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Stay in School?

Watch this...

"Put your books first and singing second."

Is this good advice or is she stepping on the dreams of millions of upcoming musicians?

Discuss below...

How to Impress a TV Host

Did a conference call with Bob Baker tonight and Michael Brandvold told a great story about an experience Dick Clark had with Greg Kihn.

Looked it up and found this video...

If you're looking for an effective, simple, and inexpensive way to get attention for your music, this is a good one!

Your Mother's Music Business

Over the years, I've worked with and for a lot of musicians, from guys selling millions of records, to upcoming indie acts who haven't really done anything yet. Something that I've found interesting that differentiates the two is how they feel about the music business.

For the most part, the people who have been around for a while (and been sucessful) have a completely different view of the music business than most small acts. Again, for the most part, the successful people look at the business as fun and approach it with a level of ease. A lot of the smaller level acts seem intimidated by things, even if they haven't really jumped in and been part of them yet.

Sure, you could argue that things are great when you're on top and have "other people" to handle your business and day-to-day work for you. And you could argue that things come easier to people once they've had a certain level of success. But do you really know these things to be true or are they just assumptions you're making?

If you dig in and listen to a few episodes of Music Business Radio, where I've talked in depth with dozens of people about their careers, you'll find that a music business career isn't always smooth. Everybody has highs and lows, but I'm pretty sure the "lows" of a music business career aren't nearly as bad as what I hear most indie artists talking about.

I'm not saying that a career in the music business is easy, but there is definitely some ease to it and if you jump in with the passion that you say you have, you'll be fine. The music business always makes room for good people and both music fans as well as people in the business want you to succeed, because it's good for everybody involved.

If you feel the business is tough, ask yourself, "Why do I feel this way?" Is it from actually experiencing something or something else, like your mother telling you that you should have "something to fall back on"? 

Feel free to post comments below...

Why I Respect Rebecca Black

Rebecca Black has certainly stirred up a lot of people. Look at these comments...

"why would i want to buy your shitty album anyways, what a waste of cash! no thanks i dont wanna get ripped off by a hypocritical slut like you!"

"keep on dreaming you slut, you'll never be famous, you only enjoy sucking my dick"

"you god damn trash bag titty whore! go die!"

"Everybody report her for profile image violation and flag her videos and wat not if yal really want to get back at her"

We review music from new artists every week on Music Business Radio. You wouldn't believe the amount of emails and calls we get from musicians who disagree with our comments.

And I get it... It's tough put yourself out there and be critiqued.

That's why I respect Rebecca Black. She's taken a lot of punches for her "debut" song, Friday, which many fans as well as critics have called "the worst song ever."

Many people would have given up. I think most people would have.

But instead of going back to doing whatever it was that she was doing before any of this happened, Rebecca Black is back with a new song...

Regardless of what you think of her music, I think there is an important lesson for both musicians and non-musicians-- get back on the horse.

Is this a pop masterpiece? I don't know. It's not bad though and it absolutely shows improvement over what she released just a few months ago. Is she can keep that up, she'll get where she wants to go.

And so will you...

Pete Townshend on Selling Out

When asked about the accusation that he’s sold out by allowing the Who’s music to be used in TV commercials, Pete Townshend said...

"Defend myself against whom? The rock ’n’ roll thought police? I sell out every time I drag my weary old ass out on the road to play classic rock to beer-drinking saps who should know better. This may be art, but I own the copyright. I come from a musical family. I know music is special. But I also know it is how my family lives. I am quite unsentimental about it, unlike some of our fans."

What are your thoughts about using your music for television commercials?  Post them below...

The Problem with Drag Queens (and the Music Business)

I have access to more music than ever before.  I subscribe to five satellite radios, I have a Pandora subscription, and I have probably 3000 CDs.  I have two big ass hard drives full of music, two iPods, an iPad, and a phone that plays music.

And I get music in the mail daily...from promo lists I'm on and from musicians contacting me directly.

So why am I so bored with music? 

You'd think with the ease that people are able to record a great album, there would be some really great stuff out there.  You'd think that the tight playlists on radio stations would mean that only the best stuff actually makes it on the air.

Was thinking about this over the weekend, with "Black Friday" sales on Amazon discounting recent albums to as little as $1.99 and iTunes having a huge blowout for $6.99. 

I grew up around the music business.  I play guitar.  I have a degree in music.  I love music.

How come I'm not buying any, even when it's $1.99 for an entire album and I can get it instantly, without getting up from my chair?

I think I've figured it out...

As a marketing guy, I'm fascinated by what makes people tick.  Because of this, I love documentary films. And there is a great film called Paris is Burning, which follows a group of urban drag queens in the 1980s, that I think does a good job of explaining this major "problem" of the music business today.

During the film, one of the older drag queens is being interviewed about the performance attire he and the others wear while on stage.  This, for the most part, consisted of high-fashion items that were very pricey and a stretch from what the majority of people in Harlem, where the film was shot, could afford.

Many of the drag queens would "borrow" (a.k.a. shoplift) their outfits.  This guy didn't.

Why?

"You can tell the people who steal things," he said.

In short, the people who got their outfits through theft didn't want them as much as the people that had to work for them.  And that "will to succeed" was missing from their performances.

Could it be that the music industry is suffering from the same issue?

Think about it... It used to be that you'd have to really work to get good equipment.  But quality equipment keeps getting cheaper and cheaper.  And it's easier than ever to find exactly what you want and have it shipped to you.

And recording is even easier than ever...

And making videos is even easier than ever...

And communicating with fans is even easier than ever...

And distributing music is even easier than ever...

And taking money from fans is even easier than ever...

In fact, almost everything in the music business is easier than ever.

The only thing more difficult is cutting through all the noise, because everything has become so easy that the music business has been flooded by people who would have been wiped away 10 or 15 years ago, because they don't have the passion that it takes to look up venues, get the booker on the phone, book a show, promote a show, get a van and drive to the show, perform live, and do whatever it takes to repeat the process again and again, until somebody "inside the gate" notices.

So is the music business really better off because of new technology?  You tell me...

Jay-Z, Warren Buffett, and Rappers with Money

Both Jay-Z and Warren Buffett are on the cover of Forbes this month.  If you're interested in either, here is a video of them talking about success and giving back.

On a related note, here is Forbes' 2010 Richest Rappers List...

  1. Shawn "Jay-Z" Carter - $63 million
  2. Sean "Diddy" Combs - $30 million
  3. Aliuane "Akon" Thiam - $21 million
  4. Dwayne "Lil Wayne" Carter - $20 million
  5. Andre "Dr. Dre" Young - $17 million
  6. Christopher "Ludacris" Bridges - $16 million
  7. Calvin "Snoop Dogg" Broadus - $15 million
  8. Timothy "Timbaland" Mosley - $14 million
  9. Pharrell Williams - $13 million
 10. Kanye West - $12 million

Big Ideas from Derek Sivers

Great interview with one of the smartest guys in the music business...

My Company is 15 Years Old

My company turned 15 years old this month.  A few years ago, I posted a quick and dirty history, for those that are interested in the timeline of things. 

According to a study by the U.S. Small Business Association, only 2/3 of all small business startups survive the first two years and less than half make it to four years. So what's the secret for making it beyond this time?

I started my company when I was in college at the University of Memphis, studying commercial music.  The degree was a BM, because I was serious about playing guitar at the time.  But it was commercial music, so there was a lot of business stuff in the curriculum as well as the standard music stuff.

Had a teacher tell me, "The way to make money in music is via publishing."  So I started a publishing company almost immediately, since I was writing songs for my band and knew a bunch of other people writing songs as well.

The problem was the you only make money in publishing when something is happening with the songs that you publish...  And nothing was happening to the songs I owned copyright on.

I had a background in direct marketing via mail, having gotten involved in that while still in high school.  Started putting out compilation CDs of my stuff, in hope that something would take off, and sending them to radio, press, and other media.  As a college student, I didn't have a ton of money to spend, so I sold the extra space to indie bands wanting the same for their music.

Long story short...   I had some music business knowledge, but as some people would say, "just enough to mess things up."  Had some direct mail knowledge, but certainly wasn't an expert.  More or less, I was making everything up as I went along.  If it worked, I did it again.  If it didn't work, I analyzed it, tried to figure out why, and changed things up.

You rarely hear about how successful people screw up.  I think this is because successful people, at least the ones whom I've met, don't view mistakes as a bad thing and certainly don't dwell on them.

Or maybe people make so many mistakes they can't count them all...  I certainly have.  One, as illustrated above, was making a tray card look like a phone sex ad.  It seemed like a good idea at the time, but it pissed a lot of people off, too.  And while you can't please everybody, and not everybody will react well to everything, there are some things you can do to better your odds of success and making a tray card look like a phone sex ad isn't one of them...unless you're in a sexually-charged genre of music, which this CD wasn't.

Almost all the artwork on the first group of CDs I released was stolen, by the way.  That was another mistake.  "Borrowing" things like images and code was pretty standard on the early Internet, so I carried that over to the offline world.  Ironic for a publishing company trying to make money off of copyrights, I know...

I made a ton of mistakes.  That didn't stop me from moving forward though.  And knowing that I was making mistakes didn't stop me from making more mistakes.  My first book got horrible reviews for sloppy editing, for example.  Had I worried about that kind of thing though, I never would have released it in the first place.

If you do enough things, you're going to make mistakes.

If you're not making mistakes, you're not doing enough things.

As I said earlier, when something doesn't work, fix it and try again. 

Book editing sucks?  Call in an editor and re-release it.  Not a big deal.

Printed a CD with a messed up track listing?  That happened to me also.  The solution?  Get stickers with the correct listing, slap them on the CD case, and keep going...

More thoughts on the subject from Derek Sivers...

Bottom line, don't wait for anything to be perfect, but nothing is ever perfect!

Have a stories about moving beyond your mistakes?  Post them below!

"Terrible Advice" for Musicians with Kids - Can You Help?

Three days ago, I posted 5 Reasons You Shouldn’t Have A Cushion Before You Quit Your Job and got the following comment from Bubbles in Portland, OR...

"Terrible advice. I've tried it. You want to tell my 2 daughter who's hungry that dad decided to pursue his dream and now is scraping to buy yogurt and pay the mortgage?.

Or I should just go out and get a job. Wait, ummm, no. The recession has left NO JOBS. So now I can't get hired, broke, and no better in making a career at music.

Further more go ahead an quit your job if you are planning on making crap music that copies top 40 songs. 'Cause that's how you make it. If you actually make real music you get ignored by everyone. But you'll have plenty of time to think about that when you realize there are no jobs out there for left for you."

Obviously, any decision we make gets us either closer or further from what we want in life.  Is the decision to have kids something that will take you so far away from your goal of doing music fulltime that you'll never be able to break away from a dayjob?

And if you do take a chance and leave, is that the end?  Are there no jobs left?

Is "real music" ignored by everyone?

Is "Top 40" the only way to make a living as a musician?

Please post comments (and suggestions for Bubbles) below...