New Major Artist Management Deal

I read an article on Rolling Stone Magazine’s website about the new artistic venture between Universal Music Group and Live Nation Entertainment.  This new venture will house Universal’s four management firms under a new company called Front Line Management Group through Live Nation Entertainment.  

This deal sounds like a major thing for both of these companies, because the industry in itself is desperately trying to stay afloat in such changing times.  The same way that the major record labels all joined under the same umbrella, it seems like the major live entertainment giant and Universal Music is trying to stay alive in the same vein.

According to the author Matthew Perpetua, this join venture is likely to give clients an incredible degree of leverage in the market between Live Nation and Universal (Perpetua, 2011).  The goal of this venture is to provide more options to the music buying consumer, which is the person who’s the most important factor in this type of deal.  Live Nation will have control of this company, as well as being co-owner of Front Line Management Group.

Also according to a statement by Lucian Grainge, who is the CEO of Universal Music, "We are creating a series of new platforms and global direct-to-consumer initiatives that will further expand the presence of our artists in the evolving marketplace while providing music fans with even more flexibility in how they consume music" (Perpetua, 2011).  This deal will hopefully put things back on track with the artist and the consumer, otherwise the industry will just continue to spiral downward.

The figures for this deal would probably be one for the ages, but I’m sure that both companies will become the industry leaders in a new management journey.  I just hope that the artist and music buyer doesn’t ultimately suffer from this merger, since both companies were already powerhouses separately before this new deal was presented.

 Source: http://www.rollingstone.com/music/news/universal-forms-artist-management-company-with-live-nation-20110920

Time 2 Move On

My mind races in ridiculous speeds and I have a hard time slowing my thoughts down.  After actively pursuing my dream of being in the entertainment business, I feel that I have hit a crossroad in my life where I’m questioning my purpose.  I have been a dj professionally for 20 years, and in that time there had been many ups and down for me.  I’m at the point in my life now that I feel that this dream has run its course, and as painful as this is to say I think it’s time to move on from music.

All of my life there hasn’t been anything more important to me than entertainment.  When I first started out, I entertained strictly for the love of the artform itself and never was motivated just for money.  The passion that I once had came from within and that really felt good, but the good feelings are no longer alive anymore.  This has been the scariest thing that I have ever faced in my life, and I don’t honestly know what to do anymore.  

I thought even by going back to school to pursue a bachelor’s degree and master’s degree in Music / Entertainment would have sufficed.  Unfortunately, getting the bachelor’s degree just turned out to be a personal accomplishment, but no progression had come from obtaining it career wise.  I still may be involved in the entertainment industry at some capacity, but honestly I really don’t see many options coming my way at this point.  Just about everything that a person could do to advance themselves I had tried over and over again.

Once I receive my master’s degree I might just chalk that up as another personal goal, but probably won’t do anything with it either.  I think that the time for retirement from this music entertainment maze has come full circle, and I appreciate all of the time I’ve given to djing.  Maybe I didn’t push myself hard enough to go further with my gift, but it was definitely fun while it lasted. 

Musical Life Support

I recently had watched a disturbing video on Fox News's website about the current state of the entertainment industry.  The video mentioned about how some financial institutions are  looking to purchase some music publishing companies as an investment.  This video set off an alarm within me, because I felt like there is no way that banks should ever be tampering with artistic creativity.  These banks are not concerned about the artist's music at all, and it's only being looked at as a way to make even more money than they already are making.

An artist should never give up their publishing rights to anyone, especially a bank that more than likely does not care anything about you or your work.  I watched this video as a part of a class assignment and some other students thought the bank's involvement would be a good thing.  I do not see how anybody would think this is good for the music industry at all; because the artist would lose everything he or she has built.  If this is the future of the recording industry, then those of us that have given our lives to it are in serious trouble.

The only time it would make sense to sell your publishing rights, would be if the artist is deceased and that artist's family could survive off the value of that music.  Otherwise, it should not ever be messed with, and I feel sorry for the artists that are living that have had to sell themselves.  At the end of the day, the music is all that the artist has.  It is about the music and not throwing a dream around like a worn out shirt.  This is what these banks and other greedy vultures in the industry are doing and I am not impressed at all about it.

According to The Music Business Handbook And Career Guide, a publisher's main source of income comes from record royalties and performance royalties from publishing rights organizations such as BMI and ASCAP.  Performance royalties are generated from performing on television, radio and other media outlets  (Baskerville, 2001).  If an artist owns their publishing rights, then they will generate the majority of the money that's owed to them anyway.  This is exactly why an artist should not sell their rights, because it's their music and they should get the money that they deserve to have.  The banks won't provide this money to the artist, and there have been hundreds of doo-wop groups from the 1950s and 1960s that still haven't been properly paid to this day.

Another example of why artists should never give up their rights happened to Elvis Presley among others.  According to a book called They Fought The Law, which was written by one of my professors at CU-Denver named Stan Soocher, he wrote about an incident with Elvis and his manager about this very important issue.  Elvis's manager Colonel Parker sold Elvis's royalty rights to RCA Records for $5.4 million.  Colonel Parker received the majority of the money and Elvis received hardly anything  (Soocher, 1999).  Elvis had trusted his manager so much at the time, that as long as he was performing and making movies he wasn't really worried.  His manager really ripped him off like most managers ended up doing the same thing to their artists.  Alot of artists to this day still aren't business minded, and countless stories about this type of situation is still happening.

The majority of the money that Elvis made from his movies and music went to his manager.  His manager really had no concern for his client's well being and just wanted to get over.  This to me is the same situation that the banks will do with the publishing rights of some of these same artists.  Artists should know everything that goes on in their careers, but most don't care about the legal part of the business.  Elvis barely had sought out legal representation during his career and it most definitely had shown in later years.  He trusted the wrong people with his career, and in the long run he wasn't as powerful as people had thought.  I sincerely hope that more artists in the future will become more business minded, and to stop outsiders from recouping the money that the artist should have instead.

Sources Citied:

Phd, Baskerville. D (2001).  Music Business Handbook And Career Guide.  7th Edition.  Sage Publications, Inc: Thousand Oaks, California

Soocher, S.  (1999).  They Fought The Law.  Schirmer Books:  New York, NY

RIAA Loves iCloud

The online music service craze has recently hit its peak with a major deal signed between the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), and the remaining four major record labels.  iCloud, which is Apple, Inc's newest online music storage service on the market, will launch its service this fall.  The music industry has been trying to figure out for a long time how to remain relevant in the digital age, and very well may have found their answer with iCloud.  The RIAA is a trade organization that supports and promote intellectual property of major record companies.

The RIAA believes that this deal will allow music fans to enjoy buying music legally, and will also make sure that the RIAA keeps the reigns tight on artistic creation.  The "big four"  labels will get 70% of iCloud revenues, which may help the industry get out of the sales slump that they've been drowned in.  This move influences my industry, because of how music content will be distributed online to battle the illegal download problem that's plagued entertainment for years.  The basic point of this deal was to make sure that intellectual property is being respected, which had taken a serious hit through file-sharing services like Limewire and Bearshare.

This very well may be the new method of how online music will be distributed, and will allow music to be shared on multiple devices for each consumer.  This will be an interesting thing to see how the industry itself will survive with this new "big brother" deal.  I'm not sure how I feel about the RIAA's plans with this, but I do know that at the end of the day it's a business.  I understand the industry's trying to make money back from previous losses, but I'm skeptical about how much the RIAA really cares about the fan or the artists involved.  As long as control is the name of the game, it's pretty obvious that money is the only truly important factor in this new deal.  iCloud really sounds like a cool service from what it can do, but illegal music sharing will always exist.

Unfortunately, there’s nothing that the RIAA can do to silence file sharing totally, because if they could then it would have happened many years ago.  The fans will always share music with each other and the industry has always known this fact.  Disc Jockeys at one time were the darlings of the music industry, because it was through us that music was really being heard anyway. With the digital age in full bloom, nearly anybody can be a dj these days.  The technology has been a blessing and a curse for my portion of the industry, but talent will always prevail over button pushing every time. The real djs will always stand out from the folks who just push buttons on laptops.

Love What You Do

I watched a video on Apple computer's CEO Steve Jobs on the meaning of life.  I found the speech very inspiring, because instead of a typical speech to some college graduates of Stanford University, he told 3 stories about his life.  The first story spoke about how Apple came into existence, which was totally an accident.  He was in college taking required classes that weren't of any interest to him, so he ended up dropping out of school from frustration.  Once he dropped out, he went back to the same school to take a Calligraphy class and became inspired behind the beautiful look of the words.

This one class inspired him to design the first personal computer simply because of his love of fonts.  That's something I really didn't know about Steve Jobs, and it is amazing that this one class basically revolutionized the computer itself.  The main part of the speech that was the most inspiring to me, was about how he was fired from Apple, Inc.  This was the company he started, but once it became really big, a new person came in as Apple's main CEO.  The new guy and Steve didn't see eye to eye on where the company was going, so Steve unfortunately was let go.

Most people would have given up after creating a successful company like Apple, but Steve went on and created Pixar, which has now become the most successful live animation company in the world.  Pixar's success behind the Toy Story franchise had brought Steve back to his old company, and he has been the face of Apple ever since.  Apple began with two people and is now worth over $2 billion dollars, which to me is simply amazing to say the least.  He kept mentioning in the speech about loving what you do, and he had never lost sight of that goal.

He sincerely believed that if he hadn't been fired from Apple, Pixar and other companies would have never seen the light of day.  He truly won, because he could have just stayed with Pixar, but to have your new company and the old one linked together is the ultimate success story.  Even with all of this success with both companies, he also had a serious medical scare with cancer, but that scare never derailed his love from what he has done with his life.  This man is a true inspiration, because he did not become so depressed to give up altogether, but instead just used those setbacks as fuel to keep pushing forward.

I feel that I could learn alot of somebody like Steve Jobs, and just continue to push myself until I succeed like he did.  It didn't matter how long it was going to take for Apple to blow up, but he stuck with it throughout his personal issues regardless.  His belief is simple;  Live each day as if it is your last, because one day it surely will be your last.  You should love what you do no matter who doesn't love it the same.  I love knowing that there are other people in the world who want to entertain, and really can't see themselves doing anything else but that.  Steve Jobs knew from the beginning that this was what he was put on Earth to do, and he continued to do it even through his illness with cancer.

After watching this video, it really made me realize that nothing matters more than to have a love for what you do, and to achieve it at all costs is paramount to it coming true.  He advised the students to keep pushing for their dreams no matter what, and that one day those dreams will come true.  I just hope for my own success story, it will be just as inspirational as the Apple story was for me.  I truly believe that nobody should ever do anything that they don't have a passion for.  It just doesn't make sense, and it's really a robbery of the heart and soul to do anything else.

I'm all for inspiration and I need as much as possible right now.  My life is in serious transition, and I also have a major life decision to make in regards to moving to Las Vegas.  Most people just go there for the adult entertainment part of the city, but for me it's so much bigger than that.  There seems to be alot of opportunities in Las Vegas for djs in all different types of genres, and there's already been an event promotions company that's willing to work with me.  I could not only do what I love, but to also get paid for doing what I love.  There's nothing better than that to me, and I will do whatever I have to do in order to make my dreams come true.

Reigniting My Passion

 Picture Source (http://inspirationbeach.com/j0433055.jpg )

I read an article online about 5 tips to help reignite your passion, and I felt that there was some very valid points in it.  The article was written by Leslie Spencer Pyle from the Entrepreneur website http://www.entrepreneur.com/homebasedbiz/homebasedbizcolumnistlesleyspencerpyle/article204336.html , which spoke about how it's normal for people to feel "burned out" and wanting a change from the norm.  This is what I'm currently going through with music, because of how I've grown so tired of the same old routine being a native of a non-musical city (Denver,CO).

One tip mentioned in the article was about becoming an industry insider, which is kind of what I am trying to become while pursuing my masters degree through Full Sail University.  There is a music conference called the Independent Music Summit coming up in Cathedral City,CA http://www.goims.org/about.html in September of this year, and I really hope I'll be able to attend it and network with the right people finally.  I've really grown tired of the fact that, there are not any conferences of this type that come to Colorado ever, and it's become a real pain to deal with at this point.

I truly realize now that a relocation move is obvious, so that I would be able to attend these kinds of events on a regular basis.  I need to be in a musical city more now than ever, and it looks like it will either be Los Angeles or Las Vegas this summer.  I'm sure there have been many people like myself who have taken the risk and moved elsewhere to pursue their dreams.  In the meantime, I am trying to network more than ever through the various social media outlets that I follow.  Reigniting my passion for music has never been more important to me, because it's truly all I know and all I want to pursue in my life.

I also realize how much of a gamble it is to leave one place and move to another, but staying in Colorado has not worked out for me with my career choice of djing professionally.  Some of my dj associates have been able to make things work here, but I feel that I've grown too big for my hometown at this point.  I found another article on the same subject through a website called Helium ( http://www.helium.com/items/2164697-reignite-your-passion-for-your-career-motivation-for-career-how-to-become-more-motivated-at-work ).

In spite of how much of a challenge it will be to stand out from my competition , there comes a time in a person's life where that risk has to be taken.  I have given too many years of my life to this artform to give in to my frustration.  At this stage of my life, I need to do whatever it will take in order for my dreams to become a reality.  All I have ever wanted to do with my life has been to entertain the world behind turntables, and I want to do it before I'm too old and worn out to even try.

Vinyl Resurrection

I read an article on a website called Digital Music News, which mentioned  about a recent upsurge in vinyl sales in 2011.  The National Association of Recording Merchandisers had a presentation in Los Angeles, CA a week ago, and discussed a 25% rise in vinyl sales for this year, which for many djs will ring sounds of joy.  I've been one of the few djs that began using digital dj software in the last 7 years, but before then I absolutely refused to use anything but vinyl.

Many people over the years had predicted that vinyl would be phased out altogether, but because of the Hip-Hop artform it never really went anywhere.  in the mid to late 1990s, I would say that it went more underground, and you had to go to specific stores to buy vinyl music.
 I'm very pleased that many djs have kept the vinyl movement alive, and that will allow people the experience to feel vinyl again instead of cds or mp3s only.

The only reason I moved from vinyl to digital programs like Serato Scratch Live, was because it allowed me access to much more music in the mp3 format than vinyl, but it also kept the vinyl feel of using records with an encoded digital signal.  I no longer had to haul 7-8 milk crates full of music everywhere I dee-jayed at, and could now spin just as much music through my laptop and turntables.  The wear and tear on my body physically is no longer an issue, and I can just worry about 2 turntables, a mixer and my laptop.

I will never abandon vinyl though, because that's the origin of the Hip-Hop DJ.  I still have vinyl that I used to haul around to my gigs, and more than likely I'll keep them for as long as they'll play.  The beauty of being a dj from the original vinyl era, is that you can really see how important it is to keep the "warm sound" of vinyl around, because mp3s will never have the "thick sound" that vinyl possesses.

Source of Reference: Digital Music News. (  May 17, 2011). Vinyl Projected to Grow More Than 25 % in 2011.  Retrived from http://www.digitalmusicnews.com/stories/051711vinyl#CIgdcAZL2XSQItGrN9AkmA