Are you sick about hearing of the industry’s demise? Corporate acquisitions and how we’re all just pawns in a blue-chip end-game? How the big fish just keep eating the medium size fish? Small fish are no longer interesting.

Ok, so we’re talking about EMI and how us Indies think it’s the worst thing in the world that Universal have bought them. Yes, the big fish. Let’s be clear, Universal have bought EMI ‘when’ it’s gone through the monopolies and mergers commission. Yes, we know, it’ll get approved with some jockeying and positioning. But is it really a bad thing?

Well, we’re an Indie and it changes absolutely nothing for us and likely, it’s the same for most smaller indies.

So…to the bad. How many real major labels exist now? In Corporate terms…3. Sony, Universal and Warner (Warner to a lesser extent as it relates to the Corporate scale of things in Monolithic terms, market share-wise, they are half a major now). In the late 80′s how many standalone major labels? Nearly 15. So this road has been an inevitable path to be trodden since the rise of the Internet if not before. So quarterly results now matter for Wall Street and in a market for recorded music that is shrinking in units and revenue, the Corporate animal needs to be fed a potent mixture of acquisition to gain market share (especially, if the market is not growing) and new revenue streams in the ‘core business’ to achieve the Corporate end-game. Growth. Can’t grow organically? Buy it.

Working for a Corporate for so many years, our boss will tell you that the hunger for growth and share, drives most of the key decisions and actions. So, with a positive operating profit, EMI was a no-brainer for Universal. And let’s not forget, Sony ATV bought the publishing catalogue if 100,000′s of song rights. What a great way to be number 1 market share overnight!

Some complain, but if you were Lucian Grange? You’d make this decision every day of the week.

Ok, we get there’s less players in the majors, it may in some cases make some roads harder to tread (which remains to be seen) but, hey! The innovation is still with the Indies. Regardless of the ‘Adele’ factor, business for Indies this year has never been better, even if you take the A-Factor out of the equation. Anything that’s cutting edge and innovative creatively, is usually Indie.

But what about the good of this takeover?

We know people who work at EMI and one thing that is important is that Sony and Universal both fundamentally understand what they have. This is their core business and we expect EMI will flourish under the new owners. Is that a bad thing for the creative industries and jobs in the UK and around the world? Can you really say that under the previous owners? They couldn’t make the numbers add up and ran the business on very shaky foundations. EMI artists and employees alike were nervous on so many levels. At least they have some stability now and can move forward. It’s a better thing that EMI are still around, it could have been much worse for this proud company.

EMI are to remain a standalone operation and not be absorbed as a vanity-label for their new owners and this is a good thing for all concerned. In the Corporate world the only company that should be worried about the takeover is Warner and how they will hold on to and grow share. Indies don’t care too much for growing share and making nice on Wall Street. We have our own things to worry about or prioritise things that are important to us.

So, this leaves the Beggars Group as the leading UK music company/label. And they are not happy about the EMI takeover. Let’s not forget Beggars has the biggest album of the year and maybe the decade. They are Independent however the scale of their success is ‘Major’. They innovate and are driven by a passion for the music, not by what Wall Street needs. The Independent sector is in rude health and on the back of a huge growth spurt, regardless of the A-Factor.

When Universal buy Beggars. That’s the time to worry.

Why Music Matters is an industry campaign focused on stimulting the conversation around ‘Why Music Matters’. It’s ultimately designed to ensure we all understand and appreciate the ‘value’ in music, by ‘value’ we mean the focus, time, energy and emotion spent on creating music from the artists’s point of view. And furthermore, that we pay a fair price for it.

Distractions

Those of us who are over 30 can all remember when music was the be-all and end-all of our lives. Music was not just somethingt to listen to but a way of life. A movement. For the best part of 10 years music has become just another form of entertainment, another thing to purchase that’s in competition with video games, movies, gadgets and life’s multiple and growing distractions. Or worse, just something you can get for free and share with your friends. There’s nothing wrong with sharing music, it’s often how we discover a  new artist or song. Wholesale file sharing of massive catalogues is not about ‘discovery’. It’s theft.

Movements

Gone are Mods vs. Rockers, movements such as Merseybeat, New Romantics, Hip-Hop, Grunge, British Heavy Metal (NWOBHM anyone?) and more recently, Brit Pop. Movements that created a mass sense of belonging, identity, fashion, pride and importantly for the music business, huge sales. Music was at the centre of all these and other movements. Where would the era of ‘Cool Britannia’ in the 90′s be without Britpop and Oasis v.s Blur? Floppy hair or biker jacket, we’ve all been in a movement at some point. Some of you still are!

Why Music Matters is designed to make you stop and think about the ‘why’ and the supporting artist videos, led this week by support from The Beatles (!) do a great job in giving anyone an appreciation for Why Music Matters. Whether it be personal triumph or combating politics, music and the artists who create it have changed things in the world. Please watch great videos about why  The Jam, Louis Armstrong, Kate Bush and The Beatles all matter to us.

The recorded music business has taken a well documented kick in the teeth over the past 10-20 years (some of the pain being self-inflicted) with the advent of the Internet and file sharing but an appetite for music overall remains quite strong. In a business that’s more risk averse than ever before, by not appreciating why music matters, less artists get signed and ultimately less original music getting produced by the big labels.

Can you imagine a life without Led Zeppelin, The Beatles, AC/DC, The Rolling Stones, The Jam, Oasis? Who will be the the next Beatles? What will the next movement be? What song will be the soundtrack to your life? Exactly the point. And that’s Why Music Matters…

It’s the very first ‘Music Connex’ an event that is designed to raise awareness and lift the lid on how to ‘DIY’ in the music business. A topic close to most musicians and indeed industry peoples hearts.

New events are potentially interesting and potentially fraught with risks. ‘What will it be like?’, ‘Who’s going?’ and ‘Is it worth the money?’ It’s a delicate balancing act for the organisers. Many people can be stand offish when considering a new event, some open minded and it can be a fine line between deciding to attend or not. One colleague of mine only goes to Midem each year and acknowledges he could have a full time job just attending music conferences and seminars if he accepted every invitation he got.

As a growing independent company who, are very proactive in the ‘new reality’ of the ‘new music business’, we decided to go ‘all in’. We sent 3 people to Music Connex. An artist, A producer and the Managing Director. Now that’s commitment.

A mixture of panels, workshops and networking opportunities promised much. We spread ourselves so that we attended virtually every panel and workshop and debriefed each day. Our objective was to look and listen and see if there was anything new, and to connect with people. We got the feeling that many of the key speakers were happy to evangelise DIY music but the reality is that no one actually stood up and told you how much time, money and sweat it takes to ‘do it yourself’ and that you have to be bordering on insane to take it on and DIY properly.

There’s a reason why record companies exist. To get the scale and reach they do, you can’t do it yourself unless you have a (very) big bag of money, very large industry network and the business and marketing nous to whip up ‘the perfect storm’ of campaigns in a congested and competitive marketplace.

Here at Definition, we do DIY but we do also work with labels and the wider industry within our Publishing, Management and Consulting interests.

Here’s what DIY means if you are an unsigned, emerging artist:

You are going to be banging your head against a very large brick wall for a long time. Only if you have lots of time, network, tenacity, some money and let’s not forget great music, will you be in the game. This is only the ‘price of admission’ – it does not get you to ‘table to play’. Let’s assume you have great talent, great music, perfectly recorded and produced and an easily identifiable target audience. How are you going to tell the world in any meaningful way?

There was a reoccurring theme at Music Connex: ‘It’s all about the music’. No. It’s at least all about the music, marketing, right team, timing and money. Your latest and greatest composition is no good to you if it’s destined only be played to your best mate. And his dog.

We should assume you are not a marketing expert…but you are going to need to be to some extent. If you are an ‘artist’ and only want to be an artist, get someone who gets marketing and promotion and has the will and desire (and time) to help you. In the ‘new music business’, the artist must also understand that you are in the business of music and this business has to be managed, regardless of whether you have budget or not, a label deal or not.

We have seen this ‘desire’ from an artist to tell the world about their music in action. It means teams of friends and family blogging, it means pressing the flesh and networking with CDs (yes, CD’s still work!), it means getting on any live bill that’s relevant, it means lots of research into where the opportunities for unsigned artists are (there are some contrary to what you might think) and going for it. It can mean sitting at a computer for days, weeks, months, applying for any opportunity you can, following up calls and NEVER giving in. In 1-3 years you might make some headway and then, if not sooner you may need to spend some money to promote yourself.

Still want to DIY?

A dear colleague of ours who we work with here at Definition Music just got 2 albums he worked on recently in a engineering and production capacity nominated simultaneously for a Mercury Music Prize. He’s extremely talented. It took (past sense) being a signed artist (recording/publishing) to a major indie, years of plying his trade, the patience of a saint and the sheer determination, sometimes against the odds and when ‘getting a proper job’ seems like the only thing to do just to get this recognition. That’s commitment.

Still want to DIY?

We paint a tough picture but it’s an honest picture. We are glad we attended Music Connex but this reality of DIY music was not well reflected. Maybe because the attendees might have walked out? Or maybe we, as industry believe that if you are ‘greatness personified’ then the industry will discover you. Unlikely. You have to make waves that turn into a Tsunami to ‘be discovered by accident’.

So ‘Connex was good overall, despite the slight lack of reality. We had specific objectives for attending. See if there were any tricks we were missing (there weren’t) and connect with lots of new people (we did). So after all our ramble, what of it, here’s the highlights:

Good:

• Good cross section of topics discussed in the panels. Discussions on getting gigs, how to win on You Tube, radio listening panel, how to make money, write songs and basically all the elements of being an artist were covered.
• The panellists themselves were strong, some were more comfortable in public speaking than others but there was a good cross section of the industry, for the most part. Some of the panellists were insightful and evangelised information that most people were not aware of, especially on the topic of fund raising.
• The chosen moderators were excellent, folks from You Tube, Music Week, Music Lawyers and more kept the topics flowing and relevant to the audience. Some were even entertaining…Jamie Dolling…you should have your own deadpan humour show.
• Kings Place as a venue in London was very good for an event this size and the organization was good.
• Attendance was very healthy but this was mostly from artists not industry.

Could Do Better:

• Ticket prices for most were a stretch. Corporate tickets at £300 were over priced, £150 if you were an individual which I heard many artists complaining about. We did hear un-confirmed stories that many people got free tickets to bolster the attendance.
• More industry please. The industry that was there were there to speak on panels for the most part and 50% of them left as soon as they could and 50% stayed to ‘meet and greet’ which was to be applauded.
• Where were the labels? Not one single major record label showed up to offer their views on the changing business or how they were going to work with artists and managers doing more for themselves.
• Networking opportunities. Lots of industry got out as soon as they could, there should have been a meet and greet of some kind. Credit to the folks who gave out their email addresses and openly engaged in receiving CDs and demos.
• Marketing opportunities for artists. This needed to be managed better, artists leaving piles of demo CDs all over the place was not pretty…or effective. How about an official goody bag everyday? At least the content would be managed.
• Facebook. Shame on your presentation. Worst of the event. Know your audience. Don’t try to sell the idea that paid advertising on Facebook is the way a struggling and skint emerging artist is going to find an audience. I can tell you that you won’t. Save your money.
• Choice of food and drink and the prices! Where was Pret A Manger and a Costa Coffee when you needed one?!

Summary:

I hope there’s a ‘Connex next year but it’s going to have to evolve. We did get business done but we were there for broader reasons, most emerging artists probably walked away more daunted and confused than when they arrived. Daunted they should be, confused they shouldn’t. The subjects will need to be broader and the industry representation will need to be larger, have a deeper involvement and it will need some big hitters to get involved to take this event to the next level. If that happens, we’ll probably go again.