We knew it would happen someday. Back in 1989, Andres Serrano busted open a simmering debate over whether it’s right (or even effective) for tax dollars to support arts. As a high school student at the time, I got worried about whether the theatre, films, and music I was absorbing like a sponge could ever […]
Music Marketing
Getting music picked for branded content platforms
Morning Edition’s Allyson McCabe dropped a five minute mini-documentary about how “pay for play” at radio stations has evolved from the scandalous “song plugger” systems of the 1950s, through the bizarre indie promotion world of the 1990s, and into today’s branded content marketplace. Brands like Pepsi, Coke, and Dr. Pepper rely on relationships with musicians […]
Avoiding music business scams
I just posted dozens of “classic” coaching call recordings to our membership area, and even though some of them are over a decade old, many of those conversations hold up really well! (If you take some of the specific technology out of the equation—replace MySpace with Snapchat, for instance—a lot of this stuff hasn’t changed. […]
Should you release a CD or an EP?
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
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. […]
