Robin Davey

I understand that Twitter and Facebook help connect the fans to this opportunity, but it only acted as advertising, not a replacement for distribution.

OWNERSHIP

The problem with streaming services is that they are very impersonal. To subscribe and get unlimited music does not align the buyer with what they feel is “their” artist. Fans want ownership in the artists they connect with. That piece of ownership used to come with a CD. It would sit proudly in their collection - a defining part of them. This is somewhat realized with iTunes, when you pay your money and add it to your iPod, but it has always been thought of as a transitional format, and has a temporary air to it.

Does this not explain the rise in vinyl sales? To have the release on this very organic format makes the experience that bit more personal. It may never be played, but it becomes an important addition to ones collection, something solid in what has become a very transient business.

SOCIAL LIMITATIONS

When music is channeled into a social tool, it immediately loses ownership. This works to a certain extent but only a superficial level - it explains why viral videos are quirky and funny but the majority lacks any real substance. They become quickly forgotten. Bands now value their own and others worth on the amount of Facebook likes or video plays they have. But these are social engagements, not personal engagements, by which I mean they do not leave a lasting piece of the artist in the engager’s personal collection. When a company or band looks to exploit the social nature of music they are investing in a very temporary and fleeting business that has very little actual worth. 

The music industry is not Facebook, it certainly isn’t Zynga or some token based gaming system. It has become the norm for people to associate the future of music with companies like Facebook. Facebook is free, it’s impersonal, it actually has very little to do with what music is about; it is not a model or distribution system to base the music industry on.

DON’T FORGET THE FANS

Everyone has been focusing on the artists, on the record labels, on social networks and streaming. It seems that the fans are the ones everyone is neglecting to take into account. Record companies need to be looking how to connect the fan direct with the artist and monetizing that, not connecting the fan with all music ever made, because it is not actually rewarding to the fan on a personal level.

Fans want ownership of their music, they want a piece of the artist and they are willing to pay for it, they want something that will be a part of them forever. They want it to be about them, to be personal, to define them, to be something to add to their collection, and they want their own collection, not someone else’s. 

They do not consider themselves connected to a band simply because they liked their page or watched their video.

It is the desires of the fan that will decide the future of the music industry, because to the fan, the music they buy, and their connection to its makers, is worth much more on a personal level than any service trying to offer mass consumption and social saturation.

Glen Bell grew the Taco Bell empire from a single burger stand in San Bernardino. It did not happen overnight, it took a several attempts to get right, and most of all it took dedication, passion and hard work. Over the years Bell developed a set of “Recipes for Success” that outlined his approach to making it in business. In music you are ultimately creating a product, and the path to success is to having that product consumed by as many people as possible. 

5 of Glen Bells “Recipes for Success”

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1. You build a business one customer at a time.

Whether it is at shows or through social networking, you must understand the power of the individual. If they believe in you, their word becomes stronger than any update you can post yourself, or any Facebook ad you buy. When someone loves what you do, nothing makes them happier than converting others into believers. The foundations of your fan base are the two people you give free CDs to when they are the only people in your audience. When you create a relationship with these people they will become fans for life and they will in turn tell others about you. Speaking with someone one on one is way more effective than shouting at 100 people and hoping someone is listening.

2. Sometimes what you don’t say is more important than what you do say.

The tendency with the onset of social networking is to tell everybody everything all the time. We are told how we have to work social networks, how to best engage our fans. An insight into your world is something, but every great artist was built on a certain mystique. The days of “they are just like us” bought about by reality shows and Twitter is long wearing thin. Sometimes it is better to stop hollering at everyone, and open your eyes and ears to what going on around you. Those ahead of the curve are more often the ones who quietly overtook you, than the ones who blasted past with full guns blazing.

3. The best ideas are often the most simple 

Elaborate music videos, full symphony orchestras, excessive marketing campaigns, stylists, new boobs, celebrity affiliations, and bulging entourages mean nothing, unless at the heart of it is a great song with a great hook. 

4. When you over extend yourself financially it is twice as hard to get ahead. 

If you want the best chance of success you do not have to spend $50,000 making a record. It will not make it sound 50 times better than spending $1000. If you have never sold a record before, don’t get delusions of grandeur, profit should be attainable by selling 100 records. When you know you can sell 100 you can then aim for that next step. This way there is room for your band to grow both as a business and creatively.

5. A dream is a valuable possession.

As the reality of the music industry sets in, that spark which ignited your passion to make music your career can easily burn out. But every great achievement started off as someone’s dream. More and more often, success in the music industry is being realized after many years of dedication. The success of those picked up and branded by some TV show, or talent competition, is commonly fleeting. Sustainable careers become that way because they were built on solid foundations, and solid foundations are not built overnight. 

You can watch the complete documentary below – The Glen Bell Story: An American Dream  (Runtime 15 mins).

Spotify’s previous European success seems to have driven their expectations of the US market, however as David Hasslehoffs huge status as a recording artist in Germany proves, some things simply don’t translate. It seems this arrogance and self-reverence that they will be the future of music distribution, is a big factor in their current stumble in this quest to attain dominance.

The insistence from their fledgling days that you joined via Facebook - in a presumed attempt to have peoples listening habits smeared across their pages - only seemed to result in a desperate scramble to figure out how to turn that function off. Sure we want people to know that we are listening to cool shit like the new Spiritualized album or Woody Guthrie classics, but we don’t want them to know we just checked out LMFAO.

Similarly, Spotifys glee at pronouncing they were in bed with the big boys - by up playing their coke partnership, doesn’t really make them seem cool. What Spotify desperately needs is the kids telling you to use the service, not Facebook, or Coke, or major labels. For the time being it seems the word isn’t on the street.

Most people only buy 1.5 albums a year because that is all they want. They don’t need unlimited access to everything. They like the two CDs they play over and over in the car. Or they just like listening to the singles. Albums are dead and have been for a long while. Spotify promises all the tracks from all the artists. People respond by just wanting that one new track by Katy Perry.

Our lives are taken over by technology; we don’t have time to peruse the endless options available to us via Spotify. If we want to hear one track we search it on Youtube, because we know it will be there.

Albums are now a niche market, and Spotify may have vastly over estimated that in the search for world domination. ITunes gives you the track you want, to your phone, for less that the price of a soda. If you see the mammoth plays on youtube videos on artists like Rhianna and Katy Perry it is because kids play them over and over and over again. Just have a teen year come stay at your house for a week and you will know what I mean. Over, and over, and fucking over again. 

Spotify doesn’t facilitate this new way to consume as conveniently as other platforms. It looks dull and boring, it looks like it was designed to function like a tax return program. With videos you get pretty pictures, the music industry is now a visual entity, like it or not.

Spotify thinks it is ahead of the curve, but in reality it is desperately lagging.