Music Publishing & Songwriting

In a business as overcrowded and hyper-competitive as today’s music industry, it’s hard to imagine that there are many opportunities lying around undiscovered. With giant conglomerates like Universal Music covering every corner of the globe, often with several different affiliated companies in one geographical territory, along with indie labels, established independent publishers, and the army of new start-up ventures, the odds of finding a new, undiscovered opportunity can feel as remote as finding a table at the Carlton bar during Midem. No matter where you look, by the time you get there, someone has already placed their stake.

It turns out that the Midem analogy is a good one. The truth is, opportunities are hard to find because we’re all looking in the same place. Two weeks from now, thousands of music industry weasels will descend on Austin, Texas for SXSW, the music industry equivalent of fox-hunting, with trend-sniffing, pen-wielding A&R scouts in mad pursuit of the ever elusive Next Big Thing. Picture a very small forest filled with trigger-happy hunters, all firing at anything that moves. Not surprisingly, everyone emerges bloodied, exhausted and empty-handed. Not to mention severely hung-over.

As an alternative, consider this recent story about Carlin America Inc., a venerable independent publisher, who has recently unlocked a whole new source of revenue. Carlin recently acquired the rights to a whole collection of collegiate fight songs, including the themes for Alabama, Florida, Tenessee, Kentucky, Louisiana State, and about 95 other universities.

Fight songs? You mean for marching bands and cheerleaders? Well, yeah. And cell phone ring tones. Video games. Bottle openers for the tail-gaiting crowd. Key chains. Stuffed animals. You know how when you open up a greeting card, it can play a song? That’s not a miracle. That’s a microprocessor– and it means that virtually any gadget or gizmo can be made to play a song with the touch of a button. And apparently, a lot of people like to hear their gadgets play the school fight song. Who knew?

These are the real opportunities of publishing. They lie not in chasing the latest buzz band or pitching songs to Leona Lewis. Those things have their place. But the smart publishers are the ones who are looking where other publishers are not– at music that has the kind of mass consumer appeal to work for a variety of products, from singing fish to hang on the wall, to a greeting card for Grandma, or an orange-clad Santa Claus doll that plays the Florida fight song. It might not win you a Grammy or get you a seat at the ASCAP Pop Awards. But it makes a nice sound when the pennies drop into your bank account.

One of my favorite songwriters, Steve Diamond, recently called to tell me that a song of his was going to be used in a new Reba McEntire album– an album specially made and packaged for sale nationwide in the Hallmark stores for Valentines Day. These kinds of product, aimed directly at very specific markets through specialized retail outlets, represent the future, when it comes to selling physical recordings of music. Likewise, the greeting card, ring tone, game, and electronic gizmo business is likely the future of exploiting musical copyrights.

As I point out in my book, the job of a music publisher is to turn music into money. What Steve Diamond has done to get his song into the Reba- Hallmark venture, or what Carlin Music has done with the school fight songs is Music Publishing 101. My advice is, while everyone else is at SXSW, spend the week writing down every time you hear music being used, whether it’s in a commercial, an elevator, a health club, a ring tone, or the perennial singing fish. This is where the money is being made. Now try to figure out how your catalogue could be used in one of these opportunities. Or try to figure out which songs are being used, and how you might be able to acquire those songs. “Yea, Alabama” is no “Sweet Home Alabama”– but it’s probably a lot more profitable than most of the songs on the pop albums released this year.

In a business filled with lemmings, it’s not a bad move to change things up, and go left when everyone else is going right. That’s called a reverse, and it usually results in nothing but an open field of opportunity up ahead. Go team!

I mentioned in the last blog that I’d been reading Alan Greenspan’s book, “The Age of Turbulence”, which succeeded in making clear to me that I understand even less about economics than I thought I did. But I have learned a few things, and I picked up one new term that seems to have relevance even in the simple, survival-oriented economic world of the music business weasel:

Home Bias.

The phrase refers to the tendency of investors to invest primarily in their own country– it’s a natural and understandable phenomenon, and although it is fading, it persists even today. There’s nothing particularly negative about it, except that it can often limit the opportunities that investors have to choose from. You can stick with only buying stocks in US-based companies, but you might be able to make more money somewhere else. And it’s not only true of investing…

If you’re an American songwriter or publisher looking to boost your earnings, it might be time to examine, and eliminate, your own Home Bias. Here’s a few reasons why:

1. The World’s A Big and Wonderful Place.
In a business that is getting smaller very fast, you need as much opportunity for your music as you can get, and you simply can’t afford to write-off everything outside the US. Especially if you write music to be covered by outside artists, you will find much more opportunity in the UK, Europe, and Asia than you will in the United States. Outside of this country, you can find more artists that record outside material (you can even find bands that cut songs by outside writers, which is all but unheard of here), and you will find that in certain markets, particularly urban music, the sound of American tracks is highly sought-after, and difficult for the local writers to copy.

You’ll also find that tastes differ, and sometimes, that’s a good thing. Asia tends to prefer more harmonically complex, AC-sounding pop ballads than is acceptable in the US. If that’s what you write, you might have just found a new home. Germany embraces a classic dance sound that would be very difficult to find a home for in this country. Australia still has a healthy appetite for AOR. If your melodies are great, but your lyrics are weak, try pitching songs in Japan– they’re going to rewrite the lyrics anyway.

If there doesn’t seem to be a spot in the US market for your sound, you can either try to change your sound (which can be pretty hard) or change your market. In the last two years alone, American acts such as the Scissor Sisters, Daniel Powter, and Mika have achieved superstar status in Europe and the UK, while in some cases, finding little or no market in their own country.

2. That Foreigner’s Money Is Just As Good As Ours.
In fact, it’s better. If you haven’t noticed, the US dollar ain’t what it used to be. At present, the dollar is plummeting against most foreign currencies, especially the English pound, and the Euro (the currency of the European Union). The bad news is that a croissant in France will set you back a pretty hefty chunk of change (it’s worth it though). But here’s the good news:

For every 1 GBP you earn on your song in the UK, you get $2 USD. For every 1 euro you earn on your song in Italy, you get $1.50 USD. That’s a good deal. So good that it’s one of the primary reasons that US publishers are having a modestly profitable year, despite the utter collapse of the US music industry. If you have a catalogue of songs that is active in the UK or Europe, your income is up by almost half, just based on the currency exchange alone.

This also means that foreign publishers and labels are often able to offer deals to writers and artists in the US that are competitive with US companies, despite the fact that the foreign territories are often much smaller. There have been several important signings this year in which a UK publisher was able to sign a US-based writer or artist out from under the US publishing community. Why not? The foreign publisher is essentially paying half-price, because of the weakness of the US dollar.

3. MIDEM Is Coming!!
I know, you’re about to ask: But how do I get my music to all of these rich, musically-diverse foreigners, in order to claim a piece of this pie?

Here’s a start. MIDEM is the music industry’s annual international schmooze-fest that takes place each year in Cannes, France in mid-January. Picture 50,000 music industry weasels from companies large and small, from every different region of the globe, all converging together for one week of hyping, drinking and hopefully, deal-making. Sound like a nightmare? It is, kind of. But it is also a perfect opportunity to meet music executives, in a curiously relaxed atmosphere, from every possible corner of the planet. Even better, people come to Midem to make deals– so if you have a product you’re selling, you should, at the very least, get a few listens. Plus, you can have one of those expensive, but delicious croissants.

There’s a basic principle at work here that goes back to basic economic laws (the few that I understand). Think of it as the principle of “The Grass Is Always Greener”. Or “Go West, Young Man”. The principle simply states that if things aren’t working for you here– or could be working better– try going somewhere else. Chasing opportunity is the oldest economic trick in the book, and at the moment, there is a lot of opportunity in places other than the good ol’ USA.

With the US music industry struggling for survival, this is no time for Home Bias. If you’re having trouble seeing a light at the end of the tunnel, then you have to broaden your horizons.