2010 Predictions

Image by dannysullivan via Flickr

1. Ticketmaster and Live Nation Will Merge

After public outcry lasting a week, people will move on to tracking the exploits of faux celebrities and the two companies will get down to trying to improve their bottom lines. Which will depend not so much on fees, but the artists in the Front Line stable.

Expect innovative merchandising and distribution deals. The ability to stream concerts at home. And a ton of data delivered to acts that will allow them to enhance their careers.

Will this be enough to improve Live Nation's anemic bottom line? Will Ticketmaster be able to demonstrate growth? Unclear at this time. In a business where the lion's share of the revenue goes to the acts, it's hard to grow. But this is their challenge.

And if you want to compete with the behemoth, you've got to deliver more. And better.

Independent concert promoters must do more than pay an advance and sell tickets. They too will be forced to go high tech. Government conditions will allow independent ticketing agencies to flourish, but will they? Or will we learn that Ticketmaster does a good job (which Live Nation's ticketing debacle proved). Or will it all come down to money. How much new agencies will kick back and how little they're willing to profit.


2. Major Labels

History!

Well, that's not exactly accurate.

The behemoth will be TM/LN. What does the act need the major label for when they get can almost all these services from TM/LN and retain the lion's share of revenue from selling the music they do?

Expect major label rosters to continue to shrink. The majors will focus on winners. Broad-based acts that garner radio and TV airplay. However, these acts tend not to be winners in the live arena, so those slices of live revenue and merchandising in the 360 deals are worth little. And, the more people you try to reach, the blander the product. And this business has always thrived on cutting edge product. Which the major label won't sign, because it doesn't know how to expose it and doesn't see instant revenue.

In sum, a bad recipe.

Best to spin off new artist development to a third party and turn the major into a licensing house. Thrive from the catalog.


3. Independent Labels

Don't have 360 deals and don't have cash. If someone is telling you they're staring an indie label, laugh. Unless that someone is a manager and already has an interest in 360 degrees of revenue.

Suddenly, you're your own label. You get all the money, but you're doing all the work. Which artists are historically poor at.

So expect a roll-up of new acts.

So far, TM/LN is not in this business. And Red Light has a lot of acts, but little traction.

Some smart cookie, much younger than the players of today, will build a hit act. The old-fashioned way, slowly, via a lot of touring, employing new technology to spread the word. The success of this act will draw other new acts to this person. And out of nowhere, suddenly, you're going to have a brand new powerhouse.

These will be acts the oldsters want no part of at first. Because they don't see enough revenue. That's how new players always get started. By finding that which few are interested in and becoming the new mainstream. These new acts will be music focused. They won't even think about Top Forty radio. They'll put the fans first. But, they might just end up writing a ubiquitous track. Which is built by the people, not the industry.


4. Acts

Will focus on their niche instead of world domination. It will be about making a living more than earning a private jet lifestyle. These new acts will not be bitching that music is free, they'll be giving away their material, just hoping that you pay attention.

But don't be surprised when one of these new acts suddenly becomes ubiquitous. Because despite the balkanization of the Web, it also allows a story to be universally known, overnight.


5. Terrestrial Radio

A dying medium for music.

The stations are overleveraged, or already in bankruptcy, and they're cutting back infrastructure and banking on twenty plus minutes of commercials per hour. You're supposed to double down, innovate in a crisis. But terrestrial radio has done just the opposite. It's dying, and it will never come back. In a world where no one experiences a commercial they don't want to, do you really expect people to listen to what you tell them and be sold to every third minute? You're dreaming.

Terrestrial radio will be about news and talk, those elements that are immediate. Music's been recorded previously, there's no urgency to sit through the b.s. to hear what you want to.


6. Satellite Radio

Has the benefit of being in automobiles, but a bad image. Will stay at the twenty million subscriber level unless the model is changed and the service becomes free. Don't expect that to happen.


7. Pandora

A winner. I find the service tedious, requiring way too much effort to hear what I want. Slacker is superior. But Pandora is winning.

All because of Tim Westergren. Who kept his company in the public eye. Who aligned himself and his company with the public, not the government or the powers-that-be. Yup, Tim kept rallying his troops, telling them to write to their representatives in Washington, to keep the service alive. To the point where Pandora got name recognition. To the point where it thrives not only on computers, but mobile phones. And is supposedly on the verge of profitability.

Learn Tim's lesson. Keep yourself in the public eye. Don't condemn your customers, rally them.

And know that the best service does not necessarily win.


8. Piracy

Will no longer be the focus of discussion. It will be about signing people up to subscription music services. How long will this take? The cards are held by the rights holders, until they play ball, innovation will be stifled.

Ever notice that Google search is free? That people clicking on ads support the service for everyone? This is the essence of a freemium model. Those paying for music subscriptions will subsidize those employing a free version, albeit with limits...i.e. advertising.

Until you've got the free version, you've got no incentive.

Once people have free streaming services on their desktops, they'll pay to have them on their mobile devices. Because first and foremost, all the data will synch, you'll have convenience and you'll save time. Furthermore, you'll get what you want, all your music on the go. And you'll pay for this.

Makes no sense to try to accumulate a library of tracks. Especially when the health of the business depends on experimentation, getting people to listen to new tracks. This process must be easy. Sure, hard drive space keeps getting cheaper. And broadband connections get faster. But it still takes time to steal and catalog all that music. So, if someone does it for you, will you pay a small price?

Of course.

Starting with small.

It's about regrowing the revenue stream. Not figuring out how we get back to the numbers of yore, but delivering a service people want for a price...and slowly raising that price, like every other service in America. Get 'em hooked first, then make your money.

Traditional labels may rail that music is being devalued. But savvy artists will realize it's about exposure. And that there's more ways to make money than recorded music. Which, of course, should be paid for, but should not be seen as the main way to earn your bread.


9. Music Video

Will be what it originally was. A way for fans and potential fans to experience the act, not a mini-movie. Veoh, if it ever works right, will not experience exponential growth because new acts will not make videos like those of the eighties and nineties, and will not be aligned with Veoh anyway.

Just like Veoh's videos are hosted by YouTube, so are the wannabes'. They can be embedded anywhere. Google/YouTube gives all artists this power. The majors/Veoh have no monopoly on distribution.


10. Retail

Already it's hard to find vast inventories of CDs. This will only get worse. Sure, diehard indie stores will survive, but Wal-Mart and Best Buy will continue to shrink floor space for music, down to essentially nothing.

But the big story will be the decline of the iTunes Store. Sale by track has always been death. You need to get more than a buck a track from a customer to survive. You need the higher price point of a subscription, that is still low, but so desirable that many people buy it.


11. Music

Will need to reclaim its rightful place as the most powerful art form. This will be done by innovative acts, not aligned with a major.

Today's audience sees music as background, not foreground. Aural grease in a club, not something you sit on your floor and listen to again and again as it fulfills your soul.

In order to turn the ship around, we'll need a plethora of artists who can sing, write and play. The new technological tools allow you to fake it in the studio, but it's much more difficult to fake it live. You may point to lip-synching divas as contradiction to this point, I'll say those are productions, whereas real musicians, playing live, sans effects, sans canned backup, touch the audience in a wholly different way, which bonds fans to them, which makes people want more.

Yes, we're going to experience a return to basics. Don't be distracted by the vast gobs of crap, whether it be the wannabes on MySpace or the no-talents on Top Forty radio. The growth will come from those who pay their dues, who rely on their talent.

None of the oldsters believe this. They point to grosses of jokes. They point to dollars as opposed to emotions. And that's how we've gotten to this godforsaken place. Until you focus on the essence, the music, motivating people to come to the show based on the sound alone, you're screwed. The shows will start smaller. They'll be cheaper. But the acts will be better. Because when there's less money involved, you don't do it for the fame, but the love.


12. Conclusion

The music business is going through a wrenching transition. Which will continue and may not solidify in its new form until the end of this new decade. But, when the new destination is reached, most of the old players will be extinct and music will thrive.

We need to separate the wheat from the chaff. This will be done online. Someone like Arianna Huffington will roll up tastemakers and distill information for those not willing to surf all day to find what they want. Wannabes will be seen as that. Esoteric blogs will complain that they host the real music, that they are the true keepers of the flame, but the more we let today's shoegazers' voices be heard, the further we are from the destination.

Sure, all genres can succeed. But let's not confuse the marginal with the mainstream. And there's nothing wrong with being mainstream, if that means more than your family, your friends and your college buddies like you. You can get plenty far without compromising. As long as you're good.

Sure, you can post your wannabe music on the aforementioned MySpace, but we're going to ignore it. The same way we ignore your second grade diorama, or your high school talent show.

Chaos will fade, solidification will emerge. A new breed of acts not beholden to the old business mind-set who can play, who have something to say, will dominate. It's coming. Not as soon as we want it to, but it's coming.

GIRL CAN'T HELP IT

Image via Wikipedia

There are so many things wrong with Sirius XM I don't know where to begin. But it all starts with the programming.

Distribution is king. But arrangements have already been made with all the car manufacturers. Sure, it's important to get on new platforms, but if Sirius XM is banking on its iPhone app for profitability, it might as well go bankrupt now.

XM used to be a cult. Millions strong, people frothed at the mouth when they discussed it. Did you hear this? That? Now, we hear too much of what we already know, which we've already heard. What kind of crazy screwed up service is it where there are a hundred plus stations and everybody complains they're hearing the same damn songs over and over again?

I tried to battle perception, to fight the tide, because despite its failings, Sirius XM is still my listening of choice in the car. I don't talk on the cell, I just want to bask in the music. But how many times can I hear Ringo's "It Don't Come Easy"? And the promos... They're just as bogus as what's on terrestrial radio, as if we need to be sold on the service, as if they're programming for theoretical aliens who've never heard music before. The stations are riddled with every radio cliche known to man. Exactly the crap that Lee Abrams excercised on XM. It's so jive.

Still, some of the XM stations are still brilliant. Like Deep Tracks. And the Loft. But Outlaw Country is a shadow of XM's X Country. And the regular country station is riddled with repeats. Worst is the Bridge. Even housewives like to have sex. Listen to the station, all the rough ends have been shorn off. I like soft rock, but when I hear the promos, I wince. I want surprises. Delivered by normal people, who believe in music, not research, who don't follow the trades, but spend time checking out music themselves.

And then I stumble upon something like "Girl Can't Help It".

They've neutered the decades channels. The same damn songs again and again. Nothing unknown, and ultimately, nothing unexpected. But then you hear something you don't know, or barely know, and you have that magic radio moment, when you feel like you want to point your car towards Reno, some destination unknown ten or twelve hours away, just so you can be alone in the car, listening to the radio.

Where do we want to begin with Journey?

Do we want to state it was a completely different band before Steve Perry joined? Or say that we hated the people who loved them? Or that so much of the music was meaningless?

Or do we just want to say that Steve Perry had an incredible voice?

One of my favorite Journey songs is a Steve Perry solo work, "Oh Sherrie". And I'll admit to even coming to like "Wheel In The Sky", "Any Way You Want It" and "Lights" in their heyday. But I threw out the "Escape" cassette someone gave me. I was afraid someone would see it in my glove box.

And then came the "Sopranos" finale.

Not much was happening. Everybody was having dinner. Maybe Tony was about to be clipped. All we know is there was tension. And playing over this creepy moment was a powerful, sunny song by a band we'd never align with the best TV series of the twenty first century. Then again, Tony did not have eclectic tastes. He was positively mainstream. He remembered his eighties heyday, getting high, driving along to the tunes. So, maybe "Don't Stop Believin'" was a perfect fit.

What we do know is overnight Journey became legitimized. Enough time had gone by for the haters to admit their guilty pleasure. We could all admit this was a damn powerful song. We didn't want to stop believing, in the power of great art like the "Sopranos", of powerful rock and roll like "Don't Stop Believin'".

So I'm about a mile from my house, pushing my satellite radio buttons. And I hear a somewhat familiar hook. I know I've heard it before, but I can't really place it. I look down at the radio readout to see it's Journey's "Girl Can't Help It". Huh?

The song keeps building. It's missing some of the perfection Clive Davis insists upon. But when the tension is released, it's exactly like coming. That's what a great record is, a sexual moment.

"Ooh, there's a fire in his eyes for you"

Who knows why you broke up. But you can't seem to get it back together. You'd talk about her more, but your friends are gonna avoid you if you do, and you need them to get through. Still, you lie awake at night, thinking only of her.

"And when he calls her
She tells him that she still cares"

That's the problem. You know it's going to hurt. But you can't help but try and connect. And the problem is the feeling is about as good as ever. But the conversation doesn't end up with you getting back together, but still apart, your guts ripped open once again.

"Girl can't help it, she needs more"

The curse of modern society. No one wants to settle, no one wants to get less than he deserves.

"Hasn't found what he's lookin' for"

He felt that when they broke up he would crawl from the wreckage into a brand new car. But he didn't realize how much they truly shared, how hard it is to get that far with anybody.

"Ooh, nothing stands between love and you"

Except everything.

There are millions of members of the opposite sex. You're surrounded. But you feel positively alone, you're lonely. What to do?

Turn on the radio. Listen for that song that describes your plight.

And oftentimes, when the track's a hit, when you first love it, the words don't apply at all. And then, in your moment of despair, you rediscover it.

These are the moments I'm looking for. The unexpected. "Girl Can't Help It" is not a Sirius XM staple, I heard it at eleven p.m. on the west coast. There's no problem hearing "Don't Stop Believin'", but that won't get you through the night. You need something just for you. And radio, when done right, is just like that. A hot medium, where you get the impression you're the only listener extant, and the deejay is spinning the records just for you.

If Sirius XM is going to recover from its tailspin, it's going to be as a result of its programming. At this point, even Dell and HP make slick computers. But Apple triumphs because of the software. Not only the clean OS, but the built-in apps. Just open your ears, you can't avoid the cacophony of lemmings testifying. Satellite radio's throng was never quite as large, but it was just as rabid. But now it's like the Sculley era, the late eighties and early nineties in Macville, when only the true believers held on. Until Steve returned.

I'd say to bring back Lee Abrams.

Because to Lee, it wasn't about picking records, it was about a love for radio. The experience of tuning in and finding your one and only friend.


You can hear "Girl Can't Help It" by Googling it and clicking the LaLa button to play it.

Or you can go to YouTube to hear the same studio version here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x6mxYRwA0FI

Or, you can dial up this "live" take: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eoD-ex6LMwA

Yes, that's the dogg himself, Randy Jackson, playing the bass. Check the hair!

And yes, that's still Neal Schon on guitar, who started off with Carlos. As in Santana.

And fronting the band is the guy in tails, with the 80's 'do, Steve Perry.

But what you want to check out most is the crowd.

We used to have no problem pulling tens of thousands to the gig. When you didn't have to pay an arm and a leg to get in and the songs literally drove the culture.

"They're still standing in the rain
He can't help it, and she's just that way"

We're still waiting. We remember the power of music. We're waiting for it to come back. To be about the music as opposed to profits.

They're just that way. Like the bankers. Worrying how to make their nut, which has got many more zeros than that of the listeners.

Used to be the music was enough. To not only satiate the audience, but rain coin on the players and their handlers.

It's still enough.

We don't have a theft problem, we've got a music problem. What's the modern song that's going to end the "Sopranos"?

"Ooh, there's a fire in his eyes for you For you she cries Ooh do you know she still cries for you"

The businessmen don't talk about the music. And the players are either concerned how to break into the chart, get paid, or are so busy doing solely what they want that no one else can relate.

Still, right now, I don't give a shit.

Because when you listen to a song as great as "Girl Can't Help It", no matter how flawed it might be, its magic lifts you up from your seat, causes you twirl around the room like Stevie Nicks, makes you feel like it's JUST GREAT TO BE ALIVE!