Word Du Jour: Hubris
Can’t believe it’s been so long since a post…although it’s not that I’ve been idle. Just a few of things that’ve been happening lately:
- Final preparations for the two debut releases from Penny Distribution on 10/29/07
- Mistake, Do Over E.P. by The Terribles (Buy or Preview at iTunes, eMusic, Rhapsody & Napster.)
- OR pop on over to LastFM, Pandora or other streaming widget to get your fix for free.
- Redesigning PennyDistribution.com – with plenty of Web2.0 bells & whistles. Coming in November!
- Even though I wasn't there, Penny Distribution was represented at CMJ this week! Woot!
- Talking to the next Penny acolytes – bands with punch, power and potential - and lots more “P”s. Still talking, so word on that soon.
- Further definition of the Plan – things are really shaping up. If you’re a band, artist or manager looking for a powerful online marketing package, shoot me an email.
- I was at Digital Music Forum West in Los Angeles. As I’ve come to realize from these gatherings, the panels (where speakers and moderators discuss pre-defined subjects) hold little real value. The subjects are often well-worn (social media, P2P, labels future) but there are rarely any radical ideas from the panelists. The ideas of Yahoo! Music head Ian Rogers were particularly succinct, but nothing we didn’t already know. The problem, as always, is lots of people describing the problem with little attempt at finding a solution.
But like other events, there was some real progress, optimism – and most of all – great ideas when I got to talking to attendees outside of the panels. The most interesting sentiment was that everybody is moving on without the major labels. “If your business model revolves around licensing content from major labels, give up now”, was how one music 2.0 business owner put it. I even spoke to a number of Major label employees who were there to learn more about digital music so they could jump ship as quickly as possible.
As it was my first time in Hollywood, it would only be right to go out and get hammered, bump into Nicole Richie in the bathroom, right after watching Robbie Williams as a surprise guest on stage with Mark Ronson (remember that cover of Radiohead’s “Just”?). There’s a reason they call it HollyWeird.
Of the most impressive displays at the conference was the keynote by Mark Gunheim of www.WiredSet.com – there wasn’t a lot of coverage of this detailed, prescient and most of all useful presentation, probably because of the start time (8:45am). I firmly believe companies like Mark’s will be at the vanguard of the new music industry and will be, if not a replacement for labels, at least participants in a large share of the Music Industry 2.0 market. His presentation is available here
- And of course, then there was Radiohead. As my regular readers will attest (hi, mum!), the move is clearly in line with a radical change of perspective I’d posted about back in July, and also a fairly hefty nod in the direction of Chris Anderson’s idea of “free”. I’ll not comment any more, as enough has already been said (As the Onion put it, “Radiohead sells 1.2 million downloads, Generates 1.2 million commentaries”)
I will point you to the one post on the subject, throughout all the regurgitated hubbub, that really struck a chord, from Andrew Dubber’s New Music Strategies:
http://newmusicstrategies.com/2007/10/03/bits-and-pieces-of-radiohead/
And one commentary that gets it comically wrong:
http://blogs.guardian.co.uk/music/2007/10/thanks_radiohead_for_making_it.html
Out!
