Caroline Joins Simply Red’s “Virtual Label”
Indie distributor Caroline has snagged Simply Red’s next album “Stay” in the US in both physical and digital formats. The album is slated for release on April 24th.
In an "virtual label" arrangement that is becoming increasingly popular, Caroline joins a team that includes Rocket Science, who will be handling retail marketing, indie radio promoters Ashton Consults at AC, All That Jazz Promotions at Smooth Jazz and Jesus Garber Corporation at Urban AC. Kip Kouri/Tell All Your Friends PR is handling publicity and Universal Buzz is handling street marketing. So What Management is managing the project in the U.S.
On the album release date, Caroline will distribute a full slate of digital products, including ringtones, ringbacks and videos. The single will be available digitally on April 3. Simply Red has sold roughly 2.2 million albums in the US since Soundscan started tracking retail sales in 1998, and the band has sold more than 48 million albums worldwide.
Hey this is really interesting – you say these type of deals are “becoming increasingly popular”, are there other examples you can site?
Thanks and keep up the great work!
– J.
RE: Comment Below:
I think you could call The Barenaked ladies and several other Nettwork acts similar. Cap Your Hands Say Yeah has a distribution deal and virtual label team on this release. Lots of usually older and previously successful acts follow the model and some smaller indies are a couple of guys farming out the rest.
PS: Jay, You blog and podcast look pretty cool. Please let us know anything you’d like to share with our readers.
Hey Bruce, yes BNL & Nettwerk are doing some extremely cool things. I only know a little about Clap Your Hands Say Yeah at least in terms of the business side and what they are doing, will check that out more. Thanks!
Thanks also for your kind words about the podcast. A few things that seem to be getting interest — I’ve been talking a lot about Second Life lately so that’d got a lot of my focus.
The #5 episode on search engine optimization seems to have a lot of legs, I’ve been talking about that stuff for a few years now but it’s still very relevant.
The most recent one on “band as brand” where I contrasted a Bob Lefsetz email with some thoughts from my friend Mitch Joel generated the most comments I’ve had in a while — good fun!
I’d be happy to send more information on these or anything else you’d like, just lemme know.
Cheers,
– J.