Back in November I had the privilege to see Youth Lagoon live at The Drunken Unicorn in Atlanta. I had always loved the sound of their music recorded but it became vibrant and was really brought to life when I heard it in person. It was amazing to see at the show such an array of people, from high school students to middle age couples, who enjoyed their music. Afterwards I had the opportunity to meet the band and talk to them about what inspired the music they wrote. Hearing about the recording process was very interesting and reflective of how the music industry works today. Trevor Powers said he recorded the entire album at a friend’s studio and then played it in his friend’s garage and rerecorded it so that it would sound distant and echo-y. It goes to show that you don’t need huge effects and expensive, professional producers to become successful. These days, many people like music that sounds genuine and real.

Since they came onto the scene last spring, Youth Lagoon has toured across the country, played music festivals SXSW and Coachella, and their music has been featured on playlists in clothing stores such as Urban Outfitters and J. Crew. They have become the Dream Pop poster child. Their popularity continues to grow as their fan base expands. I feel lucky to have discovered them at the beginning of their journey and will no doubt be a fan of theirs for life.

(Emily Madden – Neurotic Media Intern)

In middle school and high school, I remember getting up really early before school just to watch the music videos playing on MTV and VH1. I saw this as my time to research and see what was popular because I knew these songs would be up for discussion when I got to school. During that time, Ciara had just come out with the single “1, 2 Step” and was killing it on the charts. I tried to learn every dance routine from the music video. Even if I didn’t pick-up every single step, it sure felt like I had because no beat was left without movement. At this point when I was growing up, I realized I had a strong passion for music – but not just music; entertainment as a whole.

My favorite genre of music is still Pop. For me, it’s a way to connect with other people because we can all relate to music. If I’m ever not sure what to listen to next, or in other words when I’m lost in music, I can always use the charts as a way to track the direction of what’s popular and identify what’s happening right now.

(George Harris – Neurotic Media Intern)

There’s a special place near where I live called Everett’s Music Barn. It’s pretty well known in the circles of Bluegrass music. For the past 30 some odd years, people have been showing up from all around to hear and play Bluegrass music on Saturday nights. It’s really quite an institution and a wonderful tradition.

The set up works like this – on the property, there’s a little red barn that holds maybe 125 – 150 people. Seating is comprised of folding chairs, plastic chairs and a few old church pews. The small stage is only about six inches off the ground and it has held some of the best musicians to ever walk the planet. Nearly all of the groups that tour the Bluegrass circuit have played at Everett’s during some point in their career.

My favorite part of Everett’s though is the house. This is where people of all ages and all skill levels bring their instruments and play. Because the catalog of Bluegrass music is a language shared by everyone in attendance, it’s actually possible for a group of complete strangers to gather up in a circle and take off on a song by the likes of Bill Monroe, Flatt & Scruggs, Ralph Stanley, Jimmy Martin, etc.

Some nights, nearly every room of this old house is filled with musicians doing what they love to do. It’s not uncommon to see a circle of pickers in the kitchen by the ever present coffee pot.  When the weather is nice, the porch is a popular place as well.  On occasion, when things come together just right, it’s a transcendental occurrence that simply can’t be described; it has to be experienced.

Ultimately, it’s the music that bonds us together. It’s why we’re all there. It’s a shared love, a shared passion and as a result, there’s a great sense of community and fellowship – and it happens at Everett’s Music Barn when people are pickin’ on Saturdays.

(Gary Eaton – Neurotic Media VP Sales)

Growing up I was exposed to all types of music, so I truly enjoy all genres. I mostly listen to Pop, Country, Gospel, R&B, Rock and Hip Hop. In general, I’ll probably enjoy any song with a good melody and/or meaningful lyrics. I can’t say that I have a favorite type of music, but I do have favorite eras of music if that makes sense. For example, I love the funk and soul music from the 70’s and I love R&B music from the 90’s.

To me, music is everything. There is a song to fit every emotion that I am feeling at any particular time. Although, I personally don’t have any musical talent, I know good music when I hear it. I listen to music every single day and would probably go crazy if I didn’t.

(Ariel Bailey – Neurotic Media Intern)

I was leaning toward pursuing a career on the business side of music. Somewhere along the line I realized that even though I’d been in bands and had some legitimate musical talent, the odds for me of actually making a living as an Artist were pretty small. So, I started looking into schools that could put me on the right path to get a job in the music industry.

Right about that same time, I was approached with an opportunity to audition for a spot in a local Country / Gospel quartet. These guys were similar in style to groups like The Oak Ridge Boys and The Statler Brothers. Having been raised on a heavy diet of Southern Gospel music, those types of harmonies came very naturally to me – so I said what the heck and gave it a shot.

Sure enough, I got the spot and come to find out, the group had a public appearance scheduled in Gatlinburg that was just a week or two away. Fortunately, it was just a short appearance and not a full concert performance.

Also appearing at this event was an Elvis impersonator who had a regular show that ran in Gatlinburg during the summer. After hearing our performance, he approached us in full character and asked if we might be interested in being his back up vocal group for the coming season; kind of surreal when you think about it.

Soon after, I decided to go to school and had to drop out of the group. The other guys found a new baritone and the quartet did in fact take the gig – and I bet they had an absolute blast. Think about it, an entire summer singing songs for Smoky Mountain tourists with an Elvis impersonator.

I’ve certainly wondered how life would have turned out had I stayed in Tennessee and sang with an “almost” Elvis, but no regrets. Pursuing a career in the music industry has been one of the best decisions I ever made, and I’m proud to be here at Neurotic Media.

(Gary Eaton / VP Sales / @garyeaton)

Several other things stand out from the RIAA year end numbers; one of the most encouraging being that overall sales achieved a slight increase compared to 2010. Granted, the increase is a nominal 0.2%, but after seven straight years of decline, there’s a cautious sigh of relief that this might just signal the beginning of a turnaround.

Other encouraging news; there was a dramatic jump of 25% for full length digital albums.  Meanwhile, digital singles also increased sales by 13%.

While sales numbers are clearly an important indicator, they don’t even begin to measure how truly important music is to all of us. Numbers don’t measure that feeling you get when you hear a song that reminds you of a first love, a great concert, a perfect summer day. Numbers can’t communicate the experience of hearing a favorite song at just the right time. How can you put an ROI on a powerful memory?

Clearly the future of digital music is strong – and here at Neurotic Media, we’re in a position to help businesses of all types benefit from the growing popularity of digital music.  Perhaps more important, we’re also in a position to leverage the universal appeal and the esoteric power of music in ways that will achieve any number of marketing and branding goals for your business.

(Gary Eaton / VP Sales / @garyeaton)

The Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and Protect IP Act (PIPA) were an attempt by lobbying groups representing various intellectual property (IP) right holders (music, movies, books, games) to introduce a Federal law that restricts how IP can be shared online, with the goal of protecting IP owners from the growing impact of piracy on their business. It was defeated by a broad and loud outcry of technology professionals, bloggers, concerned consumers and internet users who lobbied against its perceived heavy-handedness. Some lobbied against the ramifications of certain clauses in the suggested law, and others lobbied against the entire effort as a concept.

The issues that SOPA/PIPA attempted to address are important: Online piracy costs billions of losses to right holders. Businesses and IP creators are in the right to seek improvements in the law to curb online piracy. However, the problems with the suggested law proved to be complex, as it stood to grant the government far-reaching power into the conduct of any company that touches consumer-generated content. In fitting fashion, the opposition was driven by consumer-generated content sites: By bloggers. The nature of the debate, coupled with several parallel incidents, proved why passing a censorship-driven law is a dangerous step for law makers.

The original language proposed in the law would have been very general, and it would have meant that popular sites on the internet – Facebook, YouTube, Wikipedia, and any other site dealing with user-generated data – could immediately be in breach of the law. The bill also proposed allowing the government to quickly shut down such sites with the first indication of any infringement.

The opposition to the bill spread like wildfire – and in January culminated with several leading web sites announcing a 24-hour “black-out” to protest the Bill. The opposition was able to articulate the danger that the Bill, as written, represented to social media, to innovation, and to existing businesses worth many billions of dollars. In that way, it became a debate between which industries deserve more protection, IP owners or technology and internet brands.

But it went deeper than that: Social media and user-generated data are now considered an important tenet of what the World Wide Web is really about for society. So the issue of government right to sensor became a matter of philosophy about social and political issues – extending far beyond the narrow economical issue the bill intended to address.

And so, SOPA/PIPA was shelved. But the issue is not over and dead – the matter is still being worked on by groups on both sides of the argument.

In January, during the same week when SOPA was shelved, the Federal government, swiftly and rather unilaterally, closed a file sharing service called MegaUpload. The authorities arrested its management team and owners overseas, and seized the entire company’s assets (including IP stored in its cloud service by thousands of end-users which were left with no recourse). This was done at the guise of protecting IP owners, but without the usual legal proceedings you would expect to see in a law suit state-side. The incident is being contested in courts, and more information is being revealed every week about the legal process the government used to make it happen. Interestingly, the New Zealand Courts (where the CEO of MegaUpload was arrested) have declared the action illegal.

Many bloggers claim this incident proves the risk of empowering governments with the right to act unilaterally against private companies. Moreover, it brings to question the need for SOPA/PIPA: If the government can do what it did to MegaUpload as is, why do we need additional law that grants the government any more rights?

As well, did the government have the right to take this action against MegaUpload in the fashion it did?  Why was MegaUpload’s case singled out for action while others have not been pursued? Is there any difference, technically and legally, between MegaUpload and, say, YouTube, iCloud, or any other cloud service or user generated site?

These are mission-critical issues that affect the core of what many companies and many individuals do on the web, how we use the internet, and indeed what role technology plays in our daily lives. Plus, the laws governing these issues differ per country, which adds to the complexity of addressing such matters. We can’t ignore this key socio-economical and political issue, and it is our duty to get involved if we expect to have a stake in the results. Stay informed.

(Shachar Oren, CEO)

You Can’t Develop Artists When Your CFO is Riding You For Numbers
I don’t see the status of the industry as something that was developed intentionally by labels over the years. I think you would agree it’s quite the opposite, since they’ve been rather reactionary all along (at least since I joined in during the mid 90s, this is my point of view). Let’s take a step back for a second and consider our short digital history:

I think record companies got spoiled during the internet bubble days, when the “advance payment” model was introduced and most start ups had lots of cash from VCs to pay for access, pay to play. With many companies then going out of business in the aftermath of paying “advances”, the cash went straight to the bottom line. What a wonderful model!

We are, of course, dealing with (most of the time) public recorded music companies. These companies used to own hard goods – plants, studios, stock, etc. – and the mentality of the public company CFO is to try and drive stock price and revenue and margin increases by any reasonable means necessary.

During the past decade, while labels were getting out of those physical asset management business lines, they were also creating “digital business development” units that were originally designed to explore, approve and license new digital business models. But before you knew it, those units became a P&L center, with their members in charge of driving revenue numbers. Sales. So advance fees became a new business model. Even thought the bubble was gone, with iTunes launching there were plenty of other large profile entrants to the marketplace that could and did pay entry fees.

In the past handful of years, there has been a healthy shift in the industry, and most such “biz dev units” merged with “distribution” – and indeed, the decisions made about “advances” and such today are a lot more strategic in nature and driven by a holistic approach to the prospect, not a dry requirement to meet a red line. They are not punitive, but rather driven by a realistic approach of short and long term opportunity per prospect.

Reality still presents a challenge when one takes “art and entertainment” (where product quality is very hard to predict) and attempts to drive a public company with it. You just can’t make projections like you do with pizza. Back when there was stock to “play with” on the books, and plants, and studios, there were other elements to the business that drove recurring revenues. Catalog was business too.

Today, the revenue is mainly about the art itself, the IP. The result is that well, if the money is on the table with a major opportunity, it is hard to fault a businessman for trying to make a sale. There is no right or wrong in an open market environment. You can of course argue this has nothing to do with the art and is unfair to artists – that is an entirely separate story altogether.

Yes, taken as a whole, over the past say 15 years, the industry’s restrictive and punitive approach has done it more damage than good. I think it was due to a lack of strategic vision and to short-term, quarterly-numbers focused approach. Things are changing for the better, though time would tell if it’s too little too late.

So in the end of the day, I understand both sides of the argument, and believe that, with respect to our 2012 reality, the “truth” is in the middle and in various shades of grey.

On a separate note, I remain curious about the limited long-term vision that record companies take to their business line. They have realized a decade ago that their real assets are the IP. But the largest diversification has been 360 deals? Why not expand what IP means? How come the major labels don’t control Apps, games, and other IP? Why distribute just one line of digital IP (and the smallest at that)? We all know labels would do well staying focused on music, it’s what they know best. But the public entity that used to own plants, studios, stock, the public company that seeks aggressive growth – has so many exciting opportunities in front of its face these days, and yet none have acted on it. Diversification seems to be a more exciting and constructive approach than arguing with digital retailers over pay for play fees. Just an idea.

Shachar Oren, CEO

Neurotic Media’s VP of Sales Gary Eaton and CEO Shachar Oren attended the event. Participating Artists Included Black Crowes, Train, Rolling Stones, Third Day, Sugarland, Zac Brown Band, Drivin N Cryin, Atlanta Symphony Orchestra, Corey Smith, and Anthony David.

Kudos to Georgia Music Partners and the Recording Academy® Atlanta Chapter for organizing the event and for our Representatives at the State Capitol for their support.

We hope that in the weeks and months to come, we will see decisive action taken by our Representatives to deliver incentives that help propel the music business in Georgia to the next level. Onward and upward!

For those that follow these trends, this isn’t new information or even perceived as a new dynamic. In fact, over the history of popular recorded music, a handful of artists / albums have typically always accounted for a majority of sales on an annual basis.

In today’s digital landscape, the ease and economics of access to recording technology and digital distribution has made it simpler than ever before for an artist to create and release a project. Here’s a little perspective: In 2011, there were almost 77,000 albums released which sold one copy or more (Nielsen Soundscan).

It seems like almost everyone is recording and releasing music - but is anyone actually being heard?

The truth is, the enormous pipeline of new releases is so expansive and vast that it’s a challenge for even the most avid consumer to stay up to date. This is a problem. It’s a problem for the artist who is struggling to gain an audience – and it’s a problem for consumers who don’t want to be exposed to all the new music (77,000 albums!?) – just the good new music.

Sure, radio is still a leading force in music discovery, but we all know how limited and narrow their playlists are programmed.

This problem creates a landscape of opportunity for brands. Consumers “may” feel loyalty to a brand, but they are passionate about music. Why not connect with that passion and become a voice of authority, a destination, a valuable filter in the eyes of your customers by exposing them to the good new music? This can take the form of an artist discovery program, pick of the week, song of the day, etc. Conversion, activation and loyalty will grow as result of truly connecting with the market you are looking to influence.

Whether a brand has a well-defined personality – or is simply looking to change their image or voice – music is a powerful tool that helps you express the brand attributes that you wish to emphasize. Music helps brands communicate to consumers in a language they understand – and create an emotional relationship.

Here at Neurotic Media, we have the technology and the music (millions of songs) to curate a campaign specifically for your needs. If you’d like to explore how this strategy might fit your particular objectives, please send us an email. We’d love to explore the possibilities with you.

(Gary Eaton – VP Sales / @garyeaton)