It will always be a matter for debate as to exactly when the demise of mass consumption of Compact Discs as the dominant musical sales model became definitively irreversible — but with the recent downfall of both HMV UK and Virgin France, I would think January 2013 has a lot of arguments in its favour.
We can of course go back in time and see that the “writing was already on the wall” as far back as 2007 – by a strange coincidence the year I joined the ranks of The Orchard (no suggestion of any direct link here ;-)) — when top retail chains who already had their own high-profile public brands, faithful client bases subscribing massively to their data bases, decided that “digital” sales were an enemy to their core “physical” business and as a result they intentionally or not sabotaged their own digital services with low investments and the refusal to cross-reference their two user bases. There have been other blog posts about this — I recommend reading Mark Mulligan’s piece – and doubtless many more to come given the fallout from the nearly simultaneous filing of bankruptcy of both HMV in the UK and Virgin stores in France.
My piece here is meant to concentrate on the future as it might be accelerated by this phenomena and offer some hints as to the means and methods that we at The Orchard — in association with our labels — can use to help “le développement durable” or “sustainable growth” of the production space in which we exist and to which we are all personally attached.
Diversification of revenue sources for all to share is key in my opinion here — and luckily it is more and more the reality of our “digital” world. When I started marketing to retail here in France in 2006, there were only four really operational digital stores (iTunes, Fnac, Virgin Mega and Starzik) — all offering à la carte downloads at very much the same prices in a very similar consumer environment alongside an already declining mobile sector with telephone companies offering ringtones from Top 50 artists.
Now we are dealing with more than thirty local businesses — and a wide variety of business models that include streaming services of many different types, an incredibly large choice of ways of possessing or gaining access to music (and video) with practically every combination currently imaginable — although I am sure more will come (and when this happens we will be amongst the first to be contacted given the variety and strength of our labels catalogues). This diversity of revenue is culturally driven too — models that work in France do not necessarily do so in the Benelux, and within the Benelux some do better in Holland than in Belgium. Very often we notice that the different models feed off each other and encourage the growth of other services providing a different type of customer with a different sort of access to the music they want. We have for example noticed that the arrival of a very strong streaming service in The Netherlands was actually accompanied by a higher increase in download sales in that territory compared to its neighbours… which would tend to show that the “cannibalisation” of one method of access by another is not currently true.
As I am making the last preparations for my next participation in a Trade Fair, representing The Orchard at WOMEX 2012 in Thessaloniki, Greece, even I can’t try to pretend that “it’s a tough job but somebody has to do it.”
I’ve had a long and enjoyable relationship with WOMEX through my work with various World Music distributors, labels and artists over the last 20 years, starting with WOMEX’s precursor, the “Berlin Independence Days,” which were held in East Berlin just after the fall of the Wall. In those “physical” days — lasting well into this new “digital” century developing the international sales of Cesaria Evora, Lucky Dube, Salif Keita, Toure Kunda or The Skatalites (yes I insist that Reggae also fall in the scope of “World Music,” as does Electro Cumbia or Hungarian Speed-Folk) — involved mainly finding the right distribution partners distribution, promotional activities (via key media outlets and actors of the live scene) and developing solid mutually advantageous business relationships. A lot of these relationships have become friendships and despite changes in companies, some industrial disasters and difficult financial moments, many of these people are still strong players in the very tight-knit World Music community.
The tools that I will be bringing this year are only materially different. Instead of lugging around boxes of CDs, I’ve got a few presentations, pre-prepared collectively to be shown on a computer as to how best use our Sales Analytics, Interactive Marketing, or maximize results from Social Media Advertising. The goal of developing a mutually profitable network of relationships between the various actors of this sector stays essentially the same however, just more detailed, especially since the changing nature of the methods and means of consumption of music worldwide means that more and more world inhabitants are gaining access to their own cultures and those of others.
To quote from memory from an article that appeared in the Berlin Independence Days guide, World Music is also Bob Marley or Rod Stewart blasting from a battery-powered cassette player in Nairobi. However, in those days there was no realistic way of monitoring this usage such that all parties involved got paid. The mobile phone has become the essential vector of this progression in the controllable growth in access to music that we presented on The Daily Rind already a while ago. The main model is streaming via Telco bundles that includes Internet access with the possibility of listening to music.
These kinds of offers are spreading like wildfire across the world. Telephone operators have understood that musical content is a primary attraction within the Internet. For our labels and their artists, this specific source of revenue breeds additional sources of revenue, creating new uses and relationships with fans that can also be monetized. As I always say in my posts: music is contagious, and these models bring in lasting and growing financial returns. This ecosystem exemplifies sustainable development — recontextualized!
So though we have already developed tactics on all of this in association with some of the most prestigious World Music labels around — Lusafrica (selected as World Music Label of the Year for 2012), World Circuit, World Music Network, Sterns African Records, Cantos/Frochot, World Village, Mr Bongo, Stonetree Records, ZZK, etc. — we are always looking for ways to improve these collaborations and build others by involving our teams in 26 different countries around the world. Each team demonstrates its expert knowledge and understanding of its local market and gives each of our partners the possibility of simplifying some of their work in order to focus on the essential point: discovering, producing and sharing great music from everywhere.
Music is everywhere… and more and more so — sometimes even without you really noticing it — in carparks, lifts, shopping centers, restaurants (where it can be really irritating, just as you are about to expound some deep philosophical thought on the new ways of sharing music experiences with fans, the local group of Bouzouki musicians thinks you need a serenade…), and so on.
As the “Soundtrack to our Lives” diversifies itself into a myriad of listening experiences — from live concerts via radio programs to self-programmed streaming playlists and old-time homemade “Pirate” cassettes (yes, I know home-taping was killing music… so sorry [wink]) — so have the ways and means of monetizing these listening experiences grown ever more complicated and sophisticated.
The collection of “Neighbouring Rights” for example — another term for “Public Performance and Broadcasting Royalties” — used to be restricted essentially to mass-media usages in main territories of musical consumption, i.e. Western Europe and the USA. This is now changing however, and one of the ways in which we help our labels exercise all their rights is to engage on their behalf — if so mandated — to recover these monies that are being collected in their name but need to be claimed according to certain rules and regulations.
It goes without saying that these rules differ from one country to another — and even more within certain countries where there is more than one authorized collecting society. In some places, there is a levy on revenue generated by sales of material permitting the copy of sound recordings, in others radio or television airplay is still considered the main form of public performance while millions of streams are not taken into consideration… yet.
As part of The Orchard’s additional services that labels can opt into — either when they sign or as an addendum that can be implemented at any moment — we have adapted ourselves to be able to actively collect from over 30 different territories from Australia to Slovenia, South Africa to Mexico and the USA (of course) to France, where the SCPP is the latest addition to the roster of sources of revenues for Master Collections and one in which I have been actively involved.
As an example of the need to be painstakingly thorough in ensuring that only eligible titles are claimed for — without going into all the details we need to provide for each track on the 54-column Excel file (and then again for its use in each and every other album, compilation, etc.) — we need to verify that the original rights-holder originates from a country having adhered to the Rome Convention and that the date of each recording is specifically exact. For instance, if an album was recorded over a week, we need the date of each track’s actual recording, and that if there are two different lengths of recordings (i.e. a radio-edit) then we must have two separate lines for each. …You can get a feel for the job in hand.
That said, all this is worthwhile! The financial results are already very positive. Without making anyone a millionaire overnight, it is a newly opened revenue flow that is consistent and that will continue to bring additional rewards to the work our labels do with our help in making their music as widely audible as possible.
So the next time a romantic moment is spoilt by a would-be DJ at least it’s good to know that somehow, someone who has taken the risk of producing music is getting some benefit from it.
If we were asked for a list of our Top 5 most trending artists with the highest numbers of Google pages we might immediately mention Pitbull, Sharon Jones, Kina Grannis, Simply Red or Steve Aoki. In fact, one of our biggest “stars” — Jordi Savall — plays Classical music and is practically a Classical rock star, playing open-air festivals to audiences of thousands!
He performs an average of 140 concerts each year all — around the world — with different programs or themes each time. You can keep track of his next concerts here.
Born in 1942, the Catalonian viol player, conductor and composer Jordi Savall has become one of the major figures in the field of early music. For more than 30 years he has been devoted to the rediscovery of neglected musical treasures from Medieval to Renaissance and Baroque music. His first worldwide success came with the music he composed for the Alain Corneau film, Tous les Matins du Monde. His work on this film earned him a César award (French Oscar) in 1992. The soundtrack has sold more than a million copies around the world.
With an average of 6 new releases per year on his own label, Alia Vox, founded in 1998, one could imagine him like a monk devoted to his art; an elitist musician. Be that as it may, Jordi Savall is also probably one of the most open artists I’ve seen to the world of possibilities of sharing music via the Internet.
Authenticity, in the sense of a materially accurate reconstruction of a past beyond recall, is seldom, if ever, Mr. Savall’s objective. “Music doesn’t have any lasting existence,” he says in a New York Times interview. “You can only play music of today.” Furthermore, The Guardian said this in a story praising our Classical rock star: “Some say globalisation is now spinning into reverse, yet the fate of the world’s people is more closely bound than ever. Jordi Savall testifies to a common cultural inheritance of infinite variety. He is a man for our time.”
One of my persistent Theories of Life, The Universe and Everything is that music is an experience that is best discovered, understood, appreciated and loved in a real context — one that involves a situation outside the computer screen — however much time we spend in front of it.
To explain, I now know that all my Facebook friends have really bad musical taste, as in they don’t permanently listen to 60′s Jamaican Rocksteady or Ethiopian Grooves or Peruvian Cumbian Psychedelia — just ask me for links and I’ll provide them! if you say please [wink].
However I have also been known to dance to Salsa, jump-up to Punk and even head-bang to Heavy Metal but only in the right places, at the right times and in the right company (and no, there is no visual proof of this to be had!). I have also enjoyed and enjoyed sharing atmospheric times in really cool bars, restaurants and other places where the music just fitted perfectly.
One of the first labels to work on this concept to really develop a sound that fits seamlessly with an environment was George V with its Buddha Bar imprint that has become a worldwide brand.
In George Vs’ own words:
” It took two years only for George V Records to impose its label as a must in the musical landscape — with literally millions of albums sold. The whole story started in 2000, directed by Raymond Visan, as a response to the requests for musical “ambiance” from the customers of the same group’s restaurants, the Barfly, the Buddha-Bar and the Barrio Latino. This sophisticated ambiance flirted with celebrities melting with a young, urban and international clientele whose nomadic soul is resolutely open to the rest of the planet. Music, which at first was to enhance the aura of the restaurant, has rapidly turned into its very soul.
George V Records has become a recognized Musical Designer by imposing its presence in the musical production thanks to a never-ending and demanding artistic researching spirit aiming at a real quality level. It’s been widely recognized by the public well beyond the French frontiers, since 60 % of the sales come from abroad.
George V Records’ catalogue features around 40 albums and videos. Most of them consist in musical snapshots of Paris nightlife’s trendiest places. The sets are exquisitely played by the resident DJs, selecting the very best of the current local musical trends. Artistic creation is given the first place as the important participation of many composers pervades the albums with their musical touch through their mix. The results are real luxury products and L’Oréal, Cartier, Salvatore Ferragamo and recently Virginie Castaway asked George V Records to create compilations fitted to their own styles.”
Buddha Bar now has branded Bars, Hotels and Restaurants open in France, Egypt, Lebanon, Qatar, Georgia, Ukraine, Philippines, Russia (Kaliningrad), Monaco, Czech Republic, Holland, Senegal, Cyprus, USA (NYC, Washington & Vegas), Dubai, Abu Dhabi, Switzerland and Mexico.
Upcoming openings include Hungary (Budapest in June), UK (London), India (New Delhi) and Russia (St. Petersburg) around the release time of the new compilation: Buddha Bar XIV.
To get a taste, take a look at the New York restaurant… pictured in this post as well.
I definitely feel that a Label/Marketing meeting needs to be organized “in situ” here soon once we have messaged this success worldwide…
