The ‘Oops’ Eraser And The Record Label
This morning I read Seth Godin’s newest book “We Are All Weird“. Don’t be too impressed it’s only about 100 pages so it’s a perfect Sunday morning read. Deep into it, he talks about a friend of his that started a string of boutique hotels in Los Angeles. He goes on to say that Hyatt jumped on the bandwagon and started a chain of trendy boutique hotels, but something felt ‘off’. From the framed Beatle’s record to the “Oops” eraser on the desk. Mass produced “weird”, he calls it. No wonder it doesn’t work.
I started thinking about that more and it finally hit me. This is why “weird” bugs me. It’s not the weird itself, but the popularization of the ‘weird’. Who else is completely driven nuts by the t-shirt that says “Why Be Normal”? It’s not that the shirt exists that bugs me. It’s the fact that the person wearing it got it at Target because they saw five other people wearing that shirt and thought it was cool. Mass production of “weird” is no longer weird. It’s annoying. Especially to the ‘weird’.
Think about it. How many hipster’s out there are completely annoyed that Jónsi is on a Chevy commercial? Or that you can hear Fleet Foxes at the grocery store? What was once “weird” has been commercialized and now it’s not “indie”. It’s not weird. And it’s not cool.
I had a friend who would wear leather Indian moccasins. You know, the kind with the tassels? He wore them because they were ‘weird’. They were different than other shoes and he thought they were cool. He didn’t want ANYONE to find out that you could get those exact moccasins at Urban Outfitters for $30. Because if that happened, POOF, not cool or weird anymore.
Get to the point Brody.
Seth, speaking about the Hyatt hotels says this,
“It doesn’t’ work because while they did the surface things, the easy things, the cheap things, they failed to do the hard work of being (and embracing) the weird. It’s sort of weird for the masses, not the actual work of a human being with interests.”
I’m looking at you record labels.
How many times have you seen one artist do the same “weird” thing another artist did six months before? I’ve said it before in my “Spaghetti” post, but just because it works for one band doesn’t mean it’s going to work for another. Labels, you’ve taken the ‘weird’ parts of what certain artists do and tried to make every artist their style of “weird”. You’re adding leather moccasins to the Urban Outfitter’s inventory, and by doing that you’re ruining the coolness of weird.
Like Seth said, “no one wants to do the hard work of embracing the weird”. Instead labels try to generalize the “weird” and hope it works for everyone. Maybe the Facebook gimmick isn’t going to work this time. Maybe the Twitter campaign doesn’t matter to this crowd. Maybe we’ll have to come up with something just a little different this time around.
See, if there’s one thing that fans see through, it’s the fake weird. It’s the generalized tactics. Especially with the Internet, we can now pick and choose our version of cool and as soon as someone else thinks our version of cool is cool, it’s no longer cool. The same goes with marketing tactics. We’re already seeing articles about how “uncool” Kickstarter is, or the abuse of Twitter in marketing. It’s too mainstream, so it’s not cool anymore. Nobody really thinks the person wearing the “Normal Is Boring” shirt is weird. They think they are like everyone else…. or normal.
“Don’t dress up your general and pretend it’s particular. It’s not. Average is for marketers who don’t have enough information to be accurate.”, says Godin. And I completely agree. Study your fan base, study your artists, learn their “weird” and embrace that. And for crying out loud, throw away that “Opps” eraser.
Jurassic Park Wisdom
“Your scientists were so preoccupied with whether or not they could, they didn’t stop to think if they should.” – Dr. Ian Malcolm
I remember seeing Jurassic Park in the theatre years ago and even then, that simple, pointed line stuck out to me. Now years and years later more often than not I find myself replaying that line over and over in my head when it comes to the web. We live in a time where nearly anything is possible online. We can not only find out where you live, but we can get an image of your house and take a look at your unkept lawn. We can communicate in more ways than ever, we can build programs that change the way money is traded and we have the ability to access things we’ve never seen before.
I touched on this a little yesterday and took a beating on Twitter because of it. No big deal. Opinions are opinions and sometimes I have different ones than others. But here’s where I’d like to go with this. It’s not an ethics thing, it’s not a financial thing or even a safety thing. It’s just a simple musicians ‘web presence’ thing.
Now, more than ever, record companies are being pounded with the newest shiny thing to advance the career of their artist. Companies are popping up everywhere saying that they can increase your Facebook following by ten-fold, companies are offering to manipulate your audience and increase your Twitter Followers, more plays on your Myspace, you name it and there’s a company out there that can offer it to you with little to no involvement on your part. And honestly a couple times a week I’m asked if SkörInc can do some of these things. And it’s at that moment I hear Mr. Jeff Goldblum’s voice repeating that line from Jurassic Park. Now obviously, if SkörInc builds some gimmick app for you, dinosaurs aren’t going to storm out of the jungle and eat you, but I think there’s some absolute value to the question, ‘Just because we can, does it mean we should?’.
“But Brody, two days ago you were talking about spaghetti and throwing it all over the place and seeing what sticks right?”
Yeah, I was talking about that. I was talking about that because that’s what I believe we are all doing as an industry. That doesn’t make it right, and it doesn’t answer the question, ‘Should we?’. I think there’s value in taking risk, but only if the risk is looked at from a perspective way beyond the possibility. Beyond the ability of ‘pulling it off’ and truly asking yourself, ‘what happens if we pull this off?’. ”What does it benefit?”
Now, I’m not going to lie. This is something I have to ask myself daily just to make sure that I’m keeping with a ‘greater purpose’ for the artists I work for. Sure we can pull off some crazy stuff. Four years ago we were broadcasting live, mulit-camera concerts online and even Ustream was telling me we were ahead of the game and pushing limits. This week alone I have heard of four different events being broadcast online. Technology moves quickly. But the point is that I wholeheartedly felt that pushing to ‘pull that off’ was important enough to take a shot and see if it would work. Turns out it’s sort of a cool thing. There’s that spaghetti again. But there was a “why” to it.
And maybe that’s where I’m going with this. What’s the ‘Why’? Sure, you might have figured out some way to quadruple your Facebook fans, but if your artist isn’t engaging, why does it matter? Just because you can manipulate the system doesn’t mean you should.
It seems that we always land back at the content of things. Content has always been and will always be king when it comes to your online presence. So if you can connect with them through Twitter or Facebook or Tumblr or Gowalla, then do it. But if the “why” behind all of it is “because we can make money”, don’t bother. In fact, in my opinion, if “to make money” is your only “why”, you’re wasting your time.
Obviously I’m a little all over the map on this one, so you can tell it’s something that I daily go back and forth with. I’d love to hear your thoughts.
I’m Still A Music Nerd
I’ve always been a huge fan of music. I’ve always loved listening to music, I’ve read books about the ‘Industry’ followed how things work and tried to soak up everything I could for as long as I can remember. And now that I work with artists and in ‘the industry’ there’s still not a lot that has changed. Now, I’ve never really ‘geeked out’ about meeting an artist or a specific person, simply because I think that’s weird, but I’m still fascinated by the ‘behind the scenes’ junk that goes on. I’ve had some pretty amazing opportunities in the past including going backstage at The Grand Ole Opry with the MercyMe guys, climbing into the rafters at the Hammerstein Ballroom with Phil Wickham and David Crowder, and even attending the Dove’s a couple of times.
Now, all you music folks that are reading this that might think you are too cool to be impressed by anything or have been in ‘the industry’ so long that, to you, it’s lost it’s magic, feel free to make fun of me all you want, but there’s a couple things over the next few weeks that make me feel like a kid in a candy store.
First up, I had a meeting this afternoon in Downtown Nashville at Universal to discuss a handful of web issues. Not a massive deal and again, I’m not normally ‘geeked out’ by much but walking into the top floor of a massive building in downtown and seeing this desk and not feeling completely out of place was pretty cool. We had a great meeting, the folks at the label listened intently, took some notes, and offered to work with me in any way I needed. Super nice, super cool guys.
As I was leaving the meeting the label and management mentioned that Billy was having a #1 Party next week and wanted to make sure that I was there. Again, not something I expected but completely honored and a little weirded out to be a part of… you know being a music nerd and all.
And finally, I found out last week that it looks like Billy was invited to play on Letterman in a week or so. I still don’t know all the details on how that will go down, but how cool is that? Something I’ve never thought of being a part of and I’m super excited to see all of that.
I know it’s a little geeky or whatever to be excited about all of these things, but I don’t really care. To me it’s like a sports fan getting to throw out a pitch or a movie fan getting to walk the red carpet. I’m a music fan and love the opportunities I have been given. Feel free to make fun of it all you want. I’ll continue on enjoying every minute of it.
Coffee On The East Side
I spent the afternoon at a coffee shop in East Nashville talking to Derek Webb about a million different things. Mostly consisting of the future of the music industry, the need for an online presence, blogging, things that are free, and things that are stolen. Not in that order. Derek and I had met several times before, but never had the chance to sit and actually communicate about things that are obviously important to us.
Almost eight years ago now, Kristin and I were married and for our first dance as a married couple we danced to one of Derek’s songs called “Somewhere North”. I have been a massive fan of his music for as long as I can remember paying attention to music so it was great to be able to hang out as peers and discuss things together. And at least I don’t remember saying anything stupid. I think I might have cussed a few times, but it was on accident.
I feel like a lot of the things that I believe about the music industry and what Derek believes are very similar. It’s not like we are the only two people thinking this stuff but it’s fun to hash out ideas with someone and know that they aren’t going to take those ideas and stab you in the back with them later. I like talking to people like that and there aren’t many. I also like being a person that can hear ideas and know that I would never use those ideas to do any stabbing myself.
Anyway. It’s still up in the air whether Derek will hop on the blog-wagon, but if (and when) he does, you can bet to hear about it.
Hope everyone had a great Sunday.
Here It Comes
According to an article in Wired Magazine:
“Apple is under pressure from the four major labels to change its pricing model to a tiered pricing structure,” said Susan Kevorkian, an IDC audio analyst. “The way the labels are pressuring Apple is by withholding DRM-free downloads from the service … [while] cultivating other online music services, most notably Amazon’s MP3 downloads store.”
“If Apple tires of butting heads with the labels, it could eventually cut them out of at least part of the equation by forming its own record label to keep a portion of the estimated 65 cents it currently pays out to the labels for each song sold.”
And here’s the kicker of this whole shebang.
By 2012, digital music is projected to account for 40 percent of music sold, according to InStat. If Apple holds onto its current market share, it will account for more than one-quarter of all music sales by its ninth birthday. Not bad for freeware.
Are record labels in trouble if they mess with the beast that is Apple? Sounds to me like it’s time for artists to have a solid online presence more than ever. What do you think?
