Music is a different business – it should do more for music that’s different

A week or so ago, I made five recommendations of music that’s a bit different to my (& maybe your) usual tastes, as part of my strategy to prioritise my music consumption – as set out in this previous post.

Those records were new or recent releases by Portico Quartet, Spiro, Steve Martin, Bill Frisell, The Unthanks and Pink Martini. None of them are ‘popular’ – but each album does fall into a category of sorts – one the many hundreds of music genres or sub-genres. Even Pink Martini – a blend of just about everything except pop, is described on Wikipedia as ‘vintage music’ – a sub genre probably, of ‘easy listening’.

As an industry – if you can really refer to the distribution of commercial music as an industry (a worthy post-grad paper perhaps) – the incredible, bewildering variety of products is what makes the music business totally unique. No other business that I know of puts full-blown produced products out there on the market without any prior knowledge of what will happen next. Sure, if you have a major pop artist with a known commercial track record and the whole dashboard of modern demand metrics, you might be able to put together a half-decent sales forecast – but you’d still be pushing it to be within + or – 100%.

But forget those, if you have any one of the above records – in niche genres – how on earth do you know if you can even hope to break even on releasing the record commercially – i.e. having funded its discovery, production, marketing and distribution? Because the one thing you do know is that you will not have a global hit on your hands.

In this sense, the music business is also unique – in that there are few genuinely ‘independent’ or ‘alternative genre’ records that become global smash hits. The movie business is different – it produces - even if it’s just a couple - of real indie smashes each year, pretty consistently. Be it Blair Witch, The March Of The Penguins, Slumdog, or the very latest example - Paranormal Activity – the small guys can make it really, really big in film.

It happens less so in music – if you look at the top fifty selling albums each year they are dominated by pop records released by majors. Neither small independent’s or niche genre artists get a look in. There are clear reasons based on industry structure. Film has an established independent film network that is supported by major festivals around the world – many of which are celebrated as significant cultural events. It has an ‘art-house’ cinema distribution network too. Film also gets significant government support on the investment side.

The music industry doesn’t have the equivalents. Yes there are numerous small venues that cater to the alternative – but they are not effectively networked and so do not make up more than the sum of their parts. Same for independent labels, really – hence there have been recent initiatives to give the sector a much needed leg-up – such as independent charts. But these often confuse ‘independence’ between source – i.e. label and actual musical style. As for retail, well we can see what’s happened there and it is almost too painful to keep watching.

Music that’s genuinely different, alternative or niche must simply submit to being commercially second-rate. The only global phenomenon of the same nature I can recall is the success of the Buena Vista Social Club Cuban music movement – and that all started with – an independent movie!

I applaud initiatives that try up the ante for the ‘movement’ that is niche music – such as the upcoming January 2010 Reverb festival of concerts at the Roundhouse, which has some support from the Arts Council of England and local Camden Council – though only small commercial sponsors.

However, I’m absolutely convinced this music can scale better than it does, if only it had the right platform. After all, this is the digital age where niche content was in fact supposed to have become the heir to the Blockbuster King, by now according to the uber-thinking-journalists.

Take this simple insight. I have three Pink Martini CDs so I like them – they have grown on me over the years without necessarily becoming an act I would recommend to others regularly. But I know I could name maybe 20-30 other people in my life who would like them as much as me if not more so – but who have never even heard of them. My feeling is that Portico Quartet could achieve the same sort of crossover potential in the UK that Jazz trio E.S.T. achieved in their native Sweden – where they regularly made the mainstream charts.

While I wouldn’t say the same for Spiro or The Unthanks – I’m am pretty convinced that they could probably triple whatever little they do sell - easily – if only they could get some effective, targeted exposure to their receptive audiences, and that could well be the difference between loss & profit.

Steve Martin, well, he doesn’t exactly need to have a hit – and has in fact spent extravagant amounts of his own money on making and touring his ‘The Crow’. But it is such a good record it deserves success in its own right, not just as some kind of vanity project. As for Bill Frisell – at least he is on exactly the right label to connect with his audience – Nonesuch – which specialises in route-to-market for eclectic, different music aimed at the more mature, discerning ear.

And here is the second insight for today. I’m a mature and enthusiastic music fan who has listened to so much stuff that I am receptive – in a state of absolute readiness – to hear more music that’s different. Where do I connect with my fellow audience? I’ve no doubt that audience is large (huge globally); fairly well-off and fairly uninterested in piracy – probably even pro-actively disposed to paying top whack for music - as the rich cultural good that it is. The reason we don’t buy much these days is we are uninspired and ill-informed. No one is putting this music in front of us.

Now I know there is the BBC and in the US, ‘public radio’ – and this is great. Programmes like ‘Late Junction’ are the equivalent of splendid cuisine for the ears – even if you sometimes have to work at it to acquire the taste first. But I don’t really do radio. I want to check this stuff out on demand and then buy it and keep playing it until I love it.

Also, I know these artists could get greater exposure in a number of ways – like what if Portico could get a support slot for Radiohead, or if Spiro got a great synch opportunity? That could break ground, but only as a one-off, transient thing – it might serve those artists well if they are lucky – but it’s not reaching that huge global audience of un-served, unlucky listeners.

And finally here’s the irony. In the UK we are about to get bombarded with new music services (again) – each one upping the ante on the ‘business model’ – more & more music for less & less cash. But the music is always the same stuff. The front-line recommendations are the big artists about to assault the radio networks, the TV and press. Spotify this week has the exclusive with Robbie Williams (do they really need each other?). Sky Songs has launched – in a promotion with The Sun newspaper. It’s like daytime radio all over again - the same music to the broadest audience possible.

Even out of those six million songs in the impressively large catalogues, there’s nothing for we-who-want-different, since we don’t know what we’re looking for, or if we do and hit search, it will not be there more than half the time.

Why don’t we do something different for those people who want something different? I’m on the case...the next post will show us the way...

The new way to listen #3: Music that's 'different'

This is a two part post: first, some music I recommend; second (later in the week) – how can this music be ‘business’?

Recently I wrote about how my music consumption and listening habits are changing – including spending more time opening my ears to music that’s different. It comes not necessarily from boredom with more ‘popular’ genres, but from an adversity to their over-supply – there’s just too much of what’s essentially the same. I need something that pokes my musical senses in new places.

Just last night, at London’s Koko, was a case in point, with the rather marvelous Portico Quartet in performance. They’ve come a long way these four young men. I first heard their music some six years ago, wandering along the Waterloo south bank, where they regularly busked. My wife heard them first - and we gathered round, listened and came away with the band’s self-made CD for fiver, suitably impressed.

I didn’t play the disc much and thought nothing of it until a couple of years later when the band glimpsed the limelight with their 2008 Mercury Music Prize nomination for first album ‘Knee Deep in the North Sea’. I never got ‘round to that album either, as I was still gorging on records back then, working my way through piles & piles of CDs and streams on Napster & Rhapsody, in a futile effort to find those precious few records that get under your skin and become essential slow-burning, long-lasting fuel. I had a filter (not a very good one) for finding the good stuff but no effective mechanism for discovery of what’s really different.

But, with my new priority system in play and working nicely, a portal opens for bands like Portico. And it’s a blessing because this is genuinely thrilling music. I wouldn’t classify it as Jazz. To me its hybrid music that happens to be created by four musicians playing what they play – which happens to be the Hang (look it up on Wikipedia), Soprano Sax (the curved one that looks more like a toy instrument), Bass and Drums.

So what else is different in my music world right now?

Spiro’s ‘Lightbox’ has occupied pride of place on the 2009 playlist and could well turn out to be my album of the year. Peter Gabriel describes Spiro as “soulful and passionate” and you might find, as I did, that this is pretty much spot on. Seeing them earlier this year on a major stage at WOMAD was a life-affirming experience, as is listening to this record repeatedly.

I also recommend Bill Frisell’s fascinating ‘Disfarmer’. I love an album with a theme, a story – something that immediately sets it apart from just an album. It draws me in. Frisell’s album is homage to dustbowl America as seen through the lens of depression era photographer Michael Disfarmer. It’s on Nonesuch records – a label that’s a specialist in the eclectic like no other – look out for this blog’s forthcoming case study on that Label featuring some great insights from legendary founder Bob Hurwitz.

I’ve also recently been streaming Steve Martin’s ‘banjo record’ The Crow (as it says on the cover “truly wonderful and just as advertised”) and The Unthank’s ‘Here’s The Tender Coming’. When my conscience gets a grip on me, I will invest in both albums on CD - perhaps.

Finally – just delivered on CD from Amazon is Pink Martini’s new album Splendor In The Grass. This record is a musical equivalent of treacle – The Times review summed it up: “Mamboing transvestite district attorneys, a 90-year-old Mexican ranchera singer, a Tchaikovsky piano concerto, Italian pop kitsch, missing heads, Peter Sellers’s sitar, Sesame Street singalongs and a Neapolitan lullaby”. It’s easy listening, yes (nothing wrong with that!) but it is also authentic, beautifully performed and meticulously recorded. It’s lush – a joy to behold.

Black Gives Way to Blue: The Return of AIC and resulting format confusion...

There’s nothing like music for taking you back. Seventeen years ago (at the start of my professional career) I was what you might call an angry young man. Music has always provided me with a kind of fuel – and at the time music - specifically the music of Alice In Chains, was fuelling my anger rather nicely. This past two weeks have taken me right back there, but in the best way imaginable.

Back in 1992 I was on some major systems project or other for an energy company, in the employ of Andersen Consulting, now otherwise known as Accenture. I was sharing a flat with a studious American called Floyd and a conscientious, ambitious young lady called Heidi, neither of whom could make head ‘nor tail of me or my anger.

To Floyd & Heidi, that project seemed like the place to be, the pinnacle of professional assignments. To me it just sucked. So much so, I would start my days with a loud blast of AIC’s ‘Dirt’ (I’m talking LOUD and before 8 am). I must have been the flatmate from hell. Belated apologies Floyd & Heidi wherever you are.

For those unfamiliar, Dirt is an absolute classic. It’s unforgiving, relentless, driving, bleak, but as melodic as rock gets. It was my album of the year and AIC was my favourite band then, my fuel of choice.

It was with trepidation then, that I approached the new record by AIC released just a few weeks ago. It was a real surprise to me. I read a gig review in The Guardian while I was on vacation (I had NO IDEA they had reformed). Anyone at all familiar with the group will know why this is more than a little remarkable.

What I loved about AIC is what was makes so many bands special – the blend of two great talents working together – the 2+2 making 5. In AIC’s case this is guitarist and songwriter Jerry Cantrell and, back then in the angry days of 1992 – singer and frontman Layne Staley. Cantrell brought the driving, power-drill guitars, Staley one of the most organic and original voices in rock music. The two also combined for those distinctive harmonies that made the band stand out from anything else from the grunge scene at that time, or since. But Staley was a heavy heroin user and eventually died of an overdose in 2002.

And that is what makes AIC’s revival so remarkable. Staley was essentially irreplaceable, but some years on - has been replaced. The new singer William DuVall (a 42 year old who has been around for years with other bands) not only sounds remarkably like Staley, but of course, fills in perfectly for those harmony parts, that can be heard throughout the new record in all their glory.

Black Gives Way To Blue is a fabulous album that has somehow arrived just at the right time for me personally and for other AIC fans I hope. Nearly 20 years on since I became a fan I was frankly worried I might find it too LOUD, but I don’t at all - though I do prefer the slower tracks. The title track (which features some lovely piano by none other than Elton John) is the best ballad I have heard this year. It’s about death but somehow is utterly life-affirming.

Of course, I had to have this particular record on CD. I could not possibly be satisfied by previewing a new AIC album on Spotify. Not only did the reviews reassure me it was an album good enough to invest in (there are no weak tracks on this album - it's filler free), but I didn’t want to listen to it and think it was ‘just okay’ which is how most stuff sounds to me on Spotify – not because of sound quality issues (I have some pretty good computer speakers) – but because it’s on tap, so I can never quite concentrate on it for some reason.

I didn’t want to download it either, probably because I have all AIC’s previous releases on disc (the last full album being 1995’s self-titled release). This isn’t logical either, because I'm hardly a record collector, even when it comes to my favourite bands. I can only readily find Dirt, as it sits there pride of place on my ‘All Time Classics’ shelf. Where the hell are my ‘Jar of Flies’ and ‘AIC’ albums then? Somewhere in the rubble – either in the ‘transitory cupboard’? (not current, not classic, not yet in the shed) – or surely not – actually in the shed! Or worse, gone.

So, ironically enough, I’m now back on Spotify streaming the back catalogue...convenient isn't the word. There just isn’t one way to access, listen, organise and store music these days and that’s a good thing. But sometimes it drives me crazy.

Music in-box jammed full this week. I’ve been reading about the Pixie’s outstanding re-union gig at Brixton Academy and since I don’t know their music (I’m acutely aware of my ‘music gaps’) I’m really keen to get to it. But then I am enthralled to the new Alice In Chains and Pearl Jam records and enjoying my own personal grunge revival. On the other hand, I bought three albums yesterday (7 Digital’s £5 albums are irresistible) – Editors, Ravonettes and The Flaming Lips. I’ve checked out a few tracks from the first two records and they are red hot. But I'm so enjoying The Temper Trap's 'Conditions' still. I've just received a few interesting playlists from respected music colleagues as well. And I’m still trying to work my way through The Beatles re-masters. Think I’ll just combust, it’s much easier...

Can The Beatles finally realise their ambitions?

In Richard DeLillo’s book The Longest Cocktail Party there’s an amusing passage around the release of The White Album (I think, from memory, I can no longer find my copy to check) whereby Apple Corps, the then recently formed Beatles operating company, were positively vexed by the album’s sales performance. The album – an expensive double – was comfortably installed at number one of course, but someone in the Apple camp had calculated that only one in ten households had bought the record. ‘One in ten’ seemed like an outrage – nine out of every ten households hadn’t (yet) bought it! The marketing plan – if such things existed in 1968 – became a ‘how do we get the other nine to buy it’.

Even in their heyday, The Beatles didn’t quite achieve ubiquity (indeed, another band on the EMI label – Queen – has sold more albums to date, worldwide, if my copy of Mojo rock trivia is to be believed). But the remarkable fact is, The Beatles have – as a commercial musical entity – never stopped striving for it and probably never will. Thirty years after the band split, 2000’s “1” compilation of the collective number 1 singles, broke sales records around the world and introduced the band to a whole new set of audiences. Throughout the nineties The Beatles had seen a steady renewal of interest, thanks to the rise of Britpop during that decade.

Now 2009 marks another landmark year in The Beatles commercial career, with the re-masters releases and the arrival of the band into the gaming world via Rock Band. The early sales analysis on the re-masters is impressive, with sales of 2.25 million in the first four days. See the country breakdown on Hypebot here. The campaign seems easily sustainable as Christmas approaches with those two juicy box sets to choose from – there’ll be plenty of fans who want to own both.

With the re-issue campaign being ‘insight-based’ I’m curious to know more about who has bought what of the re-masters – not just the country-based data. I’m intrigued as to whether the re-issues have found truly wide audiences as “1” did, or whether the majority of purchases have been made by the owners of previous recordings. What does the audiophile market make of the re-masters? Did they rate the stereo mixes or stick with the mono?

Also, I’m wondering if many consumers have been tempted to make their first CD purchases for a good while having otherwise ‘gone digital’ – or whether indeed the digital audience has shown any interest at all. Have any digital natives bought their first CD from this collection? If so, they may now understand what they’ve missed in never having a physical relationship with music.

Sifting through these beautifully presented packages (EMI & Apple have got this packaging decision right – no ugly jewel boxes - but attractive digipacks, with the Mono sets coming with a nicely replicated vinyl aesthetic). The Beatles records make so much sense as tangible objects. Playing back Revolver, The White Album, Abbey Road – I’ve found myself just staring at the back covers – something I haven’t done since I was a teenager, basically.

Among the Beatles’ many remarkable ‘firsts’ are breakthroughs so attached to the concept of albums – in physical form - it’s somehow hard to imagine a ‘digital Beatles’. The iconography of the cover art, the photogenic nature of the band, the sequencing of songs (alternating Lennon & McCartney-led compositions but throwing in the odd George & Ringo number in just the right spots), the fact that most of the albums are albums in the truest sense – with no actual singles taken from them at all.

Holding these products gives a sense of music worth the money – at a tenner a throw these packages and their contents are phenomenal value. This feeling is exactly (desperately) what music needs to instil in music fans – this sense of immense value from what we hold in our hands as the music plays. Can this ever be achieved with digital?

Perhaps it can, via ever more beautiful devices and with music as the killer application in those devices. But we have a long long way to go. The Beatles digitally, could deliver everything digital music so far lacks – an amazing library of context. I can imagine holding a device with which I could browse the incredibly rich vaults of artwork, photography and editorial as The Beatles’ music plays. For example, the absorbing stories of their songs as captured in Ian MacDonald’s remarkable book Revolution In The Head. That could add a new dimension to this music, but could it ever be achieved with all the rights clearances required? Would we buy it at a price that makes it all worthwhile?

Could the re-mastering process be applied to a lossless sound format for digital? If so maybe another new dimension is possible. But I guess these days, for The Beatles to finally achieve that modest ambition from 1968 to be in every household, it must come down to whether they get licensed for streaming – but I can’t see the value in that commercially for EMI & Apple. Why would they reduce a valuable, renewable asset like that to the common denominator of streaming?

The same reasoning lies behind a recent Sony decision to remove the Bob Dylan catalogue from streaming services. The classics live on forever, sell steadily and get a new lease of life every so often – a pattern that would be discontinued by availability on streaming platforms. Then again, every music fan – of any age - should hear these songs at some stage, especially now they have been re-tuned for the modern age and sound as fresh as they do timeless. For that to happen I guess The Beatles will need to join the great music library in the cloud, eventually.

Next: A new Pearl Jam album, followed by the return of Alice In Chains. Can any genre from the age of CD buying make a comeback before it’s too late?

post-note: Listening to the Beatles catalogue I had never realised how much their sound has influenced the music I've listened to most in recent years. If you are looking for a modern equivalent, try Elliot Smith, Spoon, I Am Kloot, Super Furry Animals, Brendon Benson - they all sound so much more Beatlesesque than anything from the britpop era.

Do all music ventures have to be digital now?

Almost there in a week of asking some searching questions, the next question might have to follow next week, as I want to comment on The Beatles but have yet to work my way (joyously) through the remasters. I need the weekend for that! This post is a little bit long (I know my posts are not too short). But it's still ten minutes with a nice strong coffee - take your time...


The web is wonderful. It has done the most remarkable things for music. I haven’t read one of his novels, but I couldn’t say it better than Nick Hornby when it comes to what the web has done for music and for music fans.

But, as Hornby alludes to in his piece, has the web been good for the music business? In the wild west of web commerce look at how many music related ventures have come and gone, with barely a trace left to even learn valuable lessons from. At the start of this year, MusicAlly listed no less than 200 music start-ups from 2008 (not an exhaustive list) and I can’t bring myself to skim that list now to see which of those are still in the game.

But why is the universal assumption now that all new ventures involving recorded music have to be digital? I know it’s a dumb question. But then it’s not that dumb. Any investor or entrepreneur will know that a contrary strategy is always worth a look.

Prevailing market trends point to online, mobile and gaming platforms for sure – particularly with apps invigorating the mobile sector – a true breakthrough there. However, the assumption that music – or any content for that matter – will migrate from physical to digital in a steady linear fashion (at whatever speed), could well be wrong.

It’s something all content industries are assuming to a greater or lesser extent. There will always be newspapers, magazines and books, but music and film is a bit more difficult to imagine in a physical form in the longer term.

But the longer term could be quite a while. At this stage, the majority of music consumers will not let the CD go, especially but not exclusively, the older demographic. From recent UK research by Speakerbox - 85% of music buyers buy CD, with BPI data confirming that just 10% of buyers now buy digital. Recent work I have been involved with confirms something I first measured at IFPI and long suspected before that – many music buyers try digital (primarily through iTunes) and don’t actually like it, much. So they go back to CD, even if reluctantly.

When music (and other content – for example news) is consumed online, the experience changes. Online ‘dwell times’ are often measured in just minutes per month, whereas actual music listening is in hours per day. The digital experience of consumption switches to a more fleeting, contextual experience (strange then when so many services strive or claim to be ‘immersive’) – very different from playing back an album.

With mobile, the impact of apps may now drive more consumption this way – a constant pecking away at a smattering of content, rather than a settled, focused listen on something you carefully chose to invest in first. On the other hand – breakthroughs in metadata based apps like Cocktail & CMS may yet make digital more genuinely engaging – maybe.

What’s remarkable is that there have been so few successful ventures in music that – rather than get in painfully ahead of their time and then painfully run out of operating cash – have transformed consumer benefits on the basis of consumer habits now. The alternative in movies is LoveFilm, a phenomenally successful young business that obliterated the inconveniences of movie rental, but was smart enough to do so leveraging the standard format of now – the physical DVD. LoveFilm can get to digital movies later, there’s no point running if your punters are still walking.

However, when you do look, the recent track record of consumer-facing non-digital music ventures is awful. The lack of no new physical format successor, the demise of music retailing thanks to online competition and the general erosion in the value of music and low motivation to pay, just seem to kill any good idea in its tracks. Let’s briefly look at some, first, format based innovations:

• Slot Music. Sandisk’s commendable but ultimately surely doomed, effort, to somehow embrace digital but still keep the inanimate object element intact. You can see what they were thinking: free DRM, nicely restrict the content to bite size chunks, keep the album intact, provide consumers with a little extra utility – some good features. But it’s not clear who it’s for.
• Similar, USB albums. Launched by Labels with Universal giving it a fair go, USB’s certainly have novelty value. It’s a standard format for PCs, so no issues there. But it just about stops there.
• Warner’s various attempts at new CD formats didn’t work either – too niche and marginal of benefit. With lack of industry-wide support the development has gone a bit quiet.
  

Now some non-digital music ventures:

• Starbucks Hear Music. This looked clever to me at the time. Why not leverage 14000+ prime retail spaces and a high-value, high-footfall user base to sell them music – something that also fits perfectly within the ambience of the coffee house concept as well. But then it got a few things wrong. Why the CD burning booths? Why make a move into A&R when it’s such a tricky area? Then the recession came and that was that. It’s a shame – I still think coffee & music works – that’s what this blog is kind of inspired by after all!
• Music Zone ‘Bugs’. Music Zone (a fleetingly successful UK ‘discount’ music retailer, a bit like Fopp – and with similar subsequent operating difficulties) wanted to introduce ‘pod-like’ CD booths in busy travel hubs. But MZ didn’t even get the concept off the ground before its main business went bust.
• In the US, both Nordstrum and Downtown Locker Room began retailing a selective set of CD titles, sometimes exclusively and with special packaging. It made a rumble then petered out.
• Finally, for a while, the industry pondered Kiosks. To my mind, CD-burning or iPod filling Kiosk’s where a hopeless folly. The last thing a consumer needs when filtering their music, is time pressure and the last thing a retailer needs is a consumer taking all the time in the world to spend $10.
  

These are just some of the failures and you can see their problem was being limited largely by format, combined with a good dose of strategic and operational errors. There successes:

• Hot Topic. This was (I hope still is) a phenomenally successful US-based merchandise chain based around ‘emo’ & ‘goth’ – two pretty evergreen, high value genres (shock market insight – young consumers will spend money on, and around, music!). Its secret was targeting that cultural group, with a neatly executed concept. And of course, though music centered, Hot Topic sells mainly merchandise. The company’s attempts to expand into the digital music space have looked less impressive however.
• Rough Trade. A flagship record store in a thriving area of East End London, plus a moderately successful, against-the-grain mail-order CD club (The Album Club). It’s a heritage brand that for the time being prevails and appeals to a good segment of ‘real’ music fans.
• Amoeba Music still goes strong as it mops up the detritus of what’s left of US CD retailing, though you have to wonder how long it can maintain its vibrancy.

Meanwhile in the UK, the last man standing HMV Records seems to be getting the smarts - albeit by diversifying from physical recorded music - investing in a network of live venues and most recently acquiring solid digital music business 7 Digital. But mainly, HMV has done okay by selling more & more stuff that isn’t CDs.

I think physical music could still do well where it can be aimed at pockets of high-value culture – like Hot Topic and Rough Trade. Combining a physical indie music store with graphic novels perhaps? Banning jewel boxes outright, definately. Or maybe someone else can have a go at Music & Coffee, but execute the concept better than Starbucks did. Could Kerrang! Do a similar thing to Hot Topic aimed at the hard rock sector – another high value segment there for the taking in the UK?

The marketing criteria would seem to be a product range relating to but not exclusively, recorded music, a clear cultural segment to aim at, and good branding & execution. Not an easy formula.

Will the music industry ever extract real value from digital?

When Steve Jobs announced the launch of iTunes back in 2004 and queued up the slide for the song price – 79 pence – there were audible gasps among the audience. People were that little bit amazed. They were impressed that Jobs had pulled off the deal to sell individual songs - at a reasonable price. It worked too, with iTunes notching up over a billion songs for each year of operation since.

But the six billion songs sold on iTunes are part of a slowing curve – the overall digital business growing by just 25% in 2008 – to $3.8 billion, 20% of the global music business. With the business generating nearly $5 billion less in 2008 than five years before in 2004, before iTunes launched and digital kicked in, the ‘holy grail’ whereby new digital revenues more than made up for lost revenues from CD sales, never arrived. If digital sales grow by more than one fifth in 2009 we’ll be lucky and it still won’t be enough.

Nearly six years on from Apple’s genuinely sensational announcement, that same service dominates the digital space, to the satisfaction of no one, much. Earlier this month Apple’s iTunes related announcement – the iTunes LP, in contrast to six years ago, distinctly underwhelmed. Just a few titles in stock, and looking distinctively expensive.

There’s nothing wrong with the attempt to add value to digital albums by adding extra content – iTunes LP, CMX etc. Other than it’s too little too late. I was all for it back in the day, but the world has since moved on. The market is polarising with high-end CD box sets still in healthy demand but digital pretty much becoming established as the way to get your music for cheap.

The digital market hasn’t developed in a logical order – and has therefore struggled to add value year-on-year – like pushing a boulder up an increasingly steep hill. Had digital albums been launched with extra content originally, or quickly after the iTunes launch, it might have worked. It might have convinced consumers that they are losing packaging, but gaining content.

But while iTunes had DRM strangling its value and held its prices at a constant, CD prices fell by one third over five years. CDs albums are now routinely cheaper than digital – that’s counterintuitive to every music fan interested in ownership.

Meanwhile, digital song value has headed south, first with subscription packages, then with free to stream ad funded services. It’s a journey that has led at least, to a challenge to iTunes’ unhealthy market dominance, but at a potentially heavy price to the industry as a whole.

I love Spotify as much as the next music fan, but its struggle to extract value is in danger of becoming a spectacle. To consumers it’s a miracle, to the industry it’s a problem to be solved. The strategy looks right – drive a developing ad-products business as much as possible, while trying to upscale users to a pay model for a better experience. It has to be the test case and I would strongly argue, deserves all the help it can get from its music partners.

We need to begin to realise though, Spotify’s potential. It has the potential to generate revenues equivalent to a large niche, while at the same time eating further into CD revenues. This is the future music market – fragmentation into a number of niches.

iTunes (i.e. the a-la-carte song market) carved a niche, delivering 10-15% of revenues to the business. Subscription services carved another, smaller nice at under 5% revenues. E-music’s hybrid model carved another niche –delivering 10-15% of revenues for its indie label partners. Ad-funded streaming will be similar. All-you-can-eat services through ISP providers similar again. With each niche there is some natural cannibalisation – gradually creating another niche – the CD market.

This is not an unhealthy long-term picture – provided each of these niches can be sustained – serviced through good partnership and the positioning of the right content and payment models. Forrester’s latest angle in content windowing provides one example of how to do this. It’s something all smart labels know is a good way forward – account managing these relationships and managing the channel conflict that is bound to arise on an almost constant basis, using shared insights and data.

What’s more – this multi-channel, multi-audience niche scenario obliterates the random thoughts of the ‘free economists’ – increasingly supercilious, unconstructive and pretty dumb. There’s value in these niches – little patches of gold in them there hills.

There is value here provided each new wave of services is not met with the expectation that it will be the next big thing – making redundant what’s gone before. Instead it’s a landscape that needs to be cultivated, managed, serviced, through shared vision, insight and data. The answer is yes, but it’s more a ‘yes we can and we will’.

Today's question: Why didn't In Rainbows open the music industry floodgates?

Back in 2007, Radiohead exited its record deal with EMI and promptly self-released their new album In Rainbows as a ‘pay what you want’ download. This I know did not escape your attention.

The genius of the strategy was multi-layered. The move generated such a huge wave of PR that the record hardly needed a marketing budget. And ironically, the band themselves avoided the need to do the usual round of publicity appearances and interviews – an established system the band loathed. It made them look forward thinking and brave.

Best of all, the release of In Rainbows demonstrated Radiohead’s complete understanding of today’s music market, efficiently skewering both ends of the polarised demand for music: digital - the get it now, get it cheap (or free) no frills option; while the high-end £40 box-set satisfied the insatiable appetite for quality stuff that still exists amongst die-hard fans and music collectors.

I know you’ve reflected on all of that as well. But how about this – why didn’t Radiohead’s phenomenally successful strategy with In Rainbows catch on with other established bands?
How come the vast majority of major releases by established artists are non-innovative, conventional, publicity-machine driven affairs involving the usual parade of press, radio and TV mainstream slots, maybe with the odd free download, social networking or viral video strategy thrown-in for appearance’s sake.

For example, the world's biggest band U2. U2 hardly needs a leg-up, but the band still blitzed the BBC - the mainstream of mainstream - when it launched their last record. Although the band did exclusive streaming deals prior to release (Spotify in the UK) it was still a conventional release. Ironically, that record sold disappointingly. Maybe a more innovative, devil may care approach might have stoked up more interest? Who knows.

It might look obvious what the explanation is. That U2 and so many other major bands with a global footprint – Coldplay, Kings of Leon etc. – are on major labels, so the release method has to be by numbers. When the machine cranks up, who will try & stop it?

But there’s no reason why the label and the band couldn’t come up with something genuinely different. Coldplay is on EMI, but the ‘Viva campaign’ was impressive at least – and brave too when you consider the revolutionary costume styling – risqué even! But it was still conventional, big budget stuff.

The tipping point then – whereby bands can explore valid go-to-market strategies beyond the press, radio, TV and tour treadmill – is yet to arrive. I guess two things need to happen to tip the current record marketing establishment:

1. More established bands do an ‘In Rainbows’ (either without, or with, their labels). Coldplay for one seems to be chomping at the bit for the chance to do something that can put them in that kind of light. Next time perhaps.
   
2. A platform emerges that somehow democratises promotion – giving many more artists – especially new ones – fairer access to (the equivalent of) mainstream promo slots. Any one of Slice The Pie, Reverb Nation et al. Are attempting to do just that. The problem is that many don’t get beyond early adopter niches, or reach young but ultimately low-purchase audiences.

One small but significant step – announced last week – was the CBS and Last.fm initiative that facilitates Last.fm to programme a number of CBS’s HD radio slots in large US cities. That could lead to some genuinely interesting eclectic daytime radio in the US. This deal was obviously enabled by CBS’s outright ownership of Last.fm but that shouldn’t be a necessity. With Spotify, We7, Yahoo, AOL, Myspace and others (Twitter if we must), we surely have now mass market platforms to rival the old guard media.

Surprising then, how many established artists are not taking these platforms seriously. Is it a lack of belief, a lack of interest? Or is it that the old media platforms are better connected to music buying audiences rather than simply music listening or music-social audiences?

What we really need is more collaborative initiatives between new & old media - that focus on new artists not those we know already. These initiatives need to be new aggregator brands for music – doing what Top Of The Pops or MTV Unplugged did back in the halcyon days.

Why aren’t there more music brands like this today? That’s another question.