Selling records, or any product for that matter, is a lot like picking up women. Women are smart. A lot smarter than us guys.  They notice everything, and judge instantly based on how they’re approached. Consumers are the same way, once you anger one of them, or one of their close friends, you’ve killed your chance of having any sort of relationship. Selling a lot of records is comparable to you and your cool friends hooking up with a lot of hot women on a consistent basis. You have something of value, therefore, that thing of value is in demand, and that demand leads to an increase in demand for not only your value, but the value of everything associated with you. The major labels used to be like that – men with high social value. They had a hot artist. That artist sold. The fact that their hot artist sold led to an increase in sales of all their other artists, and their friend’s (i.e., other label’s) artists. This phenomenon was extremely prevalent during the Hair Metal, Grunge, Rap, and Nu-Metal eras.

With that said, forcing a college student to pay hundreds of thousands of dollars for a commodity that’s essentially been free since 2002 is inherently bad for business… 

Try publicly embarrassing a hot woman in a crowded bar in front of all her friends, better yet, try telling her she’s fat and ugly on national television. Not only will she A. not have sex with you, but B. all her friends and every woman in ear shot will not have sex with you for the mere fact that you’ve exposed your inherently low social value. This very public lawsuit between the RIAA and Joel Tenebaum is comparable to the previous scenario. The big 4, in a matter of 6 weeks, have completely destroyed the social value they spent 50 years building. They ruined a young kid’s life for no apparent reason other than that they felt the insecure need to publicly flex their faux machismo. Just as putting up a bad front doesn’t get one laid, it also fails to sell records. Would you get into bed with someone that sued you? How about someone that sued one of your friends? I didn’t think so!

What we have is a PR nightmare for the music industry. A lot of music biz pundits have been saying the same thing I’m about to tell you here over and over since 2002, so… I’m going to kick the facts in a non-conventional way that we can all relate to: Whenever the word “women” is used, replace it with “consumers.” Whenever the words “male” or “man” are used, replace it with the word “label.” Lastly, whenever any word relating to intercourse is used, replace it with the phrase “selling records.”

Women Hate Beta Males - Beta males are men who are not dominant, alpha, or leaders of men, but rather lower value males who go along with “group think.” The RIAA and its affiliated labels have suddenly transformed from alpha males, with high social value, to lower-value beta males; metaphorically speaking. They’ve exposed their lower value by picking on someone powerless. Bullying is beta male behavior, and beta males rarely score with hot women, just like record labels rarely sell records (i.e., score) these days.

Women Hate Insecure Men - You’ve seen them… They drive Porsches and lead off every conversation with women with something along the lines of “Let me buy you a drink. I’m rich, you know? See that Porsche? It’s mine… I’m also the vice president of a label, I hung out with Michael Jackson all the time in the 80s. I own WMG stock, but I sold it for a lot of money.” Underneath all the hype, they’re insecure and lack confidence. Men with high value never talk about how important they are in such a blatant manner, as this type of behavior exposes low social value. Men with high value let their confidence shine through silently. Back in the early 90s, Geffen didn’t sue people for copying Nirvana tapes for their friends; they let their hot artist do their thing – Geffen and Nirvana had social value and acted accordingly. Therefore, they scored!

Women Hate Jealous Men - Jealous men will become irate when their actions don’t lead to getting what they want. They’ll pick fights, call incessantly, bully, and act petty when rejected by women. Jealous behavior stems from insecurity caused by past rejection and perceived future rejection. For example, a man meets a girl and they hit it off. After a few weeks, she becomes his girlfriend. One night, the man’s girlfriend doesn’t call. He sends her a nebulous text, “Hey,” the text says, “What R U up to?” No response. The man, not liking to be ignored, sends another text 5 minutes later, “Are you busy?” Again, no response.

After stewing and worrying that his girlfriend is on a date with another man, the man sends yet another text, “Call me,” it begins, “I really want to talk to you.” Once again, the text is met with silence. The man is furious, his next text is something along the lines of “Why R U not texting me back? Are you mad?” Again, the text is ignored. The man flies into a rage. “How can she ignore me like this?” the man asks himself, “I’m a good boyfriend, why is she ignoring me?” In a rage, the man makes a critical error… He sends his girlfriend the ‘ultimatum’ text. “If you don’t call me in 5 minutes, I’m breaking up with you!” Mellodramatic? Yes! Because the reason the girlfriend wasn’t texting back because she had to work late and had innocently left her cell in her car after lunch.

The girlfriend, of course, is disturbed by the man’s behavior. She finally calls, only to break up with him for acting crazy. The man becomes irate. He’ll show her! He logs on Ping.fm (hopefully you read my last article), and proceeds to write a nasty blog about how mad he is at his “awful” ex-girlfriend. He then hits Twitter, sending a series of angry tweets, “My GF Sux,” “She’s a SLT,” “F that stupid B.” This behavior manages to further alienate his ex-girlfriend, eliminating his chance to hook back up with her. Suing your own customer is basically the same thing. Back in the early 90s, labels didn’t publicly embarrass their consumers for not sucking up to them. In the pre-digital age, labels respected their own vibe. They had high social value, therefore they scored!

Women Hate Men That Don’t Understand Women - A man’s girlfriend says to him, “My birthday is this weekend, but you don’t have to plan anything special.” The man silently agrees, and fails to plan anything for his girlfriend’s birthday. He doesn’t even buy her a card or send her a “happy birthday” text. The girlfriend, realizing that her man didn’t pick up on the fact that she did in fact want her birthday acknowledged, becomes irate (and rightly so!) She breaks up with the man the next day, leaving him in a stunned disbelief. The moral of the story is that one must understand one’s consumer. Any market research expert will tell you, “Don’t look at what your consumer says, look at what they do.” Labels have failed to follow this advice for the last decade. Back in the pre-digital era, labels understood what their consumers wanted and gave it to them in many ways (no pun intended). Understanding their target gave them high social value, therefore they scored!

Labels, if you want to score (i.e., win back your social value), you have to start thinking about how to improve your value in the long term. Take a yoga class, come up with a new business model, eat healthier, and most of all, don’t act like a jealous, overly-macho beta male in a public forum.

Jim Markunas is a music industry futurist and editor-in-chief of Chicks With Guns Magazine. Jim has a decade of new media and music industry experience, he’s run highly successful new media campaigns and has worked with James Brown, Miles Davis, The Walt Disney Company, Sam Sparro, Mick Fleetwood, and Minty Fresh Records. Currently Jim’s focus is monetization strategies for record labels and digital business development. He’s a free agent available for hire.

Find Jim Online: Twitter – Linkedin – Facebook – Website – E-mail Jim

Find Jim Online: Twitter – Linkedin – Facebook – Website – E-mail Jim

I can tell you for a fact that one can and should effectively have and manage as many social media sites as possible. A lot of industry peeps and bands have complained that there’s too many social media sites and not enough time to effectively manage them all.

A main staple of my New Media Plan is effectively managing social media in a span of 5 minutes. Yes… 5 minutes.

For this exercise, you’ll need profiles on Ping.fm, Twitter, Myspace, and Facebook. Follow the links above if you aren’t on the aforementioned sites.

First let’s discuss Ping.fm. Ping is a brilliant and revolutionary site! Everyone in new media and otherwise should be a member. Ping.fm gives users the ability to manage 30 or so social media sites from one place (or in my case via text message). With the click of a button labels and artists can post news and links all across the internet.

Most importantly, one post can simultaneously update your website (provided you were smart enough to embed an RSS feed), your Myspace blog, Facebook status/news, and your Twitter updates.

Now that you’ve gotten all your profiles in order. Go to Ping.fm and log in.

You should find yourself in the “Dashboard section. Go to the middle of the page and click on “Add More Networks.”

We’ll start with Twitter. Find the Twitter icon, and click “Add Network.”

You’ll be prompted to enter your username and password from Twitter.

Enter the login information, and select the appropriate boxes under the “Use For” section on the right. (Check whichever box or boxes you feel are appropriate.)

Repeat the process for Myspace, Facebook, and any other sites you happen to have profiles on.)

Now… you have 3 different social media profiles set up on Ping.fm. Great! I’m going to explain how to make it all work.

Option 1 – Using the Ping.fm site to update your profiles.

Go back to your Dashboard. You’ll notice a giant white box. Click the drop down menu and select “Status Updates.” Type a short messge and a link to a website (preferrably yours if you’re an artist).

Viola! You’ve just updated your status on Facebook, Myspace, and Twitter.

It’s also possible to update your blog using the “Blogs” option, your Myspace blog using the “Micro-Blogging” option, etc. The sky is the limit. Just be sure not to use the same update for “Statuses” and “Micro-Blogging.”

Option 2 – Updating via text message, e-mail, iPhone or Blackberry.

Updating by E-mail

Quite the useful function if you’re a publicist with a Blackberry or iPhone. You can write a blog article in full HTML and update your sites by sending a simple e-mail.

Each Ping.fm user is assigned a unique e-mail address to send updates to. To find yours go to your Dashboard and click on the “E-mail” link just below where it says “Services/Tools.”

Updating by Text Message

If you’re a band on the go and you want to be able to update your sites without being tied to one of those pesky laptops, this option is for you.

Go to your Dashboard and look for the “SMS/Text Messaging” link under the “Services/Tools” section. You’ll be asked to enter your mobile phone number. Once you’ve entered the number and established your phone, save Ping.fm’s posting number into your phone.

When the urge strikes, text the number your news, and it will update all your statuses.

Updating Via iPhone or Blackberry

Use the internet as you would on your computer.

Or… Get one of the apps found here.

Congratulations, readers! Go out and “network.”

Jim Markunas is a music industry futurist and editor-in-chief of Chicks With Guns Magazine. Jim has a decade of new media and music industry experience, he’s run highly successful new media campaigns and has worked with James Brown, Miles Davis, The Walt Disney Company, Truckee Brothers, Mick Fleetwood, and Minty Fresh Records. Currently Jim’s focus is monetization strategies for record labels and digital business development. He’s a free agent available for hire.

Find Jim Online: Twitter – Linkedin – Facebook – Website – E-mail Jim

Every once in a great while a being comes along with a revolutionary idea. The idea itself is ahead of its time, but still exceptionally valid. The messenger of this idea is usually persecuted; 2,000 years ago, it was Jesus, 50 Years ago, it was Martin Luther King, and today… it’s internet radio.

Internet radio may hold the key the music industry is looking for. Here are a few reasons:

F*@% The FCC!!! – You can do, say or play whatever you want on internet radio. This instantaneously solves the problem of marketing bands that aren’t “radio friendly.”

In the olden days of the music industry, a band recorded an album under the supervision of a producer and a staff A&R guy. The album was plucked of 1-4 “commercial-sounding” songs. Said singles were played in order of appearance ad nausea on terrestrial radio stations throughout the world. This over-saturation caused consumers to run out to the local Best Buy or Tower Records to buy the album containing said single, or a 3-track disc of said single. Voila! Everyone from The Beatles to Korn sold records this way.

The great bands that didn’t have “radio friendly” songs were shelved, haphazardly thrown on the market, or in RARE instances… carried on without help from radio.

Sometimes, albums that would have been a huge hit were thrown by the wayside because radio said “No!”

Example: Nada Surf’s sophomore album (would have been HUGE!!!), 311′s “Music,” God Lives Underwater’s “Up Off The Floor,” and especially Jimmy Eat World’s “Bleed American” album (Passed on by Capitol/EMI and eventually released under Dreamworks/SKG under a self-titled guise to a multi-platinum success.)

Internet radio solves this dilemma, and in addition offers unique promotional opportunities. San Diego-rockers, Truckee Brothers released an internet radio exclusive MP3 in spring of 2007 not only to help the cause to save internet radio, but also because the song’s title, “Mayday,” could not be said on terrestrial radio.

Portability and Flexibility - Yes… We all know I’m a fan of the iPhone… Along with the rest of the world. This device has made internet radio all the more beneficial in the days of Apps. With the internet, listeners of internet radio aren’t limited by range. Los Angeles’ main internet radio stations, Kill Radio and Little Radio boast a global audience of thousands.

Famous radio stations across the pond, Virgin Radio and Capital FM, not only broadcast online, but have their own nifty little iPhone app. Pandora also has an app. Why listen to KROQ in the car and be subjected to the same Silversun Pickups song over and over for years when one can listen to anything they want on Pandora (Provided their car is iPod or Bluetooth enabled)?

Most importantly, there’s a station out there for everybody! Like death metal? There’s a station for you. Blues? Shoe-Gazer? Bird Sounds? There’s a station for you too!

Affiliate Ads – Labels can align with stations to drive profits. Some stations have “click to buy” links, and further ad-sharing deals could be worked out to a mutually beneficial end.

The Hullabaloo Over Songwriters – Songwriter are emotional… That’s why they write great songs. Nowadays, they’re emotional about the fact that the internet has put them out of a job (And rightly so!)

When internet radio kills terrestrial radio, and it just may, it has the potential to become very profitable. These profits could be made to trickle down to songwriters, artists, and labels alike.

The Main Reason Every Label and Person Should Have Their Own Station - I can’t think of any reason why one wouldn’t have their own internet radio station.

Labels! Imagine a streaming station with thousands of listeners. You own the station, it plays exclusively your artists, and you sell ads. Smells suspiciously like money, doesn’t it?

People! Rise up against those “evil” labels and play indie artists. This way, the old balance is restored and everyone’s happy : )

Jim Markunas is a music industry futurist and editor-in-chief of Chicks With Guns Magazine. Jim has a decade of new media and music industry experience, he’s run highly successful new media campaigns and has worked with James Brown, Miles Davis, The Walt Disney Company, Truckee Brothers, Mick Fleetwood, and Minty Fresh Records. Currently Jim’s focus is monetization strategies for record labels and digital business development. He’s a free agent available for hire.

Find Jim Online: Twitter – Linkedin – Facebook – Website – E-mail Jim

Not To Beat A Dead Horse, But…

They did a scientific study, and it turns out that prosecuting illegal P2P file swappers is bad for the music business as a whole.

Check out the article.

To further buttress my point, let’s do a rough crunch of the numbers:

The Cost of Litigating P2P

* Staff Attorneys (Studio/Label) – $100,000 – $150,000 annually X 6 staffers X 4 labels = $2.4 M – $3.6M

* Bad Debt (As Reported in A Corporate Financial Report) – $1M per lawsuit X 6 = $6M

* Lost Record Sales – 690,000 songs per day, 250M songs per week, and 13B songs per year are downloaded illegally. This is a yearly loss of $13B.

Debt that is won in court is more often than not, unpaid by litigants (on the defendant end). However, this “income” will show up on a company’s financial report. But… If the debt goes unpaid, it shows up on the annual report as a loss.

Per year, labels are losing (this is just a rough estimation) $14B on P2P lawsuits and illegal filesharing.

That’s quite a loss!

Here’s what would happen if labels stopped litigating and instead negotiated with ISP’s for a $1 per month music fee

If the 1.6 billion internet users world wide were charged an extra $1 per month for internet access in return for unlimited music files the music industry could stand to make $19 billion annually.

Enough said.

Jim Markunas is a music industry futurist and editor-in-chief of Chicks With Guns Magazine. Jim has a decade of new media and music industry experience, he’s run highly successful new media campaigns and has worked with James Brown, Miles Davis, The Walt Disney Company, Truckee Brothers, Mick Fleetwood, and Minty Fresh Records. Currently Jim’s focus is monetization strategies for record labels and digital business development. He’s a free agent available for hire.

Find Jim Online: Twitter – Linkedin – Facebook – Website – E-mail Jim

The revolution has come and gone, now it’s time to talk about money. In this multi-part series, I’ll be focusing on positive solutions to the music industry dilemma. My first discussion is how to maximize DIGITAL touring income.

“What’s digital touring income?” you ask. Good question!

We’re all familiar with traditional touring income, yes? (Band goes on tour, sells tickets to fans; said fans purchase tickets, money trickles to band, promoter, venue, label (if applicable under 360 deal), etc. Maybe said band also secures some sponsorship dollars from Vans or Winterfresh gum as well – This is how it’s been done since the beginning of time, and the model still holds up today.

I’d like to discuss how the digital sphere plays into touring income.

Traditional New Media - In the internet age, the press has moved from print to online. New Media departments, in addition to securing band and record release write-ups on blogs, zines and social networks, are now able to post tour dates in real time with links to buy tickets from Ticketmaster. This has been going on since the inception of the artist website and is nothing new. It’s effective (more so than sending fans to the venue to buy tickets) and makes ticket purchase easier on concert-goers.

How we can add to this…

New Spheres of income - What if tour dates could be further leveraged to generate digital income?

Bible-belt band, Hinder, came up with a physical way to leverage tour income – They record their live set from the venue’s sound board and offer a free burned CD of the live show with purchase of their $15.00 UMG release. Brilliant! It’s a “free” (but not really) give away that stimulates sales.

However… physical records are pretty much dead. Therefore, bands should use this same concept in a digitally appropriate way. Let’s say Papa Roach decides to do the same thing:

They record their live set via the venue’s soundboard; they’ve also brought with them a few computers with iPod docking stations. The deal then changes to: Fans purchase a digital download of P Roach’s live performance for $10.00. The performance is put onto the fans iPod right then and there along with a free copy of “Metamorphosis.”

Global Broadcast – What if I live in Guam and I want to see Papa Roach perform in Los Angeles? Better yet! What if I’m in Chicago and I want to see Papa Roach perform in Los Angeles?

I’m basically screwed unless I wanted to pay for plane tickets to L.A., hotel, and car rental fees. Bummer, right?

Picture this…

Papa Roach goes on tour, as usual, but PRoach Riot members (members of Papa Roach’s fan club) have the option of purchasing what’s called a “digital season pass” that allows them to see every Papa Roach concert appearance via the internet in a live and/or “on-demand” fashion.

This would be uber-cool on many levels! Imagine never missing a single show from your favorite artist; you would be in heaven. This transforms a local concert in Los Angeles to a global concert across the world. As an added bonus, this solution will enable labels and artists to squeeze yet more money from sold out concert dates.

Yes, this solution can significantly increase your profits bands and labels. You’re very welcome!

Jim Markunas is a music industry futurist and editor-in-chief of Chicks With Guns Magazine. Jim has a decade of new media and music industry experience, he’s run highly successful new media campaigns and has worked with James Brown, Miles Davis, The Walt Disney Company, Truckee Brothers, Mick Fleetwood, and Minty Fresh Records. Currently Jim’s focus is monetization strategies for record labels and digital business development. He’s a free agent available for hire.

Find Jim Online: Twitter – Linkedin – Facebook – Website – E-mail Jim

In the olden days, A&R was king in the music industry. Young, hip guys in street clothes found the latest “big thing” in music. The A&R rep romanced said band, persuaded them to sign an exclusive contract (which still exists today), hand-picked tracks for placement on albums released by said band, and more importantly selected which tracks from the album were to be the “singles.”

Said band’s “singles” went on to get major radio play, the radio play led to press coverage and both the press coverage and radio play led to said band’s albums selling off the shelves. It was a GREAT thing to have competent A&R reps with a “good ear” back in the hay days of the music biz when music was an art form above all else.

Then… CD burners happened… Then… Napster happened… Then… CD Baby happened. Nowadays, any band in existence can get their own high-level distribution deal for a mere $30. That’s right, for $30, any band with songs committed to record can have their tracks and albums available everywhere from iTunes to Wal-Mart.com. In addition, consumers can get any song in existence for free on the internet.

The above set of phenomenon has led to the over-saturation and overt over-commercialism of music. Music, although still an art form is now more than ever a commodity; much like burnable DVDs and tulips.

This begs the question, “Is A&R still necessary in today’s music industry?”

Before answering this dire rhetorical question, take into account the following factors:

1. A&R used to be about finding a great artist and picking great singles to drive record sales. Nowadays, records don’t sell; it’s now possible to have a No. 1 radio hit and a corresponding LP that sells a mere 35,000 copies. (Somewhere around 500,000 units is usually the break-even point for most standard recording agreements.)

2. Quality of songs were king and were the driving force behind record sales. Today, quantity of songs are king in the minds of consumers.

3. There were no shortage of bands chomping at the bit to be signed to a major label to be used as necessary. Here and now, bands like Clap Your Hands Say Yeah and Arcade Fire can sell out arenas and pressings of albums without the help of a major label. There’s a famous industry anecdote in which CYHSY had meetings with several major labels and flatly refused to sign their contracts as the band felt the majors couldn’t do anything for them that they hadn’t already done for themselves – Prior to 2004 this was unheard of!

4. A&R reps were gate-keepers and taste-makers who filtered out the crap. Nowadays, consumers perform that very function on their own via Pirate Bay, Limewire and Myspace.

5. Quality of indie bands have increased, and industry standard sound quality of recorded music has decreased. Back in the day, not many bands could afford to spend $1,000 an hour on studio time, and no one had even heard of the iPod. Today, bands can record their own songs on Pro-Tools in their basements, and the iTunes generation is used to poor sound quality. (The MP3 is not nearly as rich as CD audio or even Vinyl, but kids and adults alike LOVE their iPods that contain low-quality MP4 files from the iTunes store.)

In the future, will labels be as willing to pay high A&R and artist advances? I can’t say for sure. But… I can say that marketing and new media will always be necessary. In the near future, A&R as a whole may take a back seat as “eye-balls” and volumes of demographic information become the new king of the music industry.

Jim Markunas is a music industry futurist and editor-in-chief of Chicks With Guns Magazine. Jim has a decade of new media and music industry experience, he’s run highly successful new media campaigns and has worked with James Brown, Miles Davis, The Walt Disney Company, Truckee Brothers, Mick Fleetwood, and Minty Fresh Records. Currently Jim’s focus is monetization strategies for record labels and digital business development. 

Find Jim Online:
Twitter – Linkedin – Facebook – Website – E-mail Jim

The music industry is the only industry in the world that is willing to take civil and legal action against its own consumers. Think about that for a moment… When was the last time GM or Apple Computer put you in jail? 

Although piracy is wrong on a lot of levels, it simply cannot be stopped in a cost effective and/or mutually beneficial manner. 

Here’s why the Pirate Bay prosecution was yet another colossal failure for the music industry even though its being touted as a “victory.”

1. “You’ll Never Get Her Back on the Farm Once She’s Been to Gay Paree” 

The cat’s been out of the bag for a while… As a consumer, you simply don’t have to pay for music. Every song ever released is available on the internet for free in MP3 form. As an industry, we must come to the horrible realization (and really realize it) that most people aren’t willing to pay $18.99 for something that they can get for free.

The music industry will never be able to get consumers to pay for music now that it’s been free for the last 9 years. Sure… some albums sell, but those days are numbered.

2. Alienating One’s Target Market is the Surest Way NOT to Sell a Product or Idea

People view record labels and music industry professionals as greedy and dishonest. This is a fact. It’s brought on partly because of the way we’ve done business in the last 70 years, but mostly because we’ve resorted to suing college students, jailing talented computer programmers, and strong-arming universities across the US.

As an industry, we suck! We’ll have to learn to “un-suck” in order to get things moving again. If we can win back public trust, we can turn a profit once more.

3. Touting Pirate Bay as a “Victory” Buys Into The Outdated Business Model of “Selling Records” 

Yes, music industry, it was great when we had a physical product and people paid us handsomely for it, but those days are going the way of the dinosaur – If we don’t start to explore new income streams as an industry we’re going to be extinct faster than the dodo. 

Suing pirates in a “whack-a-mole” fashion not only costs labels millions of dollars in legal fees and damages the reputation of the music biz as a whole, but also points our Tyrannosaurus Rex-like, single-pointed focus in a direction that’s failing – towards the old business model!

If the music business’ old business model was working, we wouldn’t have to sue pirates, because we’d be too rich to care.

I hereby proclaim the album dead! Now what?? 

OBLIGATORY PLUG: Let’s become too rich to care! Let’s make filesharing work for the business instead of against it. E-mail me for an interview, and we can discuss how to make the music business work without selling records.

“February 20, 2010, is the day the CD dies.”

I’m not a fan of Michael Jackson… for several reasons (sorry). However… I LOVE Mr. Jackson’s sales record for “Thriller.” This landmark release sold 40 million copies worldwide, and is hailed as the best-selling album of all time.

I assume the album after “Thriller” didn’t do as well because I’m not sure what the follow-up album was called. In my humble opinion, this phenomenon highlights the importance of analytics and direct marketing. I say this because the decade surrounding “Thriller” was a hot time period for Michael Jackson musically. I’m pretty sure the follow-up album for “Thriller” was just as good musically as its predecessor.