Innholdsfortegnelse for July 6, 2013 i Billboard Magazine

INDIES AND ITUNES RADIO How much is an iTunes Radio stream worth for independent labels? Nothing for the first four months and then a little more than what Pandora pays, according to a licensing agreement obtained by Billboard. Apple has agreed to pay labels $.0013 per stream as well as 15% of net advertising revenue after a 120-day beta period during which it will not owe any fees. That rate is greater than Pandora’s current $.0011 fee, and slightly less than what the tech giant is rumored to be offering its major-label partners. COCACOLA CUP The World Cup in Brazil won’t kick off for another year, but the promotional wheels behind one of the world’s biggest sporting events are already turning. Coca-Cola premiered its first anthem for the event on…

Radio. Expect little impact here. Subscription services, as well radio services— whether online or terrestrial— are different products with different users. Besides, both statutory, noninteractive webcasters like Pandora and terrestrial radio stations can already play the Eagles’ music without their permission. Subscription services. Allyou-can-eat plans like Spotify and Rhapsody are better off for having this perennially popular catalog. Subscribers have a reasonable expectation to access any music they can find elsewhere, whether in a store or on an illegal BitTorrent site. Consumers simply don’t care about how music licensing works. Remaining holdouts. The Eagles’ decision may convince other artists to end their subscription holdouts. Other factors could be at play, however. A source says AC/DC has an exclusive deal with iTunes that could preclude it from joining subscription services. Other…

From the outside, Numero Group has been a model niche independent label almost since its founding—growing from three employees and losing money in 2003 to housing 11 employees and a reported net profit of more than $1 million last year. The Chicago-based reissuer is known for its painstakingly researched and presented releases from forgotten eras in soul, folk, gospel and rock and has been nominated for a Grammy Award three times. Internally, though, Numero’s owners recently found themselves facing tough realities when it came to staffing, infrastructure and scale. Founders Ken Shipley, Tom Lunt and Rob Sevier were experts at unearthing rare and noteworthy music, but as the company grew they became deluged by mounting accounting and legal needs. Numero turned to a larger peer label that could help flesh…

AXS TV. The Mark Cuban/AEG/Ryan Seacrest channel aims to be the ESPN/CNN of music with an agnostic approach to genres. If Revolt is able to corner the world of hip-hop and R&B, it may affect the direction that AXS takes in its programming. YouTube. YouTube has made videos important again. The idea that a channel will focus its programming on music videos reinforces the idea that they need to be of high quality and timely. Radio. Like the early years of MTV, there’s likely to be a disconnect between the list of songs in rotation at radio and on Revolt. If the latter can create hits on its own, discover and promote new talent, then radio’s big players like Clear Channel and Cumulus will need to open their playlists to…

Elliott Smith never turned down an invitation to play a benefit show. About a year before his death in 2003, Smith was the main attraction at a fund-raiser at the Echo in Los Angeles to help pay for the medical bills of the club’s booker, Jennifer Teff t. Smith’s sister Ashley Welch attended the concert with her older brother and witnessed firsthand the singer/songwriter’s generous nature. “He actually stopped at the door and paid for himself and me to get in,” Welch recalls, noting that Smith was in the process of setting up a nonprofit for abused children at the time of his death. “They were like, ‘No, come on, you’re playing the benefit, you’re not paying to be here.’ But he insisted on paying. That stuck with me.” To…

Airline sponsorships in the Latin world tend to be run of the mill. Airlines provide tickets to artists in exchange for logo presence. On occasion, the ante is upped with flights for contest winners. But two recent airline partnerships highlight how much more inventive these alliances can be. This month, Colombia’s largest airline, Avianca, named singer/songwriter Fonseca as its new “musical consultant,” a title it conferred after Fonseca wrote “Es por Ti” as the airline’s new theme song, used for everything from TV and radio ads to ambience as passengers board flights throughout North and South America and Europe. “Our intention is to link Fonseca to everything having to do with the brand, because this will be our campaign for the next two years,” says Gaston Barnechea, Avianca global manager…

Perhaps no other American city is as associated musically with a specific time, sound and style as Seattle. And, well, a record label: Sub Pop, which launched the careers of Nirvana, Soundgarden and other grunge pioneers turned superstars in the late ’80s and early ’90s. But even after the hype faded, the label, and Seattle’s music scene, have thrived. On July 13, Sub Pop will celebrate its 25th anniversary with a free festival, the Silver Jubilee (silverjubilee.subpop.com). The lineup is something of a label history lesson, with Soundgarden, Mudhoney, Father John Misty and others gracing various stages in the charmingly scruff y Georgetown district. But don’t let the deep lineup prevent you from exploring. Noncommercial KEXP Seattle’s Kerri Harrop, aka DJ Cherry Canoe, loves Georgetown, one of Seattle’s “grimiest neighborhoods—in…

The first tropical storm of the season is closing in on Chapel Hill, N.C., on this June night, but Mac Mc-Caughan is safe inside, singing about the summer sun. It’s actually the running theme of the second half of his June 8 set opening for New Zealand band the Bats. He closes with “Noisy Night” from his group Portastatic’s 2003 release Summer of the Shark—something of a concept album about the blissfully innocent, slow-news summer that preceded 9/11. As co-founder of indie-rock institutions Merge Records and the band Superchunk, McCaughan, along with partner Laura Ballance, has made a nearly 25-year career out of finding light at the edge of dimming circumstances. Everything we know about the music industry, rock’n’roll and relationships suggests that Merge and Superchunk should not exist in…

Steve Gerstman, founder of Oakland, Calif.-based Tour Swag, is a pioneer in the DIY merchandising space. His business serves many superstar clients like Eric Clapton and Van Morrison, but still promotes a user-friendly merch model that helps emerging bands create swag and get it to shows and on the bodies of fans. Tour Swag can provide any level of merchandising services, including in-house design and production capabilities. Nonetheless, Gerstman’s first piece of advice for baby bands: Don’t necessarily go to a merch company out of the gate. Particularly early on, when profits and fan bases are tiny, many artists will be better off with a complete DIY model. Here are some merchandising tips for any act armed with a cool logo and enough of a following to do a string…

JUSTIN BIEBER Bieber’s YouTube renditions of Ne-Yo and Alicia Keys were discovered by manager Scooter Braun in 2008. He has since had five No. 1 albums on the Billboard 200. AUSTIN MAHONE Currently opening for Taylor Swift, Mahone collaborated on a rendition of “Say You’re Just a Friend” with Flo Rida and recently released “What About Love” (Chase/Republic), which debuted at No. 74 on the Billboard Hot 100. MATTYB The pint-sized artist is only 10 years old, but with 1.4 million YouTube subscribers, he’s managed to become the youngest act to sell out New York’s Gramercy Theatre in less than 24 hours—twice. CIMORELLI These six sisters from Sacramento, Calif., have built a YouTube audience 1.9 million strong, earning the act its own Vevo channel and a deal with Universal Island…

Carla Morrison is proving that indie knows no bounds. The two-time Latin Grammy Award winner, known for releasing swooning alt-rock love anthems on her own Cosmic Records, often finds herself mobbed by overzealous fans insisting on an autograph. The new attention has prompted the 27-year-old singer/songwriter to launch Pan Dulce Productions, which gives other artists the chance to fulfill their dreams. There aren’t any applications, deadlines, contests or other hoops to jump through: Morrison simply hand-picks aspiring acts and, depending on their project, they are afforded funds to complete their musical visions. “Pan Dulce is not a charity, because we can’t help everyone, but it has a mind-set like one,” Morrison says. “We guide artists, but the main goal is to help the indie scene so we can have more…

• Own the masters and publishing rights to your work. • Keep the music you want to license profanity- and samplefree. • If you don’t own all rights, have any legal issues sorted out and music cleared for licensing—the music supervision world works fast and if you’re not prepared, they’ll move on to the next artist. • Build personal relationships with music supervisors and study their craft. • Look up what music supervisors are working on through IMDB.com before you pitch. Does a new rap record make sense for “Nashville” • Attend relevant industry events like Billboard’s annual Film & TV Music Conference that takes place in Los Angeles in the fall.…

When Christmas albums become hits, they ignite strong sales in a short period—and then offer returns for years to come. In the time since it sold nearly 2.5 million in 2011, Michael Bublé’s Christmas has moved another 650,000 units; Susan Boyle’s The Gift has added 350,000 to its initial sales; and Andrea Bocelli’s My Christmas has tacked on an additional 690,000. Here’s how the big sellers of the last five years sold during the season of their release. 2012 ROD STEWART Merry Christmas Baby (Verve) First Christmas: 858,000 2011 MICHAEL BUBLÉ Christmas (Reprise) First Christmas: 2.5 million To date: 3.1 million 2010 SUSAN BOYLE The Gift (Columbia) First Christmas: 1.9 million To date: 2.2 million 2009 ANDREA BOCELLI My Christmas (Decca) First Christmas: 2.2 million To date: 2.9 million 2008…

Summers are family time for Marc Anthony. After heavily promoting upcoming album 3.0 at the Billboard Latin Music Conference & Awards in April, Anthony went to Los Angeles to spend time with his kids before the album’s release on July 23. He spoke to Billboard from his L.A. home. You’re about to release your first salsa album in nine years, but you’re also working on an album with RedOne. We’ve been working for about a year-and-a-half and we’re almost done. His sound is so big and so global, and just the fact that I can’t record anything that’s not live because of the instrumentation of my band—it ended up working out well. We got his sound—the RedOne global radio pop sound—and then we went in with a band and played…

Tabatha Levrault, mainstream top 40 KKSW Topeka, Kan. Austin Mahone, “What About Love.” The summer hit of 2013. With its hook, ’90s-boyband sound and modern bassline, I can’t help but want to dance. I can imagine a mother and daughter singing along to it in the car. Karmin, “Acapella.” As I’m a fan of Karmin, this song does not disappoint. This is definitely a female empowerment anthem that our listeners will enjoy and embrace. I also hear a bit of Salt-N-Pepa influence in Amy Heidemann’s rhymes. Very nice. Awolnation, “Sail.” If I had a wish list of songs I would love to see break at top 40, this would be on it. Three years after its release and with impressive numbers on YouTube and iTunes, I hope this song receives…

NEKO CASE Singer/songwriter Neko Case starts a tour in July that will carry her into the fall to promote new LP The Worse Things Get, the Harder I Fight, the Harder I Fight, the More I Love You (Sept. 3, Anti-). Organizing the run is her booking agent of 15 years, Ali Hendrick of Billions Corp. “I’ve been booking her since she made $150 a night and she would play in a city and draw 50 people,” Hendrick says. “She tours more than any other artist I represent.” ROUTING: Hendrick worked to capitalize on festival appearances ahead of the album release, which worked even more to her advantage when Anti- pushed the album back from a spring release. “That’s why she had a large number of Canadian festivals before the…

We can scrap the notion that Court Yard Hounds is an outlet for sisters Emily Robison and Martie Maguire to keep playing country music since their Dixie Chicks partner Natalie Maines went solo. The duo’s sophomore set is broad and eclectic, romping through the Bangles-esque psychedelic pop of “Rock All Night” and the blues-tinged rock of “Watch Your Step” while gliding through the smooth, spacious melodicism of “Divided” and the poetic “Aimless Upward.” Robison and Maguire’s harmonies remain the Hounds’ most potent weapon, and there’s plenty of lyrical ambivalence to lend a gray hew to songs like the biting opener “Sunshine” and the uncertain plea at the center of “Gets You Down.” Richly arranged and sonically immaculate, Amelita spotlights two Chicks who play second fiddle to no one. —GG ALBUMS…

As host of HLN’s “Morning Express,” Robin Meade reigns as one of cable TV’s most popular personalities. But she’s also growing into a multimedia celebrity—sophomore album Count on Me debuted at No. 58 on Billboard’s Top Country Albums chart and No. 29 on Heatseekers Albums, selling 1,000 copies in its first week with a Target exclusive for physical copies and digital availability on iTunes. From her offices at HLN in Atlanta, Meade says the alliance with Target began with her 2011 debut, Brand New Day. “People know me visually from my time on the tube,” she says. “So licensing my masters to a distributor that has the end-aisle display in Target is a huge plus for me. It allows the consumer to go, “Oh, wait, I know that gal from…

SOUNDTRACK SALES YEAR TO DATE 5.8 MILLION 7.3% BLACK SABBATH’S 13 SALES THIS WEEK 46,000 71% U.S. STREAMS OF MILEY CYRUS’ “WE CAN’T STOP” 9.5 MILLION 469% Led by Kanye West’Yeezus, all of the top four albums on the Billboard 200 are new entries. Yeezus arrives with 327,000 copies, according to Nielsen SoundScan—the third-largest sales week of the year. It’s bested by only the debuts of Justin Timberlake’The 20/20 Experience (968,000) and Daft Punk’Random Access Memories (339,000). It’s the biggest week for a rap album since Drake’Take Care arrived with 631,000 at No. 1 in November 2011. Yeezus is West’s sixth No. 1 album and sixth straight chart-topper. Only his debut, The College Dropout, missed the top slot, bowing and peaking at No. 2. His six leaders include his 2011…

In making a bold move to reduce its publishing royalties, Pandora has managed to unite all players on the creative side of the music industry— artists, labels and publishers—in a way that even the fight against Internet piracy couldn’t. ¶ Pandora made the case at the ASCAP rate court that publishers like Universal Music Publishing Group, BMG Chrysalis USA, Kobalt and Warner/Chappell, all of whom have notified ASCAP that they may withdraw their digital rights, should not be allowed to do so. ¶ Last month Pandora filed a motion that claimed that since it just bought a South Dakota radio station, it should have the same terms available to it as Clear Channel’s iHeartRadio enjoys. Those terms, set as a settlement between the Radio Music Licensing Committee and ASCAP, establish…

Stephen Hill is back in Los Angeles ramping up that annual rite of summer: the BET Awards (June 30). The live broadcast will anchor the inaugural three-day BET Experience festival (June 28-30) at downtown’s L.A. Live. 1.11 AM Land at LAX. 2.34 AM Converse with Mariah Carey, who has a great idea about how to make her performance unique. 6.30 AM Gym. It’s crucial to keeping the mind right. But I hate the gym. 8.19 AM First conversation of the day with executive producer Jesse Collins. We’re monitoring Nelson Mandela’s condition, knowing we want to address his legacy in the show. We talk through ideas. 10.34 Call with Atlantic Records executives Michael Kyser and Jenya Meggs about the set for Janelle Monáe’s performance and a sly attempt to book her…

What did you wake up thinking about this morning? “Why did I set my alarm so early?” And then I remember this is the only time I have to exercise, and I’m energized. My most cogent thoughts come while running. It’s during that hour to myself when I organize my thoughts, solve problems and have my best ideas. What will define your career in the coming year? The streaming music service we’re launching. Jimmy Iovine and Trent Reznor have a vision unlike anything existing in digital music, and I’m looking forward to spending the next year of my life making that vision a reality. What will define the evolution of digital music in the next five years? The next evolutionary phase of the Web is curation by trusted sources. The…

REVOLT BY THE NUMBERS 34m Number of homes in which Revolt will be available when it launches in the fall. 19 Number of TV shows, series and films Sean Combs has executive-produced. 54m Number of unique visitors to Vevo’s online music network in May, according to comScore. PUBLISHING As Downtown Music Publishing prepares to open a new Los Angeles office at the end of July, the company has promoted two of its New York-based executives. Jumee Park has been named VP of film/TV music and Jeremy Yohai becomes VP of A&R and writer relations. They were directors. Park, who works with music supervisors and studio music executives on song placements for film and TV, will oversee her own department and expand it during the next 12 months. Yohai is currently…

Touring Conference Register now for the 10th annual Billboard Touring Conference & Awards. Use code BIZ13 and save. Before social media or digital marketing, there was the Vans Warped tour. Its 19th edition just finished its West Coast run, bringing in 18,000 in San Francisco and 24,000 during two days in Pomona, Calif., to see a lineup of Sleeping With Sirens, Black Veil Brides, Motion City Soundtrack and many others. Warped is the longest-running branded-tour concept—and will go to Europe in the fall, with Australia dates forthcoming— so we figured Warped founder/4fini Productions president Kevin Lyman is the right guy to explain the rules for longevity in the branded-tour space. 1 Find the right partner. Vans kids fit right into the Warped demo, and Lyman says he and Vans, which…

1 Super friends: Sony Music Entertainment chairman/CEO Doug Morris and Columbia’s A-list artists mobbed label chairman Rob Stringer at the UJA-Federation luncheon gala at the Pierre Hotel in New York on June 21. Back row, from left: Neil Diamond; John Legend; Passion Pit’s Michael Angelakos; Stringer; Haim’s Este, Alana and Danielle Haim; MGMT’s Andrew VanWyngarden; John Mayer; and Morris. Kneeling in front, from left: MGMT’s Ben Goldwasser, the Civil Wars’Joy Williams, Adele and Darren Criss. 2 Glass host: The UJA luncheon’s host, Glassnote Records founder Daniel Glass, saw triple with sister buzz band Haim, who performed an airtight two-song set. “We do compete, but I consider Columbia a huge independent. I hope you take that as a compliment,” Glass told Stringer. 3 Diamond life: The same day as the UJA…

Though Sub Pop was technically founded by Bruce Pavitt in Seattle in 1986, it was only when Jonathan Poneman joined him and both quit their day jobs and incorporated the company in 1988 that they considered it to be a real business. They went on to run one of the most successful indies of all time, signing Nirvana and Soundgarden and helping launch the grunge sound (and style) that ruled much of the ’90s worldwide. Though Pavitt left the label in 1996, Poneman is still at the helm, despite a recent diagnosis with Parkinson’s, and acclaimed current acts like Fleet Foxes and Father John Misty speak to its continued relevance under his watch. On the occasion of Sub Pop’s Silver Jubilee 25th-anniversary celebration, Poneman shares the biggest lessons he’s learned…

1 Raise Money PledgeMusic WEB Dedicated to music fund-raising (as opposed to multimedia sites like Kickstarter) and serves as a marketing tool. Artists can off er custom content that is exclusive to pledgers, taking fans through the life of a project, and integrate social media. Artists can also choose to sell pre-orders for a finished, funded project. pledgemusic.com BandPage Experiences WEB An open-ended fund-raising service that allows artists to sell anything to their fans, like a “personal styling session,” guitar lessons or the chance to cook dinner for a fan. The fans purchase these experiences directly, as opposed to receiving them as rewards in exchange for pledging funds to a separate project. bandpage.com/fans Patreon WEB patreon.com See.me WEB see.me Kickstarter WEB kickstarter.com 2 Write & Record Bands/Songwriters/Multi-Instrumentalists ChordBank iPAD·iPHONE Library…

NEWTOWN RADIO There are no hits on Brooklyn’s Newtown Radio, just new and obscure sounds from underground and emerging artists based around the world. Tastemaking curators including musicians, music bookers, label managers and editors from places like Brooklyn Vegan, Ad Hoc and Impose magazine provide a steady stream of undiscovered music on 35 weekly programs airing seven days a week. The station also records in-studio sessions—featured acts have included DIIV and Sky Ferreira—that are presented online by Noisey. Co-founder Colin Ilgen didn’t have any experience in radio when he launched the online-only station in 2009 with friends. Now, Newtown is growing steadily with more than 15,000 unique listens per month and fans in France, Germany, South Korea and beyond. “We’re trying to create a platform where instead of having to…

Good advice can be a godsend when it comes to starting and growing an independent operation. Trouble is, terrible intel is as plentiful as the good stuff, and sometimes it can be hard to tell the difference. Here, DIY vets, from both decades-old indie collectives and tiny one-man operations, share some of the most common misconceptions that a small-scale entrepreneur can have about operating on your own. 1 If a business model worked for one successful indie label, it will work for you, too. “The shittiest advice is to know what everybody else is doing,” Sub Pop executive VP Megan Jasper says. “What works for one company—even if it’s a likeminded or seemingly similar company—may not work for the next. What do you do best? [Answering] that is the only…

Like many innovations, the Queue ticketing and events platform was built out of DIY necessity. James Moody, co-owner of independent Austin promoter Transmission Events, needed to have full control over and access to the ticketing data for his company’s rapidly growing annual Fun Fun Fun Fest. So he and friends at Sacramento, Calif., digital firm ground(ctrl) quietly built the fest’s own ticketing product that didn’t rely on anyone else’s proprietary technology. But as operator of several year-round venues in Austin, Transmission realized it needed more: a way to manage booking shows and selling tickets that didn’t involve toggling among Google Calendar, Gmail, TicketFly, Excel, social media and the venue website’s back-end. For several years, the company tweaked the original product to create a single-login, networked platform that manages a calendar…

For once, thanks to Kickstarter and fans, Tim Delaughter didn’t have to bet the roof over his head to put out a Polyphonic Spree album and take his massive band on the road. “If the Kickstarter thing we did hadn’t worked, we’d have been in a lot of trouble and it would’ve meant taking out a second [mortgage] on my house—but we’ve done that a few times already over the years,” Delaughter says of managing the band that is ramping up for a new tour and the August release of its new album, Yes, It’s True (Kirtland Records). The album, tour, and recording and manufacturing of the live DVD/documentary “You + Me” were funded with a Kickstarter campaign last fall that raised more than $136,000 of the $170,000 Delaughter estimates…

TRACE ADKINS. In 2012, Adkins performed “The Christmas Song” on NBC’s “Christmas in Rockefeller Center.” This year, Show Dog-Universal will release the country singer’s first holidaythemed collection. DAVID ARKENSTONE. The new age guitarist/keyboardist delivers a followup to 2010’s Visions of Christmas (which has sold 1,000 copies, according to Nielsen SoundScan) on Oct. 15. MARY J. BLIGE. A year after dueting with Rod Stewart on “We Three Kings” for his Christmas album, she’ll release a collection of her own on Oct. 15. SUSAN BOYLE. The “Britain’s Got Talent” runner-up will deliver her second Christmas album for Columbia, following up on 2010’s The Gift (2.2 million). TAMAR BRAXTON. The youngest of the Braxton sisters is reunited with Epic chairman/CEO Antonio “L.A.” Reid, who discovered the Braxtons in the early ’90s, for her…

“A lot more people are watching us now,” rapper Tech N9ne says. He’s just awakened, stretches in his black tank top and red athletic shorts, and ambles toward the front of his tour bus. “So it’s really time to show off again.” Tech, born Aaron Yates, is right: In the 13 years since he and his manager/label head Travis O’Guin started the independent label Strange Music, the rapper, known for his impossibly quick flow and hard-hitting rhyme schemes, has emerged as that rare independent hip-hop artist who produces major-label numbers. (His 2011 album All 6’s and 7’ has sold 229,000 copies, according to Nielsen Sound-Scan, and was his highest-charting set, debuting at No. 4 on the Billboard 200.) Now the industry is taking notice. So while the Kansas City, Mo.-based…

TREETOP FLYERS Adele, Mumford & Sons and Laura Marling cut their teeth in the rock clubs of West London, and Treetop Flyers spent a few pint-soaked nights supporting these meteoric talents long before they became Shepherd’s Bush rock fixtures themselves. This scene—which revolved around Communion, the collective and label co-founded by Mumford & Sons’ Ben Lovett—encouraged the relentlessly gigging musicians to form the twang-loving quintet in 2009 while they witnessed the rise of their rock compatriots. Now, Treetop Flyers are heading stateside with their full-length debut on Partisan, The Mountain Moves, and lead singer Reid Morrison is quick to defend its flawless instrumentation and confessional tendencies as more than a jangly, bootstomping fad. “We’ve liked American folk music since we were little kids—Doc Watson, Jackson Browne, Crosby Stills Nash &…

John Mayer’s career has hit some unfortunate speed bumps: debilitating throat granulomas and resulting vocal surgeries kept him off the touring circuit last year and steadied the public eye upon his tabloidbait breakups. But on a musical level, the 35-year-old has never been stronger. “Paper Doll,” his first single since 2012’s folk-leaning Born and Raised, is one of his finest achievements, a return to his ultra-smooth jazz-pop roots topped off with a sublime guitar solo. “You’re like 22 girls in one, and none of them know who they’re runnin’ from,” Mayer sings over a supple groove that recalls both Dire Straits and Steely Dan. “Paper Doll” might be a winking reference to exflame Taylor Swift (and a clever response to her own breakup ballad “Dear John”), but much more important,…

Popping up on the lower reaches of the Billboard 200 chart last week was Lorde’s The Love Club EP, which entered the tally at No. 191 following its release in March on Lava/Republic. The five-song set has sold 10,000 copies, according to Nielsen SoundScan, despite the fact that Lorde is a mysterious 16-year-old New Zealander who was a complete unknown eight months ago and has done next to no stateside promotion. Last November, Ella Yelich O’Connor released the EP in New Zealand under the name Lorde through a deal with Universal that she signed at the age of 12. The ornate pop songs contain an austerity that invites comparisons to Adele and Florence & the Machine, with evocative lyrics like “Every song’s like gold teeth, Grey Goose, trippin’ in the…

6 MONTHS AGO Republic capitalized on Cimorelli’s nearly halfbillion video views to create excitement for the group’s original material. “We wanted to focus on engaging their YouTube fans,” executive VP of marketing Jim Roppo says. “One of our tactics in particular was to have them release covers, like Justin Timberlake’s ‘Mirrors,’ featuring Big Time Rush’s James Maslow.” The label built a campaign around the video in which fans had to unlock the clip by liking it on Facebook. By building up other platforms like Instagram and Twitter, Republic sought to keep fans active and growing while preparing them for the EP launch. 1 MONTH AGO Team Cimorelli announced the release of the EP by posting a static video for the title track on YouTube on May 24. (The clip has…

LEGEND Bullets indicate titles with greatest weekly gains. Album Charts Recording Industry Assn. of America (RIAA) certification for physical shipments & digital downloads of 500,000 albums (Gold). RIAA certification for physical shipments & digital downloads of 1 million units (Platinum). Numeral noted with Platinum symbol indicates album’s multiplatinum level. RIAA certification for physical shipments & digital downloads of 10 million units (Diamond). Numeral noted with Diamond symbol indicates album’s multiplatinum level. Latin albums certification for physical shipments & digital downloads of 50,000 units (Oro). Latin albums certification for physical shipments & digital downloads of 100,000 units (Platino). Numeral noted with Platinum symbol indicates album’s multi-platinum level. Digital Songs Charts RIAA certification for 500,000 paid downloads (Gold). RIAA certification for 1 million paid downloads (Platinum). Numeral noted with platinum symbol indicates…

The list of subscription service holdouts got shorter when the Eagles’ catalog—all remastered—was f nally added to services like Spotify, Rhapsody and Google Play Music All Access. The legendary group had been in the company of the Beatles, Led Zeppelin and Garth Brooks as the most notable acts whose music wasn’t yet available at the services many people consider to be the future of music listening. “It was time,” Eagles manager Irving Azof says. “We don’t make enough money on downloads to matter. It’s good for our fans and makes them more responsive at the live shows.” The subscription services got the band’s six Asylum studio albums and three Asylum greatest-hits collections but not the 1994 Interscope live set Hell Freezes Over or the 2007 self-released (through Walmart) studio album…

Fans of electronic dance music are very social consumers before, during and after a concert, according to data from Eventbrite. This could have big implications for the genre—from ticketing platforms to marketing. The San Francisco-based online ticketing service found that EDM fans are more likely than fans of other genres to use social media to learn about events, by a 67%-to-40% margin. The company also found that EDM fans move in herds: 78% say they are likely to attend an event if their peers attend, compared with 43% of fans in general. These stats come with business implications. Ticketing services that work with EDM promoters and venues need social features appropriate for EDM fans’ love of sharing. In addition, promoters should consider encouraging and curating shared media at their events.…

WHAT: Revolt, the music-oriented cable channel that Sean “Diddy” Combs created with Comcast, will be carried by Time Warner Cable when it launches in the fall. With Comcast’s 22 million subscribers and Time Warner’s 12 million-plus, the channel will start in more households than all but a handful of cable startups. Time Warner has said nothing about the deal, while Combs has been talking it up in Cannes and in U.S. newspapers. Revolt will get paid by Time Warner for carriage, according to a person familiar with the deal, countering speculation that Revolt might have to pay to be carried. But in order to reach such an agreement, Time Warner gets plenty of marketing dollars and value in return, the person says. It won’t be surprising to soon see Combs…

John Legend became the latest artist to benefit from Chevrolet’ support of music in an ad that debuted during the final game of the NBA Finals. The 60-second spot, created by Spike Lee’ ad agency Spike DDB, highlights the 2014 Chevrolet Impala as well as Legend’s new Kanye West-produced single, “Made to Love,” released digitally on June 25. Legend notes the Chevy partnership has a personal connection. “Growing up in a family of autoworkers in the Midwest, I’m very sensitive to the fact that we want to support great American manufacturers that are making our cars,” says Legend, whose father built trucks for Chevy parent General Motors in Dayton, Ohio. The ad will continue to air on broadcast TV as well as in movie theaters in the top 30 markets…

Earlier this year, FX Networks chief executive John Landgraf famously diagnosed the gulf between Hollywood and Silicon Valley this way: “Technology is a high-volume, low-margin business. Content is based on low volumes and high margins.” Where some may see this as a source of conflict, Jordan Passman sees only opportunity. Armed with blissful optimism, the 26-year-old son of well-known music lawyer Don Passman set out to change the game for music composers with an online marketplace for connecting songwriters, sound designers and voice talent with paid opportunities large and small. But instead of replacing the traditional talentmanagement model, he operates both, using one to feed the other—opening up the marketplace for a high volume of composers to access low-priced opportunities that often involve making original music for online videos for…

“We indies bunt and steal to get on base. We play moneyball.” 1 Indie royalty: Tommy Boy CEO Tommy Silverman, Sire Records chairman Seymour Stein and Beggars Group founder Martin Mills (from left) hugged up at the American Assn. of Independent Music’s second Libera Awards, aka the Libbys, at New York’s Highline Ballroom on June 20. Mills presented the Lifetime Achievement Award to Silverman. 2 Pop some tags: Alternative Distribution Alliance’s Matt Slifkin (left) and Kenny Weagly nabbed the Libby for video of the year for Macklemore & Ryan Lewis’ “Thrift Shop.” 3 Smithsonian Folkways Recordings director of marketing and sales Richard James Burgess, who’s also on A2IM’s board of directors, accepted the creative packaging Libby for designer Fritz Klaetke’s work on Woody at 100: The Woody Guthrie Centennial Collection.…

Room With A View Name: Ann Mincieli Empire state of mind: Born and raised in Staten Island, N.Y. Mincieli’s many hats: Mixer, engineer, full-time studio coordinator for Alicia Keys; guitarist; owner/founder of Jungle City Studios Climbing the ladder: Worked as assistant engineer on sessions for Alan Moulder, Mariah Carey and Tony Maserati before first linking up with Keys on her 2001 debut, Songs in A Minor Her muse: Mincieli has been working full time as Keys’ studio right hand since 2002, building her personal studio on Long Island. 1 The penthouse live room’s piano has graced sessions for Alicia Keys, Timbaland and Rodney Jerkins. 2 “These guitars are used a lot in my own sessions and Alicia’s,” Mincieli says. “Learning an instrument has helped me so much as an engineer.”…

Are things looking up in the indie sector? A period of downsizing among indie distributors appears to have ended. With stability among CD merchants, growing vinyl sales and digital streaming on the rise, indie distributors have come out of their protective shells and appear to be looking for new opportunities. The past few years had seen much cost-cutting at the distribution level as CD retailers fled the space and those remaining reduced their music presence. But right now, the remaining majors are moving to beef up their own independent distributors, with Universal Music Group (UMG) looking to compete with the success of Sony’s RED and Warner’s Alternative Distribution Alliance by reinvigorating a sleepy Caroline. Given the success of the RED-distributed Mumford & Sons (which has sold 2.3 million copies of…

Ali Brustofski—a 19-year-old singer/songwriter from Oakland, N.J.—can count Sony/ATV, Clear Channel and Ryan Seacrest among her supporters. She’s performed at WHTZ (Z100) New York’s Jingle Ball at Madison Square Garden. And she’s racked up more than 51 million video views on YouTube. She’s done that by singing other people’s songs, but on July 10 Brustofski will find out how many of her 238,000 YouTube subscribers and 13,000 Twitter followers she can convert into buyers of her own music, when she releases an iTunes EP of originals pointedly titled Dream Big. For the moment, Brustofski’s iTunes numbers are dwarfed by her YouTube success. Her 28 cover songs have sold 17,000 units, according to Nielsen SoundScan, with 11,000 of those accounted for by her version of David Guetta’s “Titanium.” Her “Titanium” video,…

There is an enduring disconnect between devoting one’s life to music and being proficient in QuickBooks. Hillary Byrum helps indie-label owners bridge that gap, and her advice applies to independent artists as well. Bookcreeping, her Brooklynbased company, manages the accounts of labels including Captured Tracks, Sacred Bones Records and Cascine, keeping track of every late-night bar tab and far-flung royalty payment. We asked her to give us a crash course in DIY bookkeeping. START EARLY Start keeping track of all your expenses as soon as possible. People will put it off and just think that they’ll remember everything, but you can’t trust yourself to do that. It makes everything so much easier and will save you so much time in the long run if you just sit down once a…

Without the help of record or publishing deals, a growing number of independent artists are working under the radar to secure synch licensing and make a living through placements of their music. These musicians are competing for the same synch opportunities as their signed counterparts, but the non-contracted artists often have the advantage that comes with control of their own careers. Marat Berenstein is founder of management company Hit Me Music, which has a roster of two independent acts, rapper Najee the 1 and producer DB2. Both have had their music used by various shows aired on ABC, MTV, VH1, ESPN and Netflix. Last month Najee the 1’s latest single, “El Uno,” produced by DB2, was placed in Apple’s newest TV ad for the iPhone 5. It took less than…

The next big thing in country music has never made a record and the most identifiable members of the group don’t even sing. And it’s likely their debut album will end with a prayer, include humor and stories, and feature men who get their grooming tips from ZZ Top. Yes, the family from “Duck Dynasty” is making a Christmas album. The Robertsons of Monroe, La., stars of A&E’s “Duck Dynasty,” launched their musical campaign—clearly targeted at country fans— at the annual Country Music Assn. (CMA) festival in early June after receiving hearty ovations at the Academy of Country Music (ACM) Awards in Las Vegas. Having conquered the duck call business and reality TV, their next stop is around the Christmas tree. “Their popularity is bigger than any artist we have…

For Marc Anthony, it wasn’t supposed to be about salsa at all. Back when he started in the late ’80s, when he was a longhaired, bespectacled, scrawny kid with a big voice, hustling to be heard in Manhattan nightclubs and recording studios, it was all about freestyle. “We weren’t salseros, at all,” he says flatly. “I didn’t connect with it at all. It was my mother’s music. I was into Motown and shit. I was doing freestyle, and I was one of the founding fathers of house music. Salsa was the furthest thing from my mind.” But today, at 44, Anthony is delving once again into his Latin Bronx roots as he tops Billboard’s Hot Latin Songs chart for the eighth consecutive week with “Vivir Mi Vida,” the first single…

ARTIST: Mayer Hawthorne ALBUM: Where Does This Door Go LABEL: Republic Records RELEASE DATE: July 16 PRODUCERS: Mayer Hawthorne, Pharrell, Oak, Jack Splash, Greg Wells, Kid Harpoon, Da Internz PUBLISHERS: various MANAGEMENT: Jackson Perry, A-Side Worldwide BOOKING AGENT: Jbeau Lewis, Creative Artists Agency CHART HISTORY A Strange Arrangement (2009), No. 2 Heatseekers Albums, No. 147 Billboard 200, 71,000; How Do You Do (2011), No. 52 Billboard 200, 102,000 TWITTER: @MayerHawthorne A camera follows Mayer Hawthorne through a dark corridor and into a bar. “I know it’s been a long time since I released any new music. I promised when it rained, it’d pour. It’s time for Tropical Storm Hawthorne,” he deadpans. “I’m ready.” The Detroit soul singer’s album-announcement YouTube clip was a parody of Justin Timberlake’s video earlier this year,…

ARTIST: Vince Gill ALBUM: Bakersfield RELEASE DATE: July 30 LABEL: MCA Nashville MANAGEMENT: Larry Fitzgerald and Terry Elam, Fitzgerald Hartley PRODUCERS: Vince Gill, Paul Franklin PUBLISHING: Kobalt Music Publishing America BOOKING AGENCY: Keith Miller, William Morris Endeavor CHART HISTORY: Guitar Slinger (2011), No. 4 Country Albums, No. 14 Billboard 200, 104,000; These Days (2006) No. 4 Country Albums, No. 17 Billboard 200, 383,000; “Don’t Let Our Love Start Slippin’ Away” (1992), No. 1 Hot Country Songs; “I Still Believe in You” (1992), No. 1 Hot Country Songs; “The Heart Won’t Lie” (with Reba McEntire, 1993), No. 1 Hot Country Songs TWITTER: @VGcom At the 2012 Country Radio Seminar, Vince Gill made news at the Universal Music Group (UMG) luncheon by announcing that he was no longer on the label group’s…

Make a drawing and take a picture of it, and the free iOS app Tunetrace turns it into music. Well, sort of: Abstract minimalism sounds boring, but selfies (self-portraits taken with a mobile device) are rather melodic. Tunetrace—which Queen Mary University of London company QApp released this spring on iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad—is a novelty hinting at the potent idea of combining machine vision and procedural music. Open Tunetrace and snap a photo, and the app uses machine vision to find the lines in an image, then assign each line a tone. Hit play, and twinkling white lights trace each line playing a note. When lines intersect, the lights reverse course and play an alternate tone—so a drawing of a cross generates a two-tone oscillation, while an Erykah Badu…

The song, featuring T.I. and Pharrell, tops the Billboard Hot 100 for a third week and shows no sign of slowing down. It gains by 20% in overall chart points, with across-the-board increases in streaming (up 45%), airplay (19%) and sales (14%). + 424K “Lines” logs the largest sales week this year: 424,000 downloads, according to Nielsen SoundScan, the best sum for a song since the week ending Dec. 30, 2012, when Taylor Swift’s “I Knew You Were Trouble” (582,000) and Bruno Mars’ “Locked Out of Heaven” (497,000) were aided by redemption of digital holiday gift cards. 114 M The song scores the Hot 100’s Airplay Gainer award for a fourth consecutive week, soaring to 114 million audience impressions (from 96 million last week), according to Nielsen BDS. Reinforcing its…

Avila Shakes Up Presley Classic A dreamy new rendition of “All Shook Up” is gaining traction, thanks to its use in a Trojan Lubricants TV commercial. The cover by duo Avila (Daniel Johnson and Brie Stoner) has been selling between 1,000 and 3,000 downloads weekly since its debut in April, according to Nielsen SoundScan, and has amassed 200,000 views on YouTube. Elvis Presley, the song’s co-writer, took his iconic rendition to No. 1 in 1957 on Billboard’s Best Sellers in Stores chart. Blended Family Kopecky Family Band’s first chart entry becomes its first top 10, as “Heartbeat” (ATO) skips 11-8 on Triple A. Despite its name, the folk/rock group is related through sonic synergy only, with Kelsey Kopecky and Gabe Simon having formed the sextet in 2007. “When we were…

PHYSICAL VS. DIGITAL SALES COMPARISON FOR LAST 10 RAP ALBUMS WITH 100,000-PLUS SALES SOURCE: NIELSEN SOUNDSCAN KANYE WEST YeezusSo far this year, digital downloads represent 51% of all rap album sales. In contrast, download sales make up 43% of all albums sold. West’s arrival with Yeezus was mostly powered by digital sales, though not overwhelmingly. It may have lost some download sales as it wasn’t available to pre-order through any digital retailer, unlike most superstar albums. MAC MILLER Watching Movies With the Sound OffMiller’s album was strongly supported by digital sales and an iTunes pre-order download window that launched May 27. In turn, 71% of its sales were downloads. His last set, 2011’s Blue Slide Park, started with an even larger digital share: 76% (109,000 downloads out of 144,000 total…