A2IM Charts A Course For The Future Of Indie Music
ONLY 6000 OF THE 105,000 ALBUMS RELEASED IN 2008 SOLD MORE THAN 1000 COPIES
During the recent 4th anniversary meetings of the American Association Of Independent Music (A2IM) members gathered in think-tank sessions to "do the serious work of charting a course for the future of independent music". The result are two brief manifestos (my term, not theirs) that say a great deal about how independent labels view themselves and the future course being charted by its most active members.
Navigating The Future
Record labels need to consider and embrace changes in their structures and missions. All labels must consider themselves music companies, and must maximize their and their artists' income through a variety of revenue streams in a post album-centric world. Labels must explore all facets of the business, from syncs to video game placements to wireless, mine new emerging revenue streams, and craft bespoke contracts customized to each artist's individual needs. Music companies must innovate — to help artists stay connected to their fans, and generate revenue in a way that transcends the now archaic traditional album cycle. Increasingly, labels must take a new approach to staffing — the A&R department has to think financially, and the accountants have to be passionate about their label's music. In short, the next generation of successful music companies will have animble staff with the flexibility to adapt and thrive in a rapidly changing music marketplace.
Labels Matter
There's a popular notion that new technologies have eroded barriers to entry — that an artist can record, distribute, and profit from music and make labels obsolete. But a simple look at some numbers shows the fallacy of this approach. According to SoundScan, 105,000 new full-length albums were released in 2008, up almost 300% from earlier in the decade. The number that sold over 1000 units in the first year? Only 6,000. A label provides the support, expertise, and relationships that can help a creative independent artist flourish amidst a shifting music landscape, and remain artists first.A great label guides and filters an artist's output, making sure only the best reaches fans. Labels that succeed will function as essential brands within their niche, guiding the right music to its most fertile audience. And lastly — but most importantly — labels must provide crucial support for an artist looking to profit from her work, and refuse to accept the idea that "digital music" means "free music."
I asked A2IM VP Jim Mahoney to put these strong statements in context. “The intention of A2IM’s annual meeting and the WIN Think Tank was to have independent music label heads share generic information gathered from their shared experiences."
But the resulting documents reads more as a call to action than a simple sharing of 'generic information'. "If the 'take home' from our meetings was the call to action" says Mahone, "It is not because of A2IM’s intention, but rather indicative of the growing sentiment of those in our community."
"I’d say there is a market correction underway as master rights owners grow stronger in their resolve that the performance of their music has value and, like our publishing brothers, we should be very diligent in protecting our copyrights and pragmatic in waiving our royalties for promotional opportunities only when there is an end profit goal in sight," continued Mahoney "Our industry is evolving and so too must music labels and those who use music to drive their businesses."
What do you think of the course that A2IM's members are charting for the future of indie music?
Jim Mahoney Said, “I’d say there is a market correction underway as master rights owners grow stronger in their resolve that the performance of their music has value and, like our publishing brothers, we should be very diligent in protecting our copyrights and pragmatic in waiving our royalties for promotional opportunities only when there is an end profit goal in sight,” Truer words have never been spoken. The model of “free” is extremely valuable but only when put in line with the path to profit. Giving things away with out a plan often provides little gain and has the potential to drive the value us music to nothing, if the strategy isn’t employed effectively.
I don’t want to sound like a c*** but I hope these recent release figures will somehow bring back the gatekeepers and in turn reduce the longtail which is saturated with DIY artists. Tunecore, Reverbnation, FoxyMelody, SongCast really need an A&R aspect to ensure that only quality gets out there. I know all they really care about is making money from any band – good or terrible but I sincerely hope Topspin remain selective!!! We trusted the labels of old with what they offered us artist wise and somehow we need to get back to that again in this 2.0 environment. Less choice, less confusion, less recommendation……just chosen quality.
The money is in “paying customers.” Tunecore and Topspin are in VERY different lines of work. Topspin has an obligation to work with popular, successful, established artists, whereas Tunecore has an obligation to scale to as many paying customers as possible. Your stance is like expecting Kinko’s to screen people’s photocopies and Power Point charts for quality.
Absolutely! No one has to sit and read endless photocopies from Kinko’s in order to find something worth reading. I know exactly the difference in models. Tunecore is raking in cash by letting any band no matter how terrible get their music out there and this will discourage music fans eventually…Tuncore and it’s like can incorporate an A&R selection policy. You think Kinko’s should be selective about what they print? Why the f*** would they be as they and others don’t have to read it. Music fans DO have to wade through rubbish in order to find something decent. That is a problem!! Topsin also work with less established artists like Josh Rouse – but it’s quality and people will pay for quality if the likes of Ian Rogers and others continue to be selective. Their opinions matter much like A&R’s did in the 90’s.
If the change in the music industry is so bad and all the so called crap music (which may be ours- who am i to judge) is causing people to be deterred from the music industry, then hopefully this will result in a trend that will resolve that problem. My band and i have bled over our material for 10 years or so and due to the change in the industry have now been able to access a solid fan base and sell decent amounts of music. I fear that the amount of average material we are lumped with does put us in a deep and ugly pool. However before this we would have had to sign with a label that was stacking the odds in their favour. This is not to say that they would not be exposing them selves to a risk, it was just never a balance we felt landed correctly for both parties. We turned down three deals in the last five years and still remain fairly happy that we did. We have watched the bands who took similar deals break up and end up in debt. Sure we are in debt but it is our debt and managed by us. We spend way to much money on production and mot enough on marketing but we are learning. It will be interesting to see where this all leads us Damien Cripps
I actually enjoyed this article and from an a certain standpoint I can argue A&R vs Free-Roam. The main challenge that the industry face is ‘social interaction’. In today’s age with the internet and technology growing ever so rapidly, fans are urging to establish a connection between them and the artist. For distributors (like CD Baby, TuneCore, WaTunes, etc.) to become selective through an A&R process could swindle a lot of sales anyway. From an en mass standpoint, many consumers would rather purchase good music which is supported by A&R development, but I wouldn’t turn out the “bad” music neither. I would say that if there should be any short of A&R selection, it should be based on a Marketing standpoint, not a Distribution standpoint. The truth is that “bad” music has fans and also drive sales. The key (at least to me) is not in the distribution process but the marketing process. Kevin Rivers CEO, Xeinge
A lot has been said about Snocap failing for ‘technical’ reasons but I’ve always felt it was because many bands that incorporated the widget onto their Myspage profile couldn’t sell their music to their so-called ‘fans’ – bands spending hours sending friend requests and people accepting them without even listening to the band or visiting their page. Suddenly a band thinks it has 5000 bonafide fans…dream on!! In short, when push came to shove it just wasn’t worth buying. Snocap’s model was to take a % of songs sold. With only established artists (who were using it) getting any success from it, Snocap couldn’t survive. Fast forward to today and that’s why Tunecore takes a flat fee (I remember the CEO making out that ‘artists should keep all their royalties – power to the artists’ when asked why they didn’t take a % of tracks sold…BS!! He knew few DIY artists would sell anything). Kevin, distribution is piss easy. There isn’t a challenge unlike physical and competition for placement and in my opinion it still requires expert marketing and funding to build a band’s brand and not just a few tools from Nimbit or Fancorps.
Indeed, these days it is harder to find the real gems amongst the new music that has come out, because most music doesn’t get a lot of exposure. But the real gems eventually will stick out amongst the rubbish, it only takes longer – too long in fact to make the year-end best-of lists of the critics and blog critics. A great album is still a great album, even if it’s two years old. But most listeners, who unlike me, refuse to be their own A&R people, are not accustomed to the fact yet that in the current climate, great albums can go under the radar for as long as least a year or two. So the singles that the majors release basically do benefit from them being quicker to build up momentum for a single with their big budgets, which enables them to present something as “the latest” (even if it was recorded 3 years ago), whereas for indie artists, it takes time to build up momentum and gain exposure, so that when they finally score a hit single, they might already have worked the album for 3 years, beginning with its digital-only release, then regional club gigs, then placement of songs in films and advertising, then a CD self-release, and if that does well, a video and a national tour to follow. So the “single release complex” is still working, but the major labels have outsourced the distribution chain to the consumer. That’s a cost cutting measure that makes perfect business sense, but I as a customer would like to have the physical single back because of sound quality. And the singles market surely has benefitted from the fact that customers don’t need to buy 2 good songs for the price of 10 anymore. Clearly, it looks like the labels have tried making this cost-cutting measure work for albums as well, but the CD is not dead yet and won’t die because it has benefits over digital albums (which not only to this listener are an inferior product) and customers know that. So I’m somewhat partial to industry people proclaiming the “death of the CD release complex” because they might have an agenda that goes at the cost of the customer who is then offered inferior product, like downloads at a bitrate of 128k, DRM or DangerMouse’s blank CDs.
Oops, wrong thread. That reply should have gone under “There’s Still A Place Where Albums Outsell Singles”. Sorry.
Exactly my point, The factor points to ‘social interaction’. How will the fans be able to socially discover new music? How will bands gain new conversions of fans? In the end, it’s how the artist can relate to the fan and how that artist and maintain that fan. There are thousands of promotional tools out there as well as thousands of distributors. However, there is still a huge gap between the fan and the artist (even with sites like MySpace Music). I’d say that if music companies can learn how to adapt to social media and mold it, then generating a revenue model around helping musicians won’t be as difficult. As you pointed out Will with Snocap & MySpace Music is that many bands when placing widgets couldn’t sell their music to their fans. The reason is because the environment bogs the fans with too many messages. Fans grow very weary of the artist trying to sell themselves to the fans when in reality the best method is to have the fans sell to the artist. Kevin Rivers CEO, Xeinge
It is a question of effectively connecting with fans Kevin, you’re right but bad music doesn’t have any and this is the problem…there is way too much of it. That’s why Snocap failed. No amount of marketing can sell a poor product (brand) and the same goes for artists. So how to get the good stuff to the music loving public quickly? It’s not even a question of differentiation – all music is different but I really hope that some form of gatekeeping happens at digital & mobile distribution very soon…and just allow any band to sell their music from their profile pages with the widgets available. Maybe Tuncore etc should let the fans decide what is allowed onto the stores in a voting type scenario.
Very good points indeed Will. However, relatively, there is no such thing as “good” or “bad” music. Defining what is a good or bad product is based on a personal subjective experience of that particular piece of product. Defining what is “bad” music or “good” music is defining and difficult because what could be considered “bad” to you could be “good” to me and vice versa. What is possible is not about “the amount of marketing to sell a poor product” but “the amount of interaction to produce a viable product”. With that, I leave you with this small truth “Music is your own experience, your thoughts, your wisdom. If you don’t live it, it won’t come out of your horn. ~Charlie Parker” Kevin Rivers CEO, Xeinge
OK — so, Barnes and Noble. Absolutely full of shit books. But when I go in there, I know what I’m looking for. Surely, you don’t spend endless hours looking through iTunes and Emusic for something good, right? You go to iTunes when you know there’s something you want. Then you get it.
We really don’t need MORE gatekeepers. We already have a few million. The audience, the influencers, the trailblazers. TuneCore is digital distribution. Thats what they do, they do not do music discovery. They’re not designed for it. The new gatekeepers exist before distribution, they live on music discovery. What they think is good gets through the gates, but not in the conventional sense. The ones that get through, get attention. This fact proves the new gatekeepers exist better than any other. “The number that sold over 1000 units in the first year? Only 6,000.”
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During the recent 4th anniversary meetings of the American Association Of Independent Music (A2IM) members gathered in think-tank sessions to "do the serious work of charting a course for the future of independent music". The result are two brief manifestos (my term, not theirs) that say a great deal about how independent labels view themselves and the future course being charted by its most active members.
Jim Mahoney Said, “I’d say there is a market correction underway as master rights owners grow stronger in their resolve that the performance of their music has value and, like our publishing brothers, we should be very diligent in protecting our copyrights and pragmatic in waiving our royalties for promotional opportunities only when there is an end profit goal in sight,”
Truer words have never been spoken. The model of “free” is extremely valuable but only when put in line with the path to profit. Giving things away with out a plan often provides little gain and has the potential to drive the value us music to nothing, if the strategy isn’t employed effectively.
I don’t want to sound like a c*** but I hope these recent release figures will somehow bring back the gatekeepers and in turn reduce the longtail which is saturated with DIY artists. Tunecore, Reverbnation, FoxyMelody, SongCast really need an A&R aspect to ensure that only quality gets out there. I know all they really care about is making money from any band – good or terrible but I sincerely hope Topspin remain selective!!!
We trusted the labels of old with what they offered us artist wise and somehow we need to get back to that again in this 2.0 environment. Less choice, less confusion, less recommendation……just chosen quality.
The money is in “paying customers.”
Tunecore and Topspin are in VERY different lines of work. Topspin has an obligation to work with popular, successful, established artists, whereas Tunecore has an obligation to scale to as many paying customers as possible.
Your stance is like expecting Kinko’s to screen people’s photocopies and Power Point charts for quality.
Absolutely! No one has to sit and read endless photocopies from Kinko’s in order to find something worth reading. I know exactly the difference in models.
Tunecore is raking in cash by letting any band no matter how terrible get their music out there and this will discourage music fans eventually…Tuncore and it’s like can incorporate an A&R selection policy.
You think Kinko’s should be selective about what they print? Why the f*** would they be as they and others don’t have to read it. Music fans DO have to wade through rubbish in order to find something decent. That is a problem!!
Topsin also work with less established artists like Josh Rouse – but it’s quality and people will pay for quality if the likes of Ian Rogers and others continue to be selective. Their opinions matter much like A&R’s did in the 90’s.
If the change in the music industry is so bad and all the so called crap music (which may be ours- who am i to judge) is causing people to be deterred from the music industry, then hopefully this will result in a trend that will resolve that problem.
My band and i have bled over our material for 10 years or so and due to the change in the industry have now been able to access a solid fan base and sell decent amounts of music. I fear that the amount of average material we are lumped with does put us in a deep and ugly pool. However before this we would have had to sign with a label that was stacking the odds in their favour. This is not to say that they would not be exposing them selves to a risk, it was just never a balance we felt landed correctly for both parties. We turned down three deals in the last five years and still remain fairly happy that we did. We have watched the bands who took similar deals break up and end up in debt. Sure we are in debt but it is our debt and managed by us. We spend way to much money on production and mot enough on marketing but we are learning. It will be interesting to see where this all leads us
Damien Cripps
I actually enjoyed this article and from an a certain standpoint I can argue A&R vs Free-Roam. The main challenge that the industry face is ‘social interaction’. In today’s age with the internet and technology growing ever so rapidly, fans are urging to establish a connection between them and the artist.
For distributors (like CD Baby, TuneCore, WaTunes, etc.) to become selective through an A&R process could swindle a lot of sales anyway. From an en mass standpoint, many consumers would rather purchase good music which is supported by A&R development, but I wouldn’t turn out the “bad” music neither. I would say that if there should be any short of A&R selection, it should be based on a Marketing standpoint, not a Distribution standpoint.
The truth is that “bad” music has fans and also drive sales. The key (at least to me) is not in the distribution process but the marketing process.
Kevin Rivers
CEO, Xeinge
A lot has been said about Snocap failing for ‘technical’ reasons but I’ve always felt it was because many bands that incorporated the widget onto their Myspage profile couldn’t sell their music to their so-called ‘fans’ – bands spending hours sending friend requests and people accepting them without even listening to the band or visiting their page. Suddenly a band thinks it has 5000 bonafide fans…dream on!! In short, when push came to shove it just wasn’t worth buying.
Snocap’s model was to take a % of songs sold. With only established artists (who were using it) getting any success from it, Snocap couldn’t survive. Fast forward to today and that’s why Tunecore takes a flat fee (I remember the CEO making out that ‘artists should keep all their royalties – power to the artists’ when asked why they didn’t take a % of tracks sold…BS!! He knew few DIY artists would sell anything).
Kevin, distribution is piss easy. There isn’t a challenge unlike physical and competition for placement and in my opinion it still requires expert marketing and funding to build a band’s brand and not just a few tools from Nimbit or Fancorps.
Indeed, these days it is harder to find the real gems amongst the new music that has come out, because most music doesn’t get a lot of exposure. But the real gems eventually will stick out amongst the rubbish, it only takes longer – too long in fact to make the year-end best-of lists of the critics and blog critics.
A great album is still a great album, even if it’s two years old. But most listeners, who unlike me, refuse to be their own A&R people, are not accustomed to the fact yet that in the current climate, great albums can go under the radar for as long as least a year or two. So the singles that the majors release basically do benefit from them being quicker to build up momentum for a single with their big budgets, which enables them to present something as “the latest” (even if it was recorded 3 years ago), whereas for indie artists, it takes time to build up momentum and gain exposure, so that when they finally score a hit single, they might already have worked the album for 3 years, beginning with its digital-only release, then regional club gigs, then placement of songs in films and advertising, then a CD self-release, and if that does well, a video and a national tour to follow.
So the “single release complex” is still working, but the major labels have outsourced the distribution chain to the consumer. That’s a cost cutting measure that makes perfect business sense, but I as a customer would like to have the physical single back because of sound quality. And the singles market surely has benefitted from the fact that customers don’t need to buy 2 good songs for the price of 10 anymore.
Clearly, it looks like the labels have tried making this cost-cutting measure work for albums as well, but the CD is not dead yet and won’t die because it has benefits over digital albums (which not only to this listener are an inferior product) and customers know that.
So I’m somewhat partial to industry people proclaiming the “death of the CD release complex” because they might have an agenda that goes at the cost of the customer who is then offered inferior product, like downloads at a bitrate of 128k, DRM or DangerMouse’s blank CDs.
Oops, wrong thread. That reply should have gone under “There’s Still A Place Where Albums Outsell Singles”.
Sorry.
Exactly my point,
The factor points to ‘social interaction’. How will the fans be able to socially discover new music? How will bands gain new conversions of fans?
In the end, it’s how the artist can relate to the fan and how that artist and maintain that fan. There are thousands of promotional tools out there as well as thousands of distributors. However, there is still a huge gap between the fan and the artist (even with sites like MySpace Music). I’d say that if music companies can learn how to adapt to social media and mold it, then generating a revenue model around helping musicians won’t be as difficult.
As you pointed out Will with Snocap & MySpace Music is that many bands when placing widgets couldn’t sell their music to their fans. The reason is because the environment bogs the fans with too many messages. Fans grow very weary of the artist trying to sell themselves to the fans when in reality the best method is to have the fans sell to the artist.
Kevin Rivers
CEO, Xeinge
It is a question of effectively connecting with fans Kevin, you’re right but bad music doesn’t have any and this is the problem…there is way too much of it. That’s why Snocap failed. No amount of marketing can sell a poor product (brand) and the same goes for artists.
So how to get the good stuff to the music loving public quickly? It’s not even a question of differentiation – all music is different but I really hope that some form of gatekeeping happens at digital & mobile distribution very soon…and just allow any band to sell their music from their profile pages with the widgets available.
Maybe Tuncore etc should let the fans decide what is allowed onto the stores in a voting type scenario.
Very good points indeed Will. However, relatively, there is no such thing as “good” or “bad” music. Defining what is a good or bad product is based on a personal subjective experience of that particular piece of product.
Defining what is “bad” music or “good” music is defining and difficult because what could be considered “bad” to you could be “good” to me and vice versa. What is possible is not about “the amount of marketing to sell a poor product” but “the amount of interaction to produce a viable product”.
With that, I leave you with this small truth
“Music is your own experience, your thoughts, your wisdom. If you don’t live it, it won’t come out of your horn. ~Charlie Parker”
Kevin Rivers
CEO, Xeinge
OK — so, Barnes and Noble. Absolutely full of shit books. But when I go in there, I know what I’m looking for.
Surely, you don’t spend endless hours looking through iTunes and Emusic for something good, right? You go to iTunes when you know there’s something you want.
Then you get it.
We really don’t need MORE gatekeepers. We already have a few million. The audience, the influencers, the trailblazers.
TuneCore is digital distribution. Thats what they do, they do not do music discovery. They’re not designed for it.
The new gatekeepers exist before distribution, they live on music discovery. What they think is good gets through the gates, but not in the conventional sense. The ones that get through, get attention.
This fact proves the new gatekeepers exist better than any other.
“The number that sold over 1000 units in the first year? Only 6,000.”