Chapter 9: In Search of the Next Horizon by Alex Cosper 
So a lot of indie artists have done a lot of work and are still waiting to see what's going to happen. Some people spend thousands of dollars and hours on music without ever seeing a single dime in return. Garages are full of stacked CDs all over the world. What now? Where is indie music going? CD sales continue to decrease while downloads have been increasing for major labels, although the indie world of CDs hasn't been hit as hard. Moby says in a controversial WNYC Radio interview, "I think the demise of the record business is one of the best things that's ever happened in music because there's almost an inverse relationship to the profitability of music and the quality of music." He goes on to unload interesting words of wisdom for indie artists, saying "Anybody in 2009 who gets into the music business to get rich is simply an idiot." Moby doesn't really think the labels will completely die out. He thinks the industry is consolidating and reinventing itself as all in one music companies are becoming the pipeline between artists and fans. Meanwhile, Apple has been preparing for the cloud, a concept that elminates the need to store software on computers and invites users to access software online. Even so, iTunes continues to be the leading music retail outlet by a longshot over closest rival AmazonMp3. The success of the iPad and other new media gadgets points to mobile content and content-based networks accessed by mobile devices as snapshots of the new world. Many indie artists are content just to use tech and the internet to promote their live shows where they sell CDs and other branded merchandise. But the technology that's unfolding is potentially very powerful for the Do-It-Yourself artist that wants to do everything on a computer at almost no cost. The stage is definitely being set for artists to record their music completely on software at home then selling the music completely online. The direction of new technology has been to automatate processes that once required technical expertise from expensive, experienced professionals. Some signed artists from awhile back are starting to set new business models through their experimental promotional efforts. Radiohead, for example, used to be signed to EMI but broke away in 2007 to go indie with their album In Rainbows, which they showcased as the first album ever in which fans set their own price. It actually generated more revenue than their last major label release three years earlier. Other artists formerly signed to major labels that decided to go indie include Paul McCartney, The Eagles, John Mellencamp, Trent Reznor, The Offspring, Counting Crows, The Black Crowes, Elvis Costello, B52s, Aimee Mann and Social Distortion. Sublime was a successful indie band in the 90s before getting picked up by MCA. Then singer Brad Noel died and was replaced by Rome Ramirez. In 2010 Rome found himself at the top of the Alternative charts, featured with the indie band The Dirty Heads, who craft a unique blend of hip hop, reggae, rock, ska, punk and acoustic rock. The band was originally signed to Warner Brothers but wanted more artistic freedom so they jumped to indie label Executive Music Group, which was founded by former Capitol/EMI executive Jacob Caricciuolo. The result, with help of Universal/Fontana was the alternative chart topper "Lay Me Down" from the album Any Port In a Storm. My friend Harry Price, who I've recorded with at his studio, told me some of the story of the band's success since he knows the members personally. "Talk about indie revelations," says Harry, "Rome, guitarist/vocalist, comes into contact with a bro of mine, Lewis Richards, who runs 17th Street Recording in Costa Mesa. Rome is from Alameda, CA and was partnered with his girfriend, Kat, in a mostly cover band. Eric Wilson of Sublime, who is also a bro with Lewis and me, hears Rome play and offers him a spot as the new singer for Sublime. "At the same time, The Dirty Heads are working at the studio under an indie label called Executive Music Group, run by Jimmy Swan. They record 'Lay Me Down' with Rome as a featured artist. The song gets attention at KROQ and subsequently hits the number 1 spot on the national alternative rock charts for radio." The album, which features prominent people such as Slash, Beastie Boys producer Mario C and Indie 103.1/Los Angeles host Native Wayne, peaked near the top 50 on Billboard's album chart. "Rome was playing top 40 covers only one year earlier," Harry continues, "which included Sublime covers, and is the reason he attracted attention as a possible vocalist for Sublime. The real story here is that an independent has a path to success using the tools now available. There are many different organizations and individuals that could come together to form an independent music management system, as it did in this case." Of the four major labels, Universal Music Group has remained the most successful. It has stayed profitable while the other labels have struggled with debt. Part of the label's strategy has been to sign successful indie artists, who have developed their own followings online. Two examples are Colbie Caillat and Owl City, both of which attracted UMG's attention from their huge fanbases they built on MySpace. Colbie comes from a music industry family. Her father, Ken Caillat, co-produced the Fleetwood Mac albums Rumours and Tusk in the 70s. As a teen she recorded music for fashion shows. She signed up with MySpace in 2005. Two years later she released an album called Coco which spawned the MySpace hit "Bubbly." After 20 million plays on MySpace she was signed by Universal in May 2007 and topped the iTunes album chart within two months. "Bubbly" cracked the top 5 on the Billboard Hot 100. Owl City is the work of Minnesota electronica artist Adam Young. In a similar fashion, huge MySpace activity caught the attention of Universal, who signed the act and watched their album Ocean Eyes featuring the hit "Fireflies" go platinum in 2009. More proof that good things are happening with indie artists, is this message I received from CDBaby Founder Derek Sivers on December 21, 2010: "The road is very paved. Artists have more tools than they could ever use. The problem is, that's a lot of responsibility. Now there's nobody to blame but yourself ... 20 years ago we could have conspiracy theories, blame the fact that we don't live in Hollywood or NYC, or get mad at the few powerful people that controlled all access to the public. But now our talent, creativity, strategy and persistence are our only speed limits. It's a lot more work. The music biz insiders know it, too, which is why they only help artists who have already helped themselves." Sivers, who sold the very successful online indie operation CDBaby in 2008, confirms that during his reign, "Almost none of CD Baby's top-sellers had FM radio airplay, but that didn't matter. Each had their own way of reaching the public, whether it was film/TV, constant touring, a great human-interest story, or just word-of-mouth." One place to research top selling indie music is CDBaby. Alternative artist OkGo left EMI to pursue the indie route and couldn't be happier. Singer Damian Kulash, Jr. wrote an insightful Wall Street Journal article published on December 17, 2010 called "The New Rock Star Paradigm." He revealed that the band has bypassed traditional label funding for recording with sponsors such as State Farm and Samsung, who underwrite the projects. Damian says the band has complete control of production in ths new paradigm. The article examines how the worldwide music biz, at its 1999 peak reached nearly a $27 billion annually but by 2009 the figure had melted to $17 billion. Here's an amazing story that Damian touched on: indie artist Corey Smith from Georgia managed to net $2 million in a year from touring and selling music without any airplay. Here's another mind-blower: he gave a lot of his music away free online, to promote his shows. Yet he still managed to sell 450,000 downloads, over 70,000 of which where albums. Corey considers his music to be "progressive country" as it contains edgy lyrics and deep, thoughtful stories that fill up albums such as Keeping Up With the Joneses. His story has been documented in media interviews and Techdirt articles. Giving music away free has brought good luck to some artists and has softened some of the music biz criticism that labels are too greedy, which cast a big shadow in the 2000s while labels were suing music fans who downloaded music illegally for free. The Gorillaz announced in December 2010 that they were issuing their next album as a free Christmas gift. The album was recorded on an iPad while on tour. Not all music will be free nor should it be. Artists need to get paid somehow. One of those ways will be licensing. The future of CDs may be in doubt, but all those deep music catalogs that keep on selling are not in doubt at all. Even if the labels stop selling CDs at the point it becomes unprofitable, labels will still own music that's been immortalized in movies and monumental albums. Licensing of music for use in movies and other media will likely continue to be a significant source of revenue. But think about how licensing can expand beyond corporations with big budgets. Almost everyone is becoming a media commentator on social networks like Facebook, MySpace and Twitter. Everyone is learning how to share media and use it to express themselves. The concept of fair use allows people to post links from YouTube and other content sites. But perhaps all of that use that's becoming more common can be monetized as an investment into content libraries through licensing. Music now has expanded purposes. It now has many uses thanks to the acceleration of tech as a pillar of pop culture. Video games, apps, ringtones, home movies and slide shows are starting to flourish with music. There's a sense that people want to customize their own playlists and listening experiences as internet radio and various online music platforms emerge. As internet speeds continued to speed up, transmission is improving to the point that internet is almost as seamless as television. YouTube has become not only a haven for indie videos, it's now becoming more of a mirror of pop culture than the music charts. All it takes is for a video to go viral linked with pay per click ads to generate lots of money online, as one Yahoo headline in 2010 revealed there were people making six figures with viral videos linked to Google Ads. Even a website with hundreds of pages that include affiliate sponsor code can bring an aritst money out of nowhere. Yes, the stage is set, even if the signs aren't obvious in 2010. The writing is on the wall that the old world is crumbling away, making way for new avenues and new philosophies on how to deliver music to fans and how artists make money. Music doesn't actually have to be the product to generate money. It can be a free download associated with a product for purchase. A company may want to promote a product with a free music download that it licenses from an artist for a fee. Music can also be given away free on a website that generates money through online services or digital products. An animator might get together with a musician and create an incredible video that someone else wants to license based on the theme. Then there are people completely outside of music making a fortune online, like UC Berkeley student Raymond Lei, who SFGate.com reported makes six figures selling T shirts online. If he can do it others can as well. Maybe artists can use his model to sell band T shirts or just any kind of T shirts packaged with free music downloads as incentives. Using some of these ideas with an economic map that shows where lucrative markets exist, can be powerful for the market researcher who wants to bypass being a regional act and just carve out an international niche market. Doors to the new world are opening while doors to the old world are starting to be jammed up with old baggage.Voice activated software is merely a preview to the easy life of instant programming of the future. It's not so sci-fi anymore to envision a futureworld where we'll be telling machines what to play with our voices. The direction of new media has been moving consistently toward consumer choice. Radio has survived even though all the big chains have been deep in debt for years. It survives because it is free and convenient and it's everywhere. As internet becomes more like that, expect the popularity of internet radio to grow, which can only help indie artists. There will always be venues for live talent but in the future look for more virtual venues where instant connection between artist and fan will drive music sales that were never imaginable in the past. Digital commerce, made possible by companies like PayPal, will likely become the modern equivalent to royalty checks as pennies that add up pour in from various advertisers and online marketers targeting the audiences of artists on well-positioned websites. In the future, tech and music will likely go more and more hand in hand. Artists who are also tech-savvy will benefit greatly from this combination of knowledge. At the same time, the tech side will probably be so streamlined and user-friendly it may not be necessary to know any of the inner-workings of tech such as computer programming or web design. The pattern has favored easy clickable steps to online professionalism. The core ingredient to this whole puzzle of the internet and indie music is communication. The way anyone has ever found out about any music is through communication. Usually in the past, a radio programmer would dig through a pile of music from record labels and add a short list of new songs to the playlist every week that sounded likeable or marketable. If the PD liked a song enough to give it a shot on the air, audience feedback determined its fate from there. Listeners would then drive to a record store to buy it, completing the communication cycle. In the new world communication is less personable and more digital, but more importantly, more instantaneous. But like in the past, communication will be the key to bringing great artists and loyal fans together. Fans themselves have become tools of expansion for artists, thanks to the advent of viral marketing. Although viral marketing is not a guaranteed process, it's another gift to the indie cause. In order for a song to go viral online, meaning people telling people who tell more people about it, the song must stand out more than it blends in. It can do that with humor, controversy or a unique message within a popular theme. Usually it takes leaders or aggregators of music, such as DJs or PDs, to put the spotlight on a new artist or song. Big band music was popularized by radio hosts such as Bing Crosby and Benny Goodman in the 30s and 40s. The initial burst of mass exposure for early rock and roll was via Cleveland DJ Alan Freed in the 50s. The Beatles were introduced to America in the 60s by media celebrities such as New York radio jock Murray the K and TV host Ed Sullivan. A lot of underground rock was exposed by freeform radio DJs in the late 60s/early 70s. Then it was more aggressive stations like KROQ in Los Angeles that put punk and new wave on the map. Rap and hip hop developed in the 70s thanks to New York DJs sharing the news of their community over beats. The alternative revolution of the 90s happened because a handful of radio stations took a chance on playing bands like Nirvana and Nine Inch Nails. The big corporate mergers of the 90s/00s that affected both the radio and record industries culminated in a decade of mostly formula-based music with sales that didn't match previous decades. No new sounds or genres emerged to fuel interest in new music as major labels stayed close to the game plan of signing acts that sounded like other hit acts of the past few decades. The message has been clear: big isn't always better and neither is trying to be safe and generic. In the new world creativity goes further than imitation. The high costs of making major label music led to mountains of debt and difficult questions about how to sell music. Big tech companies like Apple, on the other hand, have set examples of workable business models for music in the new century. It's as if the old world took its hands off the wheel and tech took over as the driver. Indie music will gain notoriety if it can be effectively promoted by aggregators, commentators of the new century and fans who go viral with the message. Not every message will go viral as the most generic and ordinary messages are bound to be buried and forgotten in the vast pages of cyberspace. But those indie artists who put their hearts into being uniquely expressive and innovative will likely get better results than those trying to fit in with formulas of the past. No one wants to keep buying the same sounding stuff over and over. That's why it's up to indie artists to bring something new to the party. In the old world it took lots of big money to make a hit happen. In the new world it takes less money, but more determination and more avenues. Tight repetitive playlists helped audiences focus what to buy back in the olden days but now choices have expanded, cutting down the number of superstars while elevating more and more indie artists. Keeping this all in perspective, it's finally making sense for people of all regions to explore music as a realistic career, or an affordable hobby as technology continues to open doors to an expanding superhighway of creative mass communication. Sharing, caring and daring are some of the themes that guide the way. © Playlist Research. All rights reserved. |