CALL PUBLISHER!

I know this because I used to be a songwriter, and I did the same thing.  Every year.

Of course, it’s only natural to want to reassess, re-organize, and restructure in order to get a fresh start on the new year. It’s what we should be doing, whether we’re songwriters or publishers.  But often it’s too easy for songwriters to bring a list of complaints and goals to the conversation, without providing any ideas as to strategy. Likewise, too many publishers are prone to offer up a plan that’s amounts to more of the same—“keep writing, keep pitching and let’s hope we get that big break”. Both approaches leave a very good percentage chance that songwriter and publisher will be having the very same conversation next year.  And no one needs that.

So what does it take to move things ahead in 2012?  Of course, the detailed strategy will vary for every writer and publisher in every genre across every part of the world.  Nevertheless, there are a few resolutions we can almost all agree to make, that will pay off regardless of our professional level or musical market.

In lieu of a champagne toast, I offer you a no-cost kickstarter for the new year:

12 Resolutions for 2012!

1.  Get the paperwork right.

When I moved from being a songwriter to a music publisher, one of the great surprises was to see first-hand how much songwriter and publisher income vanishes every year due to paperwork errors, omissions and general sloppiness.  Settle your split disputes, check your song registrations around the world, read your royalty statements, make sure your PRO (BMI, ASCAP, SESAC, PRS, etc) has your correct address.  There’s no excuse for a paperwork error in publishing. Paperwork is pretty much what publishing is.

2.  Expand your territory.

When investment-backed companies like BMG Rights make billion dollar investments in the music-publishing sector, one of the key motivators is the anticipated expansion of the global music market.  And yet many songwriters and publishers, particularly in genres like country, hip-hop, r&b, and even rock rarely think about the world outside their own borders.  Beef up your sub-pub relationships, check out internet radio to familiarize yourself with markets outside of your own territory, use YouTube and other tools to find talent all over the world. There’s almost always more than one geographical market for any type of music.

3.  Don’t demo.

Songwriters are the only ones left still using the word.  Rough work tapes for reference are fine. But when you record, make masters. That way you can license them to film & television, commercials, video games and other venues.

4.  Live the single life.

Please…. no more unknown artists making their “album”.  At this point, superstars are struggling to sell albums.  We live in a singles market, so make singles—one memorable “hit” song will move your career further than a thousand interesting album tracks.  Unless you’re Radiohead or Adele, put your focus on making singles.

5.  Tighten your belt.

The tragic truth is, there’s a lot of money that’s gone out of music publishing over the past five years, and it’s not coming back. Plummeting mechanical income, some ugly days at the bargaining table for ASCAP and BMI, the complete bungling of the negotiations for the rates on “streaming” services, and wild, cutthroat competition in the sync world all add up to one thing: less. Less money for everyone, so get used to it. We’re all going to have to cut waste, reduce overhead, and eat fewer lunches at Bice.  Let’s start with the cutting waste and reducing overhead part.

6.  Loosen your grip.

Publishers like control—it’s our nature. But with more and more of the entertainment universe being covered by blanket licenses, rather than specific song by song licenses, we’re going to have to be willing to put our music out there, with less and less control over how it will be used. Whether it’s a homemade YouTube video made by a stranger or a mix on turntable.fm, songs are being used all the time—we’re just not being asked for permission. Those uses are what keep songs alive, even if it’s not yet something remotely profitable. But squeeze those songs too tight and you’ll kill ‘em.

7.  Don’t sweat the small stuff.

In a world in which the income for publishers and songwriters has been cut drastically, we cannot continue to waste time on meaningless matters. Does the split dispute get settled at 17.5 percent or 20 percent? Unless the record goes 4x platinum, it just doesn’t matter.  Someone changed a line in the lyrics without permission? Just hope a listener is paying enough attention to notice. What matters is what makes money. All else can be ignored.

8.  Put your head in the clouds.

For better or worse, the industry is embracing new cloud-based streaming services like Spotify, which means that iTunes will soon be going the way of Tower Records.  Given that this technology didn’t exactly sneak up on us, one might have hoped that the same mistakes made with mp3s might have been avoided this time around. Incredibly, the record companies managed to get this one right, while the publisher’s income seems to be lost somewhere in the grey, murky ether.  But publishers are going to have to figure out how to turn this technology into something profitable, or the only clouds we’ll be seeing will be those we pass as we plummet to our demise.  This is the battleground for the next five years.

9.  Don’t lose that syncing feeling.

Welcome to the only game in town. In the past ten years, the focus of publishing has shifted almost entirely, from records and radio, to film, television and advertising.  At this point, the transition is complete, and the sync world is the one that every songwriter and publisher has to be a part of. Depending on the style of music you work with, it might be video games, advertisements, source music libraries, branding campaigns, television spots or web-based advertising programs. But your business has to have some strategy for licensing your music in sync uses.

10.  Get the money in.

Easier said than done. It now seems that every record label uses songs without mechanical licenses in place, theater shows routinely drop songs into a revue without clearing the dramatic rights, advertisers sign sync licenses long after ads are on the air, and everyone pays late, if at all.  It takes a new kind of tenacity to get paid, and only those who are the most persistent, the most unrelenting, and the nastiest will get their money. You can’t just put your registrations in place and wait for the payment to show up.  Those who snooze will be abused.

11.  Move your business beyond music.

Despite a slightly better year in 2011, the writing is on the wall: the music business is in an almost permanent state of contraction.  It simply is no longer the singular cultural defining force that it was 30 years ago.  The good news is, the entertainment business as a whole is growing constantly, from new cable channels to internet tv to virtual worlds to a myriad of different venues for live entertainment.  The best news is, music remains a vital element in almost every entertainment form. Sometimes it’s okay to be the supporting actor. Music publishers who rely solely on the music business can’t survive. Better to be one small part of the larger industry of show business.

12.  Move your music beyond business.

Clearly 2011 was the year of Adele. Coming out of an environment knee-deep in Dr. Luke sound-alike records and generic auto-tuned voices over a Euro dance track, “21” was a breath of fresh air that above all else, sounded honest.  Public taste always swings like a pendulum and one can be sure that whatever is popular in 2011 will change to at least some degree in 2012.  But Adele’s triumph signals a move away from things that sound blatantly contrived. Songwriters are going to have to be more subtle, more daring, and dig a little deeper. Music that sounds more like a marketing strategy than a song may be on its way out.

Everything always looks good at the start. I’m sure that for all of us, 2012 will have its high points and low points, and enough inspiration and frustration to keep us all battling for the next 12 months. Still, now is a moment to make some plans beyond just calling your publisher, or assuring your songwriter that this could be his or her big year.  Here’s to making, not letting, things happen in 2012. Happy weaseling in  the new year!

However, what was even more satisfying was the acknowledgement implicit in the structure of the event itself, which was that pitching songs is no longer a business of sending out mp3 files or cold-calling A&R execs.  A perfect pitch is now about artist development, finding performance opportunities, building a story and measuring results.  I took onthe same subject in my own “Perfect Pitch” event, at the New York Songwriters Collective, in October.             Songwriters sending out demos to record execs or managers because they “have a song that’s perfect for your artist” are missing the point. No one’s looking for songs.

In the new music eco-system, there are 3 things the music industry needs, and the success or failure of any songwriter’s pitch can be predicted almost entirely on the basis of how many of those 3 things are in place.  If you can provide a clean sweep of 3 out of 3, you’ll likely be signing a deal memo before leaving the building. If you’ve got 2 out of 3, you will probably get an offer, though it might not be exactly the deal you were hoping for. Bring only one out of three and the best you can hope for is a polite invitation to come back sometime in the distant future.  Here are the three things that every weasel wants and will pay for—the essential components to a “Perfect Pitch”:

1.  Product

This just means ready-made artists and productions—records that are ready to go. In case you didn’t get the memo, major music companies are no longer in the business of developing artists or “making records”. A&R staffs have been slashed, and frankly, the track records of most A&R people were abysmal anyway.  Record labels and even publishers today are looking for people who have product in hand—artists who they’ve developed, records they’re releasing, shows they’re producing. Don’t bring demos. No one in the record business even knows what those are. Bring product.

2.  Platforms.

Every artist needs a platform—or three. A platform is a stage, but not in the obvious way. It just means a venue for exposure, a way of reaching an audience.  For about eight decades now, radio has been the dominant “platform” for breaking new artists, and while it remains important, it’s certainly no longer the only game in town. In most cases, radio is simply too limited, too expensive and too difficult to control to be the sole platform for an artist. You need some other ways to expose the artist to the public: mixtapes, club play, a television talent show, a spot on Glee, a touring spot, a YouTube video. Needless to say, songwriters and artists that can bring with them a platform, whether it’s a writer/producer like David Guetta, who also can use his status as a superstar DJ to give an artist and record exposure, or an actress/singer with a Disney show, or a band with a guest spot on a prominent tour, are bringing their labels and publishers a big head start.

3.  Proof

Not only has the internet brought a vast array of potential new platforms, it has also brought the ability to measure results in a very precise and visible way. The blather of a manager hyping the band’s live show (“you gotta see the crowd reaction—the girls go nuts for these kids…”) is now just so much white noise—much of the proof is plain to see:  How many YouTube views? Facebook friends? What are the sales figures like? How many Twitter followers?

Of course there are varying degrees of proof. As many labels have learned the hard way, 500, 000 Facebook friends, signing up free of charge, will not necessarily put gold records on the walls. Ticket sales and downloads speak much louder than YouTube views. Nevertheless, an artist or producer with a platform that delivers proven results, whether it’s a Top Ten Nielsen rating or a buzz on the key blogs, has the kind of story that A&R people want to hear, and to believe.

At the risk of raising songwriter cynicism to new levels, it’s worth noting that the actual quality of the music itself is not necessarily a predominating factor in any of these three elements.  Presumably, a badly made recording of a meaningless song performed by an uninteresting artist will not find many readily available platforms, and even if it does, it will not gather the kind of reaction that proves its suitability to the market. On the other hand, stranger stuff has happened.

The truth is, most modern music execs are neither qualified or interested in being Simon Cowell-like judges of talent. If there is a proven audience for a particular piece of product, and there is a way of getting that product to the audience, that’s enough to greenlight  a project at any record company or publisher still left in business. Whether it’s an artist like Drake, who brought a story of success from platforms like mixtapes and Degrassi, or Karmin, who signed their deal at Epic on the strength of a YouTube buzz, the contemporary songwriter needs more to their business model than just a bag full of demos, regardless of the quality of them. If the business is now about product, platforms and proof, then a songwriter has to be:

1.    Producer

Producers make product. They are talent magnets; they are people that develop talent.

This does not necessarily mean that you have to be a “producer” in the sense of being able to create records. If you’re a lyricist or a topline writer, or someone who can write but doesn’t really know anything about record making, then you’ll need to team with someone who can do those things. Your role will be to write songs that define the artist and give them a reason for existing.  Just as not every songwriter is a record-maker, not everyone who can program and mix is a producer in the sense of having a vision, drawing out and developing an artist, and giving a project a unique identity.  But however you and/or your team go about accomplishing it, the business now requires both elements, the song and the record, in order to create a product that anyone actually needs or wants.

2.   Partner

You can make product by yourself. But no one develops a platform by themselves. Syco can make records all day, but they can’t develop a TV show like X-Factor on their own. Drake can write songs and sing them, but he can’t break on a mixtape without featuring Lil Wayne, or Trey Songz, or others.  DJs need singers, singers need television talent shows, rappers need guest spots, bands need opening slots on tours. As Dean Martin put it, everybody needs somebody sometimes. If you want a platform, you have to build it by working with others.

In a larger sense, this means that songwriters need to be in the entertainment business, not in the music business. The entertainment business is growing, in areas including TV, cable, internet TV, film, games, internet content, books, fashion, and clubs.  Songs are a part of almost every entertainment form, and opportunities for music will continue to grow. But you cannot live in a music business vacuum. First, you have to create product. Then you must learn to partner, in order to build a platform. And if you want to be able to provide proof that your product and platform work, you’re going to have to be a:

3.  Promoter

In the big sense of the word.  You, or your partners, are going to have to take the initial steps to get your product into the world, at least in some limited way. Maybe it’s a local release, or a test market, or a pilot, or small tour, or a mixtape. But YOU will have to be the catalyst to make something happen and to show that what you’re doing connects with people. You can’t just write the songs, you’re going to have to pitch them and place a few—at least enough to show that they’re placeable. You will have to put your artist in a place where they can develop a following, whether it’s YouTube or a residency or a foreign release.

That’s what I liked best about Berklee’s “Perfect Pitch”. Here was a group of songwriters happily embracing each of the challenges in the creative process. Not just the challenge of writing a great song, but finding an artist to present the song, putting together a performance venue to create a platform for the music, and soliciting the reaction of a live audience and industry judges to gather some proof that the product was hitting its mark.

Even better, it showed a creative community networking amongst each other to find the singers, producers, arrangers, background vocalists, organizers and musicians needed to put the whole show together. More than any of the talent on display that night, and there was a considerable amount, that willingness to partner and collaborate will be the key to these students’ future success.  Compliments to Berklee’s Songwriting club, and to the faculty that supported them, in putting together an exciting look at what the next generation has in store for the music business…

Happy Holidays everyone!  Thanks for all your support for this blog, and I look forward to catching up with you in 2012.   Keep weaseling…

As those who have taken my Music Publishing 101 class at Berkleemusic can attest– the business of music publishing is a challenging one, and the challenges always seem to increase the closer you get to the actual money.  Exploitation, the business of getting your songs into situations where they can earn money, whether it’s a movie, a video game, a record, or a plastic singing fish, is hard enough. But getting paid from those opportunities is even more difficult, and seemingly getting tougher all the time. That’s where Songtrust comes in– helping independent music publishers and songwriters collect their money around the world. It’s one of the most innovative business models in music publishing, and one perfectly suited to the DIY ethos of today’s music world.

http://www.songtrust.com

Many thanks to James Aviaz for his work on the interview– for the full text, check out the blog at songtrust.com.

What motivated your move into publishing from songwriting?

My entry into music publishing was really a case of an opportunity simply landing in my lap. Steve Lunt, who was an A&R person at Jive Records at the time (later moving on to Atlantic), had been an old songwriting partner of mine and he called me one day to suggest I might want to consider a job that had just opened up at Zomba on the publishing side. It was completely out of the blue—I was sitting at my desk working on a lyric. But I knew the company because I had been signed to Zomba back in the Eighties, and I thought it would be an interesting opportunity to do something different. It just seemed like one of those rare chances to see the other side of the industry. As it turned out, those were remarkable years at the company—I feel incredibly fortunate to have been a part of it. Steve and Richard Blackstone took a big chance bringing me into something for which I had minimal experience. It was one of those crazy, lucky breaks.

What are some of the key ways emerging songwriters and artists can best manage their song copyrights?

This is a challenging time for songwriters to find music publishing deals—most of the time, songwriters have to get something going on their own, to show that their songs can generate income, before they can expect offers from a larger publisher. Many publishers are in transitional periods where they’re being bought or sold, and attention to administering and protecting their copyrights may be missing. I think many songwriters can benefit from either trying to operate their own publishing entity, or perhaps partnering with another larger company to administer their copyrights—which is to say that the administering publisher handles a lot of the registrations and collects the money from around the world.

I do think that Songtrust is one of the most innovative models along these lines, as it allows songwriters to continue to control and own their own material, but at the same time, gives them the support they need in order to administer their copyrights. It is not easy to register songs around the world and collect the money—especially these days. Realistically, I think most songwriters will need a partner in that area. Songtrust is a very good option in that respect.

What inspired you to start teaching at Berklee? Who should sign up for the class, and what can they expect to learn?

Music Publishing 101, the class I designed for Berkleemusic, grew out of my book,Making Music Make Money, which was published by Hal Leonard and Berklee Press. After completing the book, Berklee asked me if I’d be interested in designing a course for the online school, and it seemed a logical extension of what I’d started doing with the book. One of the core principles of the class is that anyone in the music industry who is a songwriter, or who regularly comes into contact with songwriters and artists, from studio owners to record producers to managers, should have a music publishing component to their business.  The course really is designed to take students through the step-by-step process of creating their own music publishing company, and helping them understand the issues and challenges that they’ll face.

Why would a student want to start her own music publishing company today?

What most songwriters don’t realize is that if they’ve written a song, they already are a music publisher. They automatically control their own publishing on that song as soon as it’s created. The question then becomes how to be an effective music publisher. As I always say, songwriting is not actually a business. There’s no financial element to songwriting—it’s just something you do. It’s the job of the music publisher to turn songs into something that can generate income. That’s why my book was called Making Music Make Money. For people who want to write songs for a living, it’s also a reason that songwriters need to learn to be effective music publishers.

What advice would you have for a young songwriter afraid that a business-oriented mindset could obscure a clear creative vision?

Songwriters need to learn to wear more than one “hat”. Of course you need a certain amount of isolation to create, but you also need some reality checks to look at your own music objectively and to figure out where the music fits in the market. In the end, that alternative perspective will actually help the creative vision, at least on a commercial level, by raising the quality of the writing and focusing it in a way that makes it easier for audiences to grasp. For myself, and I think for most professional songwriters or music publishers, it’s always a battle to balance the time demands of running a business with those of creating music— they’re both full-time jobs, and the more you do of one, the more work there is to do on the other. It’s never a completely comfortable fit, but the tension between the two is a big part of what pushes us to do our best work.

The book also places a heavy emphasis on the “exploitation process” of music. Can you explain this term?

Exploitation is one of those things that sounds bad—but in fact, it’s the essential component that makes all of music publishing and songwriting work. Without it, nothing happens. Exploitation just means getting your music into places where people can hear it, and where someone can pay you for it—whether it’s on television, on radio, in an advertisement or from “Billy Bass” the plastic singing fish. Most songwriters want their song exploited as much as possible.

What are some of the most important lessons you’ve learned about the music industry since starting out?

In general, it’s very important that songwriters not put themselves in a position of always relying on others—they need to understand the business of music and be able to take a pro-active role in their own career.

*******

That sense of independence, of taking control of your own career is really the fundamental principle behind all that I try to do with this blog, with Music Publishing 101 at Berkleemusic, and with my books, Making Music Make Money and The Billboard Guide To Writing and Producing Songs that Sell. It’s always what I’m hoping to talk about at Guitar Center this week– if you’re in NYC, drop by and see me at 7pm on November 9, 25 West 14th Street.  Look forward to seeing you there!

“Hold up guys! Remember: we’re all in this together”.

Yea. Right.

I think I might have even said it once or twice myself. But now, it turns out to be true—truer than any of us imagined at the time. As the giant merger wheel gains speed and grinds over anything and everything in its path, it seems we truly are in it together, all destined to be owned by the same uber-corporation, tools of an anonymous international venture capital fund. In a world where everyone is “strategically linked” (i.e. owned), every deal is a 360. Welcome to the new model music industry.

It’s not even the end of September, and already we’ve seen BMG Rights, the giant German elephant in the room, purchase Bug Music—rumors are that EMI will be the next to fall to Hartwig and his gang. Within days, Billboard blared the news of the recently struck “strategic alliance” (it would take a UN sub-committee to define what that actually entails) between Universal Music Group (the world’s largest record label) and Live Nation (the world’s largest concert promoter, artist management firm and ticketing company, albeit with the world’s smallest chairman). Then we also had the unveiling of the most unfortunately named venture of the year, Primary Violator, a merger of Primary Wave Music’s management company and Chris Lighty’s powerhouse Violator Management. If Violator had merged with Universal, would it be a Universal Violator?  I thought the guys at Primary Wave were supposed to be marketers. Name-check, please.

While the relative merits of each deal can and will be chewed over for weeks at Brooklyn Diner, the motivations are relatively clear. BMG is on a buying spree, and they’re doing what any savvy new player with several billion dollars to burn would do—they’re buying up classic catalog as fast as someone will sell it. Contemporary hits come and go, but when you’re investing money, there’s nothing like classic, proven songs to provide a steady cash flow and the musical depth you need for the big ticket sync placements. In that respect, Cherry Lane (Elvis, John Denver) was good, Bug (Johnny Cash, Duane Allman) is better, and EMI (Motown, “Somewhere Over the Rainbow”) is the Holy Grail. It’s a hard strategy to argue with, at least until everyone gets their accounting statements and we see if these guys had any clue whatsoever as to how they’re going to integrate all these separate companies.

The Universal-Live Nation deal was in some ways the most impressive. Lucian Grainge seems to be alone among the major label chiefs in being serious about constructing a comprehensive music company.  The Universal labels are so far out in front of their competitors in this respect that they seem almost to be engaged in a different business altogether. On the other hand, it doesn’t appear that EMI (which will be sold by the time I blog again) ,Warner (which still can’t seem to figure out who bought it and why), and Sony (overburdened with the usual 550 corporate bloodletting and X-Factor auditions) are engaged in much at all. Interestingly, the alliance with Live Nation seemed to implicitly acknowledge that the 360 model had not yet become effective for Uni, and that a fierce, fire-breathing dragon might be necessary to bring Universal’s artist management companies, Trinifold, Twenty First Artists, 5B, and Sanctuary into some kind of orderly place within the larger organization.

With Live Nation heading up the management side, Universal has the leadership it needs. At the same time, it’s an impressive land-grab for Irving, without much firm commitment from him for any real cooperation. (As is his custom). Front Line invests nothing, gets a 50% stake in UMG’s management companies, and agrees to discuss bringing the Madonna album to Universal, but only if Guy and Madonna want to.  Next time, can we please send Irving Azoff in to negotiate the federal budget with the House Republicans ?

By comparison, the Primary Violator deal is a genuine merger, or maybe even a “buy-out”, depending on who you talk with. As such, it may reflect a timely move by Chris Lighty to cash in on an aging artist roster. After all, it’s been awhile since Mariah, P Diddy, and LL Cool J were at the top of the game. It could also reflect that a management roster consisting only of Cee Lo Green and Eric Benet wasn’t exactly the A-list that Larry Mestel had in mind. But most importantly, it is a bold statement by a music publishing company of what a lot of music publishers are starting to see, especially as the real payments from streaming services like Spotify start to come in and they’re missing at least three zeroes on the checks:

Music publishing is not going to be enough anymore.

The numbers are getting smaller and smaller, and even as uses of music climb, the payments are not sufficient to cover the tidal wave of paperwork that goes into collecting and accounting for them. In some ways, it was better when people were stealing. At least we didn’t have to keep track of it. Music publishers are going to have to diversify into other areas, and kudos to Primary Wave for making a bold move in that direction.

Of course, what makes sense for Universal Music, Live Nation, BMG Rights, and the afore mentioned Primary Violator (I love writing that) does not necessarily make cents for artists and songwriters. Not much surprise there.  It’s easy to see the upside for most of the parties involved in the past week’s festivities.  But the creative community would be wise to approach their new adopted family with the wariness of an orphan. Grab the bread if you’re hungry and someone’s offering, but keep one eye on the giver, and make sure there’s an exit nearby. And don’t get attached. Most of these families won’t be together very long.

For songwriters, artists, and independent publishers trying to make sense of it all, here are four quick things to keep in mind:

Music companies are becoming entertainment companies.  This is an inevitable thing.

Lucian Grainge and Larry Mestel are right—no one thing is enough anymore. As I’ve been preaching in this space for several years: publishers, record labels, managers, and booking agents have to see themselves not as part of the music industry, but rather as part of show business.   Not only is the value of music falling, but the intertwining of music with all other entertainment forms, from theater to video games to sports to television talent shows is increasing tenfold. In this sense, music creators are going to have to take some cues from the corporate decision-makers and begin building a network that includes not simply other musicians or songwriters, but game designers, film directors, music supervisors and visual artists. Diversification is not so much a business strategy as a survival mechanism.

Not all companies from one sector of music are competent in other sectors of music. Some are not competent in any facet of the music industry. This is an inescapable thing.

Here’s where creators are going to have to turn up the noise filter to “high” in the next few years. The fact that a company is a proven, known entity in one field, like music publishing, does not mean that they have a transferable expertise in the management business. Simply controlling the best record label does not guarantee having the best management company. If it did, Universal wouldn’t have sought out Live Nation at all.  The merger of two giant messes (Warner & EMI) guarantees very little except one really big mess.

When I was at a major publisher, I heard a similar argument made to songwriters every day—extolling the virtues of a worldwide publishing behemoth with offices in every territory, a film division, a record label, and an electronics arm. It was all true. But it didn’t mention that the UK office hated the New York office, and the country division wouldn’t speak to the Christian division, and no one had any contacts with the film company, and the electronics arm (I kid you not) didn’t even know they had an associated publishing company.  Bigger just means bigger.

The interests of all parties in the music equation do not necessarily align simply because they are all part of the same corporation. This is a proven thing.

Of course, this is the inherent problem within the 360 structure.  A manager is not always an ally of the record label—sometimes he or she is the person to put the screws to the company, albeit with the best of intentions.  A record label may not wish to pay the tour support that a manager demands or that a concert promoter would like. A publisher may not wish to send their artist to their affiliated record division(ask EMI), and a label A&R person is definitely not going to cut every song the publishing division sends over (ask any songwriter).  We are not in fact one big happy family.  We’re in it together, but not in it for each other.

The only person who will take care of you is you. This is a historical fact.

In light of the above, don’t take any advice from a manager, publisher, or record exec about where to sign, or who to engage until you consider: what’s in it for them?  Are they sending you to their business partner because it’s a perfect fit for you, or for them?

This is not to say that there are not real advantages that can be realized by keeping things “in house”.  I used to work at Zomba Music and Jive Records, the music industry’s best example of that particular approach over the last two decades.  But not all of these new alliances are going to work out. You can’t afford to let your career be the experiment in which two new corporate partners learn, or don’t learn to work together. Lots of people who believe in public schools as a concept send their kids to private ones—because you only get one chance.

Be assured that in a year from now, when your trusted manager tells you that he’s leaving that joint venture that he assured you would be “an incredible opportunity for all of us”, he will regale you with tales of how his new partners “just never got it”.  He’ll be gone, but you’ll still be in that publishing deal for the next three years.

Not only are we not really family, we’re often not even friends.  Whatever anyone tells you, it’s never all for one (except when it comes to BMG’s acquisition strategy). It’s one on one, everyone for him or herself.  Choose your partners carefully, each on their own merits. Not every match is made in heaven.

I’ve never before used this space to pay tribute to a particular songwriter or executive, but sometimes this business is so focused on tomorrow’s hits that we pay only momentary attention to the passing of people who quite literally created the industry of which we’re a part. The lyrics of Jerry Leiber, equalled only by Chuck Berry, established the mythical, iconic imagery of rock ‘n’ roll– they captured teen spirit long before Kurt Cobain, with humor and energy and an attitude of rebellion that runs through all of popular music from the Fifties onward. Nick Ashford, along with his wife and collaborator Valerie Simpson, brought the passion and power, and also the innovative chord progressions, of gospel music to Motown, and carried it all the way through the modern r&b era, from Ray Charles (”Lets Get Stoned”) to Marvin Gaye and Tammi Terrell (”Ain’t Nothing Like the Real Thing”) to Diana Ross to Chaka Khan to Mary J. Blige. Ashford & Simpson’s music is a common thread that runs from soul to disco to R&B to house music to hip-hop and ties it all together as one type of music– the kind that inspires you, lifts you up and makes you move.

Beyond momentary introductions at industry events, I never had the opportunity to know personally either Jerry Leiber or Nick Ashford. That’s actually okay. The beauty of music is that I didn’t really need to. Some of the first songs I ever learned to play on guitar were the classic Leiber & Stoller Elvis hits like “Hound Dog” and “Jailhouse Rock”.  In college, one of my first arrangements to be performed (I was an arranging major, back when that was an actual job) was of Ashford & Simpson’s “You’re All I Need (To Get By)”. One of my biggest hits as a songwriter, Martha Wash’s “Carry  On”, was very much inspired by “Ain’t No Mountain High Enough”.  I danced at Sound Factory to Danny D’s remix of “I’m Every Woman” (the greatest dance song ever) when Junior Vasquez played it for twenty minutes at 6 in the morning. Nick Ashford and Jerry Leiber felt like friends to me– as they do to millions of other people around the world.

Interestingly, both men were innovators not only in their music, but also in the music business. Leiber and Stoller were some of the first songwriters to become producers and publishers as well. They were the original modern writing/production team, and also co-publishers of their work, a rarity in those days. In fact, they essentially pioneered the “production deal” with a label (they had a long and successful relationship with Atlantic Records), working as freelancers, rather than employees of the company.  Ashford & Simpson were writers and producers as well, but broke new ground by then parlaying their success behind the scenes into long careers as performing artists, with hits like “Solid” and “Found a Cure”. Where most songwriters seem to start as artists and then move into writing songs for others, Ashford and Simpson flipped the script and went the other way, not unlike what writer/artists like Sean Garrett and others have done today.

It’s always risky to try to divine lessons from careers like Jerry Leiber or Nick Ashford–  the creative genius of songwriters at that level is not particularly transferable.  If you’re as talented as those two, you can do a lot of things that might not work for other people. Nevertheless, there are a couple of obvious truths that are common to both men, even though they came from different backgrounds and eras, and had very different musical gifts. It’s worth noting:

1. There’s strength in numbers. And two is a very good number.

Granted, everyone has their own way of working. But you can’t argue with certain patterns, and one of those is that songwriting just seems to work better in two-person teams. Leiber & Stoller followed Rodgers & Hart, Rodgers & Hammerstein, George & Ira Gershwin, Fields and McHugh, Waller & Razaf and the list goes on. Leiber and Stoller were followed by Lennon & McCartney, Jagger & Richards, Bacharach & David, Elton John & Bernie Taupin and of course, Ashford and Simpson.  Certainly there are dozens of legendary songwriters who worked entirely on their own. And while I’m not a big fan of today’s “song by committee” writing method, with five or six writers all chipping in bits and pieces, I can’t deny that it has yielded some successful records. But in the end,  the songwriting duo seems to be the most consistent hit-producing machine ever devised. If you’re working solo and not getting to where you want to be, either professionally or creatively, it might mean that you need to find your other half.

2. The best American popular songs are almost inevitably rooted in black music forms.

If there’s one enduring formula in American popular music, it’s this: trends and forms originate in the culture of black America, and then are developed, refined, sometimes diluted and often homogenized into mainstream pop music. Jazz became show tunes and popular standards; funk became disco; hip-hop became urban pop. Thanks largely to Leiber & Stoller, the blues became rock ‘n’ roll, leading not only to Elvis, but to The Coasters, the Drifters, Ben E. King, and ultimately everyone from the Beatles and Stones to Zeppelin. At the same time, the music of the black church was transformed into soul music, and Ashford and Simpson turned it into Motown, into disco, into pop.  It doesn’t matter what race the creators come from– they’re all drawing water from the same well.  Even today, we see forms like dub-step reshaping pop music once again. The musical tradition that is an integral part of black culture is a seemingly unending source of inspiration and innovation.

3. Songwriting is not merely expression. It’s communication.

At a meeting not too long ago, a songwriter matter-of-factly informed me that she wrote music primarily for herself– to express her feelings and ideas.  It’s something I seem to hear increasingly often, usually as an explanation of why the song has no chorus, why the lyric makes no sense, why the song appears to fit no known sector of the market. To Jerry Leiber or Nick Ashford, I’m sure the idea of music solely as a means of personal expression would have been inconceivable.

That’s not to say that there wasn’t plenty of Jerry Leiber or Nick Ashford’s personality in their music. It’s rather to say that they aimed to communicate their point of view to the listener. They weren’t aiming at something personal and introspective, but rather something celebratory, engaging and compelling. “Ain’t No Mountain High Enough” or “Stand By Me” are about connecting with the audience. That’s why they’re hits for generation after generation.

This is the legacy of Jerry Leiber and Nick Ashford. They built a business around entertainment in the best sense of the word, finding a raw emotional connection, an  interaction, a shared, visceral energy between writer, performer and audience. Too often now, it’s become a business of cool detachment, of artistic statements, “vibe”, and marketing concepts. Listening instead of dancing. The distant wave of a hand, rather than a human touch. Every songwriter reaches inward to some degree or another. But the greatest songwriters also reach out.

As we head into September, there’s no better time to take the plunge and enter into the world of music publishing. Music Publishing 101 is a step by step walk through the process of starting your own publishing venture—it’s designed so that by the end of the course, you’ll be positioned to hit the ground running in the music publishing biz. Best of all, you’ll be learning from people who are industry veterans—not only myself, but people like my buddy Jon Bonci, who teach the course.

Jon Bonci

Jon Bonci started out as a songwriter and eventually went on to work in some of the top companies in the music industry. As a young songwriter, after building a recording studio in his parents’ house, Jon decided he wanted to be more involved in the music business. This led him to get a job at a record company answering phones. From there, a music business weasel was born– he went on to work at Warner Chappell Music as an archivist and tape room manager, and later worked at BMG Music Publishing and Shapiro Bernstein & Co., Inc. He is currently working in music supervising for ESPN and teaching the Music Publishing 101 class. In this blog, Jorge Oliveres, my Berklee College of Music intern, asks Jon for his insight about the course.

What are the main things students will learn about in Music Publishing 101?

It’s different for each student. Certain students don’t know a thing about music publishing, others are in a band and they want to learn more about it. Then there are those who have known about it and want to learn as much as they can and use it to the best of their advantage. Having a variety of students is nice because we get different viewpoints when we discuss things on the chats.

Last semester I had someone doing artist management. I told him that the more he knows about music publishing, the better. If you are an artist manager, or if you’re managing a house and band comes in, you can actually cherry pick bands and manage them, get them a record deal, and if you know enough about music publishing, possibly act as their publisher as well. Knowledge is power. If you want to work in artist management, you’re going to have to know everything: not just on the record label side, but also on the music publishing side. For people in all different parts of the music world, this class will come in very handy.

I was going to ask you if there is a typical Music Publishing 101 student but  from what you are telling me, it sounds like the students are pretty diverse.

I’ll have a kid who is 21 years old, at the same time that I have people who are in their 60’s. That’s what’s great about teaching online. Anyone can access what Berklee has to offer, anywhere they are in the world. As a publisher, one of the biggest kicks I have is setting up collaborations. If I can put people together who like each other enough to be friends the rest of their life, even if they never write a song, then I think it’s a big success. A lot of times things come from collaboration–songwriters might end up enjoying each other’s company or helping each other out with their music. You never know where it can lead. If students in the class write similarly to each other, I tell them they should get together and work over the phone or the computer. We do quite a bit with an online class.

Often, songwriters take the class because they want to know about music publishing. Having been a music publisher myself, I know that a publisher is supposed to be more like the businessperson who is a step away from the songs. When you’re a songwriter, you think that every song you just wrote is the best song in the world… until you write the next one. It’s interesting to teach students to be as objective as they can about their music, to see how it holds up against what’s out there.

If you’re going to pitch a song to a music supervisor or to an A&R person, you only get one shot. Those people learn right away whether or not you have ears. If they let you come back again and you keep giving them what they don’t want, they’ll say, “This guy is a songwriter, he is too close the music, and he doesn’t really know what’s what.” You have to be objective about your music because you only get one shot to make a first impression.

So students will really get an idea of what publishers look for when they listen to songs…

You get placed on both sides of the desk: the writer’s side and the publisher’s side.
It’s a great class, it’s well mapped out, and when you read Eric’s writing he almost has the same voice as I do: he’s got a really good sense of humor, he’s frank, he’s upfront, he’s candid, he tells it like it is. It’s been a real pleasure dealing with the class. And Berklee has just been fantastic. Berklee is the kind of school that you just say the word and it opens doors for people. I tell that to my students as well: if the first thing you mention when you are trying to get a job somewhere is that you are a student at Berklee, it’s going to help you. It’s prestigious.

Because the class is online and you can have people from all over the world, does it deal with music publishing at an international level?

Yes. Eric has worked hard to give the class a strong international perspective. For example, in some countries the society that handles performing rights also handles mechanical royalty income, whereas in the United States everything is separated out. Also, we have three societies here for performance rights whereas most countries just have one. This leaves people there with no choice; they have to go with what they have. I actually had a student in the Middle East from a country where they don’t have a performance rights society set up. She wanted to know how she could set something like that up herself.

Now is a time of constant change for the music industry. How does the class help students keep up with those changes?

Since we really don’t know where the music business is going, having an online class is good because it can constantly be updated. For example, when the ruling came down on the new royalty rates for streaming and digital downloads, Eric put that within the course work as well. You get the best of both worlds in the class; you get a class that is constantly being tweaked by people who are in the industry every day.

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Peter Bliss

Peter has been making music, and helping others make music for a lifetime—he signed his first publishing deal straight out of high school, and released his self-titled debut album shortly thereafter.  He went on to write songs for Barbara Streisand, Menudo, Paula Abdul, *NSYNC, and many more, as well as composing music for film, TV and advertising. Over the last several years, Peter has expanded his outreach, from inspiring, challenging, and (always) educating his co-writers (I know, ‘cause I’ve been one), to touching the whole New York songwriting community. Most recently, he was the Professional Activities Coordinator for the Songwriters Hall of Fame. Now, he is working on a new and very exciting project:

The New York Songwriters Collective

As I’ve said so many times in this blog, as well as in my classes and books: there is no way for a songwriter to make it solely on his or her own. There is not even a single example of such a phenomenon. Everyone is lifted to success by others more established in the industry.

If we are to bring the music business back to prosperity, it will inevitably be through bolstering and supporting the network of musicians, songwriters and producers that make up our local music communities.  That’s what Peter is doing with his new organization, and I’m proud to be a part of it as well.

In light of that, I asked Berklee’s Jorge Oliveres to quiz Peter about his plans for the New York Songwriters Collective:

What is the New York Songwriters Collective going to be?

The New York Songwriters Collective is essentially a place where songwriters can come to work on their craft in a collective workshop environment, as well as attend networking meetings, meet and greets, and weekend workshops. For example, weekend workshops will be six or seven hours long all over the course of one day. Eric Beall has done them for us in the past and will be doing a special workshop again for us in November.

The whole idea is to have a community for the New York and East Coast songwriters. In the workshops I did at the SongHall, I found a significant number of people who were searching for a way to work on their craft and jump into the New York music scene. There really wasn’t a great deal out there. Other organizations provided showcase opportunities in the city but the workshops with the PROs (ASCAP, BMI, SESAC) weren’t a consistent presence. When there’s something missing, you try to create something to fill the void.

Will the New York Songwriter Collective attract seasoned writers or songwriters who are just starting out?

There may be more than one level of workshop. In the city, there are certain organizations open to all, where you can just sign up for either an intensive one-day or ongoing beginner classes. In the case of the Collective, I will probably have people submit music, so that we can put an effective group together. By listening to people’s material before we pick the groups, I can gauge everybody’s ability. By listening to a song or two, I know what the strengths and weaknesses of the person’s particular craft are.

The idea is to put people together who can help each other. Over the course of eight weeks, it’s very interesting to see how people gravitate toward each other just by listening to one another’s music.  We want to create an environment where creativity is maxed and where songwriters spend their energy on the songs that really matter. That means focusing in on exactly what people’s strengths and weaknesses are. We have to show them how to maximize their strengths and compensate for their weaknesses through collaboration with other writers or producers.

The first workshop is going to be for people who have already attended workshops in the past or show a certain merit or skill in their writing up front. Because we will be putting these people together with A&R and publishers, it’s important that these songwriters are professionally ready to have their music presented to the industry.

Is being in touch with A&R people and publishers an opportunity to learn from their expertise or is it also an opportunity to show them music?

If we bring industry professionals in as guests from the A&R, music publishing, and music licensing world; immediately we are breaking down the barrier between the artistic and the business side. As a songwriter, you can hear straight from the horse’s mouth what kind of songs people are looking for.

Everybody talks about how no one accepts unsolicited material. What we all need is an opportunity for songwriters and publishers to meet, so that executives can put a face and a personality to the music that they hear. In workshops where eight or ten writers are in a room with an A&R or a music licensing person, there’s an immediate contact and impression that is made. In some cases, I can act as an agent in between the writer and the industry person, to make sure that material gets heard, without the industry person feeling inundated.

I read that some big names, like Lady Gaga, were involved with the Songwriters Hall of Fame before they were famous.

Lady Gaga

Well Lady Gaga had been involved with the Songwriters Hall of Fame very early on. I’m not sure if she actually attended workshops. But, back in the day, Stefani Germanotta–that’s her real name–was an 18 year old kid who was looking for open mikes and places to play. The Songwriters Hall of Fame was active in sponsoring open mikes and showcases and she was part of that whole process. There are videos of her performances, and it’s interesting to see her progression. It’s very heartening to see that talent emerge over the years.

It’s also kind of nice to think that a superstar like her was like everyone else; an unknown songwriter just trying to be heard.

Songwriters are a strange breed. Songwriters tend to sit in their rooms by themselves or walk down the street singing to themselves. In the old days they might have put you in an institution for doing that.

Everything that was a hit started in a room with a single person or a bunch of people shooting ideas back and forth and seeing what flies. Every song that Barbara Streisand, Celine Dion, or Beyonce sings starts out with somebody coming up with an idea that just sticks against the wall and I think that’s the beauty of it.

Whether you spend a few dollars in a workshop or hundreds of thousands of dollars at university levels, nobody can guarantee that you’ll be a hit songwriter but everybody has the potential to gain the skills of the craft. We make no promises. Nevertheless, we’re certainly there to help you along the way.

If people want to find out more about the New York Songwriters Collective or are interested in signing up, where should they go?

I think it’s important for them to go to my website www.peterbliss.com so that they understand who I am and what I bring to the table. There will be a website coming very shortly at www.newyorksongwriterscollective.com and if they’re interested they can send an email to newyorksongwriterscollective@gmail.com. The New York Songwriters Collective is very young, but by the last week of August, we hope to have a set of workshops already scheduled and we’re going to start by doing a bunch of free meetings.

Many people are announcing the death of the music industry–I am not at all on board with that sentiment. I’ve never felt more optimistic about the music industry’s future now that everyone is embracing the changes that are coming with streaming and digital sales. There are so many more channels on TV and more outlets where original music is needed.

Songwriters need to avail themselves of these new opportunities. You’re not going to find much old school thinking at the New York Songwriters Collective. It’s all about new school. But the song is still key. Everybody is still looking for something that they can listen to and love. That’s what songwriters do, and they’re always going to do it.

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I’m calling on people younger and smarter than myself. (Doug Morris—wake up from your nap and take note.)

In what may be the best marriage yet of music and social networking, turntable.fm debuted this summer to rave reviews. One of those instant fans was my A&R colleague at Shapiro Bernstein, David Hoffman. Having educated our office on the endless possibilities of this new service, David recently sat down with my Berklee intern, Jorge Oliveres, to share the good news—two young guys looking at one exciting new facet in the future of music:

turntable.fm

Turtntable.fm is a virtual nightclub in which users are the DJs. The website is divided into “rooms” that play different styles of music. Users can chat with each other and bob their avatar’s head by clicking an “Awesome” button if they like the song that is being played or they can click the “Lame” button that, if pressed by enough people, skips it. DJs can choose the music they are going to play from a huge database or they can upload it themselves.

David Hoffman, Director of Creative Services at Shapiro Bernstein & Co., Inc., began using turntable.fm since soon after it was launched and he is extremely excited about its potential. I had a chance to talk to David about all the opportunities a service like turntable presents for both music publishers and songwriters.

David Hoffman

I heard you are very interested in turntable.fm.

I’m interested, almost slightly addicted to it. Probably a month ago now, a good friend of mine who is also in the music industry and one of the most knowledgeable music people I know, emailed me about turntable.fm. He said,  “You have to check it out.” He’s also a DJ and I have, from time to time, guest DJed on his show–so we know each other’s music tastes pretty well. When he told me to check out turntable, I went on it immediately and was hooked. The next day I came to the office, stood up in front of everybody and was like, “You have to check out turntable.fm!”

I follow the digital music industry and the future of the music industry through blogs and reading up on the trades, and this, turntable.fm, [represents] the potential that I see for the new cloud services that are coming up. Hopefully, it’s something that will stay around for a while. Even if it doesn’t, it will show the potential of how great music discovery can be with the right website and the right digital tools.

What do you think of the legal implications of turntable.fm? I was reading that right now they claim they are protected under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act.

Like Pandora, and a few other services, they are operating under the DMC Act of 1998 that allows Internet radio to exist as long as it operates within the confines of the law. If you spend a lot of time on turntable.fm, you’ll notice that there are some interesting little rules that they don’t tell you are rules. For instance, if you go into a room, you can’t listen to music just by yourself. As with Pandora, if you want to hear the latest Beyonce single, it’s not necessarily going to play that first; it’s going to give you other music. That basically limits the listener to what is now Spotify. [On Spotify], you call up the song and listen to it, but Spotify is a service you have to pay for. Right now you can get it for free if you have an invite, but eventually you’ll have to pay. There are other rules too: you can’t play an artist more than a certain number of times in an hour.

Last week turntable signed agreements with both ASCAP and BMI. That’s really great news because I think a lot of these services didn’t originally sign with the PROs because they figured they didn’t have to. Turntable.fm signing with them is a big step in the right direction.

I think the only problem they’ll have moving forward, and it’s a big one, is the fact that you are able to upload your own music onto turntable.fm. That’s where the waters get a little bit muddy. If I create a mashup of a song and I don’t get permission from the publishers to create that mashup, that piece of music is technically one big copyright infringement. I’m able to upload that song and play it for people, and I believe once you upload a song to turntable.fm, it stays there. And those are the most popular rooms–the ones that play these mashups and remixes.

It’s going to come to a point where they’re going to have to do some licensing like Apple has done with the cloud services and Spotify has done. I hope they can really get it together. I also hope that the music industry realizes the strength of turntable.fm. I think they do.

What do you think is its potential? How could publishers take advantage of this?

Publishers can take advantage of it in a lot of different ways. Number one: for music discovery. It used to be, back in the day, music lovers would go to record stores. You’d go to a really good one (for me it was always some of the Ma and Pa cool shops or going to the Tower Records on West 4^th Street). You’d go in and just thumb through the records. If I was into jazz that day I’d go to the Miles Davis section and say “Oh, wow, this is a CD I hadn’t seen before,” an interesting import CD or something, and I’d buy it. For music discovery [today], aside from word of mouth and what you read on blogs, the organic element of actually discovering something for yourself is kind of lost.

Turntable is the perfect place [to recover this] because you’re combining word of mouth (you’re learning from someone that you’re virtually meeting or someone that you know because they’re on turntable) and you’re listening to it. You’re talking about the music, you can link from it, and that, from an A&R perspective, is the closest thing to that original sense of discovery.

As publishing companies seek out talent, they can go into the cool room on turntable.fm, figure out who the DJs are going to be, and actually listen to it, learn about it and be on stuff before anybody else. I can’t tell you how many bands I’ve heard on turntable that I’d never heard before. When you are in a great room and the DJs are really going with the vibe, there could be a song that may not be your favorite song if you just heard it out of context. But when you hear it within the context of songs that are along the same vibe, [it] makes a big difference to someone who has a good ear for music and is out there to scout talent.

Not only publishers, but also record labels, managers, publicists, booking agents; everyone [can take advantage of this] to promote music. There was a band who was inviting people to a turntable.fm room for a listening party to debut their new CD. If one of our artists or songwriters has a new album or a new song, instead of sending out random emails or taking every music supervisor out to lunch and handing them a CD, I can invite them to a turntable.fm room. I’ll know if they’re there or not, see that they’re bopping their head, thinking it’s “Awesome” or not, and I can actually talk to them about it within the chat room. You’re basically creating a virtual listening party. I think that more and more bands are going to take advantage of it, and I think publishers will as well. There’s definitely the potential to have music supervision and A&R rooms.

I was also wondering about the potential it has on the other side, for emerging artists. Do you think it’s a good platform to promote new music?

I think it’s one of the best platforms. Whenever I speak on panels, people ask, “How do I get my music into the hands of the gatekeepers?” I say, “The best way to do it is to give it to someone who knows that person.” The analogy I like to use is [this]:

I’m in my apartment in NY and I hear a random Chinese food menu come underneath my door. It’s from the local Chinese place and I’ve never heard of them before. I take it and throw it out. But if Eric [Beall], my colleague, says to me, “Hey, this great new Chinese place opened down the block from me, you should check it out, ” I’ll probably go there the next day.

I take pride in listening to most stuff that comes to our office. But if I’m learning of music because I’m getting a random email, I’m thinking “OK– most of the stuff that comes randomly is not very good.” But if I’m learning of the music at turntable.fm from someone I know, or even someone I might only know virtually, it’s a different situation. If they’ve played a few good songs that I liked, and they say “Check this out,” I’m going to listen with open ears.

It seems like a really cool blend between social networking and music. I’m surprised something like this didn’t come out before.

I agree with you. It’s such a simple idea. Yet the potential is massive.  Think about colleges. Since it came out in the summer, it hasn’t made its impact on college yet. Once the fall semester starts, you’re not only going to be at a party and listening to awesome music— you’re going to be playing the music. You’ll bring your laptop, we’ll get up on turntable.fm and start our own room. And while we’re partying, we’re also going to be DJing. If I were in college, I’d probably do that about 14 hours a day.

Right now [turntable has] limited capacity to 200 people [per room]. I think that will eventually expand. It’s going to become more like satellite radio. It will be an Internet radio station playing in the background, somewhat like Pandora because you’re choosing your overall theme, but more like satellite radio or traditional radio with great DJs. In fact, you might personally know the DJs.

What about when turntable has an application? What about when automobiles are wired with wifi?  Once it’s on your phone and you’re able to DJ on your commute to work, you’re going to say, “This is really tremendous.” There are so many ideas I’ve been reading about, like an external “Awesome/Lame” button. You can be hosting a cocktail hour and secretly, in your pocket, hitting ”Awesome”.

Also, the link with Spotify is fantastic– turntable and Spotify go together like peanut butter and jelly. You’re discovering [music] and immediately clicking the Spotify link so that you can learn more about the band later. When you’re DJing, you can call up and research songs on Spotify—it’s a better interface than turntable for that.

Turntable.fm is the first thing in a really long time that’s made me very excited about music discovery. Instead of being an old curmudgeon saying, “Back in the day it was so much better,” this is the sort of thing that [has me] thinking, “Wow, this is amazing!”

David Hoffman is the Director of Creative Services at Shapiro, Bernstein & Co., Inc., one of America’s oldest independent publishing companies. At Shapiro Bernstein he is an A&R rep, TV/Film/Advertising placement person and song plugger amongst other things.  The catalog ranges from classics including “In The Mood,” “On The Sunny Side of The Street” and “Ring Of Fire” to current hits by David Guetta, and current indie-darlings Savoir Adore.  David is also a music supervisor who has worked on indie films like “Still Bill” a documentary on Bill Withers, and advertisements for Apple and Puma. Prior to becoming a full time publisher, David was a professional drummer with the popular instrumental jazz/funk/jamband ulu, touring upwards of 220 nights a year.  Before hitting the road, David worked at BMI and Giant Step Inc.

David has been a featured speaker/panelist for CMJ, ASCAP Expo & ASCAP Night School, AIMP and others and DJ’s regularly on EastVillageRadio.Com.

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There’s light at the end of this deep, dark tunnel that we’ve been in.

After almost a decade of what has seemed like irreversible decline in the music industry, with each year bringing declining sales, more consolidation, less creative growth, and a growing irrelevance in pop culture, we might finally be turning things around.  Over the past several months, there’s been not just random bits of good news, but an emerging pattern that would seem to indicate, dare I say it, positive momentum for a recovery that can reinvigorate the record labels, publishers, artists, songwriters, producers, live industry and all the thousands of other music-related businesses that have been suffering through this long slog through the wilderness.

Here’s a few of the things that have weasels smiling these days:

• The emergence of new technologies that are legal, licensable, and viable – and fun to use!

The appearance of Spotify, Turntable.fm, and iCloud, along with the continued growth of services like Pandora are showing that it is possible to make music available in a way that’s attractive and profitable.  Of course, there will continue to be winners and losers in what seems to be an ongoing story of overnight sensations and quick, brutal endings (say goodnight, MySpace). But the convergence of streaming services and social networks, and the cooperation between labels, publishers and technology services in making the music available legally, is a model for a more promising future.

• A growing government concern about piracy and illegal file sharing.

I’ve been predicting it for years: once the technology of file-sharing reached the point of endangering the movie and television industry, we’d start to see a change in the US government’s willingness to step in and get involved.  The truth is, politicians couldn’t care less about the music industry. It’s too small, too controversial, too disorganized, and too youth-oriented to matter, and as a result the industry has lost virtually every battle it’s entered, whether it with the broadcasters, restaurant and bar owners, or internet service providers (ISPs).

The movie business is a whole different animal. It is the big dog of American entertainment, and the companies that are built on movies, like Disney, Viacom, and Universal Pictures are among the crown jewels of the American corporate world.  Now that they’re being threatened by illegal file-sharing around the world, the US government is sending signals to internet service providers both here and abroad that they will be held responsible for copyright violations occurring on their networks. In return, ISPs are showing a willingness to consider some type of punitive action toward consistent copyright violators, as well as a surcharge that would compensate rights holders.  Thanks to Hollywood, what was deemed utterly impossible when the music industry asked for it five years ago is starting to look like a reasonable compromise.

• The revitalization of the CD catalog business.

Again,  I’ve been at this one for awhile now—in “Living In the Past Beats Dying In the Present” I used the example of the German music market to argue that the short-term future of music was “selling old product to old people”.  With its new $5 CD program,  Walmart is taking that formula to the bank, selling CDs of classic music to older, mainstream consumers. Not surprisingly, it’s revitalized the catalog business, which especially for major record labels, is  absolutely essential for a return to profitability.

• The opening of China.

This week brought more good tidings from abroad, where it appears that a consortium of the major US labels, called One-Stop China, and Baidu, China’s primary online Google-equivalent, have reached a deal that will allow Baidu to provide users with free ad-supported music streams.  In turn, Baidu will pay the labels and creators of the music, as well as crack down on illegal sites that infringe copyrights. While it’s unlikely to generate any significant income for 5-8 years, this first crack in the Chinese fortune cookie could be a massive long-term step toward breaking into a potentially massive market of consumers.  The prospect of monetizing markets like China, India, Eastern Europe, and Southeast Asia has been one of the primary factors fueling the hedge fund interest in purchasing publishers and music catalogs. It now seems that may have been right.

• The success of Adele.

Adele

Doesn’t seem right to discuss a resurgence of the music industry without even mentioning music itself.  Given the divergence in tastes among any random group of listeners, as well as the constant creative rise and fall in each different musical genre, it’s possible at any time to make an argument for the proliferation or the imminent demise of “good music”, whatever that means. Still, one has to take note of the fact that just this year, Adele has sold more than 5 million copies of her album and set the record for the longest stretch at #1 of any female artist. Those kinds of numbers weren’t supposed to happen anymore in our post-album, singles-dominated, market-fractured, ADD-addled music world.

But the fact that it was done by a real singer who is neither a fashion model, television star or an ongoing gossip-column soap opera; who is not a winner of any TV talent contest; who doesn’t rent her music to advertising campaigns; who doesn’t Twitter; whose music is not aimed at Top 40 radio trends—these are signs that can’t be ignored.  Add in other new artists like Mumford & Sons and Florence & The Machine, and one begins to sense a shift. This is not to demean Katy Perry, Kei$ha, or Rihanna, all of whom make great pop music for a demographic that loves and lives that kind of music.  But it means that there are alternatives, and that there is more than one audience and one road to building a very substantial, and lucrative business around your music.

Of course, it would be foolish to ignore the equal number of warning signs flashing in the distance, or any of the huge potential pitfalls that could easily derail the resurgence of the music business:

• The major labels continued reliance on over-age, tired, and narrow-minded chief executives

• The brewing meltdown of many of the world’s performing rights and mechanical collection organizations

• Our continued inability to update and streamline copyright law to keep pace with technology and globalization

• The inescapable reality that music is no longer a primary pillar of youth culture, but rather shares that role with social networking, gaming, fashion, and a million other diversions

Yet even some of the worst news in the business, like the mass layoffs at Universal Records, or the continued consolidation of the major labels, has a positive aspect. At least it shows people making changes that in many cases were either inescapable or long overdue. Restructuring an industry is never pretty, and much that’s good is inevitably lost in the slash and burn of clearing the way toward the future. Nevertheless, it has to be done.

There is a time for criticism, and this blog has often pointed out the looming problems, mis-direction, or just plain dumb decisions throughout the music industry. But there is also a time for letting positive energy feed upon positive energy, re-establishing a sense of optimism and untapped potential. This business was never easy, nor was it meant to be. As I said in last week’s blog: the only thing that can truly kill you in show business is cynicism.  Once that deadly element sets in, it’s over.

As we head into the 4^th Quarter of 2011, this blog is going to try to focus on the good news, and what we can do to take advantage of the positive developments in the music business. With the help of my standout Berklee intern, Jorge Oliveres, I’m also looking forward to highlighting some of the people who are making new things happen, or who have a particular expertise that can help music publishers and songwriters exploit the new opportunities we’re seeing.

I think we’ve finally turned a corner in the music business. Now, it’s time to step on the gas and head toward that light at the end of the tunnel.

Follow me on twitter @EricBeall

Of course, such advice overlooks the simple statistical fact that the career dreams of most musicians and songwriters do not in fact come true. The reality is: many people play dead-end gigs night after night to make ends meet, sure that one day their labors will lead to a record deal or a publishing agreement, or a big breakthrough moment—and it simply doesn’t happen. Most people who get the major record label deal put out one failed album and disappear. Most songwriters with publishing deals don’t write a hit. That’s not negativity. It’s just the numbers, and it always has been. In many cases, people might have been better off to give up their music career and focus their efforts somewhere more suitable for them.

And yet…

And yet, those of us in the industry who come in contact with the success stories know that one of the most common defining factors among the people who find not momentary, but long-term career success in the music business is indeed a grinding, relentless, near-obsessive determination that simply refuses to accept defeat. Successful artists, songwriters, and producers do not give up. Neither do successful managers, A&R people, or label owners. It is the one common trait between a wildly diverse population of creative types and music weasels.

So how does a young musician or songwriter reconcile the need for determination in the face of overwhelming odds with the equally necessary need to face reality? It’s a question that has been in the back of my mind since the day I started in the music industry. I haven’t had a day since without it spinning around my psyche. In all honesty, I hope I never do.

That’s because the two qualities, determination and realism, are only helpful when they’re closely intertwined. Without a balance of both qualities, you can be assured of either rushing headfirst off a cliff, or throwing in the towel without realizing you’re only inches from the goal. It’s true that you should never give up. But doing the same damn thing over and over is not going to work either. You need determination all right. But you need to be realistic about what “determination” actually means:

Determination is an endless capacity for reinvention.

I thought of this yesterday, when I saw a particular new act break into the Top Ten of the Hot 100 for the first time. We’ll leave the name of the band out of it, to allow for more candor in recounting the story.

I first met the lead singer and chief songwriter of this band when he was still a teenager—he played and sang in my office, with unshakable confidence and undisguised ambition. He was clearly talented, but not yet ready to sign a publishing agreement. I didn’t sign him, and no one else in the business did either. Several years later however, he had grown both as a person and as a musician—and he did get that publishing contract, which subsequently led to him forming a band, toughening up his sound, and starting to record some demos.

Fast forward another 12-24 months, and those demos began to attract interest from managers. Soon the young band was being represented by two major industry veterans, who were able to secure a major label record deal for their clients. Now this project was off to the races—only about four years after that initial office performance in my office.

Once the band had finished recording their debut album, the label sponsored another showcase, this time at a major venue in NYC, and I had a chance to see the band a second time. While the depth of talent in both the songwriting and performance were obvious, the show didn’t sell me on the group. I felt they were a little too derivative and not terribly convincing, and definitely not packing a breakthrough first single. When the single came out several months later and quickly disappeared, I felt confident I’d made the right call.

Given the current propensity for record companies to drop an act at the first failed release, I was surprised to see the band get a second chance with a follow-up single. Most of this I attributed to their high-powered management team, who had clearly pulled some favors and issued some threats to give their act one more opportunity to grasp the brass ring. Still, even that power-base wasn’t enough, as the second single did even less than the first, garnering almost no radio action and little label support. Right around that time, I was given another opportunity to get involved with the band on a publishing level—and once again, I passed. When the president of the label and the Sr. VP of A&R, who signed the act, both left the record company, the demise of this particular band, after five or six years of local gigs, recording, showcasing and touring, seemed inevitable.

So imagine my surprise when several weeks ago the group’s new single, a third attempt at breaking through to radio, suddenly leapt onto the Hot 100. I was even more surprised when I heard the record. The band had radically shifted their sound and visual image toward a younger demographic. It worked immediately, and continues to build into one of the major success stories of the year. The band’s success is not only a testament to their talent, but also to their determination, and the determination of the business team around them. They never, ever gave up.

But they did adapt. In fact, their determination did not result in a refusal to change—their determination was expressed through their constant willingness to change. I’ve seen it through personal experience with artists and songwriters ranging from The Script to the Jonas Brothers to Stargate to Billy Mann. The kind of determination that wins in the music industry is the kind that never stops looking for a new angle, a new approach, or a new audience. Playing the same songs in the same city to an ever-dwindling number of the same people year after year is not determination. It’s futility. If you look at the careers of show business icons like Frank Sinatra, Elvis, Madonna, Tom Jones or U2, they are filled with an endless capacity for reinvention, and a conviction that there is always another way to get to the top.

The Jonas Brothers

Every artist or songwriter meets obstacles along their career path. Many of them vow never to give up—and don’t. Unfortunately, most of them fail, because they simply repeat the same mistakes again and again. The ones that succeed are like the best competitors of any kind—they simply refuse to lose, and will try everything until they find what works. Here’s four tips to keep in mind:

1. Keep an eye on the scoreboard
Anytime you’re on the playing field, you better know the score of the game, because you play differently when you’re behind and when you’re ahead. The most deadly danger is to tell yourself that you’re winning when you’re not. It’s easy to convince yourself that you’re making progress–gaining fans, building a network of contacts, refining your sound—when you’re simply standing still. Set measurable goals. Monitor your results. And be honest. If it’s going nowhere, admit it. Just because you’re behind, it doesn’t mean you’ll lose the game. But it does mean that you better be prepared to change something.

2. Change the team
Almost every great band has a member who never quite made it the distance (right, Pete Best?). If one member of the team, whether it’s a musician, a manager, a publisher or a record executive, is holding everyone back, then there has to be a change. Sometimes even the best people get stale, especially after a run of success. Look at how Madonna has switched producers or how songwriters like Billy Steinberg or Max Martin have found new collaborators. It’s never easy to do. But you have to find the chemistry that will make magic.

3. Change the field
Music is fashion, and like all pop culture, it’s constantly changing. Production sounds come and go, whole genres of music transform themselves, audiences grow older or are replaced by a new generation of listeners. Whether it’s Elvis going to Vegas, Darius Rucker going from Hootie to country star, or Rod Stewart transforming from rocker to crooner, you have to be willing to meet your audience where they are. Sometimes that means changing styles, genres, or geographical territories. Go where the grass is greener.

4. Change the strategy
Coaches put their game plan on a chalkboard, not a stone tablet. That’s because it’s inevitably going to change, based on how things are shaping up on the field. I recently signed a songwriter who had her first big cut in Nashville this week. She started as a pop singer, moved to Nashville as a country artist, got a few breaks as a songwriter and finally went with that. It doesn’t mean she’s given up her hopes of being an artist. It just means that she took her breaks where they came, and changed the plan as necessary. It’s only about winning.

5. Change the game
Kara DioGuardi went from songwriter to media personality to A&R person. Justin Timberlake went from artist to actor. Will Smith was a rapper once upon a time. Bono went from rock star to international political crusader. Sometimes the best thing to do with your musical talents is to blend them with your other skills, and use them to add a different dimension to a whole new field of work. Whether it’s in the entertainment or media business, education, music therapy, politics or technology, there are other places to bring your talents to the world, outside of the narrow definitions of the music industry.

In the end, the only mistakes I’ve ever seen that are career-ending are cynicism and bitterness. As soon as those elements set in, all is irretrievably lost. For most of us, no one suggested that we should get into the music business. In fact, most of our friends and family probably did all they could to warn us off it. We made the choice, and we continue to pursue the dream only as long as we choose to. There’s no room for bitterness in that.

I had three different chances to sign that band that I mentioned earlier—the one with the current Top Ten hit. I blew it every time. But tomorrow, I’ll pick up the phone and call the manager, who knows exactly how many chances I had to make an offer, and who is well aware of exactly why I’m calling now. I’ll tell him, in all sincerity, how happy I am for the band’s success, and what a testament it is to their determination. Then I’ll ask if the band has closed a publishing deal yet. Because real music business weasels never, ever give up.

Follow me on Twitter @EricBeall