Music Publishing & Songwriting

I still remember when I was playing music in high school, traveling around with our high school stage band to competitions around the state. Each band would play two or three songs, show off their top soloists a little and then wait eagerly for their score from the judges. I have a lot of great memories from those competitions, mostly centered on the wacky personalities of the kids in the band, or moments where the music came miraculously together in a way that none of us quite anticipated.

The strange thing is that I have almost no memories of which competitions we won or lost, what the scores were, or what our overall standings were at the end of the competition season. I could tell you about the piano player who always managed to arrive only seconds before taking the stage, or the young drummer who was so good he would leave the whole band stunned by his two bar drum fill– so stunned that everyone missed their entrance after the fill. But I couldn’t begin to tell you anything about the scores or the results.

Even then, I was of the belief that competition and music didn’t really belong together. Of course, there is a natural kind of competitive spirit among musicians that is healthy and inescapable, the kind that you hear between Bird and Dizzy Gillespie in a bebop recording, or between gospel choir soloists, each pushing the other to new heights of creativity and virtuosity. You even hear that kind of healthy competition among superstar artists trying to match and improve upon ideas launched by others, the way Brian Wilson and Lennon & McCartney and Jagger/Richards each strove to adapt and expand upon each other’s innovations in the Sixties. But the kind of competition that involves formal judging and scores and trophies has always struck me as an attempt to turn art into sport– which is silly and immature at best, and damaging and dangerous at worst.

So I’m not a big fan of the Grammys. But as a true music business weasel, I could hardly let a philosophical objection stand in the way of a chance to support the artists and writers with whom I am fortunate enough to work, particularly French artist/writer/producer David Guetta and his songwriting and production collaborator Frederick Riesterer (”I Gotta Feeling” by the Black Eyed Peas, “When Love Takes Over” featuring Kelly Rowland). So for the past several days, I’ve been soaking in the LA sun, shaking hands, and schmoozing with several thousand other “fierce competitors”, courtesy of the National Academy of the Recording Arts and Sciences (NARAS). I can’t give you a backstage peek, or a sighting from the red carpet, because I wasn’t there. But if you’re wondering how it looks from Section 112 in the lovely intimacy of the Los Angeles Staple Center, or from poolside at the Mondrian, here’s the good, the bad and the ugly…

The Bad

Music has become a spectacle.

Most of the performances on the Grammys made very clear that the people now responsible for promoting and selling music to the general public have absolutely no belief whatsoever in the actual power of music. Storm-trooper dancers, trapeze acts (although Pink’s vocal was incredible), three-dimensional computer graphics, and mid-song costume changes all testify to the fact that none of the powers that be in the music industry believe that an audience would actually be interested, much less enraptured by a lone person with a guitar, or a lyric that truly resonates emotionally. Thankfully, performances like Dave Matthews proved just how unnecessary all of the smoke and mirrors actually is.

There’s something ironic about the Grammy’s annual appeal for more music education in schools, while at the same time the show itself is wasting a prime opportunity to educate a mass audience about music. By supplying circus acts rather than concert performances, the Grammy show cheapens and detracts from the very artistry it’s supposed to celebrate.

The Ugly

Who pays for all this?

While it’s fun to get a pat on the back, it’s less satisfying when your wallet is being picked at the same time. The truth is, while the music industry looked alive, if not always well, last night on television, it will look a good deal less healthy six months from now, as major record labels edge closer and closer to utter extinction and the bills for Grammy week start to come due. Looking at the line of limos outside the Staple Center, or the schedule of industry parties that reduced LA to a music weasel version of spring break, one had to wonder:

Has anyone added up the cost of this?

Of course, NARAS is quick to point out that the Grammy Awards offer an unmatched promotion opportunity for those artists featured (about twenty or thirty on the televised show). Clearly, the function of the Grammys is far less about rewarding artistic achievement than selling records. And in fact, many acts, from Bon Jovi to Pink to Dave Matthews, did indeed see sales jump after the show. But how much? And for how long?

If one were to tally up the tab for the cost of the actual show, the cost of taking artists off of tours and out of recording studios, the price for all of the record label parties and events, the total bill for all of the hotel rooms, airfares and dinner tabs, and the expense of hundreds of working hours wasted by executives fielding calls for Grammy invites, cajoling their way onto guest lists, or lobbying for nominations and votes, the Grammys would need to boost sales by millions of records in order to come close to being a profitable investment for the record industry.

Last I checked, nothing is boosting sales these days by millions of units. Given the struggles that artists are up against these days, they might have preferred that those in the industry spend their time and money building up developing acts, rather than congratulating the most successful ones.

The Good

Music is going global.

This was a big year for France in particular, with the success of David Guetta in the pop and dance market as well as The Phoenix, who won “Best Alternative Album”. But there was also Andrea Bocelli, the work of Moroccan- Swedish producer RedOne on Lady Gaga hits like “Poker Face”, Brits like the Ting Tings and Adele, and so many others. This global approach to music, with collaborations like Guetta with the Black Eyed Peas, RedOne with Gaga, or Bocelli with Mary J. Blige, reflects both the influence of the internet, in which the borders between countries and artists are erased, and the increasing pressure to surprise audiences with something slightly unexpected. There’s no question that a musical melting pot makes life more interesting for listeners and artists. It also helps sell records around the world, rather than in just one territory.

Dreams still come true.

Taylor Swift may have hit some wrong notes in her vocal performance (ouch), but her acceptance speech(es) definitely rang true. As corny as it sounds, a Grammy Award still represents the fulfillment of a dream for many young artists, and it’s exciting to be reminded that despite all odds, and all of the negative factors in the industry today, those dreams truly are realized by at least a handful of people each year.

During my time at Sony ATV Music, I had the honor of working with producer Rob Fusari–already a well-established and very successful record-maker, but one determined to move into the “artist development” business. Three years later, his work with one young artist, Stefani Germanotta, resulted in the creation of Lady Gaga. I first met RedOne back in 2000 or 2001– he would move to Sweden, and then back again to New York, before he found his big break with Kat Deluna and “Whine Up”. Again, while I was at Sony ATV, my colleague in the Nashville office, Arthur Buenahora, was developing a 14 year old singer/songwriter named Taylor Swift.

The success stories trotted out by artists in their acceptance speeches are not fairy tales of overnight transformation. They are real stories of people who made something happen with their music. If they sound a little too simple, it’s because the real story would be too long and frustrating and too full of ups and downs to fit into a thirty-second clip. If they sound like fantasy, then you’ve never seen the hard work and financial risk that the artists themselves, and the producers, executives, lawyers and managers behind them put in, when few believed in the potential pay-off. If the stories sound corny, it’s only because you haven’t lived the process and seen the ugly side of survival in the music biz.

For the first time this year, I had the opportunity to attend the pre-telecast Grammy Awards, at which countless awards are given in genres ranging from children’s music to classical music to bluegrass. I had expected it to be a bit tedious, given the number of categories and the obscurity of some of the artists involved. I was surprised to find that it was actually an inspiration. It was a celebration of real music-makers receiving recognition for a lifetime of work and training. The performances showed genuine artistry, and needed no bells and whistles to be be entertaining. The speeches were full of sincerity– with thanks to families and spouses that had sacrificed everything to allow an artist to pursue his or her dream.

Most of all, the room was infused with a feeling of family. This was the music community celebrating each other’s work, across genre boundaries (which don’t exist much for musicians anyway). It was what the Grammys are supposed to be. Granted, it wasn’t the Super Bowl. But then again, music was never meant to be a game.

Alright—mark it down in the “Believe It Or Not” column. This interesting newsflash first appeared in one of my favorite industry newsletters, A&R Worldwide:

Fan-Financed UK Band Lands Multi-Album US Record Deal

Leaving aside one obvious question (isn’t every band essentially “fan-financed” to whatever degree?), the following story stood out like a flower in a mineshaft, sprouting up in the middle of news about more corporate layoffs and the ever-falling fortunes of the music industry. You don’t hear many stories like this one:

Scars on 45, a UK based band began making waves on the website Slicethepie back in 2008. The site provides an opportunity for music fans to provide ratings and reviews for unknown bands that they are passionate about, and then to take it one step further by actually getting involved. With enough positive response, a band can reach the “funding” stage, at which point they can raise funds directly from their fanbase to record an album. In return, the fans who choose to invest receive shares in the commercial success of the record. Fans can invest anything from 1 pound (GBP) on upward. Through Slicethepie, Scars on 45 managed to raise 15,000 pounds (GBP) to help record their debut album.

As it turns out, “Beauty’s Running Wild”, the fan-funded track on the album was subsequently featured on “CSI-NY”, and attracted more than 50,000 website hits within days of airing. This in turn attracted the attention of Alexandra Patsavas, a leading music supervisor best known for her work on “Twilight: New Moon”, “Gossip Girl”, and “The O.C.”. Patsavas brought the act to her label imprint, Chop Shop, which is distributed by Atlantic Records.

Great news for the band of course. But if you think this is a success story for Scars on 45, check out the even better ending to the tale:

Those who invested in the band through Slicethepie back in 2008 hit the jackpot. When the band was signed, a buyout clause was triggered and shareholders were bought out at a 50% premium to the then market-price—representing a whopping 800 percent return on their investment!!

Not too many people had investment returns like that in 2009. What’s most interesting though is that not many music companies, big or small, had returns like that. While “professional investors” like Guy Hands are going bankrupt after sinking billions of dollars into EMI; while investment bank-backed publishing companies are struggling just to stem losses, this group of music fans managed to turn a 1 pound investment into 800 pounds—without having to do any work! Slicethepie CEO David Courtier-Dutton was quoted saying, “We are delighted for both the band and their fans which, in this case, have truly been instrumental in their success. We believe that consumer-driven filtering has an increasingly influential role to play in the face of the music industry…” With an 800 percent return on investment, it certainly does. Count me in.

What’s interesting is that the success of this Slicethepie venture highlights several very useful concepts when it comes to investing in the music business—ones that seem to often slip by the more high-rolling music execs and investment bankers. If you’re looking to acquire music for your publishing company or record label, here’s a few principles to keep in mind:

1. Buy low. Sell high.

The problem with most big-bucks investors in the music industry is that all of them are looking for the same thing: hits. They want big-name artists, well-known catalogs, songs that are on the charts. In fact, most of the investment-backed publishing companies have avoided new artists all together. They focus solely on catalog purchases.

The problem is, when you’re buying hits, you’re paying the top price for something that in most cases, has only one direction to go. Established superstar artists can’t usually get much more super—they can only fade. Songs at #1 today can’t go any higher. What seems safe is actually the most risky investment you can make—you’re paying top dollar for something that is already at its peak. Whoever found Scars on 45 in 2008 was buying at a fire-sale price. That’s where you get a bargain, and it’s also where you find the big pay-off.

2. Bet what you can afford to lose.

One has to assume that no one who made the initial investment on Slicethepie.com was betting his or her grocery money on a new, unknown band. I’m confident that no one was taking out a loan just so they could buy a piece of Scars on 45. The problem with most large-scale investing in the music industry over the past five years is that the investors have taken out massive loans (and hence, have massive interest payments) or they’ve invested other people’s money, people who quickly grow impatient if the ink starts to turn red.

The sad, ironic and inescapable truth of the speculative bets made in the music business every day is that the worse you need the gamble to work out, the more likely it is to fail. Maybe it’s because investors who can’t afford to lose tend to over-think, throw good money after bad, or chase the popular trend a little too late. Maybe it’s just the way the world works. But don’t put your money in the game if you can’t afford to lose it. Better to bet one pound if that’s all you can afford, than to take out loans to bet a hundred thousand pounds. Ask the guys at Terra Firma.

3. Bet on things that people like.

This has always been a pretty good formula for success in the music industry. It’s amazing how few people do it. Clever as it is, the concept of Slicethepie and “fan filtering” is really not that much different than old-school music entrepreneurs who would check out their songs with local audiences, get a DJ to spin their records in the clubs, ask the local retailer what people were buying, or see who was getting the most applause at the talent show. In my book, “The Billboard Guide To Writing and Producing Songs that Sell”, Daniel Glass, the president of Glassnote Records talks about being a young DJ, and seeing Prince, Barry White and others in the DJ booth, watching the dance-floor reaction as they tried out new mixes they were still working on in the studio. Daniel himself uses web activity as a major gauge for his own signings at Glassnote, which led him to artists like Secondhand Serenade.

It’s always easier and safer to give the audience what they want than to create something and then convince the audience that they should give it a chance. Certainly, great art has been created with either approach. But the average hit rate is a lot higher with an approach that watches what audiences are responding to, and then puts money into giving those audiences what they like.

4. Bet with your ears.

Most professional investors in entertainment, and even a lot of music executives, bet more with their eyes than with their ears. They watch sales chart action, or look at past financial records, or watch what others in the industry are doing, but they never really listen to the music. Clearly, part of knowing what the audience wants (concept #3) is watching reactions and tracking audience response. But once you see what’s happening, you still have to listen.

Some things look good on paper for reasons that have nothing to do with the music itself. Perhaps the appeal of an act is not really rooted in their music, but in some other social phenomenon. That’s okay if you’re the record label, but you wouldn’t want to buy that song catalog. Maybe something is flying up the charts because a savvy manager is spending a fortune on radio promotion to make a stiff look like a hit. It’s been done. You can use your eyes to do initial research. But if your ears tell you differently, trust ‘em. In this business, they’re the only real friends you have.

5. Don’t be afraid to cash out.

As every gambler knows, there is a time to hold ‘em’ and a time to fold ‘em. The great thing about the Slicethepie venture is that if a band is signed, the initial investors are in a sense, forced to fold up and cash out. It’s likely the biggest favor they’ve ever received. The truth is, the odds are stacked against a band like Scars on 45, as talented as they are. It is entirely within the realm of possibility that Atlantic will never make money on the band—it happens with alarming frequency. But for the initial investors, the game is over, and they’ve won.

If you’re running a small publishing company, there will be instances where you will build a writer up from nothing, only to see a larger company swoop in and woo him or her away with the promise of untold riches, the moment that writer has his or her first big record.

Most of the time, that’s just fine. You will have that writer’s first big record, for which you probably paid relatively little. On the other hand, the big company will have spent far more than they should, and will usually wind up with a songwriter who never has another song as big as that first hit. In many cases, you’ll get a call a few years later from that same writer, now dropped from his or her big publishing company, and eager to come back to where his or her first success originated. When you’re a small player, you play for small victories. When you get one, take it and don’t look back. Put your energy into finding the next undiscovered jewel.

And somebody, pass that pie!

We’re seeing the future— all over again. Just when the music industry had finally started to almost get the hang of selling mp3s on iTunes (even if we still haven’t figured out how to sell music from around the world, which blows my mind) the weather shifts and suddenly our new technology is dead.

“Gone is the MP3!” all the headlines are reading, and indeed, for the first time, the sales growth of digital track downloads dropped drastically this year, from a growth rate of 26 percent in 2008 to only 8 percent in 2009. Apparently all of us who were waiting for legal downloading to make up the revenue lost to the death of the CD had better find a new dream to embrace, because this once-new technology appears to be over before it began. What once was the future now appears to be officially “past”.

What makes it official of course is Apple– as we all know, it’s Steve Jobs’ world and we’re just living in it. When the big Mac shells out money to purchase the start-up venture Lala, with its whopping 100,000 person customer list, something must be bubbling. As we enter a new decade, it now appears that bubbling sound is the music stream, which is bringing you the next big thing:

Cheap music!

Uh… wait. Don’t we already have cheap music? NO! This will be cheaper still!!! While iTunes, that old-school relic of yesteryear, still wants to sell you a download for a dollar, services like Lala will allow you to stream the same song once for free and then give you unlimited access for 10 cents a track. The hitch of course is that the music doesn’t really “belong” to you. It’s more like a library book that you never have to return– which is close enough to ownership for me. Rather than shelves of CDs (like your grandparents have) or iTunes folders full of MP3s, the listener can access a full collection of music from the Web-based “cloud”, for either a per-song fee, or perhaps a monthly subscription (as in the Spotify model).

In a perfect illustration of the new technology approach to finance, Lala, a company started with $35 million of venture capital (provided in part by Warner Music) generates revenues under $10 million dollars, but is purchased by Apple for somewhere between $17 million (not too great a deal for Warner) and $85 million (which seems completely inexplicable). The general consensus is that Apple did not buy the company with the intention of replicating Lala’s current business model, but rather using the start-up’s technology and executive talent to launch their own Apple streaming service, which if they do it really well, could render iTunes obsolete.

Interestingly, the one hitch in Apple’s plan, and the one silver lining for the music industry, is that the current music licenses allowing Lala to offer legal music streams are not transferable as part of the sale. This means that Apple will have to re-negotiate the licenses with the major labels and publishers before they can launch their new service– a prospect that has label executives digging in for their last real chance to save their industry (and their jobs). While it would appear that the general licensing framework on the publishing side has already been laid by the recent agreement with the DMA (see the blog “Triumph or Turkey”), both the labels and publishers are determined to protect their interests within whatever business model Apple eventually constructs. If songs downloaded from iTunes will now be kept in a permanent online “locker” from which they can be streamed at any time on any device, labels will want a higher price per download, a fee for each stream, and a cut of any fees that Apple gets to increase the size of the locker. Publishers will expect a “mechanical” royalty for the stream, as provided in the new DMA agreeement, and ASCAP and BMI will certainly consider the “stream” a performance.

http://ericbeall.berkleemusicblogs.com/?s=triumph+or+turkey#

That’s all good– provided the model catches on. Not too surprisingly, the jury is still out on that one. So far most streaming models have proven very popular when the music is free, but far less so once that whopping 10 cents per track price tag is attached. Subscription models have not caught on either. Spotify offers a premium subscription at 10 GBP per month. So far, only about 10 percent of their customers buy in.

The inescapable fact is that until these services become profitable, the money for music-makers and music licensors will be pretty paltry. On the positive side, Apple has proven quite adept at figuring out how to make money off of music. The danger is that the new streaming service kills off iTunes, which is just starting to make some real money for the music business, and replaces it with something that earns ten percent of what iTunes did.

In general, it’s hard for me to be overly optimistic about the technological trend. First, we replaced the CD, which sold for as much as $15-20, with a product that sold for a dollar. Now we’re poised to replace the service that sells music for a dollar with a service that sells it for 10 cents. That’s not a great direction for music publishers, music labels, artists and songwriters to be headed. Given the precarious position of major labels like EMI, collection organizations around the world, and the thousands of small and large music publishers who saw as much as a 30 percent drop in income last year, we MUST collectively drive a hard bargain with Apple. That won’t be easy. Then, once an agreement is in place, we must continue to take legal action against unlicensed services that undercut Apple and other legitimate business partners.

If streaming is the future, and it likely is, then we need companies like Apple to make that business profitable. We also need to see a fair share of those profits. Otherwise, our vision of the future will indeed look a lot like a cloud– gray, ominous and full of hot air.

After an upbeat pep talk to begin the year, it seems appropriate now to acknowledge what we all know:

Things do not always go as planned.

Have you noticed that? If you’ve tried any of the previously given tips on how to get your music out there, I’m pretty sure you’ve definitely noticed that as good as the ideas look on paper, they don’t always play out as well in real life. The truth is that the work of putting your music out into the industry is every bit as difficult as the creative work of writing songs and making records. And that’s pretty hard.

Unfortunately, most of us bring a lot more tenacity and determination to making the music than we do to selling it. It’s always interesting to watch musicians, who have spent countless lonely, isolated hours honing and refining their ability to play a musical instrument or to sing, then devote all of twenty minutes to researching potential contacts. Producers who will miss deadlines or blow out their budget to fix tiny flaws in a recording (which are probably noticeable only to them), will balk at spending money to attend a conference, or will choose to send out mass emails to A&R contacts, rather than personalized ones, in order to save a few minutes worth of work. Songwriters will work and rework one simple line in a hundred variations, but give up in despair when their first phone call attempt to an A&R person goes unreturned.

Be forewarned: no matter how strategically you approach it, getting your music out there will always be challenging. You will run into closed doors everywhere you turn. Everyone does. But somehow, each year, a handful of people do break through. We know then that it can be done. It’s simply a case of trying every possible avenue until you find the one that works. So, to conclude a series of blogs on “How To Get Your Music Heard”, here’s three ideas of how to trouble-shoot when your sales approach isn’t working. Most importantly, don’t panic and don’t get discouraged. This problem is no harder than learning to play an instrument, finding the perfect title, or figuring out why your Protools isn’t working. When your first approach fails…

1. Check your connections.

The most common response you’ll hear when trying to get someone in the industry to listen to your music is this:

Our company does not allow us to accept unsolicited material at this time.

Welcome to the dead zone, from which most songwriters and publishers never return. Indeed, that’s part of the reason for such a policy. By its nature it will eliminate at least 50% of the people trying to call the company. Most will just give up.

Don’t give up. At the same time, don’t get mad– as irritating as it obviously is. The person who is telling you this is telling you the truth. Almost every major music company has an official policy, drafted by the corporate lawyers, that no A&R person is ALLOWED to accept material that is “unsolicited”, which is to say, from someone the A&R person doesn’t know. This is to protect companies from the very real threat of lawsuits, launched by amateur songwriters who are sure that their song was stolen by a superstar act. An A&R person who violates the policy and suddenly finds himself or herself at the center of a lawsuit could very likely lose their job.

The best way around this obstacle is to get out of the category of “someone the A&R person doesn’t know”. You need a connection. If you can drop the name of a lawyer, your ASCAP, BMI, or SESAC writer rep, another songwriter or producer who the A&R person has worked with, a friend in a different department of the company, or an established manager, booking agent, or radio programmer who is recommending you, you are now no longer “unsolicited”. This is the cover that the A&R person needs to be in compliance with company policy. It’s also the test you need to pass in order to make the person on the other end of the phone believe that it’s worth his or her time to speak with you.

If you’re getting the “unsolicited” line, then it’s time to go back and figure out who on your team (lawyer, manager, writer rep, songwriting buddies, studio engineer or owner, gear salesman, friends, etc.) might know the person you’re calling and be willing to refer you. If no one on your team can help, see if they know a friend of a friend of the person you’re calling. If you’re still unconnected, then you need to expand your team. Figure out who might be able to get to the music weasel you’re after, and go after that new person, starting the whole process over again.

I didn’t say it was easy.

2. Check your levels.

The second most common issue, after the “no unsolicited material” roadblock, is “nothing”. That is, total silence. Unreturned phone calls. Unanswered emails. The big freeze-out. You’re trying to get your music out there, and it seems there’s no “there” there.

Again, don’t get mad. Remember– just because you want someone to hear your music does not lay an obligation on the other person to take your call or listen to what you send. The person on the other end of the phone is being given priorities and duties by his or her boss, and they probably don’t include speaking with you. This is especially true as you move up the corporate ladder, and start trying to reach out to the higher-ranking executives on the A&R staff.

Most major record labels do have people that are searching for the next “developing” star– the hot, unknown songwriter or the undiscovered artist. But they are junior A&R people– not Sr. Vice-Presidents. The more elevated executives are supposed to be devoting their time to the superstars that are already signed and paying the bills. The same is true in major publishing companies and management firms. If you don’t yet have a track record or the calling card of a current “hit”, you will probably not have much luck reaching the Big Weasel. But that’s not who you need anyway, nor is that the person that needs you. You want to speak to the hungry, ambitious, excited, 22 year old kid that works for the Big Weasel and who wants more than anything to discover the talent that no one else knows about yet. This is how the kid will eventually become the Big Weasel. It is also how you will eventually get a returned phone call.

If you’re hitting a wall, it may be that you’re aiming too high. Adjust your aim one or two levels down the corporate pecking order, and you might find an open door.

3. Check your sound.

I know it will come as a shock, but some people may simply not like what you do. They have that right. In fact, if what you do is reasonably stylized, quirky, or clever, you can be sure that most people in the industry will not quite get it. Sony dropped Alicia Keys. Jive dropped Kid Rock. Lady Gaga is already on her second record deal. The fact that some people don’t like what you do might mean that there’s a problem with your music– you’ll have to determine how to address that. But it also might mean that you simply don’t have the right match between your sound and the person listening. There’s no accounting for taste–and you don’t have to. All you have to do is find the person whose taste is suited to your music.

As a veteran of the music industry, one of the few advantages that I enjoy is that I have begun to understand the likes and dislikes of the people to whom I’m pitching music. This means that a huge part of my job is simply knowing how to match a particular song, a new artist, or a producer with the people in the industry who will “get it”, whatever that “it” is. If I hear a great Swedish style pop song, I know to send it to Jive Records or Syco, and not to Island/Def Jam. If I’ve discovered a new female singer/songwriter or a Triple A band, it’s going to fit better for Chop Shop than Activision. Much of song-pitching is not how you send it out, but who you send it to. If you’re not getting results, it may simply be that you haven’t matched your sound with the correct listener.

4. Check your options.

Every office has multiple entrances. There is always an alternate way into any project. Persistence is vital, but persistently beating on a closed door will not make it open. The good kind of persistence is the kind that knocks on a door once, twice, maybe a third time… and then circles around the back, and goes in the side entrance. If an A&R person refuses your “unsolicited material”, try the artist manager. Many managers are one or two person companies, and thus have far fewer corporate “policies” that have to be respected. If the manager won’t respond, try the producer. If that proves to be a dead end, just keep searching– try the artist directly on MySpace or Facebook, or a friend of the artist, or the recording engineer, or the fashion stylist. Whatever crazy idea you have, I promise you, someone has tried something stranger. Not quitting doesn’t mean picking one person and torturing them until they listen to your song. It means searching for every possible person to torture. Just joking. But it does mean that you never stop looking for another way to approach the project that you’re targeting.

I hope the little series we’ve done on “Getting Your Music Out” has been helpful. I know in the opening paragraph of this blog, I compared the challenge of selling your music to making it– and in many ways the two things are quite similar. But in a few important ways, they’re as different as night and day. You know that rush you feel when you play a great guitar solo, or come up with the perfect hook line for a song? You’ll probably never get that feeling when you’re pitching music. It just doesn’t have that kind of reward. Instead, you get rejection followed by rejection followed by a slight glimmer of hope.

But here’s the thing: if you don’t do it, nothing happens. No stranger is going to find a song hiding on your hard drive and decide to put it on the radio. You’re going to have to make that happen. That’s the point of my book, “Making Music Make Money”. The only thing that can move your career ahead is if someone else hears your music and wants to buy it, sell it, perform it, or help you to do one of those three things. That won’t happen if the song never leaves your home studio.
If you haven’t made your New Year’s Resolution yet, here’s one: resolve to spend one hour pitching songs for every five hours writing or recording them. Get your music out there, and let’s see what happens…

Happy New Year everyone!

I know I said that this blog would carry on our current theme, which is how to get your music out there to people– and it will. But I’m going to save my trouble-shooting blog, what to do when you run into obstacles in pitching your music, for just a minute. After all, has anyone really been making pitch calls over the last two weeks? If you have, you’ve been leaving a lot of voice mails, because it’s dead out there. All of the music business weasels have departed for ski vacations or the Caribbean (nothing like a weasel in a swimsuit) and left LA and NYC to the tourists. So instead, I thought I’d offer up a quick set of ideas to kick off the New Year, and to put me thoroughly in sync with the rest of the blogosphere, offering Top Ten lists ad infinitum. Here’s mine:

TEN THINGS THAT YOU CAN DO IN 2010 TO MAKE YOUR MUSIC MAKE MONEY!!

1. Identify your market.

This year, try narrowing your vision and focusing on the one specific market that best fits what you do. No more dabbling in one style, then another, then another. Most of the reason that songwriters struggle to create that two minute “elevator pitch” that we discussed last week is that they quite literally don’t know what they’re doing– they have never forced themselves to focus on one specific thing sufficiently to be able to articulate precisely what it is that they do.

2. Know your market.

In 2010, the music business is a business of specialists– A&R people, managers, publicists, engineers, producers, and yes, even songwriters, are segmented by genre, and expected to be experts in that particular area of music. That means being familiar with all of the artists old and new in that market, knowing the key business players, the labels, the current production styles. Sound like a lot of information to digest? That’s why you “identified” your market. It’s not plausible to be an expert in three or four genres at once.

3. Strategize.

Once you know your market, and you know all about the artists, labels, managers and producers in it, then you’re in a position to start looking for the openings. Where are the opportunities? Don’t focus on the superstars if you don’t have any track record– those are out of reach. Look for the up and coming artists, or the new trends, or the hot new label, or the young entrepreneurs. That’s where you’ll find your opportunities. Once you see where the openings in the market are, you need to look at every possible way in which you can take advantage of it.

4. Know who you are.

You can’t start meeting people until you know how to introduce yourself. That doesn’t mean just saying your name and handing out business cards. You need to be able to explain in three or four sentences who you are and what you’re doing. You can talk about what you’re doing now (”I’m promoting a new single that just came out…”), what you did in the past (”I had a song on Kelly Clarkson’s last album…”), who you work with (”I co-write with Brett James in Nashville”), or who you are (”I’m a producer from Norway” or “I’m a recording engineer for a jingle house, but I’m also a songwriter”), but you need to have two or three sentences to present a picture that’s clear, interesting and memorable. Whatever it is, memorize it. Ideally, it should be a conversation-starter– that way it won’t be the only two sentences you get.

5. Know what you want.

This is such a big one that it needs to be divided into a big picture and a small one. In the big picture sense, you need to know what your goals are for your music and what would constitute success. Do you want to get rich? Do you just want to be able to have a full-time career in music? Do you just want to support your hobby and have one song on a record somewhere? Everything is acceptable, and there’s a strategy to get you to each goal. But it won’t be the same one. You can’t read a map until you know where you’re going. If you want to take on the big picture question, and you shouldn’t waste a moment on any other plan of action until you do, take the “Music Business Weasel’s Pop Quiz” in my book, “Making Music Make Money”.

http://www.amazon.com/Making-Music-Make-Money-Publisher/dp/0876390076

On the small picture side, you need to think about what you want from the person to whom you’re presenting your music. Are you looking for a record deal? Do you want them to record your song with an artist to whom they’re connected? Do you want them to sign you to a publishing contract? Are you looking for an introduction to someone they know? If what you want doesn’t match up to what the person on the other end can feasibly deliver (a BMI rep can’t offer you a publishing contract; a NY-based A&R rep can’t get your song to a country artist) then you’re wasting everyone’s time. Figure out what each person can do for you BEFORE you reach out.

6. Take the conference call.

No industry in the world has more conferences and networking events than the music business. That just means that there is no excuse for not knowing anyone, or not understanding the business. Every conference has a full array of industry executives in attendance, many of whom are on panels where they share the knowledge of the business and take questions from the audience. Beyond that, there are ASCAP, BMI and SESAC educational events, programs sponsored by songwriter groups like the Songwriters Hall of Fame and NSAI, or events hosted by industry trade organizations like the Recording Academy, NARIP, and the NMPA. Depending on your genre, your goals, and your financial and geographical situation, you can check out: MIDEM, CMJ, South By Southwest, Winter Music Conference, Billboard & Hollywood Reporter Film and TV Music Conference, Biillboard’s Music & Money, Amsterdam Dance Event, or ASCAP’s “I Create Music” Expo. That should fill your calendar for the year. If you can’t afford to register, consider contacting the conference and volunteering to work at the registration desk or within the conference itself. Sometimes you can trade some labor time for a free pass…

7. Ask one good question.

If you do attend a conference, here’s a tip for meeting that key industry player that you want to know:

Find a panel on which he or she is speaking. Then, when the Q&A portion of the panel arrives, step up to the mic and ask one good question. A good question does not directly involve you (”why didn’t you listen to the package I sent you?”), and is not too basic (”how can I get music to you?”). A good question reflects a knowledge of the business and the panelist, is relevant to all of the industry people in the room, and could be the topic of discussion among other panelists (”What do you think of the new rate decision from the Copyright Board?”, “How is your business using the social networking sites to target an audience?”, “Do you see your show widening its use of music, or the genres it uses, or narrowing it?”).

Having done hundreds of such panels, I guarantee you that if you ask one good question, you will be the only one who does. I also guarantee that if you approach the panelist at the close of the discussion, you will be remembered, and probably walk away with a business card and an invitation to be in touch.

8. Educate yourself.

At the music publishing company where I work, someone called our office this week, and began the conversation with “I don’t really understand what you do there…” Believe it or not, this happens EVERY DAY! For whatever reason, music seems to attract a large number of people who are almost entirely ignorant of the business of which they supposedly wish to be a part. Is it any surprise that most of these people are either ignored or taken advantage of?

If you’re serious about pursuing music publishing and/or songwriting as a business, it only stands to reason that you need to have the same knowledge as every other professional in the industry. Invest 12 weeks in “Music Publishing 101″ at berkleemusic.com, and learn exactly what a music publisher does, how to do it, and how to set up your own music publishing business. You’ll come out not only with a thorough knowledge of the business, but also with a full strategy for how to make your music make money.

9. Write hits.

The truth is, most songwriters’ primary obstacle to success is not a lack of knowledge, contacts, or strategy. Most of the time, the real problem is that songwriters are simply not selling what the industry needs. Most songwriters are trying to write good songs. Some are even writing great songs. But what is needed by every A&R person, manager, artist, is something else entirely. These people need “hit” songs.

If you don’t understand the difference, then check out my book, “The Billboard Guide To Writing and Producing Songs That Sell”. In an age where the album cut has become entirely irrelevant, there is no formula for success that doesn’t involve writing “hits”.

http://www.amazon.com/Billboard-Guide-Writing-Producing-Songs/dp/0823099547

10. Do the work.

I read an incredible article last year in the New Yorker by author Malcolm Gladwell, called “How David Beat Goliath”.

http://www.gladwell.com/2009/2009_05_11_a_david.html

Perhaps the most profound point made in the article was this, and I paraphrase:
most people don’t succeed simply because they are not willing to do the work required.

Having had the opportunity to work with superstar writers from Steve Diamond to Billy Mann to Andy Goldmark to Stargate to David Guetta, the one thing that all of them share is a “work ethic” that simply dwarfs most of their competition. This is not to diminish their individual talent, which is significant and unique. It is to say that there is no way you will be able to compete with these A-level writers on the basis of talent alone. Even if you have the same gifts as a songwriter, their drive, ambition, and willingness to go anywhere and do whatever it takes will put them on top. If you are going to compete, you have to do what is needed to win.

I know that most of the songwriters reading these suggestions will ignore them entirely, and search instead for a shortcut to success that involves less effort. A few will resolve to try three or four of the ten, and at the end of the year, will have excuses for why they only accomplished one or two. But be aware: the successful songwriters and music publishers will do all of these every year.

You can’t “try” to do something. Either you’re doing it, or you’re not.

Best wishes for a great 2010! Thanks for your support of the blog. See you at the top of the charts…

Had quite a few comments this week from people who found “Back To Basics” quite helpful, and a good way to re-focus at the end of a year. So this time, let’s go one step further– not just how to come up with a general “strategy” to get our music out there and earning money, but an even more specific concern that we all run up against sooner or later:

DO YOUR RESEARCH

Just because you are a beginner in the industry, you don’t need to sound like you’re a beginner in the industry. Knowledge is free, and in the age of the internet, it is immediately accessible to everyone. Before you call anyone, or meet with anyone, or go to an industry event, you MUST do your research on who it is you’re speaking with, or who you’re hoping to speak with.

Someone once told me that Michael Eisner, the former head of Disney, used to ask anyone with whom he was scheduled to meet to fax a resume or bio prior to the appointment. Of course, he would also have his staff google each person on his calendar, and he would expect a brief the day before the meeting. If the power players whom you dream of having an opportunity to meet are prepared to invest that kind of research time when they conduct meetings, you can be sure that they expect you to do the same.

At some point in the first two minutes of meeting someone, emailing them, or having a phone conversation, you need to send a clear signal that you know who you are dealing with. You do that by dropping a compliment to them for a recent success, by inquiring about the status of a current project, or at the very least, by tailoring your pitch to fit their specific needs. You don’t call an A&R person and offer to send songs in for an act that writes all their own material. You don’t call the manager of Avril Lavigne to pitch him your new artist who will compete directly with Avril Lavigne. You have to show that you understand not only who you are speaking with, their background and their current activity, but also their interests– what is it that they need or want? How can you help supply that?

Of course, some meetings– the scheduled ones or the phone calls– are considerably easier to prepare for than the chance introductions at an industry event or backstage at a show. Certainly, if you’re attending the ASCAP Holiday Party in New York, you can anticipate meeting some of the Writer Representatives, some of the major New York writers who are affiliated with ASCAP, and some of the A&R people from the top publishers. At a minimum, you’ll want to have done some basic research on those people, and have formulated a “wish’ list in your mind of the ten people with whom you would really like to connect. If you have a chance to go backstage at a concert, you should have researched the artist’s manager, A&R person, tour manager, music director, and booking agent, as those are all people you are likely to see there. If you attend a music conference, you can easily get a list of attendees and panelists in advance, and begin to plot out who your key “targets” will be.

Beyond that, the best preparation is to always be prepared for anything. You do that by always maintaining a wide knowledge of the industry in general. Every songwriter and publisher should read Billboard, Hollywood Reporter, Variety and the more specific trade magazines for specific genres. You need to follow the industry blogs and newsletters. Check out:

AnR Worldwide.com (http://www.anrworldwide.com)
Music Connection.com (http://www.musicconnection.com)
The Deans List (http://www.ascap.com/playback/2009/spring/action/Dean.aspx)

If you have a genuine knowledge of the music industry, that intelligence will immediately come through to any industry insider that you meet, and you will have instant credibility. Without it, you will eventually be exposed as a neophyte, no matter how thorough your research for that specific meeting might have been.

STAND AND DELIVER

While it’s important to convey a knowledge of the activities of whoever you happen to be meeting, that alone will not produce much in the way of results. After all, the point is to let the other person know who you are and what you’re doing. Often, even songwriters with plenty of background in the industry falter when the conversation leaves the area of small talk, and turns the spotlight on them. In a business as “schmooze” oriented as the music industry, you can not survive out there without a well-oiled, frequently updated, confidently delivered “elevator” pitch– that is, a thirty second explanation of who you are and why you matter.

Essentially, there are four basic approaches you can take to your thirty-second bio– and they will change all the time, depending on the person to whom you’re speaking and your current activity in the industry. If you can, try to prepare a quick pitch for yourself around each of the four angles– just to have in case you need it. But if you’re relatively limited in your experience, accomplishments or current activity in the industry, you may need to work your way down the list, until you find an angle that works for you. Here are the four approaches you can consider. You can talk about:

1. What’s happening.
“I’m releasing a new album.” “I’m playing a show next week.” “I’m nominated for a Grammy.” “I’m traveling to Europe to work on a project in France.” Clearly, this is the easiest and most straightforward angle to take– its success will depend entirely on how interesting or relevant what’s happening actually is. Do not lie. You can stretch a bit, but if nothing is happening, or what’s happening will clearly not be of interest to the person with whom you’re speaking, then move on to idea #2…

2. What you’ve done.
“I wrote the first single for Madonna’s last record.” “I was in a band signed to Mercury.” “I toured with Charlie Daniels.” “I DJ’d at Pacha.” Past credits are never as strong as current activity, but depending again on their relevance, the level of achievement, and how long ago they happened, they can still pack a mighty punch. There are plenty of industry types who have been living off one hit project for a decade. If you’ve only got thirty seconds, you go with your best shot. If you’ve got a big past success on which to hang your hat, by all means, get that into the first two or three sentences out of your mouth. If not, then read on…

3. Who you’re with.
“I write with Keith Urban.” “I do some programming for Howard Benson.” “My friend Dan at ASCAP suggested I call.” “My lawyer has mentioned that I should meet with you.” “I worked at a studio with Dan Huff.” “I studied guitar with Pat Metheny”.

It’s always helpful to have a name that you can pull out. Most credibility in the music industry is through association– if you can indicate that you are part of the hot buzz scene, or that you work with people who are established, or that you have a team of industry players around you, or that you share a mutual acquaintance with person to whom you’re speaking, you will be viewed as an insider. As we discussed before, this is why it’s so important to build your network on every level, with other musicians and songwriters, engineers, club owners, or local radio people. Without a lot of current activity or past accomplishments, you will need a little help from your friends.

4. Who you are.
Now we get to the angle that is the hardest to pull off, and also the one where far too many songwriters and publishers find themselves. When faced with concocting an effective thirty-second presentation about “who you are”, you may realize that it would be easier to go out and generate some current activity, or add some people to your network, than to try to figure out a way to describe yourself that sounds interesting and engaging. Still, it’s a good skill to learn– the ability to present yourself in a way that is consistent and interesting will serve you well in many walks of life. What is unique about you that will engage a person meeting you for the first time?

Maybe it’s your background or family (think Paris Hilton, Ivanka Trump or Jakob Dylan). Maybe it’s where you come from (”the new writer/producer from Norway”, or “the new DJ from France” or “the new urban writer from Atlanta”). Maybe it’s a funny experience you had that led you into the industry, or charity work that you’re involved with, or political causes you’re associated with. Perhaps its something quirky in your industry background (”I started out in hip-hop, but now I’m writing an opera…”) or in your approach (”I use only vintage gear from the Eighties” or “I primarily play at private listening parties in people’s homes”). But you have to find something that will give someone a quick idea of who you are, something identifiable that they can remember, and a reason to at least follow your statement with a question, which can lead to more conversation.

If you can’t find anything that fits into one of those categories, it may be time to do some serious soul-searching. If you don’t have any current activity of interest, no past accomplishments, no friends or colleagues in the industry, and nothing unique about your personality, work or background, it’s hard to know why anyone would be interested in speaking with you.

Someone once commented to David Letterman that he could be a bit hard on his guests. He responded, and I paraphrase, that anyone coming on his show came to promote a project or themselves or both–if they can’t bring along one funny story or observation, or at least an interesting topic for discussion in order to fill five minutes of airtime, then they deserve what they get. It’s cold– but the same is true of making pitch calls. Remember: you’re the one making the call, or pushing for the introduction. It’s your obligation to have something interesting to say.

Next week, we’ll take a quick look at what to do when you run into problems in getting your music out there– and believe me, you will. In the meantime, to all of you who support this blog throughout the year, here’s a big Thank You for all your comments and encouragement. Have a Merry Christmas, a Happy Holiday, or good vacation, whatever suits you.

I’ve had some interesting inquiries come to me recently on the blog site and it got me thinking… after all is said and done, the problems of most songwriters and music publishers are not really the complex issues of negotiated royalty rates, streaming on demand versus downloads, or flat rate licensing schemes. Those big, multi-faceted bones of contention certainly affect us as songwriters and music publishers. They may weigh on our minds, get us in a fighting mood, or, best case, bring in some unexpected money. But they are not what is front and center in our mind as we go through our daily career struggle.

What we think about almost all the time is a challenge that seems considerably more straightforward and simple, but is in fact, far harder to conquer:

What specifically can I do to get my music out into the world to start earning me money?

So I thought that in the time leading up to the holiday break, perhaps I would try to address that subject, from a variety of different angles. In the end, it’s what music publishing is all about. It’s how my first book, “Making Music Make Money” got its title. It’s the primary focus of my class, Music Publishing 101 at Berkleemusic.com. And yet the questions keep on coming. And the challenges to actually getting our music into income-generating opportunities keep increasing. Let’s go back to basics one more time.

http://www.amazon.com/Making-Music-Make-Money-Publisher/dp/0876390076

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0gm685uF6Dk

But in order to do it, we’re going to start with three more questions, all of which usually follow the big question of “what do I do to make my music earn money?” If we can tackle these fundamental issues, then we’ll have a start on conquering the bigger question in the following weeks. Here are three selections from the “greatest hits” compilation of questions to ask the music business weasel:

Question #1: How do I get my songs considered by major, superstar artists?
Answer: You don’t. You also don’t get to pitch in the World Series with no professional baseball experience or become the president of a Fortune 500 company on the first day on the job. In songwriting, as in every other business, there is a concept of “working your way up the ladder”.

Songwriters who have yet to have even one successful single do not need to be spending their time trying to figure out how to get songs to Rihanna, or Taylor Swift, or Daughtry. The truth is, most major artists want to be directly involved with writing most of the songs they record, and the ones that they don’t write will largely come from the proven, successful hitmakers so sought after by the record companies. Trust me, if it were your multi-million dollar investment on the line, you’d probably take the same approach.

If you are a developing songwriter with no real track record, you need to concentrate on writing for the next Rihanna, or Taylor Swift, or Daughtry. That means working with artists who don’t yet have a record contract, and helping to write the song that clinches the deal. Or finding a lesser-known act still trying to break-through with that one big hit. Or meeting local developing artists or managers in your local community, and trying to write the song that will expose them to a larger audience. If you can do that successfully, then you’ll get approached to work on slightly bigger, more high-profile projects. Then slowly, but steadily, you’ll be building the contacts and the track record that can move you up the ladder.

Check out tipsheets like Songlink International or Myhitsonline.com. They are full of projects in various stages of development, all looking for songs. Or get active in your local community and find the potential talent you can work with there.

http://www.songlink.com
http://www.myhitonline.com

Certainly, most of these projects will amount to little. But if you can provide a key song, you will at the very least make a new set of contacts, who will go on to other projects after this one. This is how “networks” are built. If you can show up with a genuine hit, you might create a new star, and immediately put yourself in a different level of the industry.

Question #2: How do I cold-call A&R people, managers, and others who I want to listen to my music?
Answer: You don’t. In my Music Publishing 101 class at Berkleemusic.com, we don’t get to the subject of pitching music until halfway through the semester. Instead, the early weeks of Music Publishing 101 are devoted to laying the groundwork that will make the pitch effective. This means building a team of support around you– a music lawyer, a Writer Relations rep at ASCAP, BMI, or SESAC, a network of friends and colleagues in your local community that could include everyone from a music journalist to a studio owner to a radio programmer.

Just as importantly, it means researching and studying your music genre and identifying the major and minor artists in that world, the key labels (both major and independent), the A&R decision-makers, the managers, the radio stations, and the clubs. It means identifying what business strategies are the most effective in your market. In the pop-rock or indie band world, advertising placements can be crucial stepping-stones. In the heavy metal biz, video games are key. You have to be an expert in whatever field of music you’re pitching songs. That’s what gives you the right to bother someone else, who is also an expert of sorts, in the middle of his or her workday.

Only when you’ve established your team and network of business contacts will you be in a position to change a cold-call into a referral. Once you’ve decided who you want to approach with your music, you can then try to figure out if there’s someone on your team, or in your network, who might be able to make an introduction, or at least allow you to use their name as a reference. Obviously, the bigger your circle of supporters, the fewer real “cold-calls” you’ll make.

In the same way, proper research and understanding of your musical genre will ensure that you’re approaching the right people, and saying the things that they want to hear. If you understand the nuances of the business environment in which you’re working, know the background of the person with whom you’re speaking, and can show how your music fills a need in that person’s world, you can speak with the A&R person, manager or producer as a colleague. That’s not cold-calling. That’s connecting.

Question #3: How do I find time to get my music out to people– music supervisors, A&R, artist managers– when I’m so busy actually making and recording the music?
Answer: You don’t. The one thing I can tell you without any doubt, having been a songwriter, producer and music publisher for more than twenty years, is that every single thing that happens to you everyday will conspire to prevent you from actually getting songs sent out to the people that need to hear them. You will always be needed in the studio, or have to pick up the kids, or be exhausted from last night’s gig, or be stressed from tonight’s gig, or in need of a new computer, or SOMETHING. And each night, you will vow that tomorrow you really will get those songs sent out…

You will never find the time. There are no spare hours lying under the bed somewhere. Trust me- I’ve looked. The only hope that you have is to make the time. You will have to change your schedule, cut back on certain things, try to find an intern to help out, or figure out a way to run your business on the road. But one way or another, you must make the time to get songs sent out to the people that need to hear them. Because…

Your business depends on it. Without that, nothing happens. There is no music publisher anywhere that has built a business solely by doing administration and collecting money. At least in the beginning, someone has to get the music out to people who will use it.

What would you think of a widget-making company that invested solely in production–building a factory, hiring workers, making widgets– but had no sales team or strategy in place to sell the product? Yet, that’s what so many songwriters and music publishers do– retreating to their comfort zone of writing music, recording music, acquiring music and listening to music, until there’s no time left in the day to sell any of it. Check the number of songs sitting on your hard-drive and compare them to the amount of songs that were sent out this week. It may be happening to you.

The point of these negative answers to oft-asked questions is not to be discouraging. I’m a publisher too. I know that none of us need more discouragement. The point is to give a reality-check, and to adapt realistic strategies to our businesses.

It is the nature of show business to sell dreams, and this is one of the most prevalent– the sudden opportunity that leads to instant glory. I’m not saying it never happens. Almost every career is built on a few such unexpected moments. But it’s not a day to day strategy for approaching your business.

I heard a great story recently of a hard-working musician laboring in relative obscurity, who was playing in a band that recorded several records for small labels, none of which found any great success. However, one of the records was picked up by a dance music DJ and producer in another country, and began to garner some underground buzz. When that buzz led to more calls for material from the DJ-producer, he turned back to our friend the musician, who after more than a decade of playing and touring, had virtually given up on his band and was looking for a new line of work. But the musician answered the call for more material and sent it off to the DJ-producer, who then added his own magic touch. One of those tracks was recently released as the first single off a recent Madonna album, and it became a world-wide hit.

That’s the reality of the music business. Doing your work, getting the music out, meeting the right people and building on those contacts, as you slowly climb the ladder. Only then can you hope to finally get that lucky break that catapults you to the top.

Last question: When do you give up?
Answer: You dont. You just keep moving, one rung at a time.

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Hope everyone had a very happy Thanksgiving! And on that note, if you were struggling last week to find something for which to be thankful (and those things were definitely in short supply this year, particularly in the dark and lonely corridors of the music business), I received one from my friend and fellow Berklee blogger, Mike King, who writes Music Business and Trend-Mongering…

http://mikeking.berkleemusicblogs.com/

Mike brought to my attention a very informative and interesting blog at thefutureofmusic.com, which explained, as clearly as could possibly be expected within such murky waters, the recent settlement on a mechanical royalty rate for songs played on online music services. Check it out:

http://futureofmusic.org/blog/2008/10/01/agreement-royale

Given that we’ve been following in this blogspace the ever-raging war between the Israel and Palestine of show business, that is the digital media community (which includes large companies like Yahoo and AOL, relatively established ventures like Pandora and Rhapsody, and new companies like Spotify) and the music industry (including labels, publishers, performing rights organizations, artists, and writers), it seems worth taking a minute to try to put some perspective on what has been achieved with the latest peace treaty. As always when entering a war zone, it’s probably best to dredge up a little history, just to understand what’s been achieved, and why everyone was so mad in the first place.

The conflict is rooted. as is all evil, in money, and who gets how much of it. When the digital world first emerged as a place to both purchase and/or stream music, the music community was forced to redefine the idea of a “mechanical royalty”, which is the royalty that is paid to songwriters and publishers each time a “mechanical reproduction” of their song is purchased. In the old world, this translates to .091 cents for each song on each CD that is bought by a consumer. This “per-penny”, “per-song” system is at the core of the music publishing business, and it’s something that publishers were desperate to preserve even within the new digital environment.

In part the attachment to this system is rooted in accounting realities: each songwriter needs to be paid each time his or her specific song is used, not just given a random portion of a lump sum paid out to songwriters in general. But more importantly, publishers wanted to establish with finality that each digital use, whether a digital download (as on iTunes, which has been paying the 9 cent mechanical royalty from the beginning) or a stream (in which the music is not actually owned by the consumer, but is constantly accessible to the consumer) constituted a “mechanical reproduction” of the song, and therefore was subject to a mechanical royalty.

Not too surprisingly, the digital media community saw things quite differently. While generally willing to acknowledge that an actual digital download constituted a “purchase” of the song and therefore required a mechanical royalty (unless of course one were to do like the vast majority of music listeners and simply download it illegally), services that offered “streaming”, as opposed to downloads, felt that they should be treated more like a radio station, and that their music uses should be subject only to “performance royalties” (the money collected by ASCAP, BMI, and SESAC for public uses of music on the radio and television). The music industry was quite happy to acknowledge that “streaming” should be licensed by ASCAP, BMI and SESAC, and indeed, most of the prominent streaming services are licensed by those performing rights organizations. However, the music weasels also wanted the mechanical royalty, in addition to the performance monies. Them were fightin’ words.

That’s where the war began, and we’ve been following it on this blog ever since. Having reached this impasse in the early days of the digital music revolution, the two parties agreed to fight it out… later. The publishers, not wanting to miss the boat entirely on a new way of marketing music, but also not wanting to lock in an unfair compensation system for a pivotal new technology, agreed to make their catalogs available for a one or two cent royalty, under the proviso that some kind of more reasonable “per-song, per-play” mechanical rate would be negotiated in the not-too-distant future.

It’s worth keeping in mind that much of the publisher’s wariness came from their prior experience with licensing music to DVD’s. In that instance, publishers agreed to very unfavorable terms for the use of music in “DVD” ’s, after receiving promises from the film studios that once the new technology took hold, there would be plenty of money to go around. Of course, the new technology did take hold, there was plenty of money, and none of it found its way into the pockets of the publishers, who were stuck with that first, precedent-setting agreement. This resulted in much gnashing of teeth, and vows of “never again”.

On the flip side, the digital media, filled with myriads of start-up ventures, felt that if they could buy some time to get their new companies off the ground and into a profitable position, the music industry would view them as valuable partners, and be willing to agree to a more equitable royalty situation. Or maybe they just figured they could get the music really cheap for now, and then later use their increased bargaining power and hopefully some favorable court decisions to really put the screws to the copyright holders. Hard to say exactly.

Unfortunately, the war didn’t quite go according to plan for either party. The music industry quickly found that the new “mechanical” royalties from digital downloads were draining off their old “mechanical” royalties from CD album sales, and actual overall income was plummeting. The digital music services found that consumers were not that eager to actually fork up money for something that they were now used to getting for free. On top of all that, the music industry sensed that they’d once again been out-weaseled, as the DMA (Digital Media Association) backed away from negotiations, and focused instead on legal efforts to re-define which uses required a mechanical royalty in the first place.

And yet, out of this ugly little tale of self-interest, deception, suspicion and greed, springs a small blessing– which leads me back to the whole idea of what we can be thankful for this year. After years of arguing, the two beaten-down, weary factions finally reached an agreement, and here’s what it amounts to:

Limited download and interactive streaming services will pay a mechanical royalty rate of 10.5% on the revenue they generate, MINUS any amounts for performance royalties.

In other words, services like Rhapsody and Napster are indeed subject to both a mechanical and performance royalty, but the entire compensation for songwriters and publishers from any limited download or interactive streaming site is “capped” at 10.5% of the site’s revenue. For the record, an interactive stream is one that’s selected by the user (that is, music on demand), and a limited download is one that’s based on a subscription (and which disappears when that subscription ends). The mechanical royalty does not apply to “jukebox” type streaming, which is not selected specifically by the user (like Pandora).

Like most blessings, this one is decidedly mixed. It does give the DMA what they needed most, which is some ability to gauge what their overall music costs will be, and some flexibility in their price-setting to the consumer. Obviously, if you’re in the business of selling a product, you like to know what it’s going to cost you to provide it. By assuring the digital services that the combined PRO royalty and “mechanical” royalty will not exceed 10.5% of their revenue, the new agreement should help the digital music services build a more stable financial model in the future.

The new deal also gives publishers part of what they wanted, which is the legitimate claim to something more than a performance royalty from services that offer a consumer direct access to specific music. It opens a Pandora’s box (yes, that’s a pun) of accounting problems, as publishers will now have to somehow negotiate, audit (?), and continually adjust rates for each of the thousands of services that exist or are in the launching stages, not to mention figure out how to collect and properly apportion the new money to the appropriate songwriters.

But in a barren land of nothing, at least this is something, so let’s raise our cups in thanksgiving, especially to the powers that negotiated the agreement on behalf of the publishers, labels and others: the National Music Publishers Association (NMPA), the Nashville Songwriters Association International (NSAI), the RIAA, and the Songwriters Guild (SGA).

Now that we’ve laid our weapons down (temporarily at least) it’s time to turn our attention to something a bit more productive:

Let’s make some money.

If it seems strange that Mike King brought to my attention an agreement that directly affects the publishing community, it’s because most publishers haven’t exactly been on the edge of their chairs, waiting to see how this war turned out. A growing number of us increasingly suspect that we’re fighting over a useless piece of land in the desert.

The fundamental problem with this agreement is that none of these services are generating much in terms of real revenue. The subscription model is growing less and less attractive, as consumers have quite literally not bought into it. The “free” streaming services are generating plenty of activity, but very little in the way of advertising revenue, which is where the money is supposed to come from. In the end, receiving ten percent of the total revenue of these services may wind up being less than the one or two penny rate that we were getting as part of the temporary agreement.

Worse than that, many of us suspect that these services may not actually be intended to make money. Looking at the YouTube model, it’s clearly quite possible to use “free” music as a “carrot” to attract loads of visitors or viewers to a site. A buzz-savvy entrepreneur can then use that high level of traffic to foist the new start-up venture off to a giant corporate media company like Google (YouTube) or News Corp (MySpace)– all without ever having generated any real profits. In that scenario, the founder of the site gets rich, and the publishers and songwriters who provided the music that brought all that traffic are left with, yep, ten percent of nothing. Sound familiar?

I suspect that somewhere towards the end of the first Thanksgiving feast, after the pie had been consumed and the last bit of wine drained from the bottle, someone on the side of either the pilgrims or the American Indians probably mentioned that there was still some work to be done in the harvesting, and that they should all probably get back to work. Judging from current music sales, publishers and record labels and songwriters all need to get back to trying to make music that the public is truly compelled to purchase. Across the table, digital media services need to start figuring out how to sell that music in a way that actually generates profits, rather than simply giving it away. If both parties do their jobs, maybe next year we’ll all have more to be thankful for…

Had quite an interesting visit to Amsterdam last week, where I was part of the first ever Dutch Writers Camp. The event was sponsored by Holland’s collection society BUMA STEMRA (the equivalent of our ASCAP/BMI/SESAC and Harry Fox Agency) and brought together an all-star group of international songwriters, ten contest winners from across Holland, and a couple of assorted special guests, which included yours truly. The songwriters participating in the camp were treated to an incredible master class from Ralph Murphy, the great guru of songwriting, and then paired off to write in alternating groups over the next two days. The result was an explosion of creative energy, a fascinating mix of cultures and working styles, assorted moments of euphoria, panic, insight, and a few emotional meltdowns, and alot of new friendships– as well as ten great new songs, all written and recorded in about two and a half days. No, everyone didn’t just hang out all day in the Amsterdam coffee shops. We worked!

As one of the American writers, Shane Alexander, put it, this was the songwriting “trenches”, with time pressure, competitive spirit, and a wild melange of musical and cultural influences adding a whole new set of challenges to the craft of creating a song. For the writers themselves, it was an exhausting and exhilarating week. For the special guests like myself, who had the luxury of observation rather than direct participation, it was a fascinating look at the creative process. In light of that, I thought I’d share two experiences from my stay in Amsterdam. Consider them souvenirs of my trip…

It’s funny how sometimes you have to go all the way across the globe to meet someone that’s been your neighbor all the time. Ralph Murphy and I are not literally neighbors–he’s a resident of Nashville (via Canada passing thru New York by way of London) and I’m a New Yorker. But we’ve certainly covered alot of the same territory. Both of us at various times have been songwriters, music publishers, and A&R managers, and both of us spend a great deal of time writing, talking, and thinking about the craft of songwriting. So to find ourselves at the Dutch Writers Camp together was a pleasure. For me, it was also an invaluable education.

If you’re serious about songwriting on a professional level, you can’t find a better teacher than Ralph Murphy. Currently ASCAP’s Vice-President of International and Domestic Membership, Ralph is a legendary songwriter and publisher with more than twenty Number One hits. But Ralph is not merely a gifted songwriter, he is both a student and a professor of the craft.

Ralph is a student in the sense that he has studied, and continues to study the science of the hit song from every angle– watching the chart action on new releases, spotting trends, and analyzing the reasons for a song’s success or failure. If you want to discover the rules and realities of creating commercially successful songs, you should start by checking out Ralph Murphy’s Laws of Songwriting at:

http://www.murphyslawsofsongwriting.com.

The truth is, most people who take the romantic view of songwriting, as a mysterious vocation built primarily on intuitive talent and luck, simply haven’t bothered to study it much. Ralph is the ultimate scientist, breaking down the factors that lead to success, one element at a time.

Even better though, Ralph is also a professor– someone who delights in sharing what he’s learned with songwriters at every level of the business. He’s an instructor for the Nashville Songwriters Association (NSAI) International Song Camps, and he leads his songwriting master classes at venues around the world. To hear him lecture at the Dutch Writers Camp, and watch him bring together an audience that ranged from veteran writers with numerous hits under their belts to developing writers across all different genres, was a real eye-opener, even for someone who has been working with songs and songwriters for more than twenty years. If you’re ready to challenge yourself to go from writing good songs to writing hits, make the investment and sign up for one of Ralph Murphy’s classes. It’s a lifetime’s worth of songwriting knowledge condensed into a couple of very entertaining hours.

Speaking of very entertaining hours, the other Amsterdam experience I wanted to share was my trip to the Vincent van Gogh Museum. Living in New York, I have ample opportunity to check out quite a few great museums, like the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Museum of Modern Art, the Whitney and many others. But I’ve never had a museum visit quite like my trip to the Van Gogh.

What makes the Van Gogh museum so unique is that it is centered solely on the creative life of one person. Where most museums are “greatest hit” packages, with the masterpieces of one artist after another, the Van Gogh is a “career retrospective”, with paintings from each period of Van Gogh’s development, interspersed with personal letters between he and his brother Theo. The result is not only a remarkable collection of paintings, but a fantastic and deeply moving portrait of an artist’s development and all the challenges that brings. Seeing the museum while I was also a part of the Dutch Writers Camp prompted me to consider the parallels between a painter like Van Gogh and all of us who write songs and make records. Here’s three quick observations to keep in mind as you examine your own creative development:

1. Where you are now is not where you are going.

To see the paintings done early in Van Gogh’s career is to see a shadow of what was to come. Some of the paintings are very beautiful in their own right, and they have certain characteristics that would become part of Van Gogh’s unique style. Yet they look very little like what we have come to think of as a Van Gogh. They are dark, restrained, and a little somber– very much influenced by Dutch masters like Rembrandt, and reflective of Van Gogh’s Dutch upbringing. There are masterpieces among those early paintings. But they are not the pictures that would ultimately define Van Gogh’s legacy.

In the creative whirlwind, it can be easy to forget that wherever you are, you are not at the end point in your artistic development. No matter how good they may be, the songs you’re writing today are not the songs you’ll be making five years from now. So don’t get too depressed (if you’re struggling creatively) or too proud (if you’re having success). It’s impossible to know just where the work you do today will ultimately rank in your overall career. All you can do is to try to do the best job possible on each song, and to keep moving ahead in your development. Which leads me to…

2. Where you’re going will be depend upon your willingness to challenge yourself with new opportunities, and by the people with whom you choose to surround yourself.

By far, the most dramatic moment in the Van Gogh museum is to see the metamorphosis that takes place when Van Gogh’s dark, moody early work suddenly gives way to the wild explosions of color that most of us recognize as the classic “Van Gogh” style. What happened? How did he so quickly go from a gifted but conservative artist to the ground-breaking innovator that became an art world icon? The short answer is: he moved to Paris.

It was only when Van Gogh moved to Paris that he came under the influence of the other French Impressionist painters that were popular at the time. The new methods of painting that he saw, the friendships with people like Gauguin, the challenge of surviving and competing in what was the artistic center of the world, all combined to push Van Gogh out of his earlier comfort zone and to help him re-invent his style. It was only with the influences of other people that he was able to truly find himself and his own unique way of painting.

The truth is, moving to Paris must have been very traumatic for Van Gogh. He hated cities, lived an almost reclusive lifestyle, and disliked much of the social-climbing that has always been part of the art world. Nevertheless, he knew that he needed to make the move in order to become a part of the larger artistic community. In the same way, your artistic development will be determined by your willingness to put yourself in new situations, with new people, with the pressure to create new and different kinds of music. Whether it’s moving to a city that is a music center, attending a writers camp in Europe, scheduling a writing trip to Nashville or LA, attending a Ralph Murray master class or taking a Berkleemusic course, you have to be willing to face the competition and challenges of a new creative environment. No one creates in a vacuum. You will not find your own unique style by working in isolation. You’ll find it by being part of a community.

3. Ultimately, it’s not about where you are, or where you’re going. It’s all about the journey.

By the time you reach the end of the Van Gogh museum, you’ve seen dozens of renowned works of art. But what sticks with you is not any single painting, but rather the story itself– the progression of one man’s creative journey, full of exhilarating breakthroughs and career detours and emotional challenges and tragic moments. So it is with great musical artists like Miles Davis, Joni Mitchell, Bob Dylan, John Lennon, Paul McCartney, or Prince. Even beyond any single great song, what makes their careers significant is the journey itself, as they were constantly pushing ahead, experimenting, moving from one style to another, and capturing the changing times within the context of their own changing lives. In the end, the story of the journey touches us more even than the one singular work of art.

When faced with the pressures of surviving in this difficult business, it’s easy to take for granted the everyday experiences of a life in music. As someone who has been doing this for far too many years, I know that the one thing that sticks with you in the end is not the songs themselves, but the people you meet when writing and recording them, the places you go, and the experiences you have. That’s the best part of the show– so don’t miss it. I had a great time in Amsterdam, met a fantastic group of creative people, learned a lot and brought home some good souvenirs. That’s the kind of journey you don’t forget.

This week– a dispatch from Amsterdam, where I’m attending the Amsterdam Dance Event (ADE). As a side note– if you’re involved in dance music, I highly recommend this international conference, which is not so much an event as a long series of events– panel discussions, networking, and dozens of parties featuring all of the leading DJs from around the world. It’s very well-run and business-oriented– much more productive than the Miami Winter Music Conference and more manageable than Midem.

As luck would have it, I was on a panel discussion this week, but not one that I expected. Instead of the usual “Issues in Music Publishing”, which is what I am often faced with, this panel was called “The Truth About Flat-Rate Licensing”. Huh? I had no idea what this subject entailed when I took it on. As is probably true of most of the readers of this blog, I’m a “creative” guy. When it comes to understanding how we are receiving royalties from the thousands of different new media outlets, we’d really rather be in the studio, or talking about music and songs. Which is probably a big reason the music industry is in the situation it is today.

Flat-rate licensing, if you didn’t know (I didn’t), is the current buzzword in the industry to describe the myriad of efforts to offer the consumer access to music in a way that is easier, more comprehensive, and less expensive — so much so that it often feels “free” to the customer. Rather than the traditional iTunes model, where songs are purchased one by one, the flat rate aims to give the customer access to a whole catalogue of music, either to own, or to “rent”.

Commerce on the internet being what it is, there are of course hundreds of variations on this theme. Subscription models like Rhapsody and Napster charge a monthly fee in exchange for “all you can eat” access to music.
“Freemium” models like Pandora and the much-talked about Spotify offer free music streaming, and a premium subscription program that grants better sound quality and an ad-free environment for a small monthly charge.

Of course, “free” or almost “free” music is an attractive sales pitch (despite the fact that most music fans have been helping themselves to illegal “free” music for the past several years). The challenge is how to pay the creators of the music, the owners, and still have something left to keep the website in business. This has not worked out so well.
Most of the sites offering music at a flat-rate are generating income from a combination of subscription fees and advertising income on the site. Some, like the Sky and Virgin Music sites will be “bundled” with the internet service provider, so that when a customer opts in for the music service, it will appear simply as one more item on the cable bill. Nokia tried a similar “bundling” idea with their “Comes with Music” program, which added the music cost into the price of a phone and the mobile service.

Now some people are even advocating a surcharge, to be added onto the price of computers, mobile phones and other potential music players. The income from this surcharge would then be pooled and distributed back to the creative community, in exchange for genuinely free music for the consumer. The Green Party in Germany, always somewhat dubious about the value of copyright law anyway, is proposing a government-sponsored cultural “tax” that would compensate creators of content, but allow citizens to access and use as much music as they want at no cost. This is the “music as water” idea that I discussed in a previous blog.

 
It’s all very exciting, and holds great promise, as new untried ideas usually do. But for the creative community, which includes songwriters, publishers, producers, artists, labels, and musicians, the problem is that none of it seems to actually work. Many thought the subscription model would be the answer– today; AOL, Yahoo, and MTV have already given up on their attempts. Ad-supported models like Spiral Frog and Ruckus have also disappeared, YouTube is losing money, and Imeem is barely holding on. Pandora has yet to make significant profits, but appears to be solid, and Spotify seems to be wildly popular in Europe. However, even Spotify is making less than ten percent of its income from subscriptions– with most consumers opting for the free service instead.
It’s hard to run a business based on giving things away. The problem with all of the flat rate sites is that the combination of subscriptions (which no one seems to want) and advertising (these sites, and the internet in general, are a difficult sell to advertisers) don’t add up to anywhere near what is needed to pay songwriters, publishers, and labels the appropriate royalty for each song streamed.

Not surprisingly, the flat rate businesses have gone to the music industry to ask for special, low rates from the labels, and societies like ASCAP, BMI and SESAC, in order to get these businesses off the ground. By making it less expensive to provide access to music, the argument goes, we’ll all sell much more of it in the end. And if we don’t grant the access, the public will just steal it, like they are now.

It’s a tough call for the music industry, especially after having been so badly burned already by companies like YouTube, who just took the product, then came back to negotiate later. It’s also difficult because at the moment, very few of these ventures are generating any meaningful income for labels and publishers– while the time demands of licensing and negotiating with all of them is quickly becoming overwhelming.

Needless to say, the issue wasn’t settled in one forty minute panel in Amsterdam last week. But here are four quick points we need to keep in mind on this issue:

1. The best approach is slow and cautious. Right now, we are in the jungle. In the jungle, you don’t rush blindly ahead. You dip a toe in the sand, and see if you sink. We have no hope of predicting which of these services might catch on. We need to move slowly, with very short-term agreements and see what works and what fails. And we need to be sure not to undermine our other business partners while we do that. Which leads to…

2. We should support our allies and punish our enemies. Rob McDaniels for InGrooves estimates that it takes 150-200 streams of one song to equal the royalty income on a single download. Right now, our industry still relies on the sale of physical product (believe it or not, it’s still the primary source of revenue) and on digital downloads. Perhaps streaming is the future. Perhaps not. But we would be very unwise to cut ridiculously low-cost rates to a business model that obviously threatens both physical retailers and iTunes. Let’s take care of the people paying our bills. At the same time, we should continue to press ahead with legal efforts against things like Pirate Bay– efforts that are finally starting to show some results.

3. We need to recognize that “bundling” and ad-revenue sharing is a marriage, and it works both ways. If we bundle the cost of music access into the cost of a mobile phone or the sale of a computer, we’re now not only in the music business, we’re in the electronics business. Any economic factors that hurt the sales of phones and computers will now hurt us as well.

4. Most of all, we need transparency in the negotiations and setting of rates, so that everyone in the music community understands what they’re being paid and how it’s being calculated.

In preparing for this panel, I tried desperately to find out what the actual per stream royalty rate is, or what the percentage of ad revenue is for services from YouTube to Spotify.

Nobody knows. It’s certainly not easily accessible on the internet or in industry trades, nor can anyone at the PRO’s manage to explain it. If you’ve checked your royalty statement recently, you won’t find any explanations there, next to the 2 and 3 cent payments from YouTube settlements and the like. As the major labels begin to acquire financial stakes in companies like Spotify and Vevo, it becomes even more important for songwriters and publishers to understand exactly what the terms of the licensing deals are, and how the PROs and others reached that agreement.

If you’re thinking that it sounds like the same old story, with the songwriters and artists once again getting the short end of the deal, I share your pain. Much as we dislike it, we better take some time out of the studio and start learning about this stuff. If I could do it, you can too. “The Truth About Flat-Rate Licensing” is still being determined, and we need to play a part in that.