Steve Greenberg

The transition from a sales/downloading economy to a streaming economy has been anything but smooth for the music industry, which couldn't easily adapt to the mp3 explosion about two decades ago. Yet within the last year or two, major label revenues started to increase again - and not only the majors, but indie labels such as S-Curve Records. Steve Greenberg has learned how S-Curve artists can succeed in the new economic terrain and here, he explains how they do it.

It's been exactly 10 years since you re-launched S-Curve. Since then, the label picked up distribution by UMG, then was sold to BMG. Has its evolution over the years surprised you?

The most surprising thing over the last 10 years is the complete reorganization of the industry's business model. The industry had to adapt to the digital revolution, like everyone else. The first thing we needed to do was achieve clarity on what the new business model was going to be. That took a while, which created some pretty challenging years for the industry. Around 2012-14, things started to improve eventually to a point where the streaming business made more sense for us.

So we had to be really careful in our signing strategy; we made sure we didn't sign too much, only acts we knew we were able to bring their records home before we launched the next record. The challenge for a small label is always cash flow. When a small label puts out a record, it has to wait for the money to come in, until it can afford to put out the next record.

Six or seven years ago, it was very hard to put out a stream of releases because even when we had some success, very often the revenue was a lot less than it used to be, because the industry was continuously shrinking. Our little label was always playing catch-up, always waiting for the money to come in so we could finance a marketing campaign.

Now with a streaming economy, not only is there a source of revenue, but everything is very transparent and clear where we can see, in real time, what kind of revenue we can expect with any release. We check the streaming numbers daily and get a good sense of where we're heading with anything.

For us, the single best thing that happened to us over the last few years was the acquisition by BMG. That eliminated our cash flow concerns, which enabled us to focus more on having a rational signing policy. Instead of depending on looking for money to put out the next record, we've been more strategic in our signings and have been on a roll the last couple of years. We've been able to sign great acts with appropriate marketing without having to wait for the money to do it.

How has your relationship with BMG evolved over the past few years?

We've been with BMG for close to two years, and it's an amazing company to work for. They really let us run the label exactly the way we ran it before. We haven't been second-guessed, which helps us get a very good feel for our artists' strengths, and the best way to achieve success is utilizing their strengths.

Andy Grammer's success has continued under BMG, and although they're not officially on S-Curve, we've been able to develop AJR to achieve incredible success as well. We've worked two records the last few months that topped 200 million streams each on Spotify, and once you reach that level, you start generating real revenue and success.

Has the streaming revolution changed your A&R perspective?

Streaming is going to change everybody's A&R perspective in the sense that what you want are artists whose music generates repeated listens. Contrary to the old record business, where monetization occurs at the point of purchase, and it didn't matter how many times the consumer listened to the music they purchased, the only thing that matters in the streaming business today is how many times people listen to the song.

We're always focused on unique artists who have very loyal fans and whose music is not disposable. I believe a streaming economy plays into our strengths; we have a relatively small fan base comprised of heavy listeners to their favorite artists. That can generate real revenue. Theoretically, you'd rather have 100,000 really dedicated fans who play the music over and over again, than one million casual fans who play the music sporadically, or only for a short period of time.

Can you forecast which songs will break on Spotify? Is there a ballpark number when you realize you have something there?

Spotify rewards success in its algorhythms, and success breeds success. When we get to a point of somewhere between 20-50 million steams and the record is still performing well, we get a fair amount of confidence that we'll be able take the record all the way home. Working a record on Spotify is analogous to radio play. If a record tests well on the radio, you know it's going to stay on the air. When the numbers are that good, you can plan for the next few weeks and build on that success.

How has the streaming economy impacted promotion and marketing - especially as it pertains to radio?

Very often, before we even go to radio, we do social media marketing, video marketing and marketing on Spotify, Apple Music and even Pandora. It's always good to walk in with numbers that illustrate the record is a proven success before we ask radio to play it.

I would imagine The Baha Men - whose song, "Who Let The Dogs Out" -- got played over and over again - would fare just as well, if not better, in a streaming economy.

The Baha Men ... it's funny because that record was more of a marketing success than a radio success. I think it peaked at #20 on BDS which, back in the day in some people's eyes, would look like a failure. Yet it sold close to four million albums and what drove its success was the marketing, most notably in sports stadiums and also to the younger market through Nickelodeon and Rugrats In Paris. That got a lot of exposure through videos on the Nick network. Being so closely aligned to the Rugrats can get you a lot of exposure.

Could you say the same for Hanson and "MmmmBop?"

Hanson is a great example of a record that would have a hard time getting off the ground today. This was a brilliantly talented band and an amazing single, but no one knew who they were except for family, friends and the label. We just took it to radio and said, "This record is great," and fortunately, radio agreed and just played it. Today, radio would say to us, "Get some social media numbers going ... get some streaming numbers growing ... show us some action on record" before even considering it. The idea of just showing up with a great record and convincing radio to play it ... those days are mostly over, with few exceptions. Radio is now the last stop; a small label has to prove the record to them before they take a chance on a new artist - and if you don't have a social media story and a streaming story, odds are they won't take that chance.

Isn't is difficult for new acts to get discovered on Spotify, which offers practically every artist under the sun?

Actually, what's great about Spotify is that if you get your record on a relatively small number of playlists - and that record performs on those playlists, where a lot of people share that record and very few skip it -- if you perform to those metrics, that's better than being on larger number of Spotify playlists where your music isn't shared. The Spotify viral 50 basically shows how many shares per steam; you don't need more streams but a high share percentage. So the great thing about Spotify is that if get in the door somewhere, and somebody will give you shot on their playlist, you can move pretty quickly if you're performing. We have a record by Bay Ledges, which we were able to take to Triple A after it went to #3 on the Spotify Viral 50. It gives us a valuable argument to make; it's a sign of an active listener base.

Shazam is another indicator of consumer passion and excitement about music. We're constantly scouring Shazam to see if any of our records show up on Shazam charts in the micro-markets.

So where does radio fit into your grand scheme of things?

Radio has uniformly become pretty data-driven, as has so much of society. And one of the pieces of data that's most relevant to them is local data; because Shazam is so hyper-local, they take it very seriously. Andy Grammer's work has done really well on Shazam -- and the artists who tend to do really well on Shazam attract fans who have a lot of passion for their record. They're more eager to find out about new songs and are curious to find out more about them. Andy has had seven Platinum singles and has quietly built up a very impressive career on both the radio and retail sides because of the passion people have for his records - in both his Shazam and streaming success.

Is the live aspect as important for your artists as they would be, say, for rock bands and the like?

It's still really important. AJR is currently on Top 40, and when they come through markets to perform, all the indicators in that market - sales, streams, Shazam -- go up markedly. The live business is another way for an artist to form a deeper bond with the audience. We want our artists to have deep bonds with their audience; that usually means they'll come back and play their music again and again, gaining steam in a business model where the only thing that matters is repeat plays.

Again, that's totally different than the old music business model that was based on sales. The sales figures you used to see every week, by definition, represented entirely new consumers. Say your record sold 10,000 the first week. Then 10,000 bought it the next week -- that's 10,000 new people. Those who bought your album the previous week, there's not much they can do for you as far contributing to chart position or future revenue. In a streaming economy, your success is based on how the same people react to your music week after week. The key to success in a streaming system is the continued passion for your music by the exact same people - not only new ones every week.

What's your take on releasing one single at a time vs. putting out multiple songs simultaneously?

There are a couple of schools of thought on that. A lot of people don't like releasing new singles when the first one is still getting a lot of streams. I disagree; nothing is more exciting than artists who have multiple great songs out at once, so I don't mind putting out a new song even when the first song is getting a lot of streams.

Is there a problem with overexposure or burn-out in a streaming environment?

We're a pretty small label; we have to fight for every song, so there's no such thing as overexposure to us on Spotify. If people choose to listen to our records, create playlists for them and don't skip them, they can listen to them all they want. That's how Spotify is different than radio.

The same goes for Apple Music, who may not get as much attention as Spotify, but Apple Music also has a really large user base who are real active and exhibit the same kinds of behavior as Spotify.

Are all the music genres/formats impacted by the streaming economy?

I think it is for all artists. For a while, Country was a holdout, but not anymore. The ease of streaming makes a lot of sense. Also, the devices today make it easier for people to listen to music. Smartphones really favor streaming; they make it much more desirable to stream than download. Remember the old iPod classic that held 10,000 songs; that was a great device for listening to a lot of music downloads. Today's smartphones are not build for that storage. To have access to almost every record imaginable through streaming is more desirable.

So what are S-Curve's priorities for 2017 and beyond?

Our big priority is Andy Grammer in the fall. We're real excited about his third album; he's had an incredible run of success that we hope to build upon. We also have the AJR album, which just came out that we're tremendously excited about. We expect to spawn several more singles from it. We have Leslie Odom, Jr., who was one of the stars of Hamilton; he will have something out in the fall. He's a superstar in waiting. By this time next year, Leslie will be a very major presence in the entertainment world, both in records and movies. He has already starred in a few movies. We plan on developing artists such as Elise LeGrow in an approach similar to the way we marketed Joss Stone back in the day -- not a radio record at all, but an incredible artist with amazing vocal ability. Our job is to figure out creative ways to break our artists.

Then there's the debut single by Rachel Crow, a terrific 19-year-old singer. She was a little girl of 12 who came in second on X-Factor; fast-forward seven years, and she's a fully formed artist and actress who has been in movies and TV. Her first single was co-written with the guys from AJR and was just released. We are careful that she keeps growing and evolving, as we do with 18-year-old Hailey Knox, an incredible singer/songwriter/guitar player whose new record is very pop and very youthful.

Is S-Curve involved in signing wars for talent ... or has that whole prospect been rendered obsolete?

I've never been big on that, and we've never had the means to be in one. In general, for the people we've found and signed, we've had very little competition over the years. The artists attracted to S-Curve tend to be slightly different than those the major labels attract. We're fortunate to have a lane that's all ours.

And what of S-Curve's future? Do you have a goal to make S-Curve as big as a major label, or would you be content as a profitable small label?

We would be thrilled if events conspired us to make us the biggest label in the world. In order to do that, we need to start building infrastructure to achieve that goal. What we need to do before we get to that point is continue having a stream of hits to justify that kind of expansion.