One of the big problems we all have when we go into a music store to browse, be it in the high street or online, is what do we want to buy? For many of us it might be what fits with our mood at the time. Music stores are generally rubbish at trying to provide this sort of help, especially traditional high street music retailers. Some stores are racked in broad genres that are so broad they are useless (ABBA next to AC/DC), while others go so niche only trainspotters stand a chance of deciphering what goes where.

Music plays to our emotions, so why do retailers so often ignore them? Especially as music can be really functional; great to drive to, great to dance to, good to have a little cry to, music to lie on a beach to, or possibly provide the perfect background to your next dinner party (that’ll be your chillout compilation then). Maybe retailers could take a leaf out of a certain UK supermarket’s book (who really didn’t like me taking a picture of their display) and suggest products to suit every mood, or as in this case a wine to go with different types of food. Shame they didn’t rack some spicy music to go with the food and wine ideas though…

After digging out my Desperate Bicycles records I decided to hunt out my copy of the first single by Scritti Politti. If that name seem familiar it may be from the hits they had in the mid 80s with singles such as Wood Beez (Pray Like Aretha Franklin) or The Word Girl, or you may even know the blissfull The “Sweetest Girl”, which got to the giddy heights of number 64 in the UK charts back in 1981 (the song was also the opening track on the NME’s C81 cassette which citizen Bay has been digging big time of late). However, before the band became an intellectual pop band much beloved by certain factions of the UK music press, they made a series of independently make scratchy DIY punk records. Scritti founder and current Dalston resident Green Gartside saw the Sex Pistols on the opening night of the Sex Pistols ‘Anarchy’ tour at Leeds University, and decided to form a band.

The band came to London in 1977, moving into a legendary squat in Regent’s Park Road in Camden Town. Scritti Politti were galvanised into actiom the Desperate Bicycles and released their first DIY single, titled ‘Skank Bloc Bologna’ on their own St. Pancras label in 1978. The inside of the sleeve included information on the cost to make the single - recording (£98), mastering (£40), pressing (2,500 7 inch singles for £369.36) , Rubber Stamp and labels (£8), plus information on their distributor Rough Trade Records, then still a record shop in Notting Hill. And just in case you didn’t get the idea he first time around, they printed the costs of producing the John Peel sessions EP on that cover as well.

Green notoriously hates the bands early records, which he claimed “sounds like some anti-produced labour of negativity”, but he finally relented and let his label Rough Trade reissue “Skank Bloc Bologna” on the compilation Early, which brings together the bands first four singles and EPs. The album is available for download at emusic, or you can buy the album from the Rough Trade shop here, for the bargain price of only £6.99!

I read that Jazz Summers, manager of The Verve, was planned to meet Guy Hands, boss of EMI this afternoon. That would be one meeting I would like to be a fly on the wall. Looking forward to reading the press release for that meeting of minds. Someone should snap up the rights to the Terra Firma takeover of EMI. A book on 'How to alienate your clients in one easy step' could be the opener, as for some reason, Guy Hands seems to have forgotten that the artist is the client, not a spoilt child.

Maybe a client or two gets a little 'unconventional', but they are still clients.

And many have integrity and intense commitment to ethics. We know of artists who have turned down seven figure deals with brands because the holding company of the brand is involved in the arms business. Unconventional artists maybe, but many also set standards of ethics that inspire others. Maybe the Terra Firma play is to sit on the back catalogue business and stop worrying about new music, though this goes against the stated position that there will be a focus on A&R. Yet what artist is going to be enticed by a company that fails to engage with it's clients prior to making significant changes in both the company structure and company direction? What established artist will be keen for EMI to negotiate brand sponsorships or partnership when the boss has indicated that the artist needs to prove their commitment and worth? Surely the record label/representative/agency needs to prove their worth to the artist at a time when the artist and their manager have a lot more options in this field, including doing the brands deals themselves. Oh yes and what artist will be enticed by John Birt providing them with Blue Sky Thinking? I initially thought of a great comedy film coming out of this saga, though when one hears that so many people are to lose their jobs, the laughs disappear rapidly.

Here are my Top 5 thoughts/hopes/fears for who will reform in 2008:

 1 The Sundays - babysitters permitting

2 Cocteau Twins 

3 The Kinks

4 The Banana Splits

5 More rubbish boy/girl bands desperate to cash in… 

Any other thoughts? 

Let's face it; few music fans have ever preferred the CD booklet to the album sleeve. With CD sales continuing to drop, and downloads nowhere near replacing the shortfall in sales and revenues, could making the downloads more attractive to music fans help boost sales?

Fans have always wanted something special. Limited edition sleeves, picture discs, posters or a free 7" single have all been used by label marketers in the past to boost sales. So why is nobody trying the same tricks in the download space? In an increasingly crowded market could packaging be used to give your new release increased stand out? Would a more attractively packaged download encourage P2P downloaders to buy the real thing? After all, most download releases come with nothing more than a copy of the albums front cover. And as there's plenty of widgets that can get the cover art for you, hardly a problem. Wouldn't you think that someone would have looked at how to package a download, and to see if that was one way of making them more attractive?

Well, some labels think they may have the answer by producing a 'physical' product in the shape of a USB memory stick. Some of these little critters are really attractive (see these White Stripes examples, above). But what about the rest of the packaging? Is all we really want a flashy outer-casing? And once you have a few hundred of these pesky USB keys, how will fans use or display them? And importantly in this day and age, is it a particularly green way to release your music?

The second options to provide something for free with the download.

I finally got around to downloading LCD Soundsystem's excellent album of music to exercise to. Nike commissioned the piece entitled 45:33, which was initially only available to download from iTunes via the Nike+ website. And as with an increasing number of album releases on iTunes, it comes with a downloadable booklet. But that's where the problems start! The booklet is simply a PDF facsimile of the CD booklet. Fine you may think but, this has got to be be the most uninspiring piece of packaging I've ever seen. And it's not just this particular release. I've yet to see any digital booklet that looks like it has been designed for the computer rather than for a physical CD. And worst of all these booklets won't work on you iPod or MP3 player, which makes them virtually useless! 

citizensound says: 

It makes us wonder if labels still employed their own art departments, would download packaging have moved on? Would a new breed of digital artists and designers have been employed to develop exciting and innovative interactive packaging that added some real value to the listening experience?

Would something as simple as a karaoke functionality on the lyrics or an interactive gaming facility encourage younger music fans to pay for downloads, rather than bluetooth them from their mates in the playground?

And what do older fans like me want from this sort of packaging? In-the-studio footage of the album being recorded? Or access to technology (like U-MYX) that allows me to make my own mixes of my favourite tracks.

Let us know how what sort of packaging you would like to see attached to a music download…

Rereading those quotes from Rolling Stone, made me think of a recent article in the excellent Word magazine. In David Hepworth's "And Another Thing" column he attacked the musicians who look to blame someone else when their music doesn't sell. As Hepworth clearly points out "Those artists who used to think they could float on a puffy cloud far moved from the brute realities of commerce are about to come down to earth. The last 30 years have been a bit of a holiday from the truth. You think you've worked hard in the past ? You've barely began." Even Radiohead's Johnny Greenwood claimed in the February 2008 issue of Mojo magazine that the band have no desire to go it alone and run their own record company. "The experiment was good, but we don't wanna be spending the rest of our careers in meetings discussing Portuguese shop displays." They promptly inked a deal with Richard Russell's excellent XL Recordings, home of the White Stripes, M.I.A.and Basement Jaxx.

citizensound says:

The DIY approach may not be for everyone. Artists and their management will need to employ skilled 'specialists' to do many of the jobs that the record company once did, and if it all goes wrong who's to blame? However, the DIY route can cut down on the overheads, should help increase profits (as long as your sales still hold up) and certainly offers the artist more control - at least you'll always be the priority act!

DIY is also becoming an increasingly viable option due to the increasing number of VC's and brands playing in the music space. While VC's can offer the finance you might need, can they bring marketing or distribution expertise? It should be no surprise then that when a brand like Starbucks comes along offering the 'holy trinity' of 'finance, marketing and distribution', that artists from Joni Mitchell to Sonic Youth, are keen to see what this route can offer.

Rolling Stone magazine, the venerable American music magazine,  hit it's fortieth anniversary in 2007. Like many 'old school' content businesses they are still struggling with what content to put online and what to save for the physical edition. So sadly all the quotes from their 'Future Of Music' feature in the 15th of November special issue of the magazine are not available online, although a few quotes they didn't use in the magazine are available here.

So for those of you who missed out on the article, here are a few choice quotes, which certainly give an interesting perspective on where artists head's are at right now. It seems that both record labels and brands need to work a lot harder on the relationship they have with artists… (more…)

At In The City, the DIY Music panel that Nick and I ran centred around young artists trying to break through, rather than the established artists that the press write about all the time. As a focus for the panel, we invited the talented young musician Rob McCulloch (apologies for the red eye look Rob, but it was that time of night!). The Bolton musician put his CD up on his site and asked his fans to pay what they want for it (pre-dating Radiohead by some way). An average of £11 per album was the result. He has constructed an interesting team around him and his manager, including a company who advises them on marketing and promotion. He is passionately independent, having turned down the advances of the majors in 2005 at SXSW. He controls everything but he is also aware that as things grow for him, the pressures on him will increase, so the topic of the panel interested him more than anyone. Going DIY is not for everyone. Some artists need the comfort of a label. Some believe a more traditional route is best for them. Some have no choice. Some have been rejected by the labels, or have agreed to part company with a label after some time. Ultimately, whilst one could say it is easier than ever to get music out there, it is more difficult to get heard and noticed. So any musician, be they established or new talent, who goes the DIY route is a brave one.

We are witnessing so many young people finding their own path in creating, distributing and marketing their own music. The Punk ethic gone global so to speak. Meanwhile established artists are also finding their own way, be it Simply Red, Paul McCartney or Prince. Some are of the opinion that such artists are past their prime, so have no choice but to find alternatives to the record label support. As Naresh Ramchandani suggested:

Prince is doing what every artist formerly known as good has had to do. He's selling out, and it's never pretty.

However, I think he misses the point. Prince is not formally good. Joni Mitchell is not formally good. Music is about sharing with a community, about story-telling, about sharing life experiences, about representing the community. That is what these artists still do in their own way. These artists are exploring new directions of communicating with their community. They are glorious in their bravery, and should be heralded for trying. Anyone in the music world, be they label, manager or artist, should be cheered for trying new things. If no-one takes risks, the music industry will continue to struggle. Critical to risk-taking is understanding your audience. John Sinclair might not have had all the answers in the 60s, but his view that music binds communities together was bang on. By better understanding the community that the artist connects with will help the artist and their representatives. Some artists take risks and benefit, others are less brave. Part of the bravery of trying something different and exploring their relationship with their community is understanding HOW the artist connects. Over the last few decades, this connection has been driven by the recorded song. As my friend (and honorary citizen) Gauti Sigthorssen pointed out, are we not merely reverting back to a time when the live experience was more important, before vinyl transferred the communal experience of music into a commodity? Many people are looking for a greater emotional connection with artists, not just a throwaway flirtation. The sense of community is stronger than ever. Artists (and brands) that understand their community are the brave ones.

Now that this one has had time to settle, has it actually worked for all?

Well, Starbucks seem to be on a roll with their label, signing James Taylor and Joni Mitchell.

Not hearing much about the financial success of this, but given they are full steam ahead on the artist sign-up front Starbucks clearly mean business. Plus, anyone who gets Joni Mitchell to record new music will always have my thumbs up.

Talking of raised thumbs, I just couldn't get why Paul McCartney signed up with Starbucks.  The kind of people who pass through a Starbuck’s might well be the impulse purchaser of music, but not the core fanbase for McCartney’s NEW music. Surely only his core fanbase would spend money on what is packed with niceness. At the citizensound session in Venice earlier this year, Peter Jenner suggested Saga Holidays would have been a better bet for McCartney.

Yet with reputed global sales of more than a million (half of which from the US), things seem to have turned out well for Macca.

In early August I found myself in a Starbucks in Le Marais Paris. After a few songs from his new album, out came some classic Wings and solo songs from an earlier time. A lot of people, young and old, were singing along, tapping feet, nodding heads to the older songs. So there is a potential added bonus for Mr McCartney here, with an opportunity for a  ‘Best of Macca’ follow up next year perhaps?

Here I have to own up to an interest in the subject matter. He was my mum’s favourite in the Fab Four, hence my first name (me along with few 100,000 others no doubt).

And the music fans?

Well, clearly the impulse purchasers of Starbucks must be happy enough to have paid top $/£/€ for the CD. This is no cut price CD on offer here.

So far so good for everyone…