Billboard Buys Spin, Vibe And Stereogum

In an effort to “own the topic of music online,” the Hollywood Reporter-Billboard Media Group has acquired SpinMedia, whose assets include Spin, Vibe and Stereogum. This means that the company is now the world’s largest online music brand and its sites will see traffic of about 45 million per month as a result. It will now reach 1 out of every 3 millennials, a powerful benefit for advertisers. The Media Group has also partnered with Facebook to create custom content for the recently launched Facebook Live.
While this sounds like a great business move on Billboard’s part, since millennials don’t read Billboard or the Hollywood Reporter (unless they happen to be in the entertainment industry), it’s probably not so good for Spin, Vibe and Stereogum in the long run. Those sites were vibrant when run by the founders (except for Spin, which was acquired by BuzzMedia, which then rebranded as SpinMedia in 2012), but much of that street knowledge and connection is diminished once the corporate suits get involved.
While it’s not impossible for a news website to maintain its audience once it’s acquired, it does start to lose its edge and it’s only a matter of time until something newer and edgier comes along.  That won’t happen overnight though, so if you’re a regular visitor to those sites, you probably won’t see an immediate change. That said, it should be interesting to see how things evolve over time as the suits get more involved.

Owsinski, Bobby. "Billboard Buys Spin, Vibe And Stereogum." Music 3.0 Music Industry Blog. December 25, 2016. Accessed January 04, 2017. http://music3point0.com/2016/12/26/billboard-buys-spin-vibe-stereogum/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A%2BMusic30%2B%28Music%2B3.0%29.

Hand Painted Billboards Used To Dominate The Sunset Strip In Hollywood. What Happened To Real Art?

The Who created one of the most iconic billboard advertisements towering above the Sunset Strip

Hand painted billboards used to dominate the sunset strip in Hollywood throughout the 70's and then a moment in history changed everything. MTV was born and ushered in a new era on the way we consume music and pop culture.

After checking out these great hand painted billboards it only serves as a reminder as to how much an iconic album meant back in the day. Artwork was crucial to relaying a message rather then just a few key photos or illustrated lines to post to Instagram to make followers stay attentive. 

We are huge fans of albums as a package and as a way to help an album be accepted by the mass populace, but these billboards are an art form all to themselves.

Billboard Debuts Charts For Music Trending Via Twitter, From Mashable

Twitter #Music is now chartable on Billboard

Link to article on Mashable

"Billboard debuted the Billboard Twitter Real-Time Charts on Tuesday morning. The four interactive music charts will rank trending songs from popular and emerging artists based on how often they are mentioned in tweets in the United States.

Twitter first teased this partnership in March, with Bob Moczydlowsky, Twitter's music head, describing it as "the new industry standard for tracking and surfacing the conversation around music as it happens."

The ranking system is a new music strategy for Twitter, which earlier this year shut down its Twitter #Music app, a short-lived service that launched in April 2013 but failed to gain mainstream attention in a market full of rival music apps.

Billboard Charts And The Way Ratings Are Evolving

A plethora of folks, from the outliers, to the fans and to the music critics are voicing strong opinions about Billboard's decision to shake up the rating system, for which it holds the keys to the kingdom. As far as we are concerned, we totally get that things need to morph and change over time. But what we are trying to understand is this; with such a dramatic shift taking place, why not add even more genre categories due to the broadening spectrum of music being created to reflect all the ways music is being streamed and heard.

This is clearly not a perfect system and will hopefully get better over time. As a label that champions the underbelly of grit character within Rock and Country, we hope to see these potential genre categories open up a bit more and have more parameters such as adding Roots, EDM, Metal, Punk, Jam, etc. etc. Ticket sales, streaming music, video plays and social media could all help to add to the way data flows into these charts to be more characteristic of the genres as a whole.

Then again for our personal enjoyment of music, we could give a rat's ass about all of these ratings systems. Categorization leads to homogenization and that just doesn't sit well with us. Music, art, design, craftsmanship and truly being an individual, are about striking new ground and following your own path. Let Civ be your guide on this topic and listen to these lyrics of their song, Choices Made.


Link to original article on NyTimes.com 

Or check more thoughts on this from Spin.com

"Three weeks ago, the editors at Billboard, who for decades have defined what makes an American hit, shook up the song charts for various genres.

The magazine started counting digital sales and online streams along with radio airplay in its tallies for most major formats. It also created two new charts using the same criteria, breaking out rap songs in one and R&B songs in a second.

The results have given stars with a pop-oriented sound and broad crossover appeal an advantage over other artists, upsetting and puzzling some music fans. Take Psy, the pudgy South Korean pop star with the infectious dance moves whose video “Gangnam Style” went viral on the Internet. Since the new rules took effect, “Gangnam Style” has been the No. 1 song on the new Rap Songs chart for the last three weeks, even though Psy does not rap on the track and most American hip-hop radio stations have yet to embrace him as a bona fide rapper.

Still going goo goo for Gangnam Style? - Photo by Getty Images

On the Hot Country Songs chart, Taylor Swift’s pop single “We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together” has held the No. 1 position for three weeks, even as many country stations have rejected it, and Rihanna’s pop hit “Diamonds“ has remained atop the Hot R&B-Hip Hop Songs chart, causing dismay among R&B purists.

Bill Werde, Billboard’s editorial director, said the shake-up was necessary to reflect changes in the way people consume music these days. There was a time when radio programmers — and the record labels who lobbied them — largely defined the charts, using surveys of their listeners and their gut instincts to select hits. Now the Internet gives fans a greater say, as people buy music from online stores, stream it through services like Spotify or listen to it on video sites like YouTube and Vevo.

“Three weeks ago, the main genre charts only reflected FM radio play,” Mr. Werde said. “Every fan out there in the world knows and everyone in the music business knows that is not the business we are in anymore, that a stream on Rhapsody or Spotify, or a download at iTunes or Amazon — all these different things — are a meaningful part of the fan experience. And to have genre charts that don’t reflect that? I can’t believe anyone would be arguing for that.”

Still, some people did. The changes caused a backlash on Twitter and other online forums from some purists among hip-hop, country and R&B fans. A headline on one commentator’s blog was “Billboard Chart Changes — R.I.P. R&B Music.” The Web site Saving Country Music lamented that “these new rules could cause the largest wholesale power shift to superstars that music has ever seen.”

Psy’s climb up the rap chart was also criticized. “Trust me when I tell you hip-hop does not consider Psy rap,” said Ebro Darden, the program director at Hot 97 (WQHT, 97.1 FM) the leading hip-hop station in New York. “Billboard has pull, but they cannot make people who live hip-hop believe Psy is rap.”

Most of the criticism, however, has come from fan groups with narrow interests. Carrie Underwood fans were furious that her song “Blown Away” was blocked from No. 1 by Ms. Swift’s pop tune, even though Ms. Underwood’s track is being played far more on country radio stations.

Some R&B and hip-hop fans were dismayed that Rihanna’s song jumped abruptly to No. 1 from No. 66, and that it has remained at the top of the chart ever since. Fans of R&B singer Brandy were particularly incensed, because her song “Put It Down,” featuring Chris Brown, which had been in the Top 10, dropped like a stone after the rule change, even though it remains a favorite on urban radio stations.

An online petition was started to persuade Billboard to undo the changes and has gathered 625 signatures, a small number for an Internet-based campaign.

Mr. Werde characterizes the detractors as a “vocal minority” and has stood firm in the face of the criticism, arguing in columns and online discussions that the definition of a hit has changed and Billboard must keep up with the times.

Although we don't know her music, when we hear about Rihanna, we pay attention for some good reasons

Similar changes were made a few months ago to the Hot 100 song chart, the main chart that measures popularity across genres, and they have been widely accepted by the industry. Some critics have said there is a subtle price to pay for the new rules. For starters, it becomes harder for artists of a traditional bent, or whose work lacks crossover appeal, to attain a No. 1 hit in their genre.

Billboard made one other change to its methodology that rewards crossover hits. Previously, the magazine only counted airplay on country stations for the country chart, and spins on R&B stations for the R&B chart, and so on. Now it is counting all the plays a song receives on 1,200 stations across genres.

Kyle Coroneos, who writes a blog for the Saving Country Music site, said Billboard’s decision to count the airplay a country song gets on other formats is important. This means that traditional country artists, whose songs are played only on country stations, will be pushed down deeper into the charts, while pop-oriented stars, like Ms. Swift or Lady Antebellum, crowd the Top 10. Labels in turn are likely to encourage artists to make country records with a pop flavor, he said.

“It erodes the autonomy of the country charts in general,” he said. “I have a theory all the genres of music are coagulating into one big monogenre and this emphasizes that.”

Kyle Bylin, an analyst for Live Nation Labs, a blog about technology and music, said that the new rules also mean artists who enjoy a high volume of online sales or streams can remain at the top of the charts for longer periods, even after radio programmers have taken their songs out of heavy rotation.

What’s more, the emphasis on streaming and sales of digital tracks makes it easier for an act with a blockbuster album to dominate a genre chart. One example is Mumford & Sons, the folk-rock group from Britain. Their album “Babel” has sold more than 900,000 copies since it was released a month ago, most of them digital, and it has also broken records for streaming on Spotify.

The first single from the album, “I Will Wait,” has remained in the Top 10 of the rock songs chart all month, mostly on the strength of airplay on alternative rock stations. But when the rule change came, seven more songs from “Babel,” buoyed by streaming on Spotify and digital sales, entered the Top 20 on the rock chart.

At the same time, Fun.’s “Some Nights,” which had been sliding down the chart but was still selling well online, surged back to the No. 1 slot and has stayed there.

Mr. Werde acknowledged that the new rules may make it harder for artists with little cross-genre appeal to get a No. 1 song, but the new rules also provide a “clearer reflection of what’s actually being consumed in the music space.” Modern charts need to take in more than radio to measure a song’s popularity, he said, and Billboard has plans to go further, folding data from YouTube and Vevo into its charts as well.

“A hit doesn’t just look like one thing anymore,” he wrote in a recent column answering critics."

Confessions of a Ticket Scalper, Thieves or Equalizers?

How many big shows have you been to whether it be sports, music or any form of entertainment and you see the usual cadre of hustlers working the corners around the venue? Do you think they have a right to make a profit on tickets or does it get you more pissed off about their tactics? Hell, does StubHub have a positive or negative effect on ticket sales or does it become an equalizer and a value added service?

Personally after working at independent music venues for numerous years, these folks drove us nuts with their strong arm tactics and inevitably keeping tickets away from fans that truly wanted to get into the show. Granted the fans could have always paid them for the tickets, but many a time, they were also selling fake tickets. 

Sometimes I would ask a co-worker to play the role of a mark and go up and see how many tickets he could buy. Then knowing how many tickets the scalper had, we would then sell tickets to the fans that were waiting to get in and force the scalper to give up. This definitely took some wind out of their sales, but they never gave up as the street hustlers were being backed by someone with deeper pockets who could absorb the loss.

The article below is quite interesting as its a direct conversation with a scalper or basically a high end gambler. Here is some advice from a former club manager to deal with scalpers. If you really need to buy the ticket for the show from a scalper, wait til the doors open as the prices continue to go down and haggle the shit out of them.

Link to original article on Billboard.com

Ticket Scalper photo illustration from Billboard.com

As part of a Billboard special report on the state of the ticketing business, our touring expert Ray Waddell picked the brain of a ticket broker who's been in the game, as he says, "since it was invented." We chose to protext his identity so he'd speak freely. And he did.

So you've been active in the ticket brokering business?
You know how many airline miles guys like me have? I haven't paid for a plane ticket since they came out with frequent-flier miles for using the credit card.

What's it like out there in your business?
It's out of control these days. I've been in this game since it was invented. I made my money, and this business is on the downside for me now. One of these days [brokers] are going to piss off the wrong people in the prosecutor's office and they're going to go after them criminally and make it stick. When the shit hits the fan, I want to be able to go to sleep at night.

What do you mean by "out of control"?
The bots. I met a guy who told me he had 600 modems in his piece of crap strip mall store that generated so much heat the neighbor couldn't get their temperature right.


You're talking about the use of automated bots that hit the ticketing company at on-sale with thousands of requests for tickets. How did brokers used to operate, say, 25 years ago?
Those guys were no angels, but they had actual businesses. There were checks and balances. These guys [today] that sell to StubHub and these other sites are able to lock up the entire inventory on these screens, decide what they want and dump back the rest. Sometimes they hire some computer genius to do their dirty work: "Get me the tickets, I'll make the money, I'll take the risk and put them up on all these [secondary-market] boards." There's another type of guy that says, "I'm going to find me a guy in India to write this program."

There's plenty of guys in my business that are crazy, and doing this at levels where I really don't want to participate. It's not the moral end of it, but I know one day this will turn around. They didn't get the Wise Guys but they're going to get you. [He's referring to the Wise Guys case, where three brokers operating as Wise Guys were given probation last year in New Jersey District Court after being charged with wire fraud, among other charges, for using bots to procure approximately 1.5 million tickets for resale.]


Does paperless ticketing -- which requires the person who bought the ticket to enter the show with the credit card he or she used for purchase -- stop brokers?
It slows people down, definitely. But because these tickets are so valuable, a [broker] will say to his wife, "Let's go up to Jersey for Springsteen. I've got these idiot customers that paid $1,200 apiece. We'll walk in with them, then we'll leave. I'll take you to dinner." It's more trouble, it's more money, but to a certain extent it can't be stopped.

What about asking fans to join a fan club, sometimes for a fee, for a chance to buy tickets?
Fan clubs are old hat. To me that's just Live Nation's way to get some piece of something.

Aldo The Apache is ready to deal with Scalpers. Illustration by Gavin Smith

How much risk is involved in what you do?
I'll make money on Springsteen and then lose on some country act I thought was going to be hot. I throw those tickets in the garbage, but I still helped you, Live Nation. If I made $200,000-$300,000 in gross profit for a good summer, I could lose $100,000 by fucking up. That's the nature of the business-we're gamblers. We can't pick every horse right. And when we picked the wrong horses, the concert industry still got paid.


Why take a risk on tickets that aren't a sure sell?
A [ticket] source might say, "You can't just cherry-pick me and take all the Springsteen. You got to buy some of these other crap shows." So I'll say, "OK, send me the crap shows. I'll get rid of them." But the hot shows don't always mean we make money. When Bon Jovi's charging $175, he takes the money out of the business. The fan doesn't have money to go to the next show, and I don't make any money. What can I get-$210? I end up making $20, where I used to make $60, $70, and out of that I'd lose $20-$30 because you don't pick all winners. It's very difficult to pick the winners and the losers, and you don't make as much on the winners these days. I can't take the marginal shots anymore.


Historically, where did brokers get tickets?
People at the record store, the box office, the promoter's office, the low-paid people. There must be somewhere where there's legit people in those jobs, but why would they be? They don't get paid a lot, and it's there for the taking. If you don't take it, somebody else will.

What's your take on speculative selling, where brokers sell tickets they don't physically have in hand?
It's definitely gotten out of hand. It hurts the guy who actually owns the inventory, but it's just like shorting on the stock market -- as long as they cover, who really cares? You can look at a Broadway show for next week: There's so many guys selling inventory they don't have for a hot show, there could be more seats available than the theater even has. But it's the computers that are out of control.

What do you think when you see $100 tickets going for thousands of dollars on the secondary market?
For the life of me I can't understand how StubHub has gotten away with this. There used to be self-policing in our business. Even if there was a show where stuff was ridiculously priced, you never had those prices where people could see it -- you'd just quote it to the right guy. You always know somebody that is willing to pay.

Tom Waits - Bad As Me, Highest Debut Of Career

"Artist" is a term that we continually feel unsettled about as it implies someone who is just "creative". This notion goes right back to Shooter Jenning's article about "Rockstars". As soon as someone says they are an artist, all I can think of is the amateur painter or musician that is internally tortured by not having a real sense of work ethic or unique ideas and has yet to prove their ability, to the level of an "Artisan". ( Artisan are persons having superior skill or ability, or who are capable of producing superior work. An artist is a person engaged in some type of fine art. An artisan is engaged in a craft or applied art. - from Dictionary.com)

Not to directly knock anyone for using the creative process, but the word "artist" has just lost its meaning, same as "rockstar". Anyone can claim it, but are they really that creative and risk taking? It is a razor thin line and the charming aspect of fine art is that beauty is in the eye of the beholder. Take for example Jackson Pollack, he was a painter that I failed to understand until I dug much deeper into his ideas, or his drunken melee's to really come to a rational mindset of his work. Basically, his work runs parallel with Miles Davis in the sense of its movement. Its the unique signature rhythm of the drips he created on canvas, that plays visually right next to Jazz and its ability to morph on a whim, while still maintaining it's true character.

Jackson Pollack aka Jack the Dripper painting

Miles Davis creating Jazz magic

Artisans come in many forms and knowing Tom Waits personally makes it easier to see all aspects of him as a dyed in the wool creative individual. It could be his photos, the custom music instruments he makes or the sense of wonder when it comes to other "Artisans" that push him to constantly revisit the well of ideas and reformulate his own concepts.

We are damn proud to have had the opportunity to work with Tom Waits on his album Alice, photographer Matt Mahurin and the amazing Anti Records a few years back. After our long diatribes and too many cups of coffee chatting on the randomness of art, music and film, hearing about the biggest debut of his career just gives us one hell of a smile. Congrats Tom, you deserve it!

Link to Tom Waits site

"Tom Waits debuted on the Billboard Top 200 Album Chart at #6, making this the highest debut and the fastest selling (63K+) of his long and storied career—not only in the US, but around the globe. Bad As Me, his 20th album to date, is currently top #10 Europe including the UK, Italy, Sweden, Norway, the Netherlands, Ireland, Denmark, Belgium, Portugal, Austria and Germany; #6 in Canada and #11 in Australia.

Critics are making a racket with rave reviews including the Los Angeles Times: “The singer with the lowdown Howlin’ Wolf yowl, which is richer and more elastic than ever on Bad As Me…his first new studio album in seven years, and one of the best of his wildly fruitful creative life…The record…swirls with adventure and includes the instant classic ballad ‘Back in the Crowd,’ the stomping march ‘Hell Broke Luce’ and the transcendent closer ‘New Year’s Eve,’ a quiet yarn of a waltz” and Rolling Stone: “It doesn’t get much better than this.”

Meanwhile, 2011 is looking like a pretty good year for Waits…he started it off by being inducted into the Rock n’ Roll Hall of Fame and may wind down the clock with his best-selling album to date, no mean task for an artist in these tough times."

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As a side note, for the album design of Alice, Tom really wanted the text to feel like a water mark on the cover. Went through many iterations and concepts but what finally worked is cutting his name out of a piece of balsa wood to create a stamp. This gave us the loose texture and by adding more water to the ink I was able to get exactly what he was after on paper and then transferred that to the final design.

Need we say anymore? Truth is stranger than fiction...

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