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Posts Tagged ‘music industry’

In a recent article in The Sunday Times Magazine, Jon Bon Jovi is quoted as saying: “Kids today have missed the whole experience of putting the headphones on, turning it up to 10, holding the jacket, closing their eyes and getting lost in an album; and the beauty of taking your allowance money and making a decision based on the jacket, not knowing what the record sounded like, and looking at a couple of still pictures and imagining it. God, it was a magical, magical time. I hate to sound like an old man now, but I am, and you mark my words, in a generation from now people are going to say: ‘What happened?’. Steve Jobs is personally responsible for killing the music business.”

Former record label promotion executive and music industry blogger responded in his weekly blog to Bon Jovi’s comments with an open letter. Here are some excerpts from Steve’s letter:

“Dear Jon:
You’ve been making records a long time. In fact, when you had your first Billboard chart hit in 1984 (“Runaway,” which peaked at #39) CDs had already been in the retail music market two years.

Funny thing about CDs, I don’t ever remember any artists I worked with at the time complaining about the hefty royalty checks they were receiving as their catalog(s) were released in the new format and sold millions all over again. Not a one. Nope. It was a good time for the labels and all their artists as billions were generated in revenues just from re-releasing older albums on CD.”

You can read Steve’s entire letter at http://stevemeyer.webs.com/

So, what do you think? Do you agree with Bon Jovi or with Steve Meyer’s assessment of this situation?

This week, the RIAA sent 5 people to the National Association of Broadcaters’ headquarters in Washington DC with a blow-up pig to protest NAB’s stance against the Performance Rights Act. NAB responded by sending them a sausage pizza.

Dennis Wharton, the NAB’s Executive VP says:”It’s no surprise that RIAA is now employing silly frat-boy stunts, given its well-documented practice of suing college kids to rescue a bankrupt business model. It also seems appropriate for RIAA to use an inflatable pig as its mascot, since its foreign-owned members would be the biggest beneficiaries of performance tax pork. RIAA is losing this issue on Capitol Hill and in the court of public opinion, and today’s demonstration represents a new low in a campaign of utter desperation.”

About the sausage pizza, Wharton noted, “We’re suggesting they provide this food to the scores of exploited musicians who have had to sue their record label to recoup allegedly unpaid album royalties.”

As music industry veteran Steve Meyer notes in his DISC & DigitalAudioTechnology (Music & Digital Audio/Video News):
“All the artists who have earned a whole lot of money from selling a whole lot of records from a whole lot of radio play should think twice before they try and get what they wish for. Because if the Performance Tax is ever passed, a whole lot of newer artists won’t have the same ability to make a whole lot of money from record sales because they will most likely not receive the same whole lot of airplay. But that’s my opinion.”

“Back to the RIAA and their lame brained stunt. Labels fund the RIAA, and they should demand the costs of the stunt be deducted from the salaries of all those in the association who thought it was a good idea to draw attention to a matter so far removed from the public’s consciousness. It accomplished nothing and it allowed the NAB to retaliate with words the public is more likely to side with.”

(Read Steve’s weekly newsletters at www.freewebs.com/stevemeyer )

I like the sausage pizza move and Wharton’s responses but, unfortunately, visuals tend to trump the written and spoken word with we humans so I think that radio broadcasters need to respond with their own creative and iconic visual to represent the greedy labels and those ungrateful artists who dismiss FREE promotion and advocacy of their work as having no value.

Any suggestions?

Note to MusicFIRST: In a survey of its readers the broadcast trade, INSIDE RADIO asked if the Performance Rights Act were passed would they consider switching their music-formated radio stations to talk, sports or news programming. More than half (52%) said yes. A third of those responding said that their decision would be based on the size of the royalty payments.