The rise of #MusicCities and how Philly is failing Musicnomics

A new bill from Philly City Councilman Mark Squilla would require owners of nightclubs, cabarets, bars and restaurants in the city to collect the names, addresses, and phone numbers of entertainers — bands, rappers and DJs — in a registry, and to share that personal information with police upon request. Billy Penn

The idea that music is on the economic bus, is new for many City Planners and Gov' officials (Austin, Seattle we know you've been on it for a while) and now there is even a very detail report from the data-suits called Mastering of the Music City and here are few of the highlights. 

• In Melbourne, live music alone generates over 116,000 jobs and more than AU$1 billion in spending at small venues, concerts, and festivals.
• The Rock al Parque music festival in Bogotá attracted 400,000 attendees to the city in 2014, making it one of the largest music festivals in South America. Since its inauguration in 1995, it has attracted more than 3.8 million attendees.
• Music tourism in Austin accounts for almost half of their US$1.6 billion economic output and contributes US$38 million in tax revenue to the city.
• In Berlin, the intermingling of music and technology businesses in the city has demonstrated the way that a successful music economy can attract and retain talent in other industries.
• And in South Africa, organizations like the SAMRO Foundation have sought to use music to bring people together under a unified cultural banner.

Click here for the 106 Page report in PDF. 

To show the grown of this and the re-emergence of music as the more than a passenger on the bus, in some it's recognized as the driver of it. Take Mayor Brown's  State of London address to the London Chamber of Commerce, The Mayor stated:  “We set a goal to become a Music City and this began to take shape in a big way this year,” said Brown. “To lead the way, the City of London developed a Music Strategy that will make London a Music City and a music attraction.”

Even the Feds have been getting in on it via the Our Town grants program, which I strongly encouge any #MusicCities ambassadors to take a look gander. 

OUR TOWN: Introduction

The Our Town grant program supports creative placemaking projects that help to transform communities into lively, beautiful, and resilient places with the arts at their core. Creative placemaking is when artists, arts organizations, and community development practitioners deliberately integrate arts and culture into community revitalization work - placing arts at the table with land-use, transportation, economic development, education, housing, infrastructure, and public safety strategies. This funding supports local efforts to enhance quality of life and opportunity for existing residents, increase creative activity, and create a distinct sense of place.

- See more at: https://www.arts.gov/grants-organizations/our-town/introduction#sthash.ezrWOYpc.dpuf

So it seems, that despite the best efforts of the overtechnated to STEM-roll our towns into factories of apps & widget makers -- Music Cities --are something that just is a part of each of these towns. And, that why each of our USA Music Cities needs to start to adopt and work on the Best Music Cities practices.

Well! then there's Philly. According to the sponsor of the bill  “Giving performers’ information to police when requested enables them to review past performances to see if there were any public safety issues during their events,' Councilman Mark Squilla told Billy Penn via email."  There is clearly work to do and that is the reason why I started the CityMusicDeal (TM) and let it be know the  PhiladephiaMusicDeal.com  is coming to help with the stakeholders the overall Musicnomics of Local Music. 

PS While all music sales were down for week ending 1/28, it interesting to note that digital fell another point behind physical.

New Music is not leading in sales because it and the Majors suck

The blogs and socials have been blowing up over the recent to most news that new music is not selling as well as old music. However, as I pointed out here, news about what is happening in the Music biz doesn't always circulate in the Main Stream Media so information like this often seems like a suprise.

Moreover; there is a very simple reason why it's happening -- the music made before the auto hits ruled the airwave, it was better.  Now why it's better is from a number of reasons some of which are too much technology and others include the use of factory line processes to churn out hits.  In a factory how much diversity is there?  Not much, right.

The human ear, mind, and HEART needs music that is about something and or finds a place that wasn't being occupied by sound at the time and the right song, meleody or whatever it is that makes music, music...

It's a jagged little edge or a black hole sun that stirs our imagination, not the same micro-seconds reprocessed over-and-over again. We want to pour through the liner notes, look at the art and see where that music fits into our world and when it does there's just something magical about it and when you try to make it a process instead of a discovery the magic cannot find a place to bond to the music.

For those that have been part of a creative process the alchemy of events, peoples, weather and timing all come together, or not, and the hows and why's aren't really documentable.  It's just that feeling and it makes it's way into the recording process. Maybe it's love and that spark goes from the minds to words to each song; And, carries into the engineering, mastering and manufacturing and the gestalt of a recording is just much bigger then the limited creative soul that multinationals are kinda know to have since they've always got their mind on the money.

Too bad giving them money it's on the minds of today's record buyers?

Now what does this all mean? Is there more afoot and what is the bigger question?  Let go back to last years midyear report from Nelison and it was 1st starting to show the decline of the hits and the power of being in a catalog, which is something that the majors wanted to keep from the indies.   Back in 2013 I was starting to really focus in on the lack of cooperation and hoped the news about catalog sales would be a final blow to the notion of Doing it Yourself "DYI" and that being part of a distribution catalog was everything.  Of course, the music biz is just one of those things they don't teach you in music biz school or on the Intertubes.  One usually finds out by being in it, luck helps, and after years of not being a catalog or having already been in one the value of it start to become self evident.

Our company, Altavoz, has been preparing for this day, when the back catalog was again worth something,  think the best kind of passive income, and having a Back-catalog Distribution Deal now is the play!

Coming up in the next few weeks Altavoz will make another announcement or two that will further reshape how music, particularly pre-1972, masters and recordings are brought back to the public domain.

PS Physcial is leading in sales over digital with 53.1% of the total market.

Software and Other Prerecorded Compact Disc, Tape, and Record Reproducing in DMV

Bringing this down to a local level and get into some Muiscnomics here is the DC, MD and VA which is arguably one of the largest economic blocks which operates under the guise of a Metropolitan area ``which can include across State borders alliances and is primarily where the economic growth is coming from  and come to find out we don't really have any organized effort to export entertainment out of the DMV.

So I've taken the time to search for how the District, Maryland and Virginia fared in exporting its local music by compiling the. Industry Snapshot Software and Other Prerecorded Compact Disc, Tape, and Record Reproducing (NAICS 334614)  for each of them via the Census.gov website. Each of the outcomes is linked on their initials DC, MD VA.

DC

Until now there has been no recorded record industry output from the District of Columbia. There is a developing effort which I've been part of called  DCMadeMusic which is soley about exporting DCmusic out of the District. Currently, Mayor Bowser and her administration are making strides in  music and signaled this renewed focus by bringing music into the purview of the TV & Film office ~music and changed the name  Office of Cable Television, Film, Music and Entertainment. Then let a campaign and industry veteran Angie Gates.On a personal note I've made it no secret that the workforce in DC is ideally suited to be the holders of 100s if not thousands of jobs in the growing economic arena. 

MD

While Maryland is showing some industry data, as the CEO of one the companies reported as an exporter of 334614 goods in MD there was not much help from our local or State economic development offices and basically under the former Gov, we were under assault as a business in MD. I've noticed that the new Governor Hogan has been active in the arts via his wife's time and efforts including working with Jane Chu at the NEA on supporting the Maryland Arts Council. It's still up in the air as to what if anything the Governor will do and I've seen no effort to support Maryland Made Music so your guess is as good as mine. 

VA

I've  talked then candidate Terry Mculliff, now Governor, prior to his election about a vision and any plans to be part of the growing trend of techtainment with music in particular, being a priority.  And, while he was enthusiastic for it there's just no one focused from the top of the state as far as I'm aware.  On the local level an effort by Tim Anderson Associate Professor & Chair Communication & Theatre Arts at Old Dominion University. to stabilize and grow the Norfolk music scene while capturing the historic gifts that have come to music from Norfolk, VA. I'll have a blog about this later in 2016. 

Why not jump in the game with the Brits and sell ourselves some entertainment, jobs and culture diplomacy by the release from the hearts and voice of it's citizens. 

In a Medium post about Entertaining our Economy to Death Im sorry to say I can highlight the point by the September trade data with the US showing a whopping (((((-1,112.3 for September)))) which is when 25 hit our shores in route to the stores for holiday shoppers to snap up at record-breaking pace

Adele's 25 has now sold more than 5 million copies in the U.S., according to Nielsen Music.

Think about this...The number one record in the USA is coming into the USA reflected in the trade data totals; And, little ole UK is kicking our asses!

Ending on a positive note

This local level thread is something that we saw explode with the birth of a MusicCitiesConvention and the expansion of our City Music Deal (TM) into Cleveland via the ClevelandMusicDeal.com lead by Quincy Taylor.  Moreover, I hope to see in 2016 various levels of government across the DMV and the country for that matter (Who doesn't support US Made Music?) coming up with more #musiccities coordinators, czars and economic development plans that include music such as Mayor Megan Barry in Nashville with her continuation of the Nashville Music City Council. Theses are all great steps and who knows what could happen if we got the Music Act going.

PS Digital was only 42 percent of total sales for last year.

Public Procurement Policies: That don't include the Music Act hurt economy

BRIEFING: Strengthening US Manufacturing with Buy America and Domestic Content Policies

• 
  
• Tuesday, December 8, 2015
• 2:00pm  3:00pm

• 2167 Rayburn

Please join Reps. Dan Lipinski and David P. Joyce, Co-Chairs of the Buy America Caucus, on Tuesday, December 8th at 2:00 p.m. in 2167 Rayburn HOB for a briefing on the release of the report:

How Procurement Policies Can Promote

Innovation and Good Jobs

By Robert Pollin, James Heintz, and Jeannette Wicks-Lim

Department of Economics and Political Economy Research Institute

University of Massachusetts-Amherst

The only thing I'm going to say is that there will be no mention of USMadeMusic and the MusicAct that is buried in Congress that I have to ask why?    As well seeing how US Made Music was one of our largest export categories (prerecording music 33612) and now it's negative -397 that leaving this unaddress represents a collosale failure.

Frankly the USA doesn't have all that much of value in comparison {manufactured and export} besides our Culture and Entertainment --IP-- and according to the Cenus Trade Data today We're Entertaining our Economy To Death 

Doesn't anyone else notice that all the Top US act are owned by Overseas Corporations? 

Music Policy Briefing

Until the EOY let's look at the UK's trade balance in Prerecorded music.

For the Datanerds, the following is the breakdown in trade of Software and Prerecording music between the USA and the UK for the year 2015 presently cited as Cat 334614*.  I'm posting it here because I believe in the next month trade data will have the Adele release totals.  And, this one artists is enough to move the needle of trade between the US and the UK;  And,  that the saturation of all things Adele between now and the New Year's will benefit the UK much more then the USA and this blog will be the only one mentioning it. 

"Adele’s 25 (due November 20) could go double platinum in less than a week. According to Hits Daily Double, industry insiders now predict an opening tally in the region of two million copies. That would rank as the second highest debut of all time behind NSYNC’sNo Strings Attached, which sold 2.4 million copies in its first seven days of release back in 2000. The Brit’s third LP already has 250,000 preorders."

Based upon these numbers alone it's clear that 25 is going to sell it's just at what point in time does anyone in the USA wake up to realization that this is Entertaining our Economy to death. And, just to put a fine pine upon it... I'm saying that the UK will be importing more Cat 33614 into the USA than we export to them (US Made Music) and Adele will be the tipping point and just about no one in the USA sees this as a bad thing.

I have to say.... When a county stops exporting it's culture it's only left with war and the Irony of on this Thanksgiving that a UK artists will outsell US's based artists and most of the help doing s0 comes from the USA; And the headline is about how great Adele is, which is true... it's just she's an import. 

NRJ

From the whole Altavoz Family to your have a blessed Thanks Giving. 

PS of the 5,049,000 units sold only for week ending 11/19/2015  2,245 where digital or 44% 

*The  Categories used to be 334612 for Prerecorded music and now it's combined with software into 334614.

Check out @sonofnels's Tweet: https://twitter.com/sonofnels/status/660534331287445504?s=09

Check out @sonofnels's Tweet: https://twitter.com/sonofnels/status/660534331287445504?s=09