their dream. After an initial thought towards seeking another major label, they looked into the audience at their shows and saw a devoted fan base that was more than they could ever ask for. They didn’t need a major label to get their next album in the hands of those fans.
So they took their severance check from Atlantic and recorded Dog Problems the way they wanted to. And with major labels lined up out the door trying to buy the rights to their sophomore LP, they made the difficult decision to self-release it on their own aptly named Vanity Label.
Nate and Sam gave away a free acoustic EP including some of the songs from Dog Problems to their fans about two months before the LP’s release to help get them excited. Then a month before release, they posted 30 second snippets from four possible singles and had the fans vote for their favorite.
When it came time to release the LP, they paid for distribution out of their own pockets and were among the first to embrace SnoCap’s widget to let fans purchase and download MP3s directly from their MySpace page.
The result? Dog Problems debuted at #77 on the Billboard 200 in July of 2006, a chart virtually untouched at that point by bands without labels.
Then, a year later, seeing sales slow to virtually nothing, The Format did something a major label would never consider: they gave away Dog Problems for free, as long as you signed up for their mailing list (and no, you didn’t have to confirm your e-mail address—if you didn’t want to put in a valid e-mail address, you didn’t want to hear from them, so what good would it do them to e-mail you?).
Over the course of a month, 40,000 people took them up on the free album, and another 29,000 downloaded individual tracks from the album. The Format’s e-mail list grew immensely (how much would a major label pay to get 69,000 more fans on a band’s mailing list in one month?), and as a result of that their next tour had far and away the highest turnouts they had ever seen. All without spending a dime on marketing, and all profits going into their own pockets.

Conclusion: YOU can do it
Undoubtedly, this sounds like a vast amount of work and responsibility above and beyond what you anticipated when you first joined a band. Fear not—tools are on their way to help you sift through all the clutter and make your life much easier. Sure, they won’t be free (all those employees put on the street by the labels need to make money somehow), but they’ll be far preferable to signing 98% (or more) of your life away to a label. If they get their act together, labels will still be able to participate in the new music economy—but they’ll be much more like business consultants to you than corporate overlords.
Control is now in the hands of the only two crucial entities in music: the artists and the fans. How are you going to build and maintain a strong bridge between yourself and your fans?

[1] The “hit machine” of major labels is a predictive force, which only works when options are limited. When fans have all the choice in the world, hits are determined by the fans themselves—hits are made reactively to fan response and viral spreading. Instead of what the fans listen to and like being determined before an album comes out by some guys in a board room, the best albums are elevated to the top by aggregation of real fan interest.
[2] In his book Confessions of a Record Producer (Backbeat Books), Moses Avalon shows how a million-selling artist can still easily wind up in debt to a label.
[3] http://www.wired.com/entertainment/music/magazine/15-12/mf_morris
[4] Sernovitz XXV

Music as a medium (or, why video games appear to be winning)

Bob Lefsetz wrote a week or two back that "Gaming’s got all the sexiness that music used to have. It’s the land of visceral excitement…and profits." There's some truth to that statement, but does it mean music is dying? Absolutely not.
All that's happened over the past few decades is that music has shifted from a rivalrous to a non-rivalrous medium--instead of sitting down and listening to a record from start to finish while doing nothing but maybe look at the album cover, we have music playing constantly while doing other things. It doesn't compete for our time. It accompanies other daily activities like driving, reading, running, shopping, etc. The same shift has happened for TV--the hours people spent watching TV spiked in the 70s and 80s because people were starting to while TV while doing something else. (Will all cinemas of the future be restaurants as well? Or have other activities integrated?)
Gaming enjoys its sexiness and profits because it is the newest major entertainment medium, and is naturally a step ahead of movies and music in terms of being naturally engaging (a point that the wii brought to the mainstream). But watch as they follow a similar arc to music. Already gamers are complaining of the major studios releasing "safe" games--sequels or new games that follow existing models for success. Soon, tools will be made available to allow anyone to create their own games quickly, cheaply, and easily; and we will have the computing power to be able to distribute those games quickly, cheaply, and easily over the internet. Already you see the beginnings of it with user-modified levels. The real question is will the major gamining studios learn the lessons of the music, film, and TV industries before them?
But back to music. Music as a medium is alive and well, despite its gradual shift away from demanding our attention. More people are listening to more music today than ever before. Just because the medium itself isn't as engaging as it once was doesn't mean that music can't be engaging. Artists need to build relationships with their fans, and need to give them more to play with than a new CD every 2 years. This doesn't just mean releasing every track that you record and mix in the back of the tour van. It means everything from video blogs to merchandise to live shows--get creative! Get engaging! Give the people what they want, and then some! Your band is a brand, and a single product, updated once every two years, simply isn't going to cut it if you want to have any of the sexiness and profits of the gaming industry.

What is Chipotle up to?

Yesterday at Chipotle, I decided to forego my usual routine of picking up a copy of the Dallas Observer (local indie weekly newspaper) and reading the music section, and instead just sat outside and enjoyed the breeze through my hair and view of endless strip malls. As I looked down at my chicken soft tacos, I noticed something odd: the brown paper lining the basket now had some writing on it making out spiral designs. More than that, I immediately picked out the word Evoka--a small band out of NC who I tried to book for a show at Davidson once. Odd, I thought, then looked at the paper a little closer and saw many other names I recognized mixed into the hundreds of names listed.
I searched everywhere for an explanation, but only found a little logo saying "Design. Art. Music." No links, no explanation, no nothing. So I went to the Chipotle website and this was the best I could find: http://www.chipotle.com/#flash/restaurants_music. From that all I can discern is either these bands are on Chipotle's radio station, or they're going to have concerts sponsored by Chipotle. But maybe there's a different supersecret plan. I think it's great that Chipotle is doing SOMETHING to support these indie rockers, but would it kill them to tell me WHAT?

A new model idea

I don't claim to be qualified to be positing this idea (tax law is not my speciality), but I think it's at least worth throwing out there:
As bands and artists become more and more independent, would it make sense for them to incorporate as nonprofit organizations?
It sounds crazy, but here me out: the price of music is dropping to zero whether the artists like it or not. This doesn't mean fans don't want to support the artists, it's merely a function of distribution--it's easiest to get free mp3s, so that's what people do. Artists still need to make money, but they have to find other ways to do so.
People want to support their favorite artists, but often in varying ways and for varying amounts of investment--I might go see a show of 2 or 3 bands I sort of care about, while I might buy 2 t-shirts and a CD and e-mail all my friends about my favorite band. Currently, there aren't enough ways for artists to leverage the dedication of those top fans who would be willing to do almost anything to see their favorite bands succeed.
Being a 501(c)(3) wouldn't prevent artists from selling merchandise and such--those are "unrelated business expenses" that get taxed like they would if the artist weren't a nonprofit. However, being a 501(c)(3) allows the artist to receive tax-free donations, and the donors would likely be able to deduct their donations from their taxes. With gas prices soaring, this would enable a band to set up a fundraising effort (perhaps on Tipping Point models like ThePoint.com or CrowdFunder.com where nobody pays unless the goal is met) to ensure they can afford to make the drive around the country. With proper donation tracking, the band can try to book shows near where their big donors are. I would gladly give a few hundred tax-deductible dollars to my favorite bands to allow them to tour--I almost called the guys from Kaddisfly last night to let them know I wanted to do so, til I thought there might be a better way to go about it than just sending them a check for gas money.
The key is enabling the artists to "make the ask." Most artists understand business in the traditional sense: you get paid to play a show, you sell CDs and merch, and you make friends on MySpace in the hopes of spreading the word. Some understand that the top few fans are infinitely more valuable than all the rest put together. Few know how to capitalize on that concept.
In a step-by-step process:

1. Incorporate as a 501(c)(3)
2. Give your music away for free--your fans will appreciate it (they almost expect it, but still get excited when artists embrace it)--and encourage them to spread it to their friends
3. Sell merch as you normally would
4. Ask for donations. Bloggers often use a "Tip Jar" widget, but I envision something more relevant for artists: associate items with levels of donation ($5 buys the band a beer, $20 buys the band lunch, $100 fills up the gas tank (heck, you could base it all on gas--sponsor the miles on a tour), $500 buys a new amp, etc). A simple widget on your MySpace page goes a long way (especially if the fans can also put the widgets on their pages when they donate to spread the word further).

Thoughts? Anyone willing to give it a shot?

I want a magical jukebox (that doubles as a washing machine?)

The more I pay attention and ask and read (in that order of importance), the more diversity I see in how people discover and consume music. For the first time in history, we have choice. Music is, and the forms in which to consume it are, more abundant today than ever before.
As many online music services seek to refine their methods for our music playing and discovery pleasure, I'd like to offer my own personal ideal:

• I generally prefer my standard listening and discovery modes to be separate. Then again, not always. When I want them together, I generally just have my standard listening device (for these purposes, we'll call it "myTunes") on random. Make me a checkbox when I have random on to say whether or not I want random reccomended tracks inserted (and a slide bar with 3 states: often, sometimes, rarely).
• My friends are more likely to get what songs I'll want than you are or than "other fans" are. And bands I like a lot are more likely still to get it right than my friends. Ask them--they know music pretty well, and I generally respect their opinions. Oh and hey, while you're at it, make sure I can find out why something was reccomended to me.
• Speaking of random, this state (as it has become such, rather than just a feature) should pay closer attention to me. Am I clicking to the next song often? What have I been stopping on recently? Am I clicking off certain songs nearly every time? What songs have I been playing actively recently? Pay particular attention to my reaction (play a lot vs click away from immediately) to reccomended songs and play more or fewer from the source of the reccomendation based on my reactions. Sometimes I like rating things, but not often when random is on.
• I want to be able to share my music from where I am (in myTunes). Sometimes I want to just share one song, sometimes I want to share a bunch of songs at once. The other person doesn't need an mp3, just a stream (a full stream, without having to register).
• Songs like the ones I recently shared or put into playlists or have been playing a lot recently should play more often on random (including, but only occasionally, other songs by that artist).

Get on that. If I was smarter at programming and algorithms, I'd build my own version of Songbird. Perhaps there is a market there? Looking into the future where all music is free and computers are merely portals to the internet where files exist in a cloud, will the market be in custom built music portals, tailored specifically to your listening preferences? Probably not, but it's worth throwing out there--I think you'll see a growing long tail of market-quality music players and reccomendation engines.

Note: Bonus points to anyone identifying the reference in the title.

Recent Album Purchases

As I wait for the 10 oclock showing of the new Narnia movie (how cool am I on a Friday night?), I figured I'd offer my takes on some recent musical purchases:
Byan Scary and the Shredding Tears-Flight of the Knife- This work of musical Literature is what Alexandre Dumas would write were he writing music. I think I've described Scary's live show as Genesis and Meatloaf having a piano orgy in space, and they don't disappoint on recording either. Scary takes us on an epic journey of fantasy, introducing us to characters like Susie High ("a walking imitation of the sky") and Airship Valentine ("the station master's son"). You get so caught up in the journey that you forget to question the incredible quirkiness of both the story and the music.
Atmosphere-When life gives you lemons, you paint that shit gold- This is a tough one for me. Ant's beats are so much fresher and more innovative than any previous album, yet Slug's rhymes, well, just don't have the edge they once did. I do admire him for departing from his usual tales of his own hardship and trying to tell other stories, but the truth is he's more passionate and knowledgeable about his own life, and it really shines through. What makes me keep coming back to it, though, is that every time you start to get down on Slug, he rips in with a sick line, just to remind you he's still the same rapper.
The Matches-A Band In Hope- Another tough one for me. I want to like this album so much, but it really is leaning towards mediocre. Every song has countless flashes of brilliance, but the only truly complete and solid song on the cd is "Wake the Sun" (which, by the way, is an AWESOME song). I maintain that The Matches will forever be on the forefront of punk--I've thought that since I saw them when they were 14 year olds opening for Wakefield, Zebrahead, and Reel Big Fish. And you can't deny them a place near the top of the live show ranks. But they missed just a little with this one. They'll be back.
Panic at the Disco-Pretty. Odd.- Oh, Panic, what emotions you stir in me. I want to love you and hate you at the same time, I want to stop listening to your music, but can't. It's just so. damn. catchy. The hottest thing out of Vegas since The Killers, Panic settled down from their debut on this CD to find their pop rock roots in the likes of The Beatles and Beach Boys. They said they went for a "timeless sound." Well, they got it. That's for certain. But that doesn't equal greatness. Timeless + innovative = greatness. When you define timeless, as The Beatles did, that's when you've created something great. Pretty. Odd., on the other hand, will be a good listen for a month or two--you know, til the next really catchy cd comes out.
Phantom Planet-Raise the Dead- "Holy what? You mean those guys who used to have Jason Schwartzman as a drummer and used to have the theme song to the most popular teenage tv show (The OC) are still making music?" Yep. And while they may not regain their fame from 2003-2004, they've learned to make some legitimately good music. Anyone who can get me screaming "GERONIMO!" out loud every time the chorus kicks in has done a helluva job in my mind. I can't say this is the absolute best album ever because ironically they've lost their gift with the slower songs, but it's absolutely worth your $10.
Death Cab For Cutie-Narrow Stairs- What happens when a talented set of musicians force a major label debut then take a ton of drugs to try to get back to their indie roots? The answer lies in Narrow Stairs. Of course they have their moments of brilliance--they're a very talented set of musicians--but on a whole this whole ordeal seems forced to me once again. Ben seems further separated from his lyrics, and all the rest of the band can do is layer the sounds to try to create a deeper narrative. Sorry guys, not my cup of tea.
Anti-Flag-The Bright Lights of America- Anti-flag's best effort of the past few, this still won't appeal to more than the punk fans. That being said, it is a very energetic album, and they keep that energy going for at least 3:30 in each song--which I think must be a record on punk albums. The only real reason this couldn't be huge is that singer Justin Sane's voice is an acquired taste.

Bands vs Fans--Who's responsible for spreading the word?

The following was an e-mail I sent to my friend Adam a week or two back, so excuse any typos:
I was thinking yesterday, the niche of folks who are active in pushing music to others is pretty small, but they're pretty much the only ones who are truly engaged with the music. The average music listener might buy a cd, or might get something from a friend, and will just throw it on the iPod and be done with it. They don't check MySpace, iLike, etc, they don't generally buy merch, they go to concerts when their friends go or when it's one of their top 5 favorite artists. Is there any way to engage those folks more? Or are they a lost cause as they are just not predisposed to get more involved with the music they listen to?
If we count them as a lost cause, how do bands best use their fan support to grow? There used to be a whole market of folks to help manage street teams and such. Now everyone just uses MySpace (one such person came up to my friends in scenes from a movie at warped tour this year, as soon as he left they threw his card in the trash saying "unless your name is MySpace, you're worthless to us"). But let's face it--as much as bands are businesses, and as well as bands generally know their audience, precious few are truly marketing geniuses themselves. That opens up a new market of providing marketing tools to the bands (I know you know all this, I’m just thinking out loud). They have tens, hundreds, thousands of folks who would happily perform easy tasks for them, particularly if those tasks are fun. In the traditional method, fans get rewarded with tickets or t-shirts for passing out flyers, emailing the most people, etc. those kinds of rewards are great and appreciated, but they aren't a constant. Bands need their fans to CONSTANTLY be pushing the marketing for them. Thus, the fans can't always be physically rewarded. Instead they either need to have fun in the process or feel good at the end--or better yet, have it be so mindless that they don't even have to think about it.
Putting a band in your favorites on Facebook or MySpace rarely does any real good. The very very very few people who notice it generally already know the band. There really needs to be a PUSH of information (or whatever it is) for any promotion to have an effect.
Speaking from my own experience, my pushing happens a few ways. First off, I RARELY push music to people who I’m not at least 70% sure will take the time to listen and will enjoy it. When I do push music, it generally happens in one of three forms: cd, imeem, blog. For cds, I send out mixes to about 10 people every month or so (it started with my college roommates and has grown a bit as others have asked to join). I plan the cds as though I were making a mix tape for a girl in middle school (while I feel I can push my friends a little musically, I know what they like and tend to play to that), and even design cover art for them. Imeem I use for only a couple friends (I think I only have one or two on there). If I hear a song I like on my iTunes or on some band's MySpace page, I go to imeem, do a search, click the song, and send it along. That is the only thing I use imeem for. Since the usability design is so bad (almost has to be as they need to serve a whole lot of ads to make money), I don't find value in any other site functionality at this point. Finally, if I see a particularly good concert, I’ll blog about it. Each story on my blog averages about 20-25 reads, and only a few people click the links to listen to tracks (they more readily watch embedded videos, but even then it's maybe 20% of readers).
all this results in my pushing of music more than once a year to maybe 20 unique people, and probably 200 unique tracks end up in peoples' iTunes as a result. knowing my friends, I probably influence about 2 cd purchases a year--they already have the songs they like and don't often feel the need to explore a band further ("if they're really that good, Ty will send me another cd with another track or two from them"). Case-in-point: I got my college roommates obsessed with Kaddisfly. Not an easy task, considering one's favorite music is jazz, one's is rap, and the third is top 40 through and through. But they now LOVE Kaddisfly. Yet I’m the only one who owns a cd or t-shirt or has been to a concert. How do I make their love translate to revenue for Kaddisfly?
And there's the big key: sharing is all well and good, but how much sharing has to happen before the band can actually make money off of it? the process needs to be refined on both ends--fans need easier, more fun ways to spread their favorite music (and perhaps a better sense of who might be open to listening to it?), and the people they spread it to need a fun, easy, relatively inexpensive (at best, free--work on that) way to generate revenue for the bands.
Part of what I think might help this is if bands truly take it upon themselves to build their brand beyond the music. I used to blog a bunch about the need to think of a band as a small startup business, and I truly believe that. Of course, in both Seth Godin's (marketing guru) concept of a "Purple Cow" is incredibly relevant--if you have a product that is truly "remarkable" (his term), it's infinitely easier to market. remarkable doesn't just mean unique or fascinating, because different is not always good or pleasing to the masses; instead, it means something that is innovative and interesting, but is generally relatable to things we already are familiar with (why Panic(!) at the Disco's first cd got so huge--it was new instrumentation of very traditional pop punk music, so people thought it was new and different but were still universally comfortable with its conventions).
Regardless of how "remarkable" a band is, though, they can always do more to build their brand. Merch is one extension, and touring is one outlet/marketing tool, but there has to be more. Videos, blogs, hotlines, etc help, but can also be overdone--fans want to feel a like a part of the music and the band, but there also has to be some allure left. It’s like if a company was so into creating a "team" environment that they completely do away with hierarchy and put the management in the same cubicle as the entry level folks--teams are good, but they also need leaders who garner the respect of their peers partially by having closed-doors meetings and such. It’s a fine line between encouraging fan involvement and pandering to them. Ultimately, the best thing to have happen is to have the fans work with each other in a sort of community setting that you can oversee and occasionally communicate with to give some direction and encouragement. That being said, you have to make sure the conversation in the community is constant. If you think of it as an internet message board, if people run out of things to talk about related to your band, they'll stop coming to the site, and it happens as a snowball effect. If they stop coming to the site, reengaging each of them is infinitely difficult, and the longer you wait, the more folks you'll have to try to reclaim. Lil Wayne is a decent example of keeping fans engaged--he keeps releasing songs on MySpace rather than waiting every 2 years to do a cd. He doesn't have to do much in the way of talking to fans or anything really besides constantly providing the content for them to enjoy and buzz about.
The traditional thinking is that the music is the product. Now, it's sort of a product (people still buy it, but iTunes overtaking Wal-mart as top music reseller is evidence that people are more comfortable with digital music, and digital music has a marginal cost of zero, thus market forces will push price towards zero). In the future, it may only be a tool. Google started as a search engine. Now their search engine is a tool for selling ads, and they have a plethora of other free services that would traditionally have been considered products but are really just tools for building a brand and generating revenue through other areas. Can a band mirror that? I think so. They just need the tools to do so.

Buy this record (yes, record)

I liked the post office yesterday--not only did my iPod Touch finally come in, but when I got to work in the morning I found a white box containing my double-disc, limited edition vinyl from Kay Kay and His Weathered Underground. I don't own a record player, but the band doesn't let you order the album in any other form (note: it does come with a card with a code to download the mp3s online). Not too many bands could get away with only selling vinyl, but for Kay Kay it seems somehow appropriate--they're very heavily influenced by the late 60s and early 70s (though they also show many signs of their Seattle rock roots). Their MySpace page describes them as "Alternative / Lounge / Experimental" music, but I think it's best to skip the classifications and let you hear for yourself. Oh, and don't forget to pick up one of the only 1000 copies of this record available--you won't regret it:
Buy: http://www.vinylcollective.com/2008/02/06/potp-kay-kay-and-his-weathered-underground-st-dbl-lp-3-colors/
Listen:

The Spectrum of Musical Experience

Yesterday morning I was in Chicago with my college roommate, ripping air guitar solos to Jupiter Sunrise's "Arthur Nix," much the same way we did in our freshman dorm room. Last night I got off the phone with one of my senior year roommates, then turned on the radio and heard three songs from The Beatles, culminating in "With A Little Help From My Friends." As I fell asleep, I put on a playlist of songs I have yet to share with anyone.
All three musical experiences elicited a deep emotional response, but in completely different ways. Such is the mystical nature of music--it is at once both deeply personal and reliant on shared experience. Many of us turn to it when there's no one else to turn to, and also use it as a mechanism for connection and shared memory with others.
My own consumption of music tends to follow a similar pattern: find out about a new artist or song through an artist I already enjoy, experience the music as personally as possible (alone in my room or car), then pass it along to others in the hopes that they might have a similar personal experience with it that we can then relate to each other through. To this day I send out CDs to friends almost monthly as a way to keep us tied together. As the Better Than Ezra song goes: "Someone out there's listening to the same song and feeling the same way that I do."
Sometimes (often) this phenomenon occurs on a massive scale. Radio pushes the same few songs at a time all over America and the world. As a result, people buy (hopefully) millions of albums and pack stadiums to see their favorite bands live. Perhaps no greater connection happened than when The Beatles played The Ed Sullivan Show on February 9, 1964 while an estimated 73 million people watched.
To this day, the easiest way to unite a room full of people is to play a Beatles song. We had a cookout for our families outside our apartment the night before graduation and it was a no-brainer to make the mix cds almost exclusively Beatles--it's happy music that nearly everyone knows and loves. Even Spencer's grandma was doing a little boogie to "Good Day Sunshine."
Taking experience one step further is live music--fans and potential fans flock to see bands play live, now moreso than ever. Whether it's a dive bar with ten people watching or Albert Hall filled to capacity, strangers come together over a common love of music.
Possibly my favorite quote about the potential depth of experience with live music comes from an interview I was lucky enough to do with Andy Hull of Manchester Orchestra: "The first time I ever felt evil at a show, which was when I knew I had to play music, I went to a Ben Kweller and The Anniversary concert, and The Anniversary was playing 'Sweet Marie,' and I remember the inside of my body just twisting inside and out and just feeling like I shouldn't be here, but the only thing I really need to do is be here. It happened again to me three years later watching The Blood Brothers, and I was just thinking 'This is evil, and I love it.' I'm not a sadistic weirdo, it's just that feeling of being drawn into something."
Nothing will ever replace the experience of live music. However I believe the internet has the power to enhance experiences, both personal and communal, with music. I see it in my daily reading of music blogs and bands' MySpace pages, where millions of people come to find out the latest news on their favorite bands and discover new music; but perhaps more importantly to our discussion, they comment the hell out of those posts. They actively seek extensions of the music they love. They want a greater experience.
The question then becomes: how? It seems to me that the potential power of the internet is not even close to realized, especially when it comes to music. Sure, people can listen to or buy nearly any song they want with a quick click, they can watch videos, and can post a few lines of their own about their feelings on music. But now they want more--more access to the artists, more music, more (or at least better) ways to discover new music.
It strikes me that iTunes, in all its glory, is stuck in the first iteration of the digital music revolution. There are hundreds of startups who all think they have the answer to the next iteration, but few attract enough users to back up their claims. Furthermore, they each seem to seek out their own niche. The biggest problem is that they all focus on evolution rather than revolution. People want free music? Okay, we'll sort of give it to them (not in a format that they can put on their iPod) and support it with ads. If iTunes is Digital Music 1.0, these startups are merely versions 1.x. No one is ambitious enough to really take on the music industry as a whole.
Do I have the answers? No. But I believe the future of music will rely very heavily on the internet, and will do so because the internet will allow for a greater musical experience. Some of the innovation may come from paying closer attention to what people say they want, but there is also a portion that will stem from a solid understanding of both how people experience music (both personally and communally) and the capabilities of the internet.
Any ideas? What would enhance your musical experience (be it via the internet or not)? If you dream it, we can do it.

Top Albums of 2007

Yes, here it is: the obligatory "Best Albums of the Year" list. I mention the EPs because those four are fantastic albums in their own right and are better in my mind than most of the LPs this year. Is that the way of the future? Or are those bands just on the verge of breaking out strong?
Also, as a special treat this year, enjoy the media player with a track or two from each of the albums listed below.


SeeqPod Music beta - Playable Search

LPs:
1. Kaddisfly- Set Sail The Prarie: A clear winner in my book. These guys simply get music and get life. As with any "progressive" rock, you have to have a taste for the sound before you can dive deeper, but I highly encourage everyone to pick up this album and give it a chance. And if you needed any more reason to purchase it, a goodly chunk of the profits (trust me, they don't make much as is) is donated by the band to the Mr Holland's Opus Foundation, supporting music education in schools.

2. Against Me!- New Wave: Most accesible and yet deepest punk rock album to come out in quite a while. I'm not usually a fan of shouting every line, but these guys pull it off with grace. Their nonstop energy carries over to their live sets, too, which they play without pause for banter or tuning--just plain rock.

3. House of Fools- Live and Learn: I'm not really sure why more people aren't huge fans of these guys. They have some pop sensibilities coupled with a folk-rock feel and ripping guitar solos. What more can you ask from a few North Carolina dudes?

4. Modest Mouse- We Were Dead Before the Ship Even Sank: Modest Mouse is simply the best thing the major labels have going for them these days--despite "selling out," they continue to spew brilliance and reinvent themselves with every song, just like they have for a decade.

5. Of Montreal- Hissing Fauna, Are You the Destroyer?: Man, these guys are out there. But man, do they ever pull off some beautiful songs. On this album, they embrace their own quirkiness to put personality into twelve delicious pop tracks.

6. Say Anything- In Defense of the Genre (sorry, no mp3s): I, like many folks, put this epic double-disc album as an early favorite for album of the year, simply based on 2004's ...Is A Real Boy. While Max Bemis and the gang may have fallen just shy of their target (thanks in large part to the relative inaccessibility of much of the album, which is long and works best when listened to straight through--not something a lot of people have time for), they did manage to create one of the most lyrically brilliant personal journeys in recent memory.

7. Iron & Wine- The Shepherd's Dog: I hadn't been an Iron & Wine fan until this album--I had left him to the swooning coeds who went ga-ga over his previous efforts. But WOW what a display of musicianship in every sense of the word. He definitely made a believer out of me.

8. Limbeck- Limbeck: With new drummer Jonny P in tow (formerly of Milwaukee favorites The Benjamins), Limbeck bounces back strong from a mediocre sophomore effort. This is what life on the road sounds like.

9. Sage Francis- Human The Death Dance: In his most personal album in recent memory, activist/rapper Sage Francis plays with many musical and lyrical concepts that hadn't seen light on his previous albums.

10. Anberlin- Cities: One of the most passionate rock bands around, these guys are poised for a serious breakout. Cities takes their force up yet another notch from Never Take Friendship Personal. Can their major-label debut match that?

11. Steel Train- Trampoline: A reinvented sound (much more upbeat and uptempo) brings these jam-band-turned-pop-rockers up a level, and hopefully people will take notice.

12. Radiohead- In Rainbows: Did you think I was gonna leave it off the list? Nah. This is definitely one of the best albums of the year, even looking beyond all the hype of the pay-what-you-want release. I'd put it higher, but as much as I respect Radiohead, I'm so rarely in the mood to listen to them that I just haven't spent the time with it.

13. Aesop Rock- None Shall Pass: Some absolutely fantastic tracks on this alt-rapper's latest effort. See especially "None Shall Pass," "Five Fingers," and "Coffee."

14. They Might Be Giants- The Else: Gotta show these veterans some love for their best effort since Factory Showroom. While it lacks a bit of the absurdist energy of their earliest stuff, John and John get back to what they do best: writing quirky pop songs laced with ingenious metaphors.

EPs (in no order--they're all too good to compare)

1. The Reign of Kindo- EP: This is what happens when a talented emo band loses its lead singer and decides to jam out for a while, only picking up a lead singer at the last minute. The result is an alt-jazz-jam EP that maintains the overall sound of This Day and Age but pushes their own musical boundaries into completely new waters.

2. Edison Glass- Let Go: Christian rock gone horribly right. While A Burn or A Shiver was a solid LP with 5 or 6 really worthwhile tracks, Let Go is a quick and gloriously appealing peak at what these guys have planned for the future--complex, catchy riffs coupled with a few extra Red Bulls. This is what you love to see: a band really taking what they do best to a new level.

3. Days Away- Ear Candy For the Headphone Trippers: Fueled By Ramen made a horrible mistake dropping these dudes, though there's no doubt they don't fit with the Fall Out Boys, Panic! at the Discos, and Gym Class Heroes that comprise that label. These jam-rockers have recouped incredibly well from their being dropped, and continue to play one of the most entrancing live shows around.

4. Ben Karis-Nix- We Are Giants Now: At the low cost of free, this is far and away the deal of the century. After the disbandment of Jupiter Sunrise earlier this year, Ben has ventured out on his own. Please please please do yourself a favor and go to http://www.myspace.com/benkarisnix and download the tracks (and maybe even buy yourself a poster or shirt or something).