Today, the major labels control the charts, but independence is slowly making itself felt. Radio stations still really only playlist tracks from major labels, but even with the passing of John Peen there are still some notable torchbearers for new, fresh and independent music (think Zane Lowe et al). Payola? Well, it’s still probably there to an ... ]]> Once upon a time, the major labels controlled the charts absolutely with an iron fist. Radio stations only playlisted tracks from major labels, payola was rife and pluggers knew the station controllers on a first name basis, they were in their offices so frequently.

Today, the major labels control the charts, but independence is slowly making itself felt. Radio stations still really only playlist tracks from major labels, but even with the passing of John Peen there are still some notable torchbearers for new, fresh and independent music (think Zane Lowe et al). Payola? Well, it’s still probably there to an extent, but everybody’s pursestrings have been tightened for a whle now. Pluggers still do the rounds but more artists are embracing the music machine and arranging their own marketing and promotion with the same people.

But what’s changed in twenty years?

To start with, ‘Specialist’ stations like Kerrang Radio (playlisted in the AM and daytime, DJ-chosen in the evenings) are still going strong, and the rise and rise of the Internet has given birth to scores of high-quality, free online radio stations. Online retail, driven by the likes of iTunes, Play, Amazon, Tesco, 7Digital and HMV, continues to take market share (almost 100% of UK single sales are digital, along with a good dollop of albums).

But yet, until this year, the one remaining safe haven for the pop industry – the Christmas Number 1 – had remained unspoilt (for the major labels) since 1998, when the Spice Girls were (within 5,000 sales) almost usurped by Chef’s Chocolate Salty Balls. From then onward with little exception, we witnessed manufactured pop song after manufactured pop song, with the SyCo Pop Factory doing its bit for novelty singles and two-week ‘hits’ (up to #1 in the first week of sales, then falling down past #40 within a month). But in November 2009, Jon Morter took the pulse of the music-loving nation and spearheaded an online campaign – to push Rage Against The Machine’s Killing In The Name to the Christmas Number 1 spot. This campaign proved marvellously successful, with RATM easily making the Number 1 spot over Joe X-Factor McElderry’s (cover) single by a margin of more than 50,000 sales.

This grassroots fan campaign, coordinated through Facebook, Twitter and word of mouth, also set a couple of remarkable precedents:

• Killing In The Name is the first UK Number 1 achieved purely from online sales
• the track also achieved the biggest download sales total in a first week ever in the UK charts (more than 500,000 by the cutoff point for that week’s chart’s sales)

How’s that for democracy in action? The pop machine, if only for a week, had a massive spanner thrown in the works. Not only did the X Factor content fail to secure a Number 1 position for its winner, a first since the trend began in 2005, it showed just how much can be done by a galvanised group of passionate fans to promote and support great music (even if it’s twelve years old!) when the means to do so are already in place. Without digital downloads of the track being available, this would have never been achievable.

If your faith in the industry has been shaken over the past few years, with the overall contraction of the market and smaller revenues, hopefully this should restore some faith for you. Getting your music up online on the major hitters is now easier than ever before, and it’s one of the core services we take pride in offering to quality artists. Additional services, like promotion, plugging and tour management, are increasingly accessible to independent artists. There’s still no such thing as a free lunch, but even on a meagre budget, a surprising amount can be organised and put into action.

Through all of this, the single most important aspect of any musician’s career is the fanbase. Today, it’s far simpler than ever before to directly connect with your fans. RATM4Xmas should have proven this beyond a shadow of a doubt, first with Morton ramping up his campaign through Facebook and then with Tom Morello tweeting directly from his Blackberry to the campaign’s supporters (and showing that support to the campaign right to the happy end). Negative comments from Cowell and McElderry were forwarded by campaign supporters and industry publications (NME took delight in reporting that McElderry, upon finally hearing the Rage track for the first time, denounced it as ‘dreadful’). Rival fans duked it out in cyberspace, sales figures and rumours were swapped and spread about and – in the meantime – a large amount of money (over £65,000) was raised for charity by the RATM4Xmas fans.

Upon winning, RATM confirmed that they would donate the majority of their earnings from sales to charity, and also hold a free concert in the UK in 2010 to say thank you – the ultimate payoff for the campaign’s supporters. Would any of this – could any of this – have ever happened before now, before the rise of social networking and all the other simple means of engaging with people en masse? Probably not, not even in the 90s. The web had very little to offer in terms of small-scale communication during the first few years of the 21st century, but instant messengers, MySpace, Friendster and others began an upward trend which has not slowed since.

But irrespective of how well people could have communicated or not – everybody managed with email and texting before AIM and MSN took hold – in the 90s, there was simply a lack of legal digital music venues available for customers. Napster was still reigning supreme, downloading was on the rise and habits were changing incredibly quickly. Portable music players were still very much a novelty.

Today? Digital sales are on an equal footing with the good old polycarbonate CD single. In fact, they have an edge – a band can record a single, have it professionally mastered, given to a record label or digital distributor and available for sale within a month, if they’re in enough of a hurry. A fe years ago, the Official Charts Company granted full permission to digital music to be included in the Top 40, provided that the shops selling the tracks pass on a de minimus “Dealer Price” to the label above a threshold which is set out in the OCC Rulebook. Currently, the Dealer Price is 40p per track for digital singles; this is where some of the confusion arose around the 29p Amazon deal during the RATM4Xmas campaign (the Dealer Price is not the retail price, showing that Amazon was selling this track, and the X Factor track, as a massive loss leader… Shrewd marketing from Amazon as always).

Thanks to some visionary organisations and small groups of intensely creative people, all of the tools an artist needs to be heard are available and free to use – with a small amount of money spent, a web site can be put up, MP3s shared, social networking profiles used to chat directly with fans. Today you can find Radio DJs on national stations busy on Twitter and Facebook, talking directly with listeners and bands before, during and after shows, and bands talking to their fanbases directly, bypassing The Label. At every step, it’s more engaging. Given the right push, and enough support, almost anything can be achieved.

We at Revolver like to think we offer that step up many bands need to find their feet online, navigating the complex maze that is international digital music retail. We handle the paperwork, the legalities and the massive amount of different requirements every digital music store insists upon… And with that headache out of the way, artists can set about doing what they actually love to do (writing music, playing gigs and building their fanbase) in the knowledge that we’re handling the tricky stuff for them.

It’s still a two way street, whatever the circumstances – if you have a fanbase, provided you connect with them and give them a good enough reason to support and promote your work, what you can achieve with very little promotion and marketing (compared to splashy, big budget campaigns) is nothing short of astounding. So next time you’re having doubts, just remember: the music industry’s not dead, it’s just sleeping. Time to help wake it up!

Jack Straw, the Blackburn constituency MP, ... ]]> If you’ve not been keeping an eye on the news recently, you might have missed the announcement from EDC that they have decided to shut down their Blackburn manufacturing facility on the 31st of December this year. From then on, all of their manufacturing operations will be moved to EDC’s Hannover facilities. As one of the last remaining CD manufacturers with facilities actually located in the UK, this has come as sad news – not only for the Blackburn’s local economy and the company’s employees, but for the entire music industry in general.

Jack Straw, the Blackburn constituency MP, has already expressed his sadness at the closure, although this news may not have come as a total surprise to those working at the company – they had already handed over large contracts (such as their manufacturing deal with Universal Music Group) at the end of 2008.

Whilst the combination of a decline in CD sales and a faltering global economy will not have helped EDC’s fortunes, by contrast digital sales are steadily increasing. The last 12 months has seen a year-on-year increase of 25% – and in January, Reuters reported on the latest sales statistics from the IFPI. These show that digital sales account for more than 20% of global recorded music sales (in the USA, this figure is higher, at around 33%) – the market value of global digital sales is currently pegged at an astounding $3.7 billion.

Given the smaller costs to labels, artists and music fans, this should come as no surprise. However, it is crucially important not to neglect the continuing importance of releasing your music on CD and vinyl alongside all the various digital platforms.

Time for a little history… Like many other music labels, EDC has been one of Revolver’s key partners for some time now. Their Blackburn facilitiy has been providing manufacturing services to labels big and small for many years now, and through more than a few name changes. Here’s a quick list of their various owners through the past few decades:

• Philips & DuPont Optical: from 1982 – 1996
• Polygram Music Distribution: 1996 – 1998
• Universal Manufacturing & Logistics: 1998 – 2002
• Disctronics: 2002- 2 003
• Deluxe: 2003 – 2006
• EDC: 2006 – present day

Philips were the co-creators of the Compact Disc; EDC’s Blackburn facility has been a key player in the music industry since it began operations in the 1980s. To date, it has produced between 40 and 50 million CDs for labels as diverse as Deutsche Grammophon and Universal – as well as countless DVDs and LaserDiscs.

However, the closure of EDC’s Blackburn plant is not the death knell for the ‘physical retail’ sector of the music industry. If you’ve stepped into a music shop in the past five years or so, you will no doubt have noticed an increasing amount of vinyl (both 12″ and coveted limited edition 7″ releases). On the web, companies like Amazon, Juno, Play and CDWOW are still going strong. Arguably, there are more albums available on CD today than there has ever been before – and there is still a healthy demand for CDs from artists, labels and retailers. As an artist, you understand how important it is to give your fans what they want – your music, available everywhere

So for artists, why are digital downloads so important?

It’s important to understand that digital downloads are not just important to have; it’s far more important to have digital downloads on all the major platforms to reach as many music fans as possible – and it’s crucially important that you ‘do it right.’ What do we mean by this? Three things: strategy, coordination and expertise.

There are many companies who offer services to artists to help get their music onto iTunes, but many only do the bare minimum for your money. They can become quite expensive if you want to sell more than a handful of releases through them. Even worse, many of these companies did not even exist a few years ago – not what you could really call a ‘knowledgeable company’! By contrast, our Revolver Digital service has more than 30 years’ worth of knowledge and experience in the music industry (Revolver Records has been in business contiguously since 1978).

If your aim is to cover all the angles and reach as many of your music fans as possible, here is where our services come into their own. Working with us, you can formulate a solid strategy for releasing your music – from the first promos to the final product. As well as making your music available on all the popular digital platforms, we can also arrange other important services such as txt2buy (otherwise known as SMS shortcodes). Not only can you sell your music on iTunes, you could send a txt2buy code to your fans via MySpace which allowed them to download your latest single before it was released elsewhere.

Taking it one step further, you could even offer fans free exclusive bonus tracks when they come to one of your gigs – by printing the shortcode on their ticket (or announcing it during the gig between songs), it’s an amazingly personal way to offer something a bit special to your biggest fans.

Working with Revolver Digital doesn’t end there.

As well as simply releasing your music, we can coordinate with all the important people involved to make sure your music is out there for people to buy exactly when you want it to be. Want to simultaneously release your latest single on CD and iTunes, and make sure that they both appear at exactly the same time? It’s sorted.

But what about this – imagine you had a gig coming up, and you didn’t want to have to carry 200 copies of your CD (they’re very heavy!) as well as all your gear, your instruments, and your merchandise. By offering your fans a ‘combo’ package at your gig, you can increase sales and solve a problem at the same time. Your fans can buy a copy of your music by SMS shortcode, and get the CD posted to them… And included in the price, they can also download a digital copy, included in the price, to listen to on their phone or audio player before the CD arrives!

You could sell this package at a slight premium, and your fans get instant satisfaction and the best of both worlds – digital audio files to play straight away, and the very highest quality version on a CD, to either add to their collection or share with their friends.

Even if you don’t already have your music on CD, we can arrange that. (We can even produce your artwork!) Getting your music pressed to CD can become very expensive for an independent artist – the paperwork alone involved with getting a CD produced has been known to reduce some to quivering wrecks. However, Revolver has almost 700 CD & vinyl releases under our belts – we know how to ‘do it right’. You might think arranging these kinds of unusual packages would be a nightmare to coordinate without expert help… And you’d be right – but this is where our wide range of expertise comes in.

With Revolver Digital, it’s as simple as asking… We sort it all out for you, so you can focus on making great music.

Revolver Digital provides a range of all inclusive, ‘no strings attached’ solutions for small labels and independent artists alike. Where some other companies charge you for the package and then charge you again for the extras (including some necessities such as ISRCs or barcodes), all this comes as standard with our services. But perhaps more importantly, you get the opportunity to develop your musical career in partnership with one of the country’s longest-running independent music labels – something money can’t buy.

So, if you want to take your music to the next level, get in touch today. You can email us, call us… or even send us a letter. We look forward to hearing from you!

The Official Coalition Retail Charts will be compiled from album and single sales at the 26 independent record shops that form the Coalition, including Rough Trade in London, Birmingham’s Swordfish, and Manchester-based Piccadilly. This new chart will give an insight into alternative music tastes and trends here in the UK.

Martin Talbot, managing director of the OCC, has said, “The launch of this chart is great news for all alternative artists selling music in the UK…”

For more information about the Coalition or to find your nearest member store visit www.thecoalitionuk.co.uk

]]> http://revolver-digital.com/official-coalition-retail-chart-is-launched/feed/ 0 http://revolver-digital.com/music-fans-left-without-tickets-as-website-is-closed-on-suspicion-of-fraud/ http://revolver-digital.com/music-fans-left-without-tickets-as-website-is-closed-on-suspicion-of-fraud/#comments Wed, 12 Nov 2008 18:03:13 +0000 admin http://www.revolver-digital.com/?p=285 Chairman of the Association of Secondary Ticket Agents (ASTA), Graham Burns, has urged consumers “only to buy tickets on the internet from accredited suppliers or legitimate ticket brokers who have signed up to the ASTA Code of Conduct.”

His advice came shortly after the website www.paperticket.co.uk was closed down by the Metropolitan Police Service’s Computer Crime Unit, under the Proceeds of Crime Act, last week after selling tickets at abnormally low prices and, in many cases, failing to supply customers with their purchases.

The ASTA (which represents over 50 ticket brokers) believes that support is needed from the Government in order to protect consumers in the future. People who have bought tickets from the site are encouraged to call Consumer Direct for advice on 08454 04 05 06, or visit the website www.governmentdirect.org.uk .

New interim trade delivery figures from the IFPI show that of the top five music territories, the UK was the best performer digitally with sales worth $115.8m (£74.52m) already (they stood at $169.5m [£109.02m] at the end of 2007).

Thus, although physical sales slumped 10% – the UK and US markets combined accounted for a 60% loss of physical sales globally – in the same period, the digital growth prevented a total collapse.

Digital sales now account ... ]]> A 45% increase in digital sales has helped slow the decline in the UK music market to just 4% in the first half of the year.

New interim trade delivery figures from the IFPI show that of the top five music territories, the UK was the best performer digitally with sales worth $115.8m (£74.52m) already (they stood at $169.5m [£109.02m] at the end of 2007).

Thus, although physical sales slumped 10% – the UK and US markets combined accounted for a 60% loss of physical sales globally – in the same period, the digital growth prevented a total collapse.

Digital sales now account for 16% of the market in the UK, slightly lower than the 20% global average.

IFPI director of market research Gabriela Lopes explains that the UK has performed better than the overall global market, which saw a 12% decline in physical sales in the first half. This equates with the 12% fall over the whole of 2007, indicating the decline in physical sales is pretty stable. “The first half of the year is a pretty good indicator of what will happen over the whole year,” she says.

Combined with the 25% increase in digital sales globally (up significantly from just 15% at end of 2007), the global market has shrunk overall by 5% over the first six months of 2008. But that is actually a decent result in the current economic market because at the end of last year the rate of decline in physical and digital sales combined was 8%.

Spotify

We’ve just negotiated yet another contract, this time, with the guys from Spotify! You’ll be able to select whether you wish to opt in to a service such as spotify. Spotify is one of the latest (and greatest) free music shops around where the artists get paid from advertisement revenue. The industry is changing and we’re all over it. They have just confirmed the majors have been signed up. You will want your music on here! We’ve got the contact before they’ve even launched.

Make sure ... ]]>

Spotify

We’ve just negotiated yet another contract, this time, with the guys from Spotify! You’ll be able to select whether you wish to opt in to a service such as spotify. Spotify is one of the latest (and greatest) free music shops around where the artists get paid from advertisement revenue. The industry is changing and we’re all over it. They have just confirmed the majors have been signed up. You will want your music on here! We’ve got the contact before they’ve even launched.

Make sure you’re a subscriber to keep up with the latest and greatest that is…. Revolver Digital.