Tag Archives: distribution

You’re So ‘Yester-moment’

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It’s no longer the flavor or the month or what used to be called 24/7 or wall-to-wall coverage. The new media cycle, at least for this nanosecond, is called “perpetual movement.”

In other words, spin or die. That’s the latest from Internet guru Michael Moritz, a Sequoia investor who backed Google, Yahoo and the Sugar Inc. blog-networks.

Quoted in a recent New York Times article, Moritz says:

Perpetual movement is the essence of survival and prosperity online. If online media and entertainment companies don’t improve every day, they will just wind up as the newfangled version of Reader’s Digest — bankrupt.

A second ago, it seems, we were talking about reinventing ourselves. But that’s so yesterday, or should I say so yestermoment.

What the Suger blog people have learned of late is that content on their successful networks must change constantly.

What this overall trend spells for us music artists is even scarier than the current biz model. Maybe the Web 2.0 atomizing machine will move us even further from the album, all the way to the ring tone (do not pass digital single).

Of course, I’m kidding, but only partly. After all, it is somewhat scary. The same warp-machine that devoured major labels, newspapers and publishing may chew us into yet smaller morsels.

For myself, I’m headed into my studio to record a new three-note masterpiece. Must adapt or die.
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Viral, Schmiral (‘Greatness’ Pt. 2)

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Baimurat Allaberiyev – a YouTube sensation – has a major record deal but still has few teeth, literally. And those teeth are planted on the cutting edge of the latest boom-and-bust trend in the music industry: viral-video microfame.

So, let’s get real about the sobering statistics of enduring Web 2.0 success among music artists. To that end, I will explore the verities of the viral-video trend.

But first, this exploration is not meant as a discouragement. It’s simply a reality check. Like a sound check, it gets us in tune, so we can perform at our best. And, as with the old industry, the new music model presents real, if limited, opportunities for enduring success. So, as in the past, the motivation for the serious artist is the very challenge of the overwhelming game itself.

Now, back to Allaberiyev, a former sheepherder from Russia who sang renditions of Bollywood songs all the day long, not unlike early American blues singers who chanted field hollers while picking cotton in the South. Some traditions never die.

Writing in Friday’s New York Times, Ellen Barry, tells how one of Allaberiyev’s signature performances was captured on videophone, eventually making it to YouTube and viral nirvana. But, while this music 2.0 fame led to a record deal with Peter Gabriel’s Real World Records in London, his manager Ilya Bortnyuk offers the sober summation:

“If there will be disappointment, it’s no big deal. It’s show business. There is glamour; there is disappointment. No big deal. I’m used to it after 20 years.”

Barry goes on to cite examples of viral video flameouts like Tay Zonday and Chris Crocker. She quotes Bill Wasik, author of a new book on viral video and Internet celebrity:

“Virtually all of them have found it hard to parlay the experience into a lasting career… Even a short ride is a kind of gift.”

Allaberiyev’s challenge: his charisma must translate into U.S. sales, since world music doesn’t sell in Russia, the environs of his initial following. Because Bollywood show tunes won’t do the trick, his handlers plan on transitioning his repertoire to Afghan and Central Asian folk songs. So, does the man on what feels like the top now find himself with another uphill climb? Certainly. Does he feel like Sisyphus? Yes. Haven’t we all? Yet, that should serve to raise the fighter mojo in him even more. Let’s face it; only heavyweights will win at this game. It’s the same in the new model as it was in the old. Some traditions never die.

And to rally Allaberiyev (also known as Tajik Jimmy), one of his supporters, Yelena Mirzoyeva, has this encouragement:

“A person that feels he is a star; that person will really go somewhere.”

Wasik himself recently penned a New York Times Op-Ed piece making a case for the Internet as the new New York for aspiring artists. He compares making it in Gotham with getting “the big break” on the Internet. The article weighs in with sobering data, which in the end, appear no better than the old music-biz model.

A senior editor at Harper’s and author of “And Then There’s This: How Stories Live and Die in Viral Culture,” Wasik discusses the recently depressed prospects for artists seeking fortune in the Big Apple, and turns his gaze to the Internet, saying:

“Meanwhile, another destination beckons, a place that courses with all the raw ambition and creative energy that the hard times seem to have drained from New York. I am referring, of course, to the Internet, which over the past decade has slowly become the de facto heart of American culture: the public space in which our most influential conversations transpire, in which our new celebrities are discovered and touted, in which fans are won and careers made.”

He cites such Web successes as the The Gregory Brothers, whose humorous YouTube series “Auto-Tune the News” has drawn hundreds of thousands of fans.

But, in the end, Wasik also concludes:

“Microcelebrity is now the rule, with respect not only to the size of one’s fan base but also to the duration of its love. Believe it or not, the Internet is a tougher town than New York; fewer people make it here (New York), but no one there (the Internet) seems to make it for long.”

As I follow the limited cases of significant Internet success, Bon Iver comes to the fore. Yet, keep in mind that his notoriety was spawned from a combination of both viral and print-media attention, including the Wall Street Journal, with one rolling into the other. Some traditions – in this case, PR-wise – never die.

So what statistical sobriety supplies us artists is the tired-but-true principle: the path to success is fraught with frustration and limitation. Same in the new model as it was in the old. So, buckle up, batton down and stay the course. The meek may inherit the earth, but they won’t star in the movie version.
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Musician: Why Your ‘Greatness’ is Missed

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As music artists seek notice from fans and the industry, it’s vital to observe a key factor concerning peoples’ ability to recognize talent, even greatness.

You may have already read about the social experiment the Washington Post conducted two years ago with world-renowned violinist Joshua Bell. It was actually Bell’s idea to perform undercover as a street musician for a day at a Washington Metro station. What many don’t know is that the Gene Weingarten story earned a Pulitzer Prize that year for feature writing. What many do recall is the fact that a venerated violinist went virtually unnoticed, unappreciated and unrecognized.

What the public took away from the story — rightly so — is the fact that people pass up life’s jewels, even when they’re right before their, well, ears. But this tale holds a much greater meaning for artists of all stripes.

Center stage for artists sits the concept of context. What does that mean? For decades, I’ve observed that people, music industry pros included, often don’t recognize greatness in its raw form. When it comes to music, listeners need to have a song or an album framed for them in a validated form.

There are many examples, but here’s a case in point from my own experience as a songwriter and recording artist. In the late 1980’s, I began a ten-year stint as a Nashville songwriter. The first two years were rough, but when I got the hang of it my material and demos became street-ready, as they say. A number of those demos were sung by Trisha Yearwood. Then, she was known as Trisha Latham (her name from her first marriage), and was unsigned and unknown. The first demo I heard her sing on left me slack-jawed, and not just because of the material, which did eventually get signed to what was then PolyGram. By the time she hit the first chorus, I knew I was hearing a major star in the making.

But here’s the point. As I played those demos for music publishers and A&R execs, it amazed me that not a one commented on the singer. So I started what was to become an experiment of my own. I’d ask, “so what do you think of the singer?” They’d invariably say, “who is she?,” to which I’d reply, “Trisha Latham.” Then, they’d say something like “never heard of her,” and that was the end of it.

The reason they never heard of Trisha is because she was being developed privately through Garth Brooks’ camp. A&R in any music town expect to see upcoming talent in the clubs, so the assumption (as it was with Trisha) is: “if I don’t know her, she can’t be any good.” Again, it’s all about context.

Several months later, Trisha’s first single – “She’s in Love with the Boy” — came out, making Music City history for duration at number one for a female artist. By then, she had returned to her maiden name, Yearwood. I made the rounds of many of the same offices again, playing those Trisha-sung demos. This time, by the third note, I’d hear, “That’s Trisha Yearwood!,” to which I’d reply, “yeah, so where were you last year?”

Of course, we’ve all heard the stories of how most famous artists have their walls lined with record-label rejection letters, and, if you’ve paid some dues in the biz, you likely have a collection of your own.

So what’s the point of all of this? People – pedestrians and pros alike – miss greatness all the time. Even in the biz, there aren’t that many John Hammonds, Ahmet Erteguns and Russell Simmonses. If it were that easy to spot top talent, A&R would be a cinch.

So how is this study of use to the music artist? Simply as a point of reference, to understand why some audiences, some pros have been missing your best stuff. Maybe you’ll never write or produce a truly great song. But, if you work hard for a long, long time, chances are very good that you will come up with one, maybe more. For that reason, it’s vital to be armed with such perspective.
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