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1. Dan Kennedy
   Comment by Dan Kennedy | 2006/01/11 at 15:39:13

   Here’s some free marketing advice to the music business from a guy who’s shifted a few hundred million units of several brands of flavored vodka, bottled water, cough drops, and just about anything else Madison Avenue calls me in to work on as a hired gun: Lose the fucking ‘R’. You’re supposed to be developing bands, not brands. To review, from Jeff Leeds’ New York Times piece:

   "How do we maximize the Korn brand?"
   "advances the band’s strategy of turning itself into an investment vehicle."
   "Fans can expect to see more elaborate marketing tie-ins that involve multiple products…"
   "I just want a piece of that income."

   Jesus, no wonder the fans have run for the hills.

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1. MichaelFisher01
   Comment by MichaelFisher01 | 2006/01/24 at 13:14:29

   corrected again – sorry

   Actually, the Korn Deal makes a lot of sense, not just from the perspective of the individual players, but for the music business as a whole. First off, let’s be real. The recorded music business not only is dying on the vine, but in the thousands of years long history of music it has been a temporary aberation. Musical entertainers (whether bad or good) have always made their living performing live. When records came along these records initially were nothing but promotional items which enabled the entertainers to get more bookings – thus the little (if anything) they were willing to get paid for having their performances recorded.

   The last thirty-five years have seen record royalty income outpace the live income for some musical acts, but that’s over. As a concert promoter I always loved the concept of folks stealing recored music over the internet, especially if it was an act I was promoting. Why? The more folks stole the music, the more they had to interested in the act (why else go through the trouble), the more likely they were to show up to a concert.

   With the demise of the record labels concert promoters won’t be able to rely on record labels to build up the acts we need to get asses in the seats. So, we’ll have to do it ourselves – esentially we’ll have to become record labels ourselves with one difference – we’ll be happy for folks to steal the product we produce. The more they do so, the more likely they will show up in at a concert.

   Plus, as we are competing against on-line video PS2 and X-Box football games. So the artists are going to have to get better and better live in order to entice people and kids to pay – moderate- ticket prices. That’s not going to happen automatically. Thus as concert promoters we’ve got to get involved into artist development in a major way.

   Now, there’s now way that I am going to invest hundreds of thousands of Dollars into an act and then have Rob Light or Cara Lewis or whoever snatch the act and sell it back to me for exorbitant fees. So, as a concert promoter I’m going to have to have a long term contract with these acts (five years, ok?), not unlike the recorded music folks used to have it. Basically it’s a return to the old movie studio system, only with the twist that the entertainers will be made partners rather than employees.

   I always thought that SFX cum CCE was nothing more than an oversized Bleecker Street blues bar – the act gets the door, the bar gets the drinks (i.e. concessions etc,). That model was unsustainable. When Michael Rapino took over I saw the big Billboard article about how he was going to reinvent CCE. Basically it came down to cutting costs and giving the acts more of the door -more of the same it seemed.

   This Korn move, however, is a whole other ball game. It doesn’t matter that Korn is a has-been. What matters is that it now can be demonstrated that the business model of concert promoter as artist developer works. The Concert Promoter now has a stake in the long range development of an act. No more screwing around with greedy agents who end up killing off your business. So, Rapino’s move is extraordinarly shrewd – and not only for his company.

   Now there’s finally a reason to open up our purses to invest in an act for the long term. That’s good for artists, and that’s good for the music business (though not for the recorded music component of the business – but who gives a f… about them anyway).

   It’ll also be refreshing not to have to have to kiss ass with these greedy paras…, I mean, “agents” and treat them as demi-gods at the Pollstar, Billboard and ILMC conferences in the future. YEAH!

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