"why Am I Not Famous Yet?"

[Songstuff]

I think your blog hits a hell of a lot of nails square on the head John. There are some hard lessons for a hard world in there.

It's just a pity that there aren't a few more guys like yourself out there in record-land to help guide people through the minefield.

Incidentally, I had a listen to "Awaken" when I followed the link, and believe me when I say that I mean as high praise that it took me back to my good memories of the New Romantic times... I loved the bittersweet piano line that went through the song and I thought the vocals were polished and brilliantly produced. It kind of took me back to memories of stuff like OMD and Eurythmics, but it's still out there in a class of it's own.

On topic, it definitely sounds marketable...

Many thanks for your praise on both the article and on Awaken. it's amazing just how few music biz people are either not straight talking, or not even talking at all, drawing a line between themselves and the writhing mass of unsigned musicians and music amateurs and semi pros. It goes against my nature so....

Great article!

Thanks Donna! Glad you like it

[john]

Ooops, should have posted that as me, I was logged in as admin LOL

[Ray888]

It's amazing just how few music biz people are either not straight talking, or not even talking at all, drawing a line between themselves and the writhing mass of unsigned musicians and music amateurs and semi pros. It goes against my nature so....[quote)

It's nice to be able to get peoples views on these kind of topics.

Until recently, I have been out of the whole music scene for 15 years, so I am unfamiliar with the way the industry has or hasn't changed, apart from digital programs, home studio's, and internet sales that have enabled musicians and artists to rely less on the record companies. I also remember how jittery and insecure the industry was at the time, and because I had a commercial studio myself, I noticed how severely the studio bookings were effected.

Back then, I had a lot of contact with A&R who used to speak quite freely about what was going on. From what I gathered back then, they were given specific instructions of what type of bands and artist to look out for, which kind of narrowed down the field a bit. I felt back then that because of those specific instructions, a lot of talent was being overlooked. The A&R guys were so intent on keeping their jobs that I doubt if they ever spoke up or tried to change the situation.

I must admit that I do feel out of touch with what has happened in the time I have been out, and I suppose that I could be called a bit of a dinosaur.

[Donna]

It’s also called oldschool

Edited August 28, 2011 by Donna

[Ray888]

It’s also called oldschool

Yes Donna, but it feels like I am 5 years old and have just started school. Please can you teach me Mam?

[Donna]

Yes Donna, but it feels like I am 5 years old and have just started school. Please can you teach me Mam?

Lol, I feel the same way, Wordflower. What an humble request. I am very old school. Hang around here - these guys nursed me back from a 12 year exile. John Moxey, site owner, is the one to go to, to get up to speed on this industry - especially for us who’ve been away and for the oldschooled. Read him. Read anything he has authored.

Edited August 28, 2011 by Donna

[Ray888]

Lol, I feel the same way, Wordflower. What an humble request. I am very old school. Hang around here - these guys nursed me back from a 12 year exile. John Moxey, site owner, is the one to go to, to get up to speed on this industry - especially for us who’ve been away and for the oldschooled. Read him. Read anything he has authored.

Thanks very much for the advice Donna, this site and it's members are just what the doctor ordered.

[Prometheus]

One of the big problems these days is that the goal is no longer to produce a great product or to generate positive critical acclaim or to push the envelope. We're in a situation where fame itself is the goal and to achieve it people don't care whether they sell their soul and release dross, mass appeal drivel.

Looking back at some of the great artists of the past, the stuff they created resonated emotionally and hit a nerve because they actually had something to say. This does not seem to be appreciated in the modern age, and I'm pretty sure it's not human nature that has changed greatly in the last twenty years. It's the method statements of the performing arts industries that have.

[MikeRobinson]

I think it's also worthwhile to notice that Charles M. Schulz produced a total of 17,897 strips: 15,391 daily strips, and 2,506 Sundays. He drew every single one of them by hand, while simultaneously managing a world-wide licensing business. He took only one five-week "vacation" during his entire life.

There are plenty of musical performers out there who voluntarily keep very grueling schedules. The trumpeter Chris Botti, for example, has been keeping up a touring schedule for years in which he performs somewhere almost every night of the year.

I'm not saying that you have to dig a grave for yourself in order to "make it," but maybe I'm saying that it helps. Luck favors the well-prepared. Even "famous name" songwriters and performers constantly keep doing it as long as their health holds up, because the competition is fierce and, well, as Charlie Daniels put it, "they'll forget about ya, soon."

It definitely is a volume game. The more stuff you have out there on-sale, the more revenue you'll bring in even if none of them are burning the top out of the Billboard chart.

No matter what it is that you are selling, or to whom: "He who has a thing to sell / and talks about it in a well / is much less apt to get the dollars / than he who stands on roof and hollers."

Then there's the lesson that Tom Watson, Sr., the founder of IBM, gave to his salesman: "Two salesmen were sent to Pango-Pango to sell shoes. One wired back: 'Coming home next boat. No one here wears shoes.' But the other one wired: 'Marvelous opportunity. Send all you have. No one here wears shoes!'" Success, in other words, is what you make it. Laugh at "outrageous" acts like Lady Gaga if you want to, but that lady, like Madonna before her, knows exactly where she's going and exactly how to get there. She knows exactly what product she needs to sell, where to get it, how to package it, who her audience is, and how to sell it. She will go far.

The days are long gone when Nashville and L.A. and "Tin Pan Alley" were the king-makers of music, because the barriers to entry have all been demolished. Literally anyone can not only produce a good song (or a bad one!), but they can produce it and send it to the world. So you are not only competing with good stuff ... you're competing with bad stuff, as well! But on the other hand, there are no real limits as to where you might find ways and places to sell your music. The "cost of goods sold" is ... zero.

And, even if you don't "sell" a single note, there is the pure joy of doing it and of being recognized and appreciated by your own peers for doing so. You never know where such things might lead. Even if they lead "nowhere," music is still a self-rewarding journey that is well worth taking. Music will change your life.

Edited September 4, 2011 by MikeRobinson

[Prometheus]

And, even if you don't "sell" a single note, there is the pure joy of doing it and of being recognized and appreciated by your own peers for doing so. You never know where such things might lead. Even if they lead "nowhere," music is still a self-rewarding journey that is well worth taking. Music will change your life.

I concur with this 100%...

[Ray888]

I think it's also worthwhile to notice that Charles M. Schulz produced a total of 17,897 strips: 15,391 daily strips, and 2,506 Sundays. He drew every single one of them by hand, while simultaneously managing a world-wide licensing business. He took only one five-week "vacation" during his entire life.

There are plenty of musical performers out there who voluntarily keep very grueling schedules. The trumpeter Chris Botti, for example, has been keeping up a touring schedule for years in which he performs somewhere almost every night of the year.

I'm not saying that you have to dig a grave for yourself in order to "make it," but maybe I'm saying that it helps. Luck favors the well-prepared. Even "famous name" songwriters and performers constantly keep doing it as long as their health holds up, because the competition is fierce and, well, as Charlie Daniels put it, "they'll forget about ya, soon."

It definitely is a volume game. The more stuff you have out there on-sale, the more revenue you'll bring in even if none of them are burning the top out of the Billboard chart.

No matter what it is that you are selling, or to whom: "He who has a thing to sell / and talks about it in a well / is much less apt to get the dollars / than he who stands on roof and hollers."

Then there's the lesson that Tom Watson, Sr., the founder of IBM, gave to his salesman: "Two salesmen were sent to Pango-Pango to sell shoes. One wired back: 'Coming home next boat. No one here wears shoes.' But the other one wired: 'Marvelous opportunity. Send all you have. No one here wears shoes!'" Success, in other words, is what you make it. Laugh at "outrageous" acts like Lady Gaga if you want to, but that lady, like Madonna before her, knows exactly where she's going and exactly how to get there. She knows exactly what product she needs to sell, where to get it, how to package it, who her audience is, and how to sell it. She will go far.

The days are long gone when Nashville and L.A. and "Tin Pan Alley" were the king-makers of music, because the barriers to entry have all been demolished. Literally anyone can not only produce a good song (or a bad one!), but they can produce it and send it to the world. So you are not only competing with good stuff ... you're competing with bad stuff, as well! But on the other hand, there are no real limits as to where you might find ways and places to sell your music. The "cost of goods sold" is ... zero.

And, even if you don't "sell" a single note, there is the pure joy of doing it and of being recognized and appreciated by your own peers for doing so. You never know where such things might lead. Even if they lead "nowhere," music is still a self-rewarding journey that is well worth taking. Music will change your life.

I couldn't agree with you more Mike,

In my experience over the years (and I am 61), there are those that make opportunities, and there are those who wait for them to knock on their door.

Also, your point concerning the enjoyment factor is very valid, otherwise why do it?

The only thing that I would question is that the lines of good and bad music are not as clear as one might think. Often it is a matter of taste, and what one person labels as bad, another may well think it is great. There have been plenty of songs that I personally have found to be nothing less than a joke, that have climbed the UK charts, so obviously a fair amount of people must have liked them enough to purchase them.

Lastly, I would just like to show my appreciation for experienced people like yourself, who freely give their time and abundance of experience to others including myself. I have just recently returned to lyric writing after a fifteen year absence, and even though it was initially difficult for me to hear your feedback on some lyrics that I had written, It turned out that you were absolutely spot on. I suppose that it was hard for me to accept that I was very rusty, but your constructive criticism has encouraged me to re-evaluate what I write. Thank you. Kind regards, Ray

[Prometheus]

Speaking of Lady GaGa, I actually saw a thing on Youtube where she played one of her songs the way she writes them, with her voice and a piano. Her musical knowledge and skill is absolutely phenomenal. I don't know whether she's self taught or not, but she can certainly play to Grade 8 level, possibly beyond.

What the public end up hearing is a a dumbed down version of the songs that focus on gimmickry rather than music. Now, I have nothing against her videos, I think they're rather fun to watch and I find her flagrant use of her sexuality rather stimulating, but I do think it's a shame she can't play her songs in accordance with her own vision of them.

When it comes to Madonna on the other hand, I'd question whether she's even really all that interested in music. From reading biographies of her I don't think she particularly cared about the details of how she achieved fame and power, as long as she did. What she could do was sing passably and act quite embarrassingly badly, but like Lady GaGa she could work some real magic with sophisticated dance routines and stylized sexuality in videos. That was the formula that worked for her.

That and the fact that in her youth she was vain, shallow, self obsessed and without principle... She would walk over anyone and anything to get where she wanted.

[MikeRobinson]

I think that both Madonna, in her day, and Lady Gaga, in her day, know precisely how the marketing aspects of the business work, and how to shape it to their own personal and business advantage. Right down to the selection of their public name. (Well, "Madonna" is of course the first name of Mme. Madonna Louise Caccione, but she subsequently played up the Catholic-notoriety angle to the hilt, most explicitly and knowingly in titles like Like A Virgin.)

There is no denying, also, that "Sex Sells," whether you have settled upon the schtick of putting on a cone-shaped bra or something equally schtick. People are not going to buy your grade-8 musical performance abilities, and they don't want to buy your demos. However, being possessed of that level of performance and song-writing ability never hurt anyone. This is a business, and you are developing and marketing a commercial product. You know that you have only a very limited amount of time to stock-up the bank of songs that will be played on XM Radio (you hope...) forever. When the "retro" stations are playing "the oldies hits of the 2010's" and they really are "oldies" and you're gulping down Metamucil vitamin supplements while wearing Depends baggy pants, you want those royalty-checks to still be coming-in.

Edited September 6, 2011 by MikeRobinson

[MikeRobinson]

Lastly, I would just like to show my appreciation for experienced people like yourself, who freely give their time and abundance of experience to others including myself. I have just recently returned to lyric writing after a fifteen year absence, and even though it was initially difficult for me to hear your feedback on some lyrics that I had written, It turned out that you were absolutely spot on. I suppose that it was hard for me to accept that I was very rusty, but your constructive criticism has encouraged me to re-evaluate what I write. Thank you. Kind regards, Ray

Why, thank you ...

Maybe I am missing my future calling as a promoter or a critic. Sure would beat the hell out of continuing to be a computer-programmer for the rest of my life...

Edited September 6, 2011 by MikeRobinson

[Prometheus]

I think that both Madonna, in her day, and Lady Gaga, in her day, know precisely how the marketing aspects of the business work, and how to shape it to their own personal and business advantage. Right down to the selection of their public name. (Well, "Madonna" is of course the first name of Mme. Madonna Louise Caccione, but she subsequently played up the Catholic-notoriety angle to the hilt, most explicitly and knowingly in titles like Like A Virgin.)

Reading biographies of musicians is a hobby of mine. John Randall Taraborrelli very candidly details how Madonna payed her early producers like John "Jellybean" Benitez and Patrick Leonard by f*cking them in the literal sense and then when she was finished with them f*cking them in the metaphorical sense. He also describes thinking her a petulant self involved brat with limited talent on their first meeting in 1983. To be fair, he does detail how she mellowed and became deeper and more thoughtful with age. I guess even an addiction to a mind altering brew like power can be controlled by a clever addict.

I don't doubt that Lady GaGa, despite still being a slip of a girl, has already forgotten more than I know about the music business. There isn't a day goes by when I'm not thankful for that because what experience I've had with the industry has left me feeling rather cross.

What I think is sad is that artists and musicians can't concentrate on making the music and people in gray suits can't stick to doing business. If there were a principle like the US separation of Church and State between music industry executives and performing artists, I can't help thinking the mainstream music we hear in the Western World might not be such an exclusive conformist club for dross mass appeal nonsense calibrated to appeal to the lowest common denominator.

There is no denying, also, that "Sex Sells," whether you have settled upon the schtick of putting on a cone-shaped bra or something equally schtick. People are not going to buy your grade-8 musical performance abilities, and they don't want to buy your demos.

The rather cynical penser occurs that this is because the human race is composed almost exclusively of shallow imbeciles who spend their lives being circled by be-suited sharks who want their money.

However, being possessed of that level of performance and song-writing ability never hurt anyone. This is a business, and you are developing and marketing a commercial product. You know that you have only a very limited amount of time to stock-up the bank of songs that will be played on XM Radio (you hope...) forever. When the "retro" stations are playing "the oldies hits of the 2010's" and they really are "oldies" and you're gulping down Metamucil vitamin supplements while wearing Depends baggy pants, you want those royalty-checks to still be coming-in.

This is the kind of talk that sends me into such a fit of depression that it makes me want to reach for my revolver and blow my own head off to the sound of Kirlian Camera's Ascension, which is possibly the most beautiful song that nobody wants to pay for that I've ever heard.

It wasn't always like this though. In the past there was something in the mainstream for people who wanted to hear music with some kind of artistic merit to it. We've witnessed an historic first in the people who run the performing arts industries, the metamorphosis of butterflies back into maggots.

[Prometheus]

Sorry if the above post is a little bit of a rant. I do try to detest all human beings equally, but I can't help reserving a special place for the music industry aristocracy.

[Ray888]

Sorry if the above post is a little bit of a rant. I do try to detest all human beings equally, but I can't help reserving a special place for the music industry aristocracy.

It takes all kinds to make up this world. The majority of this so called elite group, hate people like you because they are reminded that they are completely void of integrity.

The individuals that you refer to, although not all, only see the £ or $ signs and are not interested in the music. The way that I see it is, that it's their loss, and the real winners are those of us who enjoy the creative process of making music. They are welcome to remain in their ivory towers because it is a very lonely place to be.

Their loss, their loss, their loss, and not mine.

[MikeRobinson]

I think that "the Music Industry" is seriously caught off-guard by the explosion of what they call "un-signed music." Music that is being produced by people who don't have any sort of recording contract, and are not producing anything as a "work made for hire," and who are selling directly to the consumer. It's never again going to be the business that it was "pre-Net." Ever. And, all-l-l-l of that " you, there's nothing you can do about us, so face it, you're -ed" bad karma is coming right back onto a lot of people in spades.

Bad attitudes, and bad business decisions, and smoking bridges, made when none of them thought their party could end. When the game changed, they had no friends among people who, up to that time, had been forced to do business with them.

Edited September 7, 2011 by MikeRobinson

[Prometheus]

Sorry guys....just a casual observer here. But one statement did catch my eye.....

.....That....is that well-stated!

Tom

It's the things they feel they're entitled to do though!

[Roflcopter]

when the Beatles landed in NYC in 1964 for

their first U.S. appearance, they had already been together since

1957 and had clocked an estimated 1,200 gigs, many

consisting of eight hour sets at Hamburg and Liverpool clubs

Well they say you have to spend about 10,000 hours of hard work to become proficient/expert at anything. Even though that's probably no guarantee of success, at least you can rest assured you are miles above the rest of the pack, whatever you do ...