shiny dot bulletin

In the name of all that is transparent and good, Trent Reznor has shared details around the release of Saul Williams’ “The Inevitable Rise and Liberation of NiggyTardust”.

The meat of it from the mouth of Trent:

Saul’s previous record was released in 2004 and has sold 33,897 copies.

As of 1/2/08,
154,449 people chose to download Saul’s new record.
28,322 of those people chose to pay $5 for it, meaning:
18.3% chose to pay.

Of those paying,

3220 chose 192kbps MP3
19,764 chose 320kbps MP3
5338 chose FLAC

Keep in mind not one cent was spent on marketing this record. The only marketing was Saul and myself talking as loudly as we could to anybody that would listen.

If 33,897 people went out and bought Saul’s last record 3 years ago (when more people bought CDs) and over 150K - five times as many - sought out this new record, that’s great - right?

I have to assume the people knowing about this project must either be primarily Saul or NIN fans, as there was very little media coverage outside our direct influence. If that assumption is correct - that most of the people that chose to download Saul’s record came from his or my own fan-base - is it good news that less than one in five feel it was worth $5? I’m not sure what I was expecting but that percentage - primarily from fans - seems disheartening.

Some of my observations:

• what’s the life cycle of a record these days? one quarter, two quarters? in any case, with no marketing budget and no real presence in the market for over two years, the release managed to reach about 84% of previous sales in only a few months. sure, the majority of record sales happen in the front end, but if we really believe in the long-tail approach, there is a lot of time and opportunity to grow this number. i’d also like to know if this release stimulated any sales of the first record.
• in a world where the majority of record sales still happen in the physical space, correct me if I’m wrong here, but didn’t this release manage to convert the majority of Saul’s fan base to a digital sales model? that’s extraordinary, no?
• so only 18.3% paid… two things here: 1) there was a large write-up in the New York Times which surely contributed to many out-of-curiousity downloaders, therefore skewing the numbers greatly but even ignoring this one in five paid!; 2) the 81.7% who didn’t are hopefully providing some value by spreading the word through last.fm, imeem, facebook, ilike and other music networking sites.
• you’ve grown a decent base to support touring, merchandising and all the secondary (collectively becoming primary) revenue streams available to a musician.
• the other interesting fact - people are choosing quality downloads. this challenges the notion that music is not valued any more, that music consumers (for lack of a better word) believe it’s throwaway and disposable. that’s a positive, a huge piece of learning in my opinion.

I think this is all very positive and heading in the right direction, if this were my project, I’d be calling it a grand success in these early, early days.

I know I’ll definitely keep watching…

Canada’s labels slam proposed digital ‘tax’

TORONTO (Billboard) - A revolutionary plan that would effectively legitimize file-sharing here has been slammed as “a pipe dream” by Canadian labels. The Songwriters Assn. of Canada proposes to allow domestic consumers access to all recorded music available online in return for adding a $5 Canadian ($4.96) monthly fee to every wireless and Internet account in the country.

The SAC claims that the proposal, which has been presented to labels’ bodies the Canadian Record Industry Assn. (CRIA) and Canadian Independent Record Production Assn. as well as publishers’ groups, would raise approximately $1 billion Canadian ($993 million) annually. Although the SAC does not detail how revenue would be collected and distributed, it says it would go to artists, labels and publishers.

Read the rest.

Or don’t… The article goes on to quote Alistair Mitchell, CEO of Puretracks, “the concept is so flawed, I don’t know where to start” and various other naysayers from CRIA and Bell (majority owner of Puretracks).

Thankfully there do exist music-folk out there who advocate for and understand the concept of the celestial jukebox, namely the Canadian Music Creators Coalition, a group of 187 acts, including the Barenaked Ladies and Avril Lavigne. I’m sure Terry McBride is on board too, but don’t quote me! I’m only speculating.

If this industry needs anything right now, it’s people who are willing to listen to visionary ideas without immediately pointing out all the challenges a new system will inevitably create. Adopting a protectionist attitude because there’s no room for your business model in the proposed new world order doesn’t help either.

And let’s be frank. This reactionary nonsense is exactly why we’re here in the first place. Can you imagine where the state of music might be now had the labels embraced Shawn Fanning’s Napster as visionary and not criminal? There was an opportunity to shape P2P, to own it, to monetise… but no they went and shut everything down, secretly and unethically monitored and mined the P2P networks for data anyway, and now here we are years later with physical sales down, digital sales up and still trying to keep afloat with forthcoming country albums from Beyonce and Jessica Simspon. It’s truly pathetic.

But alas, the music industry has never been known for it’s adventures in risky business, save for Brian Eno, David Byrne, Peter Gabriel, Issa, Radiohead and a handful of others.

So yes indeed - many bodies would have to come together to create a new plan under a celestial jukebox model. It’s not like the governing bodies around music are easy and transparent now anyway. Socan and performance rights? CMRRA and mechanical licensing? Publishers? There are many hands in the pie and if we’re all going to get through this, we need to rethink everything - copyright, distribution, marketing, licensing, record deals, digital rights, publishing, videos…

And most importantly in my opinion, we have to shake consumers of this idea that they need to “own” their music. If all recorded music is available anytime, anywhere on any device - stationary or mobile - people will eventually lose this crazy notion that they need to own their own catalogue. Of course there will be audiophiles who insist, great - let’s focus on the average consumer.

Here’s a silly example. When I was a child our family acquired a VCR and my mom got it in her head that she needed to “own” every movie ever made so she recorded everything, commercials and all, and archived VHS after VHS. It was ridiculous really and eventually she self-corrected when she realised she would always be able to rent or borrow what she wanted. She didn’t have to own everything as long as she knew it was always accessible.

These are the kinds of challenges we’re facing and right now we’re losing the battle because we’re clinging to an old model which is clearly failing to deliver what consumers want.

Please - before we use our industry might to stomp all over what might be the future of music, let’s at least consider what The Songwriters Assn. of Canada proposes.

Amazing things can transpire when you say YES.

Chart, Canada’s longest running music magazine, wrapped up its 13th annual readers’ poll yesterday.

The raw data can be found here or you can read Chart’s ever-so cheeky editorial on the final tallies here.

Shiny Dot Bulletin’s Highlights:

The Golden Toque Award (Best Canadian Album)
* #1 SILVERSTEIN Arrivals and Departures
* #2 SUM 41 Underclass Hero

Surprises: Feist and Arcade Fire show poor standings.

The International Golden Toque Award (Best International Album)
* #1 LINKIN PARK Minutes To Midnight
* #2 FALL OUT BOY Infinity On High

Thoughts: Like anyone with any reasonable taste in music, I really wish Linkin Park would go away now but that said, I did enjoy the Wired piece on Chester Bennington’s “cyberstalker”…

The Blissful Noise Award (Best Song)
* #1 ALEXISONFIRE Rough Hands
* #2 AVRIL LAVIGNE Girlfriend

The Throw Your Underwear Award Male (Sexiest Canadian Man)
* #1 Shane Told (Silverstein - pictured right)
* #2 Deryck Whibley (Sum 41)

Surprises: The kids think Leonard Cohen is sexier than Raine Maida, Jacob Hoggard, David Usher and Nickelback’s Chad Kroeger… there’s hope for the digital natives afterall.

“I am an old scholar, better-looking now than when I was young. That’s what sitting on your ass does to your face.”
Leonard Cohen

The Throw Your Underwear Award Female (Sexiest Canadian Women)
* #1 Avril Lavigne
* #2 Tegan And Sara

Thoughts: Peaches wins this in my heart. If I could secretly be any rock star, it would be her. She’s even hot when she pretends chocolate icing is poo. I think maybe it’s a class thing… and I have none.

The Lord Mullet Of Stanley Award (Best Haircut)
* #1 Tegan And Sara
* #2 Avril Lavigne

Thoughts: Who cares? This is a lame category… god are there even MySpace hairdo awards these days?

The Follow The Herd Award (Stupidest Trend)
* #1 Croc Shoes
* #2 MTVs The Hills

Surprises: The “Anna-Nicole Smith Saga” beat out “Adopting African Babies” and “Pregnant Celebrities Denying Theyre Pregnant”. Who woulda thunk?

The Thank You Much-Ly Award (Best Video)
* #1 REASON Were So Beyond This
* #2 SUM 41 Walking Disaster

Thoughts: Properly shot music videos are dead. Stop making them now. The money wasted on a music video could be used for good instead.

The That Rocked Award (Sweet Happenings In Music This Year)
* #1 Guitar Hero
* #2 Canadian Rock

The That Sucked Award (Stinky Happenings In Music This Year)
* #1 Britney Spears Return To Music
* #2 Being Emo

Thoughts: Hear, hear.

Technorati Tags: alexisonfire, arcade fire, avril lavigne, britney spears, Chad Kroeger, chart, chartattack, crocs, David Usher, deryck whibley, fall out boy, feist, guitar hero, Jacob Hoggard, leonard cohen, linkin park, nickelback, peaches, Raine Maida, shane todd, silverstein, sum 41, tegan and sara

BoingBoing picked up on this about a month ago and I ignored it. What can I say? I’m absolutely inundated with crappy music sites which falsely claim to be about social networking and the latest in web 2.0 tools. So I ignore ‘em.

Well, today I saw thesixtyone popping up all over Digg! so I caved and decided to give it a try with one of my artists and well, it’s totally fucking rad.

Pete over at “We’ll Write” describes what it is rather succinctly:

“The Sixtyone is a sort of Last FM/Fantasy Football League hybrid, and it looks pretty awesome. Points are earned by listening to music on the site and inviting other users to join. Points are spent “bumping” songs you like. Bumped songs work their way up the “rack” and may even earn a place on the front page. You can also earn points off songs you bumped early on that receive more bumps as the songs gain popularity.”

Technically, it’s amazing - gotta love that Ajax. Plus, the site boasts the best music player I’ve ever used. AND when I went to add videos to accompany my songs, lo and behold they were ALREADY THERE courtesy of the YouTube. Small complaint tho… 9 times out of 10 the vids were right, but that one time the wrong vid would appear, it was really wrong. Like in one case it was some lame-ass Disney shit that made me want to puke. I’d like an option to exclude irrelevant vids please.

A bigger complaint: from a social-networking pov, it’s lacking - we need at least some sharing/promo tools and Facebook/MySpace/[insert social networking site here] integration is a MUST.

I’d also like to see a few more fields in the profile section and maybe the option to choose buy links which are alternative to Amazon - being in Canada, many of the artists I work are indie enough that they don’t have Amazon US links or they like to sell from their own digital download shop.

The good thing, there’s lots of room to grow here. It’s a tremendous start and I seriously can’t wait to see how this site evolves in 2008.

Technorati Tags: thesixtyone