It’s interesting to see how that discussion played out. Jampol, whose job is to protect the heritage of his legacy rock estates, cautioned acts against licensing just for a paycheck. Fans might think you’re cheapening your music if you accept the wrong deal.

Patsavas countered, as I would have, that today’s generation of music fans is a little different. After all, Of Montreal has an Outback Steakhouse ad, and they’re doing fine.

With anything you do, it’s important to maintain integrity and credibility. It’s also important to remember that reality shows and other entertainment programming (like the series that license from Pump Audio) have a tendency to come and go, while beloved albums hang around for decades. Nobody’s going to remember if your song was in “The Biggest Loser,” but the check you earned from that placement might have been the cash you needed to convince yourself to keep writing music.

(Remember, David Hooper is still enrolling folks into his new, hybrid tip-sheet/licensing course.)

I just came back from running an errand at the Plaza at King of Prussia. The whole mall is crawling with girls lined up to catch a glimpse of Robert Pattinson from the movie Twilight. 300 fans lined up in some crappy weather this morning to buy $30 shirts and wristbands for a meet-and-greet event.

(The mall seems to have found a use for an atrium once filled with a Strawbridge’s.) Undaunted by the herd of fans queued up behind a velvet rope, hundreds more screaming teens are roving the mall — even though most of the stores are empty.

Hot Topic continues to thrive because it has placed major bets on popular culture. Betsy McLaughlin, its CEO, understands that home runs like “Twilight” and “Napoleon Dynamite” are fewer and farther between, thanks to our fractured media landscape. However, she tells David Randall from Forbes that music from outside of the mainstream plays a major role in the company’s success, as well as its future strategy.

We want to be the place to discover what’s new in music. It was no longer about the biggest bands and what they were wearing. We communicated that in March of ‘07 and by December our numbers were positive. Before that, they were all negative. What’s interesting now are these mid-tier bands. That’s where we need to make the investment.

Here’s another place where tastemakers outside radio and music press are making huge impacts on music careers. Like television and film licensing specialists, music coordinators for retail stores aren’t necessarily worried about finding hits. Instead, they’re creating a mood. That opens up a stronger opportunity for artists who can get great traction among Hot Topic’s target shoppers. For many musicians, in-store airplay and live events are becoming more important than radio airplay.

All of my tech friends are pinging me about the article on TechCrunch about Warner Music Group’s demands that any new signed acts must agree to a “360 Deal.”

Traditionally, a record company would sign a deal with an artist that set specific royalty rates for each copy of a record sold. In exchange, the label would front the investment money for the recording while applying their substantial promotion and marketing prowess to the task of getting records sold. Along the way, any expenses incurred in the process would become “recoupable” against those royalties.

In a nutshell, albums would get made, but artists would rarely see a penny outside of their statutory songwriting royalties. That’s because labels would find ways to extract every single cent from artist payments by deducting every cell phone call, every bottle of water, and every regional promoter’s cat litter bills from the artist’s escrow account.

That was fine, though, since artists really make money from movie and TV licensing, from fan club memberships, from merchandise, and from live concerts. Managers and label owners tolerated each other long enough to get a contract signed, and the world kept spinning.

Live Nation’s Best Idea Ever

Along comes Live Nation, a revived company formed from the ashes of Clear Channel, the shell of SFX, and the brain of MusicToday. Clem Chambers called it months ago: by leveraging the footprint of the most desirable concert venues in the country with the prowess of the industry’s most successful marketers, Live Nation actually found a way for itself and for musicians to make money. As a result, it started a new music business precedent: “360 deals,” in which Live Nation acts as label, promoter, presenter, and gift shop. For major touring acts, it’s a no brainer. Ditch the major labels, cash a fat advance check, and head out on the road.

So now, with record sales in free-fall, Edgar Bronfman is telling all comers that he won’t sign an act unless his label gets the same kind of deal. If Warner had the same kind of promotional clout as Live Nation, this might make sense. But I can’t see handing over an extra 10-30% of an act’s income to a company that’s already failing to pay artist royalties in an era where artists still have to do all of their promotion. On top of that, recognizing that the cost of producing high quality records has come way down, where is the benefit of actually signing with a label like Warner?

Song Sharks Using 360 Deals to Lure Unsigned Acts

Here’s what’s even worse, in my opinion. Bronfman’s statements are legitimizing a trend among small labels that are already indistinguishable from song sharks. I’m hearing more and more from independent musicians who are being approached by so-called A&R scouts who promise fame and fortune in exchange for up to 66% of their overall earnings.

When you’re already broke, and dreaming of stardom, 66% of nothing is nothing, so it feels good to actually consider this kind of a deal. Here’s why these folks are ripping you off:

• No legitimate music business manager, even in this economic climate, will request more than 15% of an act’s net profit. Managers make money on the back end, just like you do.
• If you don’t already have 1,000 fans on your mailing list, a record label isn’t close to being in a position to help you.
• Consider any professional offering services the same way you would select a doctor, a dentist, or a real estate agent. What’s their track record? Who have they actually produced? If they’re new at the business, that’s fine — they should be commanding a smaller rate than someone who’s got some gold records on the wall.
• Any deal you make early in your career that hands over a chunk of your revenue will make you less attractive to more experienced professionals. If you get big enough to be courted by Live Nation, they’re going to want a piece of the whole pie, not the 75% or 50% that’s left over after the deal you’re thinking about.

As always, I remain convinced that record labels make great pressing & distribution partners. I wouldn’t sign a deal that allowed them to charge my act for promotion, unless I knew exactly who was going to do that work for us and what their strategy was.

And, as always, make sure you run every prospective legal agreement by an experienced entertainment attorney. $300 spent now can save you thousands or even millions of dollars down the road.

I don’t think he has a similar marathon planned for tonight, but he is hosting another free teleseminar on ways that you can license your music to television, film, and video game producers. Licensing is the “final frontier” for independent musicians, and it’s a great way to earn a significant amount of revenue while putting your music in front of potential audience members.

From a return on investment point of view, music licensing can be easier for some musicians than playing gigs or trying to get radio airplay. Because producers are looking for a feeling more than they are looking for name acts, many music supervisors take a really open approach to reviewing demos from unsigned acts. David’s spent the last few years working in Nashville really focusing on this piece of the business, and he’s put some videos together that go along with tonight’s seminar. It’s all free, and you can sign up to learn about music licensing here.

What I can’t figure out is why, in the year 2008, when radio is a declining force in the way Americans learn about new music, do we actually care?

Even friends of mine who work in the radio promotion business understand that MAJOR label acts can’t get airplay under these conditions. Radio has circled the wagon around good old chestnuts. Speaking of which, how many Christmas-music-only stations has your town spawned at this point?

I agree with Ann Chaitovitz that radio is still an untapped medium, especially here in the United States. As an audience, we have failed our broadcasters. Listeners will tell you time and again that radio is at its best when it’s live and local. Broadcasters around the world do this really well.

But we have forced ourselves down a rabbit hole by making broadcasters accountable only to ratings. There’s zero incentive for radio stations to play independent music because there’s no way they can earn money on it. Even public radio stations are abandoning music, since they can’t fundraise around it.

That’s why I have been telling musicians for years not to worry about spending too much money on radio promotion unless you’ve got something that fits rock solid into a speciality niche. You can get far more traction by investing in a strong audience-building campaign than you can by trying to get your record on the air.

That’s an odd date to release an album, right?

And then, I remembered that Dr. Pepper’s marketing director placed a bet that if the record dropped anytime in 2008, “everyone in America” would get a free can of that most cherished of soft drinks. (Though my friends back in Charlotte would call me a blasphemer and order up some Cheerwine.)

Is it just a coincidence that Dr. Pepper has been hyping up its “23 ingredients” on its cans and in its advertising? Could that have influenced the release date at all?

We’ll see…

UPDATE (10/23, 10pm): Oh yes, there will be free Dr. Pepper after all.

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