CONVERGENCE Madonna fan remixes at Apple stores

https://www.macrumors.com/2019/06/14/apple-madonna-today-at-apple-music-lab/

INDUSTRY 2018-19 points

IN THIS POST:
See below for a list of themes/points/case studies covered.
The idea of this is to gather a range of resources, as I encounter them, which help to inform you on the music industry. it will be a rather big post! Use this with an earlier summary with examples mostly not referenced here, but also the various tags!!!

https://www.billboard.com/articles/business/8520844/money-makers-major-labels-individual-revenues

Do they pay enough? This audio atrocity made a lot of money for a charisma-free star... Read on to find out who

“At the beginning of the digital revolution it was common to say that digital was killing music,” said Edgar Berger, chief executive of the international arm of Sony Music Entertainment. Now, he added, it could be said “that digital is saving music.” [NYTimes]

......

Did you know that primitive, bleepy (polyphonic) ringtones were the 1st major market for the music biz on the then new smartphones? This headline comes from 2005, when people paid up to $/£4 for a single ringtone, changing these as the charts changed. Online distribution, popularised by piracy site Napster from 1999, began to be monetised by labels from 2000, and by 2003 this was a booming market. In a sign of how fast things change, digital downloads, the 2nd big market, are tipped to disappear soon ... and the ringtone market (and charts!) already has. Of course, there's now a retro market for this defunct technology, and Crazy Frog lives on...
....

TO EDIT......
http://ultimateclassicrock.com/metallica-napster-lawsuit/
https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-features/tim-ingham-music-industry-status-2018-771105/

HMV is a bedrock of the British music industry – its loss would affect us all

https://www.theguardian.com/music/2018/dec/30/hmv-is-a-bedrock-of-the-british-music-industry-its-loss-would-affect-us-all?CMP=Share_AndroidApp_Copy_to_clipboard

IN THIS POST: 
I began this just as a summary on a report on UMG's increasing profits, but I've widened it out to provide key facts/figures on the music industry. As well as multiple tags (monetising, merchandise, music industry, Spotify, distribution etc) you can find key posts like this industry summary, ppt on Bicep example with more egs of monetising, and this post with graphs and stream revenue calculators, + this 2018 summary which drew on multiple articles:

• when did it peak (were revenues highest)? 1999
• why did revenues fall after this? Online distribution made piracy easy (eg Napster) and undermined the appeal of expensive CDs 
• by today a whole generation has grown up with the attitude that music is/should be free; not prepared to pay for albums (there's even a political party campaigning for this: The Pirate Party)
• ...indeed, the album is being undermined, with streams from albums on Spotify typically focused on just 3-4 songs
• monetizing recorded music is therefore not as easy as it once was;
• the existing business practice, distributing recorded music as physical media, was disrupted by convergence/digitisation
• the smartphone (+phablets/tablets) is the key converged device for the music industry, overtaking the PC where previously people would access the likes of Napster
• by 2012, streaming/digital sales revenues overtook physical sales in the US
• it wasn't until 2017 that this happened in the overall, global market (broadband, 3G/4G rollout and take-up being slower in many markets)
• the digital sales market was initially key, especially iTunes sales, but will soon be overtaken by vinyl revenues!!! 
• other early digital markets have quickly disappeared as technology accelerated: ringtones were a huge market just a decade ago
• the video in this post uses the 'polymorphic', 8-bit music style that people used to pay a few euros to get for their phones, before continued convergence made it easy to load your own (probably ripped from YouTube) MP3
• starting in 2000, this was the 1st way the music biz had of making money from phones - the US ringtone market alone was worth $300m by 2004 (Japan $900m, globally about $3.5bn [see Wiki]). It declined from 2008 on; by 2014, the ringtone chart was abandoned (see this article)

  

  a whole market that's now gone: polyphonic ringtones

• see this interactive website to sample a range of ringtones over time! 
• streaming now accounts for over half of all music industry revenues and is growing, while physical media sales continue to fall 
• UMG 2017-2018: digital (streaming/sales) up 1/3, physical down 20%
• the payment per stream remains controversial: the music industry strongly argue that YouTube especially must pay much more - see the calculator below
• the EU may pass laws to force YouTube to pay more...
• ...which may lead to millions of fan videos being taken down!!!
• touring (tickets) and merchandising, + sponsorship, tie-ins, etc are another key means of monetising for artists and labels
• but labels increasingly force artists to sign '360 deals' including image rights + a % of tour revenues

........................................
DOES YOUTUBE PAY ENOUGH PER STREAM??
I've blogged on this (and Spotify and others before); here's a revenue calculator for 1 of the most streamed videos ever ... you can try it for others ...

UNIVERSAL'S PROFITS SOAR EVEN AS PHYSICAL MEDIA CONTINUES TO FALL

Lot of great details in this musicbusinessworldwide feature on the corporate fortunes of UMG (Universal Music Group), one of the big 3 that accounts for a combined 80% of the global music industry's revenues...

• UMG's streaming revenues are greater than Spotify's total revenues, a reminder of the diversity within a market dominated by bug names like Spotify, YouTube and Apple, but with plenty more such as Amazon and Deezer.
• Overall revenues are rising despite continuing steep falls in physical media revenues.
• Rock music is very much secondary to rap/rnb/urban for sales (this goes back about a decade)

There's lots of business terms/abbreviations here:

• YoY = year-on-year (eg 2018 profits up on 2017's)
• Q4 = Quarter 4 (businesses publish reports on revenues, profits, losses every 3 months ... every quarter

If you were to ask Sir Lucian Grainge what his favorite genre of music is right now, you’d have to guess he’d say hip-hop.
According to Vivendi, Universal Music Group’s five biggest revenue-generating artists in the first nine months of this year were: (i) Drake; (ii) Post Malone; (iii) Kendrick Lamar; (iv) XXXTentacion; and (v) Migos.
These acts drove UMG’s recorded music sales in the first nine months of 2018 to an all-time high of €3.28bn ($3.93bn), up 10.2% YoY at constant currency.

Remember that the music industry constantly moans about piracy and the streaming platforms paying too little per stream ... yet profits are increasing overall.

HOW PROFITS BEGAN RISING AGAIN AFTER FALLING EVERY YEAR FROM 1999-2011

After years of falling from their 1999 peak, the industry (not just UMG) starting growing again in 2012, as this 2013 report highlights:

The music industry, the first media business to be consumed by the digital revolution, said on Tuesday that its global sales rose last year for the first time since 1999, raising hopes that a long-sought recovery might have begun.
The increase, of 0.3 percent, was tiny, and the total revenue, $16.5 billion, was a far cry from the $38 billion that the industry took in at its peak more than a decade ago. Still, even if it is not time for the record companies to party like it’s 1999, the figures, reported Tuesday by the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry, provide significant encouragement.
“It’s clear that 2012 saw the global recording industry moving onto the road to recovery,” said Frances Moore, chief executive of the federation, which is based in London. “There’s a palpable buzz in the air that I haven’t felt for a long time.”For years, the music industry’s decline looked terminal, with the record companies seemingly unable to come up with digital business models that could compete with the lure of online piracy. Last year, however, digital sales and other new sources of revenue grew significantly enough to offset the continuing decline in CD sales.

UNIVERSAL'S GRIP TIGHTENS AS THEY SIGN UP TAYLOR SWIFT
Universal just tightened its grip on the industry with the signing of Taylor Swift, though they agreed to give her ownership of the masters of all recorded music, a big change from usual industry practice, and to pass money from sale of its shares in Spotify to its artists.

Taylor Swift leaves lifelong label to sign with Universal Music Group

More details: Taylor Swift strikes a blow for fellow artists as digital revenues soar

https://www.theguardian.com/business/2018/nov/24/taylor-swift-blow-fellow-artists-streaming-revenues-soar-universal-spotify?CMP=Share_AndroidApp_Copy_to_clipboard

https://www.cbcmusic.ca/posts/20648/danny-michel-opens-up-about-reality-being-musician

$44.99 sales, including $0.003 per Spotify stream, for a Canadian artist's top 10 hit (Canada charts and figures)

New campaign to get Spotify etc to tag Indie artists and boost the 19.55% global share not taken by the big 3.

https://www.hypebot.com/hypebot/2018/11/spotify-apple-music-urged-to-label-indie-music.html

https://www.hypebot.com/hypebot/2018/11/the-music-business-is-about-more-than-just-the-big-three.html

Music biz revenues grew in 2017+2018 as streaming booms.

Universal expanding in China/Asia.

Metallica launch Enter Night Pilsner, building on whiskey (Rolling Stone).
They even released a 'making of' video! (Blabbermouth)

https://www.musicbusinessworldwide.com/jobs/spotify-manager-artist-label-marketing-us/

Physical sales so reduced, a Jan 2019 #1 only had 823 album sales!!!

Average Spotify user only paying 5.5o, and falling, as global rollout in poorer countries builds and family plans too.

https://www.hypebot.com/hypebot/2019/01/record-labels-evolve-to-stay-relevant-in-the-streaming-era-musonomics-report.html

https://www.billboard.com/articles/news/features/8492870/spotify-direct-to-artist-tools-label-territory

https://www.newstatesman.com/2019/01/is-the-music-industry-dead

CONVERGENCE Metallica drones as effect

I've used the convergence theme heading as drones are an example.of how professional-level technology has entered consumer-level in affordability and general accessibility.

It's increasingly replacing still expensive helicopter shots in music video and TV.

This example is notable as it's also a neat, creative means of lighting effects - the drones Metallica use with their live song Moth into Flame.

http://www.metalsucks.net/2018/10/11/metallicas-stage-designer-talks-about-use-of-drones-on-bands-current-tour/

ALT VIDEOS vertical version convergence UGC

Thanks to Simon for this one, which demonstrates another alternative to the traditional narrative/performance video but also the ongoing process of convergence. Its also a further demonstration of how artists are increasingly taking on formats popularised by fans as UGC and releasing their own official versions to better control the monetising of their recorded material.

Simon linked this eg by the world's biggest-selling artist of recent times, the ubiquitous Taylor Swift. She makes for an interesting digitisation/convergence case study already - she initially refused to allow her albums to appear on Spotify and Apple Music, forcing Apple to abandon plans for a free version of Apple Music with lower artist payments.



and here's the original


Think about why artists do this:

• primarily more control over monetising their work
• but also accessibility: creating the sense/brand image that they are to some degree at the level of their audience still (in this case shooting simple vids through their smartphone)
• standing out: multi-versions like this generate articles/news stories, thus more hits and more revenue
• for ultra-mainstream artists like Swift maintaining wide audience appeal through single narrative videos can be difficult, so these help to target specific demographics

ALT VIDEOS dance performance and animation

IN THIS POST: Multiple examples of alternative videos; using animation; UGC/fan-made videos; the role of dance moves in vids; examples from UNKLE, Billy Eilish, Sepultura, Arctic Monkeys. See alt videos tag etc for more

Spotted this thanks to a Yr8 student - yet another type of alternative (not the main promo) video, to go with visualizer, lyric, unwrapping, teaser, single shot, performance, acoustic (not to mention fan-made, covers, reaction videos and UGC generally)...

Billie Eilish has released a 'dance performance' video for Ocean Eyes.

Smart move which achieves a key aim of pop vids especially - to generate a replicable dance sequence, which might then be taken up by (especially) young fans for playground simulacra or, the holy grail, posted UGC vids which are directly monetised anyway through YouTube but also generate further free publicity by appearing on Twitter, FB (etc) feeds of friends/followers. 

You should think about replicating at least one of these - or even just short teaser clips (or gifs) for the website + social media feeds that push traffic to the YT channel (even if the full vid isn't actually there), a great, easy way to show (if you provide detailed research/explanation) insight into audiences and industry.

Approaching 12m views on 25.9.18

AUDIENCE WEB 2.0 BOOK active fandom UGC

This Wired feature on how the audience has become more active through the convergence of the online world is a great one to get into multiple concepts linked to audience. A few excerpts below (initially about UK prog rock Marillion, who ended up touring the US only because fans funded it!!!)

DISTRIBUTION CONVERGENCE Instagram album release

https://www.nme.com/news/music/jaden-smith-released-new-album-instagram-syre-2352122

FACEBOOK INSTAGRAM music and lip sync features

Convergence continues...

With Facebook recently tieing up rights deals with multiple labels their subsidiary Instagram has announced an add music option for their Daily Story feature ... and a Lip Sync Live feature is rumoured for a Facebook launch soon

https://techcrunch.com/2018/06/28/instagram-stories-music/

AUDIENCE WEB 2.0 Is going underground still feasible?

This might turn out to be a highly irritating Grauniad exercise in uber-hipsterdom, proudly proclaiming awful bedroom acts adored by some London clique as artistic giants ... but it could also be an invaluable discourse on the still evolving disruptive force of new technology and how it impacts music marketing and artists' relationship with audiences and industry alike....

In the coming weeks, we’re going to run a series of articles examining what, if anything, it means to be an underground artist in 2017. We’ll be exploring whether it’s possible to find a meaningful audience for your music while avoiding the glare of publicity, the complex relationship between art and commerce, how technology assists and impedes artists who want to find new routes of promoting and disseminating their music, what the value of remaining underground is, and whether Britain is host to any thrilling and vibrant music scenes that exist entirely off-grid.

Where is the musical underground in 2017? 

But in 2017, the idea of what constitutes underground music is more confused. The internet has changed everything – outlets for exposure, means of distribution, the pace at which music is disseminated and consumed. In the race to keep up, mainstream media covers a far broader spectrum of music than it did 20 years ago: the speed with which an artist can go from recherché hipster sensation to the pages of a national newspaper, or at least its website, has vastly reduced. The old markers that you might reasonably use to denote whether music is “underground” or not – is it on TV? Is it on national radio? Is it featured in the mainstream media? – no longer hold true. YouTube and social media are infinitely more important in promoting music and anyone can upload to them.

VFX Shins layering that'll stick(er) in the mind

LAMAR + NIK is a joint name you may have seen from your research into video examples, and nofilmschool here compare them to Michel Gondry, high praise indeed.

The specific stop-motion technique they use here isn't necessarily what you might take away as an inspiration - look at the seemingly mundane mise-en-scene they add these stickers (you should be thinking greenscreen to achieve a comparable effect) to: stacks of coins, 'checkers' chips, cheese slices, all quirky and interesting when shot in tight close-ups.

No need for a narrative in a video as entertaining and visually busy as this, though the likes of Sledgehammer manage to incorporate this.

http://nofilmschool.com/2017/08/the-shins-stop-motion-music-video

CONVERGENCE Metal Gear...Video game group's hit single

Pentakill: how a metal band that doesn’t exist made it to No 1

How has a band that doesn’t physically exist, with zero promotion from the music industry, breach the Billboard Top 40 and reach No 1 in the iTunes metal chart?Conceived by California-based gaming gurus Riot Games in 2014, Pentakill exist purely in the imaginations of their creators – and the 100 million global fans of League of Legends, the multiplayer online battle arena game that spawned the band’s members, Karthus the Deathsinger, Yorick, Sona, Olaf and lead guitarist Mordekaiser the Master of Metal.Entirely under the mainstream radar, the band’s new CGI video, Mortal Reminder, notched up more than 3m views in less than 48 hours after its release – and the new album, Grasp of the Undying, seems destined to be a huge success. 

PLAY ALONG VID No Obituary for vid variety yet

A useful reminder of the versatility of the music video format:

Death metal godfathers Obituary won a synergistic cross-promotion through Guitar World magazine (also a website of course), creating a split-screen video to enable fans to play along with the guitar on their new release. 

They are also booked on a branded tour which will benefit from a major push through the magazine, and offer the chance to attract new fans as the publication has a multi-genre readership. Moreover, it's a neat way for a 1980s band to attract younger fans, kids and teens starting out on developing guitar skills.

So, add this to the lyric video, unwrapping video, album preview/promo video, tour announcement or localised tour shout out, single shot, live performance, fan footage, interactive, 3D, virtual reality (VR), teaser, tie-ins with console games like Guitar Hero ...

It also gets Obituary further publicity through stories on popular e-zines such as MetalSucks.

Good tune to boot, even if not up to the standard of their early classics, Slowly We Rot and Cause of Death!

http://www.metalsucks.net/2017/03/01/sentence-day-obituary-release-new-song-via-guitar-playthrough-video/

UGC Depeche Mode fan takeover Facebook for a year

Another new twist in the web 2.0/UGC/convergence mode, this one reflecting the pattern that's seen lyric videos go from fan-made to official releases. The "former audience" indeed!

Headline story on Pitchfork - many more sites/e-zines followed suit

Depeche Mode, a huge selling act that comes high up concert revenue charts when they tour, have announced that fans can apply to be one of 365 who get to control their Facebook page for a day - a page with 7m followers.

This announcement has helped gain a lot of free, high-profile publicity.

VR pioneered by Beatles and Bjork

See the video here.

The industry keeps changing, and the pace of evolution is speeding up even further, reflecting the fast pace of technological change. A staple of sci-fi movies and series, VR is now filtering through into music video, with smartphone-connected headsets seeing this advanced technology become yet another converged offshoot of digitisation. 

(Quotes below sources: Bjork; McCartney)

Bjork has been a pioneer of utilising new technology for music promotions/expression for 2 decades, so its no suprise to see she's amongst the first to embrace the possibilities of VR:

Few among those musical stars that came of age in the 90s have evolved in such complex and interesting ways, carrying their old fans into the future and picking up a whole heap of new ones along the way. A clue to her evolution may lie in her unusual collaborations with designers, scientists, software developers, composers, instrument makers, app makers and film directors.

She has been planning VR content for years, and stresses the intimacy of the technology.

When I started working on virtual reality, it was a home for my music. It’s a journey you are on: the fact that you have your own theatre and you have this psychological drama.
At the same time, I realised it would be a couple of years before people would have this technology in their homes. It would be an impossible feat to do – it’s like going to the moon. I thought, OK, the way to do it is for people to have a place to go to and watch the videos, and it would be like a workshop and work-in-progress and if people want to see it, they can have somewhere to come.
The older I get the more I understand what is special about how we experience music. It’s either one-on-one, or thousands of people at a festival where you lose yourself. It’s not intellectual, it’s impulsive. Virtual reality is a natural continuity of that. It has a lot of intimacy. As a musician to be intimate is really important. If you want to express certain details, it’s an opportunity to do that.

Oops Britney got game

There are lots of ways artists are attempting to monetise their brand, replacing but in some cases exceeding the traditional reliance on royalties (with CD sales falling, and streaming revenues requiring huge user numbers to generate significant income). Britney is typical of the trend in some ways: it is mostly the very biggest stars who are benefitting from the opportunities of convergence.

In 2015, global music sales were $15bn (£10.3bn). Yet the three biggest mobile games companies alone – Supercell, King and GungHo Online – made $5.6bn between them, out of an estimated $30.4bn for the overall mobile gaming market.Britney Spears: American Dream is the latest experiment to see if music can capitalise on a world where many people are happier to spend their disposable income on Candy Crush Saga or Clash Royale rather than on music.The company behind Britney’s game, Glu Mobile, had a decent-sized hit with Kim Kardashian: Hollywood, and is trying to repeat the trick with musicians: besides Spears, it has signed up Katy Perry, Nicki Minaj and Taylor Swift.

SOURCE/READ MORE: Can Britney Spears succeed in mobile games where Katy Perry failed?

FINANCING Carcass crowdfund album cover with ebook offer

Grindcore/death metallers legends Carcass (a vegetarian band who have developed considerable notoriety for their album art) have launched a modest crowdfunding appeal to cover the cost of a new sleeve design - yet another great example of the web 2.0 "former audience" and that rapid blurring of audience/producer, as well as an example of how the economics and financing of the industry are being transformed by disruptive digital platforms such as this.

Note that they're offering exclusive ebooks as part of this - another means by which artists can monetise their work is tabulating their track arrangements for fans to learn and play; ebooks don't pose the challenges of high production and distribution costs, and publishing does not require a book deal - it can be added to platforms like Kindle and then offered through the likes of Amazon, as well as directly through artist websites (self-publish, self-distribute).

Exclusives are managed in many ways: limited edition digipaks or vinyl with remixes, demos, live recordings, bonus DVD etc or even collectible cover, and book/lets are fairly common too; new album only with a concert ticket (Prince, RIP, did this), music and extras exclusive to website subscribers (Metallica a great example) ...

It also demonstrates convergence - I came across a plug for this on a Facebook group via my phone; good viral marketing.

BRANDING DIGIPAK Anthrax album trailer, vinyl, digipak

BRANDING + MARKETING ACROSS MULTIPLE PLATFORMS

What you can learn from this example

- you should have a clear, consistent brand image and concept to promote
- that consistency would extend across multiple platforms and even merchandise
- most artists will change website banners, YouTube icon/banner (etc) to highlight their latest release or tour
- artists increasingly create video content that can be shared (ideally go viral) ... even short promo clips for an album with self-filmed interview-style footage
- artists also increasingly embrace and create content that was seen as typical of UGC/fan-made videos, notably the lyric video
- you can present research into any coursework topic by creating content that takes on a recognised media format: magazine feature, radio or TV interview/chat show appearance, e-zine interview (more informal, including setting), podcast ...
- the Anthrax Twitter's most recent update was on Record Store Day - formats like these are ideal to convey your grasp of industry topics like the role of vinyl; the issues around streaming and revenues; influences ... even technology ...
- ... it could the album producer, songwriter, video director, video editor or cinematographer (especially to discuss technology used: hardware or software) sleeve art designer, record label executive, band management, fans, ... there are many options. Great website content, research evidence, Evaluation content...

The self-produced Anthrax new album promo is like an interview or TV feature

Pics to be added - a bang up to date example of the multi-formatting that forms part of the marketing for many album releases now.

Unlike many other examples, this isn't a reissue - indeed, the thrash godfathers have put up a video of interviews to trail the album release, with the YouTube description featuring US and UK links for different formats.

Look out for magazine ads for this - drop me a link if you see one.

As usual, convergence is evident here: someone posted a link in a FB group pointing to a metal news site that had their own video which in turn linked to the band/record label's trail video...all accessed, viewed, clicked, read and blogged on through my phone - albeit pictures, saved from phone, formatting and tagging will have to wait til I'm sat at a PC/Macbook!

THE ANTHRAX ALBUM PROMO

ANTHRAX DRUMMER INTERVIEWED FOR AN E-ZINE'S PODCAST SERIES, AND E-ZINE ARTICLE ON THIS!

CIE Eval Q3b DISTRIBUTION

See also: INDUSTRY ISSUES SUMMARY Digital streamed past physical in 2015

CIE Evaluation Q3 asks:

How do your products engage with the audience and how would they be distributed as real media products?

As part of your background research you should investigate how the music industry works, considering issues such as those below - a more extensive list of issues can be found in this post:

• who are the 'big three' (now big two?) of the music industry?
• what's the difference between Indie and conglomerate or subsidiary (consider vertical and horizontal integration + synergy - terms from AS learning)?
• how has digitisation impacted ('disrupted') the music industry?
• has streaming effectively replaced lost revenues from physical media sales for artists and labels?
• how else are musicians seeking to monetise their work, brand and fanbase?
• why is vinyl making a comeback, and how wide or narrow a range of artists/genres are publishing in this format? is it just for older, nostalgic audiences (Simon Reynolds: Retromania)? 
• do you still need a record label/deal? think about Soundcloud, Vimeo, YouTube ... but also how difficult it is to make real money from streaming (Harlem Shake for the opposite!), and Elberse's argument/case studies (Jay-Z and Gaga) in Blockbusters (cheap as an e-book)
• does the rise of crowdfunding, Kickstarter etc, prove the audience/producer divide is dead?
• are social media interactions as important as the music itself?
• where does video fit into this picture? consider convergence and what this means for the increased accessibility of video and the expansion of video production too (you're a part of this), plus UGC such as lyric videos and digipak/CD unwrapping videos

Evaluation Q3 asks:

How do your products engage with the audience and how would they be distributed as real media products?

Focusing mainly on the second part of this, use the following resources to create a post on music video distribution. You should make some reference to recorded (CD) music distribution too, linked to your digipak, and any notes/examples on marketing, social media and audience engagement/interaction will also help.


CREATIVE APPROACHES
Interview a record shop owner
International Record Store Day feature
Interview someone (or multiple people/roles) at the record label 
The artist does a promo for record store day, or speaks out about why they're unhappy with YouTube especially...
Band/act's accountant discusses their hits/streams/followers/subscribers data (screenshots!) on any streaming platform they are on (soundcloud, YT, Spotify...). Don't forget that lyric vids etc are still distributing the music

MARKETING REISSUES Depeche Mode remaster videos

I'm sure they've released a NEW video for a 1985 single too - but I can't find it.

Indisputably, in another sign of how YouTube is becoming key to monetising back catalogue, there have been REMASTERED videos issued through Warner-EMI...

INDUSTRY VINYL Kid rock: Teen record label owner

So...imagine you got a little bored after your AS year, you needed a wee side project, something to gear you up for your A2 work in the music industry. Perhaps you thought you'd set up a record label, specialising in vinyl?!

Sound crazy? Not to this 17 year-old from Detroit...

Article link below the line