Music Old Skool takes on the future

I took part in a really interesting Round Table about the future of the music industry yesterday, hosted by Sellaband and run by Tony Platt, the famed producer who’s worked with people like Bob Marley and AC/DC. It also featured names like David Arden who whilst being Sharon Osbourne’s brother is also a Music Manager working with the likes of James Brown and the stupidly good looking Mark Maclaine from Sellaband success story Second Person.

Without being too rude about age, that was a few centuries worth of music experience - and whilst the guys occasionally lapsed into how good it was in 'the old days' they really do know the business and the talent side inside out and can see how to chart the way forward in this new paradigm. I do feel sorry for the legacy businesses - but equally they need to embrace the new world order, rather than trying to stop it.

Now I’ve discussed Sellaband before, and I’ve now had the honour of meeting both of the founders, Johan and Pim. To summarise it’s a way of bands and artists with demo’s to get a following and more importantly gain investment from members to record a professional album and hopefully ‘break out’. I guess it’s a cross between a social networking site and a boutique record label. I like the concept; whilst I don’t see the site being the new Facebook (and I doubt they do to) and I do see it being like the Hacienda, The Cavern Club or Rough Trade – a source of great music, and new talent incubator.

I guess what I really like about is that it completely understands as is riding the dynamic wave of change sweeping pretty rapidly through the music industry as it changes from an industry where choice was controlled by A&R and money was made by selling records, to being increasingly a music entertainment business where the ‘business’ is being more of a ‘thin client’ middle man between artist and consumer helping with professionalising, marketing and mentoring talent.

Big commercial artists and slick marketing won’t go away, but the mix will change and the business dynamics delivering those will change too.

For artists, the great thing about the web is it allows them to learn and develop away from overt commercial pressures that insist on quick fire hits. It allows niche artists to find audiences that like you across the globe, and also enough interest from around the world to give you an income that allows you to devote yourself to your music.

Now those who get involved with Sellaband get very, very evangelical about it –but do you know what, I think they have the right to. Nice concept, and the fact that they’ve already had a number of ‘break outs’ in mainland Europe is a very positive sign. I’m guessing the Round Table is part of their push into the UK market, and I wish them good luck.

Oh, and do check out the 'post-trip-hop' Second Person

Music 2.0

End of the Summer break :(

Today’s post is inspired by a conference I went to last night marking the London return of the seminal internet networking event, First Tuesday.

The keynote came from my ex bosses boss, Patrick Vien who is now the CEO of Warner Music International. I found the breakdown of Warner’s future plans both clever and disappointing: He spoke wisely about experimentation and education as they look at new business models, new revenue streams, taking more control of artists ‘multi-platform’ strategies (including live performance) and re-analysing revenue streams including advertiser funded music. Warner will survive and remain a big player in the future, and might even get there with less pain that the other music majors.

But equally at the end of the speech I felt disappointed; partly because the topic of the moment, DRM wasn’t touched upon. More significant was that whole thought process behind these clever actions was that of a controlling, top down organisation working out how to leverage value from content they have ‘created’ and decided to market. In fact majors now maximise their efforts on a very few international artists – so weirdly the internet has created less choice, from the majors at least. Like I said, Warner and the others will be around, making nice profits, but I still see pain for them as they contract and change– and it does also seem like they are cutting out the ‘nursery slopes’ where the new 50 Cents get exposure and learn their craft.

Who I found much more exciting, were the new ‘bottom up’ players that were about enabling and helping consumers discover music they like, as opposed to convincing them to purchase through marketing and advertising. These are disruptive industries that are changing the face of the industry, the ones taking a positive lead and forcing the majors to change their models.

There were 2 very interesting players there, and 2 complete stand outs.

Interesting:

Jamendo is somewhere between Bit Torrent and iTunes that essentially gives you free music, with ad revenue split 50/50 between the company and the artists. You an also chose to ‘donate’ to artists you like. It doesn’t seem to come with many strings and I can see it filling a successful niche helping new acts gain exposure. It’s got a mainland European tinge to the music, and if you’re not a nationalist snob you can find some interesting artists on it.

Another great niche player helping new artists is Sellaband which in a non-sexy description allows you to become a ‘business angel’ investing in bands you like for $10 a pop and sharing in the bands profits, as well as discovering great music. Again, I don’t see it replacing EMI, but it IS a stepping stone to the big time. It’s fun to use and helps new talent shine without the Pop Idol schmaltz. I think I’ll enjoy this site.

Stand Outs:

There were 2 sites that I thought, yeap, I can see them being big mainstream players.

One is already established in the US, but blocked in the rest of the world, except apparently the UK where it hopes to officially launch soon. I think you may need to make up a US zip code though (I used to love watching Beverly Hills 90210). Pandora is personalised radio – you tell it what you like and based on algorithms its helps you discover and listen to new music and favourites. You pay extra if you want the to minimise ads and get some extra functionality, and at $3 a month, it seems quite an affordable price-point. Its good fun and me and my partner are hooked already.

What kind of impresses me is that instead of this being a purely software led operation, they actually have a team of 50 musicians analysing the musical qualities of tracks which then gets fed into the system. It has a nice interface and I like the way they’ve integrated the advertising into the site. Pandora already has half a million tracks already covered, classical coming next – I found to hard to find an artist they didn’t have – and a ‘wiki pandora’ is on its way too on top of their facebook widget. If they can sort out the very complex issue of international rights issues, they’ll go far.

The last site on today’s post is we7 from music via web pioneer, and music legend Peter Gabriel - he previously pioneered legal music downloading in Europe. Whilst we7 will let you buy music, its main selling point is free legal music, DRM free. The music from major artists and new acts gets paid for by a 10 second advert. The advert expires after 4 weeks, and then you have ad free, free music. It’s a great way of experiencing new tracks and I really see this has a place within the wider marketplace. The CEO Steve Purdham seems to really ‘get’ where the industry is going and I see them reacting well to the changes within the marketplace.

Take a look, discover and please post your thoughts by hitting the comments button.