It’s that time again — list time, that is. (In addition to holiday party time, tacky sweater time, prepping for vacation time…) So, we’ve gathered all the intel and put together the list below of Orchard artists selected in these editorial beasts’ top albums, songs, artists, labels, and more… in 2012.
We got nods in a ton of revues and editorial outlets, including Billboard, iTunes, Pitchfork, Spin, Stereogum, Paste, Consequence of Sound, Forbes, Gorilla vs. Bear, NPR, The Guardian, The Sunday Times, The New Yorker… and all the other folks below.
Congratulations to all the artists who made awesome music this year! We’re looking forward to a great year to come in 2013, with lots of exciting releases from new bands, favorite artists and those we don’t even know about yet.
Cheers!
Best World Album — Antibalas: Antibalas [Daptone Records]
Best World Reissue – Tim Maia: World Psychedelic Classics 4: Nobody Can Live Forever – The Existential Soul [Luaka Bop]
Best Metal Album – Testament: Dark Roots of Earth [Nuclear Blast]
Best Jazz Vocal Album – Gregory Porter: Be Good [Motema Music]
#160 — Various Artists Project X: Original Motion Picture Soundtrack [Watertower Music / New Line Productions]
#15 — Various Artists Project X: Original Motion Picture Soundtrack [Watertower Music / New Line Productions]
Uncharted Artists (MySpace and Next Big Sound chart)
#22 — The Bloody Beetroots Death Crew 77 [Dim Mak Records]
#32 — Com Truise [Ghostly International]
#36 — Datsik [Dim Mak Records]
#30 — Various Artists Project X: Original Motion Picture Soundtrack [Watertower Music / New Line Productions]
#47 — Testament: Dark Roots of Earth [Nuclear Blast]
#45 — Colt Ford [Average Joe's]
#6 – Various Artists Project X: Original Motion Picture Soundtrack [Watertower Music / New Line Productions]
iTunes 11 is here! With a complete redesign of both the iTunes player and the iTunes store, we wanted to point out some great new features that you can use to optimize your listening and shopping experience.
First, let’s start with the player itself. You will notice when you first open iTunes 11 that there is no longer a sidebar, which has been replaced with either more browsing space on an album level or has been turned into a browse by artist/genre area. Now — if you weren’t quite ready to give up that sidebar, DO NOT FRET! You can still access it by clicking on the “View” drop-down and selecting “Show Sidebar.”
A few more big changes you will notice with the player are focused around the album view. Apple’s new album artwork layout offers a great way to quickly browse through your albums while still being able to enjoy all of your colorful album artwork. When clicking on any album, an ‘expanded view’ will appear. Not only does this expanded view show you the tracks of that specific album, but if you click the ‘In the Store’ button on the upper-right corner it will also show you Top Songs, Top Albums, and Recommended Songs [from other artists], all of which you can purchase right from your music library. How’s that for some intuitive up-sell!
Gone are the days of the unknown queue when using iTunes ‘Up Next’ feature. This functionality allows you to access a full list of upcoming and previously played tracks by clicking this button 
in the Now Playing window. You can also click the arrow button next to any track and either place the track at the front of your queue by selecting ‘Play Next,’ or simply add it to your queue by selecting ‘Add to Up Next.’
Check out the new design of the Mini Player by clicking the button on the upper-right of your player. You will notice that the player is much sleeker in design, only displaying the track name, artist name, and album artwork. Hover your mouse for Play/Pause, Forward, Back, and Volume Control. And notice that you can now also access ‘Up Next’ and search your library right from the Mini Player.
There have also been some big changes to the iTunes Store. Toggle from your iTunes Library to the store by clicking the ‘iTunes Store’ button on the upper-right of your player. This will take you to a fresh new redesign with bigger showcases, sliding bricks and all around bigger album artwork.
One functionality that iTunes has added to the store is each artist now has a dedicated page. This will contain a Collection page, which showcases all of that artist’s Albums, Songs, Music Videos and Movies along with other artists that listeners have bought. The Artist Info section allows you to browse through the artist’s biography, influencers, followers and contemporaries. Some artists also have a Gallery option, which allow you to view a variety of high-resolution photos from their career.
All of these features make for a robust new store and player. I am sure there is more in store for iTunes in 2013. What do you surmise is coming?
Check out the Apple website for a demo video and more information on these new features.
He knows you want him. Mr. Worldwide, Mr. 305, Pitbull — whatever you may call him — has a hold of his fans. Nine years since his first release, Pitbull is still in the spotlight. So when on May 8th, 2012, Pitbull released Original Hits, an album of his earlier songs, it came as no big surprise that it hit #134 on the Billboard Top 200 (though it was definitely still exciting!).
So how does an artist use the Internet, which is already swarming with free streaming services and thousands of other artists, to sell his or her songs? In this article, we’ll go through the digital advertising plan of Pitbull’s album and his successful results as an example of what an artist can do.
To start, here is a quick overview of the results of his campaign. Pitbull’s first week sales were 3,753, of which 66% were physical. Original Hits was #119 on the Top Current Albums Chart, #134 on the Billboard Top 200, #13 on the Current Rap Albums chart, #19 on the Current R&B albums, and more… And, only a week after its release, 15,275,050 total impressions were delivered. Not too shabby!
Within the campaign, we used many different components, one of which was VEVO. The objective of using the premium music video platform was to build awareness about the album, with an emphasis on impressions and reaching Pitbull’s younger core fan base. So before all VEVO videos, specifically Pop, Hip-Hop/Urban and Latin genre videos, advertisements and banners of Original Hits at Best Buy would roll. The ads, which only ran until May 16th did extremely well! While our focus was on driving impressions, the pre-roll spot led to a 3.29% CTR, which accounted for more than 80% of the campaign’s activity. This led to 572,388 Best Buy impressions and 3,547 total clicks.
What if I said that the better you understand the mechanism behind YouTube’s business model, the higher your streaming rate will be on YouTube? Yes, that means reading this article could improve your YouTube rates — maybe even double or triple them. Get ready for a major change in the way your content is valued.
If your business currently revolves around retail models, whether iTunes or brick-and-mortar stores or subscription services like Spotify or Netflix, you may not be aware of the primary driver of YouTube’s unique business model, which is projected by Citi to generate $3.6 billion in gross revenue this year. What’s incredible about their model is that even as YouTube integrates more and more pre-roll ads, which should reduce viewership, traffic grows 20% a quarter according to comScore.
The fundamental difference between the industry built around YouTube (arguably “the future”) and the industry music and film rights owners are accustomed to (a little too early to call it “the past”) is the difference between an auction and a retail store. Music and film rights owners have built their businesses around a retail model, where rates are set and their ability to drive revenue is tied to their ability to sell units or get streams. YouTube’s model works more like a TV network, where the value of the product is only as big as advertisers are willing to pay to advertise against it, so the networks are always looking for the highest bidder, like an auction. For a TV show that auction typically happens by the season, but on YouTube that auction runs by the split second.
So YouTube is an auction, which makes your new customers (the buyers) the brands and advertisers. While fans control your traffic, which is equally important, the brands control the value of your content (the price) in this new ecosystem.
IHS Screen Digest recently released their analysis of the 2011 US online film industry with some major changes from 2010. Other than the industry doubling to reach $992 million, it showed a major shift in consumption from transactional models to subscription models. Netflix alone jumped from a 0.5% market share to a 44% market share and iTunes dropped from 60.8% to 32.3%. At initial glance this suggests the future of film is a Netflix market; however, hidden behind the numbers are some interesting facts that challenge that perspective.
Market Categorization – Netflix’s 8,800% growth over the last year is related to the suddenly forced shift of their subscriber base from DVD rental to streaming only in 2011. As a result, the growth rate is likely to slow down this year to a rate more in line with premium pay-TV channels. Also, it’s unclear whether TV shows available on home video are being categorized in the film industry category or if IHS excluded this base of content. From my personal experience, more people use Netflix to catch up on TV shows than watch movies, and this would skew the perspective as well.
All Platforms Aren’t Competitors – The collection of films on Netflix is not equal to the library on iTunes or other transactional models. Netflix curates a limited collection of library films, often the sort of films consumers may not want to pay to watch but love to watch for free. In general, people use iTunes for new releases and niche or indie films. Similar to how we’ve learned that music streaming on Spotify or YouTube does not cannibalize iTunes download sales, I’d argue that increased activity on Netflix does not mean people are spending less on iTunes. The platforms are used for two different purposes. iTunes does compete, however, with other transactional models like X-Box and VUDU because consumers generally align with one transactional platform.
Walmart’s Doing Better Than Amazon & Google – When you exclude Netflix from the report and focus only on transactional models, iTunes, X-Box and Sony each lost 3% market share while Walmart’s VUDU gained 5%. That’s more than all “Other” platforms grew in 2011 combined in terms of market share, Amazon and Google included.
Think Global – While it’s helpful to see the breakdown of the US market, the online marketplace is a global industry, far more global than the traditional home video market ever was. The Orchard supplies films to over 35 iTunes territories and growing, while Netflix is just now starting to reach a few countries outside of North America. But Netflix’s ability to reach viewers in these new territories will be challenging. iTunes has already established a popular brand globally thanks to their music business, and X-Box thanks to gaming, and there are local subscription competitors in each region. Many of The Orchard’s clients see 50% of their film’s revenue come from outside of the US, so it’s an important consideration.
No matter which way you slice the pie, the market is expected to double again in 2012 according to IHS. We see the dust starting to settle and The Orchard is well positioned to navigate the online film marketplace, already partnered with all the major outlets.
