8Sided Blog

a zine about sound, culture, and the punk rock dream

The Album Long Game or the Wrong Game

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Vulture explores today’s topsy-turvy state of the album release strategy in an article that asks Does the Surprise Album Release Still Work? My answer: it can if the strategy fits your brand and fan expectations … and, as the article points out, if you’re not looking to release vinyl on the same day.

This quote from Beggars Group’s Matt Harmon in the article is important:

“Streaming means that we’re not getting the sales that we used to get the week of release or the first three or six months of release, but that those sales or streams or equivalent units are stretched over the first two, three, four, five years …”

Longterm thinking is increasingly vital and that’s a good thing. The first-week album splash might still work for the music industry’s 1%, but anyone else not actively promoting an album — and a body of work — continually for the entirety of his or her recording career is playing the wrong game. Streaming rewards maintaining interest in a back catalog. Take advantage of this and stop looking at a release date as the crest of your promotional efforts.

‘We Only Sign Artists That We Like As People’

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The [PIAS] blog has a very informative interview with Simon Raymonde (known for his distinctive multi-string bass lines with Cocteau Twins) about his experiences running the Bella Union label. This bit of advice should be especially heeded, in my opinion:

A few years ago I decided I wouldn’t sign anyone I didn’t like as a person.

There’s brilliant bands everywhere. But when you meet a manager who’s an idiot or meet a band and think they’re just not very nice, I don’t want to work with them. Even if I think their music is the best thing ever.

I’ve worked with people over the years where I’ve thought: ‘These people are going to kill me. This manager is going to force me into an early grave.’

We don’t do that anymore. They meet my wife and my cat. We go for coffee and I ask who their manager is, who the agent is, who the lawyer is. If it’s a nice bunch of people, we take the gamble.

Advice For Budding Label Managers

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Josh Rosenthal, Grammy-nominated producer and founder of the Tompkins Square imprint, has a few opinions about what it takes to run a label.

I don’t like hiring publicists because I like driving the narrative, having my own relationships, and I like to save money. I’m not convinced that I’ll get incrementally more press by hiring someone. Plus there are very few press hits that actually move the needle. Work your consumer email list. If your music is any good, certain outlets will embrace it without a middleman. Social media is effective at spreading terrorist propaganda. For music, not so much. There’s too much chatter, nothing sticks. Is it helpful? Yes. But if you’re relying on it, that’s really sad.



Music content will be owned by technology companies eventually. There’s already this morphing of digital services and the major content holders, which are buying stakes in said services. Forget the delivery method, you can’t control that broadly. Keep up with developments in technology, but don’t let them guide your creative principles. If you can’t make money using the present day delivery systems, innovate, or go do something else. Old world constructs made musicians and labels feel entitled to reliable income, but that doesn’t mean it will be that way going forward.


These are excerpts from Rosenthal’s new book The Record Store Of The Mind, which seems to be an interesting read. Check out more of his – sometimes serious / sometimes not so much – thoughts on label management at The Vinyl Factory.

This Company Is Selling A “Record Label In A Box” For £249

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FACT:

Ditto Music’s label in a box comes in three flavours: the £249 “Premium”, the £399 “Professional” and the eye-watering £3,499 “Enterprise” packages. Each box does most of the paperwork for you, including PPL license for claiming performance rights as well as IIRC codes for registering releases.



You also get certificates, a USB pen loaded with all your company data and personalised management suite software for monitoring and managing royalties. Each package also comes with a business bank account, label web domain and registration as a limited company with Companies House. You’ll still have to find decent music to release by yourself however.



You can find out more at the Ditto website, but it’s worth pointing out that you can achieve most of what the basic package offers for no money, so long as you have the time to spare.

A Radical Plan To Save The Big Music Labels: Shrink The Big Music Labels

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Re/code:

The late Dave Goldberg had (an) idea: He wanted to radically reinvent the modern music label, by cutting its staff and expenses dramatically, focusing almost entirely on digital and moving away from making new music.



Over the years, Goldberg would offer his prescription for the industry to anyone who would listen. Now the world can see it, via a memo he wrote to Sony Entertainment CEO Michael Lynton last summer. The memo surfaced earlier this year via the Sony hack, and some industry folks have referenced it since then. I’m re-printing here because it’s relevant for the music industry, and any other business that is struggling to reinvent itself (that is, most industries).


The memo is an interesting read. Most of the recommendations are not quite applicable to smaller, independent labels — in fact, it’s suggested that Sony’s new release strategy emulate an independent label’s. But the take-away for non-major label operators comes from the memo’s emphasis on back catalog and publishing. Too many independents downplay both at their own peril. Even a mere few weeks after an album or single has been released I see most labels wipe it from the drawing board, with no more mention of it on their news feeds or social media and no attempt to repackage or rekindle interest in past releases. Goldberg was correct that not only is a strong back catalog valuable when it comes to licensing and synch, but past releases with a nurtured fan interest can earn consistent income in the world of streaming.

(h/t Jon Curtis)