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Rock/Country
Showman Roy Head Dies At 79
Rocker
Roy Head, who later forged a long career in country music,
died Monday morning (Sept. 21) at age 79.
Head is
best known for his 1965 pop/rock hit “Treat Her
Right.” He was a wild, unpredictable showman whose stage
performances were legendary. Between 1974 and 1986 he
placed 24 singles on the country charts.
Son
Sundance Head was a finalist on American Idol in 2006,
then won on The Voice in 2016. That led to the top 10
country hit “Darlin’ Don’t Lie” and a remake of
his father’s “Treat Her Right” as a duet with Blake
Shelton.
Roy Head
was inducted into the Rockabilly Hall of fame in 2007. He
is survived by his wife Carolyn, son Jason (Sundance),
daughter-in-law Misty, and three grandchildren. Funeral
arrangements have not been announced.
Serious
Musicians Still Need To Make Albums: Here’s Why
As
music consumption habits change, and listeners eschew
traditional albums in favor of playlists comprising
individual songs, many in the industry may be considering
gravitating away from the traditional full-length album.
Here, we look at why artists who are serious about their
careers should keep making them. By many accounts,
the full-length album is declining fast as both a standard
listening format and a cultural touchstone. From music
journalists chronicling waning album sales to the
omnipresence of digital streaming platforms that favor
playlists built of individual songs, the album is
undoubtedly facing challenges like it never has before.
But the truth is that no matter what’s happening with
listening trends, or what journalists are saying, if you
want to be taken seriously as an artist, creating great
full-length albums is still one of the best things you can
do for your career.
8
Things to Know About Co-Writing
For
many, songwriting is seen as a solitary journey. But what
if you had help? What if instead of looking for that muse,
you had one in the room with you? Flesh and blood, living,
breathing – a like-minded fellow traveller? In other
words, a co-writer. Co-writing is such a part of the
new normal for songwriters that if you’re serious about
making this your profession, you need to be ready to work
with a co-writer. I’ve been there, so I understand
the apprehension and fear this idea conjures up. Truth is,
great co-writing should be unselfish, open, fun, and
uninhibited. If you want that kind of experience,
here are eight things to know about co-writing.
Most
Common Mistakes Artists Make When Registering Songs
If
you want to actually receive royalties for your music,
it’s essential that your songs be properly registered.
Unfortunately, it’s all too easy to make mistakes during
this process and sabotage you or your co-authors ability
to get paid. Here, we look at how to avoid some of the
most common pitfalls associated with registering your
songs.
In
order for you to receive the royalties you’re
rightfully owed, your songs need to be properly
registered. However, songwriters oftentimes make mistakes
during the registration process. Performing Rights
Organizations rely on this information to determine who
they need to pay and how much. To ensure you do everything
right, here are some of the most common song mistakes
artists make while registering their songs…
How
To Sell More Merch During A Live Stream
Merch
has long been a pillar of artists’ income, and while
live shows were once the place to sell it, the
transition to live streaming means bands and artists need
to adapt, and find new ways of enticing their fans to buy
merch during a very different kind of performance.
Merch has always been a key source of revenue for
independent musicians. Although live shows aren’t what
they used to be, live streams are a great opportunity to
keep your merch sales going strong. To help you out, here
are some unique ways to sell more merch during your live
streams.
Live
streaming must respect the rights of songwriters
Right
now we are witnessing an arms race to offer consumers
interactive livestreamed experiences.
Partnerships
like Amazon Music’s recently-announced integration
with Twitch show that music fans will soon
expect a seamless interface that allows them to toggle
between pure audio and audiovisual when their favorite
creators go live.
We
know that music is central to the livestreaming
phenomenon. However, we continue to see technology
companies fail to secure the necessary rights to
operate these new ventures, and consumers’ favorite
music creators are paying the price.
Why
COVID-19 Is Pushing Publishing Deal Prices to Historic
Highs
"There's
a lot of money on the sidelines, and [investors] are
looking for places to put it."
The
coronavirus is devastating the concert business, as well
as the overall economy, but the market for music
publishing deals is hotter than ever. In the early
days of the pandemic, deal-making paused. But "I
think very quickly the market realized what everyone is
seeing: It's fairly resilient in the face of tough
economic conditions," says Downtown Music Holdings
COO Andrew Bergman. Although the prices of most deals
aren't public, sources say they're still rising.
SXSW
Announces Virtual Plans for 2021
SXSW
has announced that much of their 2021 program will take
place online. The digital event will take place from
March 16 – 20, 2021, with its networking-centric
counterpart SXSW EDU taking place from March 9 – 11. The
festival is working towards creating a virtual event that
will bring festival-goers “the benefits of sessions,
film festival screenings, music showcases, networking, and
exhibitions,” according to the official press release.
The famed festival’s home city of Austin, Texas canceled
the 2020 event back in March due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
It was the first time in nearly three and a half decades
that SXSW did not take place. However, the festival
intends to adapt to the post-COVID world.
Music
Industry Growth Continues Amid Catastrophic Global Pandemic
Concerts
and tours have obviously remained on pause while the
pandemic rages on, but the music industry as a whole has
continued to see some remarkable growth, particularly in the
streaming department. March 2020 feels like a lifetime
ago. When COVID-19 forced the immediate suspension
of live music and placed millions into isolation, music
industry analysts feared the worst. A lack of concerts meant
a dip in revenue, and a lack of commuting said the same
about streaming royalties. Thousands found themselves out of
work, and many remain unemployed (at least in music) today.
The idea that music would grow this year was far-fetched, to
say the least.
A
Guide To Converting Fans Into Paying Subscribers
Amassing
a following on streaming services and social media is a
great first step for artists, but being able to take those
fare-weather fans and convert them into paying subscribers
and long-term superfans is key to the longevity of your
career. So your fans are streaming your music and
jamming away… Great! But what if you want more? Super fans
will support you through thick and thin. Fostering deeper
connections with your audience is a smart way to foster a
stronger fan base you can lean on throughout your career.
Whether it be with a paid newsletter, exclusive merch, or a
VIP subscription service, here’s how to convert casual
fans into paying subscribers.
Vinyl
Overtakes CD Sales For First Time In 30 Years
The
once mighty CD may have reigned supreme in the early 00s,
but has since been on a steady downward trajectory.
Meanwhile, quality conscious consumers have brought the once
antiquated vinyl back from the brink of extinction, causing
vinyl sales to surpass traditional CDs for the first time in
30 years. The CD used to be the king of all music
product back in the early 2000’s, but the mighty have
fallen greatly as vinyl has surpassed it in revenue for the
first time in 30 years. This according to the RIAA’s
2020 Mid-Year Report, which showed that vinyl sales not only
surpassed CD sales, but by a lot as well.
Sync
Licensing: How Does It Work?
As
part of Disc Makers’ ongoing series on rights and
royalties, Tony van Veen here unpacks sync licenses, how
they work, and how indie artists can get a piece of the
pie. In video number seven in our ongoing series on
rights and royalties, Tony van Veen digs into sync licenses.
How does an indie musician get in on the action, and how do
sync licenses work?
What
Exactly Is A Record Label?
The
role of the record label has evolved dramatically over the
past couple of decades, and while it isn’t fair to say
that the record label is dead, its function and purpose in
the music industry sometimes needs a little defining.
Twenty, even ten years ago, the answer to this
very basic question (“what is a record
label?”) would have been a pretty straightforward one to
answer. Now, it’s a philosophical quagmire, and you’re
likely to get a hundred different answers if you ask a
hundred different people.
Where’s
Spotify Stock (SPOT) Headed Next? The Latest Expert Opinions
Spotify
stock (SPOT) has touched several all-time-high prices this
year – and dipped substantially from these record
valuations. Here’s a breakdown of what experts believe the
remainder of 2020 holds for the leading music streaming
platform’s per-share value. On the heels of a dip
into the $250 range during August, Spotify stock jumped past
$290 per share on September 1st, when The Joe Rogan
Experience became available to listeners (albeit
with certain episodes missing). It seems that a portion
of investors were waiting until JRE’s arrival to cash in,
for SPOT declined to $240.02 just one week later and below
the mark another week after that.
SiriusXM
Subscribers Are Surging During the Pandemic — Up 40% From
Earlier Projections
SiriusXM
disclosed its heightened subscriber prediction to investors
earlier today. Having previously forecasted a net subscriber
hike of 500,000 during 2020 (only on July 30th, it bears
mentioning), the satellite-radio giant increased the
anticipated boost in self-pay subscribers by 40 percent, to
700,000. Additionally, the publicly-traded company
specified that it anticipates total revenue will touch about
$7.7 billion through 2020, with free cash flow coming in at
approximately $1.6 billion. While smaller than that
of the initial 2020 guidance, the 700,000-subscriber
expectation suggests that business is faring better than
anticipated.
How
To Prioritize Tasks For Musicians
This
week the Music Biz Weekly podcast team discusses
prioritizing your tasks and how to determine when is
something worth doing.
7
Techniques For Making Money With Livestream
Concerts
Given
that the pandemic doesn’t appear to be leaving
anytime soon, live-streaming isn’t either,
meaning artists would do well to find as many
ways to maximize the revenue they can draw from
these virtual events as possible
The
evolution of digital performances is happening
faster than you may realize. In the six months
since the COVID-19 pandemic canceled
countless live events, artists have gone from
Instagram performances to HD, multi-cam events
that cost money to attend and include exclusive
merchandise offerings. Artists all over the
world are trying to bring the excitement of live
events into the virtual space. That is creating
a lot of great opportunities for musicians to
make money while engaging with their audience.
Musician’s
Guide to Online Advertising
Every
artist wants legions of fans, but as a musician, those
fans don’t simply appear out of nowhere, and the burden
of finding and creating diehard enthusiasts for your music
falls squarely on one person: you. There’s one
thing that every artist wants: FANS! Loyal listeners
don’t invent themselves though. They have to be
found, wowed, and converted.
Found,
wowed, and converted — by you.
9
Music Marketing Strategies That No Longer Work In 2020
Once
you get the hang of it, marketing can be a lot of
fun. After all, marketing is tied directly the
results you want as a musician – ticket sales, streams,
merch sales, contest votes and so on. But there are
marketing strategies that don’t work, especially now
that search engines and social media platforms have had
time to evolve and adapt their algorithms. So, we
need to ensure we’re going about this the right way.
Here are nine music marketing strategies that no longer
work in 2020.
Facebook,
Instagram Update Music Guidelines and It’s Bad News For
Live Streams
Just
weeks after Facebook added fee-free ticketed live streams,
it has issued new ‘Music Guidelines’ that will make it
much riskier for musicians to use the platform.
Facebook issued new Music Guidelines that also cover
Instagram and other Facebook platforms as part of an
update to its Terms Of Service set to take effect on
October 1, 2020. Those guidelines put clear
restrictions on music uses, including:
Apple
Music Is Converting Paid Users 2.5X Faster Than Spotify,
Analyst Calculates
Back
in 2018, Digital Music News was first to report that
Apple Music had surpassed Spotify’s paid-subscriber
count in the U.S. Now, analysts have indicated that Apple
Music could be “converting potential customers into
paying customers” about two-and-a-half times faster than
the global leader in music streaming. The report was
eventually corroborated by the Wall Street Journal, though
neither Apple nor Spotify have divulged their US-specific
subscriber counts. Now, there’s more evidence that Apple
is outpacing Spotify where it counts.
Is
Spotify Crashing? SPOT Stock Price Drops $52 In Just 4
Days
Spotify
stock suffered a more than $13-per-share dip on Friday,
falling over five percent (to $248.21) from Thursday’s
close as part of a more than $40 decrease since midweek.
That loss continued on Tuesday, with a total stock plunge
of $52 in just 4 trading days. Spotify’s per-share
value drop started last week and continues to plunge. By
10 am EST on Friday, just half-an-hour following the start
of trading, shares were hovering around $247 apiece, a
full $14.66 less than the $261.66 closing price on
Thursday, September 3rd. Shortly before 11, Spotify’s
stock touched $239.56, its lowest price since June.
The
MLC Presents: How Self-Administered Songwriters Can Get
Started and Play Their Part
Starting
in January 2021, The MLC will issue and administer blanket
mechanical licenses to eligible streaming and download
services (digital service providers or DSPs) in the United
States. The MLC will then collect the royalties due under
those licenses from the DSPs and pay music publishers,
administrators and self-administered songwriters,
composers and lyricists. What will all of this mean
for self-administered writers?
What
Gives This Song Its Value?
With
the realities of streaming economics now dramatically
reducing the ‘value’ of a song, Stephen Carlisle takes
us through the intricacies and complexities behind an
individual track, explaining how these nuances give a song
its worth. Streaming was supposed to save the music
business. It hasn’t. Fourteen years into the Spotify
experience, music industry revenues are still stuck at
half the amount they were in 1999. Or as the
website The Trichordist tersely puts
it: “There’s absolutely nothing wrong with music
streaming, except the economics.” Million of
songs at your fingertips, all available for free. Which
still isn’t good enough for some people.
Despite
Streaming, US Recorded Music Revenues Still Down
50% From 1999 Peaks
The
Trichordist, an artist-rights blog created by
Cracker frontman David Lowery, recently shed
light upon the shocking statistic. Compiled
annual data from the Recording Industry
Association of America (RIAA) shows that U.S.
recorded music revenues exceeded a whopping
$22.4 billion in 1999, before dropping each year
until 2014 (save for a slight rebound between
2003 and 2004). Since 2015, recorded music
revenues have experienced year-over-year growth
in America, but the figure touched just $11.1
billion in 2019 – less than half of the 1999
peak.
Guide
To Optimizing Your Spotify Label Profile
Earlier
in the year, labels finally got the keys to the
Spotify for Artists, app. Now a few months in,
we’re looking at some of the best ways for
labels to optimize their profile and get more
traction from users. Back in May 2020,
labels were finally given access to the Spotify
for Artists app. (If you haven’t
created your own profile yet, here‘s
how.) Now, it’s important for labels to
understand how to optimize their profile(s) to
yield the best results from their efforts.
Looking to get more traction on your label
profile?
Building
The Bridge Back To Live Events In Music
While
the pandemic remains in full effect,
entertainers and organizations are continuing to
ramp up their efforts at safely bringing live
events back to an eager populace thanks to a
variety of new innovations. With the
announcements of socially distanced music
festivals and venues in the UK where a five
stage road map is being rolled out to bring
performing arts back safely. The global events
industry has found itself in the early stages of
a return following a timeframe in which fans
have widely been engaging remotely from home.
Cancellations and postponements of marquee
experiences led many to wonder when it would be
safe again to gather for their favorite event
experiences while Major Festivals have primarily
gone digital for the year while looking ahead to
2021.
Vinyl
Is Absolutely Surging: Discogs Reports 33.72%
Increase In 2020
Discogs
compiled its Q1 and Q2 2020 Marketplace data in
a comprehensive report, which was shared with
DMN. The Portland, Oregon-based platform enjoyed
solid year-over-year sales growth during January
and February; purchase volume then stagnated in
March, amid the domestic onset of the COVID-19
crisis and its associated market shakeup.
April,
May, and June, however, brought with them
tremendous transaction upticks, including over
1.6 million sold items in May alone (up from
approximately 950,000 in May of 2019).
Songwriters
Guild of America Joins ARA in Calling Out
Backroom Deals Between Streaming Services and
Major Publishers
Brentwood,
Tennessee’s Songwriters Guild of America
shared an exclusive copy of its comments –
which the Society of Composers & Lyricists (SCL)
co-authored and Music Creators North America (MCNA)
endorsed – with DMN. The involved
organizations initially submitted their message
to the Copyright Office, in response to its
Unpaid Royalties Study and corresponding
“Notice of Inquiry” requesting expert
feedback. After reiterating their
involvement in the Music Modernization Act’s
“legislative process,” the Songwriters Guild
of America and the Society of Composers &
Lyricists take aim at the aforementioned
behind-closed-doors deals between major
publishers and streaming services. Essentially,
these arrangements center on the services’
paying royalties not per stream, but based upon
recipient publishers’ market share.
Creative
Techniques For Monetizing Your Live Streams
Since
the onset of the pandemic, live streaming has
been dominating the music industry, but with so
many artists participating, it’s important to
find ways to differentiate yourself in order to
maintain the interest of fans and bring in
revenue. Here, we explore some creative ways of
doing just that. Ever since social
distancing became the new normal, live-streaming has
taken over the music scene. All the while,
artists are becoming more creative and tech
savvy than ever. With everyone hopping on the
bandwagon, you’ll need to step your game up to keep
your fans excited and ready to tune in for more.
Looking for inspiration? Here are some creative
ways to monetize your live streams
10
Web Design Tips For Musicians In 2020
Staying
up to date in constantly evolving online world
can be challenging as an artist, particularly if
you’re a musician first and a web designer
second. Here we look at ten important web design
tips for artists looking to stay current in
2020. If you’re frustrated because
everything online keeps changing and evolving,
you’re not the only one. Just about the time
you think you have your online presence sorted,
the platforms change just enough that you have
to consider doing some updates in order to keep
up. While this happens more in social media, it
also happens on to your website as well.
How
To Determine If A Recording Contract Is Right
For You
Before
you commit to the dotted line, there are a
number of important factors to consider when it
comes signing a recording contract. Here, an
attorney breaks down what you need to be aware
of before making a final decision.
When
it comes to major record deals, there are a lot
of things to consider. That’s why it’s
important to always get a second, or even third,
set of eyes on anything that requires a
signature and involves your finances. Here’s
what to look for before you dive in
How
Music Venues, Promoters Are Pivoting To
Drive-Ins, Live Streaming and More
With
no end of the pandemic in sight, some nimble
venues and concert promotors have been pivoted
their businesses to include drive-in concerts,
live streaming, and other innovative forms of
live music.
As
music venues across the country temporarily
shuttered in March, Vito Rinaldo, an avid live
music goer and retired teacher, wanted to do
something to keep the music going — and get
artists paid. As the New Yorker watched free
livestreams beamed from musicians’ homes on
Facebook and YouTube, he felt an element was
missing: the interaction between the audience
and the performer.
US
Visa Fees For Musicians Just Increased 50%
The
U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is
set tp impose steep increases to some of its
filing fees for musicians entering the country,
including for O and P artist visas applications
filed by U.S. nonprofit arts
organizations.
The
filing fee for O petitions will increase by 53%
from $460 to $705 per petition and utilize a new
Form I-129O
The
filing fee for P petitions will increase by 51% from $460
to $695 per petition with a new Form I-129MISC
Beneficiaries
will be capped at 25 people per petition
Premium
Processing will lengthen to a window of 15 federal working
days rather than calendar days
Apple
Is The $2T Gorilla In The (Radio) Room
In
addition to becoming the first company in the
history of the US to reach the $2 trillion mark,
Apple recently unveiled a plan to challenge
broadcast, satellite, and even streaming radio
with launch of Apple Music Radio, a not so
subtle attempt at total radio domination.
It doesn’t take much for Apple to make news.
But yesterday’s expected headline still came
with a shock and awe factor. Apple became
the first company in U.S. history to reach the
$2 trillion mark. No one else – Amazon,
General Motors, Google, Walmart – has come
close.
Napster
Changes Hands Again In $70 Million Acquisition
Deal
Virtual-reality
music startup MelodyVR has acquired Rhapsody
Int’l and its Napster streaming music service
in a deal worth $70 million. Napster as 3
million paying users and delivered 0.8 billion
streams in 2019 with revenues of $113
million. The company owes record labels and
publishers $44 million in debts to labels and
publishers that were now transferred to MelodyVR.
26
States Approved to Receive $300 Federal
Unemployment Boost
26
U.S. States have already been approved to
receive $300 weekly federal unemployment
benefits, according to the U.S. Government.
Others are in the application process. The
$300 weekly federal unemployment checks were
authorized by an emergency executive order
granted by President Donald Trump earlier this
month. The orders were issued because of a
prolonged disagreement between members of
Congress, with both Senate Republicans and House
Democrats unable to agree on a second stimulus
package. States now have the option of
adding $100 from their own budgets, for a $400
weekly addition to existing state checks.
Massive
Data Leak Exposes 235 Million Instagram, TikTok,
and YouTube Accounts
A
security research team has revealed how an
unsecured database led to a massive leak of
TikTok, YouTube, and Instagram accounts.
New reports suggest these accounts have started
appearing for sale on dark web forums. Dark web
audits often reveal new database hacks before
companies report them. Remember the hack
on a prominent Hollywood lawyer demanding a
Bitcoin ransom? That hack turned up on the dark
web well before it was publicly acknowledged.
Bandsintown
Data & Survey Provide Unprecedented Look At
The State Of Music Live Streams
When
the pandemic hit in March, concert discovery
platform Bandsintown immediately shifted its
focus to music live streams. Since then,
more than 45,000 streams by 14,000 artists have
been marketed and tracked on the platform and
550 artists have been live-streamed to 30
million fans on the Bandsintown LIVE
channel. The result is an expansive data
set that when coupled with Bandsintown’s
extensive new survey of artists and fans
provides the most comprehensive look ever at the
current state of live music streaming.
Survey:
30% of musicians are planning weekly livestreams
Bandsintown
has been one of the companies around live music
that has pivoted during Covid-19 – in its
case, turning its site and app into places for
fans to discover livestreams by artists, as well
as launching its own live channel on
Twitch. Now the company has published a
report based on a survey of artists and fans
using its platform. On the fan side, 73% have
tuned in to a livestream during lockdown; 60%
say they’d like to continue watching these
events even after the restrictions on large
offline gatherings are lifted; and 80% say
they’d be willing to pay to watch a livestream
in order to help their favourite artist.
SESAC,
RMLC Announce New Agreement
SESAC
and the Radio Music License Committee (RMLC)
have announced a new license agreement that sets
the rates payable by the majority of America’s
commercial terrestrial radio stations to
publicly perform works in the SESAC repertory,
effective Jan. 1 2019 through Dec. 31,
2022. The agreement rolls forward rates
and terms from the prior license, including a
blanket license fee of 0.2557% of net revenue,
and an all-talk rate of .0575% of revenue. As
before, the agreement applies to stations’
over-the-air broadcasts, simulcast streams and
HD signals.
Why
companies are buying up the rights to thousands
of songs
There
those within the music industry — artists,
especially — who believe technology has
devalued music to the point where it’s worth
almost nothing. Royalties from the sales
of things like compact discs have dropped to
almost nothing while streaming pays a pittance
of what physical music used to provide.
But a lucky few are making more money than they
ever thought possible, thanks to a burgeoning
gold rush where a couple of forward-looking
companies are gobbling up massive amounts of
intellectual property. They’re buying the
rights to song catalogues.
Music
Livestream Audience Is Now Bigger Than Podcasts says New
MusicWatch Study
Industry
analysts MusicWatch has just released a series of music
lives stream reports that show meteoric growth in a format
that was barely on anyone’s radar just 6 months
ago. The new studies sized the audience for music
live streaming, examined formats that were being watched
and on which platforms, time spent viewing and a series of
questions around discovery, type of performance preferred,
and perhaps most importantly, monetization opportunities.
Why
Music Metadata Should Be Done First, Not Last, In the
Recording Process
Artists
lose millions of dollars in royalties because of bad,
missing, or misplaced music metadata. Now VEVA Sound wants
to shift music metadata entry to the front of the
recording process and address a major cause of missing
royalties. We’ve written exhaustively about
unmatched ‘black box’ royalty piles, and the money
artists could be making. Now, some
serious solutions are starting to emerge.
How
Much Does Spotify Pay Per Stream? Here’s the Latest Data
If
you’re racking up Spotify streams, then knowing roughly
how much other artists are earning per play is a must. The
following information – sourced from Spotify royalty
data shared directly with Digital Music News – will help
you verify that your compensation is comparatively fair. Spotify
pays most artists between $.003 and $.005 (one-third of a
penny to one-half of a penny) for each stream. However,
the precise per-stream rate can vary based upon a user’s
region and account type (premium or ad-supported). Read
below to learn how Spotify payouts are calculated and why
the numbers suggest that Spotify royalties could be
trending downward.
Money
Management Tips For Independent Artists
When
you’re trying to make it as an independent artist, how
you spend and save your money can be the deciding factor
in whether you succeed or fail in the music industry.
Here, we break down some key tips for money
management. How you manage your money can make or
break your success as an independent musician. At the end
of the day, no matter how much you make, impulse buys,
improper budgeting, and simply not knowing how to save
your money could leave your pockets high and dry. Here are
some of the best money management tips for independent
musicians looking to make the most of their finance.
