The Devil Is In The Details
THE BLACK KEYS
This Greg Kot story is full of nuggets.
1. The band intentionally tried to create a radio single.
In other words, you can follow your muse all you want, maybe create some great shit, but there are rules for radio, and if you follow them, you’ll have more success. A great track is not necessarily a hit. A hit is something infectious, that people need to hear again and again, usually a bite-sized nugget that tastes good but requires further consumption, like potato chips.
2. Just because the band had a hit, that doesn’t mean this new audience is going to stick with them. I’d say the odds are low. At least the Black Keys have a real fan base they can rely on. But if you think the casual listener, the Johnny-Come-Lately who likes your track, is really a fan of your band, you’re dreaming. Some people like the cut, check out more and become diehards, most people bop their heads and forget you. Unless you’ve got another hit. But then you’re in the hit game, not the career game, and it becomes what have you done for me lately and those people play clubs, not arenas, at least not for long. Hell, look at Christina Aguilera, how many real fans has she got? DMB hasn’t had hits in eons and they do 20,000 a night, Christina Aguilera had to cancel her tour because of low demand.  Sure, ticket prices were high, but sometimes you can’t even get people to come for free, because it’s not really free, you’ve got parking and eating and merch and…time.
3. The Black Keys fear for hip-hop because of declining recorded music revenues and the lack of a profitable touring paradigm. This is fascinating. Especially in a field where it’s all about the Benjamins and it takes so much money to create and market a hit.
4. The Black Keys make 85% of their money on live shows. They claim they’ll make twice their record advance on New Year’s Eve. In other words, it’s about fans, not looky-loos. A looky-loo might buy a $1.29 download, but a fan will buy not only a ticket, but merch, they might even come see you more than once!
5. It took the band seven years and seven albums to sell out the Riviera in Chicago twice at the end of 2009. Talk about artist development. If you’re in the game to become rich and famous overnight, you’re sorely mistaken. Music is a hard life. You’ve got to make a lot of it. You’ve got to play to few fans. If you’re waiting for your one big hit to catch fire, you’re doing it wrong. You satiate your growing fan base year after year to the point where you may be able to have a hit which makes said fan base kvell, since they’ve been into you for so long, and gives you some added revenue. The hit is the cherry on top, not the end all and be all.
ANGRY BIRDS
I heard Johnny Weir on Howard Stern this morning. He said his single went to number one in Japan. I doubt this. Everybody lies. We’re a nation of dirty, stinkin’, rotten liars who believe if we don’t put up a good front, we’re not gonna make it. How does that explain Michael Brown and "Walk Away Renee" and "Pretty Ballerina"?
Contemplate that. That when we reveal our humanity, show our true colors, then we have gargantuan success.
But why does Johnny Weir get to make a record? I don’t get to ice skate.
The point is with new technology and behind-the-scenes hitmakers everybody believes they can have a hit record. Just like they can use PowerPoint, kids believe they can construct a great track. Some mindless dance cut with beats. But the real story is it takes forever to be truly great, Johnny Weir sacrificed his life to be a great ice skater, and the creators of Angry Birds each have more than five years of game making experience. Rovio has been in business since 2003 and has made in excess of fifty games, some of them profitable, none of them true phenomena, prior to Angry Birds.
In other words, if you think Angry Birds is a one hit wonder…Â Or to put it another way, overnight successes are not such, except in the music business, where the face is new and everything else is old.
It’s about artists. Who labor in obscurity honing their chops. Who create something new and different. Not faces in front of hacks miming the latest dance single.
But what is also fascinating about the below interview with Peter Vesterbacka is his take on Android. Especially poignant on the day of the announcement of the Verizon iPhone.
"Paid content just doesn’t work on Android."
Funny, with last week’s launch of the Mac App Store and…Angry Birds topping the paid list.
And with low prices, developers are seeing huge downloads in the Mac App Store, they’re rethinking their strategy:
If Android continues to penetrate, anticipate an ad-based app system to triumph online.
Will there be two ecosystems in mobile? More?
Apple triumphed with the iTunes/iPod synergy. It looks like they won’t dominate to this degree in mobile. But they are triumphing where Wall Street looks, on the bottom line. Apple gets 30% of app sales.
AT&T will be hurt mightily by the Verizon iPhone.
Android will be hurt too.
The future of app development?
Look to the developers, not the analysts.
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And while we’re talking about mobile, please watch this video:
In America we get good-looking youngsters uttering half-baked scripts with no end and in the U.K. we get oldsters performing an incisive script that reeks of cleverness and intelligence.
Note: Orange is a provider in the U.K., like AT&T or Verizon.
