Music Problems

MONEY

There's not enough of it for investment.

We keep reading about VC's investing in tech startups, but it's hard to get people to invest in your band.

There's tons of money for the elite at Live Nation and AEG. But they don't really invest in new acts, and the labels have been decimated by the Internet and don't have much to invest and have to make their choices very wisely.

Furthermore, no one with deep pockets wants to invest in music because the labels have catalog, making their ongoing business easier/sustainable, and acts go to promoters who pony up the dough, there is no loyalty.

As for VC investment, it only goes to techies. Who've raped and pillaged music for a decade and a half. Despite all the lip-service to being music fans, the truth is techies love money more, and will strip-mine music to get paid.

RECOMMENDATIONS

Yesterday, the L.A. "Times" printed a booklet of the top 100 restaurants in the city. It's gold, because of the credibility of its author, Jonathan Gold, who started at the "L.A. Weekly" and writes so well I almost put down the newspaper to drive for the fries at Republique while reading his column on Saturday. (http://lat.ms/1kjqxTC)

We've got no trusted tastemakers in music. We've got tons of algorithms, we've got narrow radio stations beholden to advertisers, but no one with established credibility telling the public what to hear.

Once upon a time WABC AM/Cousin Brucie, et al, told their listeners what they needed to hear, the best of the best. There were equivalents in Chicago and L.A. But today...

Songza gives us too much untrustworthy information, who can wade through all those playlists, never mind all the bad music.

Beats reaches no one, and it too has endless untrustworthy playlists.

Pandora is a cornucopia of that which you do not want to hear. If you love Pandora, you're not really listening.

Jonathan Gold is not doing it for the money. We need a Jonathan Gold in music.

No one's got time for endless playlists/explorations. The future in this time-challenged world is serving up a short list of what people need to hear, in order.

COUNTRY FANS EMBRACE HIP-HOP, BUT HIP-HOP FANS DON'T EMBRACE COUNTRY

Or to quote Luke Bryan...

"Might sit down on my diamond plate tailgate
Put in my country ride hip-hop mixtape
Little Conway, a little T-Pain, might just make it rain"

It's kind of like HBO fans refusing to watch Showtime. There's a ton of good stuff if you'd just broaden your horizons.

FESTIVALS DON'T DEVELOP ACTS

They've got headliners, often reuniting/long in the tooth acts, and a plethora of wannabes. Who is developing the new acts? No one with any money...

SELLING OUT

It's hard to be credible if you keep complaining that you can't make money and are playing to corporations as opposed to fans. If we can't believe in you, there's no bond. Anybody saying there's no cost to sponsorships/endorsements is clueless. Get a hip sponsor, like Patagonia. Or leave the money on the table in service to a longer career.

PEOPLE WHO CAN'T SING BELIEVE THEY DESERVE TO BE HEARD

You can fake it on record, but it's much harder to fake live. Jimmy Page recently said he can't sing, what makes you believe you can?

ENDLESS E-MAILING OF YOUTUBE COVERS

It's about originals baby. If you can't write, we don't really care.

ALBUMS

No one's got time for filler ever.

If you want to make an album, first you have to sit through all 62 episodes of "Breaking Bad," and that was a good show!

Maybe we'll force you to sit through all 13 seasons of "American Idol" first, especially the elimination episodes.


SOUNDSCAN

Sales are meaningless. Despite the industry still making most of its sales profits from CDs. That's like Apple pooh-poohing mobile/iPhone because there's still big business in iPods. If the whole industry can't agree to move into the future, what hope is there?

SCALPING

I get it, the rich can buy up everything I want, but even concert tickets? Paperless should be embraced by all acts going clean, as well as all-in pricing. Until we get the public on our side, we can't progress. Just because Ticketmaster gets all the blame instead of the act, that does not make it right.

P.S. StubHub went to all-in pricing, and are taking a hit to boot: What kind of bizarre world do we live in where a resale service is more honest than the primary service? ("StubHub Sings the Blues After Shifting Fees: Attempt at Price Transparency Backfires, Hurting Sales": http://on.wsj.com/1nfyAQB)

INFORMATION

Wikipedia gives us the details of every performer worth seeing, but there's not one site that lists all live gigs in your area, not one that's trustworthy, comprehensive and has critical mass. Eventful is a failed enterprise, Songkick is a financial play based on the delusion that they'll be able to sell tickets to desirable shows, yeah, that'll happen, and Ticketmaster is slow and inefficient and can't list everything because its competitors don't want them to. In other words, you're not gonna see AEG shows on Live Nation's site, and vice versa. Yes, the music business is failing the information age.

DATA

The labels still believe we're living in the pre-Internet/computer era. Google coughs up truth instantaneously, for free, yet labels and most publishers still can't provide accurate data of what was sold/played, and certainly don't pay accordingly. It'd be like buying a Tesla with no place to plug it in. Music is made on computers, but accounted for via the equivalent of paper books. Screw the artist by making an onerous deal, but at least let them see what it's going to take to recoup, and pay them frequently.

WE GET THE MUSIC WE DESERVE

We live in a money-grubbing/unequal society wherein my inherent advantage leaves you behind. So the labels screw artists and anybody with a brain and an education refuses to participate. So music is left to the hustlers and the ignorant and you complain that these lower class denizens have no backbone...


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