Hard News by Russell Brown

Some people feel that it perpetuates gender stereotypes about the way men and women relate to music.

I'll tell you what - a few months ago I got rid of all my CDs. By that stage I'd already ditched the jewel cases and had them in CD folders. One afternoon I was in the middle of alphabetising them when I realised that I never actually played them and I couldn't be bothered alphabetising them, so I just put them in the rubbish. Liberation! Somewhere in the garage is a box of vinyl, none of it played since about 2000. I couldn't biff it though. It'll go on Trade Me, once I can be bothered.

Ok, my tunage for this week:

1. "Dancin' on the D" by Lil Freckles
If you saw the latest episode of Girls, you would have heard this performed in the nightclub. It's a summer jam, a girly hip hop ode to being a fly young chick and having lots of sex. It makes me wish I was 24 or something. NSFW if you were planning on playing it out loud?

2. "Hero" by Frank Ocean, Mick Jones, Paul Simonon, Diplo
Brought together by the corporate overlord Converse, it is nonetheless a dope track with lush guitar from the Clash dudes, dreamy production from Diplo, cool from Frank Ocean and a children's choir that does not suck.

It should be noted the biggest selling list bears no real resemblance to the biggest earning list from Billboard about 10 days ago (except that Justin Timberlake is at 3 on both lists).
http://www.billboard.com/articles/list/5930326/music-s-top-40-money-makers-2014-the-rich-list

I weeded out my CDs last year but substituted even older technology--a wind-up gramophone, to play the wonderful collection of 78s I found at a Save The Children fund-raiser. Working my way through a meticulously-catalogued collection of 1930/1940s jazz; obviously the life-work of some old bloke. As David Hepworth recently declared, when asked "What is the future of music?' .... "The future of music is its past".

Regarding another medium; just putting together a lecture on the state of the global film industry and it is remarkable how much American film depends on non-domestic income, with around about 70% of the box office for your average US coming from foreign territories eg Frozen has earned $US1.032billion, with 32 million units on DVD/Blu-Ray sold in one day!
One reason why big, family-friendly animated features are dominating releases as they can easily cross language barriers, with dubbing,

Oh wow, I missed that entire Husband's Stupid Record Collection thing. That is very interesting and I'm still processing what I think about it. (As I read some entries from the blog I kept involuntarily wanting to burst in to her train of thought and wave around some recommendations. I'm not sure whether this makes me a dick.)

A technical point on your statement that a slice of songwriting is necessary to benefit from performance rights, as this is not exactly the case. Performance rights for compositions and recordings are separated at source. The increased revenue to labels you note is a reflection of label and performers' recently-acquired ability to carve out these all-important revenue streams from digital outlets with artists receiving income for their performances through organisations like SoundExchange and NZ's own RAP Fund. However, what stands out in all this is American radio's continuing to hold out on paying anything to performers and owners of recordings. Only the songwriters and publishers get paid on radio there - aside from two interesting cases. Last year Clear Channel struck a deal with Big Machine (Taylor Swift) and Fleetwood Mac to pay a performance royalty. Because, quite clearly, Taylor and Mick really need the cash more than the rest of us. Luckily the rest of the world is more advanced, although we are still forced to deal with quirks such as the UK's PPL being ever so slow in reciprocating a deal with our own PPNZ to deliver NZ artists' performance royalties. There are also remarkably lengthy delays in collecting income from crafty bureaucracies like Germany's GVL. You're right in that performance royalties ought to be a key income stream - but for songwriters and performers.

I've still never run up a session of Spotify. I suspect I'd like the social aspects but the rest of it just plain leaves me cold.

Also, big ups to Daft Punk. To get on that biggest selling artists list is a hell of an achievement for a couple of (mainly) anonymous French dance music producers. They've been 'big' for quite a while so it's easy to forget how unlikely their background was in terms of future success. I wonder how much the fact that they could both actually play musical instruments helped them, in terms of their ability to build extra layers into their music, gain a pop understanding etc...

2. "Hero" by Frank Ocean, Mick Jones, Paul Simonon, Diplo

Great choice Robyn, love this too.

Great choice Robyn, love this too.

Yeah, that's a fun song! I actually like the beginning and ending more than the climactic middle though.

It should be noted the biggest selling list bears no real resemblance to the biggest earning list from Billboard about 10 days ago

That list. to be fair, is heavily skewed by touring income. I doubt the sales of Fleetwood Mac, for example, added heavily to their 19m.

I’ve still never run up a session of Spotify. I suspect I’d like the social aspects but the rest of it just plain leaves me cold.

why is that? - its another wonderful tool for the music nerd and casual listener

For me its a fantastic means to listen to stuff I have no interest or intention of purchasing (a lot from back when I sooooo wanted to purchase/own but the records simply weren't available in small town NZ) ... and mucking around on it can be most fun and enlightening - added bonus the artist I wouldn't give a cent to via purchase might just get a cent thanks to me anyways, thats pretty cool

Although digital sales revenue fell 2.1%, it still accounts for two thirds of overall digital revenue. And digital in turn is trumped by physical sales, which fell 11.7% but still comprise more than half of record industry revenue worldwide.

Are these revenue figures BEFORE distribution costs? i.e. are physical sales revenues the in-store CD price?
If so that's a huge caveat, as the costs of distribution must be orders of magnitude higher for physical. And the 30% cut of your iTunes et al must be a serious part of digital.

I guess I'm asking - do you know what the artist return is for physical vs digital vs streaming (for, say, a thousand people purchasing/listening)...

why is that? - its another wonderful tool for the music nerd and casual listener

Probably a "not enough hours in the day" issue as much as anything. Competing against vinyl, my local, owned digital repository, radio streaming, soundcloud, bandcamp, mixcloud etc... I may have hit the wall.

Have you gone for Premium as those pop up ads are pretty annoying on the Free package my kids use?

I guess I'm asking - do you know what the artist return is for physical vs digital vs streaming (for, say, a thousand people purchasing/listening)..

That's totally dependent on the contract the artist has with the label, or the business model the artist might otherwise use to distribute their music.

That 11% drop in physical is also heavily varied from country to country. In the UK the drop was small and in France physical rose by 1%.

Competing against vinyl, my local, owned digital repository, radio streaming, soundcloud, bandcamp, mixcloud etc... I may have hit the wall.

Spotify has been a massive bonus for us at AudioCulture as it allows us to embed whole albums on pages for visitors to dig into. Added to that is Recorded Music NZ's drive to get all (as in everything ever released, at least by the bigger labels) New Zealand albums online over time, which is rather incredible (the chance of prototype early teen hearthrob Ronnie Sundin's cool 1960 album getting reissue any other way is zero but we will have it in a week or two thanks to Spotify and RMNZ).

RSD: also expect 500 copies of a remastered 7" of The Suburban Reptiles 'Saturday Night Stay At Home', with essays from or interviews with most of the band and Phil Judd. It's a good 'un.

I may have hit the wall.

Same. I signed up, but never use it. The radio, this blog and twitter point me towards new music usually.

On that note Broods just released the official video for Bridges.

I like it. It seems to reflect something that we lost by growing up. My advice is, don’t.

mate, where will these be available? and remastered you say? best news I've heard all day.

Have you gone for Premium as those pop up ads are pretty annoying on the Free package my kids use?

Started on a premium and eventually dropped it cause I wasn't using the service enough - initial honeymoon period wore off... so used the free ad version for a while and now back on premium via my telecom plan, so no dollars down from me an extra bonus as the payout to artists rises (combined total subscribers)

Re Distribution (depending on deal generally itunes makes way more than physical distributors on sales from my experience/past knowledge and has no stock control, storage, collecting monies, returns from retail to deal with (a long topic in itself - hate you retail!) etc etc. itunes really struck a very good bargain from a then panicked music industry...

Artist returns - totally dependent on deals and business competence of all parties, there is no rule of thumb

Spotify has been a massive bonus for us at AudioCulture as it allows us to embed whole albums on pages for visitors to dig into. Added to that is Recorded Music NZ's drive to get all (as in everything ever released, at least by the bigger labels) New Zealand albums online over time, which is rather incredible (the chance of prototype early teen hearthrob Ronnie Sundin's cool 1960 album getting reissue any other way is zero but we will have it in a week or two thanks to Spotify and RMNZ).

Hmm, yes that does sound great. I'm also annoyed when people post Spotify playlists online that I'd quite to jump into for a look.

RSD: also expect 500 copies of a remastered 7" of The Suburban Reptiles 'Saturday Night Stay At Home', with essays from or interviews with most of the band and Phil Judd. It's a good 'un.

Ooh, classy release Simon. I'm gonna order one through my local (nearly) record shop now: http://portil.co.nz/

mate, where will these be available? and remastered you say? best news I’ve heard all day.

Remastered by Stebbings from the original master tape (which I have happily). Real Groovy will have it, as will other New Zealand and international outlets. I’ve licensed it to Raw Power (Simon Kay) who always does these things well.

It was going to come out for the last RSD but wasn’t ready and Simon rejected the cut in the US.

I’ve licensed it to Raw Power (Simon Kay) who always does these things well.

Having done a bit of digging, I have to agree.

I picked up the Suburban Reptile 7" ep that came out in 2004 and the Move to Riot compilation from the Rough Trade shop off Portobello Road and they are great.