Tag Archives: major

Tanto per chiarire

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steve albiniSteve Albini (qui su wikipedia in inglese e qui in italiano) è un musicista, produttore discografico, tecnico del suono e critico musicale americano. È una persona che conosce molto bene il mercato musicale; fra l’altro è stato produttore dei Nirvana.

Nei primi anni ’90 ha scritto un articolo chiamato The Problem With Music in cui descrive la situazione di una band esordiente di un certo successo, come ne ha viste tante, che arriva a firmare il suo primo contratto con una major. Con la sua esperienza, Albini fa letteralmente i conti in tasca alla band, alla major, a produttori, manager e a molti personaggi che gravitano intorno al business musicale. È in articolo interessante anche perché, nonostante il fatto che circoli su internet ormai da 10 anni, non è stato mai direttamente smentito dalle major, evidentemente perché non sono in grado di farlo. D’altra parte le major si sono sempre sottratte alle discussioni sui loro margini di profitto (e su quelli di band, produttori, manager, etc.) adducendo il fatto che le situazioni sono troppo differenziate.
Ma, come ben sanno gli statistici, in economia le medie si possono sempre fare: basta riferirle a situazioni tipiche ed è quello che fa questo articolo.

Ho sempre voluto proporlo, ma finora sono stato trattenuto dal fatto che è in inglese-americano non proprio semplice e non ho mai avuto la voglia e il tempo di tradurlo (è piuttosto lungo). Oggi finalmente qualcuno lo ha fatto, quindi un plauso a LOR15, di cui vi segnalo il blog e da cui ho tratto la traduzione che riporto qui sotto e che mi sembra ben fatta.

Se a qualcuno interessa l’originale inglese, lo può leggere qui o qui, ma basta una ricerca in Google per trovarlo in molti siti.

È lungo, ma chiarisce molte cose. Se ne avete voglia e se vi interessa leggetelo, tanto per chiarire, fra l’altro, chi sono quelli che danno dei ladri ai ragazzini che si scaricano i CD.

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The future of musical marketing (2)

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It’s the year 2015 and you wake to a familiar tune playing softly. It gets you out of bed and makes you feel good. As you walk into the bathroom, your Personal Media Minder activates the video display in the mirror, and you watch a bit of personalized news while you get ready for the day. You step into the shower and your personalized music program is ready for you, cued up with a new live version of a track that you downloaded the other day. It is even better than the original recording, so while you dress, you tell your “TasteMate” program to include the new track in your playlist rotation.
You put on your new eyeglasses, which contain a networked audio headset, letting tiny earbuds slip into your ears. You switch on the power, and the mix that your friend made for you starts to play. Music pours into your consciousness. It becomes yours.
After breakfast with the family, you head off to work and the Personal Media Minder asks if you wish to finish the audio book you started yesterday morning. You confirm and listen while you walk to the train that takes you to your job.
During the day, your headset and other wireless devices help you communicate across the network, with your friends, associates, network buddies, and “digital peers.” The headset also keeps you connected to that hard rock collection that you really love to listen to. Meanwhile, a variety of new songs, new versions, and remixes of tracks you truly dig, along with your old favorites, continues to come your way. Using TasteMate, you access and trade playlists, and recommend a couple of songs to your friend in Seattle, and they get added to his rotation. Music propels you throughout the day.
On the way home, you choose your usual dose of news, sports, weather, and the latest dirt on your favorite bands and movie stars. The headset syncs to the active 3D displays that project images just in front of your eyes, or onto the communal screens available on the train and at home. You decide what you hear and see, and who can share in the experience. The Media Minder blends and delivers the programming you select, along with whatever variety of new music you decide to explore. It also determines how that new music is chosen, with the help of the TasteMate program.
Back at home, you cruise into the evening with the house system sending soft dinner jazz to various speaker systems in your house, as you serve up one of your culinary specialties, then pay your bills. One of these bills is your media and entertainment subscription, which includes your monthly music, video, network, and communications charges; it’s always lower than your heating or water bill. Incoming calls from your friends blend into the programming that surrounds you, as you see fit. After dinner, you clean up, perhaps enjoy a couple of games with friends across your virtual network, and begin to wind down with some New-Age derivatives of Mozart’s original compositions, which you discovered late one night while cruising through the music sharing channels…

The Future of Music: Manifesto for the Digital Music Revolution
By David Kusek

This is the opening of David Kusek and Gerd Leonhard book “The Future of Music”. Here is the blog related.

In your opinion it’s heaven or nightmare?

While reading for the first time I think “…beatiful…”, but when I tried to imagine this as a real world all began turning to nightmare.
Well, to a large extent I agree with the authors. As stated in the previous post I also think that the music will be sold as a digital stream, the prices will drop, there will be subscription services, etc…
But there will be also other things not so good. For instance, what about advertisement?
Do you think the seller of a similar service will give up the gain that advertisement could create? There is nothing all around without it. And I hate advertisement. And the personalized advertisement I hate more.
So, suppose they try to create a “not disturbing” advertisement. You are listening to the hard rock collection you really love and “meanwhile, a variety of new songs, new versions, and remixes of tracks you truly dig, along with your old favorites, continues to come your way” but sometimes a you hear a song similar to the others, but definitively not a part of your choice. And you start asking if it’s a bug of the selection software or a masked advertisement. Do you remember payola?
And then “during the day, your headset and other wireless devices help you communicate across the network, with your friends, associates, network buddies, and digital peers”. Good, but if you can connect with every network, every network can find you. So, while you are listening to the audiobook, the people in your office call because your boss has planned a meeting at 10 am and he needs your opinion about a new project, so charts, images and word come to you mixing with the audiobook. Moreover, your messenger software has started automatically (it’s part of the subscription) and you can hear the rings and see the nicknames of 50 idiots that have nothing to do and want to chat with you. At least, there is another call from that moron with persist in calling from the day you made sex with him/her only because that time you were so blue…
Ok, I could modify all the book’s opening reflect my not-so-optimistic vision, and maybe I’ll do. But the thing that disturb me the more in this utopia is the refusal to choose. I know the information is increasing so choosing is more and more difficult, but when I choose to get the news from CNN or the NY Times, I make a selection by myself e.g. I choose CNN because I trust CNN). If I connect to a service like GoogleNews I don’t. It’s someone other that select the news I see. In this case, it’s the software itself, but the software works looking at how popular a news is, so it’s not my choice.
In the same way, a music selection service can only make blind choices based on the musical genre and I could customize it, but its “intelligence” it’s always in someone other hands.
Ok, the music will flow like water, but who control the flux?

The future of musical marketing (1)

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From the band point of view – With a little optimistic attitude

Music is no more sold on CD but only on the internet as data stream.
The majors don’t exist no more. Like any business company that build and sells its own products, or like a professional office, the band sells its own productions with the help of some artistic advisors and/or a management agency.
In other words, the band works alone and control its own work, the music, putting money (and risk) in its own activity, exactly as any other economic entity.
And of course the band controls all the revenues, with which it must pay expenses, the advisors and also living. Just as any other economic entity.
The music has no protection system. By now everybody knows that it’s impossible to control the copy without controlling and blocking all the net and the copy itself is not a loss so big. Now the people pay a little P2P tax as part of the internet access cost and the decreasing of music price, without support, printing, distribution and several robberies, can cover the copies loss. The price of ten songs could be € 4 but it’s € 8 to 10 just to cover the copies loss.
The beginning of a band career is as usual. The difference is that the band runs its business alone.
They begin play around, record some music at home or in a little studio with a little expense and sell it on his site or on the site of a music distribution service that charges a little. Until now the band only needs a chartered accountant.
Of course the people can download some song from the band’s site to hear and give it to friends. So, if the music is good, their name spreads and some music critics begin to hear it. And then a music critic who leads a blog with 10.000 visit per day comes to their site. Not a major with a letter of intent, a so called “deal memo” to which the band remains bound while the major choose between this band or another. Not a major because there is nothing to gain when it’s the artist that control itself and his/her music.
So a music critic hear the band. And this critic is not a pretentious bastard who works for a big music magazine. He is a person who holds a blog and has build his reputation online with years of smart posting. He is a free-lance and has no boss. He knows that many people trust him and this trust is the foundation of his success, is the reason why the radios ask him for programs and the magazines ask him for articles. But he has no boss.
He knows that discovering new interesting bands is the reason of his success and the TVs introduce him as the one who discovered Heterophobia and Gregg Turner and the Blood Drained Cows.
So he don’t ask the band for $ 10.000 to write a good review. He simply listen to their music and write some line to the band and go to their concert and then put a post on his blog and their site many more people come.
And then, if the things runs well, the band maybe turn to a music advisor or to an image advisor to improve the music or the live act, but it’s always the band who controls its music.
And then, if the things runs very well, the band search for a business management service to help handle tours, merchandise and maybe lawyer because the singer told they are more popular than Jesus they get banned by Bush administration.
And at least the band realizes that they became really popular and they can make their own business management service and kick out the advisors and the lawyers and all this parasites.
Agh! What a hard work lead his business alone…

A dream?

Ma quelli della Micro$oft…

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…sono sempre uguali?
È normale che il sito sia visitato dai robot dei vari motori di ricerca per aggiornare le pagine da loro archiviate e indicizzare quelle nuove. Questa attività è anche ben accolta perché consente di essere trovati sui vari indici e aumenta i possibili accessi.
Ma, nell’ultima settimana, il bot di Google è passato 9 volte (1.286 al giorno), quello di Yahoo 12 volte (1.714 al giorno) e quello di MSN Search 29 volte (4.143 volte al giorno). Ma questi hanno la para di non essere aggiornati?
Ok. Io sono contento che i bot passino. Meglio tanto che niente. Ma il blog non viene aggiornato 4 volte al giorno. Magari avessi tutto questo tempo.
Il dato di fatto è che Google riesce ad essere tuttora il miglior motore di ricerca passando mediamente una volta al giorno e poi evidentemente facendo un lavoro di qualità nell’indicizzazione, mentre M$, come sempre, cerca di stargli dietro con la forza della quantità.