What Up? (Musically Speaking)

[SouthwestRanger]

The New York Times -June 9, 2008

For Some Music, It Has to Be Wal-Mart and Nowhere Else

By ROBERT LEVINE

One of the biggest music events of the summer has already taken place in Fayetteville, Ark. From Tuesday through Thursday last week, the Bud Walton Arena at the University of Arkansas presented shows by Journey, the country singer Keith Urban, the ?American Idol? personality Carrie Underwood and the alternative rock group All-American Rejects.

The occasion that brought this all-star line-up together? Not a festival or cause but Wal-Mart Stores? annual shareholders meeting. Wal-Mart was the largest music retailer in the country last year, so musicians (and their labels) are eager to maintain good relationships, appearing in the special concerts for the chain, which are also open to the public.

During her performance, Ms. Underwood volunteered that a Wal-Mart had recently opened in her hometown, Checotah, Okla., and Keith Urban changed his lyrics from ?Goodbye, city, I?m country-bound? to ?I?m Wal-Mart-bound.? And the retailer is using its leverage to aggressively pursue new deals.

On Tuesday Wal-Mart started selling on an exclusive basis a three-disc collection by the popular 1980s band Journey called ?Revelation.? The difference, however, is that there is no middleman: the album was bought directly from the band without the help of a record label. Journey went right to Wal-Mart and kept most of the money a record company would normally take as profit for the group. Last year Wal-Mart made a similar deal with the Eagles, who like Journey are represented by Front Line Management, the nation?s largest music management company.

The deals highlight the changing dynamics of the music industry as once-powerful labels decline because of the migration to digital downloads. To fill the gap, musicians are scrambling to connect with fans, and Wal-Mart is using these exclusive deals to assume a new role: hit maker.

The Eagles? double disc, ?Long Road Out of Eden,? sold 711,000 copies in its first week and three million since its release, according to Nielsen SoundScan, impressive numbers at a time when CD sales are declining. Journey sold 45,000 albums in its first three days on sale, and Irving Azoff, founder and chief executive of Front Line Management and a music industry veteran who ran MCA Records in the ?80s, predicted that it would sell more than 80,000 copies in its first week. That is probably enough to debut in the top five, and significantly more than its last album sold in total.

?With the downturn, the labels couldn?t match the marketing commitments that Wal-Mart could make,? Mr. Azoff said. ?It was well in excess of anything a label could do.?

Front Line took on some of the traditional work of a record label, producing a video and promoting songs to radio. But most of the marketing was done at Wal-Mart itself. The chain ran print, radio and television advertisements that promoted the exclusive availability of the Eagles album. Stores display the Eagles and Journey albums in several locations, not just the music department, and this week some stores had the Journey DVD playing on their big-screen televisions.

In some ways, the arrangements that Wal-Mart has made with Journey and the Eagles represent the mainstream equivalent of the path that artists like Radiohead and Nine Inch Nails have taken by releasing albums on the Internet without a traditional label.

?It just goes to show you that fewer artists need to be associated with record companies,? said Larry Mestel, chief executive of Primary Wave Music Publishing and former chief operating officer of Virgin Records. ?They don?t need to give up a big chunk of money to the record companies when they?re iconic. They can go direct to Wal-Mart and make four to five dollars per CD.?

It?s hard to tell how much traditional labels are threatened by the prospect of artists? selling directly to retailers. New albums from more established acts can be less profitable if they have negotiated a higher royalty rate. And although the Eagles are reliable sellers, Journey is what industry executives delicately refer to as a ?heritage act,? a steady summer concert attraction that sells relatively few albums of new material.

One reason the Eagles and Journey albums have sold so many copies is their price: $11.98. That?s an unusually low retail price, especially for ?Revelation,? which consists of one CD of new songs, one CD of new renditions of Journey classics and one DVD of a recent concert performance. But one of Wal-Mart?s goals in promoting such releases is drawing customers into stores with a bargain they can?t find anywhere else.

?The goal with almost everything we do is to figure out how to make some kind of a profit,? said Gary Severson, Wal-Mart?s head of home entertainment. ?But this can also give us the opportunity to add to the brand, and I hope we?ve accomplished that as well.?

Exclusive album deals have been happening for some time with that goal in mind. Wal-Mart and Best Buy, the two largest physical retailers of music, often get special editions of albums, with exclusive songs or video footage. In 2005, Wal-Mart made a deal to become the exclusive distributor of Garth Brooks albums, including a new collection of outtakes. But the Eagles and Journey are the first two major acts that have released albums of new material that are available at only one retailer. And although record labels tread carefully around such deals, for fear of upsetting rival stores, bands need not be so sensitive.

This summer Wal-Mart will carry an exclusive release by the young country singer Taylor Swift in a promotion that also calls for Ms. Swift to promote L.E.I. jeans. (In this case, Ms. Swift?s label was part of the deal.) And Mr. Azoff said that he was already talking to Wal-Mart about an exclusive deal for Fleetwood Mac?s next release. ?Classic rock really works there,? Mr. Azoff said.

Front Line is only one of the major management companies that are trying to take on roles that have traditionally been filled by labels. The Nettwerk Music Group, which manages Avril Lavigne and Sarah McLachlan, has set up custom labels for some small artists. And Q-Prime, which manages Metallica, recently hired an executive to start an independent label of sorts.

The idea of treating the label as a middleman that can be cut out fits Wal-Mart?s approach to cost-cutting. In the past the chain has pushed record labels to lower their wholesale prices, arguing that customers would buy more CDs if they were less expensive.

?I think that with any product, when the price goes up, the demand goes down,? said Mr. Severson. ?Sometimes it?s about the right artist with the right product at the right price.?

For Journey, some of the success of ?Revelation? is also about the right timing. For a band that hit its commercial peak in the early ?80s, Journey has enjoyed an unlikely revival in the last few years. The song ?Don?t Stop Believin? ? has been licensed for ?Family Guy,? ?Scrubs,? ?Laguna Beach? and, most famously, the last episode of ?The Sopranos,? and the exposure increased the song?s sales on Apple?s iTunes store. Journey, which has gone through several vocalists, recently hired a new singer, Arnel Pineda, whom Journey?s guitarist, Neal Schon, discovered singing the band?s covers on YouTube.

But Journey would almost certainly not be selling as many albums without the support of Wal-Mart.

?Shelf space has shrunk so much over the last five years that for anyone to give you shelf space and exposure is a big deal,? said Terry McBride, chief executive of Nettwerk Music Group. ?Should the labels be worried? There?s been a move away from the labels for a number of years now. And it?s not necessarily their fault. The shelf space to have those records sell just isn?t there. That?s the market reality.?

Michael Barbaro and Stephanie Rosenbloom contributed reporting

[SouthwestRanger]

To which Bob Welch has added....



"Walmart" is the biggest low-cost discount "buy everything here" chain of retailers in the USA. Selling CDs there is the last-gasp of the hardliners who still want to sell plastic discs.

It makes sense if you're somebody like Fleetwood Mac or the Eagles, because they (Walmart) buys,say, 3,000,000 CDs "clean"....that is to say, with no "returns".
It's about the only way big "legacy" acts like FM can make any cash money off of recordings anymore. [img]rolleyes.gif[/img] [img]graemlins/clock.gif[/img] [img]graemlins/cry.gif[/img]

[raintown boy]

My growing love affair with Scandanavian and Icelandic music continues. The latest artist to come to my attention is a Swedish singer called Lykke Li. She has a new album out - though I'm not sure if it's available across the Atlantic - but if you go to http://www.lykkeli.com/ and click on the 'secret chapter' link at the top of the page you can download a free mp3 of a song called Tonight. I'm listening to it as I type this - just beautiful.

[gus danger]

I'll have to check that out Paul! Thanks!

Hey, just wondering, what do you think of Bjork?
I liked the Sugar Cubes and was not surprised when she went solo.

Can't say I've loved everything she's put out but a lot of it is FANtastic, imo!

More later dude!
[img]graemlins/music.gif[/img] [img]graemlins/guy.gif[/img]
Gus

[raintown boy]

Hi Gus. After hearing the song 'Birthday', and that amazing voice, I became a fan of the Sugarcubes. As for Bjork, I have every album she's released, not to mention quite a few remixes (and a DVD of her videos, usually made by extremely talented artists - the 'All Is Full of Love' video is one of my all time favourites). Some of her work takes a lot of work to get into, and even after a lot of listening some of it still eludes me. But I wouldn't want her to stop experimenting; when she gets it right the result is usually sensational.

[SouthwestRanger]

Kayne West BOOED Offstage !!!!

img]http://www.lynnedjohnson.com/diary/images/kanye_west_rollingstone.jpg[/img]

The Bonnaroo boobirds were out in full force for Kanye West this weekend.

The Grammy winner walked onto the festival stage nearly two hours past his scheduled 2:45 a.m. performance time Sunday morning and was greated by bleary-eyed fans' chorus of boos and chants of "Kanye ***** ."

West was originally set to kick things off at 8:15 p.m., but because he wanted to make the most of his Glow-in-the-Dark Tour's lighting show, the hip-hopster's camp asked to push back the gig to 2:45 a.m. following Pearl Jam's show.


However, the Seattle grunge rockers' gig lasted an hour longer than planned, with Eddie Vedder and bandmates not wrapping until 1:15 a.m. Then there was an extended break while Pearl Jam's roadies disassembled the band's stage and West's crew set up his own elaborate backdrop, a glow-in-the-dark spaceship along with undulating black platform and raised video screen.
Organizers posted a message via Jumbotron that the "Can't Tell Me Nothing" rapper wouldn't be taking the stage until 3:15 a.m., then 3:30. When 4:15 a.m. rolled around and still no West, the antsy crowd began hurling glow sticks at the stage and screaming anti-West sentiments. Bonnaroo officials didn't help the matter, not informing festivalgoers why the changeover was taking so long.

West finally made his entrace at 4:30 a.m., but by then, many exhausted attendees had had enough and returned to their tents.

Apparently, they didn't miss too much.

Judging by online reviews, West's performance didn't stand out from the 150 acts performing at the four-day musical campout. In fact, it was a yawner.

"He was two hours late, cut his show short, didn't once acknowlegde the crowd that waited two hours on an already late show, not even a wave goodbye...I'm no longer a Kanye fan, huge disappointment," one fan wrote at the music blog Stereogum.com.

"It's not the stage hands' fault; that stage was set up for well over an hour before Kanye decided to grace us with his presence," wrote another attendee on VillageVoice.com. "The next time he holds that finger up and proclaims himself as #1, I hope someone tells him what he can do with that finger."

Per festival reports, West failed to even acknowledge his tardiness.

The bad vibes carried over to Sunday's daytime slate, when during his set pedal-steel guitar virtuoso Robert Randolph groused about West's behavior, prompting fans to reprise the "Kanye ***** " chant...D

There was no immediate comment from the West camp.


http://music.yahoo.com/read/news/61281870 : [img]graemlins/cry_smile.gif[/img]

[Vicki Brown]

I'm a big fan fo The Sugarcubes and Bjork.
Also love the Cranberries and right now I'm listening to No Need To Argue.
Fergal is one of my favorite drummers!

Long time no see! [img]smile.gif[/img]

[gus danger]

Originally posted by BrownThrasher:
Long time no see! [img]smile.gif[/img]

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Hey it's a little bird from yesteryear!
Nice to see you hereabouts BT and I love that Cranberries album you're listening to, for sure!

More later!
[img]graemlins/thumbs_up.gif[/img] [img]cool.gif[/img]
Gus

[SouthwestRanger]

For Bands, Cost of Touring is Becoming a Sour Note


Sunday, June 22, 2008
BY LUCIANA LOPEZ
Newhouse News Service

Tune up the bikes and scrape up the french fry grease: It's summer touring season for bands. As gas prices climb ever upward, musicians have had to get creative at something more than their music.

The band Blind Pilot is traveling under pedal power. And psych- rockers Apollo Sunshine are converting their van to run on vegetable oil.


There's an easier way to save gas money, though: Rocker Michael Dean Damron is just flat-out canceling dates.

Different solutions, but all applied to the same problem: how to balance the need to tour, set in mo tion by declining CD sales, against the skyrocketing cost of gas, which makes touring more expensive and less profitable.

"It's completely essential to tour," says Kevin O'Connor, manager for the Lucky Madison indie record label. An unknown band might get away with skipping a tour to focus on its home base, he says, but for any kind of growth, staying off the road just isn't an op tion.

The numbers bear that out. Promoting an album can cost an indie label $6,000 or $7,000, O'Con nor calculates. If a CD costs $6 or $7 to produce, that's about 1,000 CDs sold just to break even -- much less to pay a band. That's why so many bands, especially small indie outfits, have traditionally made their money on the road -- perhaps a few hundred dollars a night. With gas costing more than $4 a gallon, growing travel expenses can wipe that margin out.

That's especially the case out West, where cities big enough to hold shows are spread farther apart. "I just had to cancel shows in Denver," said Damron, who lives in Portland, Ore. "I can't go as far as Denver. I can go as far as Salt Lake (City)."

Not that big tours necessarily have it much easier. Sure, Kenny Chesney charges plenty for a concert ticket, but his traveling ex penses reach into the tens of thou sands of dollars. On his current tour, Chesney requires 18 trucks and 10 buses, says Steve Hoker, driver coordinator with the Nash ville-based Hemphill Brothers Coach, whose clients have populated many a Billboard chart.

The buses, which weigh about 56,000 pounds fully loaded and have 240-gallon gas tanks, cost about $1 a mile to operate; the 350-gallon trucks are slightly costlier, because they haul more weight (up to 80,000 pounds).

And even as the cost of gas keeps rising, the number of albums sold annually keeps falling. In 2004, Nielsen SoundScan tallied 666.7 million albums (CDs and digital) sold in the United States. By 2007, the number plummeted to 501 million. This year looks even worse: If album sales continue at the same rate as the first five months of the year, when 171.8 million sold, the final number will be around 412.3 million.

Tour economics aren't for bands alone, either. Concertgoers, ultimately, pay the touring costs, either through higher ticket prices or higher prices for merchandise such as T-shirts and posters.

Higher gas prices no longer will affect the touring plans of one band. Blind Pilot's members are setting out by bike this year to promote their new album, says drummer Ryan Dobrowski.

Dobrowski has designed a drum set that fits inside itself for easy biking, and the bass player is building a trailer case for his upright bass. The band plans to update its West Coast itinerary online so fans can follow the cycling route.

Still, even a bike tour has its costs, Dobrowski noted.

"It might not be all that financially better," he said. "You do want to eat all the time."

Luciana Lopez is a staff writer for the Oregonian of Portland, Ore., and can be contacted at lucianalo [email protected]onian.


http://www.nj.com/timesoftrenton/sto...810.xml&coll=5

[E.]

JIM MORRISON is big in ITALIA ,esp. VENIZIA and ROMA,the DOLCE and GABBANA ads all have look-a-likes in the streets and subways ,train stations ,and airports ,believe it or not ELVIS is more popular in SICILIA,go figure,huh.