The first big headline that came across my inbox this past month was that HMV has sold all of their 121 Canadian stores to a ‘restructuring specialist’ for a measly $3.2 million. Times surely are changing…$3.2 million used to be a drop in the bucket in the CD-focused music industry of the early 90s…now it can buy you an entire chain of music stores!

The second major headline was that Spotify has now launched in the U.S., to much fanfare. And for good reason…the service seems to point the way forward for streaming music. There are still growing pains associated with the service (it is currently difficult to sift through, is often missing songs from certain albums, and frequently contains multiple versions of the same song), and it is currently unavailable in Canada (however, simply Google ‘how to use Spotify in Canada’ and you will discover a workaround!). That being said, the service promises to be a game changer in terms of how music is enjoyed on a daily basis…without overloading one’s hard drive.

What is so great about it? Unlike Last.fm or Pandora which only allow you to stream genres of music, Spotify lets you pick and choose whatever song you want without having to pay a dime. The only catch with the free version is that is that it’s ad-supported and you have to put up with ads in the program browser. It also doesn’t allow streaming to portable devices.

The elephant in the room: will services such as Spotify sufficiently compensate the artists creating the music? At this early stage, the numbers seem to point to a strong ‘no’: a recent study found that artists received as little as 1/10th of a cent per stream. By comparison, artists and labels usually collect about 70 percent of the amount paid for a download from iTunes or a similar service – that’s 70 cents, assuming the track costs a dollar.

But looking big picture, and a few years down the road when everyone is enjoying music in the cloud, and enjoying a huge amount of said music…you can see a light at the end of the tunnel. I guess that is the key…realizing that the industry will never go back to the overinflated, overindulgent days of the CD…and that revenues will accumulate from millions and millions of minuscule transactions, rather than the old $18/CD transactions that used to be the backbone of HMV and other record stores.

So if streaming a large amount of music becomes a daily routine for the average music fan, the revenues may start to add up and end up in the pockets of artists. Will this bring back the sort of revenues that were flowing at the height of the CD era? Definitely not. But it is an encouraging move in the right direction…

- Kurt Dahl, July 27, 2011

“People hear live music with their eyes,” Tom Jackson. The first time I heard that, I didn’t get it at all. Then I realized that it is completely true.

We are in a new world where making it in the music business is not just about having a cool video and a radio hit. If artists are not able to perform live and tour, chances of success are very low. Sure, there is the odd YouTube sensation, but without a follow-up live show, initial interest will dwindle.

To sustain a career in music, artists need to develop an amazing and compelling live show. Working with Tom Jackson over the past few years has really opened my eyes as to the importance of spending a lot of time creating a live show that creates memorable moments and really connects with fans. Fans who get excited about a show and feel a connection to the artist will run, not walk, to the merch booth. And that, my friends, is where the money is being made. Tom Jackson has produced a series of DVDs which really drill down into live performance. These are a must have resource for emerging artists (onstagesuccess.com)

Kevin Pauls, another live performance producer, recently gave a talk to this year’s Peak Performance Project Top 20. (kevinpauls.com). One of the stories was of a band who spent a year writing songs, six months recording and then 2 days rehearsing for their big tour. What is wrong with this picture? Winging it or being spontaneous on stage is not only over-rated, it is also great way of getting nowhere in this business. I am not talking about changing who you are, I am talking about taking what you do and making it amazing in a live setting. This means not only looking at the way the band is set up and how it moves, but also on song arrangements. The bottom line is that songs are not set in stone, they are mutable and need to be re-arranged for live concerts. This means thinking about longer intros, extended solos, more dramatic break-downs, crowd participation and space to explore those key elements that already exist in the songs.

Mike Snider is co-head of Paradigm Talent Agency (Dave Matthews Band, Coldplay, Toby Keith, Aerosmith). He was asked questions about how they’ve handled changes and challenges in the industry. Mike says Paradigm now has to count on “how (artists) are doing on radio and on the road… There are so many people out on the road. Bands and artists – that’s the only way they can make money.” So if as a recording artist 90% of your income is from live performance and merch, then why is so little time spent on developing the live show?

I remember when I was touring in the early 90’s with Rymes with Orange, we would get back from the road after a few weeks and dozens of dates to finally declare that the live show was coming together. It took 20 shows of finding happy accidents and things that worked to put a great show together. So, we had 20 crappy shows to get to the first really good one? That is a bad model.

If I was starting out now, I would set up my band on a stage the size of the majority of the tour dates for rehearsal. Then, we would spend at least one day per song figuring out the best arrangements and the best way to have the band move and be set up. Then, once we had the entire set figured out, we would program the set to maximize the impact on the audience, taking into account the pressure on the audience.

I like to say that as a band you should always be playing for a bigger room than you are actually in or you are destined to stay in that size of room. You should be busting out of whatever room you are in. Looking for an agent or a manager? Blow them away live. I also notice that a lot of great bands are forced to make changes to their sets once a light man is introduced. Don’t wait for a light man to get an idea where you need to be in any given song. The spontaneity lives within the form (that I stole from Tom Jackson).

If you can play a show and change a person’s life, even a little bit, you will have a fan for life – and a career in the music business.

Bob D’Eith July 19, 2011

Just read an interesting article here on how music in the cloud is the future, and how this may result in increased compensation for artists. However, what is equally interesting is one of the responses posted below, from ‘Mr. Cranky’, who argues against most of the points raised in the article.

The response post suggests that charging a levy on all smartphones and PDAs sold would unjustly penalize users who don’t steal music, which is an argument that has been around since the levy debate began.

However, the response post also suggests that the lack of success of music subscription services is a result of ” the current lack of cultural importance of music than any particular failing of the services”. This is where I disagree. The use and enjoyment of music in our society seems to be at an all time high, as music is permeating more aspects of our lives than ever before. I recall reading an article last year that music is used more per day by more people than ever before. It is simply that no one is paying for it. The million dollar question that plagues the industry is ‘how do you compete with free?’, and up until now, no valid answer has been provided.

So, we know two things: i) use of music is at an all-time high, and ii) the ability to store and access music is becoming infinite. Now, I would be fool to proclaim the answer to the million dollar question, but one thing is sure: it lies in connecting the above two trends…and making the nearly infinite storage and use of music seem like it is free. Will this restore artist compensation to the (over-inflated) levels reached at the peak of CD sales? Clearly not. But it would be a start.

Kurt