Music Gets Free-er. A good thing?

I had an interesting discussion with Lee Gomes a while ago, about the concept of the "Long Tail". Lee was taking the position that the Long Tail works as a concept, but as a business model it is no way to actually make money. He felt that by having an infinite amount of choices in music, it would cheapen all the music, and lead towards everyone making less money. I argued against that idea, and felt that there was room for everyone, and the "cream will rise to the top" in every area of the Long Tail.

Well, I am not sure who is right, but it is pretty clear that for 2009 the vote is coming in loud and clear that people want their music for free and unfettered.

Even Apple iTunes is gradually moving towards getting rid of the DRM (digital rights management) on songs you download from them. Amazon, CDBABY and other major sites are already offering downloads of songs now that, once you buy them, you can copy them to your hearts content.

But why bother buying the music, when you can listen by "streaming" it for free on your computer? MYSPACE now has a jukebox feature where you can create playlists of songs from thousands of artists ranging from little old me to people like Eric Clapton, Guns n Roses, you name it. last.fm, jango.com, pandora.com, imeem.com- all these sites give you unlimited access to music free. They are all working on the business model that they can pay a fraction of a penny per streamed song since they run ads on their websites, and they use the ad revenue to pay for the incredibly cheap music.

All well and good. but I wonder, where will it end? If everyone can create the music, and the basic business model is to give it away, what will happen to the quality of music? Perhaps there is less cream to rise than I thought...

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JAZZ PIANIST GEORGE KAHNS’ “CALL TO ACTION” TO JAZZ THE VOTE!

As a Call To Action in the hopes of encouraging jazz lovers and perhaps future Jazz lovers (and future voters, too!) to come out in force for this November’s Presidential election, Jazz Pianist George Kahn is doing his part by getting music lovers to “Jazz The Vote”.

George has a cover of John Mayer’s “Waiting On The World To Change” on his latest CD release “Cover Up!” and is asking fans to please go to Itunes and download his instrumental version of the song.

“ We are at a unique point in history “ George says. “I have been pretty jaded about politics in general, but for the first time in recent memory, it feels like we have real choices coming up in November’s election. Whether you vote Democratic, Republican or otherwise, it is more important than ever to exercise your right to vote.”

In support of this concept, for each download of “Waiting On The World To Change” (George’s Jazz version only), from now until election day, November 4, 2008, George will donate $1.00 to the political party of the downloader’s choice. All a listener needs to
do is to send George an email to his label, Playing Records: playingrecords@playingrecords.com ,after they have downloaded the song, and tell him who should receive the $1.00 donation…Democrat, Republican or Independent parties only (no individuals).

More Unfettered Music, and Defense of "The Long Tail"

This has been a big week for news, if you can get past the depressing stuff they are printing on the front page.
First of all, Rhapsody announced its entrance into the downloadable music market with songs that have no copyright protection - once you buy them, you own them, and you can copy them to your other machines or players to your heart's content. This is good news, and follows my prediction that within the next 18 months the RIAA and the major labels will throw in the towel on the "DRM" stratgey of penalizing people that pay for a download vs. paying to buy a physical CD.
If interested, Rhapsody is giving away a free album to the first 100,000 people to sign up, but that offer ends on July 4, so better hurry up.
It also supports my belief that in the end people prefer OWNING the music they like, Vs. having to pay a monthly fee forever for the pleasure of listening to the music of their choice. But that is just my opinion.

Secondly, yesterday one of my favorite columnists, Lee Gomes, wrote an article about a new study from Harvard saying that the "Long Tail" concept first put forward by Chris Anderson in 2006 is not true. "The Long Tail" argued that the Internet, with its expansive shelf space, would mean a smaller role for mega-git products and a bigger one for the "long tail" of smaller niche products. The new article by Anita Elberse suggests that the Web is only cementing the prominence of a small number of cultural favorites.

I read the book, and came away with a very different impression. It may be true that Chris Anderson's idea that society is "shifting away" from the "hits" mentality that has driven our consumer society is not true on a macroscopic level.

If one throws enough money at marketing a "Hancock", it will have a huge opening, no matter how bad the product may be.

What struck me, and I believe to be true, is that within the "long tail" there are many many "niches", and if you look at each niche individually, they will each have their own "head", followed by a long tail.

What the internet has allowed to happen, due to the rapid inexpensive transmission of information and the low or no cost of "stocking" an item that is really just ones and zeros, is it has allowed these numerous niches to grow and even thrive as more people are able to find them.

The jazz music industry amounts to under 3% of all music sales in any given year. As the "major" labels have given up on this niche market as one that is unprofitable on their scale, it has opened up the playing field to niche marketers like myself that can target market this "micro economy", and be effective.

If you look at the JazzWeek Jazz Radio Album Chart for this week, you will see that over 50% of the artists are on small or self-released labels. My new album, COVER UP! is my 6th self-produced album over the last 10 years, and has just entered the charts at #43.

Believe me, this would not have happened 10 years ago.

So the "winner-take-all" dynamic has shifted. There is room enough now for everyone's creativity, and the cream will rise. I look forward to being in the "head" of my niche, and having a successful carreer, accordingly.

Wal-Mart Sings, Music Industry Dances

The tail continues to wag the dog in the music industry. This week Wal-Mart announced an exclusive deal to sell the new AC/DC album. But more importantly, the company also announced a plan that could be the next step in the demise of the Physical CD. CD sales have fallen 16.5% this year according to Neilsen Soundscan. This follows a consistent pattern of double-digit losses for the last five years. WAL-MART ACCOUNTS FOR ABOUT 30% OF ALL CDS SOLD IN THE US(!) That alone is a scary statistic.
Now Wal-Mart says that they are considering extensive cuts to the catalog of music they carry in their stores. All these old CDs are taking up valuable floor space that could be used to sell toilet paper.
Maybe I have to be like Tim McGraw, and set up a partnership with Frito-Lay to get my CD sold at Wal-Mart. His last CD was packaged with a custom flavored snack called "Tim McGraw's Spicy Jalapeño Fritos" in a combo pack that sold for $12.00. Hmm... maybe I can hook up with Pepsi Cherry Jazz soda - a free CD with every 12 pack! I dunno.
Meanwhile Handleman Co., one of the largest rack jobbers in the business (they service the catalog at Wal-Mart stores) is selling the business - the CEO Al Koch says, "In the short term, it's not possible to downsize as fast as revenue is declining."
I hear the sound of the physical CD going the way of the long playing record...

Out Of Time 10th year anniversary

It is hard to believe that it was 10 years ago, in 1998, that I recorded OUT OF TIME – my first jazz release.

To see the rest of this post, and to read about Billy Higgins, the drummer on the session, please go to the OUT OF TIME web page
Sadly, Billy passed away in 2001, 3 years after this recording was made.

THROWING OFF THE DRM SHACKLES at LAST.FM

(The new album cover - I hope you like it!)
One of the biggest stories of 2008 in the music business has been carefully buried or under-reported by the media: DRM, or digital rights management is gradually going the way of the compact disc.

It is clear that the people have spoken, and they like getting their music downloaded directly to their computer. They spoke REALLY LOUD in April when APPLE became the #1 music retailer in the US, beating out Best Buy for the first time (Apple was #2 in December 2007, and had been behind Best Buy, Wal-Mart and Amazon.com as recently as last June.) Paid downloads accounted for almost 30% of all music sold in January (for my catalog it accounts for at least 75% of sales every month).

Many people think that the main thing stopping digital sales from REALLY taking off is DRM - the various systems that have been set up to stop people from copying and/or sharing music they buy on the internet. This is the big draw-back with iTunes - you buy the download, but they limit how many copies you can make, and how many computers you can put the song on. Personally, I have no problem with this - the limits are plenty for my personal use, and as an artist I like the idea that one person is not allowed to buy my album and then just electronically give it to millions of folks. But the reality is, if someone wants to do that, they can - just by buying my CD, ripping it and away it goes, onto Limewire, or wherever. So why penalizes the people that prefer to pay and download the songs in the first place?

The walls have started falling fast this year: In January AMAZON announced that songs from all four major labels could be downloaded through Amazon MP3, their digital download store. They are the first retailer to reach agreements with all four of the major labels, so now you can download Justin, Beyonce, Mariah, Madonna and mental patient Britney if you choose to.

Now CBS, one of the last old-guard companies, had entered the fray with an update to a company started back in 2003: Last.FM
This year CBS announced that Last.fm will offer on-demand streaming of millions of tracks from all four major labels and a HUGE host of indies. There is no fee for the service - it is an "ad-supported" business model, with subscription upgrades if you desire. This service competes directly with Rhapsody and other streaming music services. The celestial jukebox has arrived, and it is sitting in your computer right now.
How huge is the "host of indies"? Well, as a test, I went on Last.fm today, typed in "George Kahn" in the search engine, pressed enter, and within 15 seconds I was listening to "Midnight Brew". No password to enter, no registration, no software to download to my computer.

I did not tell Last.fm to list my music in their service - obviously someone else did (CDBABY perhaps). And I certainly hope that people will click through to buy a song or a CD after listening. In the meanwhile, you will have to excuse me - I am going to type "Grateful Dead" into Last.fm and enjoy my afternoon.