Fail.

Bands are getting more and more enterprising and are increasingly seeing the value of giving their early releases away free of charge. Anyone who’s spent any time reading this blog will know that I approve. Every week I get sent, or stumble across, free releases from independent bands, and I try and make time to listen to, and in some cases review, as many of these as possible. However, often what I’m sent is a link to a page that contains a bunch of links to individual MP3’s. In theory this is fine, MP3’s are what I want as that’s the way that I generally consume music.

The problem is, when presented to me as a list of individual MP3′s, they’re a pain in the arse. I now have to download each track individually, hunt around my hard drive for them to import them into iTunes, then on to my iPod, in the process of which I often loose some. I’ve got limited time to devote to this, my hobby, and I’d rather spend my time listening to the music rather than trying to get the damn things onto my iPod! Once they’re there I often find, sin of ALL sins, the ID3 tags aren’t set properly so I can’t even find the bloody tracks! Grrr! It’s at this point I often give up. Life’s too short.

If you’re going to give your music away free, and reap the potential rewards of free distribution, you need to make it as easy as possible for folks to get a hold of and consume the stuff. Most listeners have a LOT less patience than me, and will simply move on when presented with a page of MP3 links. These are your potential fans, and loosing them at this early stage is just plain idiocy. Here’s a few tips:

1. (Please tattoo this one on the inside of your eyelids so that you don’t forget) POPULATE THE ID3 DATA!!! I can’t emphasize this more. Put the correct data in the correct fields, correctly spelt. Populate the album field (even if it’s just to say ‘EP’), genre, year the lot. Make sure it’s consistently spelled and formatted across all files. If you don’t know how to do this then find out, or give up. Here’s a tutorial to get you started.
2. Put all your tracks in a single compressed file with a file name that is human readable and includes band name and album title. No funny file types, zip is fine. If you have it, include high quality album cover and image of the band, and even some sort of introductory preamble which includes URL’s for your Myspace, website etc.
3. Upload this file to as many places as you can – Mediafire, Rapidshare, Bittorrent, your own website. If the facility is available, include links to your Myspace so people can listen to it before they download.

Now, I actually don’t particularly advise this route if you’re in the business of promoting your album. There are plenty of tools out there to help you distribute and promote your music digitally. Bandcamp, for example, provides a media player so people can hear the music before downloading, as well as a ‘pay what you like’ function – OK, so most folks will pay nothing, but at least you have a chance of making some cash. Soundcloud has some excellent social/promotional functions (you’ll notice that I have a Soundcloud dropbox so that artists can send me tracks). Don’t limit yourself, the internet is a goldmine of (often free) promotional tools. Make it easy for people to hear your music and give it the chance to be loved!

You gotta do it all yourself these days

It’s all about the music, isn’t it? No-one needs to make money to make music, but it certainly helps. Modern music begs to be created by and channeled through increasingly advanced technology, to be heard on multifarious shores. Music is global, dispersed and, increasingly, non-commoditised. Some money is necessary to facilitate this, but there’s less and less of the filthy stuff around. In 2009 global music related revenues slumped 7%, continuing a decline that began in the early naughties when the digital revolution took hold.

But it’s not as simple a picture of piracy induced decline as the record industry would like us to believe. What’s most important to understand is that digital theft is only partly to blame for these financial woes. Due to the ease on distribution of the new digital formats, and the ability to buy single tracks off of albums without buying the whole thing, sales have migrated away from lucrative CD sales (which supports a massive production and distribution infrastructure) to considerably less lucrative digital forms starving both the recording and distribution industries of cash. The way people consume music has changed forever, but the music industry was slow to catch on.

There has also taken place a devaluing of the music. Because of the ease of distribution of digital media, and no tangible way of stemming the free exchange of digital music files, a key economic law has been violated: the law of scarcity. Put simply, a ‘commodity’ that is desirable but abundant or freely available has a low (or non-existent) intrinsic value. Musicians and the industry alike would probably balk at this, but it’s an immutable law of economics that everyone’s going to have to get used to.

That said, the digital market is thriving in almost every territory, and the music based revenues in Australia, Brazil, South Korea, Sweden and the UK grew last year because of this. But it still remains harder than ever to make money out of music, and as a result record labels (key for providing funding for bands to produce and market their wares) are less able to take on new acts. This is leading to an anti-diversification of the music that’s being marketed to the masses and a preference for pushing legacy acts. This trend is likely partly responsible for the fact that digital sales, volumes of streamed tracks and even those of pirated tracks are all trending towards the popular end of the market. The ease and low cost of production and distribution of music mean that there are more acts than ever competing for listener attention. These three facts, among many others, mean that it’s tougher than ever for a marginal/unsigned/independent artist to get heard, let alone make money.

As a result bands are having to become marketing/promotion machines on top of all the other diversifying tasks they are having to take on in the absence of labels. Some see this as bad thing, others see it as bands being forced into taking control of their own destiny – this may come with much more work, and countless pitfalls and gotchas, but for those successful the immediate rewards are much higher. Unfortunately, only bands with a lot of nouse, real dedication and a lot of luck are likely to make this a reality, which leads us back to the labels – the market needs for them to start taking risks again, and quickly.

Instead, the big players have been trying to litigate and legislate their way out of their deepening hole. The former has yielded little success and cost a lot of money, the latter has had some success with legislation passed in both France and UK. The UK’s Digital Economy Act is controversial to say the least (it gives media companies the power to request that repeat offenders have their internet cut off) and was rushed through in a potentially unconstitutional fashion. This legislation is unlikely to work, not least because it won’t grow any teeth for at least 2 years, by which point Plan B will (God willing) have taken hold.

What’s Plan B? Well it’s already happening around you and the record industry is only mildly less worried about it than they were when this pesky digital revolution thingy started happening in the first place: streaming.

Industry backed Spotify currently dominates the European streaming market and is already becoming ubiquitous. The last software update saw them integrating with Facebook and including listener’s own MP3 library in playlists – a move which should give iTunes pause for concern. However, Spotify isn’t making anyone much money at the moment, least of all the artists, and there’s a palpable sense of “when will they shut it down” in the air. Until that is rival little cousin We7, whose revenue and royalty payout model yields better results, posted profits last quarter apparently proving that an advertising based streaming service can be profitable. The market is really hotting up, and with Apple recently squashing streaming service Lala, rumours are rife that they are preparing an iTunes based streaming service in an attempt to muscle in on the party.

These streaming services will need to become truly mobile before they are a viable alternative to MP3’s (Spotify already are for paid subscribers) and even with We7 turning a profit, it’s unlikely that they’ll be really embraced by the industry unless they can turn over a bit more cash, most likely via mandating paid subscription. One way or another, streaming would seem to represent the future of digital media, and once firmly established should render filesharing redundant.

This being the case, the situation we’re currently in, where making money out of selling music directly is nigh on impossible, will remain so for the foreseeable future and probably forever. That’s not to say that one can’t make money out of music. Live music is a big growth area at the moment, with many record labels looking to monetise their acts this way. However, this is driving ticket and bar prices up which could have the effect of squashing this market too.

An interesting side effect of digital streaming is that it’s actually widening the music listening audience. 60% of people never buy music, however, services like Spotify are engaging these people into actively consuming music and converting them into potential revenue targets – they may not want to buy music, but they may well pay to see it, or simply swallow some advertising for the privilege. Understanding, expanding and exploiting this ‘new’ audience will be key to the evolution of the music industry.

So where does all this leave the music industry? Well there’s a bunch of people that don’t make music who probably will have to find careers in different industries, but the people who do make the music are likely to carry on doing so, regardless of the economic welfare of the music industry. The economic battle will be fought by suits who will utter the word ‘licensing’ a lot while worrying about the logistics of an increasingly complex royalty system. The music is thriving, even if it’s not as good at generating dosh as it was before, and thanks largely to the advent of digital distribution, there’s a larger audience than ever before. The music exists without the industry, and that’s what matters.

Dignified?

Luke Lewis’s blog post on NME.com has got me a little hot under the collar. It’s typical of NME to come out with elitist bollocks like this. I think this, like many other arguments I hear against the new musical economy and the digital culture is based on a rosy view of a past that doesn’t exist any more and never will again. Today’s teenagers will look back on the current period in musical history with the same rose tint that Lewis does on a culture that died 20 years ago.

Undignified he says? I say dynamic, resourceful, damn well commendable. These bands in control of their own destiny. In the ‘halcyon days’ alluded to in the article these ‘indie’ bands were more likely to be at the whim of a suited exec – now that’s undignified.

Perhaps there is less mystique around bands, but that’s not a function of the changing musical landscape but the world as a whole. Unless you’re Deathspell Omega then you’re going to be ridiculously easy to track down and deconstruct.  Mystique was and still is crafted and sculpted by style leaders and journos. Most bands past and present haven’t got a clue how to publicise themselves, some are lucky enough to exude the current mode of ‘cool’ others aren’t, so need to be created by some style guru or cynical exec. This is not new (especially in NME’s world), in some ways it’s the very cornerstone of popular music.

So if you want your favourite band to maintain mystique then stop following them on twitter. and if mystique is so essential to you, then there’s a million underground bands out there that are perfectly obscure and would very much appreciate your patronage.

It’s harder than ever to score a ‘record deal’ in the current climate, though easier than ever to proceed without one, but it’s a hard business. You’ll not only have to do produce all the music, but learn how to record, distribute and promote your own music. So you won’t have a legion of record label culture sculptors to maintain your myspace, regularly post to Twitter, arrange well timed public appearances, and apply the PR mop after your drunken inequities. My Bloody Valentine and Bruce Springsteen did and they’re legend was written, rewritten, sculpted and scrubbed in real time. Dignified you say?

So NME, what self releasing bands really need is a break from your antiquated whining please. Some dignity and mystique wouldn’t go amiss, like you had 30 years ago.

Everyone’s saying it. It’s something worth celebrating. This really means something to people – in these darkened times, like so many before, people look to music to provide uplift, empathy, indulgence, inspiration. So shout it from the rooftops folks! Oh wait, most of those people (ie. people with half a brain) know this already don’t they? Let’s be more specific shall we? Get on the internet, identify a record label, and shout it out to them – email, phone, hack their site, get on down to their HQ in person. Here’s what you’re going to shout: “Despite you it has been a good year in music!”

The music industry has spent the last year telling us that the conditions, where it’s now easier and cheaper to access more music, hear more artists, love their work, is bad for music overall. How are we supposed to believe that the readjustment going on in the music industry is bad for us, when evidence clearly suggests otherwise? What we are paying to fund when we spend a tenner on a CD, is a bloated industry, desperately in need of streamlining and modernisation. Why should we bear that cost?

I read a depressing interview with French avant-guard/metal indie Season of Mist (home to Dillinger Escape Plan, Mayhem, Cynic among others) in this month’s Terrorizer. Through the years they’ve been committed to bringing innovative sounds to the market, but boss Michael Berberian says he’s not signing any new acts because their business cannot sustain them, until something is done to redress the balance. He goes on to suggest that the situation “is killing the the artistic side”. Depressing? Depressing indeed that such a defeatist and narrow view exists in a label that sees itself as cutting edge. Killing the artistic side? Oh wait, so everyone will stop making music because it got less profitable to do so, oh please. How is this helping all the bands out there? How is it helping the music fans hear the best new and innovative music? Really clever business plan mate, cos all the best businesses got through tough times by saying “let’s just hunker down until it blows over – if we complain enough something will be done”. I’ve got news for you friend, it ain’t going to blow over, and you will have 20 redundant staff on your conscience when you go under because of your lackadaisical attitude. Fuck you.

There are signs of hope out there. Earache-signed old school thrashers Gama Bomb just released their new album for download free of charge. Also Earache’s excellent and timely repackaging of the Peel Grindcore sessions (Grind Madness at the BBC) shows some real business and commercial smarts. British Stoner crew Taint have released their latest offering exclusively to buy on vinly, but have included a code to redeem a free download of the album online (you may remember me recently championing this approach).

This is the sort of thinking that’s going to help labels with the balls to deserve the business that they run trade through the tough times. Quite why the majority of the music industry doesn’t think it operates in the same economic environment as the rest of the business world is beyond me. Wake up people, because the music is happening without you.

It’s been a great year for music because the bands and artists made it that way, despite the harbingers of doom in the music industry.

Bands, you don’t need the record industry bringing you down, sapping your income to pay for accountants, useless, arrogant A&R men, and their £100 a day coke habit. You’re better off than you have ever been before as it’s easier than ever before to do things your own way. The world is waiting for you, so go out there and grab it!

I was in the unenviable situation this past week of not having a copy of the new Baroness album. This sort of situation is not usually a big issue, but this particular time it left me in an existential quandary that lead me to yet more pondering on the nature of music retail.

You see, I want the physical copy. Specifically I want the CD. This CD would immediately be ripped directly to MP3 and unceremoniously injected onto my iPod. But having a physical copy is still important to me. I place a certain value in this, not least with a band like Baroness who have such delightful artwork.

So having not had the forethought to pre-order and finding the HMV cupboard predictably bare I was left either having to wait a couple of days for a copy from Amazon, listening to it on Myspace, downloading from iTunes or ‘borrowing’ a copy from one of those lovely fire-sharing sites. Now, I don’t want to pay twice, and I simply cannot wait. Myspace isn’t an option as I need it on my iPod so I can listen on the go. Spotify is potentially an option, but I’ll have to use my iPhone for that, and the battery only last 73 seconds, and I need that for the making/taking calls. So I’m left with the prospect of having to ‘borrow’ it for a few days while ordering off the web. What sort of a situation is this to find myself in in the digital age?

What would be really handy is if someone would sell the CD online and then give me the MP3’s to be getting on with while I wait. I don’t want to be charged extra for this, I’ve already paid for the music. However, decoupling the music from the physical product has some interesting theoretical consequences. Let’s deconstruct this situation a little.

Basically, what I want is the music. To accompany that music I would like a physical item. In this case it’s a CD, but it could be a record, tape, USB stick, a tuneful midget with the music memorised, whatever. In the modern age, there’s no real need to have anything actually contain the music for an individual. The vast majority of people don’t need CD’s any more than they need the bottle containing the beer, it just so happens to be one medium for transporting the stuff inside.

So the situation that we’re in is that people choose to ‘attach’ a CD to their music purchase. Or put another way, they buy a CD which comes (conveniently) with some music on it. But why are obsolete (in the practical sense) music containing objects the only choice of ‘thing’ that comes as an accompaniment to the music? Why not t-shirts, posters, books, shoes, branded luxury leather recliner etc.? The record companies have a vested interest in getting you to buy stuff from them, and especially walking-billboard/culture items like t-shirts. This way they incentivise people to buy from them (rather than ‘stealing’ the music) as well as getting that person in a purchase cycle with them – which is potentially the most valuable aspect here.

So why not offer MP3 + CD packages? (and thus solving my immediate need) But also offer MP3 + t-shirt packages, or with records or hats or hat stands or gig tickets or books or comics or all of the above in a single transaction. Why not sell t-shirts in shops with a memory stick with the music. Hell, give the actual CD away with the t-shirt, but without the cover or any fancy packaging.

People could just go to iTunes and buy the album, but why not just buy a t-shirt and get the album for ‘free’? Of course you could make more money by selling both, but don’t kid yourself on how many folks would bother buying a t-shirt once they’ve bought the music, and if you ask me, a t-shirt sale is more valuable than a music sale.

In the end I ‘borrowed’ the music and the bought the album on vinyl, which costs more than the CD that I would have otherwise bought. I’m struggling to see where Baroness lost out here….

Apparently there are trace elements of metal in bottled water...

Still the filesharing battles wages on, despite the fact that there is no war. Dom Lawson’s entertaining article on this subject apparently fell foul of Metal Hammer’s editorial scythe. We can only assume that they didn’t want to fall on the wrong side of this prickly debate. And who can blame them, why risk pissing off your superiors over a war that’s apparently being waged elsewhere?

I do wonder though, how many folks out there who are earnestly ‘trying’ before conveniently ‘forgetting’ to buy. Is this costing the music industry money? Maybe. However, that’s largely beside the point. The issue here is that music is no longer a commodity that can be contained and rationed. The commodities are the physical items that accompany the music – the CD, the cover, the box – these are tangible goods that should be exchanged for money.

It’s because music is freely available that this situation exists. I’m sorry to restate the obvious, but it’s worth thinking about this. Water is ‘freely’ available in the UK. We pay for that by way of taxes (rates). The only time you pay at the point of receipt of water is when you buy the bottled stuff, and then what you’re actually paying for is the container and the convenience (plus the mark-up of whatever establishment you purchase it from). The future model of music will resemble this, and take a look at Spotify to see this in action. The music industry already knows this and the majors all own a stake in Spotify. The problem with this is the margins are much lower with models like this, and until the majors can shuffle their operating models to account for this and pacify the investors, they’re going to carry on chasing rainbows with lawyers and politicians.

By the way, the words on this page are not a commodity either. By the time this piece makes it onto the blog it will have eaten at least an hour and a half of my time. This blog probably eats more of my time per month than your average unsigned band does of the band members’ time. Should you wish to take these and consume them in any way you see fit then please feel free to do so. If you want me to save them onto a CD and send them across to you I’ll charge you for the CDR, postage, packaging, and round that up for my efforts. If more people start to read this blog, maybe I’ll put some advertising on it and try and cover the cost of the server and maybe I’ll even get a bit extra. If you want to take any of my articles and make money out of them (god knows how you would do this) by posting them on your own, commercial, website, then you will have to pay me. If you do not I may take legal action. Will I try and charge you for simply reading this article/blog despite that is takes time, effort and money to run? Hell no! Readers are more important to me than profit, and without them I stand no chance of making any anyway. The printed media industries learned this years ago. These days, some newspapers are moving to models that they no longer charge even for the physical product, and make money from the extra advertising revenue gleaned from the larger distribution.

I don’t know why I’m telling this to you lot – you already know this. I also don’t know why I bitch about the fact that this debate is still happening, I actually quite enjoy it.

This is perhaps the best summary I’ve seen on the file sharing debate. As I stated previously, there really isn’t a debate at all, merely those who are adapting to the changing environment and those that aren’t. This is perfectly and amusingly encapsulated in this video – at the end of the day, it’s all about money. The way people view and consume music has changed folks, get over it already, PLEASE!

It’s still happening you know. Just as the majority of the world ignores the unfolding inevitability of global warming, the music industry continues bury it’s head in the sand with regards to the basic reality of file sharing. I’m going to keep it short, as I’m almost certainly shouting into the storm on this one (not to mention repeating what’s been said a hundred times before).

I’m not going to get into the morality or legality of file sharing or copyright ‘theft’. I neither indulge in nor facilitate illegal file sharing. The ethics of the issue are entirely beside the point. Here is the point:

To try to stop file sharing, or any other type of media sharing for that matter, is like trying to stop Niagara Falls using a sieve.

So here’s my open letter to the music industry. It’s mostly directed at the bigger players, but everyone has a part to play:

Dear Music Industry,

Your attempt to scare file sharers and ‘copyright thieves’ into submission with sporadic (and costly) guerilla legal terrorism is not working, and will never work. It’s an unsustainable strategy. The UK government’s plan to stop it at ISP level is not only too late, but it’s doomed to failure.

Understand this: the techies and hackers and media junkies that facilitate the technologies that enable the easy propagation of media are for the most part determined, distributed, sophisticated and well hidden. This is not like Vietnam for the music industry; it’s not even comparable to the war on terror – it’s a much harder war to win. Your enemy understands the terrain, the war, and the weapons infinitely better than you do. All you have is transparent politics and clumsy legality. Even if you do manage to shut down this cell or that, or contain a few types of technology, then more will quickly spring up in their place that are tougher and more elusive. You have not the skills, money or time to fight this and maintain a viable business. I make no effort to legitimise or glamorise what your enemy does, I’m just stating a simple reality.

Consider this: within the next decade it will be possible to contain all the songs ever recorded onto a single, portable device that can be purchased cheaply. This is not being developed to undermine your ability to do business – file sharing is the least important thing that such a device will do.

Now, I do realise that the legal onslaught from the music industry is largely a charade while you buy time to work out how they actually survive this conflict. Whether you, being the entities that currently occupy the music industry, survive or not matters little to the folks on the outside of it. This isn’t the death of the music industry. it’s also not a revolution or insurrection – nothing that dramatic. What we have here is an evolution, and if you want to survive this Darwinian episode then you’ll need to evolve – find new ways to monetize, commoditise, homogenise and abuse these technologies and trends – in other words, doing what you do best.

Please stop whining and just get on with it.

To those who are embracing the brave new world then true glory awaits you. Please let me know if there’s anything I can do to help.

Yours hopefully,

Alex

I’m aware that no-one in the music industry will read this, or agree, or care, but I feel better for having said it.