Youngsters might think that Jimi Hendrix was the beneficiary of a huge hit.\u00c2\u00a0 But although "Are You Experienced" exploded in 1968, "Purple Haze" was never heard on AM radio.\u00c2\u00a0 Nor "Foxey Lady". Hendrix was anathema to Top Forty radio.\u00c2\u00a0 His sound was too different, he was ignored.<\/p>\n
Focusing on Joel Whitburn books, one might think that singles mattered in 1968.\u00c2\u00a0 But that was the year that underground FM radio truly took hold.\u00c2\u00a0 It wasn’t about evanescent hits, but album-long statements.\u00c2\u00a0 Music wasn’t a ditty, it was a contemplated effort that evidenced the head space of the people who made it.<\/p>\n
You no longer went to the show to see a multitude of bands perform their hits, you wanted to go to the Fillmore to see a band most people had never heard of stretch out.<\/p>\n
Underground music became so powerful, so successful, that Lee Abrams ultimately created a format around it, known as "Superstars", and AOR took hold and ran the land.\u00c2\u00a0 You were nothing if you didn’t have a hit on the FM band.<\/p>\n
But then came corporate rock, bloating, labels and acts were trying to second-guess the radio playlists and disco snuck in and defeated the rock juggernaut.<\/p>\n
And then came MTV.<\/p>\n
MTV fueled Top Forty radio stations on the FM dial.\u00c2\u00a0 A format given up for dead was suddenly resurgent.\u00c2\u00a0 And it’s been that way for nigh on two decades.\u00c2\u00a0 But those days are through.\u00c2\u00a0 We’re back to 1968.<\/p>\n
If it’s on Top Forty.\u00c2\u00a0 If it’s exploited in the media.\u00c2\u00a0 The music junkies don’t care.\u00c2\u00a0 And it’s the music junkies who support this industry.\u00c2\u00a0 Which is comprised of not only music sales, but concert receipts and merchandise sales.\u00c2\u00a0 True, you can overhype a few Top Forty acts, like Beyonce, but today’s hit Top Forty acts are the sideshow.\u00c2\u00a0 The real acts are the ones filling buildings, oftentimes at a low ticket price, selling merchandise along the way.<\/p>\n
The old game just isn’t working anymore.\u00c2\u00a0 You might be able to sell a million singles on iTunes, but you can’t sell out an arena.\u00c2\u00a0 Even though Jethro Tull could do this with almost no AM chart action in the days of yore.\u00c2\u00a0 In other words, the game the major labels have played for the last two decades just isn’t working anymore.<\/p>\n
It doesn’t pay to spend a fortune to reach an ever-shrinking audience of singles buyers.\u00c2\u00a0 What you need is a higher price point.\u00c2\u00a0 You need fans to generate revenue from multiple streams.\u00c2\u00a0 And even though a major might have a 360 deal, that doesn’t mean there’s going to be significant revenue from areas other than recorded music.\u00c2\u00a0 Furthermore, at what cost?\u00c2\u00a0 You might make a commercial deal, but we all know television burns out acts, never mind their credibility.\u00c2\u00a0 Who wants to see Vanilla Ice today?<\/p>\n
It’s time to recalibrate.\u00c2\u00a0 Don’t even worry about hits.\u00c2\u00a0 Uniqueness plays to your advantage.\u00c2\u00a0 It’s about growing your niche to the point it can support you.<\/p>\n
The major labels are completely marginalized.\u00c2\u00a0 The labels of yore wanted to be in the blue sky business.\u00c2\u00a0 Signing something different and nurturing it.\u00c2\u00a0 Today’s major wants insurance, a multi-format smash.\u00c2\u00a0 So, the landscape is left completely open to entrepreneurs.<\/p>\n
Focus on how you can keep your core satiated, how you can grow that core, not how you can leapfrog into major media exposure.\u00c2\u00a0 Because major media exposure doesn’t generate significant profits.<\/p>\n
In other words, would you rather have the revenue of touring behemoth Dave Matthews or the recording revenue of Lil Wayne?<\/p>\n
Better yet, do you want to be in the Conor Oberst business or the Jessica Simpson business? Conor Oberst has been building his career for years, without a hit.\u00c2\u00a0 But he can sell out shows everywhere.<\/p>\n
I don’t even like Mr. Oberst’s music.\u00c2\u00a0 But I appreciate that it’s honest and not made to formula.\u00c2\u00a0 And that he’s got an audience.<\/p>\n
It’s not about impressing the gatekeepers, but making sure your audience has enough music to listen to, to pass along.<\/p>\n
Don’t swing for the fences.\u00c2\u00a0 Don’t focus on that one big hit single.\u00c2\u00a0 Grow the audience you do have, don’t try to beat people over the head to get them to listen.\u00c2\u00a0 They won’t.\u00c2\u00a0 They’ll only be alienated. And if everybody was listening to radio, Clear Channel wouldn’t be on the verge of bankruptcy.<\/p>\n
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Youngsters might think that Jimi Hendrix was the beneficiary of a huge hit.\u00c2\u00a0 But although "Are You Experienced" exploded in 1968, "Purple Haze" was never heard on AM radio.\u00c2\u00a0 Nor "Foxey Lady". Hendrix was anathema to Top Forty radio.\u00c2\u00a0 His sound was too different, he was ignored. Focusing on Joel Whitburn books, one might think […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1471","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-music-business"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p96vPs-nJ","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1471","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1471"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1471\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1472,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1471\/revisions\/1472"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1471"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1471"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1471"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}