Top title for Record Store Day is a Cassette Tape from Metallica

Nothing is over until the Fans say it's over.....

According to the Digital  Music News, irony, one of the top release for Record Store Day was not a record it was a Cassette Tape. Let's let that sink in for a moment and thank Metallica for opening the door to a wider audience understanding that fans will still buy physical entertainment, ask the gaming industry, and the #Musicbiz part of it just needs to start asking them who, what, where and when they're BuyingThis(TM) next release.

2. Metallica – “No Life Til Leather” cassette

And this is the very reason why my company @AltavozEntmt has always offered a CassetteDistributionDeal.com  and artists bands and labels can get it very our PhysicalDistributionDeal.com or DigitalPhysicalDistributionDeal.com

There is a reason why we say Altavoz is the Future of Entertainment Today is because the ground work for it is in the past and it needs to be considered since, what goes around comes around and with entertainment that's Gospel. 

BTW I was wrong I thought that Physical would be higher than 55.3% of sales. Part of that is because the majors have occupied the pressing plants and Indie Artists, Bands and Labels aren't able to get time to press their releases and the consumer is getting what the Majors are cramming down their throats and it's another reason that Cassettes are making a come back.   

The Artists that said I won't release on CD and really wanted to do Vinyl can't so then when to the next not-CD item that was cool and that just so happens to be the Cassette Tape.  I sure a reading is scratching their head and saying that makes no sense; However, the hate that has been ginned up for CD's (They're just good enough) makes it hard for some artists bands and labels to understand the Musicnomics of their chosen profession and they often make decisions on how they feel or what they want to believe. 

As I've pointed out before  millennials and small children are obsessed with them and who knows, that walkman in your parents house might be the perfect gift for someones next birthday. And for next year's Record Store Day, I'm going to say that more than vinyl will be on the BuyingThis(TM) list. And! let's get back to VinylRecordDay.com being the day that is just about Vinyl and RecordStoreDay.com.com about the stores and all things music. 

Please  join my @Pintrest board  iLoveCassettes.com and share some Cassette Love on it.

Stop the Tidal wave of BS there's only 1 aritstsowned.co

So the big news was to be that Tidal is artists owned.

TIDAL is an artist majority owned company with a mission to reestablish the value of music, the protection of the sustainability of the music industry rooted in creativity and expression.

In fact there where 2.3 million articles according to the Google about "Tidal Artists Owned" and it wasn't too long for the Internets to figure out that this was more of a needle then the haystack.   And from the press each of these artists have a 3% stake in this company or if my math service me is 36% and not majority. Moreover, owing one channel in an ever going universe of options means nothing.

Let's face it Distribution is King and until Indie Artists Bands and Labels own part of a Worldwide Entertainment Distribution Co. the there, there is just not well, there... I so often love to point out that Digital is only (as of last week's sales)  45% of the sales and that makes having a Physical Distribution Deal more important that being on Tidal or any digital only service. ((See the chart below))

Having talked about a Clicks to Brick Distribution solution for years, I'm glad to see that most aren't buying this notion that owning a digital outlet is the way to go. The real challenge has been to talk on the last mile of cluster fuck that is the music business.  Ownership.   Again, since Distribution is King it stands to reason that having artists bands and labels as owners of the distribution channel is the missing key.  Not inventing a new one single source use of music.

It's also being clear that the existing digital outlets and new ones like Public Libraries are pretty good if not some of them great and when artists, bands and labels sign a Digital Distribution Deal with AltavozEntmt they're music is in every channel and store if you opt for the Digital Physical Distribution Deal 

When Altavoz says every -- we mean every and the power of that was on display last week with the US debut of John Bull and The Bandits, EP Word to the Wise who was on every digital outlet and streaming service and it charted on the iTunes Blues chart #73 and Amazon UK at #8.  This was done with less than the majors monthly coffee budget.

So here's the part that is getting lost IMHO, there is an ArtistsOwned.Co in the music business my wife and I (re)started it in 2011 and I'm very excited to say that we're now going to the next logical progression.  

Unofficially announce CrowdFundedMusic.co Just waiting on the date to be fixed and once we're done the Crowd will have financed the taking over of a Public Co Shell Corporation and making it the ownership vessel for the artists and the crowd to come together and what really is the Future of Entertainment Today 

See everyone at MusicBiz.org annual convention. MusicBiz2015

Library’s local music collection is a huge hit your's is next

This article, Newton library’s 
local music collection is a huge hit  by Boston Herald's Jed Gottlieb and it's about an emerging trend of libraries and local music meeting up at the last place most would think to look --  Public Libraries. However it's so new that many Cities are unaware that their own libraries even could be host to the local musician and I believe this is about to change.

For one,  I happen to know quite a bit about this since my company AltavozEntmt has been partnering with two companies for the last three years to do just this and this channel has now been formalized into our our CityMusicDeal (TM)  and very soon a new deal that will reach into each and every community in the US and bring full circle the  the artists, communities and libraries.

I've always believed that where you buy or consume music is not as important as the fact that consumers and fans are still very interested in music and every TechDork that has ever been shot down in a band and thought that they would via Technology have the upper hand just doesn't understand the love affair that we have with music and it's perhaps the deepest connection we as humans share with the universe and mother nature.  

Now for any Artists Bands or Labels that are wondering how they can get into their local librarians then look no further than Altavoz's DigitalDistributionDeal.com or PhysicalDistributionDeal.com

PS Digital is still below Physical in sales for those that keep count.

Digital sill below 50% CityMusicDeals and MUSICAct

Let's be clear Physical Music Sales are 55%, if not more* of music sales and the only people that don't get it are the sales reps for digital distribution companies and Indie Musicians.  Just look, the numbers don't add up and investors are realizing that having a PhysicalDistribuitonDeal.com is vital to any companies, artists, band or labels success hence the drop in Digital Only companies stocks.

Who competes in only 45 percent of a market place, again -- Indie Musicans that's who does. And it's because they are lied to or to stupid to understand that 45 percent of a market (that is really dominated by one company) is not a success strategy. Meanwhile the Majors --you know the model that is the "WORSE BUSINESS IN THE WORLD" proclamation made by every CEO of a Digital Music play and most of their recording artists --

Yet! they are still making billions of dollars and they ain't doing it selling downloads or streams 

Now what is the end goal, clearly the multinational companies are not only interested in profits there has to be something else playing out; Because, there is more then money involved and at stake when it comes to music and it's not a good story for US Music; however, that's another blog post called Entertaining our Economy to Death.

I've been really thinking about how we frame the success of some artists when in fact their success is really from the music that came for the city or town that they happened to have been born or moved into and the City's music became part of their DNA as much if not more then they made the City's.  Since it's the City's music that is what frames the larger narrative Chicago Blues, DC's GoGO Seattle Rock, 

Looking at the simple economics of music over a few decades and the new push for US Mayors to export products nicly comes together with a project USMadeMusic.org that seeks promote the export of American made music, the idea dawned upon me to launch a City by City music deal, now called CityMusicDeal(TM) in the top USA Music Cities and (one by one) CityMusicDeal.com will turn into AustinMusicDeal.com, DCMusicDeal.com,  NashvilleMusicDeal.com and etc. connecting the local chambers of commerce, music and arts advocates and any artists band and label that wants a distribution deal. Read more on the website.

Having recently, talked with many of our US Music City Mayor's during the recent Winter Meeting 2015 they heard very clearly that getting exports out was key and most insticlly knew or have come to find out that local music is a priority; However in Washington, DC  music is an after thought other then talks of Cultural Diplomacy which it cannot do if we don't export it.

Really you say an after thought and I say yes! So much so that the only piece of legislation or trade actives I've seen carried out to help US Made Music the M.U.S.I.C. ACT has been in the waiting room for legislation and no one really talks about it.   What is this act?  It would give millions of dollars to local music makes to do just that and export it out of the USA.

Here's the quote from the intro to the legislation

“Our small, independent music labels are finding it increasingly difficult to sell their goods in the global marketplace,” said Nadler.  “This bill would help promote U. S. exports in an extremely competitive industry whose talents cannot be outsourced.  Helping these businesses access foreign markets is also an important part of President Obama’s goal to double U. S. exports in five years – an effort in which New York, home to many independent music labels and artists, continues to take the lead.”  
http://nadler.house.gov/press-release/nadler-seeks-bolster-global-market-american-independent-music

Now I'm not sure why Congress and the Administration aren't supporting this however I've stated a Change.org petition urging Congress to take this up NOW and get support to the one set of Small - large business need and that is working capital and exporting help and that is just what the MUSICAct delivers. Please sign the petition and let folks know about the CityMusicDeal.com it really make an impact on our economy and the lives of some many American's and who can't support that in the USA?

*Vinyl sales is something that I've been involved with for decades and know that what is reported in sales is not reflective of the true volume of vinyl sales.  One of the main reasons being that much of it is sold at shows by indie bands. However the upsurge is just the natural lift that comes from Majors jumping back into it which now means that all of the plants are occupied.   Kinda funny dontcha think.  Majors Occupied the Record Plants that they tried to kill.  

PS get ready for Major back titles on Vinyl to be at $45-55 dollars. 

Co op + iteration is key to release success 2015

Co op,
noun informal

1.  a cooperative society, business, or enterprise.

Iteration,
noun

1. the repetition of a process or utterance.
2. repetition of a mathematical or computational procedure applied to the result of a previous application, typically as a means of obtaining successively closer approximations to the solution of a problem.
3. a new version of a piece of computer hardware or software.

plural noun: iterations

C      Coopiterations,
         noun informal

1.  a co op creating new versions of entertainment, 
2. Creators of entertainment working with business partners to maximize sell through distribution, means if it's not sold to end user it will come back to supplier of it at a cost. 

Therefore if you have a release coming out your -- already doing it!

Carrying this to the next level,  Your release presumably has a marketing and promotion plan and inside of each of these plans need to be a cooperative marketing and advertisements plans for each phase of the release after manufacturing.

Planning > Recording > Mastering > Manufacturing > Distribution > Retail > Fans 

Check out the Steps outlined in making one commercial song. 

Welcome to the Year of the local and Musicnomics 101

If you didn't know. 2015 is the year of the local and there is nothing more local then music and a surf spot.  That said what how and when this local trend gears up was not something I wanted to sit on the sidelines of so starting last year I join a local DC group DC Advocates for the Arts and started something called DCMadeMusic.com which is an effort to get DC made music out of DC since that is my local music scene.

However once I really started thinking about our city's music and having read just about every economic paper on what cities have done to bring music into their development and export plans the idea struck to go about this city by city enabling the existing networks to connect to national and global distribution. This way it get to boats, planes and trains for distribution instead of the bands van or car trunk.

So Altavoz and it's partners took some time to review what was happening and also looked at the data coming from the National Endowment for Arts on artistic impacts on the economy my own back ground in music and economics I've come up with a new word to describe what is needed to be taken into consideration

.  Musicnomics an online education in the business of music. 

It's on this new crazy way to secure a music deal   www.CityMusicDeal.com 

Forget about 20what ever... it's 2015 and what does it mean

So things don't always turnout the way the so called experts say they will.  Remember when the CEO of MP3 said that there would be ZERO CD sales in 2015.  Well I bought a CD release yesterday and know that he's full of it. As is anyone telling you to now release you next EP or LP in Physical formats. I also hope that my slide into the beating of all things digital vs physicals can now be tamed by me and we can get on to discussion the economic of what is happening in the music biz today.

Safe to say have the release in Digital and Physical formats across a wide range of formats, ACC, CD, Cass, Flac, WAV, or Vinyl is and asking the fans how and where they're BuyingThis (TM) needs to be your core activity for 2015 and any releases that are planned.

Knowing where to plan based upon where the fans are willing to pay....what if you had two choices in a market place trying to do a tour. One of the markets has more fans willing to be BuyingThis(TM) in physical format over digital formats. Wouldn't this market intelligence be a great piece of information when everyone is planning on supporting a release?

This willingness to pay extends down the whole eco system of the entertainment business.  The Creators and Distributors are now able to talk to the retail channels physical and online and prepare them and include them in an on going dialogue about an individual release in a way never before possible.

When you and your distributor, Distribution is King, are talking about the 16 weeks that you want to spending getting each release ready for it's street date and now having BuyThis(TM) and other technologies are extracting from the waves of chaos that is social media collective intelligence on what a fans whats where when and how.

And since we know that 35% of all social media post involve entertainment it's safe to say that's fishing where the fish are.... Social@Olgvey  - recent survey

Look the magic is the music not the tech and if you have the next big hit there exist, because I helped to create them any kind of deal for your next release and every single pevayor of entertainment on the planet can be a partner.

1. DigitalDistributionDeal.com
2. PhysicalDistributionDeal.com
3. DigitalPhysicalDistributionDeal.com

There now no excuse that you can't get you're music into the system.  The system today is better geared for the independent than ever before. With the majority of this years Grammy nominations going to Independent Artists, the advent of Cities getting behind their music sense and realize beside the sound of it's culture the exporting it is good business.

The Buy Indie Support Local movement is going to be the economy revitalization that non-creatives could never plan for and hopefully would kill it by trying to over bureaucratize it on the way to taking credit for it too.  The music business is not just our culture is part of our economic future and we have work together in a way that most are used to in today Network economies that are more Cities making up Metropolitan areas than State or the Federal Gov. I've been reading a great book called "The Metropolitan Revolution" by Bruce Katz and Jennifer Bradley and I highly recommend it to readers of this blog because I'm going to be on it like Denver.....

Finally while I don't want to talk about 2014 I do want to say that without Anthony Dunn most of the great artwork that Altavoz has become know for, well Ant is very sick and I've started a GoFundMe campaign to help him. http://www.gofundme.com/helpanthonydunn