From KISS to Soulja Boy: Making it Big in the Music Business

From KISS to Soulja Boy: Making it Big in the Music Business 

In this WSJ documentary, Lee Hawkins asks Paul Stanley of Kiss, Soulja Boy, Cee-Lo Green, and Far East Movement how they plan to stay relevant. These interviews come at a time when the music industry has experienced major changes over the last decade. Music sales now represent just a small part of many artists’ income, and the charts are topped with dance music instead of rock and roll. Those who remain relevant will likely rely on building a profitable brand through touring, social media, and merchandising.

Watch this. It’s worth your time.

If Your Music Career Was Like a Food Cart

I often like to compare business practices of other industries and to take the lessons learned to apply it towards a music career. The other day, I was thinking about the food industry and it was so much like our world in music. I grew up in a very entrepreneurial family and started helping my parents’ restaurant business when I was still in elementary school so many of these lessons came quite early in life.

Here in Portland, OR, most people are starting their food business in the form of a food cart. It’s less expensive, there’s less risk, and you’re often grouped together in a “pod” of other food carts so often times you’ll just get crowds of hungry people who would like some food but are unsure of what they’d like yet (or you can be exposed to the customers of other carts). Picture yourself as a chef who wants to make a living doing what they love for a living: cooking. Not much unlike the music industry isn’t it?

Musicians who want to take some of the initial steps of their career should go through many of the same steps: they have to think about funding, locations (venues, tour locations), how to get exposure, etc. However, there are some basic business principles that we can see about other industries that we’re sometimes completely blind to in our own.

For instance, much like musicians who want to get great reviews from critics, restauranteurs want/need positive reviews from customers (Yelp, Foursquare, etc.) as well as the local media. However “good” restaurants who aren’t doing anything new or different don’t stand out. The food carts in Portland that get the most attention are those that are cutting edge and offering something that no one else is. Koi Fusion is a quickly expanding street-food empire who has been standing out because of their unique Korean approach to local Oregon foods (so much so that the founder, Bo Kwon, has been name of of the “50 Most Influential People in Portland”).

On that same note, bands/musicians who are not offering anything up new or different (even if they’re pretty good) will often get sorted into a large pile of other good bands in that genre. The talented but common rock band, singer-songwriter, or hiphop artist that isn’t offering anything different gets to be passed like the average, tasty taco truck.The ones that take more risks, who are different or cutting edge tend to be the ones that get covered in Pitchfork. Those are the movers and shakers.

Just like the up-and-coming, hip restaurants get the most attention (the line outside tends to attract more customers), people pay more attention to the band that has been generating a buzz. Even the food stalls in a shopping mall that offer up free samples get more people checking them out than those that don’t (like the incentive of free music). The comparisons could go on and on but I challenge you to take some time and think about what you’d do to make a splash on the culinary world…and how would you take those lessons to apply them to your music career?

Great Idea for Superbowl Sunday

One of our bands, Priory, just posted this:

“Who do you think will win the Super Bowl Bowl? Predict and post the score before kick off and WIN a FREE PRIORY download! Closest wins!”

How are you taking advantage of Super Bowl fervor to create engagement?

How to Copyright Your Music

This post was inspired by a personal experience. Recently, it was discovered that a song I had co-written was taken and republished under someone else’s name without my permission. They took the major components of the work, re-framed it, and sold it in a substantial licensing deal. If I had not taken the steps to secure a copyright, there would be almost nothing that I could do.

In the United States, you technically own the copyright for your work as soon as it is created. However, if you want to protect yourself from infringement, I’d recommend spending the money to get a proper copyright registration from the U.S Copyright Office. Please not, this is not the same department if you’d like to get a Trademark (for your name or logo, etc.). That’s a much more lengthy and expensive process.

Here’s how to copyright your music:

1. Go to U.S. Copyright Office website: http://www.copyright.gov/
2. In the top right corner, click on “eCO Login,” which will take you to this page.
3. If you are a new user, you’ll need to register.
4. In the left hand column, under “Copyright Registration” click on Register a New Claim.
5. From here, three things will be required: you’ll have to complete the application, make a payment, and then pay for the application (only $35 if you use this system).
6. Click on “Start Registration” to begin.
7. On each page, you can click the underlined options for more information. A new window will open up each time so you won’t lose your place. Once you make your selections, click “continue” to proceed.
8. If you have more than one author (such as a band all working on the song), you’ll have to list every person involved to give them credit.
9. At the end, you can either print a packing slip to mail them the work or upload one file (you can combine all of your songs into a zip file). Digital registration is much quicker.
10. After you pay and click” submit work, you’ll be entered into the system for review. Whenever you login to eCO, you can check the status of your work and see if anything is missing.

It should only take you about 30 minutes or so to go through the process (perhaps more time if you are unfamiliar with the terms) but I can assure you it’s quite worth the time. After that, do yourself a favor and get your work set up with ASCAP, BMI, or SESAC. For the record, I use ASCAP.

You can also hire an entertainment attorney to help you with the copyright registration but that would cost you a few hundred dollars. No matter what, just make sure you take care of this vital step before you release music out to the public. The sooner, the better.