Saturday, July 30, 2011

Rhianna Does Cover Of Glamour, Calls Women Dominant Force In Music Business

Rihanna appears on the cover of Glamour magazine for the September issue, where the singer discusses how women are such a dominant force in Pop music right now. "There's a pack. It's me, Gaga, Katy Perry, Beyoncé... who else? Ke$ha for sure," she tells Glamour.

The singer, who finished up the US leg of her ‘Loud’ tour on Sunday, said that it is “exciting” that so many female stars are topping the charts and selling more records than their male contemporaries.

"Women are definitely dominating music right now, and that's because we are competitive beings. I feel like music hasn't been this exciting in a while." Meanwhile, a trailer for Rihanna's movie, Battleship, hit the web on Wednesday. The singer appears in the upcoming film as the character Raikes, alongside actor Liam Neeson. “All my friends are guys, to be completely honest. when I met Katy Perry, it was such a breath of fresh air. I just couldn’t believe this chick had no edit button. Katy and Lady GaGa came out of the gate exactly the way they think, the way they wanna dress, the way they wanna speak.’’

With the rise of Adele who doesn't fit the typical model body type of singers that most major distributors push to find and sign, it is a strong and true statement from Rihanna. She most certainly falls into the class of women like Lady Gaga, Pink, Ke$ha, Katy Perry, Beyonce, Nicki Minaj that not only dominate the music charts, but do such a great job at handling themselves as business women.

In 2009, Rihanna was awarded with a Women of the Year title by Glamour Magazine. She also covered the US edition of Glamour Magazine for the month final edition of that year, December 2009.

Jay-Z and Kanye Broker Deal To Sell Cd Through Best Buy Exclusively First Ten Days Of Release

Independent record stores are taking Kanye West and Jay-Z to task for signing a deal with Best Buy that gives the chain exclusive rights to sell the deluxe version of the Watch The Throne CD for the first 10 days of its release, as well as giving iTunes an exclusive window for the digital release.

The organizers of Record Store Day have called on independent retailers throughout the United States to sign an open letter to the rappers, which says that exclusive deals with stores such as Best Buy are a "short-sighted strategy, and that your decisions will be doing great damage to over 1,700 independent record stores -- stores that have supported you and your music for years." At press time, dozens of independent record store owners had signed the letter, which can be read here.

Saturday, July 2, 2011

Millions Of Records Sold Does Not Always Equate To Success!!

Walk into most recording studios, entertainment lawyers offices, distribution companies, media companies and you more than likely see numerous plaques on the wall of gold, platinum, and multi-platinum plaques. Does this always equate to success for the artists, or the folks whose walls are decorated with these trinkets? You can go to Ebay, and purchase these same plaques and adorn your walls with them as well it you wanted to.

The fact that an artist sells millions of records does not equate to success in the business just because their face and persona is plastered all over global media and a few have proclaimed them as the queen of pop!! How did so many of you fail to miss the story of Miss Lady Gaga filing for bankruptcy?? This is the fourth time as that! http://www.totalbankruptcy.com/bankruptcy-news/personal-bankruptcy/lady-gaga-says-she-went-bankrupt-fr-800522260.aspx Tony Braxton, Willie Nelson, Ronald Isley, TLC, and the list goes on for so many artists that eventually file bankruptcy after selling millions of records. Extravagant spending, not knowing the infrastructure of the music business or how to run a business, and personal problems lead the reason behind these bankruptcies.



BUT THE BIGGEST REASON IS CONTRACTUAL


Simply put, artists sign one sided contracts, of which most of the top artists get into these 360 deals that allow the record distributor to realize profit not only from record sales (song royalties), music publishing print rights (sheet music), and mechanical licensing rights, but to also share in the revenue from branding contracts, touring, and other revenue.

These artists are given contracts that are so one sided it amazes me that any of them sign them. For instance, the majority of artists today are in what is called a non recoupable state". This simply means the distributor will put up millions of dollars for recording, paying producers, videos, promotion, marketing and creating an image for the artist, and advanced royalties to the artist, and often tour support to support the album pre-release appearances on mini tours, special performances on talk shows, in store signings, etc.. All this goes into an "artist account' and this money is held in escrow against future earnings, until the artist's financial obligation to the distributor has been met. Sadly, most never get out of this situation.

The majority of these artists never earn one red penny because they have to sell an exorbitant amount of albums in order to "recoup" the cost of putting the album out. If the costs are not recouped, then the balance of what was not recouped goes to the next album, and the process starts all over again. Celine Dion, Nas, Willie Nelson, Rick Ross, The Jonas Brothers, and yes even your Lady Gaga finds herself in this situation as well, as well as numerous other artists in the industry.

A large majority of them never even realize music publishing revenue, because they don't know what it is, and sign it away to the major record distributors, managers, or other deviant folks in their inner circle, when it is the largest source of income for an artist. Music publishing is an artists "performance rights", and only if they contributed to the writing, composing, arranging or producing of the song itself. Royalties are paid for each single performance of the song, on radio, television, in videos, on commercials, in movies, on airplane radios networks, in night clubs, etc. The standard royalty set by Congress is currently 9.1 cents per play. What seems like a small amount of money, quickly can become millions if the artist has a hot song like Lady Gaga surely does have a few.

To give you an example of the importance of music publishing to an artist, Dr. Dre has not put out an album in years, yet still collects a cool $40-$50 million every year for his past work with artists and his own music.

Michael Jackson struck a deal in 1995 to merge ATV music publishing which owned a portion of the Beatle's catalog, and Jackson had purchased for 47$ million in 1985, with the SONY music publishing wing, SONY gave him a %50 share (of SONY's share), in all of the music publishing of every single artist on SONY's massive catalog. This meant that Jackson would earn money from every album that SONY released, the back catalog, and future catalogs that SONY would purchase. This was an unheard of deal for any artist in the industry then and even now. Jackson's estate now collects publishing revenue from Gretchen Wilson, Celine Dion, Elvis Presley, Eminem, Willie Nelson, Lady Gaga, the Jonas Brothers, Justin Bieber, etc., etc. http://books.google.com/books?id=MDsDAAAAMBAJ&pg=PA36&dq=Sony/ATV+%22michael+jackson%22&lr=&num=100&as_brr=3&as_pt=ALLTYPES&ei=-JHYSY-XJYbEzQSywKCgCg#v=onepage&q=Sony%2FATV%20%22michael%20jackson%22&f=false

The value of Sony/ATV Music Publishing has varied in reports. Industry experts have estimated the company to be worth as much as between $450 million to $1.5 billion. http://www.forbes.com/forbes/2002/0812/054_print.html

Although some believe that Michael Jackson's Jackson's "so called" financial problems cost him a %50 share of the Beatle's cataog to SONY in 1995, http://www.usatoday.com/life/people/2004-04-27-jackson-finances_x.htm Michael Jackson's estate last year alone will collect in music publishing royalties approximately $300 million, not including another $300-$400 million in revenue from other sources.. This revenue for the MJ estate is not only his music, but a number of elaborate deals the gloved one has made over the course of his illustrious career, not including the infamous purchase of ATV music publishing, which owned a portion of the Beatle's catalog, after being schooled in a studio session by Sir Paul McCartney himself, on the importance of owning and purchasing music publishing catalogs, but numerous other deals that the new SONY/ATV company would realize after the merger. http://articles.nydailynews.com/2010-06-21/entertainment/27067766_1_top-earning-dead-celebrities-yearly-profits-michael-jackson

Some of those deals were purchasing Tony Martin's Baby Mae Music catalog of 600 songs, country music publisher Acuff-Rose's music publishing rights to 55,000 country music songs, including the music of Hank Williams, The Everly Brothers and Roy Orbison, Famous Music, a music publishing business with song catalogue of more than 125,000 songs including "Moon River" and "Footloose", and the catalogs of Eminem, Akon, Linda Perry, Bjork, Shakira, Beck, etc. Jackson's other publishing firm, Mijac, which publishes songs written by Jackson himself and which is administered by SONY Music competitor Warner/Chappell Music, is valued to be worth at least $75 million.


So while Lady Gaga has been financing extravagant over the top tours and going bankrupt, and other artists just sit in limbo in one sided contracts, Michael Jackson proved himself to be the most intelligent artist of them all.