Where did you hear that the world is a fair place? When, in all the years of your experiences, did you ever get the impression that human nature is to ignore that which is popular, and devote all their attention to the things that are socially important issues?

No, it’s quite the opposite.

And furthermore, there’s a margin to which the specifics of what is “socially important” is subjective. Who are you to decide what is “socially important”?

When you run your mouth off publicly in outrage of everyone else’s shallow character, disgusted by the fact that people prefer something seemingly less meaningful (by your definition), over something that is arguably more important, not only do you make yourself a hypocritical jerk, but you also demean the very thing that you scold the community for ignoring.

The irony is that you do more damage to the issues you’re passionate about by indicting others, than they ever do themselves when failing to recognize the issues to your standards.

Don’t disrespect the leaders you are passionate about by being a loudmouthed jerk. That’s not what these leaders who have inspired you would do, and that’s not what the leaders of your community would want.

Shut up and lead. Don’t scorn.

//Jon
Website: jonstinson.com
Blog: www.producernotes.com
Twitter: @stsn

I‘m a member of a trade organization that recently made some structural changes which affected their members in a fundamental way.

The other day this organization issued a letter to all the members in response to a large member protest, not only stating their obstinate position that they will not consider reevaluating these changes, but also justifying their reasoning for making this decision, as well as reprimanding the member base for protesting in the first place.

And all this from an organization that is supposed to embody, edify, and serve the people they claim to represent.

I could probably go on to devote a great number of posts to the subject of transparency, or the abuse of trust…

…But the point I’m going to make is simply this: if you’re in charge of an organization that’s treating it’s customers as their subordinates, don’t be surprised when one day you wake up to discover that your brand has been cast out by the masses.

Unfortunately, the music industry has far too many stories of organizations behaving like this.

//stinson
My blog: www.producernotes.com
Twitter: @stsn

You can look for every opportunity to contradict. Every possible space there might be where you could interject a “Yeah, but!”… Instead of truly listening and contemplating what others are saying, you can self-centeredly pre-fashion your counter argument to back up your opposing point of view while they are talking. And you can punctuate all the shortcomings of a simple life lesson with the tiny special circumstances that are meaningless anomalies.

OR! You can delight in the gift you’ve been given. A shortcut using someone else’s life experiences and knowledge. You can slow down and take to heart what is being taught to you. You can make the choice to truly acknowledge the underlying point.

Don’t be foolish. Don’t cut your nose off to spite your face, just because you’re too proud to acknowledge that someone else has more wisdom than you in a particular scenario. Because that’s a serious tragedy that robs you of a priceless gift to leap-frog your way to success.

//stinson
My blog: www.producernotes.com
Twitter: @stsn

Many of you are probably already aware that on Monday, Amazon offered a deal on Born This Way, the new album by Lady Gaga. For one day only-Monday, June 23rd, Amazon featured Born This Way in it’s entirety for 99¢. I took them up on the offer, and purchased my first ever Lady Gaga album.

I half-jokingly made this comment on Twitter and Facebook post-purchase: “The entire new Lady Gaga record is on Amazon today for only 99¢. And for that reason only, I’m gonna own my first ever Lady Gaga record.”

A few of my friends/followers jabbed at me with some playful sarcasm for buying the record. I understand that a lot of people like to turn their noses up at Lady Gaga. And in all honesty, I’m not really a Lady Gaga fan. Yeah, it may make a few people raise an eyebrow when a rocker/shoegazer such as myself buys a pop album. But I’m also a professional record producer/artist developer/marketer/etc. An artist that is making this much of an impact and pulling in this much cash is worth taking an hour or so to gain some familiarity with. Actually, it should be required by someone like me, even if this is not the field of music I specialize in.

But here’s the real point I’m making with this post: I love Troy Carter, Lady Gaga’s manager. I’ve listened to what Troy has to say on multiple occasions. He’s brilliant, respectful of others, and one of the best, most innovative artist managers around today. He understands his business better than most people understand theirs.

Bob Lefsetz had some things to say in regards to Amazon’s Monday promo of Born This Way. As usual, he had some great things to point out. And just as you should expect from an innovative artist manager with his finger on the pulse of his business, Troy chimed in with a response.

The wisdom of these two gentlemen is inspiring, and this particular public dialogue especially educational. Paying attention to and pondering discussions like this is where you will learn the real in’s and out’s of the music industry that no one is gonna teach you in school. And if you wanna make it in this business, then you need to be paying attention to (and aspiring to be like) people such as Bob Lefsetz and Troy Carter.

Bob Lefsetz’s comments on the Lady Gaga Amazon promo:
Lady Gaga/Amazon

Troy Carter’s response to Bob Lefsetz:
Lady Gaga’s Manager Responds

//stinson
blog: www.producernotes.com
Twitter: @stsn
Facebook: www.facebook.com/stnsn

As I was headed to a coffee shop meeting this afternoon, I was listening to Vanderbilt University’s radio station, where they were playing a recorded interview of songwriter Sunny Clapp from, my guess is, 50 or more years ago.

In the middle of the interview Clapp made a brief remark about record sales that really got me thinking. He said, “In those days [the 1920s], a hit record was a million records [sold]. But today, it’s only about 300,000 [copies sold to have a hit]. That’s because more people are writing more often, and putting out more records.” [Note: this is a paraphrase, as I can't recall exactly what Clapp said.]

So what’s fascinating to me about this, is that in today’s time where more music is being released by more artists than in any time ever before…

and the internet makes it push-button simple to distribute music across the world for monumentally less than what it used to cost-instantaneously…

when between 50,000 and 100,000 copies is what it takes to have a hit record now (not 1 million plus like in very recent decades)…

yet everyone is saying that the record industry has tanked-complaining about sales being down, revenue streams drying up, and job opportunities vanishing…

So what does all this say about us in our current time? What conclusions might we be able to draw? Are we living in a time of anguish and misfortune, or vast opportunity?

I’ve got a few thoughts, but would love to collect yours.

//stinson
blog: www.producernotes.com
Twitter: @stsn

Yesterday Digital Music News published an open letter from Evan Lowenstein to performing artists to “Stop giving away your most valuable asset.” In other words, stop performing for free-specifically on music streaming websites that don’t include the option for artists to collect payment.

While I think Evan has a great idea that fills a need no one else has thought of-helping musicians make money via their live performances over the internet-I think he missed the real point in his positioning. I think streaming live shows for free is a great thing. Because, as I’ve mentioned before, and in the famous words of Tim O’Reily, “an artist’s enemy is obscurity, not piracy.” And if you’re a new artist, or an under-the-radar artist, piracy may not be an issue at all. You may not be able to give your music away, because you have not created a demand for it yet!

Furthermore, Mike Masnick originally shared with us another profound idea, which we have discussed before: Connect with Fans, give them a Reason to Buy, in order to generate an income from your music. Or as in Mike’s shorthand, CwF+RtB=$$$

The point is, don’t get ahead of yourself as an indie artist by charging would-be fans cold, hard cash to participate in everything you have offer too early. Ian Rogers made a great point when he suggested to not sell anything until you have the email addresses of at least 2500 people who care about your music (as an aside-read that whole blog post here: http://bit.ly/f39msN)

Once you’ve created meaning with enough people, then arises the opportunity to do some really amazing things that you can and should charge money for. But don’t sell yourself short by selling yourself too early.

Read Evan’s open letter on Digital Music News here: Artists: Stop Giving Away Your Most Valuable Asset

Check out Evan’s project, StageIt, for streaming concerts over the internet. I really do hope this takes off: http://www.stageit.com/

//stinson

When people say, “No one is supporting music, buying concert tickets, etc,” they have brain damage. That’s not true.

For example, I went to the Cold War Kids show last nite at Cannery Ballroom in Nashville and it was packed! Further, everyone was singing the songs religiously.

Another example… the Lightning 100 Birthday Party Show happening at 3rd and Lindsley tonite (3/29) just SOLD OUT.

Another example… the average revenue per transaction across everything Topspin has sold to date is $26.

The point is that if you create meaning, you’re going to be relevant with people. If you ignore everything going on around you, people will ignore you.

//stinson
Blog: www.producernotes.com
Twitter: @stsn
Facebook: www.facebook.com/stnsn

Iremember when I first heard Bush, the band of course, not the President, and I remember thinking to myself, “Wow, this is pretty good. It’s not Nirvana but it’s pretty good”.

A few months after I heard them, they played a big show in Nashville. Sold out, as I recall. I had friends that went, it was a big deal. I stayed home and listened to Nine Inch Nails and practiced 360 flips in my driveway.

Looking back, I don’t think Bush could have made it past MySpace if they came along ten years later. Their music is really good, but it isn’t transcendent, and I’m not basing that on my own opinion, because I actually really like the band. But it’s not as good as Nirvana. And it sounds too much like Nirvana to be able to get away with not quite being as good.

Because of the level of noise and clutter out there, and the disposable nature of a culture of amateurs, willing to sign their rights away to get a track in a movie or iPod commercial and never be heard of again, “good enough” isn’t good enough anymore.

In the past, “good enough” worked because there was a machine that packaged music in a way that let passable artists, with enough hype, get through people’s bullshit filters. Now, an entire generation of artists are coming up with no structure or support system for their own development, and they are expected to do, for themselves, what a label used to do, and pay for, back when there was a thriving music industry. This is creating a lot of problems for talented musicians who suck at business and marketing. It’s also a great opportunity for people who are good at business and marketing but still not great at being musicians/artists to feel like they are getting somewhere, when really all they are doing is splashing around, wasting people’s time and money and attention, and helping to increase ad royalties for social networks that gladly give them a platform for self-promotion because it sells advertising.

It’s easy to get fooled into thinking that the facade is still there though, because there are still manufactured acts that have questionable artistic credibility being tossed out like fresh meat. But that’s an illusion. Manufactured pop stars are fundamentally not musicians, they are a totally different breed of entertainer, they are cultural icons and they serve a very specific purpose- to reflect the subconscious and, at times, conscious self image of their own fans back at them in a way that is slightly more perfect than anything the fans could actually pull off themselves. The music is wallpaper- it’s the background, not the subject. It might as well be Jersey Shore, it’s the same formula.

It’s totally different from the kind of musical epiphany that is impossible to avoid while listening to Sgt. Pepper’s, or Mozart. But even Mozart enjoyed the lowbrow operas of his friends. He just took everything a step further than anyone else thought was possible.

You see, that’s the whole package. When an artist manages to do both things at once- to reflect the subconscious mind of a huge amount of people right back at them, in a way they can absorb and understand and see themselves in, AND is shockingly brilliant musically. Bush was between two worlds, you could look up at them and say “I could do that” and that was part of their appeal. They weren’t fake Disney pop stars, but they weren’t Nirvana either. They were good enough.

The times have changed though, and now “good enough” just isn’t good enough anymore. Now, to really break through and get any kind of meaningful attention, you have to be GREAT!

I‘ve had a long day. This year has been a really long, tough year. A year of growth and challenges (good ones). And I’m exhausted.

So forgive me as I attempt to articulate a relatively disjointed and off-the-cuff thought at 1am…

As I was driving across town on the freeway tonite – making my way home – I began reflecting on what I’m trying to do in this chapter of my life. As I’ve set out to be an entrepreneur over the course of the last three years, I’ve studied the ideas shared by many brilliant entrepreneurs who have gone before me. One of the most impressive ideas I’ve picked up during this study is the idea of failure.

The reality in life is that you fail 100 times over for every success you have. That being the case, it really should not be that big of a deal. Yet failure hits our hearts so hard. We’re terrified of it. We do everything we can to avoid it when it’s utterly unavoidable. We experience constant anxiety about our work (which is the emotion of experiencing failure before it even happens – a hopelessly absurd state of mind), worried that the others we work with will come to think we’re totally incompetent if we don’t deliver an A+.

This comes from years of conditioning in school. The education system punished our failures, when it should do the exact opposite. It should reward us for our failure, for when you fail that is when you truly learn. The education system should teach us how to handle failure, and how to work through it. The education system should teach us that failure is not the issue, it’s your character, and what you do post failure that counts.

Failure is a fact of life. You’re simply going to fail more than you succeed. But education conditions you for the exact opposite of reality. And in the process robs you of a true education.

It’s time for a reformation.

//stinson

A few months ago I was poking around on Twitter. As I was checking out who the people I follow were otherwise connected to, I came across someone who had shared a link to Chatroulette (I’m not going to link there, due to all the naked weirdos).

The next couple days was a weird experience for me. I got sucked into a slight misuse of time, as I experimented with the service, contemplating whether or not it had any usefulness in the realm of promoting music-or if it was simply some time-wasting addiction for perverts (again, it’s disturbing the amount of strange naked men on this site) and underage teens, who’s parents need to restrict their internet access (parents-do you know what your kids are doing right now?) After a few days, I concluded that Chatroulette really had no use for music promotion.

Well, now the site has blown up. This month, I’ve seen multiple stories pop up on blogs about how artists are using Chatroulette.

The first one I heard about was Merton, who gained a lot of attention because of his Ben Folds similarities, and his witty improv ability: http://mashable.com/2010/03/23/exclusive-merton-the-chatroulette-piano-guy/

Then I came across a story about the band Holy F**k, and how they’re using Chatroulette to promote their new music: http://www.fastcompany.com/1586220/indie-band-holy-fk-debuts-new-album-on-chatroulette-of-all-places

Finally, today I saw via a post on Hypebot, that Ben Folds actually did show up in a joking response of sorts to Merton: http://www.hypebot.com/hypebot/2010/03/ben-folds-chatroulette-2000-fans-big-fun.html

Do I think this tactic is a legitimate new way to promote music and gain mass success? No, I don’t. But it is inspiring. It has worked on a certain level.

The point is not explicitly the use of Chatroulette to promote music, because on a mass level that is not going to work. The point is the development and use of creative tactics, which serve as small bits that bloggers and journalists can write about, helping to build the artist’s story.

//stinson