The Dave Matthews Band shows how to make money in the music industry
slate.com
slate.com
Hmm, what other thing does this sound like?
Yes, yes, yes. Music groups are small businesses and bootstrapping is now a model that makes sense for many of them. But although there are many parallels between musicians and startups (labels are the VCs of music etc.), there are some significant differences. For example, one of the tenets of bootstrapping is the pivot. If you're not profitable, take what you've learned and change your direction. For musicians this is far more difficult I believe. Like many popular artists, DMB's success stems from their unique 'sound'. This sound is a special mixture of each members personality and is very hard to change up while still remaining genuine. Founders certainly have a similar effect on their startups product, but I believe its far easier to hire a new designer than to stop playing the music you feel in your heart.
tl;dr - Music is business but its also an art. There needs to be a new bootstrapping methodology tailored towards music.
Sometimes it never goes anywhere - but that's true of startups as well.
That's simply the delusions of an out-of-touch 50 year old. DMB was the most consistently popular musician of my generation. How to make money in the music industry? Make music that hundreds of millions of people want to listen to.
He's very popular, has a pretty good niche, don't get me wrong. (Must... Resist... urge... to... crack... on... lacrosse... players...) But I think plenty of people would be surprised that he was in that top ten list, not just old timers.
I can believe DMB being the biggest musician of a demographic (US, College educated, mid twenties?) -- but probably not a "generation".
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_best-selling_music_arti...
Most of the other 90s/2000s artists on the list are pop/country acts like Mariah Carey and Shania Twain that I wouldn't consider to be artists "of my generation"
DMB doesn't appear (Implying that they have <50 mill sales (but they have 32 mill US Sales).
Linkin Park / Rihana / Coldplay all appear in the global list. Not to mention artists like Ayumi Hamasaki (Which from 1994-present) operated in roughly the same time span as DMB.
http://www.mlive.com/entertainment/flint/index.ssf/2010/01/d...
I think if you asked most people, even the ones who aren't old and 50, to make a list of the top ten tours this year... It'd be easy to guess the expensive shows for the baby boomers (Eagles, etc) and the hip acts for the kids (Lady GaGa, Black Eyed Peas). But I don't think many people would peg the Dave Matthews Band.
That's why I thought the article was interesting. Not because Bon Jovi is awesome and Dave Matthews is lame or vice versa...
Not scientific, but some music doesn't translate across the pond.
1. Their music is excellent and consistent. Dave Matthews is one of the best songwriters of this generation.
2. They constantly make concerts exciting by playing completely different versions of their songs live, with emphasis on improvisation. People go to DMB concerts two nights in row because they never know what they're going to get. They won't get a repeat show- they'll get something completely different, often times. I don't know many other bands who have fans that would go to a concert two nights in a row.
3. They also seem to genuinely love touring / performing. They give up a lot to be on the road that often, and I don't think its money or fame they're chasing.
Its too bad they're not touring this summer, I've seen them the past 3 years and their shows never fail to impress
Garcia was of course the most famous casualty - he died in rehab due to the complications of long term abuse. He struggled with addiction for ~20 years and according to some reports often longed to quit the road entirely in part because of its effects on his health. In the end the band simply made too much money - and provided for too many peoples livelihood through their touring regime - and when met with resistance to stop he simply felt he needed to soldier on for other's benefit.
It's not all drugs and alcohol either - many musicians find the road punishing sooner or later for reasons ranging from diet and exercise to alienation and homesickness. I'm sure a few consultants out there can sympathize.
None of this is to say that a comfortable living can't be made on the road or that a live music oriented can't counter some of the negative effects piracy has on artists. But clearly there are some people out there (who are being held up as the ultimate examples) that might not choose to do it that way again.
I love going to see concerts, but can easily imagine paying $x to see some well videoed live shows in HD.
While record sales might be down, I bet the amount of musicians able to make a living wage today, solely from music, is much greater than it was in 1990. This is due to the same technology and disruptiveness that has shaved 10% off the earnings of the megastars.
The story should be about how smaller bands are now able to be much more successful, not that a mega-band can still pull $70 million while others have been reduced to (gasp) $50 million.
Why?
Because the 'old fashioned' model of financing a band to produce a record is directly analogous to the VC model of financing a startup to produce a product.
Consider: in both cases the investor is taking a large risk, and needs to make multiple investments because the chance of each one going bust is large, and correspondingly they are looking for a 20x return (or more) from a 'hit', because they need to make big dollars from the few that achieve success to pay for all the ones that fail.
Except that, of course, the evil corps that make up the RIAA did much more for the artists than VCs ever do for software startups, including (but not limited to) big marketing pushes of their product.
NB: yes, I'm aware of Courtney Love's rant about how evil the music industry is: see
http://www.salon.com/technology/feature/2000/06/14/love
for an insider point of view.
I just think it is a bit rich to have people who suckle on the teat of VC money to tell the music industry that they need to change and get with the times.
I wonder how much that point of view is motivated by the "music should be free" way of thinking - or as we like to call it "something for nothing and your money back".
In any case, in America it would be relatively easy to get in the hole to your music studio to the tune (sic) of 2.2 million dollars, have your record flop, and then declare bankruptcy to avoid being 'owned'.
The way VCs and angel investors fund startups is changing and it is interesting to see the ways that an industry with some parallels is also changing.
Just like I can now start a band in my basement and gain a following with Protools + Facebook, I can now bootstrap a company in my basement with Rails + Heroku. (or your tech / provider of choice)
Well, for some of us, music is what's RECORDED, not live shoes.
I can accept: "well, too bad, traditional recording profits are dwindling, just man it".
But, "it's no problem, just give live shows" is a stupid answer. At best, it's a non general enough one.
All those articles and blog posts hammering on the "make money by playing live shows" theme, feel to my European tastes as written by Texan rednecks, whose idea of music is Willie Nelson or something... (and DMB is not that far off).
It's 2011: there are tons of groups, music genres etc where it doesn't make sense to have traditional concerts. And there artistis that don't like to give them, anyways. Not all musicians want to be onstage, especially in electronica, ambient, etc genres. Heck, even the Beatles got bored and stopped playing live mid-career. Oh, and "selling t-shirts and merchandise"? Some people want to be in the MUSIC business, not that of Matel and Threadless.
Hear, hear. This is a problem I've, of late, being trying to sort out, and would love to hear success stories about musicians or musical outfits that have a viable business without having to tour.
OTOH, I have no problem with selling related product; in fact, I found the idea compelling, especially non-traditional delivery means.
But not so much T-shirts and the standard rock memorabilia. "Art" objects, physical things that are interesting in their own right, whether it be some aspect of CD/DVD/USB/SD packaging or something more out there.
I would also consider artistic/theatrical type shows, like The Residents use to do --things that are not tied to the typical "come to hear a band playing their same ole songs live".
I've been contemplating that as well. For ideas on performing don't involve many live musicians, and I'd like to make the overall experience more engaging and memorable, ideally involving the audience in some not-too-gimicky way.
Creating something that people can't help talking and writing about for some time, even after it's well over, could get the buzz of more frequent gigs, but with (I hope) lower overhead.
And yeah, The Residents are a good example in that vein.
Oh please. Live shows aren't an American thing. AC/DC, Pink Floyd, the Rolling Stones, The Who, Queen, U2, Led Zeppelin, Iron Maiden, Rammstein, Elton John, and Scorpions are or were very successful live performing bands, and none of them are from North America.[1]
The divide is probably electronic vs. rock, because the prevailing attitude in rock is that a real band plays live.[2] Okay, there aren't many continental European bands on my list (Rammstein and Scorpions are German) but that's probably because continental Europe isn't that into rock. (But who knows? There's no shortage of continental metal bands and festivals.)
[1] It seems cheating to count Canadian bands as "not American", otherwise I'd include Rush in the list.
[2] Note that the Beatles were a pop band, not a rock band. There was no money in touring in the 1960's, so of course they quit after they didn't need to generate publicity.