Deadlines/Brief

Music videos are so 80s/90s, right? They belong with the era when MTV screened wall-to-wall vids instead of 'reality' TV? Try telling that to the millions who bought Gangnam Style; were they really simply loving the music? 1.6bn (and still climbing) have viewed the video on YT, not to mention the many re-makes (school eg, eg2), viral ads + celeb link-ups (even political protest in Seoul) - and it doesn't matter how legit it is, this nightmare for daydream Beliebers is making a lot of money, even from the parodies + dislikes. All this for a simple dance track that wouldn't have sounded out of place in 1990 ... but had a fun vid. This meme itself was soon displaced by the Harlem Shake. Music vids even cause diseases it seems!
This blog explores every aspect of this most postmodern of media formats, including other print-based promo tools used by the industry, its fast-changing nature, + how fans/audiences create/interact. Posts are primarily written with Media students/educators in mind. Please acknowledge the blog author if using any resources from this blog - Mr Dave Burrowes

Saturday 18 December 2021

BOOK 2005 Bloghouse dance was 1st online genre

 An early, maybe archetypal, example of a music movement spreading through UGC-enabling sites like MySpace and despite its Aussie roots globalising through the internet.

Guardian“It was the first time that music was getting big on the internet instead of at the club, at the record shop or on the radio,” says Lina Abascal, the author of a new book, Never Be Alone Again: How Bloghouse United the Internet and the Dancefloor, which documents that brief but transformative moment.

… The new ability to distribute songs online meant homegrown music could easily be discovered abroad, without the financial backing of a big label: just upload the track and away you go. “Suddenly the distance between Paris and Sydney or LA and Melbourne was a click,” Abascal says. “That was a first-time thing.”

Wednesday 1 December 2021

Eddie Maiden Marvel Merch Tie-in

Quite ingenious on both sides - offering an older market to Marvel and younger to Maiden! Loudersound.

Sunday 17 October 2021

TIK TOK ROCKS WITH BEATLES, FLEETWOOD MAC, INSANE CLOWN POSSE

The Beatles are consistently at the top end for physical album sales and streams over 50 years since they split - but were famously late to the streaming party, withholding permission from the likes of Spotify for years.

When they finally inked a deal with Spotify it (see also Taylor Swift and her row with Apple Music) marked the absolute mainstreaming of the platform. Their entry into TikTok marks the same for a platform that has already supercharged interest in the 70s Fleetwood Mac releases. See NME.

Another NME feature highlights the success of Insane Clown Posse on the platform.

Sunday 8 August 2021

VIDEO GAME CONCERTS AND MERCH Ariana Grande Fortnite gig

Marahmello and Lil Nas X have already shown the huge audiences and revenue this can attract...

Monday 31 May 2021

RETROMANIA THE PHIL COLLINS EFFECT PCE

From The Times, an academic paper claiming artist critical credibility runs in 3 waves - very much linked to the age of media pundits - a decade of acclaim, a decade of derision, a decade+ of being reclaimed + rediscovered...

They claim in a paper that the PCE can be plotted in an N-shaped graph, with each phase lasting about ten years. In the case of Collins, 70, this tracks his ascent in popularity as a top solo artist in the Eighties, his fall from grace in the Britpop era before the period from 2001, when his work was “critically elevated to an even higher status than during its commercial peak”.
The researchers identify the PCE, a pattern of “cultural death followed by cultural resurrection”, as dependent on three groups over successive generations — fellow musicians, critics and fans. They said that it was fuelled, partly, by the natural contrarianism that encourages new generations to cast off the cultural baggage of their elders.

Saturday 13 March 2021

INDUSTRY 2021 The ongoing DDC tornado...

For a superb, in-depth analysis of many key industry issues I'd recommend this article from the medium site.

My previous multiply updated post, tracking 2018-19, carries a detailed breakdown of the key staging points from 1999 to today, including briefly huge markets that exploded into prominence then disappeared. I also did a further summary post! And there are MANY more posts you can browse via the tags...

This graph from medium's feature (1 of several there) is a great visual summary of the massive impact of digital disruption - which, remember, is especially linked to developments in online distribution.

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HOW STREAMING PAYMENTS REFLECT BIG 3'S 75% MARKET SHARE
https://boingboing.net/2021/09/26/how-a-math-trick-helped-one-band-made-500-more-in-streaming-music-royalties.html

LOVE ISLAND IS MAJOR HITMAKER
The ultra-trashy 'reality' show uses a lot of obscure musicians, part of its targeting of gen Z/Y, who often find their work appearing in the charts as a result. A combination of Shazaming tunes and the show's Spotify playlists supercharge the popularity of many of the songs/artists featured. Guardian.

K-POP FANS BUY ADS FOR THEIR HEROES...AMD FOOD CARTS
BBC reports on the K-Pop stans, who buy as space worldwide, not just in Korea - and make charity donations.

TRIVIUM MAKE MORE FROM TWITCH THAN ALL OTHER AUDIO SITES COMBINED!
Loudwire interviews Matt Healy on this crazy stat! Metalsucks lays out the key figures - $10k a month from 224k listeners. That works out x10 the revenue/payment rate of music streaming (vastly bigger audience...for same payment!).

MUSIC RIGHTS NEW MONOPOLIST: HIPGNOSIS 
DB ANALYSIS: Elberse did a very convincing job of destroying the credibility of the long tail theory in her Blockbusters book, showing that a small number of tentpole hits (in books, games, film, music) account for the vast bulk of sales. Since she wrote this the same has been observed of Spotify. However - that overlooks the revenue from back-catalogue music (and TV/film through multiple global channels) from radio, TV, film and games licensing ... not to mention advertising. So perhaps Malcolm Gladwell's concept has some meaning after all?
Guardian. 'The London-listed company, which earns royalties every time one of the 65,000 songs to which it owns the rights is played, said that revenues climbed 66% from $83m (£59m) to $138m in the year to the end of March.

Hipgnosis, which spent $1bn buying 84 new song catalogues last year, said the increase in streaming while the live music sector remained shut down fuelled a 50% increase in profits to $107m.'


UK MUSIC STARS LAUNCH CAMPAIGN FOR MUSIC STREAMING REGULATOR AND FAIR PAYMENTS
Guardian. 'It argues that streaming via services such as Spotify and Apple Music be legislated more like radio. “The law has not kept up with the pace of technological change and, as a result, performers and songwriters do not enjoy the same protections as they do in radio,” the letter states. “Today’s musicians receive very little income from their performances – most featured artists receive tiny fractions of a US cent per stream and session musicians receive nothing at all.”