'The Sound of Science'

In 1994, the band Weezer burst onto what was then called the ‘Alternative Rock’ scene with what would later be dubbed “The Blue Album” and while inciting a lot of negative reactions from rock fans and critics, it was also massively successful with several hit singles and now considered a power-pop classic. Two years later, they released their follow-up album “Pinkerton”.  This effort was hailed by most critics and the band and leader Rivers Cuomo were hailed for growth and development they showed in the two years between albums. While being (and remaining) a cult hit, the album was a commercial flop as Cuomo strayed from the more standard songwriting format he excelled in on their debut. The quality of the song craft did not change and if anything improved, but mainstream rock fans who were still calling themselves “alternative” (…alternative to what?) were not ready for something that broke the mold. At the same time, the album had an effect similar to that of the first couple Pixies or Velvet Underground albums wherein almost nobody bought the album, but everyone who did started their own band.

Meanwhile, Cuomo was so discouraged by the commercial failure that he went into seclusion. Rumor has it that he painted his entire apartment black and spent five working out a formula for the perfect pop song. The result was “The Green Album” released in 2001, which alienated “Pinkerton” loyalists but brought back their more passive fans and cultivated many, many new ones. To serious fans of rock music this has earned him a reputation along the lines of a Paul McCartney for the 21st Century (READ: douche bag), but it has also shed light on a controversial dichotomy and serves as a near perfect metaphor in the debates over the value of commercial success vs. creative success and a number of more specified debates derivative of that larger issue.

The point is that (in case you were wondering), songwriting is a science…at least on a commercial level. There are no shortage of books, articles, websites and so forth that claim they can teach you how to write a hit song. Obviously, luck has a lot to do with the success of any band, song or album, but I for one have never heard a songwriter give credit to any sort of handbook, instructional video or how-to-anything for their success. It’s possible that there are some pride issues involved and/or avoidance of having to pay royalties to a jack*** who wrote an Modern English single in the 80s that was only heard in the London suburbs. Whatever the case, there is no question that songwriting is a science and whichever side of the debate you land on, it is certainly something worthy of study. To find out more, follow the link below:  

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"All About the Benjamins" (Rock Remix)

Most songwriters have at one point or another felt a gust of inspiration, sat down to write a song and ended up with an absolute gem, maybe their best song yet. As the words pour out and onto the page, they may imagine bags of money with comically large dollar signs showing up in their mailbox. Probably the hardest part of being a musician is figuring out how to build the bridge between your songs and a career. While there's no shortage of creative marketing and business-type options, there are a few very basic things you can do to get money in your pocket as quickly as possible. Follow the link below to find out more:

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'Gimme Gimme (Something Other Than) Shock Treatment'

Musicians like free stuff. Here is a list of some great gift ideas musicians. I'll admit this doesn't make too much sense since this is a blog FOR musicians, but musicians generally know other musicians but you should probably just buy one of these things for yourself. Take advantage of these deals offered to suckers who spend money on other people. Check it out:

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"The Best Things in Life Are Free..." Not So in the Record Industry

In the heated debate over music piracy and the consequences that have come from the industry's effort to compensate ("death of the album", availability/saturation of streaming services, etc) there are good arguments on both sides. However there is one issue that is often overlooked, even by the high-minded/horsed fringe cultures often supportive of "free" music. The unfortunate, broader impact is not that musicians get shorted on sales, but the industry is in a relative stranglehold when it comes to taking chances on new music. Nowadays it seems like the only artists who get decent deals from record labels are the ones who don't need them. Most labels will only bet on the artists who aren't any kind of a gamble. Newer, more obscure bands are forced into what's called a '360 deal', meaning that every cent the band makes belongs to the label until they are compensating for recording costs and so forth. To make matters worse, the labels also have their financial hands tied when it comes to things like promotion, booking agents, merchandising...leaving the bands to do it on their own, and do it very well, or perish. As we talked about in the last post, bands may be getting record deals but it doesn't mean much if the band winds up more broke than when they started. To find out more, click on the link below:


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"Expecting to Fly"

In this blog we’ve talked a lot about the seemingly endless number of new avenues for bands, particularly independent bands, to gain exposure. We’ve also talked about how this also creates more competition, making that exposure less valuable. As a result, this makes it a lot hard to break into the top tier and less room for open-minded A&R people. There may be a lot more record labels out there so it isn’t nearly as hard to get someone to release your music but almost none of them can afford to provide fairly basic necessities like a booking agent or PR rep. But we haven’t exactly spelled out what this means for your band, other than suggesting that there’s of work to do which you probably knew already (or maybe we have, but let’s do it again). But this work comes with some pretty negative implications; so if you’re still in denial about your chances of success, please allow me to ruin your weekend...

No matter how good you are as a band, no matter how good you are at marketing, no matter how many Facebook “likes” you have, the odds are still overwhelmingly against you and nobody thinks you’re as worthy of success as you do. This isn’t meant to discourage you, maybe get you to work a little harder/smarter but if you’re not giving it your all yet then maybe you should read this posts three or four times. But I say this because it is important to manage your expectations. If you become easily discouraged and/or stop having fun, you don’t really have any chance at all. In addition to skill and luck, you also need skin as a thick as your drummer’s skull. To spend the entirety of your weekend crying and curled up in the fetal position with a carton of Pall Malls and a half-gallon of cheap vodka, click the link below:

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"Everybody's Gotta Pay Some Due"

The debate over the legitimacy of “pay-to-play” deals is not the hottest industry debate right now and it probably won’t ever be, but has been a constant issue for decades. Chances are that you’ve already made up your mind on this issue and the chances are even better that your conclusion is a one-word answer. Assuming that’s the case, there is a 100% chance that you’re wrong. It’s just not that simple. Some think it’s a matter of integrity but if you’re more attached to your integrity than you are attached to eating, you should stay as far away from the entertainment industry as possible. But many just call it a flat-out scam.

Just like any other ‘deal’ you’re offered in life, there will be good ones and there will be bad ones. From selling your soul for guitar skills at a little known intersection in the south to %90 sale on 124-packs of Mountain Dew at the grocery store. The first example is historical fiction and the second is way too much Mountain Dew. However, maybe you’ve taken a vow of celibacy and you go through three or four bottles a day. In that case, you should absolutely take advantage of Pepsi-Cola’s generosity and/or Market Basket’s initiative to salvage it from the truck it fell off of. In other words, depending on what exactly you’re paying for, a deal like this could absolutely advance you’re career. You just shouldn’t be hasty about it. If you think for a while, you could probably come up with pretty longs lists of bands you would pay to open for or a compilation roster you’d pay to be on or a magazine you’d want to be in and so forth. Now stop thinking about it because you can’t have any of those things. Someone else already has them. However, you can pay (a much smaller amount) to get some component or some scaled down version of what you want. For example; you have zero chance of opening for the Beatles, but you do have a slightly better-than-zero chance of opening for Ringo Starr, being that he’s not dead and also not one of the biggest douchebags to brim with undeserved talent in the history of the industry. Now if you can afford to pay to open for Ringo Starr than you probably already own the Internet (all of it) and don’t bother with blogs anymore.

But my point is first, that nothing is going to go ideally when you’re trying to start a music career so you have to pick your it’s not in any way out of the question that paying for exposure can help advance your career, which you agreed to this when you started imagining it about halfway up this paragraph. And second, that nothing is going to go ideally when you’re trying to start a music career so you have to pick your battles on an ethical/pride level and approach each decision strategically. Follow the link below to learn more:

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Are You The Eggman or the Walrus?…Choose Wisely

Many, many, many, many, many, many, many musicians detest the idea of ‘packaging’ their music in anyway. This is often because they don’t want to be pigeonholed into a particular sound and retain their creative freedom at any cost. Given the kind of work, passion and more that goes into a song, it’s hard to blame for not wanting to think of it as a product and their band as a business. However, there is a middle ground. You don’t have to demean yourself by trying desperately to sound like Maroon5, but the hard truth is that very few people, if anyone, reach what a reasonable person would consider success completely on their own terms. So if you want thrive in the fringes, think about which particular fringe is most appealing to you and package yourself to be accessible within that niche fan base.

John Lydon (Johnny Rotten) did this extremely well with his post-Sex Pistols project, Public Image Ltd. He ironically embraced the ‘music as a business/product’ mantra, relentlessly insisting that the band was a conglomerate and music once just one of their products. The product he was selling was ‘irony’, made especially meaningful by his history with the Sex Pistols – a band designed to self-destruct by sex shop owner and their manager, Malcom McLaren – but that’s another story. But with a broader concept as their product and a generously encompassing holistic approach, Public Image Ltd were able to genre-jump between, punk, experimental/avant-garde, dub, and pop/new wave. The moral of their story is that marketing yourself doesn’t necessarily limit your creative freedom. The punk and art scenes love(d) irony, especially in the 70s and 80s, and they just ate up what Lydon was serving. Whether he did this cynically (by the dictionary definition, e.g., ‘ulterior motives’) or as a cathartic statement about car-crash-career of the Sex Pistols, isn’t entirely clear. But the point is that it worked and you can make it work for you and have fun with it while still employing your creativity. By neglecting/resisting this strategy, you are denying an objective truth of the music industry and thus, will always be exiled from any meaningful success.  

There is no way to win a war on objective truth. You may triumphs in some (ultimately meaningless) battles and maybe even go on a winning streak, but you will always lose in the end. If you still insist on fighting the good fight and changing that truth, the best you can do is make some tiny, tiny dents towards your goal and although someone(s) may benefit from your efforts decades down the road, in the meantime you will be martyring your creativity and hard work unless you can find a middle-of-the-road strategy that satisfies you and your debt collectors. To read more, click on the link below:

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