16 Apr
Published by jean-marc,
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General
artists, music marketing

Once upon a time, in a country far far away, there were two minstrels that had heavenly voices and who's touch on their dulcimer was paved with gold and enchantment. They came drapped in mysteries and many strange stories were about them, where they come from, who they really were and what they looked like. And then, there were the magic sounds and the magic moving pictures, how do you call it, ah yes, videos. Done by a genious called Michel Gondry, he of the same country far far away. Their sound was magic and they illuminated the country with their music. Everybody was singing their praises and everybody was happy. Including the two minstrels.

But things get old and princesses get tired and a few years later, the charm surrounding the minstrels duo started to fade away. They knew it and tried desesperately to hold on to it, hoping that the people would still love them but helas, time is volatile and the better days of the two minstrels seemed to be now behind them. They did music for a castle show called Tron which disappointed many and it felt like they were by now history. All the glamour and all the gold, the heavenly voices and the magic dulcimers, all was gone...

17 Apr
Published by jean-marc,
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General
music marketing, record labels

Universal has acquired EMI recordings a few months back but the EU hasn't yet declare the sale to be holy in its books.

On March 23rd 2012, the EU has announced it launches an official investigation in the sale of EMI recordings to giant major Universal by CitiGroup. The EU has apparently some very serious questions on the quasi-monopole position Universal would find itself in if the sale gets approval: Universal would then be about twice the size of its nearest rival and that would seriously cause competition problems on the market as the EU wants to ensure consumers will still have choice with large offer of music whether in physical or digital formats.

A few days ago, Martin Mills (he of Beggars and 4AD famous label) spoke to CMU and talked about the multiple dangers of having a market being dominated by one huge company: that would be a problem not only in the physical market (shelves in shops and magazine front covers would be under serious pressure to feature Universal artists first) but that would also suffocate the offers and sustainability from other labels. Another point made by Mr Mills would be that, if pop artists would benefit from being signed on...

16 Mar
Published by jean-marc,
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General
artists, music industry, music marketing

It's not that long ago that Myspace was the absolute place-to-be and no band could do without having a Myspace page. Then, in 2008, numbers began to fall and Facebook took over as primary social network. What happened ? Where is Tom ?

Launched in 2003, Myspace quickly became an indispensable tool in every band's promokit and it was even neck-to-neck with Google as the most visited US website in 2006. Bands and fans were coming in flocks and Myspace was flooded with zillions of profiles and everyone was Tom's friend.

The company was acquired in 2005 by News Corp, a Rupert Murdoch's company for 580 millions $ . They had huge ideas to make this profitable, and initiated a deal with Google for online ads, making their purse heavier but also making the user experience slower and filled with even more ads here and there. Then, contrary to Facebook, they kept the door closed to outside developers, where Facebook open themselves up (and everyone remembers how free games and apps on Facebook really made it go up and up and up). Then, for no reasons at all, people started to migrate from Myspace to Facebook, and Myspace has not been able to cut that flow.

In 2011...

14 Mar
Published by jean-marc,
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artists, marketing, music industry, music marketing

I'm unsure if Steve Jobs knew back then that Itunes, and the sales of music thru internet portals, would seriously indent albums sales and take away from the music business one of its bigger money making object: the album.

Back in the days, if you liked a song that wasn't a single, you had no choice: you had to buy the album. Nowadays, this is no longer the case: you can just buy on a song-per-song basis and hard facts are there to prove it as people are more into buying a couple of songs from an album that letting it go and get the entire thingie. This album being no longer the anker around which bands or artists would make entire marketing/promo campaigns, some have decide on the contrary to use the time between their releases as a teaseing period that would be magnified and used to its full potential to prepare fans/superfans to the release of new material.

Emily White, who manages artists thru her Whitemsith Entertainement company, has a great blog entry about this subject and focus on two different exemples: Bear In Heaven and Imogen Heap.

Bear In Heaven, who's last album received the Best New Music Award from Pitfork Media, has decided de stream...

25 Jan
Published by jean-marc,
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marketing, music industry, music marketing

Captivating exposé by the eloquent Emmanuel Legrand (http://legrandnetwork.blogspot.com/) this morning at Huis 23, an interesting collaboration between Brussels' famous concerts hall AB, Poppunt and Muziekvlaanderen.

Done with datas covering one full year of radio airplays, legal digital downloads and national/pan european charts, Emmanuel succeeds in giving a precise and factual report on the cross-borders circulation of European music repertoire within the European Union. Under what seems to be at first a rather heavy-duty pile-up of numbers and colorful drawings rapidly emerges fascinating obesrvations on how 6 countries (France, Germany, The Netherlands, Spain, Sweden and Poland) in Europe act and reacts when it comes down to radio airplays.

I would advice you to download and read the report (http://dl.dropbox.com/u/32444317/Report_European%20repertoire_Jan%202012...) but here are some of the major foundings of Mr Legrand:

* Local repertoires does work rather well nationally but most artists do...

30 Dec
Published by jean-marc,
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music industry, music marketing

The pie is getting smaller but there are more and more people wanting to have a share. Marketing is needed...
Bands, artists, you NEED to get on top of the new tools to get heard and seen.
Being great is one thing, sure, but making it known is essential.

Here are some of the articles we wrote about music and marketing this year...

Labels and artists desesperately need to go 2.0 if not 3.0... http://blog.kollector.com/?q=blog/how-structure-20-record-company
Are Facebook Pages working against bands and labels ? http://blog.kollector.com/?q=blog/facebook-shot
Crowdfunding is one way to go, yes http://blog.kollector.com/?q=blog/crowdfunding-way-go
It's all about making events http://blog.kollector.com/?q=blog/stageit-glimpse-future
From fans to superfans http://blog.kollector.com/?q=blog...