How to get out of a bad music management contract

spinme_bluestage

It happens all the time. You’re having a great night on stage, and somebody slick tells you that they’d love to represent you. In a whirlwind, you sign a contract because they assure you that “it’s boilerplate” and “everybody signs this.” Before long, you’re “on a roster,” but it seems that all your manager ever [...]

Seven things I learned from fifteen years behind the wheel at spinme.com

spinme_stevie

When spinme.com launched in 1997, we thought it would grow up to be Pitchfork. It hosted “Daily Digital Opinion,” J.F. Parnell’s album review mailing list, and our original discussion forums. What a precious logo we had when we launched: While “J.F.” got headhunted away to a series of larger media companies, I chased conversations in [...]

Should you release a CD or an EP?

Should_You_Release

Ever since attending last Saturday’s interview with John Oates, I’ve been talking to folks about the pros and cons of working on albums vs. EPs. There’s a school of thought among music promotion professionals right now that you might not even want to focus on EPs, choosing instead to release a steady stream of singles. [...]

Gamification in reverse: a music business where charts mean less

gamify2

Folks have been talking to me a lot lately about “gamification.” It’s a popular business trend that hopes to leverage the video game habits of recent generations into stronger workplace productivity. Take a set of tasks that would otherwise sound pretty boring: making phone calls or filing TPS reports. Then, turn it into a game. [...]

Three essential qualities of a successful indie record label

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When I ran Handwritten Records in the 90s with my friend Kristen, indie labels still had a clear role in the music business. I was a production geek with access to a studio and a mass CD duplication machine, and Kristen handled the A&R. It was pretty clear, back then, how we could add value [...]