Trent Reznor Explains What A Musician Needs To Do To Be Successful These Days
from the good-job dept
Pretty much every other person who's ever read the site has sent this one in today, so I figure it's worth writing up. We've talked for a long time about how unknown/up-and-coming artists can embrace new business models to be more successful these days. In fact, five or six years ago the only artists who were doing these kinds of experiments were the up-and-coming ones. And when we did that, people complained that "well, sure, this works for the unknowns, because they have nothing to lose, but it's not a real business model." And then, in the last couple of years, with folks like Trent Reznor and some other well known artists embracing new models, suddenly the refrain changed: "well, sure, this works for them because they already have a huge following... but it'll never work for everyone else." What was silly was that they were both effectively doing the same thing: better connecting with fans, and offering them something of scarce value to buy. In my more recent presentations, I've been careful to show how artists big, medium and small are all successfully embracing new models based on this formula:And those who are embracing it are finding that it works and works incredibly well in many cases. Yet, still people want to insist that it can't work. In fact, Reznor himself heard this when he mentioned that the Beastie Boys new offering (built on the Topspin platform) was "how you sell music today." In response, the second wave of naysayers listed above came out to complain, so Reznor decided to respond by explaining how new artists get noticed, build a following and build a business model these days. And the formula is basically: connect with fans and give them a reason to buy... and use free music to do both of those things. He does note, that if you want to be a superstar, you probably need to sign with a label, but doing so will mean giving up pretty much everything: control, profits, ownership. However, if you just want to be a success...
* Forget thinking you are going to make any real money from record sales. Make your record cheaply (but great) and GIVE IT AWAY. As an artist you want as many people as possible to hear your work. Word of mouth is the only true marketing that matters....Great stuff, as usual, and certainly reinforces the point: it's certainly hard work, but it is doable. If you're unknown, use this process to get known. Once you're known, you can start to implement all different elements of the business model, using the music to make scarce goods much more valuable and start earning that way. Great advice for artists big, medium and small...
* Parter with a TopSpin or similar or build your own website, but what you NEED to do is this - give your music away as high-quality DRM-free MP3s. Collect people's email info in exchange (which means having the infrastructure to do so) and start building your database of potential customers. Then, offer a variety of premium packages for sale and make them limited editions / scarce goods. Base the price and amount available on what you think you can sell. Make the packages special - make them by hand, sign them, make them unique, make them something YOU would want to have as a fan...
* The point is this: music IS free whether you want to believe that or not. Every piece of music you can think of is available free right now a click away. This is a fact - it sucks as the musician BUT THAT'S THE WAY IT IS (for now). So... have the public get what they want FROM YOU instead of a torrent site and garner good will in the process (plus build your database)....
* Have your MySpace page, but get a site outside MySpace - it's dying and reads as cheap / generic. Remove all Flash from your website. Remove all stupid intros and load-times. MAKE IT SIMPLE TO NAVIGATE AND EASY TO FIND AND HEAR MUSIC (but don't autoplay). Constantly update your site with content - pictures, blogs, whatever. Give people a reason to return to your site all the time. Put up a bulletin board and start a community. Engage your fans (with caution!) Make cheap videos. Film yourself talking. Play shows. Make interesting things. Get a Twitter account. Be interesting. Be real. Submit your music to blogs that may be interested. NEVER CHASE TRENDS. Utilize the multitude of tools available to you for very little cost of any - Flickr / YouTube / Vimeo / SoundCloud / Twitter etc.
* If you don't know anything about new media or how people communicate these days, none of this will work. The role of an independent musician these days requires a mastery of first hand use of these tools. If you don't get it - find someone who does to do this for you. If you are waiting around for the phone to ring or that A & R guy to show up at your gig - good luck, you're going to be waiting a while.
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Filed Under: business models, economics, music, success, trent reznor
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One change
Um, no. Offer it as an option, but don't require it. If I'm testing a new artist, I don't want to get in bed from the get-go.
The artists I'm fondest of have just thrown stuff out there for free. There's another bunch that I keep hearing I have to check out, but they demand my addy for the privilege. No thanks. I'll call you.
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Re: One change
Afraid of spam? Open a junk Gmail/Hotmail/whatever and use that when you sign up for these kinds of offers.
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Re: Re: One change
That's exactly what I did. FeedMeSpam@yahoo.com Mmmm-mm.
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I just wanted to add. It is hard work. It is doable. And it's not only possible, it's highly probable.
In the old days, you could work your ass off recording and touring and get nothing out of it. Heck, there are thusands of artists that worked, recorded, and toured, got signed, and still obtained no success.
However, nowadays if you create good music (i.e., music people want to hear) it's highly probable that you can gain a large following.
Will you get your face on the cover of Rolling Stone magazine? Probably not. Will have you thousands of fans throughout the world. Almost certainly.
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Here is the key question that is haunting me:
Your model suggests that making the content free will expand the size of the market. But it seems to me that the market for content consumption (music, books, whatever) is limited more by human attention (on the part of the content consumers) than by the amount of money the buyers have to spend. So while I agree that in a world of free music, it would be easier for more people to have more songs on their ipods than in a world of paid music, it seems that the total number of songs people can listen to per day is more limited by time than by money. And the amount of attention people can direct toward the consumption of the scarce goods associated with the music is also scarce and not subject to significant expansion. I might be more likely to discover (for free) a new band I love and then pay for their concert or fansite as opposed to U2's. But that would be a shift in the market rather than an expansion of it. The market will change--money will flow toward the scarce goods rather than the infinite goods, and there will be different winners and losers, but I'm not clear on how the market expands. Won't the total amount of content consumption attention remain largely the same, and won't the total amount of content consumption dollars stay roughly similar?
Please let me know what you think about this. This is the only thing I'm confused about in your elegant well-explained model.
Thank you!
Alex
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http://www.digitalmusicnews.com/stories/070809howmany
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I don't know if this helps or not, but this is how I think of it. The biggest obstacle for any musician is not piracy, but is obscurity.
In the old days, the only way to overcome obscurity was via a label who got your music on the radio or on MTV. Millions of people would hear it, and if it was good, would buy it. (Sometimes they'd buy it even if it was not good!)
Mike is not saying that anyone can gain a large fan base with their music. You still need talent. You still need songs that people want to hear. But nowadays if you have those songs, you no longer need a label, radio, or MTV. You can connect with fans and build a fan base without them.
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You bring up a good point; the market is ultimately limited and will probably become increasingly saturated, while the supply of music choices has exploded. However, that point has not been reached yet; obviously, as the average price of songs continually drops, every segment of consumer will listen to more. Music lovers will try more because its free, casual listeners will listen more because its free, non-listeners will start listening because its free and there's so much more easy exposure to new music. Additionally, the population continues to grow at a good rate, and there are many markets globally that are probably underserved.
Either way, it makes no difference to the business model--the audience is limited by time, yes, but this just means they will focus their time on the cheapest(free, basically) music to the exclusion of others. You still need to get as many people to listen to it as possible, and you do that by making it as easy and available to hear as possible. There is a lot of money to be had, even without the market changes mentioned above, because music has been very cartelized, with humongous business labels taking the majority and only distributing significant shares to their top artists. It will be harder for superstars to pump out a few songs and ride the couch as they live off royalties in the future, but this is a good thing for most musicians who need that market share, as well as for the public.
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I've been trying to monitor disposable income (which is what would be available for music purchases) nationally and internationally. I'm not as optimistic as you about how much money people have to spend on anything that isn't a necessity. I see spending cutbacks in many areas.
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Yes, all this implies is a market shift, and not an expansion. The idea behind most of these articles isn't to make the market grow, but to have the market shift in your direction.
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Yes, unfortunately it becomes something of a promotional arms race. Everyone is trying to compete for attention and the fans get flooded or have to put up filters to avoid all of it.
Fame tends to be a filter of sorts. A lot of people only seek out music they have heard on the radio, on American Idol, when the celebrity dies, and so on.
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The basic flaw with your thinking here is that you are assuming people will listen to the SAME songs every day. In this era of digital music, nothing could be further from the truth and I'll use myself as an example.
I'm a programmer and spend my work day on the computer. In between phone calls and meetings, I probably listen to 5-6 hours of music a day. If each song was 4 minutes, that's 75-90 songs. My collection, however, is thousands of songs and I take advantage of both (a) playlists when I'm in the mood for something specific (Rock, Classical, etc) and (b) the "random play" features available in just about every media player. It's very rare that I will hear the same song twice during the week. This is exactly how I want it - varied. Otherwise, it just gets boring... :-)
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Yes. Despite what some are saying, I believe there is ample evidence to support this. In fact, that recent Harvard study showed that a much larger amount of money is going into the music ecosystem from consumers than ever before.
But it seems to me that the market for content consumption (music, books, whatever) is limited more by human attention (on the part of the content consumers) than by the amount of money the buyers have to spend.
Yes, again. But human attention is an important scarcity (remember the model is all about balancing scarcities with infinite goods).
And the amount of attention people can direct toward the consumption of the scarce goods associated with the music is also scarce and not subject to significant expansion.
Yes, the amount of attention is scarce, but we're nowhere near saturating it.
I might be more likely to discover (for free) a new band I love and then pay for their concert or fansite as opposed to U2's. But that would be a shift in the market rather than an expansion of it. The market will change--money will flow toward the scarce goods rather than the infinite goods, and there will be different winners and losers, but I'm not clear on how the market expands.
Ah, that's a good question, and here's where understanding Paul Romer's models of economic growth come into play. His model recognized that it's the infinite goods that create economic growth -- so the more infinite goods you dump into a market, the larger that market grows by *making the scarce goods more valuable*.
For example, if we're looking at the music ecosystem today, the iPod is a large part of it. But it's, in part, the rise of free music that made the iPod so valuable.
So I'd argue the market is getting larger, not just shifting.
Please let me know what you think about this. This is the only thing I'm confused about in your elegant well-explained model.
Yeah, this is definitely the stickiest point, and I keep meaning to dive more deeply into how Romer's growth models apply here, because I recognize it's not clear enough and most people (rightfully so!) don't want to just take it on "faith" that the market expands. I need to come up with a simpler way of showing it though... will work on that...
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"There is much anecdotal evidence – even cited in the recent Page/Garland paper on P2P’s long tail – that says middle-tier touring artists are less well off today than they were ten years ago. It makes sense. Krueger’s work indicates the number of tickets purchased had fallen over the period he studied. With fewer tickets sold but higher prices on the most popular tickets, artists in the middle are no better off. If more of them are touring (because recorded music revenue is lower), they are competing harder for the same or less consumer spending. It’s the same thing with recorded music. There are more albums released but fewer albums sold. The hits get the same percentage of total sales – if not more – while a larger group fights for what’s left of consumers’ wallets."
http://www.billboard.biz/bbbiz/content_display/industry/e3id499f8aa1018de833c851c4b1f9b 7e21
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But if you do, and do it well, you're likely to see it grow.
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Re: Re:
The entertainment market (or more correctly, the consumption level of entertainment) is increasing, but not because of business decisions (not directly, at least). Changing a business model does not change the amount of spare cash your consumer has to spend.
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Bright man
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Re: Bright man
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Superstar
I've thought this way for years, and every day something else tells me that I'm right.
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Re: Superstar
You might want to check out this:
http://www.hypebot.com/hypebot/2009/06/reverbnation-survey-how-is-the-economic-downturn-aff ecting-artists.html
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I've been trying to monitor disposable income (which is what would be available for music purchases) nationally and internationally. I'm not as optimistic as you about how much money people have to spend on anything that isn't a necessity. I see spending cutbacks in many areas.
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All digital downloads are completely DRM free and available in 320kbps MP3, Apple lossless, or FLAC. I was actually on the verge of torrenting Paul's Boutique, but since it is available in HQ digital audio from the band themselves, they just made money.
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... and ENTERTAIN!
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Re: ... and ENTERTAIN!
Is this really a debate anymore? Seems like most bands are making music available for free, or you can listen to entire albums on Imeem, or you can find the music for free somewhere. So I think free music is a given these days.
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who are the music consumers?
And on top of that...
I'm still wrestling with the fact that a HUGE contingent of potential music consumers between the age 35-50 are only listening to the music they grew up on. They might invite one new artist into their listening world per year.
Also, this contingent is not going to seek out free mp3's to download to their iPod (most can't even load songs).
Anecdotally, I would say about 50% of the people I know in that age group are basically afraid of technology. The only way they will be introduced to new music will be someone handing them a CD.
Someone tell me why I'm wrong.
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Re: who are the music consumers?
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Re: Re: Re: who are the music consumers?
...but under 40 are in the age range of the information revolution. Also, 30-40 are not usually so much AFRAID of technology as unfamiliar with it, but once exposed and/or introduced to new methods they're usually all about it.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: who are the music consumers?
I seem to remember growing up with all of this technology, learning how it works and making it work for me. I seem to remember somthing about Bill Gates and Steve Jobs not being that much older than me (I'm 31, almost 32) and creating (or stealing, but making popular) all of the technology you see around you today.
In my humble opinion, you would not have the level of technology you have today if the 30-40 year olds of today had been afraid or, hell, even unfamiliar with, technology.
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Re: who are the music consumers?
So if you are giving away the music in hopes to get them to a show, that probably won't work for anyone with kids. And if they are worried about buying school clothes every year, they aren't as likely to drop $300 on a limited edition music item.
So the number of paying customers you can draw upon within the parent demographic in this recession is relatively small.
I'm not bothering to debate the free music issue because like it or not, it's a reality. But the economics of the business beyond that does interest me very much.
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Re: who are the music consumers?
Okay, so you give these parent consumers free music and you hope to give them a reason to buy.
So they say, "Thanks for the free music. And I'll pay you to fix my plumbing."
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Re: who are the music consumers?
http://www.adweek.com/aw/content_display/data-center/research/e3i70172e607ddc1be9af2e8906ee e3cd03
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Re: Re: who are the music consumers?
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Re: who are the music consumers?
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What if it's not our song to give away?
I sing in a professional choir; while we do perform music composed by our director, in most cases the stuff we sing is by living composers, whose publishers all charge per-copy royalties to record their songs. We couldn't afford to pay those fees ourselves on copies that we give away for free, so those recordings are not infinite goods. I imagine that any band recording cover songs that are not yet out of copyright would have the same problem, but I've never heard this being discussed.
I would love to be able to put up a whole bunch of our past performances as MP3s on our website, but I can only do that legally for the limited amount of our output where the compositions are no longer in copyright. Any ideas?
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Re: What if it's not our song to give away?
Complain often, with hyperlink.
Please don't do this, though, because it would be wrong.
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Re: Re: What if it's not our song to give away?
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Hey, That's What I Said
"none of the examples cited on Techdirt ever explain how the transition from nobody to somebody would occur in the new music marketplace"
Well, I answered him in the Techdirt comments at http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20090623/2337095343.shtml#c1714
but Reznor has basically said the same thing to a wider audience. Good.
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- That sounds ominous. Almost as if he doesn't quite drink all of his own kool-aid. That being said, I a huge fan of Reznor's music and new methods.
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It's like blogging. Most bloggers never make any money at blogging. So if you aren't doing it for personal fulfillment or to promote some sort of non-blog business, then you'll probably lose interest.
These days everyone can be a musician, everyone can be a writer, everyone can be a videographer, everyone can be a photographer. There really isn't a business plan that will generate much money for most people who do these.
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FREE
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NIN Free
fans+artist+music+stage+free+fans+fans = Success
My hope is everyone will put on their creative hats and revise Trent's method to make it even better.
Trent & NIN have establish a sound baseline....Who's wants to 'kick it up a notch?
My personal suggestion is most indie successful careers will be linked to a loyal fan base using the Power of 5. Grow it and keep them happy by forming great relationships.
Successful careers are ultimately about giving your fans what they want, which will increase your TBFB. Successful careers are not about are ultimately not about the artist or their music. The later are important and a factor, absoutely!
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Buy What?
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nothing specific
this probably relates to everything and nothing for the next century
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We fix ourselves the value of the music while leaving it available on all the public.
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Re: We fix ourselves the value of the music while leaving it available on all the public.
i love that spirit !!!
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Re: We fix ourselves the value of the music while leaving it available on all the public.
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Say Goodbye to the Record Label
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