Shunned By Radio, Hard Rock Is Still Alive And Well In America

Two hard rock bands, one young and one old, walk into a bar. The bartender asks to see the older band’s ID. “Welcome,” she says. “I loved your music when I was a college student in the 90s.” The younger band hands the bartender its ID. “Sorry,” she says, fiddling with the knob on her FM radio, “you’re far too young to be in here. Go get a few radio hits and come back in a decade or two.”

Ghost BC, a.k.a. Ghost, one of the few metal bands with songs popular at both Pandora and hard rock stations.

Such is the dilemma for young hard rock and metal bands. Radio has all but turned its back on the hard rock and metal stars of tomorrow. It’s a shame. Radio has remained the most common source of music discovery, according to numerous surveys over the years. The old-fashioned format is tied with friends/family at 68 percent, according to Edison Research and Triton Digital. Where do fans of metal and hard rock go for new music? Not commercial radio. Metal, and its umbrella genre, hard rock, has become a format for the middle-aged listener. People wanting to find new, hard music will find what they’re looking for at Pandora.

But hard rock and metal do well at Pandora, a democratic platform that rewards songs for their listeners’ positive reactions, not the decisions of radio program directors. Metal, a sub-genre of the more popular rock category, is tied for 13th in monthly time spent listening and currently gets over 6 million unique listeners per month. Rock, which includes hard rock and other types of rock music, has the most monthly listening hours on Pandora, ranks 2nd in monthly time spent listening and gets 50 million unique listeners each month.

The numbers show the severity of hard rock radio’s problem. According to Nielsen BDS data, only 10.5 percent of hard/active rock stations’ playlists are current tracks while 82.9 percent are legacy/golden tracks and 6.6 percent are recurrents (“active rock” stations have an emphasis on hard rock, “recurrents” are former current songs that still get spins). For comparison, current songs are 85 percent of music played at both pop and rhythmic (a catchall spanning upbeat rhythmic pop, hip hop and upbeat R&B) and 68 percent at country.

And Then There Were Three: Universal Will Buy EMI, from NPR Music

So you have this idea about starting a band and wanting to make it big. What in reality is "making it"? This became a never ending topic while skating for many many years. As we would each take turns rollin' up to do our intended tricks on whatever curb, gap, rail or street session was happening, we all talked on music and what bands we dug were doing. My buddy Nick and I were convinced that if you can make it to an indie label, that was "making it". In our mindset it was staying true to your music, but still building a much larger presence and ultimately being heard by larger amounts of folks so you could tour. 

Who doesn't want to go on tour? Living on your own terms, driving from gig to gig, selling merch, new crowds nightly and eating truck stop food, hell, we still think its awesome. But you have the other side of the coin in which the world of Pop music exists and there in lies the perceived notion of fame and fortune as its much more appealing to the masses and ahem, brings about more suits trying to control the chess board. Yes, more suits who think of each band as just a piece of collateral to make cash off of instead of investing or the long haul.

There are a multitude of factors involved here that we won't get to, but to point matter of factly to our ideas is thus, now that the major labels are down to three with the sale of EMI to Universal, are major labels even relevant? In reality if less suits are in the mix and with a new music mindset based around internet and viral marketing, who needs a bad bank loan or generally referred to as your advance? Good bye major labels, hello hard work and reaping the benefits as it should have always been.

Link to article over on NPR.org

The home of The Beatles is being remodeled — drastically.
EMI, until now one of the four remaining major labels, is being broken up and sold off by the megabank Citigroup. After an auction that took almost nine months, French media company Vivendi, which owns Universal Music Group, will buy EMI's recorded music division and Sony Corp. will pick up the publishing arm.

Until the sale, EMI was the oldest extant major, and the last to operate independent of a parent conglomerate. Founded in 1931, its recording catalog includes music by The Beatles, Pink Floyd and Frank Sinatra and its publishing portfolio is one of the most valuable in the world. Capitol, Virgin, Blue Note and Parlophone are a few of the labels under the EMI umbrella. EMI Classics has long been one of the cornerstones of the classical industry.
 
In a statement, Vivendi's CEO, Jean-Bernard Levy said: "We are very proud to welcome EMI into the Vivendi family. We all respect the labels within EMI as well as the artists and employees who contribute to its success. They will find within our Group a safe, long term home, headquartered in Europe."

That press release puts the price tag at 1.2 billion pounds (about $1.9 billion). The Wall Street Journal reported earlier today that Sony Corp., which owns Sony Music Entertainment, will pick up EMI's hugely valuable publishing arm for $2.2 billion.

EMI has been on the auction block since February, when the label's former owner, the private equity firm Terra Firma, nearly defaulted on its debt and Citigroup took control. Terra Firma paid over 4 billion pounds for the label in 2007, but EMI came saddled with almost half that amount in debt. When the credit crisis struck, Terra Firma was unable to find anyone to take on that debt. In order to make the company more attractive to potential buyers, Citigroup excused most of it.
If that all seems to have very little to do with music, back in February, I wrote that the situation boiled down to:

"a large company that puts out recorded music, which was previously owned by another company that existed solely to sell it off at a profit, is now owned by an even more massive company whose only interest is in seeing how quickly — and for how high a price — it can sell that first company."

The sale didn't come about quickly. You might attribute the nine months it took Citigroup to unload EMI to the fact that one of the other major labels — the only one not mentioned so far in this story — was itself sold in May. Warner Music Group, which had been owned by an investment group headed by Edgar Bronfman, Jr., was sold to Access Industries,which owns chemical, natural resource, real estate and media properties.

In a sort of response to the shuffling of EMI from banker to megabank, Vivendi CEO Levy's statement also said: "We are confident that we will be able to create additional value for our shareholders thanks to our knowledge of the industry and our proven track record of successful integration."

To a pessimist, however, the piecemeal sale of the label — to other companies that are already invested in the record business — might seem like a sign of the industry's poor health. If nobody else but another record label could be enticed to throw EMI a life raft, this sale could look like the majors banding together as they begin to circle the drain.

RUSTYMETRIC - Digital Mag Now Available for $0.99

If we were to tell you we just thought this idea up and knew it would be cool, that would only be half true. The idea to start a new magazine has been on the brain for ages. Actually all the way back into the days of Hi-Speed Productions in San Francisco when I was working for Slap Magazine and hired by the one and only Lance Dawes. If ya haven't heard of Slap, it was one of the mags operated by Hi-Speed Productions which also does Thrasher, Juxtapoz and at that time they also had the motorcycle mag Twist-Grip along with underground golf mag Schwing. Twist-Grip and Schwing are of course now defunct along with Slap in print format. The beauty of that learning experience was understanding publishing and the role of magazines relating to consumers and the masses as a whole.

As a consummate reader of a plethora of monthly titles along with a stack of books, I have forever been enamored with the printed word. Now at the onset of the digital publishing revolution Trent, the editor of RUSTYMETRIC and the founder of bikerMetric.com and I are damn proud to be able to shake things up with digital publishing. Our goal is to give the world a fresh perspective on all that we enjoy in music, motorized mayhem and character driven content. Create stories and a vibe that is affordable and current, with a team of editors specialized in niche areas.

We know that once all the dust settles and we get the full sites up and running for the magazine, subscriptions will be available and all issues will be available on e-readers. For all of you kindle, ipad, smartphone and regular ol' website users, we know you will dig it. As for now, go over and see just what $0.99 can still buy. And for all you bands that want your music heard, large or small, consider us for your new outlet to be heard. The sky is the limit with digital publishing and a worldwide audience is waiting to hear you.

RUSTYMETRIC.com - Digital Rebellion has arrived in Motorcycle and Music Publishing

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