The music business sure is tough right now. Someone poured a huge bucket of acid on the entire industry, and it’s burned away everything not made of steel. It’s quickly exposed the weak, the greedy, the fake, and the contrived – all that is being washed away. But this is what happens in business – industries tend to take a hit at some point when the customer is not served well. Invariably, something happens – a new model, a machine too big to change, a piece of technology that turns an industry upside down. No doubt that all of the above has happened to the music business. But I wonder if the above list is just the tip of the iceberg. I believe that the root is much deeper, and I think it all starts with our industry asking, or re-asking ourselves one of the core questions of any business: Who is our customer?
I suggest that our primary customer is not a fan – it’s the artist. We represent a product. But that product happens to walk, talk, have opinions, good and bad days, etc. It is our first responsibility to serve the artist because everything flows out of them. Within that artist, there are two areas of focus that trump everything else: 1. The personal well being of that artist, and 1.a the artist’s money.
Do you know why 99% of artists hate their record label? It’s not because of the people. Most labels have some great folks. They are nice and they care. Artists hate their label because the deal sucks. For decades if an artist wanted to make it they had to pay the toll of a record deal. The toll is steep. An artist gives up 88% of the proceeds for records, half their publishing, 100% of the rights to their work – forever, and they get to recoup the majority of the money out of their miniscule share. Folks, that’s a middle of the road deal, and it’s just for starters. Standard recording contracts suck. Artists feel like they are subservient to record labels. They feel like they work for record labels. They see big buildings, nice cars, and well-appointed offices on the rare occasions that they visit their label. Then they do the math and realize they’ve done a BS deal, and that deal will last their entire career, and it burns them up inside.
It used to be that you had to do this deal to get a shot. It’s not that way anymore, thank God. A lot of people think record labels are about content. Record labels aren’t about content, they are about distribution. A record label makes about $4 a record – I get that. But the kicker is that a distribution company makes about the same thing. Therefore, when a record hits the store it already costs $8 without the store markup. That’s already more than a CD is worth. It’s the distribution fee that kills the deal. Without that $4 charge, it’s pretty easy to recoup a CD – believe me, we’ve done it.
What this industry needs are more people that place the best interest of the artist above their own. A record label should not make more money than the artist. The same goes for a manager or an agent. Our job is to serve. Yes, we work hard, but anybody that has a bird’s eye view into what it takes from an artist to make it, knows. These artists and bands that are serious work harder than anybody. Their lifestyle genuinely sucks. It is just brutal. If the artist happens to get rich, I assure you, they’ve earned it.
This business is not rocket science. The relationship between an artist and their manager is the key. A manager must do three things well in serving his or her artist. 1. An artist must be put in the position to write good songs. This is different for every artist. You can build the base of a career without a big song, but at some point you have to have it to break through. 2. An artist must grow as a performer and tour wisely. Look, in most cases, a new artist is going to not be very good live. That’s OK. You think Bono was a great front man out of the gate? Wrong. Heck, the two best artists I’ve ever worked with kind of sucked when they started. They have to have the opportunity to get better. In most cases this involves the manager biting the bullet, ignoring their agent and the label and forcing the artist to get on the road and suck in front of 100 of their own growing fan base instead of taking some big tour offer and sucking in front of 4,000 of somebody else’s fans. That takes long-term vision and it isn’t going to bring in any cash. It’s called artist development. 3. A manager must work to tap into an artist’s psyche. This takes a lot of time. Questions like; How are you doing? How’s the girlfriend? What is it about the show tonight that was good/bad? Is the band getting along on the road? These are critical questions. A lot of times the artist is feeling something, but they’ve never been there before and they can’t figure it out. It’s our job to help. If a manager is not spending a serious amount of time mentoring – especially a new artist – then that manager is blowing it.
Our industry has a product to protect, and that’s the artist, stupid. Getting to the fans, using the Internet – that stuff is not near as hard as grabbing your gut and making the right decisions for your customer, and that’s the artist.
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