Tag Archives: music industry

The Rise and Fall of Mega Music Bands

Memoirs, Music, Uncategorized, , , , ,

Years back, I was the security investigator for a major hotel chain, and I had been assigned to one of their large properties in San Francisco. As a somewhat superfluous member of that institution’s security department, it was never really understood where I stood in the chain of command, but it was always assumed that I was probably somewhere near the top, but never high enough to be one to make actual decisions. For a young man fresh out of the military, it was kind of comfortable because being in such a position meant access to whatever was going on without much of the responsibility for what was happening. If I had to sum it up, I was an executive at just looking good and being present for anything important happening.

Well, one of those things that happened was a major convention for a national music organization that sponsored a major headliner show featuring Huey Lewis & the News with an opening act by a young group Wilson Philips.

Now, at this time, Huey Lewis & the News was probably one of the biggest bands in America. And Wilson Philips, which acted as their starter band, was gaining a lot of traction with three hit songs that had been released earlier that year. So, it was expected that a lot of people were going to show up for this shindig to see the hottest show in town.

As this “important” security person, I was literally right there in the wings of the stage as the bands went on to perform. Around me were all sorts of music insiders who had serious clout with various record companies. And as I was dressed in a suit rather than casual wear, it actually appeared I was more connected to this industry than I was. In reality, I was the glorified security, but because my position was mostly a specialty of remaining undercover, people just assumed I was part of their crowd.

So, why am I sharing this? Well, one of the perks of this kind of position and such placement is that you begin to discover that musicians quite often are quite bored backstage and are constantly inundated with attempts by industry people to get their attention. My focus is always on just watching the crowd, so I kind of stood out because I was one of the few people there who didn’t appear all that interested in trying to gain the attention of the people who perform on stage. As a result, these stars had a tendency to sidle up next to me and start conversations.

And there were many of them, but one of them struck me as more interesting than the others. Chynna Philips, the lead singer for Wilson Philips, was wandering around backstage after their set, while Huey Lewis & the News were performing. She stood next to me and said: “Aren’t they great?”

I nodded and said, bluntly: “They used to be my favorite group.”

She seemed kind of surprised by my statement. I assumed most people probably spoke in awe of that band to her as she was basically delegated to being the starter band for a rock band that was extremely popular at the time. “Used to?” she said.

I nodded. “They’re kind of on their way out. Bands like yours are going to quickly replace them.”

She seemed actually pretty interested and then continued talking to me about Huey Lewis & the News, music in general and how interesting the industry was. Then she mentioned she needed to use the restroom, and did I know where one might be. I think she had realized I was some kind of higher up with the hotel because a couple of the security officers had walked over to me to pass on information to me while Chynna and I were talking. So, I walked her through the bowels of the infrastructure of the hotel to take her to the women’s restroom, choosing that path because I knew it would keep onlookers from intercepting her during the journey (something I’m sure happened quite often to a musician who was dressed in a very Hollywood-ish type ensemble for her performance.

During out trip, she shared a lot of interesting information about herself and the industry, and to be honest, I think she was just happy she was able to talk freely without having to answer questions as a “star”, which probably was the only kind of conversation she had been entertaining since gaining mass celebrity as a musician in a very popular band.

Anyway, this story isn’t really about that encounter, but to point out that she introduced a really interesting subject to me, something I hadn’t given much thought to before, and that’s that bands have an interesting life cycle that almost always seem to lead to inevitable conclusions. Even the band Wilson Philips made that journey, gaining mega fame almost overnight and then disappearing in a wisp of smoke so soon after appearing on the horizon.

What I hadn’t mentioned is that right before my conversation with Chynna Philips, one of the band members of Huey Lewis & the News was fuming backstage before they went on. This was while Wilson Philips was playing their set. But as I watched him, I had no idea what was bothering him, although he wasn’t focused on the music playing; something else seemed to have triggered him. And then they went on and did their full set, putting on what I honestly thought was one of their best performances to date. However, when they left the stage and walked by those of us on stage, I remember one of the stagehands saying “Good show!” to them as they passed him, and that musician gave him the dirtiest look I’ve ever seen from one man to another. I doubted the two of them even knew each other (that look he gave was more a “how dare you!” than a “Not this again!”). It was right about that time that I determined this band was about to end, and I didn’t know anything personal about any of their dynamics.

However, a short time later, the band fizzled and died.

This got me to thinking that most bands tend to go through this cycle of discovery, mega stardom and then collapse soon after. It’s almost as if they are only designed to last a certain amount of time before they implode and dissolve.

So, I thought I would focus on the different reasons why bands collapse after they reach their apex of success. So, generally, what are these reasons?

  1. Break-up: The quintessential example of this is probably the Beatles, a band that broke into the stratosphere and then imploded one day after recording “Let It Be”. It’s that one band that so many wished would have gotten back together again, but which turned out to be sustainable with each member alone until, unfortunately, several of their members lost their lives. As of now, two members are still active in their own careers, but the two we lost were definitely legends all on their own. Other groups that have gone this direction (with pushes and shoves to regroup and try again), include: the Eagles, the Everly Brothers, and Fleetwood Mac (although many others probably fit this category).
  2. Departure of a Main Influencer: This happens when one or a few members of a band decide to go their own way, and generally don’t come back. Examples of this include Van Halen when they lost David Lee Roth and Journey when they lost Steve Perry. The bands continue to try to recapture their momentum going forward, but in many cases they are never perceived to be the same powerhouse band they were back when they were previously together. This was somewhat the storyline of “This is Spinal Tap,” even though the band was mostly fictitious (but possibly better than some bands that actually took themselves seriously).
  3. Bands That Take a Bad Turn: This is really the story I probably started telling when I first started this article, as this was, in my opinion, the direction that Huey Lewis & the News took. Back in their prime, HL & the News probably could do no wrong, and it was a band that was at the forefront of setting trends during this period. And then, out of nowhere, they sort of died off. Strangely enough, I kind of predicted this was going to happen the first time I heard their last big hit, Hip to Be Square, in which it really felt like the band was trying to carry-over its coolness factor by purporting to be so cool that it could do so while being a total square. It sort of set them off on a trajectory of obsolescence.
  4. The Trend is Over: As much as I liked Wilson Philips, this was the direction they took when they released their second and third album. People were thrilled with their first album, but the follow-up albums felt a lot like they weren’t breaking any new ground. And they had received so much play time with the first album that people generally didn’t perceive any reason to want to continue buying much of the same. This is why a lot of groups really need to go big with their second and third albums, because the public is extremely fickle when it comes to music. If the audience doesn’t feel like the band is growing, quite often they will turn off the band going forward. A good example of bands and entertainers that have defeated this problem are Taylor Swift, Kiss, Madonna and AC/DC. While I definitely wouldn’t lump their music in the same category, their sustainability is about as legendary as the Rolling Stones.
  5. A Primary Member Dies: This is quite similar to one of the main influencers leaving, except that there’s not going to ever be a reunited tour somewhere off in the future. Lynyrd Skynyrd, besides being one of the hardest bands to spell correctly, was already established as a powerhouse in the music scene when its lead Ronnie Van Zant, Steve Gaines and back-up singer Cassie Gaines died in a plane crash in South Carolina; while the band has tried to recover with new players over the years, it has never reached the apex it achieved during those earlier years. Other bands that lose one influential member to death quite often lead to their demise as well.
  6. Unpopular Music Direction: From time to time, a band will have had a career of solid music and then take a completely different turn in its music, which immediately causes its audience to seek other entertainers instead. While this is a more subjective category, such bands can be included with this designation as Jefferson Airplane, Chromatics, Neil Young and Bob Dylan. What makes this category controversial and debatable is that quite often musicians that go this direction can make massive strides moving forward, but just in a completely different venue.

If anything can be said about the whole phenomenon of music sustainability, it’s that the artists rarely know what’s about to happen to their longevity before it happens. But that one evening that Huey Lewis & the News performed, it was obvious that that musician started to realize things were starting to unravel for his group. Either that, or he was just generally a sour person.

But one thing that was for sure was that Huey Lewis & the News stopped being the powerhouse it once was and no attempts to recover that lost popularity was ever going to succeed. So they may have been hip to be square, but unpopular was never going to be cool.

Battling Through the Trenches of Publisher’s Row

Books, Business, Economics, Music, Social Networking, Writing, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

"I read all of Duane Gundrum's books because he's so dreamy...."

In case you aren’t aware of it, there is a war taking place. I’m not talking about Libya, Afghanistan or Iraq. I’m talking about the war that is currently waging over the publication of books. What war? You say. Well, let me explain.

For years, in order to get published, you sent out your work to a publisher (or an agent in hopes of getting a publisher), and if you were very lucky, you might get a bit of an advance. Sometimes, those advances were for decent money. Around the 1970s and on, they started getting really small. Kind of dismal, actually. Unless you were already a famous author, like Stephen King. So, you would get about $5,000-$10,000, and then the publisher would take 18 months or so to create your book. Then it would get released. If it started to sell, great. You would receive about $1.67 for a $20 book for each sale, the publisher keeping pretty much everything else. After all, they were the publisher. That $1.67 would continue to knock down the amount of the advance you received until you actually started to make what are called royalties, which would be additional money the book made after you paid off the advance. Most books tended to not even make back the advance, so you were generally lucky enough if you made somewhat of a decent advance.

Well, recently, the publishing industry has kind of been turned on its side. E-books are becoming the new “in” thing, and strangely enough, publishers are still maintaining their dominance in the industry, because they are still the power brokers they used to be. In other words, in order to gain any attention whatsoever, you really needed the publisher to get the attention out that you had published a book. So, not surprisingly, publishers have been publishing e-books, too, and still taking that outrageous amount off the top, leaving writers with very little profit, even though the costs for publishers have diminished to almost nothing.

Something new has started to happen, which is turning the whole industry on its side now. Writers are going directly to the readers and selling their books without the publishers. And needless to say, this is causing a bit of a stir in the whole industry. Publishers need the writers to survive, and so they are doing everything possible to diminish the positive experience for writers, so that publishers still remain the power brokers that they have always been. Unfortunately for them, that model isn’t going to last that much longer.

The publishing industry is a lot like the music industry, and its current dynamic is going through a revolution much like the music industry has recently gone through as well. While there are still seriously powerful music leaders in the industry still calling shots, a lot of artists have gone directly to the Internet with their work, and are bypassing the profit model previously established by the RIAA and other such top-down industry leaders. This has caused all sorts of problems for the industry, but it has done wonders to present new opportunities for artists who may never have received an ounce of attention before.

Move this into the publishing world, and you see the same sort of thing happening there. The publishing industry is still in control right now, mainly because the model hasn’t completely developed yet. Online booksellers, like Amazon, Apple, and somewhat Barnes & Noble, are producing their own e-readers that allow writers to push their content to eager subscribers. However, the battle currently waging is who is going to control the process flow from this point forward.

The publishing industry is counting on its enormous clout to push their agenda forward. They have already pushed back against Amazon (which has forced the others to comply) where they forced the increase in the cost of books being sold on the Kindle. You used to be able to get brand new books for $9.99, but now you’re lucky if you can get one for $12.99. The game changer in the first battle was Ken Follett’s new book Fall of Giants, which publishers forced Amazon to sell at $19.99. The backlash against the book has been interesting as Kindle users included all sorts of bad reviews for the book based on the price alone, taking what would have probably been a five or four star reviewed book down to an average of about 3 stars. What’s interesting is that his reviews on this book tend to resemble an upside down bell curve, with 301 5-stars and 327 1-star reviews, with a tiny amount filling in for 2, 3, and 4-star reviews. In other words, the critics either really liked it or really hated it, and there’s no doubt that the really hated reviews come specifically from people who are pissed off at the price.

If this was the end of the fight, you’d think that the publishers pretty much won, but like most great stories, a new sliver has been added to the mix, with writers being that added variable. Writers, realizing that they need to somehow be able to take advantage of this new technology, have started to show up sans publishers (being their own publishers), and they’re starting to include their own novels at much lower cost than the publishers are forcing down the e-market’s throat. Rather than stick it out at $9.99 (or push it up to the publisher’s price of $12.99), writers are now starting to introduce their books at the $2.99-$4.99 range, providing a more comfortable area for readers to purchase on impulse alone. Some of the more prominent writers, instead of using their fame to push for $12.99, like the gas station economic model the publishers are following (one raises the price, the rest follow), are listing their books at $0.99. According to some of the better known writers doing this, they’ve pointed out that because of the amount of people willing to buy a book at that low price, their profit has actually been better than if they tried to sell their books at higher prices. The economic implications are staggering, the more you think about it.

The biggest problems facing the writers right now is how to actually get anyone to pay attention to them in the first place. The one thing publishers have going for them was that their clout actually got books into bookstores, and without that clout, an unknown writer is essentially that, an unknown writer. If no one knows you exist, the chances of selling a book are dismal, at best. So, right now, the battle has halted, as both publishers and writers realize they’re at an interesting crossroad where both can benefit, but neither seems willing to budge. Publishers aren’t interested in giving up their high percentages they receive for “publishing” books while writers are no longer interested in giving up the entire store just to get their work out there. Which means that once writers figure out how to jumpstart the system in their favor, the whole publishing industry is going to go the way of the recording industry.

But what can a writer do to become marketable without already being a famous writer who was selling books already? That’s an important question and one that I’m spending a lot of time studying.

I’ll let you know once I figure it out.

The Music Industry Just Doesn’t Get It…They Lied to Us

Economics, Music, , , , , , , , , ,

You would think with the amount of money that goes into music studios that they would have actually hired someone who is capable of telling the executives what is really going on. Instead, we have a bunch of studio heads that are so convinced they understand the pulse of the consuming public that they don’t have to listen to anyone, and for some reason they’re losing more and more money every year.

The problem emerged in the beginning when music went from albums to CDs and then online. The old paradigm consisted of music studios finding talent, packaging it and then filtering it out to radio stations that then opened the doors for people to rush to record stores to purchase the brand new content. Well, somewhere down the line that model fell apart, mainly because a few little promises made never came through, and then the industry changed overnight as a result.

What I’m talking about was a promise that the music industry made to consumers when albums were on the out and CDs were coming in. The simple promise was that CDs, which were cheaper to make than albums, were going to be cheaper for customers. This was the selling point to get people to give up their vinyl albums and welcome CDs. The promise was that CDs would cost $9.99 all of the time. Well, when CDs first came out, that WAS the price, and then quickly they started to increase to $13.99 and other such prices. Now, if you’re lucky, a CD can be found “on sale” for $9.99 off of the retail price of much more.

We were lied to. Oh, the naysayers will claim such a promise was never made, but for those of us who were paying close attention back then, the promise definitely was made. Instead of following the plan, executives realized that consumers are stupid, or so they thought, so they just went back on their word and sold CDs for what they figured they could get, rather than for how much it was promised.

A funny thing happened right after that. The Internet showed up. You see, if that never happened, the music industry would still be the major entity it was a few decades ago. But no one anticipated that a couple of geeks at universities wanting to talk to each other would lead to something so powerful and so overwhelming. But the Internet happened, and the music industry was in the wrong place at the right time.

The consumer population was kind of pissed at the music industry at this time because of the whole lie thing, and then when the next generation realized that it could get all of this expensive technology for free, they jumped on it. So two things happened at once. The music industry cheated the older customers by lying to them while the younger customers grew up with a new paradigm where they got everything for free. You see, if the music industry hadn’t lied to the older generation, they might have actually had powerful allies on their side. Instead, they had a bunch of pissed off customers who decided to just let the music industry fend for itself. Where these people could have been the “moral” guides to the younger generation, who wants to be the moral guides to people who are doing something you figure the bad guys deserve anyway?

Well, the music industry sat it out, thinking things would fall back in place, but their real ally, musicians jumped ship on them as well. Oh sure, the established musicians were in their corner, but consumers are a fickle sort, dumping old artists for new ones because music really doesn’t have standards that are controlled by executives. Music is music and people will seek it wherever it can be found.

And a lot of future musicians realized that if they wanted to make it in the industry, there was a new direction to take, one that required they take their music directly to the people. This opened up the industry to everyone, and as more and more independent artists showed up, the music industry had less and less control over the content.

That’s kind of where we are today. The music industry is trying to save itself by reestablishing the controls, but no one really cares anymore. There was an attempt to force streaming content under draconian rules, but music executives are starting to realize that this isn’t leading to sales. What the music industry never realized was that the future was going to be somewhat of a free for all because if you can’t trust the industry to do what they promise, then you look elsewhere for results.

Recently, I bought a CD for the first time in about a year. Yeah, it’s been that long. I’m still pissed. It was Taylor Swift’s new album, and it was on sale for $9.99. Imagine that. Anyway, it’s a great CD, but it’s probably the only one I’ll buy for at least another year. I’m one of their solid customers, and it’s taken a long time to bring me back to the market. Before I stopped buying music, I used to buy three or four albums a week. They’ll never regain the market share they had before. It’s just not going to happen.

Like I said, the music industry lied back when it needed to win over its customer base. So, hopefully as these executives find new jobs mowing lawns, or whatever it is unemployed music executives are capable of doing, they’ll remember it was really their fault. And they should keep in mind that if they promise to mow someone’s lawn and then go back on their promise, they’re probably not going to get paid. The real world is kind of mean that way.