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Been Down So Long, It Looks Like Up To Me
June 29, 2007
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"This decline is steeper than we expected, but in some ways it means we'll get to the bottom faster, and after that there's growth." -- Warner Music Head Honcho Edgar Bronfman Jr. in a CNBC segment aired this week..
When I heard Mr. Bronfman make that statement this week, I nearly choked on my delicious local "New York style" pizza. But then I thought about what I heard and realized the pizza was more important at that moment than what Edgar was saying. Who am I to let great pizza go to waste?
But after eating, and watching the rest of Bronfman's interview, I found myself almost amazed that any leader in the industry would make such a statement. When I saw the statement repeated at various websites, I knew it had to be the lead item this week.
While Mr. Bronfman tried his best to be optimistic about the Warner Music Group (and the industry in general), his statement is almost incredulous. Translation: We'll hit rock bottom real soon, probably have to cut back more jobs, cut rosters further, and more, and then we'll be in such BAD shape we will have no place left to go but up.
If this was meant to be any type of optimistic spin for the long-term outlook of the industry or Warner Music Group, it sure as hell must be rooted in some new-age public relations psychology that preaches by being brutally honest, one can spin something positive out of the worst negative. Whatever Mr. Bronfman's hopes, anybody with a brain listening to what he said had to say "huh?" at their TV after he spoke.
Bronfman went on to say, "If we are going to invest in artists going forward, then we need to be partners with them in their careers." Oh, sure, that would be very nice. But why Mr. Bronfman thinks the new generation of artists would even need major labels to partner with is beyond me. The Internet has made all new artists that utilize it, independent. Once established via sales and touring, what will the Warner Music Group or any major label be able to offer artists that have good business savvy and know how to make their own deals when it comes to ancillary sources of income?
And Bronfman also said this: "We're going to be putting out video and ringtones and ringback tones, then connecting them to blogs and ticketing opportunities when the artist goes on tour, merchandising, you name it." Again, it sounds great to those not in the know, but based on the e-mails I receive almost weekly from unsigned artists, they are all looking to keep more of their money from such deals in the future and not do such types of deals with major labels.
If I printed some of the e-mails I get from artists signed and unsigned, it would probably shake those leather chairs at so many executive desks at major labels very badly. Suffice it to say, the bulk of the artists out there could care less about major labels. They see CD sales plummeting and believe they can generate more income for themselves online at iTunes and elsewhere. They learn about the ins and outs of the business by social networking online and (believe it or not) help each other.
Mr. Bronfman was right about one thing and one thing only. Based on the way the Warner Music Group and the industry is going, they will get "to the bottom real fast."
Based on the horrific sales reports I see each week from several industry sources, the "growth" Mr. Bronfman thinks is going to happen, will do little to salvage what's left of the major labels when things bottom out.
AND NOW THIS
"I'm interested in what's popular, but I think we all need to take a breather and remember that instant and unwavering commercial success doesn't necessarily denote artistic genius. It certainly can, but just as often success comes from a great marketing plan, a lucky hook or stealing someone else's game. And for an artist to grow over a creative lifetime - let's call it that for once, instead of always referring to "careers" -- she needs to take side roads and make mistakes."
-- Ann Powers, in the Los Angeles Times this week, in an article about Kelly Clarkson's alleged dispute with Clive Davis over her album content. ( http://tinyurl.com/3ajb6p )I wrote Ms. Powers an e-mail this week and said that while all artists take "side roads and make mistakes," no record label ever conspires NOT to sell records by any of their artists. Which makes this whole Clive Davis vs. Kelly Clarkson thing quite meaningless.
There is nothing Clive would rather do than see Ms. Clarkson sell millions more. On the other hand, as a great record executive, Clive also has the experience and knowledge to offer guidance to artists on his roster so the label can maximize the potential of every release.
I remember cases while I was at Capitol and MCA, where we recommended artists go back in the studio and record a few more tracks, or polish production on others, etc. I don't ever recall any of those artists resenting our input, and most of them were thankful that people at their label gave them some input because they CARED.
Commercial success (like Ms. Clarkson's last effort, which sold over 5 million), needn't compromise artistic vision.
AS I WAS SAYING...
While sales continue to slide week after week, I thought it necessary again to report what a useless, meaningless, do-nothing organization the RIAA is.
The industry is struggling for survival, and here's what the RIAA is doing. When will an industry leader finally stand-up and ask the RIAA what the hell they are doing to help the artists and labels they are supposed to serve?
The article:
Woman: I'm No Music Pirate
Suit - A Beaverton mom says the record industry terrorized her with bogus chargesThis week a disabled single mother from Beaverton has filed a federal lawsuit against the Recording Industry Association of America, claiming that she is the victim of abusive legal tactics, threats and illegal spying as part of an overzealous campaign to crack down on music pirating.
The recording industry sued Tanya J. Andersen, 44, in 2005, accusing her of violating copyright laws by illegally downloading music onto her computer. Andersen claims in a suit she filed last week in U.S. District Court in Oregon that the recording industry refused to drop its case after its own expert supported her claims of innocence.
Instead, industry officials threatened to interrogate Andersen's 10-year-old daughter, Kylee, if she didn't pay thousands of dollars. The intimidation included attempts to contact Kylee directly. A woman claiming to be Kylee's grandmother called the girl's former elementary school inquiring about her attendance, according to Andersen's suit.
Read the rest here: http://tinyurl.com/32nxyd.
IBM Creates World's Most Powerful Computer
The first supercomputer capable of crunching through a thousand trillion mathematical operations every second has been announced by IBM. This is roughly equivalent to the combined processing power of a 2.4-kilometre-high pile of laptop computers. Blue Gene/P will be capable of a peak performance of 3000 trillion calculations, or floating point operations, per second (3 petaflops). But its sustained performance is expected to level out at around 1 petaflop.
Each processing chip inside the machines contains 4 unique processor cores. There are 32 of these processors in every circuit board, and 32 circuit boards in every rack. With a total of 216 racks, the full machine features 884,736 unique processor cores.
Read more about it by clicking here.
Perspective: Media Tremors--The Earth Is Shifting
While our planet's tectonic plates move in geological time, the media landscape is now shifting in Internet time.
Today's media giant is tomorrow's hollow shell. In 1999 there was the Viacom-CBS merger. That lasted six years. We're all old enough to remember that halcyon moment when AOL and Time-Warner merged to form what was at that time the biggest media company in the world. That's was back in January 2001.
Meanwhile, Google was still a private tech start-up in Silicon Valley. It didn't even go public until August 2004.
Read more about it by clicking here.
Online Video Recorders Stoke New Piracy Concerns
It took Brian Baker only five minutes to persuade a major U.S. television network that it needed his company's technology to protect their programs from Web pirates. Using software easily found on the Internet, Baker, chief executive of Widevine Technologies, recorded a video clip stream from that network's Web site, stripped out the commercials and sent the company back the altered video.
The network executive's reaction? "Wow, we need protection now!" Baker recalled. "Major television operators are seeing their offerings re-posted on the Internet, often times with the advertising stripped out."
Read more about it by clicking here.
Feature: The Future of Computing
This spring, PC Magazine checked in on five of their favorite high-tech research labs, Bell Labs, HP Labs, IBM Research, Microsoft Research, and the granddaddy of them all, the Palo Alto Research Center, to see what they've got up their sleeves. What they found were five new concepts-from a home IMAX theater to a man-made brain-that could reinvent modern computing as we know it. Find out what revolutions are just over the horizon.
Read more about it by clicking here.
Webcasters See Groundswell Of Support On "Day of Silence."
It may have been a "day of silence," but Internet radio broadcasters made quite a loud statement Tuesday. Some 14,000 webcasters-roughly half of all U.S. Internet radio broadcasters-turned off the tunes as part of a boycott to protest the steep royalty rates they could be forced to pay record labels. The new rates would go into effect July 15 unless Congress steps in or the broadcasters win a stay from a U.S. federal court.
The broadcasters hoped their boycott would whip an estimated 25 million daily U.S. Internet radio listeners into a frenzy. Web stations also hoped their protest would spur listeners to appeal to Congress to pass the Internet Radio Equality Act, which would overturn a recent decision by the Copyright Royalty Board that would boost royalty rates by as much as 1,200 percent in some cases. Internet radio stations argue this rate hike would make streaming radio an impossible business.
Read more about it by clicking here.
Japan Toy Makers Turn Air Guitars Into Reality
Air guitars just got real. Japanese toy makers unveiled gadgets at the annual Tokyo International Toy Show that, thanks to heat and motion sensors, actually make music.
" This is a toy that allows anybody to sound and feel like a rock star," said Keishi Abe, who was demonstrating Takara Tomy's Air Guitar Pro. Takara Tomy's handheld gadget looks like the top portion of a guitar neck. Air Guitar Pro has 10 songs, including Deep Purple's Smoke On the Water, programmed to play automatically. It is set to hit the market next month. The device can also be connected to an MP3 music player or a speaker system, the manufacturer said.
Read more about it by clicking here.
THIS WEEK'S 'WHO CARES?' NEWS ITEMS
ITEM #1: Larry King, once again proving that he's little more than a tabloid interviewer, nailed Paris Hilton for her first TV interview fresh out of the L.A. County slammer. (Am I the ONLY one who thinks Ms. Hilton has bad hair?) King told Ryan Seacrest Thursday that Paris Hilton gave "shorter answers" to his questions than he would have liked during their interview on Wednesday. "I might have wanted more introspection," King said. More introspection from Paris? Uh, hello, Larry? However, if any of you did watch this (ahem) "interview," you had to laugh loud when Paris said she didn't do drugs. Website thesmokinggun.com had a half-dozen videos of Ms. Hilton either doing drugs or talking about getting them.
ITEM #2: The Spice Girls announced Thursday that they will reunite for 11 concerts in cities around the world-their first since disbanding in 2001. Whoop-dee-doo. Was anybody waiting for or wanting this reunion?
CONGRATS
CONGRATS #1 TO: To Jon Bon Jovi and band, who nab their first-ever #1 album debut with their new album "Lost Highway."
CONGRATS #2 TO: To Jennifer Hudson and Beyoncé, who were the big winners at Tuesday's BET Awards, where each of the "Dreamgirls" stars pocketed two awards. Beyoncé took home Best Female R&B Artist and Video of the Year, while Hudson won Best New Artist and Best Actress. Forest Whitaker won Best Actor and Gnarls Barkley was named Best Group.
N'AWLINS VOODOO
The Smashing Pumpkins, Rage Against The Machine and Dr. John are among the bands on the lineup for the 2007 Voodoo Music Experience, taking place over Halloween weekend in New Orleans' City Park. Other acts on the bill include Wilco, Kings Of Leon and Sinead O'Connor, to name a few.
SCARY'S BABY IS EDDIE'S KID
Mel B (a.k.a. Scary Spice) has gotten confirmation of what she knew: Eddie Murphy is the father of her baby.
FOR A GOOD CAUSE #1
Stevie Wonder, Aretha Franklin and Carlos Santana are among the headliners for the Sept. 18 Dream Concert at Radio City Music Hall to raise money to build a memorial to Martin Luther King Jr. on the National Mall. Quincy Jones, Russell Simmons and Tommy Hilfiger are organizing the event, while Ben Affleck and Shaquille O'Neal are part of the host committee
FOR A GOOD CAUSE #2
The cast of "Ocean's Thirteen" has donated $1 million to the World Food Program through Not On Our Watch, the organization formed by George Clooney, Brad Pitt, Matt Damon, Don Cheadle and producer Jerry Weintraub to raise awareness of the crisis in Darfur. According to Clooney, the cast has contributed more than $5.5 million to humanitarian efforts in the war-torn region so far.
AND IT'S A HARD, TO PICK JUST ONE FAVORITE
Bob Dylan fans will have some say in which songs make the cut for an upcoming three-disc retrospective and companion greatest hits album due for release Oct. 1. Interested parties can cast votes and lobby for their favorite Dylan ballads at dylan07.com.
UNPLUGGED RETURNS
"MTV Unplugged" returned this past week starting with Bon Jovi's 30-minute episode. The band's blend of hits and new tunes from its countrified "Lost Highway" album was expanded to an hour on VH1 and VH1 Classic and to 90 minutes on CMT. Other artists scheduled for upcoming shows include The Police, Kenny Chesney, Mary J. Blige and John Mayer.
PRINCE OF HOLLYWOOD
Prince's "3121" concert series at the Roosevelt Hotel's Blossom Room in Hollywood kicked off this past weekend with two performances. Some of the Hollywood crowd who scored seats at Saturday's show included Penélope Cruz, Diddy, Hilary Swank, Nas and Kelis, Erykah Badu, Suge Knight, John Legend, Rick Ross, Nikka Costa, Topher Grace, Michelle Rodriguez, Jay Mohr and Nikki Cox. With ticket prices north of $1000 a piece, it looks like almost all the shows will have heavy Hollywood industry attendance.
SURPRISE...NOT!
Paul McCartney played a "surprise" mini-concert at Hollywood's Amoeba Records Wednesday as part of the ex-Beatle's mini-promotional tour for his new album, "Memory Almost Full." His fellow ex-bandmate Ringo Starr was in attendance.
THE ROLE SUITS HIM
According to The Hollywood Reporter, 50 Cent is in final negotiations to star alongside Robert De Niro and Al Pacino in "Righteous Kill," a crime thriller due to begin shooting in September. The rapper would play a drug dealer who helps a team of detectives (De Niro and Pacino) track down a serial killer.
COURT RULES FOR ELTON
A French judge awarded Elton John more than $500,000 in damages Tuesday after ruling that four marble statues of Olympian gods that the singer purchased more than a decade ago were fakes. The Paris antiques dealer who passed off the bogus sculptures as the real thing was ordered to refund the $360,000 John paid for them, plus interest, and to foot the bill for having them shipped back to France.
LET THE FRENCH HAVE HER
Barbra Streisand will be inducted into France's Legion of Honor Thursday, the nation's highest civilian distinction.
BRUCE WILLIS BOX OFFICE
"Live Free or Die Hard" (the fourth installment in the 'Die Hard' franchise) saw plenty of action in its first day at the box office, taking in a respectable, if not record-breaking, $9.1 million, according to 20th Century Fox.
AND SHE SHOULD NOT BE ALLOWED TO EVER DRIVE A MASERATI AGAIN
Eve pleaded no contest to driving under the influence Thursday, stemming from her April arrest after she crashed her Maserati on Hollywood Boulevard. The rapper was not present in court and entered her plea through her attorney. She was ordered to wear an alcohol-monitoring ankle bracelet for 45 day, fined $1,400 and sentenced to 36 months of informal probation.
Quotes of the week
"Paris Hilton will do her first interview Wednesday with Larry King. They're billing it as "cranky meets skanky." According to US Weekly, Paris Hilton did not read the books in the jail library. You know why? Because they're books!"
-- Jay Leno"I'm doing surprisingly well. But I don't talk about it, and that helps."
-- Paul McCartney on Larry King this week in response to King's question about how he was doing after the divorce. You see, Paul, Larry thinks about it because he's had five or six divorces."There will be no wedding. Goldie [Hawn] and Kurt [Russell] have it made, and that's what we can strive for."
-- Jenny McCarthy, talking to PEOPLE magazine, about her relationship with Jim Carrey."Brit, if you're watching, honey, you and me - we're gonna share, like, a backstage moment, 'cause I love you, kid!"
-- Rosie O'Donnell to Britney Spears in a video blog post shot during a Cyndi Lauper concert tour stop in Texas. Rosie and Britney. Both are in need of a whole lot more help than reaching out to each other."Mother to Grandmother, and my my, you're grand."
-- Britney Spears posting on her official website. What the hell it means, only Brit babe knows.
The B-Side - 'Blips'
THE ONION (www.theonion.com) STORY OF THE WEEK:
James Gandolfini Shot By Closure-Seeking Fan
NEW YORK-Actor James Gandolfini, best known for his portrayal of mob kingpin Tony Soprano on the hit HBO show The Sopranos, was shot to death Tuesday in a Greenwich Village restaurant by a fan unable to accept the open-ended conclusion of the series finale that aired earlier this month.
According to police reports, 28-year-old marketing research assistant Louis Bowen walked into the small Italian restaurant Occhiuto's at approximately 7:40 p.m. and headed directly toward Gandolfini's table. Bowen then drew a snub-nosed .38 revolver from his jacket and shot Gandolfini point-blank in the head three times before dropping the gun and calmly exiting the eatery.
"I couldn't let it just hang," Bowen told police in a post-arrest confession released to the media. "Eight years of my life, and a fucking artsy cut to black? It was eating me up inside."
Read the rest and laugh hard: HERE.
The Blogs
Check out a great blog (that I contribute commentary to) by Jerry Del Colliano, the Director Executive Programs, Clinical Professor Music Industry & Recording Arts, at the Thornton School of Music,University of Southern California, by clicking here: http://www.insidemusicmedia.blogspot.com.
Box Office
Check The Daily & Weekly Box Office (and more film info) at: www.boxofficemojo.com.
TinyURL
Check out www.tinyurl.com where you can make a smaller URL that will work for any webpage you wish to link to or reference. (As you can see, I'm using it in my news stories above!)
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