Blog posts and interviews on the music industry
With artificial intelligence tools becoming more popular, the question question arrises of AI’s role within the arts and whether it can truly replace musicians, writers, and illustrators. If the next radio hit, catchy jingle, or best-selling album is just a few prompts away, are we wasting our time still making music the old-fashioned way?
To help address the global music industry’s concerns about the COVID-19 pandemic, US-based music analytics company Chartmetric is continuously monitoring 2M+ artists across 20+ streaming and social media data sources.
Chartmetric's data-driven analysis of COVID-19’s effects on music-related consumption helps artists, songwriters, labels, agencies, distributors, and other entertainment-related entities sustain and improve their well-being during these unprecedented times.
Chartmetric's data-driven analysis of COVID-19’s effects on music-related consumption helps artists, songwriters, labels, agencies, distributors, and other entertainment-related entities sustain and improve their well-being during these unprecedented times. 23 APR 2020
A comprehensive guide to finding the music streaming service that sounds best for you.
A couple days ago I interviewed Aaron Bethune, the founder of Play It Loud Music, for members of my marketing service, Renegade Music Marketing. During my interview with Aaron he made the point very clearly that you have to follow up after making initial contact with him or anyone else. As Aaron explained, he receives so many emails on a daily basis that by the end of the day if he hasn't gotten back to you, your email is probably so far down in his inbox that it's possible he's completely forgotten about it.
The rise of the streaming age has brought with it an unsurprising uptick in artists attempting to game social media and streaming platforms in a less-than-honest approach to finding success in the music business. The "band" Threatin's faked fanbase and resulting failed tour has become perhaps the most extreme instances of this tactic.
Welcome to Producing Out Loud, our series where we discuss a wide range of topics related to music production, business, and technology. In this episode, Pyramind’s Greg Gordon and Jeff Straw sit down with Aaron Bethune, author of Musicpreneur: The Creative Approach to Making Money in Music. They discuss ways to network, strategize, and nurture your fan base.
Allen Adamson is a noted industry expert in all disciplines of branding. He’s worked with a broad spectrum of clients in industries ranging from packaged goods and technology to health care and financial services, to hospitality and entertainment, as well as brands in the non-profit sector. Given his perspective and depth of experience, Allen has helped his clients not simply understand, but, more critically, put into play strategies that enable them to shift ahead of the market and the competition, generating long-term value and increased brand equity.
Lisa Brigantino has worked in the fields of music supervision, talent acquisition, branding, and rights clearance for over 25 years. She got her start in the business as Director of Licensing for BZ/Rights and Permissions, Inc. and then went on to become a founding partner of Creative License, Inc. and then later served as the company’s Vice President and Director of Business Affairs. Lisa then went on to start her own company, Hidden Pond Productions, Inc.
Justin Kalifowitz operates Songtrust and serves as President of Downtown Music Publishing. Prior to Downtown, Justin spent six years with Spirit Music Group acting as Head of A&R, and held positions with RCA and Virgin Records. Justin has been named in Billboard Magazine’s “30 Under 30" Faces to Watch and Crain’s “Forty Under 40" Rising Stars of New York Business. Justin is on the Board of Directors for the NY Chapter of the Association of Independent Music Publishers.
Since returning to her native Sweden in 2015 after 25 years in the US, Jo coached executives in the advertising and children’s educational gaming industries. As Head of Executive Coaching and Business Development, she co-created the Executive Coaching Division of The Roll AB, of the SSE MBA LeadershipLive Program and the SSE MSc. Finance Career Development Accelerator Program (CDA) at the Stockholm School of Economics.
Jason Davis has spent his entire two-decade career in the music industry and worked with many worldwide stars, including Boyz ll Men, Sugar Ray, P. Diddy, Alabama, Lonestar, Dolly Parton, among many others. Davis is an entertainment industry executive with a broad range of titles including award-winning songwriter, award-winning author, independent record label president, executive TV producer, entertainment consultant, former Senior VP of A&R for Dolly Parton's management company CTK management and a serial entrepreneur. He has also secured record deal offers with CEO's from the largest music companies in the world, including Capitol Records, Sony, Interscope, Island / Def Jam, Epic, Atlantic, RCA, and J Records.
"Here’s a brief outline of this interview with Aaron. Aaron tells the story of turning back a mere 200 meters from the summit of the highest mountain in South America and how this is an allegory for defining success as a MusicPreneur. This decision to turn back led to Aaron saving the life of a fellow…"
Liv has traveled all over the world talking about what she does – from Brisbane to Chile, to NYU classrooms. She has been invited to speak and participate in panels at SXSW, CMJ, Music Biz, Future of Music Policy Summit, SF Music Tech, BigSound, ByLarm and more. Lately, she has been giving thought as to how to visualize data in simple, elegant ways to build better stories. As she says "...the best data journalism strikes a balance between finding (data science), showing (data visualization), and telling (journalism) a story."
A while back I interviewed Canadian radio promoter, Bill Miller of Sharp 9 Music. I first crossed paths with Bill when he was heading up Pitt Bull Promotions and had successfully developed the company into one of Canada's leading radio promotion companies. He has since started Sharp 9 Music. I was officially introduced through a mutual friend. The friend's band had successfully had their single go top 20 thank's to Bill and Pitt Bull's Promotion machine behind it.
A little while back I was interviewed by Casino Gobbet from Yahoo Brazil.
I really enjoyed the questions Casino had and I thought you may find interesting reading our conversation.
Ruth has a Ph.D. in Management and Organizations from the University of Michigan and taught Entrepreneurship to MBAs at the University of Illinois in Chicago. She has written for TheAtlantic.com, Psychology Today and Wired.com.She currently writing a book about the history and production of rock concerts.
Ben's publicist reached out to me a while back when he was in Vancouver with Lionel Ritchie. She connected the two of us which lead to this interview. It was fascinating hearing Ben's story of how he got the gig playing with Lionel Ritchie, Brittany Spears, Christina Aguilera, John Fogerty, Tony Braxton, Don Felder and many more. I will hint that it had something to do with playing all the open mics and jam nights in NYC. Equally as interesting is hearing about how he is pursuing a parallel solo career as an independent artist.
I recently had a great conversation with David Dufresne, CEO of Bandzoogle, an amazing company that probably a lot of you already use to build your websites. Bandzoogle is based in Quebec and have made a major impact on the independent music scene giving tools to musicians to help build their career. In our conversation we discussed ways you can ensure visitors to your website are converting into fans and spending their time and money where you want them to, website dos and don'ts, apps and responsive websites as well as knowing your audience and who consumes your content. With David's background as a venture capitalist he shares his unique perspective on this new music industry.
