ESMG Crew

Spotify has launched a new service which allows artists and managers to promote their merchandise on the platform for free.
Launched in conjunction with Topspin, artists can now display t-shirts, vinyl, posters, bundles and other merchandise to all of their fans and followers. The system works by using Topspin’s ArtistLinks tool, which allows acts to link to any web-based merchandise vendor of their choice.

Acts then post an item on Spotify by adding an image, a title and a description alongside a URL to the item of merchandise in their store. Each listing will be moderated and approved by Spotify to make sure it’s a legitimate merchandise offer, and will appear in an artist’s listings within 24 to 28 hours. For more information head to Spotifyartists.com.

Acts such as Led Zepplin have been trialling the new system. Both Zeppelin and Oasis have uploaded their backcatalogue in recent weeks. Spotify has also been made available for free on any platform – including mobiles and tablets in recent weeks. The service had previously required people to be paying subscribers to use its smartphone and tablet apps, with itsfree service restricted to desktop use only.

Bruno Mars “Grenade” Song Analysis

I’m a big fan of Bruno Mars and believe he embodies what’s best about the music of today. While I don’t usually care much about who is performing during halftime at the Superbowl (I find it a distraction from the game), I must admit that I’m looking forward to Bruno this year. Here’s an excerpt from my new Deconstructed Hits: Modern Pop & Hip Hop book, that breaks down Bruno’s big hit “Grenade” into it’s essential elements.

““Grenade” was the breakout single from Bruno Mars from his debut album Do-Wops & Hooligans, which went on to become a huge worldwide hit. Not only did the song hit #1 in 15 countries, but it also charted Top 10 in eleven others while selling seven million units. The album also went on to sell over 4 million copies, going #1 in six countries and Top 10 in thirteen others. “Grenade” was nominated for Record of the Year, Song of the Year, and the Pop Solo Performance Grammys, losing all of them to British singer Adele.

The song took several months to write, then was recorded with a different, more guitar-based arrangement that was 15 bpm faster. After hearing Mars perform the song live at the slower speed, the record label asked for a recording of the slowed-down version, which became the hit we’re familiar with.

The Song
If you were going to write a straight down the middle pop song, this is the way to do it. The song is unusual in that it begins right with the verse with no intro, but other than that it’s formula all the way, not that there’s anything wrong with that if it works (it does here). Basically the song looks like this:

verse | chorus | 2 bar interlude | verse | chorus | bridge | 2 bar interlude | verse (outro)

The good thing about “Grenade” is that it has a great melody, which is something that’s sometimes sorely lacking in much of popular music. The lyrics are finely crafted and tell the age-old tale of unrequited love. They sing better than they read, but they’re still put together well.

The BPM of the song is 108.

The Arrangement
Just as the form of the song follows a formula, so does the arrangement. It develops from the sparse first verse to the big chorus, then drops to a less sparse second verse, and finally peaks at the bridge. The tension is released by the stripped-down last outro verse, which is very unusual since most outros retain the big sound, and the tension, to the end.

There’s an organ that plays just underneath everything that acts as the Pad and glues the track together, which is a pretty common use for the instrument. What’s interesting is that the arpeggiated electric piano line in the verse acts as the Rhythm element, but during the chorus the rhythm switches to the double time feel of the drums.

The song starts with a synth build and the goes right into a verse with the lead vocal in the center, arpeggiated electric piano sound on the right channel and the organ on the left. Half-way through the verse the three part background harmonies enter along with bass drum, plus a very low in the mix tom and percussion, which propels the track forward.

In the chorus the piano is lowered in the mix and a new synth pad enters, as the drums now play a tom figure, but no snare drum. The three part background vocals behind the lead vocal act as both a fill element in the beginning of the chorus and as an additional pad element in the second half.

In the second verse, the drums continue to play the tom feel but a snare also enters. There’s also a higher piano that plays effects fills, and percussion that plays fills as well. Three part harmony is added to the lead vocal to emphasize the lyrics.

In the bridge a new higher synth pad enters, then goes to the beginning of the intro without the vocal, which resolves to the V chord and back to the chorus. The outchorus has the lead vocal adding ad libs to add tension. The outro is similar to the intro, only with the verse drum feel and added percussion. The song then ends on a vocal ad lib with a repeated echo effect.

Arrangement Elements The Foundation – Bass and drums.
The Pad – Organ
The Rhythm – Arpeggiated electric piano line in the verse, the double time feel of the drums in the chorus and outro, percussion
The Lead – Lead vocal
The Fills – Background vocals and the occasional percussion sound effect.

The Sound
This is a very well made record in that it’s not too compressed and the ambience is layered in a pleasing, ear-candy kind of way. The vocal has a medium-long reverb decay on it in the beginning, but then a timed and repeated quarter note delay is added during various times during the song. The other instruments have their own short ambiences that make them seem more in-your-face, except for the percussion effect that has a long reverb with a very long, timed pre-delay.

The Performance
Make no mistake about it, Bruno Mars is a star. He’s got the chops and his vocal shows considerable passion that effectively sells the song. That said, this is a very well produced song from a number of standpoints.

First of all the song has effective dynamics, breathing in the right spaces, from the less intense verses to the big sounding choruses, then the drums play a tom pattern to add motion to the song rather than the snare, although a small sounding snare (which actually fits the song perfectly) enters in the second verse. Using the drums in this way is not only unusual, but really interesting as well.

The add to all this the use of fills to keep the listener engaged on a subliminal level. You’ll find percussion, vocals, piano and synthesizers all sharing that duty. Finally, the background vocals, which are now becoming a Bruno Mars trademark, are also well-executed and add to both the motion and the tension of the song as well. This song was a huge international hit and the the production is a big reason why.”

You can read more from the Deconstructed Hits book series as well as my other books on the excerpt section of bobbyowsinski.com.

[Bobby Owsinski]

Good news: SoundExchange wants to get your money in your pockets a little bit faster. Users can now expect to receive payments monthly—as opposed to the old quarterly practice the company used in years passed.

Starting this month, digital music performing rights organization SoundExchange moves from quarterly to monthly payments to artists, labels and rights owners signed up to receive electronic payments. SoundExchange is the first music performance rights organization in the world to offer monthly distributions. Some PROs in other countries pay annually.

SoundExchange, which recently celebrated its 10-year anniversary, has paid out more than $2 billion to rightsholders from 2,000 digital music services ranging from Pandora to SiriusXM . Initially, monthly royalty payments will be sent to members that receive electronic payments, and have royalties due of at least $250. Artists and labels that do not meet the threshold will continue to be paid quarterly.

One thing about the music industry is that it likes to be comfortable. Life was so easy for about 50 years as the way business was conducted hardly ever changed. The label found an act, made a record, sold it to retail and promoted it through radio. Publishers and songwriters went to the mailbox and collected their checks. Boy, are those days over.

Just about the time the industry was getting used to digital downloads as the center of its financial universe, the business model is changing once again as streaming becomes the consumption method of choice for music lovers everywhere. The genie’s out of the bottle, the cows are out the barn, and the music files are off the hard drive.

Nielsen SoundScan’s numbers for 2013 now show that streaming was up 32 percent, while digital download sales were down about 6 percent. Folks, from this point on this disparity will continue to grow, and by leaps and bounds I might add, and you can take that to the bank.

Once again, let’s state the obvious – people prefer convenience when it comes to technology, and streaming is so much more convenient than any other type of music consumption method that there’s no contest. You’re going to see streaming explode for real in 2014, and those SoundScan numbers are going to look pretty small when we look back this time next year.

There are many in the industry weeping and gnashing their teeth today over this prospect, especially artists and songwriters, but they needn’t be. What we just witnessed was actually a good thing for all concerned.

The revenue from the 6 percent shortfall of about 80 million digital downloads was easily made up by the more than 118 billion streams of last year, which by my calculations should have generated somewhere around $500 million in revenue. That more than offsets the $80 million of lost revenue from the downloads and should mean that the industry is actually ahead of last year totals, if that revenue fell to the bottom line (no guarantee there).

This isn’t just a phenomenon common to the United States. The UK is also reporting huge streaming increases, with a total of 7.4 billion tracks streamed in 2013 that was double that of the previous year. Streaming in that country was also worth $169 million last year, good for 10 percent of recorded music sales, according to the British Phonograph Industry trade association.

When you consider that we’ve only just scratched the surface of potential streaming users, you can figure those numbers to grow substantially starting now. What’s more, on-demand streaming services like Spotify and Slacker grew by 102 percent, which is a good sign since they generate more money for the copyright holders than radio-like services like Pandora and iTunes Radio.

With Deezer coming to the States soon, and new services from Beats and YouTube expected to be introduced shortly, it’s easy to see how this side of the streaming business will be able to grow at a faster rate (not to mention generate more income) than radio-like services, which pay less than half-as much.

In a future post I’ll provide a financial roadmap of how streaming can actually be the source of some much-needed prosperity for a music industry badly in need of it.

Digital music sales for 2013 were up in Canada from the previous year, according to a year-end report released today by Nielsen SoundScan. Digital album sales rose 9% from 2012, moving 11.4 million units from 10.5 million, while digital track sales were up 2% with 116.1 million units from 114.3 million. The trend stands in stark contrast to the U.S. where for the first time digital sales declined as tracks fell some 5.7% in 2013.

The data is compiled for the 52-week period from Dec. 31, 2012 to Dec. 29, 2013.

Total album sales (CDs, CS, LP, digital), however, were down 6% with 29.3 million units over 31.3 million. Overall album sales (defined as all albums and track equivalent albums) were also down with a final tally of 40.9 million vs. 42.7 million, a difference of 4%. Not surprisingly, physical album sales also dropped a further 15%, selling 17.6 million units over 20.6 million in 2012.

Universal Music Group, in terms of label market share for catalogue and current titles, was the leader with 46.20% of the music market, which was up from 2012’s 37% following the label’s acquisition and integration of EMI. Sony Music Entertainment followed with 22.31%, up from 20.08% and Warner Music Group with 13.48%, up from 13.35%, while “others,” meaning independent labels, made up the balance of 18.01% down from 19.96%. The market share order is the same for current albums, catalogue albums, digital albums and digital tracks with UMG leading all categories.

Eminem had the year’s top selling album and was the year’s best selling artist. His “The Marshall Mathers LP 2” led the Top Ten Selling Albums tally with 242,000 units sold; Celine Dion’s “Loved Me Back To Life” followed with 231,000; and Imagine Dragons’ “Night Visions” came in third with 179,000. The top three of the Top Selling Artists were Emnem with 365,000 units sold, Celine Dion with 304,000 and Michael Buble with 256,000.

Meanwhile Robin Thicke, much as in the U.S. year-end tally, had the top selling song of the year. His “Blurred Lines” was the top Digital Track selling 692,000 units followed by Avicii’s “Wake Me Up” at No. 2 with 519,000 and Pink’s “Just Give Me A Reason” which sold 499,000 units.

The top three artists on the Top Ten Selling Digital Songs chart — which combines all versions of the same song — were Robin Thicke’s “Blurred Lines” with his record-breaking 706,000 units (the previous record for most downloads in a calendar year was Gotye in 2012 with 639,000 for “Somebody That I Used To Know”), Macklemore & Ryan Lewis’ “Thrift Shop” with 554,000 and Avicii’s “Wake Me Up” at 523,000.

The Imagine Dragons had the Top Ten Selling Digital Album of 2013 selling 100,000 units of “Night Visions” followed by Eminem with 87,000 units sold of “The Marshall Mathers LP2” and The Lumineers with 80,000 units of their self-titled album.

The leading three artists on the Top Ten Physical CDs chart were Celine Dion for “Loved Me Back To Love,” which sold 208,000 units; Eminem who sold 150,000 units of The “MMLP2;” and Michael Buble who moved 116,000 units of “To Be Loved.”

Celine Dion’s “Loved Me Back To Life” was the year’s No. 1 Top Ten Album by a Canadian Artists for 2013 with 231,000 units sold. She was followed by: Michael Buble’s “To Be Loved” with 139,000, Drake’s “Nothing Was The Same” at 108,000, Johnny Reid’s “A Christmas Gift To You” with 106,000, Arcade Fire’s “Reflektor” at 101,000, Serena Ryder’s “Harmony” with 74,000, City And Colour’s “The Hurry And The Harm” with 66,000, Hedley’s “Wild Life” with 64,000, and Michael Buble’s “Christmas” and Justin Bieber’s “Believe Acoustic,” tied with 61,000.

Robin Thicke — who holds dual citizenship because his father Alan is Canadian — led 2013’s Top Ten Digital Songs by Canadian Artists for “Blurred Lines,” which sold the aforementioned 706,000 units. Not a close second was Classified feat. David Miles with 357,000 units of “Inner Ninja.” Serena Ryder followed with 229,000 for “Stompa,” Drake moved 207,000 units of “Hold On, We’re Going Home,” Hedley sold 195,000 units of “Anything” and Armin Van Buuren feat. Trevor Guthrie sold 189,000 units of “This Is What It Feels Like.”

Other data collected: holiday season album sales (physical and digital) were down 9.5% with 7.2 million units sold vs. 8 million, calculated between Nov. 4 and Dec. 29.

The genre leader for 2013 album sales was alternative with 4,977,000, a dip of 8% from 2012’s 5,392,000.

[Billboard]