Time out from music marketing, sonic branding and looking after…

Always been a big fan of Harold Melvin & The Blue Notes.

Teddy Pendergrass at his best…

So the biggest fake fight for number 1 is thankfully now over. Rage Against the Machine is the Xmas number 1, instead of the X-Factor winner Joe something or other. We can all pat ourselves on the back to show how democracy and the power of crowds can overcome the establishment.

Power to the people? Ummm not quite.

It is all very amusing, but I have to wonder why normally sane people took on the challenge to STOP SIMON COWELL at all costs. The blogosphere was full of indignation (now self-congratulatory), to the point that he was almost blamed for the failure of the supposed leaders of the world achieving anything meaningful at Copenhagen. The indignation was almost worthy of a sequel of The Manchurian Candidate or some new Bond film, with guess who cast as the maniacal leader (called ‘number 1′ no doubt) of the SYCO organisation that plans to take over the world. However, I do wish people were more clear on what they were raging against…

If they wanted to put a decent track to the top, that’s fine. Lots to choose from. Yet that was not what is going on here. It was about STOPPING X-Factor domination of the charts. The guy who started this campaign was fed up with the Cowell dominance, and put forward a personal favourite. In itself, I applaud his actions. What cannot be denied is that he channeled his and other people’s anger at the right time and has proved that people WILL pay for music.

Yet their actions seemed utterly misplaced…

Three observations from me:

1 A return to the 50s.

All we are seeing is a swing back to the 50s in the UK where TV entertainment shows dominated and the sound of ‘popular’ music filled the air. For every person that has discerning music tastes, there are 10 people who quite like a song, but have no idea what it’s called and who it is by. Simon Cowell is aiming at the 10, not the 1. People who impulse buy at Tesco’s the ‘Best of Westlife’ or ‘100 best songs on Valentine’s Day’ are not going to worry about the ‘difficult second album’.

“Yes but” I hear you say, ” we cannot compare to the 50s, as we now have the net and everyone is connected”. True, the channels might be different, but the result is the same. Back in the 50s and 60s, it was the chitlin circuit in the U.S., the car radio and Pirate Radio in the UK that carried the rage. Now we have the net and mobile. Raging against mediocrity will always be around - thank Schlager music on anodyne TV in Germany for NEU, Harmonia and Kraftwerk. Just as in the 50s great music will emerge out of mediocrity.

2 A Generational Thing?

Grans and kids love Joe. He is more Cliff Richard, less Little Richard. It’s the 30/40/50somethings who are appalled. The guys who organised the Facebook campaign is in his 30s. Generations brought up on Protest Music are now protesting about Simon. Meanwhile, the kids love JedWard and the other ‘talents’ of the show. Young teens think that Stacey can actually sing. That’s ok, we all make our mistakes. The first album I ever bought was by Gary Glitter (called ‘Touch Me’ would you believe).

3 Raging Against the Music Machine?

This is the one that gets me. The rage is completely misplaced. For goodness sake, RATM are handled by Sony Music, as is Joe and all the other X-Factor folk. So this whole rage against the ‘music machine’ is just helping the mythical ‘machine’.

If people truly want to rage, then go and buy music of someone who has no label, but is doing it the DIY route. Support a local band. Support a young band who are trying to make fresh music whilst being surrounded by other teens who place more importance on the lives and loves of the X-Factor finalists. Support a band like MISHKIN, a great band from Leeds who are building a fanbase and a reputation for being ultra-positive (More Laugh At The Machine). Support a young singer like MIA ROSE who citizensound looks after. Two weeks up on youtube, and her video has been seen by 1.2m people in 206 countries. No label, no hype, lots of word of mouth.

If like the founders of the RATM campaign, you wanted to get your favourite song to number 1, then cool. But I can’t help feeling that a lot of people who voted for RATM were acting more like a bunch of students demonstrating their revolutionary politics by handing in their term work 2 days late. This was not ’sticking it to the man’.

If I was Sony Music, I would be cracking open the champagne right now. Genius job done. Love X-Factor - Sony wins. Hate X-Factor - Sony wins.

I guess one person who might have reason to rage more than anyone is Guy Hands. All that money spent on EMI thinking his business knowledge can sort out these ‘music folk’. Look where that’s got him. If only he realised that the music business will live and die on one thing and that is that MUSIC IS IMPORTANT TO PEOPLE. Give them music they love in a way that fairly compensates the creator for their efforts, and the world is all good.

Once upon a time, artists struggled with the perfect running order of the songs for the LP (that’s a big round flat bit of plastic that sound came out of when it came in contact with a needle, and often came packaged in hideously/beautifully designed cardboard).

Which songs should be on side 1, which on side 2? What should open, what should close?

Then CDs turned the two-sided experience into one long experience or a hop/skip/jump experience as people decided whether they liked a track after the first few notes…

Now we have an artist like Zero7 (Zer07?) putting their album up on soundcloud to allow the fans to have a good listen to the album before they buy. Can’t argue against that. But what are the fans listening to? Do they listen to the full album all the way through?

Well, initial results shows that fans a little bit lazy or pushed for time.

There is a clear falling off of listening as you head down the tracklisting. So what do you do if you are a band who wants people to listen to all of your tracks (if you didn’t care, then why put them out in the first place?!)

One simple thing really for starters. Mix it up. Flip the running order on soundcloud and other services and see whether that gets more people listening to track 10 vs track 1. Subjectivity suggests that first track isn’t always going to be the one that defines a fan’s relationship to you. Mix up the listing on myspace.

For many artists the running order will continue to be important. However, if you want fans to discover your music, be warned that they might buy into it that readily. Introducing your music to them might need a little flexibility on your part…

Been around for a while but still the concept of a restaurant that shuts off your ability to view food is a splendid thing.

The Nocti Vagus restaurant in Berlin provides an  experience of food that demands you to depend on your sense of smell, taste, sound and touch. Much like Gordon Ramsay goes on about a chef needing to the food they cook, so we as customers place much emphasis on how food looks rather than how it tastes/smells/sounds/feels.

There is something wonderful about this restaurant that gets people to focus on the importance and joy of food, rather than the superficiality of ‘first appearance’.

There is also much to gain from this restaurant for those marketers who wish to utilise the power of all senses in their engagement with customers.

Mind you, I still hate celery and cherries, blindfold or not…

So I woke up and I am supposed to go and check out the nominees for the Mercury Prize, at The Hospital Club, at 11am..do music industry people even wake up before 11am?

Kasabian played live right in front of me, while I was still trying to have my morning dose of caffeine, then comes Lisa Hannigan with her beautiful voice….Superb.

Then you enter the press room (and this is me with my blackberry) and there are ALL the nominees plus all the media you can think of.

There was my favourite album of 2009 - Speech Debelle’s “Speech Therapy” (here’s a piccie of me with Speech!)…a band whose members had the worst hairdos I’ve ever seen in my life…The Horrors (really? Could never guess), Florence & The Machine (Rabbit Heart (Raise It Up) - best video clip ever) she didn’t know how to handle the actual prize for the photo hence the strange position she held it in…Bat for Lashes´ Natasha Khan is the kind of girl I wanna be, cuuute…La Roux wasn´t there ( I believe she is in the US, good for you)…The Invisible band were there, and man they’re not Invisible whatsoever, and as you’ll see from the photos one of them is most definitely NOT INVISIBLE at all. You can check out all my photos from the Mercury launch here

And this years nominees are:

Florence + the Machine ‘Lungs’
Kasabian ‘West Ryder Pauper Lunatic Asylum’
Speech Debelle ‘Speech Therapy’
Friendly Fires ‘Friendly Fires’
La Roux ‘La Roux’
Bat for Lashes ‘Two Suns’
The Horrors ‘Primary Colours’
Glasvegas ‘Glasvegas’
Led Bib ‘Sensible Shoes’
Sweet Billy Pilgrim ‘Twice Born Men’
The Invisible ‘The Invisible’
Lisa Hannigan ‘Sea Sew’

When we say that we help brands and organisations with their sonic brand identity, we cover everything…even parties!

Those lovely people at the IAA UK chapter (and Michael ‘Prince fan’ Toedman particularly) asked us to deliver some great music for the 80s themed Summer Ball.

We had Nelly, Nuno and our very own citizen Paul Martin playing the sounds covering lots of great sounds (cool ones and simply ones that you have to dance to). Talking of which here is a little clip…

Not sure what I can say about some of the dance moves going on…

A selection of some of the faces there…

Mariana loved this look…

Is that Meike and a dayglo friend?

Meanwhile citizen Mariana shares the spotlight with Kate Williams of Columbus Media

And the suave sophisticated folks from Publieurope prepare for the dancefloor

More photos found here

This month we’ve got 18 tracks of fantastic summer tunes for you to listen to with our latest citizensound “It All Ads Up” podcast.

This is the first time we’ve used the rather excellent SoundCloud service to provide you with our regular podcast of our favourite tunes for all of you in advertising and brand land. If you want to download the podcast simply click on the downward facing arrow on the soundcloud player and your download  of “It All Ads Up” should start.  We hope you enjoy our little summer holiday soundtrack!

When we launched soundsearch, our bespoke music search and licensing facility, just over 12 months ago we wanted to deliver something different to the marketplace. We don’t have a fancy computerised system, but what we do have is over 40 years of music business experience and a huge collection and knowledge of music that can cover almost every base and genre imaginable.

We hope you enjoy this month’s podcast. If you want more information about soundsearch contact mariana@citizensound.net

Saw Bobby McFerrin tonight at South Bank, London as part of Ornette Coleman’s Meltdown.

I have seen him perform a number of times, the first time going back to the mid-80s when his first album came out. Whilst not a fan of his dabblings with poppy songs and a sometimes throwaway approach to some beautiful songs, I truly admire his voice. he really is one of the great innovators.

So to have Ornette Coleman step out at the end of the concert for an impromtu performance with McFerrin, the night was made.

Coleman led (as he so often has), but McFerrin matched him, demonstrating his prowess and skill as a vocal musician.

Glorious night.

(more…)

Ahh the anticipation. Your favourite band is in town. You are ready to part with your precious money (note to promoters, it is very precious, so cherish our custom), but no matter how quick you are in booking tickets online, some company gets hold of them first.
So you end up booking tickets which might have a nice little ‘booking’ or ‘administration’ fee (i.e.taking a cut for doing nothing in return) added on top.

Slight problem. The tickets you paid for don’t arrive. So you call up on a telephone number that, in the words of British Telecom themselves

can help you generate that extra bit of revenue by deciding the rate you want customers to pay for the call

Lovely. So now the fan has paid an additional amount for the joy of chasing tickets paid for over a month ago.

Tickets still don’t arrive on the day of the concert. Don’t worry, they have been dispatched the day before according to the website tracker service, I am told…yeah right.

In the same breath, I am told that as the tickets have not arrived, I can pick them up at the venue, which means a nice little queue to collect tickets I paid for over a month ago, instead of having them in my hands. The company person I spoke to knew so little about the venue - I was told that I would have to queue up with people who had their tickets, when in fact it doesn’t work like that at all at the South Bank Centre.

So stealing myself for going earlier to the South Bank, when at 4pm, the tickets turn up at my house. Lucky I was at home. Utter shambles, and a waste of my time chasing these tickets. Mind you, given the huge number of complaints I see on the net about SeeTickets, I guess I should be so lucky…

So my question is this.

What is the point of SeeTickets for fans?

So brands are having to be focused more than ever on understanding who their consumers are/could be, along with what they really want. The days of conveying to consumers what brands think the consumers should have is moving aside.

As for musicians, their managers and their labels, they also are realising the importance of knowing more about who the fanbase is and what they like/don’t like. Mistake a CD sale, a download, a mug or a concert ticket for a long-term fan, and you will find yourself in the corner marked delusional.

Most people who like music are transients. They are passers-by. They are short-termists. A few though are in it for the long-term. Which ones are which? Is it only normal to categorise your fanbase into neat little boxes marked ‘young cool kids’ or ’30sonething mums who buy music in supermarkets’ (though that is sophisticated research compared to most acts when it comes to knowing who the fans are)

Which brings me to Baaba Maal. I went to the wonderful MELTDOWN event at the South Bank Centre in London tonight, to see Baaba Maal, his band and some special guests.

Incredible voice, great presence on stage, amazing musicians with him, infectious music. Down side? The place is a seated venue, not the best place to let loose with you dance moves…

Whilst soaking in the Talking Drums, I also gazed upon the people in the venue. There were young Senegalese guys moving, Hoxton trendies, young Chelsea sets, the MD of a major Advertising Agency, the crystal karma brigade and what looked liked an outing of the Womens Institute.

Such categories are not meant to be poking fun at these people. Quite the opposite. What binded everyone tonight was incredible music. No-one cared who they were sitting next to. Everyone was fixed on the stage and the sound.

Nope, my concern is how the old rules of marketing force the brand makers and product managers and labels and managers and CRM specialists all to channel energy into categorising people into neat boxes, then target products at them.

Such a focus then misses the opportunities like tonight. A gig that brought people together for a shared experience, with no-one caring one iota which consumer segment they fell into…