7 Things A Major Label Record Deal Teaches You About The Music Industry, From Cracked

Clay Aiken is a manufactured pop star, where is his career now?

The illusion of fame and fortune is indeed just that, an absolutely wicked illusion. There is a reason the casino's in Vegas are glamorous and beautiful as they rely on a majority of folks to lose their money in a staged bilking draped in a veil called entertainment. 

Notoriety can be born overnight but not when the cards are clearly stacked against success in terms of financial gain and or freedom for an individual or band. Signing a hefty contract with a corporate entity that intends to manufacture pop hits, not careers may be for more pop oriented acts or ones that enjoy swimming in shallow pools. Bands and acts that want to insure a long career path with their music should really vet all the folks that come along their path. If anything is askew or seems odd, walk away as much of entertainment business that we all seem to know and love, is purely an illusion.


Below is a great read we found over on Cracked.com and is co-written by hip hop artist Spose and Robert Evans, about Spose's dealings with a major label.

Read more great articles on Cracked

"Getting a record deal is the musician equivalent of a high school ball player making it pro, only with fewer head injuries and lower odds of an overdose. Two albums into my career as a rapper, I had a hit song, and the recording industry whisked me off to Hollywood. My fairy tale lasted 11 months before they abruptly dropped me from my recording contract without ever releasing my album, despite my first single going gold (selling over 600,000 copies in just a few months).

In that short time, I got a crash course in the recording industry: how it works, how they exploit and manipulate young talent, and how to go from having nothing to everything to nothing again in a very short period of time. My name is Spose, and this is an inside look at how the sausage is made.


7. Labels Hunt For Unique Voices

My first hit song blew up on the radio first. "I'm Awesome" got picked up by the local alt-rock station in my town, the radio station I'd grown up on. It quickly became the most requested song there and then jumped to the local pop station. Keep in mind I'd only self-released two albums at this point. I was very new to the game, and suddenly the two biggest local radio stations were playing the shit out of my stuff, which was unprecedented. No local artist had ever broken through at pop radio in my area (Portland, Maine, is not exactly known for its burgeoning rap game).

We lost a lot of guys during our East Coast/West Coast beef with Portland, Oregon.

The way the world works now, if you're blowing up on the radio, you're killing on iTunes, too. I think there's an intern at Universal who goes through the regional iTunes charts every week, from Des Moines to Albuquerque, and looks for outliers.

"We know all the other guys on here. Taylor Swift, Bruno Mars, Ke$ha ... who the hell is Spose?"

So this intern looked at the Portland sales and saw that I had the #1 song. I doubt I cracked the top 200 nationwide, but that was enough to get their attention. At this point, I was 24 years old and totally broke, delivering pizzas and raising a newborn. The day Universal sent me a $35,000 check for signing on with their label, my bank account was at -$800. I couldn't even buy gas for my car without overdrafting my account again -- one generally doesn't hear Jay-Z rapping about bank fees and bus passes.

99 overdraft fees, just doesn't have a ring to it

6.  They Have Minions For You

The labels do a great job of making you feel like the center of the universe when you're recording. Every studio I've worked at in LA and New York had runners. Usually we'd arrive at 3 p.m. and go till 3 a.m. Sometimes we'd make one song, sometimes four. The runners were there to keep us from needing to ever leave. We'd say, "We need Heineken, Seagram's Seven, ice cubes, a venti iced coffee with whole milk only, a quarter ounce of weed, Backwoods cigars, and we're also going to need sushi." A half hour later, the runner would come back with a bag full of all that stuff, courtesy of Universal. That means Universal has a designated weed guy.

I mean, at least try to look surprised.

Can a bag of weed be a business expense?

I met a lot of people who were caught in the record label game. This dude Matt Toka was one of the writers they brought in to help us. He could play guitar and sing and had some cool ideas. We wrote a song called "Party Foul" together. I think a lot of guys like Toka get signed for their writing abilities, even if the label doesn't see any star potential in them. But they don't say that, of course: These guys all want to be stars, but writing lyrics FOR stars and up-and-coming artists pays the bills. There's probably a thousand musicians who could've been like the biggest star in Duluth, or wherever, but chose to play the label game in LA instead.

They're not foolishly throwing away their lives or anything -- it's just that they get barely enough hope to carry on in the background instead of doing what they really want to do. And they do carry on, because not all of these dudes wallow in label limbo forever. For example, my lawyer also represents Bruno Mars, and for almost 10 years Bruno Mars was one of these writers, contributing his ideas and scratch vocals to other people's hits, before ever getting his shot at personal stardom. They'd take Bruno's vocals and search for a "real star" to replace them. The irony is that now those same A&R dudes would kill to have Bruno Mars singing their hooks, because he won the "background guy" lottery.

5. The Major Labels Convince Naive Kids They Are Rock Stars

Labels definitely seek out young people, and they are extremely good at making you simultaneously feel like their top priority and like you're fighting against a ticking clock. When they called me the first time, they offered to fly me to NYC. I was at Suffolk University at this point; I stepped out of class and saw that I had like 15 missed calls and voice mails. I Googled the name of the dude from the voice mails, because that is the gift the Internet gave to the antisocial, and eventually called him back. He picked up and immediately gave me both barrels of enthusiasm: "We'll fly you and anyone else you want out, first class, to NYC, right now." If my Myspace had said "I like the Celtics," they would have had me courtside that very night.

Straight up ballin'!

They flew Monte Lipman in to meet me in NYC. He's one member of a tiny group that runs the record industry, and he came over to chill with me and have dinner. Because that's not going to inflate a broke 24-year-old's ego. He asked, "You wrote this song all by yourself?"

I said yes and he started flipping out, telling me to get my passport ready because I was about to be huge, flying all over the world in a private jet fueled by raw hip-hop.

Then he sent me an email on the weekend, mainly to let me know that he never sends emails on the weekend. "I want to get this signed by Monday morning. Your song played huge when we tested it in Miami, we want to sign you and fly you down." But at the same time, he was like, "These references are VERY current and your record will expire really soon. YOU HAVE TO SIGN IMMEDIATELY."

Hurry up and sign the deal!

I'm sure that's a common trick. (Although the record industry does shut down completely by 5 p.m. on Friday. That's a fact. Hip-hop apparently keeps DMV hours.) It was all just smoke being blown up my ass. Monte sent excited email after excited email about how big I was about to be and how we were "just getting started." I think the last "just getting started" email hit about a week before the label dropped me. I guess he was trying to type "We're just getting started on the process of firing you" and hit enter too soon.

4. They Are Casting A Role

When I was making music by myself, I'd make a song and show it to my friends, and if they liked it, that was enough. I'd do it in my live show, put it on an album, and then roll about in piles of literally dozens of dollar bills.

Cash Money Records showcasing the jewels

But in the recording industry, you might make 25 songs and none of them ever see the light of day. You develop real thick skin. I'd pour my heart into a song, spend all day making it, everyone in the recording room would be feeling it ... my friends, my family, management, engineers. We'd all be stoked, and then I'd send it to Universal in an email, and a few minutes later: "Ehhhh ... not really what we're looking for." To get that response to my work for the first time was A) shocking; B) disheartening; C) a wake-up call; and D) oddly erotic if you get off on unhelpful apathy. I realized then that we were at the "you either win a Grammy and sell lots of records or get the fuck out of Hollywood" point. I sent them songs that are now somewhat classic fan favorites, and my A&R dude responded with "Yeah, that's not it" more often than not. Super helpful criticism! I didn't realize I had sent you the "not it" song, when I clearly meant to attach the "it" file.

I grew up idolizing Biggie and Jay-Z, artists with real, intricate lyrics. And that's part of what I love about music -- great descriptions and verses. But that's the opposite of what my label wanted. I got in the studio for the first time and spent like five hours writing what I thought was one of my best songs yet, only to hear:

"The lyrics don't even matter, write that shit tomorrow. We just need the hook. All Universal really cares about is a catchy chorus."

And that's what the industry runs on. The label comes up with a chorus, a pre-chorus, and a melody, and then they fill in the blanks with people like me. In pop music, artists are like those Styrofoam packing peanuts, just there to make sure nothing shifts around too much in transit. When it comes down to the music, the labels have a very narrow idea of what they want, and no new artist is going to change their minds. The producer they paired me with did a lot of dance music. You know -- "bottles in the club, bitches on my junk, Cadillacs literally infesting my house" type stuff. I don't do that, and the song that got me noticed was nothing like that. But once I was signed, that's the only thing they wanted from me.

Universal picked me out of the crowd because I had a unique style. Like a fool, I thought that meant they wanted me to keep making my style of music. But they just wanted to take my name, my sorta-notoriety from one hit, and plug "Spose" into a bunch of pop songs. Probably because it's really easy to rhyme with "hos." They're playing the long game, those keen, strategy-minded record producers.

3. You Write Songs By Committee

Music is a big business, too big for something as expensive as a pop song to hang on the shoulders of just one dude. We all like to imagine the songs we like being penned with a shaking hand by some weeping artist staring out at the sunset and letting the muse guide his soul. But when it comes to pop, it's much more likely that those lyrics were banged out by a conference room full of writers trying to rhyme "make it rain" with "hand grenade" because it's late and they're working against a deadline. I'd always written my own verses before, but when I hit LA, they invited me to a session with Mike Caren (the head of A&R at Atlantic), a producer, and four writers.

Dilbert explaining the complexities of design by committee

It seemed like a weird way to do things, but I gave it a shot. Sticking a bunch of creative people in a room together and letting them write can work pretty well. Just ask Breaking Bad. But it's the kind of thing that only works out when everyone more or less has the same vision for what they want to write. Stick Vince Gilligan in a room with all the writers from Glee and you'd wind up with a real different series. Perhaps ... a better one? Who doesn't want to see Mike rock some Journey?

Anyway, when I came in for my first session, the other guys were already clustered around the table, listening to the melody they'd picked out and trying to figure out what sort of song should go with it. Finally Mike said, "You gotta make it about a party ... a party you, like, filmed. You filmed all these chicks! And the hook can be "... and I got it on caaamera." They started getting deeper and deeper into brainstorming this song.

Say my name!

Then I pointed out that this wasn't at all the kind of music I did. In fact, it was the exact type of song I'd gotten famous for mocking. It was like I'd sucker punched the whole room. You get caught in this downward spiral where everyone's a yes-man to the producer and the producer's a yes-man to the label. A producer decides he wants to do a "caught it on camera" song and no one wants to contradict him, so they just build on this idea that has nothing to do with anything the artist has said, thought, or even mumbled to himself in a stoned haze and immediately rejected when the cold light of sobriety dawned the next day.

So the next time you're barreling down the highway listening to some overproduced piece of pop crap, don't blame the artist. If pop music is the aural equivalent of a sausage, most singers are nothing more than a clear casing ready to be stuffed.

That sounds way dirtier than I intended.

2. It's A Ridiculous Numbers Game

For people in the recording industry, the whole world revolves around the "second single." I recall one specific email exchange between Mike Caren and Imran Majid, who is now the head of A&R at Columbia. We'd just made four songs in a night, and they were convinced that one of them was my "second single." And in the course of a single week, they made me do 60 revisions of this song. I have them all in my iTunes still: "Don't Let This Be Over (Version 44)," "Don't Let This Be Over (Version 5538438)," etc.

There was this guy named Owl City who got signed around the same time as me. We reached out to see what he thought about the label, because his song "Fireflies" had been a big hit and he was in the midst of trying to find his second single. Universal stuck with him, but he didn't end up finding it for a couple of years. Then Carly Rae Jepsen came out with "Call Me Maybe," and on her second big hit, he sang backups. I'm not saying that reflects on him as an artist at all, just that it's weird. That was the big break the studio wanted to wait years for: "Guy in the back of the Carly Rae Jepsen song. No not that one, the other one -- you remember the other one? No? Nobody?"

It's all a numbers game

For every Macklemore who has a hit song and follows it up with another, there's at least 20 more who never have a second hit. And I'm one of the latter. After 11 months, they didn't find a second single -- even though a bunch of the songs I made then still sell well today -- and a new VP came in and dropped me.

You can make great, heartfelt music with a sound all your own that thousands of fans love, but none of that is going to convince Universal that you know better than they do. If you want to break into pop music, you'd better be ready for hundreds of hours of failure. The labels aren't looking for brilliant artists to drop fully formed beats onto the radio. They want someone who'll help them Frankenstein some hybrid pop monster from the stitched-together corpses of originality. And that's how we wound up with the Black Eyed Peas.

1. There Is A Blessing For One Hit Wonders In 2014

Today, failing to follow up on a big success with a second single doesn't mean you're back to spinning signs for mattress sales on the street corner. My first big video, "I'm Awesome," got something like 10 million views. When the single released on iTunes, 850,000 people actually paid to download it. When I released a mix tape recently, about 8,000 people bought it. So I was able to keep, like, 1 percent of the fans that "I'm Awesome" attracted. It might sound grim, but do the math: If you put out something for $10 and 8,000 fans buy it, that's a pretty solid year's salary. My album The Audacity came out in 2012 and sold the same number, $10 apiece. iTunes took a small chunk, and then the cost of making that album (production, printing, studio time) was probably $6,000. So I made a profit of $70,000. And that's before royalties from Pandora, Spotify, and YouTube come in quarterly for years to come -- hell yeah, that's where the real "make a modest living" cash comes in. We're gonna make it rain! With actual water -- because this motherfucker can afford his water bill this month, baby.

I reinvested about $40,000 in new projects, but that left enough to cover rent and food and Scotch and a nice Christmas. It's not small-yacht-in-the-pool-of-a-bigger-yacht money, but I don't have to play that game of trying to keep up appearances with fancy clothes and cars. That's part of traditional rap nonsense, and my fans don't expect that. My "brand" is just being me. A regular dude. So, thankfully, for my finances' sake, the more I relate to my brokest fan, the more albums I sell. Which is good, because there's like a million things that rhyme with "Hot Pockets."

I released the songs Universal hadn't wanted in a free album called Yard Sale and used that to advertise my Kickstarter. It brought in $28,000. And now that I have that small, loyal fan base, I'm able to make the music I want to make without spending 300 hours per song pleasing a bunch of record executives. I make all the money from my iTunes sales now, too. I pay $35 to list it and get close to $1 per sale. When I was with the label, I made 16 cents per sale. If you're Lady Gaga or Ke$ha, the recording industry is one big blank check for a life of unfathomable luxury and custom-tailored meat clothing. For the rest of us, connecting and selling to the people who like our music is a little less soul-crushing and at least sort of profitable, and at no point do you ever have to talk to a guy who describes you as "the next Fred Durst" and means it as a compliment.

Rival Sons Are Proving That Owning Your Music Is The Key To Success, Not A Major Label Contract - Part 1

Rival Sons are proving that owning your music is the key to success, not a major label contract

Check out more from The Great Southern Brainfart

"California based rockers Rival Sons have been bringing their heart and soul infused classic rock sounds to the masses since 2008. One listen to this band and it will blow your mind that they’ve only been at this for a mere 5 years. Their cohesive, tight as a drum sound is reminiscent of a band that has been at this for 3, even 4 times longer than what they’ve actually been together for.

I recently had the opportunity to talk with guitarist Scott Holiday and what started out as a 20 minute interview turned into an hour long conversation that had me completely entertained and feeling like I had learned so much about one of my favorite bands. This was such an in depth talk that this ended up being a two part interview.

In this part we talked about following up their monumental 2013 release Head Down, the shadiness of the record industry, and how the hell a song like “Manifest Destiny Pt. 1” could be captured in just one take. I feel like there was no stone left unturned in this unabridged, unfiltered conversation. Get yourself a drink, put on some Rival Sons, and settle in for Part 1 of my two part interview with Scott Holiday!  Enjoy!



====================================================

Scott.  Thanks so much for doing this interview today brother!

It’s my pleasure Don.  Thanks for having me.

====================================================

So are you guys on a break or something and plotting your next phase of world domination?

[laughs] We are on a very rare break. We’re usually out on the road but we just got back from Canada where we did a few weeks out there. We’re aiming to be in the studio in January. We have a couple of one off shows in the next couple of months and just trying to get our act together. We’re going to sign our next deal and get things in order before the next record.

====================================================

You mentioned that you guys are signing a new deal.  Will this new deal be a record deal?

We just do one record at a time deals. For some reason, we’ve been able to negotiate these kinds of deals so this also allows us to keep the rights and control of everything one record at a time. We actually own all of our records and we’ve kept a lot of our business and our rights. We own more than the average band.

====================================================

Why not just sign a big deal with a big company like Warner Bros or Universal?

That’s just now who we are. What they want for a deal like that is hilarious. I’m not selling off my children, I’m not giving away my loved ones, and I’m keeping all my body parts [laughs]. Those people are terrible and really demonic. In all seriousness, what they want to take from you on a business level is really sad and they’re getting it from people. They give you one chance, one record and you better hope that your planets align because if they don’t, you’ve just ruined your entire career because now you owe them for those records and guess what? They’re not going to make those records for you so you can’t go sign another deal and your trapped.

====================================================

The delusions of these bands are that they believe that the Warner Bros, the Atlantic Records, the Universals of the world are where the money is. You guys have just chosen to not sell your souls or your artistic rights and chosen to go with the smaller guys for maybe enough money to get you by.

Right. What they’re asking for is just not fair. Here’s a simple analogy. You have a can of Coke. I want to buy your can of Coke for a dollar and you give me that can of Coke. This is a normal deal right? Now I’m the record company. If you sell me that can of Coke, I promise you a keg. Actually, I don’t just want that can of Coke though. I want your rights to every can of Coke you ever buy again. Ok? Here’s a dollar [laughs]. That’s what they’re doing to people.

====================================================

It sounds like I’m catching you at a pretty exciting time as there sounds like some cool shit is about to go down.

Oh yeah. I mean, we are definitely fired up to get back in there and make a new record that’s for sure. The album cycle for this one (Head Down) went way longer than any album cycle. We’ve been priding ourselves over these last 4 records on making sure that every year we have something new coming out. Unfortunately for this record the releases were offset by like 6 months between the US and Canada so we had to put another 6-8 months into it.



====================================================

I know it was a long cycle but man, we barely saw you guys hitting the states behind this one. I’m just going to cut to the chase here. Why has there been such a lack of Rival Sons here in the US? What is it that people just aren’t getting here?

Well, I think that business wise you’ve got to work where your dollar is best well spent. You can only focus on so much of the world. It’s a huge place and you can only focus on certain areas so much. It costs a lot of money and it takes a lot of time.  From the beginning of our career we’ve been pretty focused on Europe because they took to us quicker. The media has taken to us and we’re on magazine covers over there, we’re charting over there, and we’re on radio all over the place, and we play pretty big theaters over there. When it’s time for us to work, it’s just kind of our go to. Our next biggest market that took to us quicker than the US has been Canada. I think the answer that everybody wants to hear from me is that America hates rock n’ roll [laughs]. We know that’s not what it is at all and we know that there are great fans here.  We have a boatload of fans here but it’s just such a huge territory. It’s a little bit slower here and everyone’s taking to us slower. We don’t get tour support. We fund everything ourselves so it’s going to take us spending a whole bunch of money. That said, we’re going to focus on this album cycle much more on being over here with our brethren.


I feel like the music world is just so over saturated with bands these days. If it wasn’t for running this site I don’t know that I would’ve ever heard some of my favorite bands such as Christian Mistress, Gypsyhawk, or even Rival Sons. I feel like the good news is that anyone can make a record these days and the bad news is that anyone can make a record these days.

[laughs] That’s right. I say the same thing. I hear a lot of people saying, “Man, there’s not as much good music now as there was back in then” and every time I hear that I say, “You are out of your mind.” There’s 10 times more going on right now than there ever was but it’s kind of like being in a crowded room or club and you’re trying to get to the other side of the room. We’re all moving through a very packed area so it’s hard to sift through all the bands to find the things that we might love or great.

====================================================

Just like the “old days”, you still have to do a little digging and little groundwork to find those special bands. I remember being a kid and going to record stores and asking the guy behind the counter, “Hey, I love Iron Maiden. Who else is out there that is like that?” Now we have this internet thing and we can find anything and everything.

Exactly! I remember when I was really little and already buying records and the internet was not a thing. Could you imagine how it is for kids now where everything they want is right there in the Google machine [laughs]? Not only is it there but it’s buyable in seconds. This is really revolutionary and mind bending. If you wanted a Flamin’ Groovies record, you could search for five years going through states and countries before you’d even come across your first Flamin’ Groovies record. Now,Google machine, there it is and buy their whole collection [laughs]. It’s a no brainer anymore.

====================================================

So even with the internet today guys like you and me can still enjoy the hunt and save a shit ton of gas.

[laughs] There’s still some fun to doing this on the computer. I think there’s still that hunt and that kill out there to discover. It’s not that deep think like when you’d come across that Flamin’ Groovies record at a garage sale.

====================================================

That’s how it was for me with the Captain Beyond debut album. I could’ve bought it on Ebay but I hunted forever, found it, and stuck it in frame on my wall for all to see! I was like, FINALLY!

[laughs] You know what?  All I really listen to out of fun and out of quality is vinyl. That changes the hunt to. You can buy all that vinyl on the computer but I like to stick to that mentality that you’re talking about with the Captain Beyond album. I look for original copies and limited editions for my collection. I just go to shops and garage sales. Every country I go to I look for certain things that are only limited to those countries and bring them home.


Rival Sons released their entire catalog on vinyl. When you recording these albums, did you go into the recording and production process with the idea that they were going to be mixed specifically for a vinyl medium as opposed to mixing for CD and then just putting out vinyl?

Not really. We’re not trying to be such ridiculous hipsters saying shit like, “Let’s go in and make this only on cassette and really lo-fi.” We’re just trying to make the best sounding record. We’re recording a lot of analog and using a lot of analog paths. We master for vinyl, we master for digital. We’re just trying to make something now that is us. That is going to digital. We all have iPhones, we all are Mac people. We’re in that world but we all have record players and love listening to vinyl. It’s not one or the other. We live in the now.  People want to throw us back into some old era but no, that’s not what I’m into. I’m not constantly listening to copies of Moby Grape on repeat. That’s not what’s happening here. I like the new MGMT [laughs].

====================================================

Head Down is such a great album but it’s a step in another direction from Pressure and Time.  Matter of fact, listening to each of the Rival Sons albums I can hear a steady evolution and progression to where you are now.

Well thank goodness you’re a fan and you’re hearing an evolution. From record to record there should be a stylistic and sonic shift. We’re never going into studio saying, “Let’s make part 2 of that one.” Before the Fire was before Jay (Buchanan; lead vocalist) was in the band. Those are more my songs that I had written with another singer who didn’t write at all. I ended up removing this singer from the band and then got Jay in the group who agreed to sing all these songs. There’s a whole different sound happening. There’s a lot more of my eastern influence and a lot more of an early British invasion sound because that was the place where we were at. The EP was the first one that we worked with Jay on so you’re going to get a way bluesy version of us because that’s Jay. You’re also going to get the sound of four dudes working hard together instead of just one dude’s perspective. Pressure and Time was pretty much the sound of the band being pretty much minted and ready to make a real effort together. It was very concise and very right to the point. I wanted the songwriting to be short, direct, and very easy for people to swallow. Rock N’ Roll isn’t too abundant right now. It’s kind of just leaking in here and there. If people are going to hear us they’re going to need to take it in a small pill. It can’t be a horse pill. We had toured that record for a whole year and had expanded those arrangements, met our fan base, and circled the globe a few times. When we stepped into the studio right off the tour to make Head Down and we were all very collectively on the same page. We needed to show people a little more of what the live show feels like and a little bit more of what the band is.

====================================================

Tell me about the song Manifest Destiny.  Is it true that what we hear was the first take?  If so, how the hell did you pull that off?

[laughs] Everything was plugged in, everything was mic’d up, the producer was in the booth, and we just had everything ready to go. We were just prepared to capture. With Manifest Destiny Pt I, It was the first time we ever even played the song together. I’m not talking about rehearsing it for a month and then doing it in one take but the way. We talked about the song, talked about the changes, maybe mapped out a few things for a couple of minutes and then we say, “OK, let’s try playing it” and that “try” became the take we used on the record. It was really far out for us and it was unlike anything I had ever done. There was definitely that feeling of immediacy that we wanted to capture early takes but when it does happen it’s really fun for all of us."

Are Major Labels Trying To Limit Access To Data?

Check out the post on Phys.org

"Major record labels have capitalized on iTunes to maintain the same advantages that they held previously through physical media distribution networks, a recently published paper by a UT Arlington assistant professor says.

David Arditi, assistant professor of Interdisciplinary Studies in the School of Urban and Public Affairs, argues major record labels are as powerful as ever and appear to generate as much money as when albums, music stores and other historic distribution channels were part of the industry landscape.

"Music executives made it sound like this new technology on the Internet was allowing people to steal from them," Arditi said. "The truth is they use iTunes and other formats to control music purchases."

In 2001, the companies represented by the Recording Industry Association of America claimed to be in turmoil because of the widespread use of peer-to-peer file-sharing software, such as Napster. Independents, on the other hand, hailed the technology as a means to distribute their music outside the national distribution system.

But in his paper, "iTunes: Breaking Barriers and Building Walls," Arditi says that those fears were quickly proven wrong as iTunes emerged as the dominant gatekeeper for the recording industry. The research was published by the journal Popular Music and Society.

Arditi noted that iTunes gives independent musicians more opportunity to distribute music than before online distribution became possible. But the centralized distribution system lends itself to once again concentrating power with the major record labels.

Rather than gaining market share, independent labels have lost market share – 20.3 percent of U.S. market in 1996 compared with 9.85 percent in 2010.

Arditi argues that music industry leaders used the advent of music file sharing via the Internet to gain stronger copyright laws, build more extensive political capital and protect the music industry for dominant distributors. Yet measuring the financial impact of iTunes on the industry is difficult because modern music industry revenues come from many sources and because companies do not release sales figures publicly, he said.

As an example, Arditi said pointed to the recent release of the video game, Grand Theft Auto V, which generated $1 billion in sales within days of release.

"What consumers might not realize is that there are more than 240 songs on the game and each song has its own synchronization license," Arditi said. "In other words, record labels are making a lot of money from this game, but they don't regularly report that data.""

The Major Label Business Model Is Theft - Article by Bob Lefsetz

To be involved in the music industry is amazing at times and other days, frustrating to no end, but this is what we enjoy the most, the challenge. If you are reading this blog we are assuming that you have noticed the variety of topics covered and the amount of information available. This we believe, is and always, how life should be. Its sort of like dinner in a big family, a plethora of stories all colliding at once but are inherently related.

We enjoy doing posts by well known writers and pundits for what is current within music as this is a wide open forum. Bob Lefsetz is an amazing writer who looks at both sides of the coin and weighs his opinions in a very distinct measure. For this we have become a steady reader of his blog and daily posts. Some days he really posts information that any and all should hear, especially for those of you that are in bands, enjoy music or are curious about why some drive Ferrari's and some vans have six sweaty dudes eating Ramen noodles at truck stops. The article below is an excellent write up on Major Labels and the old model that many bands felt as if they were "making it" when signing to a bad banking loan. Dive in, read on and crank the tunes...

Link to Bob Lefsetz writings

Focus on the article nimrod - Photo By Gary Kramer Guitars

The major label business model is theft

I have no idea why so many artists revere the major labels. It's like staying with an abusive spouse, fearful of the great big world outside the house, afraid you won't find something better. It's like a poor person voting for a Republican. It's against your interests. But since big media controls the debate, look at the Big Brother SOPA legislation it's ramming through the legislature as a result of paying off Congressmen, ignorant artists believe the labels are on their side.

They were never on your side.

From Ahmet screwing bluesmen back in the fifties to Warner Brothers insisting on 360 deals today, the goal of the label is to take your money. Oh sure, their hit to shit ratio sucks, but is that really a given? How come every Pixar movie has been a blockbuster? You can't call it luck at this point, there were just better people involved, insisting on excellence.

So you signed with the label, which paid you an advance, and the rest of the money, the touring and merch, was your own.

Now they're coming after that money too. They say it's necessary, that they can't make it without them. What's it gonna take for artists to say NO MAS!

As for the acts saying how much they used to make selling records, the dirty little secret was that after having a load of success, their lawyers renegotiated and got huge advances, which still weren't enough if you continued to sell. And if your deal didn't pay out, the labels took it out on the wannabes. Hell, costs are not even the same amongst the rich and poor acts. It takes longer to recoup if you're a newbie than it does if you're an established act, why should that be? Costs are costs!

And you don't end up owning what you pay for anyway. It's kind of like leasing a car. You pay for years and end up with nothing. The automobile manufacturers love this. Because you lease more car than you can afford, and since you're focusing on payment rather than total cost, you're not even aware you're being screwed. As for always wanting to drive a new car, I guess you're keeping the fashion industry alive too.

The record companies screwed the artists, paid off the radio stations and put the profits into their pockets. And now that there's less money to be made, someone's gotta pay, something's gotta give, and it sure as hell ain't the execs' salaries. Do you see Doug Morris making less? Jimmy Iovine? Are you kidding me? They just laid off the underlings. As for those underlings still with jobs, they're clueless as to the workings of the royalty department. Which is a black hole anyway. There's no such thing as an accurate accounting, people on both ends of a contract can't even agree on a definition, there's just a settlement after an audit. The labels never want to cave, never want to admit they're wrong, it sets a bad precedent.

As for their statement that no act ever broke through the Internet, that they're a necessary part of the equation, that's no longer true. Acts have broken via the Net, radio means less than ever, this is their worst nightmare, that they may not be needed, which is why they're on this giant disinformation campaign.

And they're not to be trusted. Acts couldn't share in the upside of CDs because of the startup costs. That would be like asking you to pay $10,000 for the new MacBook Pros to be released in the new year, the ones akin to MacBook Airs. Hell, there's tooling involved! Someone's gotta pay! But costs keep going down with volume, with success, and the labels never did raise CD royalty rates, they just kept that money. To the point where you now sell a track on iTunes and the act gets less than a dime.

Is that fair?

Of course not!

Which is why the major labels are gonna die. It's a fairness issue. Acts don't mind sharing fifteen or twenty percent of their revenue with managers, they can see the benefit in all avenues of exploitation, they believe the manager is on their side. But the labels ask for revenue in areas in which they've got no expertise, it's a land grab.

You're just looking for a sugar daddy if you sign with a major. You're afraid to do it by yourself. You're no Curt Flood, not one changing the game, but a soldier. But artists are supposed to think, they're supposed to follow their own muse, why can't they do this?

And now the enemy is Spotify.

Well, Spotify coughs up a minimum of 70% of revenues to rights holders. If your label is taking most of that, you just have a bad deal. If you're lamenting that per stream payment is less than an iTunes royalty you're a believer in buggy whips and typewriters. You can't succeed in the future by denying it.

We live in an era of data. Hell, Google makes analytics available for free!

But you don't see the labels publishing their accounting. There'd be too big an uproar. It's like the NBA owners saying they're losing money but refusing to open their books. One can argue the players had nowhere else to go, but that's not true with musical artists. Yes, major labels have a lock on Top Forty radio, but that's a smaller game than ever before.

And it's not only labels, artists pay lip service to all kinds of archaic forms that are destined for the scrapheap. Like terrestrial radio and the album. Yes, the artists can continue to be screwed by the system because they're just that uninformed, just that dumb.

You know who hates change?

ARTISTS!

They don't want to save themselves. They just want to blame someone else for their failure, for their lack of revenue.

Hell, I have sympathy for those with archaic deals formulated before the Internet era, but if you're starting now, you've got the freedom to succeed. You can do it your way. But you don't want to. You'd rather be in an abusive relationship, told how to behave and complain about it later.

Then again, you can tell people the truth all day long and they don't want to hear it.

Just like the artists think their savior is the major label, the public thinks Ticketmaster is the reason ticket fees are so high.

Meanwhile, fat cat businessmen are laughing all the way to the bank. They obfuscate the truth and you buy it.

Pioneers are gonna continue to blow the music landscape wide open. Napster begat the MP3 and Spotify, et al, are monetizing the ability of all people to have all the music for a very low price. Next comes the obliteration of the major labels. You can either be part of the problem or part of the solution.

Are The Major Labels Giving Up On CDs?

The writing is all over the walls and whether or not folks want to believe its coming is entirely up to them. We believe that yes, the major Labels will be giving up on cd's as a way to curb their assets and reign in the spending. But for us as an indie label, we will continue to produce cds, vinyl and specialty packaging, as that is where the fans really are heading. Its not just about a whole format of listening to music dying out, its more a matter of the evolution of our mainstream technology in how we find and play new music. Change is the only constant in the universe and we as music fans need to ride the tide.

Link to Article on Side Line Music Magazine

Kelly Brook says you should pay attention to this article and not her

CD-format to be abandoned by major labels by the end of 2012

"You read it well. The major labels plan to abandon the CD-format by the end of 2012 (or even earlier) and replace it with download/stream only releases via iTunes and related music services. The only CD-formats that will be left over will be the limited edition ones, which will of course not be available for every artist. The distribution model for these remaining CD releases would be primarily Amazon which is already the biggest CD retailer worldwide anyhow.

3 weeks ago we heard it for the first time and since then we have tried getting some feedback from EMI, Universal and Sony. All declined to comment.

The news doesn't come as a surprise to those who have been working in the business. In a piece that was published in a q&a with the Alfa Matrix people back in June 2011 in the 1st issue of "Matrix Revelations", our chief editor Bernard Van Isacker said the following when asked if a CD would still exist in 5 years: "Yes, but in a different format. Normal CDs will no longer be available because they don't offer enough value, limited editions on the other hand will remain available and in demand for quite a few more years. I for one buy only limited editions because of the added value they offer: a nice design, extra bonus gadgets, etc. The album as we know it now however will be dead within 5 years, if it isn't even sooner. I predict that downloads will have replaced the CD album within the next 2 years. I don't see that as something negative, it just has run its course, let's leave the space to limited editions (including vinyl runs for bigger acts) and downloads instead."

It's a move that makes completely sense. CD's cost money, even when they don't sell because there is stock storage to be paid; a label also pays money to distributors when CDs get returned to the labels when not sold and so on. In short, abandoning the CD-format will make it possible to just focus on the release and the marketing of it and no longer focus on the distribution (since aggregators will do the work as far as dispatching the releases to services worldwide) and - expensive - stock maintenance. In the long run it will most surely mean the end for many music shops worldwide that only stock and sell CD releases. In the UK for instance HMV has problems paying the labels already and more will follow. It makes the distribution of CDs no longer worth it.

Also Amazon will benefit from this as it will surely become the one and only player when it comes to distribution of the remaining CD productions from labels. Packaged next to regular album downloads via its own Amazon MP3 service it will offer a complimentary service.

The next monument to fall? That will be printed magazines as people will want to consume their information online where they also read most of the news.

What are your feelings? is it a move that you like or not?

Update: We were approached by several people working with major labels, who indeed re-confirm that plans do exist to give up the CD. We keep on trying to get an official confirmation, but it seems that the matter is very controversial, especially after Side-Line brought out the story."

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.

Warner Music Group Sold To Access Industries

Back in the day getting signed to a major label meant something. This was long before digital music was ever conceived and we all had a twinkle in our eye about making it big in music. Maybe the sale of Warner Bros. was to escape an impending doom or was it to hedge their bets, we may never know. In all reality, who cares. The major labels are fighting a losing battle and the tide has shifted to favor the smaller and more nimble independent labels who work directly with their artists instead of dictating terms to them. This sale will have an interesting ripple effect and kind of excited to see where it goes and how the pieces will be picked up and re-fit for their current roster which includes Avenged Sevenfold, Built To Spill, Cher, Deftones, Don Henley, Disturbed, Dire Straits, Devo, Eric Clapton, Green Day and many more.

Link to Article on PaidContent.org

Warner Music Group’s sale to Access Industries has been completed for $8.25 per share in cash, or $3.3 billion. The record label’s board approved the deal two weeks ago. 

WMG will be part of Airplanes Music, a division of Access Industries, the diversified business group owned by Russian-American industrialist Len Blavatnik, whose $3.3 billion offer in May represented a 34.4 percent premium over the record label’s average half-year price of $6.14.

The company will remain named and located as is, but Access will take WMG off the stock market. The brief statement about the deal’s closing did not say whether CEO Edgar Bronfman Jr. will stay aboard. As it stands right now, Bronfman is still the head of the company, but again, that could change.

With WMG done, the focus will shift to what will happen with EMI Group, which began exploring a sale in June. Citigroup and Access Industries are both vying for EMI. For Access Industries, the addition of another record label, considering the weak state of the record business, may seem crazy, particularly the premium he paid for WMG. But Blavatnik seems to feel he would be able to find some value after some heavy cost-cutting while continuing to market a roster that so far includes big names like Bruno Mars, R.E.M., Cee Lo Green and Lupe Fiasco. 

In terms of what Blavatnik is getting with WMG, in May, the company reported that Q1 losses grew amid anemic revenue gains. Meanwhile, digital now makes up more than 30 percent of the labels revenues—a combination of the decline of physical CD sales and, to be fair, an reasonably aggressive focus on building up its online and mobile distribution.

WMG is scheduled to have its last quarterly earnings report on Aug. 1, as it is being delisted from the NYSE now that it is operating within a private company. But that Q2 report might or might not happen, though WMG still has bondholders it has to report to, but it’s not clear if that will be done through the standard quarterly report. 

Is Spotify Finally Coming To The US?

Folks if ya haven't heard about Spotify, you may want to keep your ears tuned in. Spotify is potentially itunes greatest challenger in streaming content. They have been active across the pond in Europe, for quite some time now, but the big four major labels have always combatted them. The corporate entertainment industry fear the masses may get exactly what we want, a paid subscription style model and free to peruse all the music we enjoy. In our DIY punk ethos we forever hold our middle fingers high to the corporate bullshit structure that is major labels as they are a slow moving giant that is dying out. In essence all they are is a bank, plain and simple.

Do we as an indie label function any different, yes and no. We are actually in tune with all the bands we work with and listen to what they need. Don't the bands know their fans best? We work on each album individually and most of all not force them into contracts which bleed them dry or tell them how much we know and our way is the right way. Yet another common practice amongst corporate labels and quite a few indie labels as well. Confucius might say this is why we have two ears and two eyes, yet one mouth, as we need to hear and see more than we speak.

I ask you the music fan and or bands to rally behind the greatness that is Spotify and let's get this music service in the United States. Subscription based models are the only way to fight music piracy and guess what, we as fans win out as well. We will have access to all the music we enjoy listening to and most of all, the money earned from digital streaming goes directly back to the bands who created the great tunes you are playing. Read more on Spotify below from a recent writeup on Mashable.com

Link to article on Mashable.com

Spotify Signs Deal With Universal Music [REPORT]

Brenna Ehrlich

"Back in February, Spotify was “a few weeks away” from signing a deal with Universal Music. Apparently, those “few weeks” were actually months.

All Things Digital is reporting that the European streaming music service has inked a deal with UMG. That means Spotify now has deals with three of the four major labels: UMG, EMI and Sony. Warner Music Group has yet to get out a pen, but All Things D says it’s close, which means that the service could finally be coming to the U.S.

What’s the holdup? The U.S. record companies are reportedly not overly enthusiastic about Spotify’s “freemium” business model, where the company gives away ad-supported music in hopes of signing paying subscribers to its ad-free version. That premium service lets users choose and replay their music.

Still, Spotify started cutting back on free music in May, requiring users to pay for deeper access, so the company is clearly open to compromise.

It seems rumors have been swirling about Spotify nonstop lately, with folks speculating that it would partner with Google for a cloud-based music service (it didn’t) and that Facebook is interested in teaming up (it’s probably not).

This recent deal can’t be confirmed with Spotify as the company never comments on such deals, but it doesn’t seem out of the question. All four major labels recently signed licensing deals with Apple for its iTunes to the Cloud and iTunes Match services, which seems to indicate that the majors are opening up to the ways of the digital age (iTunes in the Cloud is free, and iTunes Match costs around $25 per year). Still, Apple has a lot more clout than Spotify — to say the least.

It’s been slow going when it comes to bringing Spotify to the U.S., and with plenty of longstanding competitors already in the ring, we’ll just have to wait and see what kind of impact it makes if/when it arrives."