Music Publishing & Songwriting

How’s this for kicking someone when they’re down? No– this isn’t a blog about NY’s recklessly randy governor Eliot Spitzer, although one can be sure that there was some celebrating last week among the radio promotion chiefs of the various major labels, who were put under investigation by Spitzer several years ago for having paid money to persuade radio stations to add their records (NO! Say it ain’t so!)

But this blog is about screw-ups– the kind that end careers, torpedo once solid companies, and drags an industry into the abyss. Ring any bells? That’s right, kids. This is about the biggest record company screw-ups of all time.

Don’t blame me– it’s not my topic. It actually comes from a recent article in Blender recounting the 20 biggest blunders in record company history (see the link below), which is a little like trying to reduce the history of Chicago Cubs baseball down to the five most disappointing moments. There are really too many to count.

The article manages to nail a few inarguable mistakes (Decca Records passing on the Beatles; Sony deciding to drop from the roster both Alicia Keys and 50 Cent), a couple of minor miscalculations (sure, Berry Gordy sold Motown for $60 million when he should have gotten $600 million, but what’s an extra zero or two to a gazillionaire) and a few debatable decisions (the lawsuit against Napster, and the RIAA’s campaign against digital piracy). It also leaves a few doozies out. But then, how could it not?

My personal favorite (because I happened to be working at Jive Records at the time) was BMG’s failure to include a standard inducement clause in their contract with NSYNC, which allowed the group to leave the label after their first album, and re-sign with BMG-distributed Jive Records. The subsequent multi-platinum success of that group, and Justin Timberlake’s solo project, created an exorbitant price for Jive/Zomba several years later, when BMG was forced to purchase the company for over $3 billion dollars. That expenditure left BMG in a deep financial hole that eventually led to the merging of BMG Records with Sony Music, and the recent sale of Zomba Music to Universal.

It’s hard to say why the record labels make so many dumb mistakes. Most of the people working at labels are smart, music-loving, ambitious people who believe sincerely in what they’re trying to do. The rest are cynical corporate sharks that devour anything or anyone in their path. But even those people are not stupid. Somehow the pressure of chasing trends, trying to predict the unpredictable, and package that which is too ephemeral to be packaged, seems to lead to a collective abandoning of good common sense that is annoying when you’re on the inside, and embarrassing when you’re observing from the outside. Maybe it’s all those late nights, it’s hard to say for sure.

But unfortunately, the madness shows no signs of abating. I had lunch this week with a friend who created an online social networking site– not surprisingly, our discussion eventually turned to YouTube and the recent controversy between a coalition of top artist managers and the major labels. After delaying way too long, the labels finally came to an agreement with YouTube almost a year ago on a revenue-sharing plan that was supposed to compensate artists (and the label) for the use of their content. Now, top managers like John Branca and Irving Azoff are threatening to sue the labels, as their superstar clients have yet to receive any money, or even accountings, from that deal.

Of course, record labels not paying artists doesn’t qualify as a record company mistake– that’s more like business as usual. What struck me at my lunch meeting was my friend’s comment that the managers and artists were waiting for the proverbial Godot. From his insider vantage point, he was quite confident: there is neither YouTube money, nor will there be– at least not any of real significance.

It appears that in their desire to reach an agreement with a company that had become a powerful marketing partner, the labels managed to negotiate a revenue-sharing plan that amounts to next to nothing. This seems somewhat incredible, given that YouTube and similar sites were entirely constructed upon illegal content. One would think that the labels had a pretty strong bargaining position, given that YouTube was inarguably in blatant violation of the copyright laws. And yet, somehow the major labels managed once again to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory, and give away the artist’s work for pennies. If you can’t win a bargaining session with someone who is on the verge of being shutdown for copyright violations, there may be no hope left. Already, the labels are starting to blame the lack of artist royalty payments on “legal costs” that have outweighed the actual income.

And that’s the moral of this story. Unfortunately, there is only one winner in this endless succession of record industry screw-ups. The artists? They’re always the losers. The record companies usually eventually feel the pain as well– just ask all the people waiting for their pink slips over at EMI. The only people that come out as winners in these situations are the lawyers. If a label signs a million-dollar buzz- band that flops, you can be sure that the lawyer got his or her percentage, and has long since moved on to the next big thing. Labels agree to a bad revenue-sharing plan? That’s okay. It still took months and plenty of legal eagles to get there. The cost of record company screw-ups is very high, because it usually comes with an hourly price tag.

Of course, one day soon, we won’t have the labels to kick around anymore. But have no fear. You can be sure that we’ll always have the lawyers.

For the full article from Blender on the Top 20 Record Company Screw-Ups visit:

Blender Article March 2008

As the annual CMJ music marathon staggers to a close, and hundreds of bands, singer-songwriters, and other aspiring musicians pack up their gear and get back in the van, I thought the time might be ripe for a quick cost-benefit analysis of that thirty-minute showcase at Mercury Lounge. After all the costs of an NYC trip, gas, transportation, hotel, gear rentals, publicity, registration, not to mention an evening’s work with no pay, did the gig pay off? Did that A&R guy on the guest-list even show up? Are there more bookings or better bookings to come, as a result? Did it add signficantly to the fanbase? Will the people who saw the show still remember your set, after the next four bands did their shows? Has any artist or musician ever once bothered to do a cost-benefit analysis?

Have you ever thought: “There’s got to be a better way” ?

Maybe there is. Here’s one very simple approach that just might work. It’s an old solution, with an excellent history of success. But for some reason, it seems to have fallen out of favor in the indie rock and singer-songwriter world these days– although it remains quite popular in the world of urban music. It’s main advantages are that it’s low-cost, it can be done from anywhere, and it can transform a career overnight. Ready?

Write a hit.

Okay. I didn’t say it was an easier way. I just said it might, under certain circumstances, be a better way to move your career ahead as an artist. Rather than scraping money together to record your own album, or even an EP; rather than an endless succession of pay-to-play showcases in LA and NY; rather than sending off material to an increasingly irrelevant array of record labels; maybe it would be better to focus all efforts on creating one great breakthrough song. Don’t write and record 12 good songs. Just make one hit.

A hit means:

It fits a radio format. It has a concept–it’s about something interesting, provocative, funny, unique. It’s memorable (with a chorus, or at least a few lines that repeat).It’s definining– the lyric and music capture and express exactly what makes you or your band unique. Most of all, it’s reactive– it’s different enough, shocking enough, touching enough or exciting enough that a casual listener will stop what he or she is doing, and try to figure out how to hear it again. Here’s a fast-acting recipe for success:

Step One: Write and record one song you truly believe is a hit. Testing it in front of an audience is a good idea– especially an audience not pre-disposed to like it.

Step Two: Put the song up on Myspace. Do an inexpensive, home-made video (hopefully something creative and interesting) of the song and put it up on YouTube. Just to give it a fighting chance, you could do a little viral marketing to drive your audience to see it.

Step Three: Watch what happens. If you wrote a hit, people will react. That’s how hits work. Look at “Bubbly”, “Hey There Delilah”, “Crank Dat”, “Beautful Girls”… All of these songs broke largely out of nowhere, with little or no marketing campaign beyond a YouTube and Myspace following. All of these songs catapulted the artist to an entirely different level of their career in less time than it takes to write and record a four-song EP. If you write a hit, you can be sure that labels, booking agents, management, and media will come to you– rather than you chasing them.

If the songs don’t get much of a reaction, then the truth is: you didn’t write a hit. So try again. Repeat as necessary.

No one said writing a hit was easy. Neither is an endless succession of self-produced albums, industry showcases, and hunting for a record label. It might be time to try a new “old” road to success.