Why Good Music No Longer Equals SuccessI was involved with a group of guys several years ago trying to start up a record label. There were four of us. We had world-class production talent and managed to recruit two very talented hip hop and pop artists. All we wanted was to sign a distribution deal with a major label. The quality of our production allowed us access to everyone. I mean everyone. We managed to land meetings with A&R reps at most of the major labels; Warner, Sony, Electra, Capitol, Virgin, Interscope, Shady/Aftermath, J, Def Jam. You name it, we were there.
At the time it seemed impressive. Looking back, I’m not sure it was all that impressive because in the end, we came out empty handed. We came very close though. Or at least, it seemed that way, but it’s hard to say because I don’t know what kinds of discussions were going on behind closed doors. Some of the A&R reps we met with would say stuff like, “I’m going to have Clive Davis take a listen to this” or “I’m going to send this up to Jermaine Dupri tomorrow”.
I just remember the whole thing feeling like one big gut wrenching tease fest. Many of the A&R guys would talk about us like they thought we were the next big thing in hip hop. They would end many a meeting by saying, “We’ll give you guys a call real soon.” Then we wouldn’t hear from them for 10 days, so we would email them. We would exchange a few emails back and forth and then never hear from them again. It happened over and over.
We finally thought to ourselves, if we’re this good and nobody wants to sign us, then there must be something bigger going on. It’s only in hindsight that we realized that we were trying to get a record deal at the head end of the collapse of the record industry(2004-2005).
We disbanded and all decided to do other things. But one of the guys in our group went off to start his own little label. Last I heard, they aren’t doing all that well because they’re having a difficult time finding good production talent. To this day, he still believes that the reason we didn’t succeed is because our music wasn’t good enough and that if we had gotten a little bit better, we would have gotten in.
But I want to go beyond him because his problem is bigger than him. It’s an underlying problem that prevents many bands and music entrepreneurs from going to the next level.
It’s a problem that lies at the intersection of craftsmanship and entrepreneurship. People think that if you’re very good at the craft of making music, then it should naturally follow from that that money will come. You see the same thing in Web software where people think that if they build a cool new app and get users, the money will automatically gush in.
Part of the problem is that many people believe that success is like a light switch, where you have this vertical spectrum of talent and your success is directly related to just how high you turn up the talent; and that the reason you aren’t smelling success yet is because you haven’t perfected your music enough.
Of course, the music is important. How important? I don’t know. Asking that is like asking how important the violinist in a symphony is in relation to the pianist. I guess my answer would be to say that being able to make music that’s of high quality is essential. But so are marketing and business development.
In the past when the only serious path to a music career was to get a record deal, it made sense to view success as a matter of how intensely you focused on just perfecting your sound because that’s what got you into the pearly gates. And getting past those gates was the goal.
But now, because you have to do most things yourself, you have to take a much more horizontal view. You really have to understand the Web and how successful people market on the Web. It’s both harder and easier than it used to be. It’s easier in the sense that making the choice to become a music artist has never been so easy, but harder in the sense that good execution is largely up to you now. To execute well today requires being able to recognize that being excellent at your craft doesn’t mean that it’ll automatically translate into money.
January 15th, 2010 at 2:32 pm
Mika, I believe what you are saying but I also think that maybe you were to smart for them about the whole business aspects. A lot of these a&r guys are looking to take advantage of a band to make money now a days. I could be wrong but I hear a lot of stories over the years about labels and how they control you. That is why there is so many little spin off labels of these major Record labels. The same thing happened to me some years ago where they said they where going to fly me out to LA. but it was all talk. I had just recently Won the TriFame Warner Bros. Contest back in October of 09 for a Phone call from an A&R exect. Tim Carhart from Warner Brothers but never heard anything Yet. I also have a song that will be featured on an I phone app called the birth of Jesus But never heard anything yet. There are brick Walls every where around these people. I Personally think its not what you know its who you know. They are making money off the little guys so they can put back into they’re big investments or something because somewhere along the line they messed up and they don’t want to lose they’re jobs. Yes it is a mystery but I keep on plugging away. If I ever receive this phone call from Tim Carhart I will tell him the same thing I have told everyone in this industry. Give me a chance and I will prove it to you. What else can I Say? Dan Bires
January 27th, 2010 at 3:40 pm
Bear in mind that you mentioned some of the most commercial labels around, if you dive in money sucking environments don´t expect much further than a “sellable” view to your music from these A & R.
Music flood and saturation is the cause of society behavior, music business and labels following this social market, lowering their standards to “sellable” products. Why lower? Because they don´t risk for new fresh ideas, they stick to sellable formulas, so whats the good out of this? sometimes music is good enough but sometimes only popularity and business skills shine aside from having a professional output for your music.
Lets face it, majority buys cheese, not art, and this example is comparable to television as well and what it is becoming lately. It is up to each individuals capability to select quality stuff from garbage.
Everytime you have a business purpose going on, art suffers pollution, we can complain as individuals, but as a society we are the ones who placed music business where it is.
February 17th, 2010 at 11:49 am
Nico is right: the audience sets the height of the bar you have to clear, as far as “quality” is concerned…not the labels.
If they’ll buy something silly and easy to produce, then the first artists that can crank that out and get some major exposure will in return get a lot more listeners. And a lot of sales? Well, maybe not. Maybe just a lot of mp3s go flying through the file-sharing sites. But that’s a separate issue.