A company mired in the past that is unable to develop new products within that constantly misfires in the future.  A major label or Google?

This is a Google failure.  If it weren’t for search/AdWords, Google would be on suicide watch.  The vaunted Android? They bought it.  Maybe if they bought Google Music, it would work better.

But not everything is technology.  Business always comes down to people.  And we can speak of the intransigence of the record companies, but somehow Apple manages to get deals done.  Google and Amazon do not.  Not that I want to excoriate Amazon.  The retailer is always looking to the future, always investing proceeds, building infrastructure, knowing that if you sleep, your lunch will be eaten by someone you didn’t even recognize in the rearview mirror.

The record industry is losing this battle too.

Having lost its distribution stranglehold, major labels needed to reinvent themselves.  Only selling Top Forty wonders is not the future, for Top Forty radio is not the future.  Having ceded almost the entire landscape to indies, the major label future is bleak.  Instead of starting with a clean piece of paper, they insist on holding on to the old crumpled one.

Clayton Christensen got this right almost fifteen years ago, with his book "The Innovator’s Dilemma: When New Technologies Cause Great Firms to Fail".  When confronted with a disruptive technology, you’ve got to build your new business across the street and when the time is right, close the old building and move into the new.  This is what Netflix has done.  They were renting DVDs by mail and one day they announced they were a streaming company and subscriptions are over twenty million and arguments are now about rights and bandwidth as opposed to postage rates. With DVD sales tanking, the movie industry must do business with Netflix or its competitor.  With CD sales tanking, what is the major labels’ plan?

We’ve got to go to subscription.  It’s the only model that works.  Getting a little from a lot.  Hell, people don’t have a problem with buying Netflix subscriptions now, even though so much is unavailable for streaming.  Which is why Spotify is making a mistake thinking it needs all four label groups to launch.  That’s no longer true.  Lead, and the rights holders will follow you.

Netflix proved that people will not only embrace the rental model, but new technology.

Hell, if you’ve got a RAZR you’re laughable.  Everyone wants a smartphone.  But the labels are still selling CDs?

And wireless companies keep coming up with new price points, to entice customers, lowering the price to get them hooked and then raising them when they get addicted.

You can pay per text.  But eventually you get a subscription.

When is the music industry going to hook the public on subscriptions?  You can always raise the price, isn’t that the American way?  

We’re selling a drug here.  And the problem is the public has never taken the first hit.  That’s the magic of Spotify.  Give it to people free and they’ll become addicted.

And it’s all about the hand-set.  With today’s subscription services, not only Spotify, 2,000 plus tracks live on the hand-set, so there’s no streaming/bandwidth charges at all!

But no one knows this because no one uses them.

This is the Apple paradigm.  Get people to use iPods and iPhones and then they’ll buy Macs and iPads, everything you sell.  But before the iPod and iPhone, most people had never tried an Apple product, they had no idea how good they were.

No one’s gonna try Google Music.  It’s just about incomprehensible.  Kinda like Google Wave.  Huh?

Apple will get the deals done.  Like a great A&R man, they know how to close talent.

But cloud access is not the future, subscription is.

You just don’t know it yet.

Some records you only have to hear once.

And then you’ve got to hear them again and again and again.

It’s easy to do it just like everybody else.  That requires no imagination, no risk.  When you fail you shrug your shoulders and say it’s not your fault.  When you succeed you smile but you cringe on the inside, you know you’re not worthy, it’s hard walking around as a fake.

But no one believed Tina Turner could come back.  Except for Carter.

Hell, she never really made it in the first place.  Sure, she sang "Proud Mary" on that Stones tour, but most white folk were clueless and she’d split from Ike and she was too old.

But she could sing.

And perform.

Marry this with the right song and…

That’s what a great A&R man does.

And when he gets it right, everybody nods his head and no one complains.  If you hate Tina Turner I haven’t met you.

It took years to make "Private Dancer".  We thought it was a fool’s folly.  Then we heard "What’s Love Got To Do With It".

The sneaky intro, with the strings, slick when that was anathema.

And then that sultry vocal.  When Tina sings "the touch of your hand makes my pulse react" it’s like she’s put her hand on your shoulder, your arm, you tingle all over.

That’s a hit.

Carter started early.  Writing the lyrics for "Incense and Peppermints".  Which was only a rumor back before the Internet. Did he really do it?  

I saw the Strawberry Alarm Clock…

But I first learned Carter’s name on the back of Sammy Hagar’s "Red" album.  And then met him when I was working with W.A.S.P.  But we didn’t become close until relatively recently, when the Internet allowed us to interact on a whim and we both had so many miles on us we could laugh.  You get old enough and posturing is for pussies.

But it wasn’t only Tina and Sammy.  Unlike so many, Carter continued to have success as the years passed by.  Paula Cole was successful with him, a stiff without him.

In the old days those with the Big C evaporated.  They were alive, but removed, unreachable.  But I never believed Carter would die, because he was right there, in my inbox.  As recently as April 12th:

"Palm Springs? Give me an hour the next time you are here

Carter"

I answered that my mother was there for the month of February, and if she was healthy enough to return next year, I’d certainly stop by.

That’s never going to happen.

Carter died.

And although this happens.  Especially to those with esophageal cancer.  Now that he’s truly gone I just can’t believe it.

Because he was so alive.  A teenager in a sexagenarian’s body.  With that little soul patch and the twinkle in his eye. He never got old.  Unlike so many who put on the suit and went straight, Carter was rock and roll until he died.

I’ve been looking for obituaries online.  Maybe I’m just too early, I could only find one, on a music business site.

But in my Googling I came across a page for "Private Dancer".

And I was impressed once again, how great those tracks were and still are.

I pulled up Paul Brady’s original "Steel Claw" in Spotify.  This was before he had the success with Bonnie Raitt.  But Carter knew how great Paul was.  Still, Tina’s take is better.

And the "Centenary Edition" of "Private Dancer" has a bonus version of Eric Burdon and the Animals’ "When I Was Young".

But the song that I couldn’t stop playing was "Better Be Good To Me".

Carter was good to Tina Turner.

Right now I’m listening to the original by Spider.  I’ve never heard it before.  It’s intriguing, it’s the same song, but it’s not the same record.

It’s quiet in a way Tina’s take is loud.

It’s cerebral in a way Tina’s take is physical.

It’s slow in a way Tina’s take is fast.

It’s controlled in a way Tina’s is loose.

‘Cause I don’t have no use
For what you loosely call the truth
And I don’t have the time
For your overloaded lines
‘Cause you better be good to me
Yes, you better be good
Better be good to me

Carter had no time for phonies.  Although he could be a team player, he was always his own man.  He was far from sentimental, he was always looking for the next thrill.

It’s not him singing on the records, but he’s there, in the grooves.  You can hear him.  The swagger.  The attitude.

He ran away to play in the rock and roll circus.

He won.

Yesterday I stopped by at Glassnote Records.

Visit the major label and you’ll encounter a receptionist and after lounging in the waiting room you’ll be escorted past dozens of cubicles to the huge office of the head honcho who will luxuriate in his well-heeled surroundings while you kiss the ring.

Glassnote Records has no receptionist, no cubicles, no offices whatsoever except for a cramped room in the corner where Daniel Glass masterminds this renegade operation that has broken the hippest, most successful new band in the nation, Mumford & Sons.

But it’s not only Mumford.  Before them came Phoenix.  And Secondhand Serenade.  And now there’s Two Door Cinema Club and…

It’s hard to get signed to Glassnote.  They listen to all the music, they were doing that while I was there, but find almost nothing.  But they don’t want to miss anything.  And now that they’re so successful, bands are clamoring for a deal, especially the has-beens who made it once and want to make it again.

But it all comes down to the music.

And unlike at too many music companies, there’s music playing in the background, and oftentimes the office is busiest after 8 PM, when everyone comes round just to hang out, to feel the vibe.

Really, you’d be stunned how small the office is.  Thirty by thirty feet?  Maybe a tiny bit bigger?  But it’s packed with all these people, men and women, not a single one of them with a name you’ve ever seen in "Hits".

It looks as if Daniel went down to the schoolyard and recruited kids.  That’s how young everyone is.  But they’re oh-so-passionate.  They’ll give anything to be a member of the tribe.

And that’s one thing Daniel’s always done so well, mentoring.  He teaches people how to do their jobs.  Monte got his big break working for Daniel at SBK.  Where Daniel ran promotion after he did so at Chrysalis, before he stopped so many places on the music business merry-go-round.

It’s a tough business to stay in.  And Daniel Glass has seen tough times.  But he’s hung in there, and now is his moment.

Part of it’s old school.  He called up Sony’s soundtrack person to say that Justin Nozuka and another act were available now, they’d write, they’d record, they’re between albums.

And it is all about relationships.  That’s how he got his foreign deal.  A fan tracked him down from the U.K.  Only it turned out this fan was a bigwig at Universal and much later, after they became friends, a deal was proffered.

You see we invest in people.  If Daniel’s involved, everybody’s paying attention.

Now.

Unlike that attorney who came in, looked at this wet behind the ears bunch before there was a hit, and put the operation down.  Daniel threw the guy out of his office.  The lawyer’s apologized since.

Daniel’s got major label partners.  Right now, he needs them for physical distribution, they help in other ways.  Maybe he’s old school.  I’m thinking he’s not gonna need the big boys soon.  His competitors won’t.

And his competitors are all in their twenties and thirties.  People who don’t believe in the rule book.

Daniel’s a hustler.  He’s working all the time.

He’s put in his 10,000 hours.

But he’s also learned from his failures.  He knows how to do it now.  Do you?

____________________________________

Speaking of successful renegades, earlier in the day I had lunch with Cliff Burnstein, his lieutenant Marc Reiter and Paul Donahue of Morgan Stanley.  Of course we discussed the Warner auction, but what I found most interesting was the discussion of Foals.

They’d sold a lot more tickets than albums.  And when you’re selling tickets, you’re real.

Cliff put together a package.  Put the tour in venues that were right, as opposed to those that paid the most.  He’s building excitement, he’s building a career.  That’s what a manager does.

Only two Foals dates have not sold out yet.

Next time it’s bigger venues.  The people who came will bring their friends.  This is the way it once was, this is the way it is again.  One can say this is the way it always will be, that MTV was an anomaly.

____________________________________

Another renegade I encountered, sandwiched between Cliff and Daniel, was Peter Shapiro.

He’s been bugging me forever to come see his venue, the Brooklyn Bowl.

I didn’t really care.

But when I was up close and personal in his office, his excitement, his story, closed me.  It’s about a special environment with good acts at a cheap price.  The Brooklyn Bowl lets the artists keep all the money.  And it never sells all the tickets in advance.  It keeps some at the door.  So you can walk up.

And Peter’s building an empire up there on the 11th floor.  He bought "Relix" and the place is full of entrepreneurs and the reason I was there was for a Headcount meeting (http://www.headcount.org/).

Founded by Marc Brownstein of the Disco Biscuits and his buddy Andy Bernstein, Headcount is all about voter registration.  They’ve got a network of music devotees at gigs, registering their brethren.

But could it be so much more?

Marc told the story of a Disco Biscuits benefit for solar power.  They raised 30k and the band purchased solar panels for a school in Philadelphia.  That’s taking direct action.  I’d like to see a day when bands hold benefits all over this great nation of ours and install needed solar panels as a result.

And Brownstein is a fascinating combination of intensity and humor.  He said how he’d been doing it for sixteen years and only now was the band breaking through.  Not that he was complaining.  That’s what it took.

And he’s on his Facebook page, energizing his fans every day, not only giving information, but engendering discussion.  He’s involved.

You see music isn’t about fame.  It’s a lifestyle.  Like going into the army.  Only most times, the pay is worse.

You’re battling to get ahead.  The peak moments keep you going.  You get better and better.  As long as you’re dedicated, as long as you believe. 

1. Richard Russell

It all comes down to the music.

Adele is on XL.

What’s on XL sounds like nothing else.

If it’s on XL, you pay attention.

A&R is king.  When it’s truly about music and not about lunch.

Want to learn the future?  You’re better off hanging with Richard Russell than Irving Azoff.  Richard’s all about the music, Irving’s all about the money.

2. Irving Azoff

He controls Ticketmaster and Live Nation and all those acts over at Front Line.  The only question is whether the company is Microsoft (or Nokia or RIM!) as opposed to Apple.

When you’re in the catbird seat, it’s harder to innovate.

Then again, with the concert side in turmoil, that’s the best time to make changes.  GrouponLive is a step in the right direction.  We could say it’s cheapening music, but music was cheapened eons ago, it’s only the acts that didn’t get the message.

3. Coran Capshaw

He’s built an empire while the mainstream was not watching.  Building on the back of the Dave Matthews Band, Coran owns everything from facilities to a piece of C3.  AEG may own Coachella, but Coran seems to have a piece of everything else.

And now he’s building these DMB festivals which look to be a winner…

The question is where Coran goes from here.

His inferiority complex (matched to a superiority complex) leaves him outside the inner circle, where he desperately wants to be.  A strategic partner could help him so much.  Someone who can do the Hollywood/New York dance.  Coran’s smart enough, but is he worldly enough?

Meanwhile, check out Five Guys Burgers and Fries.  Coran’s got the rights in so many states.

4. Ian Rogers

He’s giving artists the tools to make money in this new era for themselves.  The future is in selling multiple items to those who want them, especially hard core fans.  

Maybe it’s not Topspin.  Maybe it’s Bandcamp.  But he who figures out how to maximize revenue in this new world triumphs.

5. Pasquale Rotella

Insomniac Events.  The Electric Daisy Carnival.

This is almost as significant as Napster.  While the rest of the industry was sleeping, under their noses Pasquale built a powerhouse.  The key here is demand.  People want to go to his shows.  They have a good time.  They want to go back.  No Groupon offers are required.  Electronic music is all about the experience, the performer and the audience are in it together.  And the mainstream is clueless.  Sound like rock and roll forty years ago?  Sound like hip-hop after that?  Don’t miss this juggernaut.

As for it being all about drugs…wasn’t Woodstock?

6. Jimmy Iovine

Not because he heads Interscope, not because he’s on "American Idol", but because he built Beats.  Now worth hundreds of millions of dollars. He leveraged artists to sell something they could believe in, and the public bought.  The red cord is almost as meaningful as the white one. Can Jimmy save sound on laptops?  Can he improve the listening experience all around?

Just maybe.

7. Jeff Price

Although some users are ragging on Jeff for the Tunecore price increase, the basic proposition remains sound.  For a tiny sum you can get your music placed on all the relevant distribution services, with no royalty involved.  Marry Tunecore with Topspin and you need a major label…why?

8. Ralph Simon

It’s all about the hand-set, the mobile device.

And there’s tons of untapped money in India and Asia and the rest of the third world markets.  Ralph’s on the cutting edge here.  He’s the gateway.  You need to know him.

9. Pro Tools

You don’t need the major’s money to make your music.  That’s game-changing.

10. __________________

The filter. The Website that tells you what to listen to.

It still doesn’t exist.

But it will.

And we’ll all pay attention and say we could have done the same thing and the site will make ALL the money, just like MTV did in the last century.


NOT AS POWERFUL AS YOU THINK

1. Major Labels

Whether it’s Lucian Grainge or Doug Morris or Lyor Cohen, they’re all playing the old game, which is shrinking.  There’s almost no innovation, just consolidation, a leaner style of doing it the old way.  More and more the best acts will come from somewhere else.  The majors just want what gets on Top Forty radio, and they want a piece in all rights to deliver this.  That’s like an automobile company saying it only makes cars that drive on dirt roads and you can only lease them, you can never buy them.  Might have sounded good a hundred years ago, but TODAY?

2. Radio

It’s all about content.  And radio thinks it’s about commercials.
Read Lee Abrams’s BRILLIANT comments on this here:

Lee Abrams says “It’s Time to Fight the Content War”

He’s right, but no one’s listening.

3. Terry McBride/Nettwerk

Terry made the mistake of being bigger than his acts.  The manager always needs to stand BEHIND the act, not in front.

4. Satellite Radio

More and more subscribers yet they still haven’t organized the listeners and turned them into a club.  When Sirius XM finds a way to connect those who listen into a tribe, then acts can truly be broken.  That’s what FM did in the days of yore.  In other words, it’s more than what comes out of the speakers.  But Sirius XM has more power than ever before.

5. Apple

Music is not primary for Apple.  It’s just a way to sell more of their gear.  Cloud-based storage is terrible for record companies, it disincentivizes people to buy subscriptions.  And if you don’t think the future is in subscription, you know nothing about economics.

6. Spotify

It’s been too long and the message has been muddled.  Now there are listening limits and purchase options and…didn’t Apple succeed by keeping it simple?  Spotify is playing to the labels as opposed to the audience and it’s hurting them, like everyone else who’s tried to play by rights holder rules in the past.  You can only win by being a renegade.  Right now, Grooveshark looks more like the future than Spotify.

Rights holders need to authorize Spotify yesterday. The old Spotify.  Free streaming with ads.  Because this is the only hope for getting the public to buy subscriptions.  Once Apple’s cloud-based locker system kicks in, everybody without traction dies, or has a harder row to hoe.  Just look at the history of the iPod for example.

7. Brick and Mortar Retail

They sell souvenirs.  It’s about the packaging more than the music.  If vinyl were the future of music, Jimmy Iovine, the ultimate opportunist, would be behind it.  But he’s not.  Vinyl does sound better, but the future is better digital files, not an antiquated system.

8. Simon Cowell

None of the "American Idol" acts has lasted, other than Carrie Underwood, who lives in the fake, two-dimensional world of country music, and none of the "X Factor" acts will last either.

If you think the future is throwing things against the wall with tons of hype you believe we’ll still be watching "The Jersey Shore" in 2021.

The mainstream will write about Cowell’s acts and antics.  But the future is not the mainstream, not the mainstream media which is having trouble surviving itself.  Just because you can’t codify the Web world doesn’t mean it’s not the most powerful, that it doesn’t exist.

9. Len Blavatnik

The power is not in fat cat consolidators, but in the artists themselves.  This is a Wall Street play.

Major labels are about ripping off acts.  Always have been, always will be.  That’s their business model.  But the future is about honesty and transparency and that’s just not in the labels’ DNA.

Blavatnik is a sideshow.  Professional wrestling.  It was a fun movie to watch, but about as meaningful as "Pirates Of The Caribbean".

10. Music Conventions

Think tanks, you name it.  The future is in the hands of the public.  Who will follow the leads of individuals utilizing tech tools to build infrastructure.  I’d love to tell you exactly where we’re going, but I don’t know.  But one thing I’m sure of is the future will not look like the past. Those in the past have blown it by insisting the public stay in the past.  The public loves digital files, wants tons of them, for nowhere near a buck a track, yet the labels still cling to an old model.  The future is a new model.  Based on access.  Monetizing in ways heretofore unseen.  It’s about marrying Richard Russell’s acts with Topspin exploitation.  All the while charging the public to hear everything at their fingertips.  We’ll get there.  And most of the people who were powerful before Napster will be ancient history.  Some of those who are powerful today will be history. But those who make the music will survive.  If they’ve put in their 10,000 hours, if what they create resonates with the public.  You don’t have to make what everyone else does.  But when you get it right, you need a Coran Capshaw or an insightful twentysomething to navigate a career where you make every decision thinking about your audience, not your wallet.  There’s plenty of money..if your music is great and you’re credible and you know that the old institutions, radio and television and labels, mean less than ever before.