Music 2.0 - Exploring Chaos in Digital Music

Here’s a heartwarming story that shows how some dinosaurs in the music industry are putting the Internet to better use rather than simply bitching about it ala Universal Music’s Jurassic relic, Doug Morris.

When rock band Journey whose more memorable days were when Steve Perry was at the helm, was looking for a new lead singer they found one via YouTube. Arnel Pineda from Quezon City in the Philippines must have surely had an incredible dream come true after Journey saw him singing their cover songs with his band The Zoo on YouTube and contacted him even though his initial reaction was one of disbelief:

My friend Noel picked up the message on YouTube and told me it was from Neal. I thought it was a hoax so I ignored it. Noel said, “What if it really was Neal and he wanted to offer you the chance of a lifetime?” So I e-mailed Neal back and the rest is history.

Arnel and his manager then flew to San Francisco to audition for Journey soon after, and on September 26th, 2007, Andrew McNeice of Melodicrock.com first reported the hiring supported by the first Arnel-inclusive image of Journey.

And now the official press release confirms it.

But history also shows that Arnel will amazingly be Journey’s sixth singer and no, Steve Perry was not even the first, even though he had two stints with the band. Robert Fleischman has the honor as their first official lead singer even though keyboardist Greg Rolie covered the role initially - and other lead singers include Steve Perry sound-alike Steve Augeri and Jeff Scott Soto. So lead guitarist Neal Schon obviously had a lot of practice in head hunting but this time round, instead of going the juvenile Rock Band reality show route, he decided to go Web2.0. As he explains,

“I was frustrated about not having a singer, so I went on YouTube for a couple of days and just sat on it for hours. I was starting to think I was never going to find anybody. But then I found The Zoo and I watched a bunch of different video clips that they had posted. After watching the videos over and over again, I had to walk away from the computer and let what I heard sink in because it sounded too good to be true. I thought, “he can’t be that good.But he is that good, he’s the real deal and so tremendously talented. Arnel doesn’t sound synthetic and he’s not emulating anyone. I tried to get a hold of him through YouTube and I finally heard from him that night, but it took some convincing to get him to believe that it really was me and not an imposter.”

So EMI’s recent decision to cut A&R budgets and to spot bands via social networks and music/ video websites is not all that much of a pipedream and may even work in some instances as this proves.
However, in the rush by all the other news bulletins to give YouTube the sole credit for this job placement it ignores the merits of the most musical nation on earth, the Philippines. Filipinos have been entertaining audiences all over the world with their note perfect renditions of cover songs of all manner of bands, but sadly have few international singers in the spotlight other than Allan Pineda Lindo of Black Eyed Peas and the legendary Freddie Aguilar, and for a brief moment, Eraserheads

Just like the many other bands in the Philippines, Arnel’ band The Zoo has had their fair share of cover songs, and as serendipity would have it, included Journey songs coupled with their original material as they played in clubs around the country - with Arnel also having sojourns at Hong Kong’s Cavern Club and Igor’s. Not for the Filipinos, the amateur Guitar Hero and Air Guitar antics as they have been paying their dues with real musicianship, so Arnel’s success should be an inspiration to the rest of his fellow rockers. Arnel stated,

“It’s so exciting to sing with one of the best bands in the world. It’ll be a lot of hard work on my part and I’m actually looking forward to the scrutiny I’ll get from the hardcore JOURNEY fans. I know they’ll expect me to sound exactly like ‘the voice’ (Steve Perry), but that will never happen. I know there’s only one Steve Perry in this world.”

And in true hospitable Filipino style, he has endeared himself to the band already, as keyboardist Jonathan Cain gushed,

“Arnel brings a soulful and passionate voice to Journey. His personality is very well-suited to our music. He’s a sincere, authentic person with a great smile and a big heart. I think fans are really going to love him. With Arnel’s soaring tenor, Journey returns to our heritage sound.”

As Journey now sets out to record a new album with producer Kevin Shirley who calls Arnel a “phenomenal, monster vocalist”, it is heartening that Music 2.0 helps make the world a smaller stage and gives hope to many musicians of realizing their dreams. Indeed, Don’t Stop Believing.

Other reports:
NME
The Gauntlet
Official Journey website -
Idolator
Wired

Update: Now MySpace delivers a new lead singer for Anthrax - 18 Dec 2007
Another story of a renowned band getting a new lead singer via the Internet, this time from MySpace.
Reuters reported that thrash metal band Anthrax has plucked a new singer from obscurity, with a little help from MySpace.
Dan Nelson, plying his skills in the Long/ New York area had fronted several local bands and he had contacted Anthrax guitarist Rob Caggiano via MySpace. According to him,

“We sent music back and forth, got together, and jammed for 10 hours straight. After 10 hours, he said, ‘I think you’d be right for Anthrax.”

It’s really nice that there’s tangible hope for tribute band members while baby wheel Guitar Hero and Rock Band players have something to aim for when they grow up.

Stumble It!

In a sneaky move by EMI to cash in on Radiohead’s unprecedented popularity, EMI had been running a scam ad campaign on Google until the end of last week, purporting to already have the new Radiohead album “In Rainbows” in boxset and CD versions for sale even before the official release in December. In an attempt to obviously mislead and cheat users, EMI used the phrase “Rainbow” in the ad which appears as a paid listing at the top of search results when users searched for the keyword “Radiohead” in Google.

Clicking on the ad instead led users to EMI/ Parlophone’s own site selling Radiohead’s back catalogue boxset of 7 albums with no sight of the promised new album “Rainbow”.

Guardian Unlimited Music first reported this yesterday and followed up with Parlophone to ascertain the source of the ad and were instead given a one line email by EMI publicist Chris Latham which stated,

“Parlophone were aware of the data source glitch and removed the link immediately.”

I’m not sure which is more pathetic and abhorrent, their cheating or trying to explain their machinations away as a “data source glitch” - especially as the phrase “Rainbow” should not even have existed in EMI’s marketing material as the album in question has already been assigned to XL Recordings. It is indeed insulting that they take the public for fools with this attempt to obfuscate - but unfortunately there are already victims of the truth as the BBC fell for it and summarized the incident as “A glitch on Google nearly sparked a war between Radiohead and their former label EMI.”
So now it’s someone else’s fault….(but at least Idolator & Pitchfork give fair accounts)

When new EMI chief Guy Hands noted in an internal memo recently that, “Rather than embracing digitalization and the opportunities it brings for promotion of product and distribution through multiple channels, the industry has stuck its head in the sand”, surely their efforts to now ride the digital gravy train should not misguidedly follow the tracks of Nigerian-419 type scams and pharmaceutical spam?

To call EMI’s management team’s honor into question over this incident might be a little harsh, but surely they should be held accountable for allowing an environment of stupidity to fester wherein their staffers could even entertain the thought, much less conceive a consumer campaign based on deceit, without giving due consideration to the fact that Radiohead and its products are under such intense scrutiny and public spotlight.

Even though Radiohead has tried to defuse the sorry situation with a band spokesman stating to NME that, “We accept that it was a genuine error and that it has been rectified”,
it has to be recognized that EMI still has Radiohead by the proverbial family jewels as they have in their grip not only the early Radiohead masters but are also the gatekeepers of Radiohead’s valuable back catalogue. If you value your kids’ well-being, it is unwise to piss off the babysitter just before you step out the house.

Ultimately, this is not just about “In Rainbows” sales only, but about a misleading ad by EMI seeking potential customers in a search environment in which the users are hitherto uninitiated about the product. Hence the users effort to search and find out more about the product in question instead leads them trickily to another place (even though we have to admit that this other place has fine products albeit an overpriced USB set) – there are advertising laws against this practice.

While major labels can claim a roll call of dishonour in the traditional world with dubious accounting practices and payola amongst others, it seems that they are quickly making up for lost time in the digital world with their recent rap sheets of rootkit fiascos, fake BitTorrent sites, stupidity and now, scam ads….

Thom Yorke called it a “decaying business model” and Trent Reznor called them “greedy fucking assholes…who have fucked themselves out of a job essentially, that now take it out on ripping off the public”.
Harsh words that describe the major labels and the music industry but which closely echo the sentiment of many music consumers. But it carries greater authority when spoken by two of the biggest acts in the music industry and now, as a further endorsement of this viewpoint, Guy Hands, newly appointed chief of EMI has called a spade a spade in an internal memo sent on Friday in the wake of Radiohead’s wake-up call to labels via their innovative distribution method:

“Rather than embracing digitalization and the opportunities it brings for promotion of product and distribution through multiple channels, the industry has stuck its head in the sand.”

If these words were spoken in 2000 by a head of a major label, I would have applauded it, but 7-8 years after they crucified Napster, mp3.com and bludgeoned all manner of digital developments, it recalls regret and lost opportunities expressed by a terminally ill patient during an administration of last rites.

Ian Rogers, the new head of Yahoo Music is to be applauded for making a strong stand on his blog

“How much opportunity have we lost in those 8 years?…..If the licensing labels offer their content to Yahoo! put more barriers in front of the users, I’m not interested. Do what you feel you need to do for your business, I’ll be polite, say thank you, and decline to sign. I won’t let Yahoo! invest any more money in consumer inconvenience. I will tell Yahoo! to give the money they were going to give me to build awesome media applications to Yahoo! Mail or Answers or some other deserving endeavor. I personally don’t have any more time to give and can’t bear to see any more money spent on pathetic attempts for control instead of building consumer value. Life’s too short. I want to delight consumers, not bum them out.”

Further expressing the view that unless there are major changes in the industry, more top bands will by-pass record labels and instead sell directly to their fans, Guy Hands’ sense of foreboding was further confirmed by this “Big News” as written by Trent Reznor on the NIN website yesterday:

After threatening to leave Universal after one more final album, it is probable that Universal/ Interscope hastened NIN’s departure to save themselves from the vitriolic and damaging attacks that Trent Reznor has unleashed on them this year. So there,.it’s finally happened, another A-list band has joined Radiohead in stepping out of the major label circus and the repercussions will be felt strongly, not just by labels, but as I had expressed in an earlier post, it might probably affect other artists too if the existing model is not changed. And as if on cue, Guy Hands has warned EMI off this well-trodden approach by asking,

“Why should they (A-list artists) subsidise their label’s new talent roster?”

And he has instead encouraged EMI to think like a VC in their approach, and do away with paying big advances and instead subsidise the cost of album production in return for a share of profits (or losses). The proof is in the pudding and the jury will certainly be out there to check if the labels concoct new accounting shenanigans to obfuscate the artist royalties on this new model too.

Even more damning is Hands’ questioning of current practices,

“Why should they subsidise their record company’s excessive expenditures and advances”.

According to a Telegraph report, he also expressed “surprised at the size of salaries paid to second-tier executives”. What is most despicable to all of us consumers as well as artists is the admission of excess that record company executives have been indulging in, which the further Telegraph notes as “bands complain that too much of their money is used to subsidise lavish lifestyles for label bosses”

Ignorance of all things digital is one thing, but to rip off consumers and artists is criminal, and unforgivable. Carrying on from Trent Reznor’s observation of high prices in Australia for NIN CDs, I myself noted that many dance CDs at HMVs in various countries in Asia are being sold at the exorbitant price of at least US$25 – do they really take us consumers for fools? The labels’ desperation to sustain their margins via a fading medium led Guy Hands to state that,

“The recorded music industry… has for too long been dependent on how many CDs can be sold”.

But in an almost universal act of retaliation, consumers simply ignore CDs and are no longer bothered by the accompanying high prices as they get their music fixes via free options. An average of 1 billion music files being traded monthly on P2P networks shows that music consumption is still very much alive but major labels are still clueless on how to get a piece of the action, and are slowly being led by the very artists whose interests they were supposed to look after.

In the week that Radiohead’s revolutionary new album distribution takes place, alongside indie-darlings Charlatans’ album giveaway, news of Madonna’s impending Warner defection and Trent Reznor’s final release from his major label shackles, the silence from one of rock’s other outspoken statesmen is deafening…Bono, stop fiddling with highfalutin aims and concepts outside of your natural area of expertise and fix your own backyard instead!