Steve Lawson just wrote a great post on teaching music.  The excerpt below is my favorite paragraph.

"I encourage the students to want to change the world, to love their instrument and its history, but to remember that that's vital to them - not to the people they're playing to. I exhort them to listen and learn and play and improvise and write as though their life depended on it. To be mindful of what they want from music, what they want it to do for them, and to work towards that. To see the world of music as a big sand-pit to play in rather than a business venture to succeed in or a body of knowledge that needs 'conquering' before their contribution is validated."

As I write about music business strategy, I automatically assume that everyone that reads this blog has somehow validated their contribution prior to conquering the business of music?

Unless you are solely focused on the business of music, If you don't first internalize the advice that Steve is giving is his post, is it pointless to engage in music business activities?  

Is music both art and product?  If it's both, then there are business activities that should perhaps be considered prior to creating the art?  Not that Steve is arguing otherwise, I'm just thinking out loud...

A few weeks I wrote about a song we worked on called Mindless Robots. 

Over the last three weeks I estimate 5,000 people have come across the Mindless Robots post.  It’s my fault for stifling the comments.  However, I really didn’t get any feedback, email or otherwise on the song. 

I told you about the great people that worked on the song and I gave you a MySpace link so you could listen to it. 

What did I get?  I got cold silence and minimal full plays on MySpace, and that’s what I expected.  

I used the Mindless Robots post to demonstrate three things.

Silence Has Meaning
First, the way I described the song is typical of the emails I get from artists about their songs.  I typically receive a bit of a greeting, a note describing the talent that worked on the song, a link to a MySpace page, and usually a polite request for some advice or help.

I don’t have a music background; so I don’t feel comfortable commenting on songs.  However, I do know from talking to people in the industry that when you receive silence or polite replies, it usually indicates that your song is not ready for the world. 

Screaming and passionate enthusiasm from a brand new and qualified listener is probably the only positive feedback you can trust.  Otherwise, seek out the Simon Cowell’s of the world for unbiased criticism, and make no bones about the fact that you are prepared for the ugliest feedback you can get.  

Entertainment Adds Value
There was nothing entertaining about how I described the song, and there's nothing entertaining about how the artist posted it on MySpace.  The real story is entertaining and I believe that changes perception.

Here’s the real story about Mindless Robots.  The artist won a contest at a mall.  She had never sung in public; she had never written a song; and she had never seen the inside of a recording studio.  She wrote some lyrics by using her vocabulary test and we helped her with everything else.  The fast-cut ten-minute video (if I had it) of this entire experience would have been great entertainment.  The artist did a bang on job considering the pace and the circumstances, but we dropped the ball by not capturing the right story.

Competing With Everyone
More and more people are going to participate in the music industry.  Songs are relatively easy to make, and the blur between good and really good is hard for consumers to discern.  We could have made a music video, but the real story was the story we missed.  To compete you need the right song, the right story and the right people on your team to put it all together.  As I have hinted before, you need a bit of plan before you begin.   

Why am I Making Songs?
I try to understand the costs and challenges artists are confronted with.  Make a song, promote a song, divide up ownership, make everyone happy…  Doing it is the best way to write about it.  By the way, I like the song Mindless Robots.  Great job Julia, and thanks to those that helped.  The next time we do it, we will capture the right story.  

iPod Shuffle attached to a Bose Acoustic Wave Music System

I snapped this photo at home.  It reminds me of using the Energizer Bunny to run a nuclear power plant.  The price of convenience inconvenience is diminished sound quality.

This is a follow up to my post titled "Is Old The New Sexy Or Have New Artists Gone To The Dawgs?"

What I want to say can be said better with these two YouTube videos.

THE WAY MUSIC WAS CREATED.
I choose Paulina Porizkova because I believe most of these shots are pre-PhotoShop.  I realize that everything else was done to make her look perfect; however, you only have to look at Paulina now in 2007 to know that she's the real thing.

THE WAY MUSIC IS CREATED NOW.
This second video by Dove has been watched almost 5,000,000 times.  This video is also a great example of how to create something that is both commercial and viral.  I believe you will understand the analogy between this video and modern music after watching the video.

CONCLUSION 
If you get aroused looking at avatars you probably won't get my point.  A lot of modern music doesn't sound so great after you get it home and play with it for a while.  For some reason we get tired of it quickly.  How long have Rick Ocasek and Paulina Porizkova been married (no jokes please)?

The U.S. population grew by 50,000,000 people since 1990 and the number of new album titles is doubling every six years, but it’s the much older and established acts that are generating all the sales and touring revenue!  What gives?  Is old the new sexy?  

I culled this information from Billboard Magazine:

• 6 of the top 10, and 11 of the top 25 tours of 2006 feature acts that will qualify for Social Security within ten years, and among the top-grossing acts of the last decade, Dave Matthews Band is the only one that broke in the 1990’s or later.
• The class of 1994 was the most prolific year for developing artists; artists that broke in 1994 have produced 102 more career platinum and 57 more multi-platinum albums than any other class.
• The lack of new shed-filling acts is so bad that both AEG Live and Live Nation are now focused on building smaller venues for acts that have limited draws.
• The number of new album titles doubled in the last six years to almost 76,000 new titles in 2006.
  

There are a lot of theories as to why older acts are more popular than newer acts; including: market fragmentation caused by the Internet, competition for consumer mindshare, the aging of the population, a lack of investment and short-term thinking by labels, hormones in our dairy, and global warming.

I want to offer an alternative theory.

Plot the spread and adoption of Digital Audio Workstations (SoundTools released 1989, ProTools released 1991), both new and used systems, against the growth of new acts that chart but FAIL to elevate into the top tier of revenue producing acts that CAN NOT consistently sell out arenas or stadiums, and you will have the answer you are seeking.

First though, you can’t blame technology.  ProTools didn’t cause anything; it’s actually one of the coolest systems I’ve ever seen.  No, the inability of new acts to move into the upper echelons of the industry is due to the chronic reliance upon audio engineers, affectionately called by me: The DAWGs or Digital Audio Workstation Gods.

When Digital Audio Workstations became more and more accessible, as prices dropped, The DAWG ascended from the sonic heavens.  Now the DAWG and his Rig is the vinyl that every record on earth is pressed upon.  The DAWG is so powerful, and the job is so interesting and integral, that I want to be a DAWG in my next life.  In fact, the DAWG has become the artist, and the artist is just a breathing instrument of the DAWG.

Over the last twenty years, like a frog that unknowingly boils to death in water, artists everywhere have grown to depend on the DAWGs to make their songs, and this addiction is sucking the life out new music.

Consumers can smell the flesh of the frog.

It’s not because DAWGs are not brilliant or creative.  No, it’s because artists are using DAWGs like a farmer uses a tractor.  A machine does the heavy lifting; new seeds (tracks) are planted mechanically; everything is plowed perfectly; and there’s minimal blood, sweat and tears.  Just like farmers that plumped up while sitting upon tractors, artists no longer toil in the fields prior to making an album.

Sticking with the farm analogy: music no longer sounds organic; it has a genetically modified, mass produced sound to it.  

The DAWG has enabled the artist to quickly make his music and then focus his energies elsewhere.  Work energy has been shifted from performing in public to friending on MySpace; from collaborating with humans to selecting digital loops and synthetic instruments; from subjecting himself to fan feedback to hiding behind a flat screen; the list goes on…

The DAWG has also dramatically driven up the number of choices for consumers to sift through.  Consider the number of new titles released each year between 2000 and 2006 (Source: Billboard: 35,516, 31,374, 33,443, 38,269, 44,476, 60,331, 75,774).  With this much competition, it’s easy to see why artists and labels feel more compelled then ever to focus on promotion instead creation.

This is how the system worked prior to 1995: Everything was recorded to tape and artists had to be rich or altogether prepared to record in a major studio.  New artists were selected to participate in this expensive process because their music was fully baked and lines formed out the club door and two hundred feet down the sidewalk.  Now, microwaved music is put on the Internet prior to public performances and labels pluck bands when they score a promotional coup d'état that has nothing to do with the durability of the music.

For more evidence, look at follow-up releases by known contemporary artists: after these artists chart, only 14.8% sell a larger total on ANY subsequent album, whereas 30.5% of the artists from the class of 1994 had a better selling subsequent album; and this isn’t all from falling CD sales (Napster peaked in 2001 – think prior).  Now when an artist charts, he finds the badest DAWG he can afford to make his second album.  There’s minimal rehearsing, almost no fan feedback, and very little close-proximity collaboration between humans that play instruments.     

The interesting thing about the phenomena of the DAWG is that it worked prior to 2003; it wasn’t until everyone decided they could and would try music prior to buying or stealing it, that the over reliance on DAWGs began to hurt labels.  Prior to 2003, you could produce, package and promote, and probably make some money.  Now, labels are looking at 360-degree deals (Google it) as the way forward to higher margins, and this model relies on artists becoming durable, enduring and timeless.    

It’s ironic, but it’s technology like digital music platforms and file sharing networks that are actually going to force artists to curb their addiction to DAWGs.  Artists are going to have to go back to hardcore rehearsing, same-room-real-time collaboration, and shaping their music based upon fan feedback in order to qualify for a 360-degree investment.

I’m not advocating that we go back to tape, and I am serious about hoping to become a DAWG in my next life.  In fact, I have been looking at used ProTools Rigs.  However, in my DAWG pound I want to work with artists that aren’t afraid to repeatedly deconstruct their songs based upon significant fan feedback, and I have no interest in creating a pile of genetically modified songs that sound great to happy pop fans, but can’t withstand the test of time.  

A great DAWG picks his projects carefully; a great DAWG knows how to inspire, organize and arrange collaboration; and a great DAWG has the courage to tell an artist that his or her song is not ready for the hand of the DAWG.

Finally, the reason I write this blog is not so that I can tell you that I am right, it is so you can tell me I am wrong.  I learn from the process.  Please email me or leave a comment.