Not EVERYTHING Has Changed
Written by Ben Campbell, CEO of OurStage
With all the upheaval in the music industry one might think that EVERYTHING that used to be true in the old world order has changed forever. As easy as it is to believe this, it’s simply not the case. Of course some major things about how the industry functions have been changed forever—but it’s important to understand which key success factors that used to be important are gone and which ones remain valuable.
Here are some of the key steps to success in the old world order:
1. TALENT/PASSION/HARD WORK/CHARISMA – The Artist needed to display raw talent, passion, work hard, charisma and that certain “it” factor.
2. LUCK – He/she had to get a lucky break by attracting the attention of a record label exec.
3. LABEL – The artist then had to get signed to a label, the gatekeepers to the following:
3A. FUNDING – Label bank rolled the (expensive) recording of an album;
3B. PRODUCER/TEAM ASSEMBLY- Behind the scenes the artist’s music, lyrics, image and business decisions were directed by the label via a the team of experts assembled to assist the artist;
3C. DISTRIBUTION – Most distribution was physical and the labels had a hammerlock on the process.
3D. FAME CREATION – Everything from marketing to PR to payola for radio play, again directed by the label.
4. ARTIST DEVELOPMENT – Many of the greatest household-name superstars took several years to take off and find their fame—even after being signed to a big label. During this process the heads of the labels made the key strategic decision to invest in and develop these artists, working with them and with the best producers money could buy, on successive efforts to find and perfect the artists’ work until the world came around to fully appreciating their greatness.
This old-world order path to success is less and less relevant with each passing day. But this does not mean that all components have become irrelevant. It’s important to understand which factors no longer matter and which ones are still important today.
In the new world order:
1. TALENT/PASSION/HARD WORK/CHARISMA are as true today as ever, arguably more so, now that much of the work that used to be done by the label needs to be done by the artists themselves.
2. LUCK still has some relevance but companies such as OurStage are working hard to remove this element as much as possible. Artists today have the ability to create their own opportunities and to work with companies and platforms that can expand the range of opportunities available to them.
3. LABELS no longer hold the power they once did. In fact, ten years from now I believe we’ll still have labels but the ones that survive will have evolved to play a much different role – especially in terms of sharing of the value created – than the historical labels did back in the day when they ran the industry as a total oligopoly.
3A. FUNDING is nowhere near as important as it once was thanks to the advancement of technology. It’s now possible to record a song or album for a fraction of what it used to cost thus diminishing the critical role of venture capital/banker that the labels used to play
3B. PRODUCER/TEAM ASSEMBLY remains critical component. Many artists don’t appreciate the value of the team due the numerous examples of bad relationships in music history. No matter how unfairly the big record labels may have treated some artists in the past, it doesn’t change the fact that many famous artists owe a large portion of their commercial success to the team of experts afforded them by their labels. It’s important to separate the anger over the commercial relationship from the added value of quality producing and coaching. I think this was particularly true in the hey day of the industry but not so much so in recent years as labels have more and more been practicing a “get a quick hit or your out” approach.
3C. DISTRIBUTION has changed radically and irrevocably. In fact, it is probably the component that has done more to change the industry than anything else. The label is irrelevant here now, the CD is irrelevant now, Tower Records is irrelevant now.
3D. FAME CREATION remains critical. And this is arguably the component most often misunderstood due to misinformation. Let me explain:
Myth vs. Reality
The equation of talent + online social networking x fans = viral explosion is pure myth. Success almost never happens this way. Unfortunately the media perpetuates this myth by focusing on the few times this might have happened (really most of these claims are dubious once you peer behind the veil at what really transpired) and proclaiming that in the “new world order,” all quality automatically goes viral online. It’s simply not the case. So don’t be discouraged if you’re making great music but it hasn’t exploded virally on the web yet.
The Importance of Grass Roots Marketing
Just because going ‘organically viral’ is rare does not mean that over time hard work and perseverance won’t help an artist cultivate a nice regional or even national following or make a decent living at their trade (i.e. keep the lion’s share of their earnings). Many artists are doing this now and this is great news. But what about serious, global fame? Where will the mega-stars of tomorrow come from?
The Importance of Large Media Companies
The Internet has many great attributes when it comes to leveling the playing field. But the web alone has not proven to be sufficient at real fame creation—the type of celebrity that comes with every high school kid in the civilized world talking about your latest album, going to your shows, humming your tune in the shower. I’m talking about true stardom. You would be hard pressed to name a single star of this magnitude that the web, all by itself, has produced without the help of a label or large corporation behind the scenes. I’ve had this discussion with some of the most powerful people in the music industry and everyone has a their own particular view. But even those that are at the extreme end of the spectrum believing “the web is everything” world struggle to name more than 3 or 4 artists—and then with flimsy evidence. Others agree that the web alone has not ‘broken’ any superstars because the era of the super star is gone forever. I believe this view is also extremely unlikely. As long as there are people and as long as there are large media conglomerates superstars will be created. The Hollywood studios of the 1920s proved early on that star-creation is incredibly lucrative. And it is as profitable today in both film and music as it was then. The economics of it are simply too powerful for it to go away. Moreover, it is the natural tendency of society to want celebrities. Note the success of TMZ, Perez Hilton, supermarket tabloids and even the popularity of the ‘entertainment’ section news website. There is a dramatic increase in sales of any magazine that has a ‘current’ star on the cover. The world will always have stars, and the central players in any entertainment industry will always find ways to create them.
The challenge in the music industry in this transitional period is that the primary star creation machine has been destroyed by the collapse of its economic model. What has yet to happen —but is absolutely certain to happen —is the marriage of the benefits from both the Internet and an existing media giant (or giants) to create a new path to star creation. In the future this may be as simple as a partnership with a traditional media giant —if only during an interim period of transition — just as Microsoft piggybacked on IBM when they first released DOS (and just as Google piggybacked on Yahoo when they first launched). But major media companies will surely figure out how to fill the fame creation void left behind by the collapse of the major labels. And the question is not which one medium will succeed but what combination of media will succeed. Radio used to be the primary medium in music but as an industry radio is struggling economically more than the labels themselves. TV has become critically important to fame creation in music as much as in film as American Idol has proven (even with mediocre talent). Games are also now a critical new medium with extraordinary popularity. And, of course, the Internet and social networking are fundamental to the new world order in the music industry. The bottom line is that the industry is in transition. The star-creation machinery of the new world order has yet to be canonized. But rest assured, it will happen.
4. ARTIST DEVELOPMENT now known as TIME, DEVELOPMENT, AND PERSEVERANCE are as important as they ever were. Sure, a rare few may win the lottery, but this is the exception. In general, everyone —no matter what the industry or discipline—has to pay their dues before they achieve great success. Music is no different. In fact, given the volume of competition the Internet has created, it may actually take longer to succeed in music than in other industries.
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