Novo Filme De Spielberg Tras Trilhas Com Clássicos Dos Anos 70 e 80

How Steven Spielberg Picked 'Ready Player One's' Classic '70s and '80s Tunes: Exclusive Track Listing

Ready Player One, Steven Spielberg’s new movie that opens Thursday, may take place in 2045, but its soundtrack is straight from the last century. 

Alan Silvestri’s score leads the way, but in between his expansive, often futuristic-sounding compositions are a bevy of licensed tracks from the ‘70s and ‘80s, including Prince’s “I Wanna Be Your Lover,” New Order’s “Blue Monday” and Bee Gee’s “Stayin’ Alive,” that will take anyone in the audience straight back to the first time they played Space Invaders. 

WaterTower Music will release  Ready Player One: Songs From The Motion Picture on Friday. Billboard exclusively premieres the track listing below. The same day, Silvestri’s score becomes available via Ready Player One: Original Motion Picture Soundtrack. A 2-CD version of the score will come out April 6 with double vinyl and cassette configurations planned for this summer. Ready Player One: Songs From The Motion Picture will be available digitally only. 

While all the tunes on the Songs album are readily available on streaming services, should the movie do as well as expected, many could see three-digit upticks following the film’s opening weekend: after the Guardians of the Galaxy sequel came out in 2017, the 14 ‘70s and ‘80s nuggets on its soundtrack cumulatively soared 231 percent in on-demand streams and 388 percent in sales, according to Billboard. 

Ready Player One, based on Ernest Cline’s 2011 science fiction novel about the battle for OASIS, an immersive virtual universe, takes its musical template from the book as well. The best seller mentions hundreds of songs, giving the filmmakers great suggestions when it came to making their selections. “There are 500 songs in the book, so it pretty much covers everything,” says Zak Penn, who wrote the screenplay with Cline.  

“The book really leans heavily on ‘80s trivia because the contest is all about the ‘80s, but when you have to build OASIS, not everything is going to be an ‘80s reference,” says Penn. Therefore, we hear earlier hits such as The Temptations’ 1971 classic “Just My Imagination,” which also got added because it is one of Spielberg’s favorite songs, Penn says. Spielberg also personally picked Bruce Springsteen’s “Stand On It” (Trivia buffs will know that the “Glory Days” B-side also appeared in the 1986 movie, Ruthless People). 

The final musical choices were ultimately Spielberg’s, but he took suggestions from the book, Penn, Cline, and even cast members, including Ben Mendelsohn, who plays the villain. “He was open to anything, he’s so collaborative” Penn says, “But everything is ultimately his decision. In terms of Spotify playlists, Ernie had an exhaustive one and I had a trimmed-down one [we gave Spielberg], but in the end, these are his choices. 

Whereas a music supervisor would usually help coordinate the musical selections, Spielberg seldom uses one since his movies are usually score driven with very few, if any, licensed tracks. "Steven doesn’t do a lot of needle drops, he rarely will have songs in his movies,” Penn says. “I joked with him that this was like a Scorsese film with all its needle drops.”  He also credits Toby Emmerich, who was upped to chairman of Warner Bros. Pictures Group as the film was being made, with taking an active role. “He was really helpful,” Penn says. “There were a few songs that were getting swapped in and out and it was good to have him there.” 

Track listing for Ready Player One: Songs From The Motion Picture

“I Wanna Be Your Lover”  Prince
“Everybody Wants To Rule The World” T ears For Fears
“Just My Imagination (Running Away With Me)”  The Temptations
“Stand On It”  Bruce Springsteen
“One Way Or Another”  Blondie
“Can't Hide Love”  Earth, Wind & Fire
“Blue Monday” New Order
“Stayin' Alive”  Bee Gees
“We're Not Gonna Take It”  Twisted Sister
“You Make My Dreams”  Daryl Hall & John Oates
“Pure Imagination”  Bryan Nguyen feat. Merethe Soltvedt

​

Warner Music Adquire A Sodatone Uma Startup De A&R Data

Warner Music Acquires A&R Data Startup Sodatone

A&R executives across the Warner Music Group universe have a new set of tools for finding the "superstars of tomorrow." WMG announced on Wednesday it has acquired Sodatone, a tech startup that has developed an algorithmic platform that combines social, streaming and touring data to help identify unsigned talent.

The platform, which will continue to be run by founders Arjun Bali and Jerry Zhang, uses data to track artists with already-loyal and engaged fan bases, and helps identify songs that have potential in the wider market. The startup also provides insights into audience reaction to releases from established artists.

"At Warner Music, we're creating an entrepreneurial environment where art and technology thrive together," said Max Lousada, CEO, recorded music at WMG. "Arjun and Jerry are two talented pioneers, whose passion for algorithms and trends is matched by our love for music and culture. They understand that A&R instinct has always been informed by different types of data, and have created a tool that brings new sophistication and foresight to creative decisions. As the youngest member of our growing family of brands, Sodatone will help to differentiate us in the search for the superstars of tomorrow.”

Sodatone got its start at the 'Music Den' incubator at Toronto's Ryerson University and the University of Waterloo's Velocity program. At WMG, Bali and Zhang will collaborate with the label group's various A&R execs and report to chief data officer Vinnie Freda.

The duo said they chose to go to WMG "because we respect the company’s openness to experimentation and admire their approach to artist development. Having worked with so many music companies, it will be inspiring to be closer to the music-making process, and explore how we can fine-tune our technology to make it an even more powerful tool in the hands of the creatives."

A Popularidade Dos 'Audiobooks' Está Crescendo

The Rising Popularity of Audiobooks Highlights The Industry's Backwards Payscale

First of all thanks to Adam Rowe for this article.

Audiobooks were digital content subscription service Scribd's fastest growing segment in 2017: Primary audiobook subscriber numbers for Scribd grew by more than 20% in 2016. Audiobooks are also up about 20%year over year across the publishing industry for the first eight months of 2017, according to the Association of American Publishers' data reports from 1,200 publishers. In the same time period, print books just rose 1.5% and e-books dropped by 5.4%.

What's behind the rise of the audiobook? According to 2018 Edison Research data, the number of Americans who have ever listened to an audiobook stands at 44%, just one point up from 2015's 43%. If the audience base isn't expanding, the number of audiobooks each individual listens to must be going up, and that's likely due to tech advancements that are changing their listening habits. 18% of Americans own smart speakers, the same research found, a number that has risen shockingly fast since 2017, when it was just 7%. And don't forget to factor in airpods, wearables, and the still-increasing 83% of smartphone-owning Americans.

“Not only is audiobook production constantly improving, but recent developments in technology have made audiobooks extremely convenient for the consumer," Scribd CEO and co-founder Trip Adler says. "With the Scribd app, for example, a user can download any audiobook to their device and enjoy it during their commute, while doing chores at home, or even at the gym. And as AI-enabled home devices like Echo and Google Home continue to improve, I think we’ll continue to see the popularity of audiobooks grow."

Technology might be making it easier to produce audiobooks, but it's still a time- and resource-consuming process — one that is punished rather than rewarded by the industry's payment standards, according to Mark Suster, CEO of Smashwords.

"Despite the high production expenses, industry-standard payout percentages for audiobooks are abysmal. Traditional publishers and indie authors alike will often earn only between 25 and 40% list on audiobooks, whereas on the ebook side, where production expenses are negligible, they earn 60-80% list," Mark tells me. Since 2016 audiobook sales in the U.S. alone were $2.1 billion, authors are leaving a large chunk of change on the counter.

"In other words," he adds, "the compensation structures are backward. Authors and publishers have to invest more yet earn less. Why do retailers get away with paying authors and publishers so little on audiobooks? The answer is because the industry is asleep at the wheel."

Smashwords' solution? A partnership with the audiobook production and distribution platform Findaway Voices that will allow Smashwords authors and publishers to distribute their audiobook to Findaway with a single click. It's something Smashwords has been considering since Audible dropped its royalty rates from 50-90% of the listed price to 25-40% in early 2014, but is only feasible now due to the end of Apple iTunes' exclusive supplier arrangement with Audible in early 2017.

Retailers are increasingly getting into the audiobook market: Google Play is selling audiobooks, and Kobo is even a major hidden player in the audiobook industry. Apple iTunes is the second largest seller of audiobooks, and after parting ways with Audible, will likely build a new channel to allow users on its more than one billion iOS devices — possibly an audiobook-specific app to match its default Podcasts and iBooks apps.

"Audio rights are now seen as increasingly valuable, to the point that even Audible is bidding against traditional publishers to acquire the exclusive audio rights to promising projects," Mark says. As the number of smart speakers in homes around the globe continues to pick up speed, I wouldn't be surprised to see audiobooks continue to ride that same wave.

Existe Uma Maneira Correta De Gerencia Uma Rádio - Aqui Estão 10 Dicas

There's a right way to run radio stations. Here are 10 smart tips

With two of the nation's largest radio companies in bankruptcy, iHeartMedia and Cumulus,  many who don't really know radio contend the medium is dead or dying. But those who do know radio argue that it's still every bit a vital medium. The problem, they argue, is that too many stations are poorly managed, often from distant headquarters by executives more interested in making the numbers look good than running stations smartly for the long term.

So what does it take to run radio stations smartly? Here are 10 tips from longtime radio pros:

—Staff each station within your market with its own sales team

Yes, it’s expensive, and many radio people will tell you it’s a sure money-loser. Wrong, says longtime radio sales executive Ben McWhorter in Knoxville. Do the math. Two sales people at different stations will bring in more revenue than one person selling for the two stations, and the difference is worth the extra cost. Competition encourages excellence. Similarly, if you have a cluster of stations in a market, and each has its own sales team, you stand to do better than if you had one sales staff selling the entire cluster. It just makes sense.

—Create unique identities for your stations and then promote them

Great radio stations have great identities. They work to create them and they spend the money to let the world know how great they are. They put up billboards and hand out bumper stickers. You preach to your clients that advertising works. You may be on to something. Try it yourself.

—Live, breathe and embrace local local local

Real radio has an enormous advantage as the most local of all media. In the great sea of media offerings, local radio stands out. It celebrates our towns and reminds us of our shared identity. Radio from its earliest days understood that vital connection. But that has been lost in this age of consolidation, where stations are managed from afar. But it makes even more sense these days. Everything about your stations should scream local.

—Hire real copywriters. Most radio advertising sucks.

If your ears hurt and you get a headache listening to radio, it could be the ads. There was once a time, long ago, when radio supported good copywriting. No more. Today most of what we hear is written on the fly by people who aren’t writers. Good copywriting sells products, endearing you with your advertisers, always a plus, and it make your station sound smart. 

—Train your sales team in the art of selling, and in the value of radio

Radio these days, like much of local media, is flooded with people who aren’t skilled in selling, and it hurts the industry. But you can change that. Take the time, spend the money, to train your sales team. There are natural sales people, but the best sales people learned from masters. The payback for stations is enormous: Higher sales, happy clients, more clients, less turnover, less whining, fewer headaches.

—Put digital to work for your stations. Generate revenues. 

Digital is not the enemy, and smart radio companies have learned how to use it to add a new revenue stream and boost radio sales as well, says respected local media researcher Gordon Borrell. Consider that so much local advertising begins with a digital component. The advertiser then decides what additional media to include in the buy. Win the digital business and you get a two-fer—radio ad dollars as well. One caution: Never disparage digital to an advertiser. They believe in it. It’s sure to be taken as an insult.

—Go big on social media, radio’s very good friend

As Borrell and others are quick to point out, radio is the original social medium It’s a great way to connect into the passions listeners have for their favorite genres while building the station’s brand. Engage with listeners, encourage them to post their thoughts and air their complaints. Answer their questions. Run contests.

—Cut back ad loads. Give listeners a break.

Radio listeners accept ads. What they don’t like is too many of them back to back. If you run too many, you’ll chase away listeners and send them to digital offerings like Spotify, where loads are far lower. You also diminish the value of the ads you run, risking driving away clients to competitors, advises McWhorter. It’s a no-brainer. Yet so many stations seem not to grasp this.

—Get to know your listener. Spend the money for research.

Who’s listening to your station? Good question. Spend the money to find out. Research is invaluable in telling you what works and doesn’t work about your programming. Are you running too many ads? Is your news team missing stories? Your listeners will tell you. Good listener research is also an invaluable sales tool.

—Loosen the grip. Eschew micromanaging. Let your people go at it.

Dare we say this? Great stations run themselves. If you’ve got the right people, they get the job done without being told what to do every minute. It’s called talent. Large organizations like to manage down, and down and down and down. Executives collect endless amounts of data and put it in spreadsheets to impress boards and stockholders. These people think of themselves as radio people. They are not radio people. They are bean-counters pretending to be radio people.

Trabalho De Equipe Na Música: Os Pilares De Uma Colaboração Efetiva

Musical teamwork: the pillars of effective collaboration

First of all thanks to Chris Robley for this article.

10 things to remember when you’re working with other musicians.

I just got back from Oregon where I played the part of Peter Gabriel in a re-creation of his Secret World Live concert experience. A nine-person band, two hours of songs, custom-built set pieces and stage extensions, 3D image-mapping and projection, choreography, the list goes on.

It was one of the most involved shows I’ve ever participated in from a planning perspective. In the execution, it went even better than I’d imagined — and we had the audience dancing in the aisles from the start of the concert.

Afterwards, I wondered “How the hell did we just pull that off so well?”

Simple answer: teamwork.

As musicians, we can forget when we’re stressed or (worse) desperate, but effective musical teamwork is built on a few basic concepts:

1. Time is your greatest resource.

Athletes don’t just show up for the first game of the season. There’s months of practice (and sometimes pre-season games) beforehand. The same should go for any musical project or production.

I was asked almost a year in advance if I wanted to participate in this Peter Gabriel tribute. The personnel (music, lighting, design, production, PR, etc) had mostly all been determined nine months ahead of the target date for the show. And the show itself had been dreamed up and storyboarded even further back than that.

I watched the original Secret World Live film and listened to the album nonstop for months and months. So much that I still hear my daughter singing Peter Gabriel songs to herself while playing with her toys.

The date and venue — a beautiful concert hall in Portland called Revolution Hall — were locked in well in advance, and the team did several technical walk-throughs to measure stage dimensions, explore lighting options, etc.

Leading up to the show we had two full weeks of rehearsal in a practice space that had been taped-off to the exact dimensions of the stage.

We had two days with a choreographer.

We had three days with our sound engineer at the rehearsal space, dialing in individual mixes and effects.

There are a hundred other details that needed to be ironed out as well, and the only reason the ironing got done is because time was on our side.

Plan well in advance. Budget your time accordingly.

2. Work with reliable people.

My friend Anders, a fantastic drummer and one of the producers of the show, was the person that asked me to be the singer. I immediately told him the idea made me nervous because my voice sounds nothing like Peter Gabriel. Gabriel’s voice is somehow both raspy and full, even when singing higher tenor and falsetto lines. Mine is much… clearer. (Less of that cool, rock rasp).

Anders assured me that no one expected me to sing LIKE Peter Gabriel, but that I was being asked because I had the vocal range to cover both baritone and tenor vocal lines, and more importantly, he knew I’d do my homework and step into the role with conviction and my own sense of emotional delivery. I would show up prepared.

All that to say, Anders was counting on me to do SOMETHING good, even if it didn’t exactly mirror Peter Gabriel in delivery, and to not slow down the momentum in rehearsal, because I’d be ready to get to work. He could rely on me.

Same goes for everyone on the team, all fantastic musicians, technicians, builders, etc. But more important than talent was preparedness.

Be ready.

3. You’ve got to be MORE than talented and reliable.

So yeah, talent and reliability are crucial. But there’s something else that is just as important to your musical team’s ultimate success.

It’s tough to define because it’s different for each team member, but I’ll explain it this way: One of the guitarists also served as the musical director, one of our backup vocalists was an important part of getting people out to the show thanks to her network of friends and followers, the bassist knew about set design and fabrication, the drummer was in charge of van and gear rentals, and so forth.

You’ve gotta bring something to the table besides your immediate musical contribution. Web design? Writing skills for your press release? Photography? Deep pockets? Whatever it is, contribute something beyond your talent and dependability.

4. Get over yourself and take chances.

This probably sounds like a self-help cliché, but if you don’t put yourself into situations that challenge you, you aren’t going to grow.

For me (and for most of the band) there was an initial discomfort with replicating the theatricality of the show, which is all about bridging distances. There are awkward, suggestive, and joyous dance moves, dramatic duets, and plenty of moments when I’m singing on my knees at the front of the stage while staring into the eyes of individual audience members. I’ve never considered myself a naturally charismatic performer, I’m more of a workman-like singer-songwriter, but this role required that I push through my inhibitions in a way that was frightening (at first) and ultimately… freeing, engaging, successful.

I think in this regard Anders had more faith in me than I did in myself.

The risk I took was showing up to practice ready to make a fool of myself, and to never nix ideas until we’d actually tried them. I think this helped everyone in the band get over themselves and just… dance.

I’m sure there’s a similar way in which you need to overcome something on your next big project, whether it’s writing a more vulnerable song, stepping out to the front of the stage for your solo, or risking rejection when you reach out to bloggers.

Risk it.

5. Delegate.

Once you’ve assembled a reliable team where each member has a particular skill set, it’s time to let go of the reins (a bit). There’s no way the three producers of the show could do everything themselves. So they had to trust that the set pieces would be built on time, that the band would be rehearsed, the PR campaign was underway, etc.

Of course they kept folks accountable with frequent check-ins, but they weren’t micro-managing.

That being said…

7. Every team needs leader(s).

We had three producers ultimately steering the ship. There’s a delicate but powerful balance that can happen when everyone takes ownership of their own area of expertise, while also feeling free to weigh in elsewhere.

With the “command structure” of this production, I deferred to the producers for the ultimate say, but one of our guitar players was tasked with musical direction, so it was his job to solidify the arrangements, make suggestions on everyone’s playing and singing, and so forth; I kinda took it upon myself to assist him with giving queues on stage (where solos end, when we exit a vamp, etc.) since I’m the guy wearing the bright outfit out front and all the players could see me. Our choreographer was in charge of movement, but everyone had input to shape the final show.

Anway, all this to say, it’s easier to make suggestions and collaborate when it’s clear who’s in charge of what, and who gets the final word.

7. Be clear about the rewards and penalties.

What does each person gain from contributing? Upfront money? A share of ongoing royalties? Fun? “Exposure?” What are you expecting? What should they expect of you? And just as important, what are you NOT responsible for?

What happens if you flake out, fail, or otherwise don’t deliver? Are there contingencies?

All of this should be communicated upfront. Terms, splits, payments, etc.

Contracts? Read ’em. If fair, sign ’em.

8. Use the tools.

You wouldn’t set out to create the next great EDM album with a 4-track cassette recorder and an acoustic guitar. (Well, maybe that WOULD be cool, but…)

You need the right tools to get the job done. For this production, with so much dancing, we needed the entire stage clear of monitors and cables, so everyone went with wireless in-ear monitors and wireless packs for their instruments. That required… a LOT of wireless packs, in-ears, plus those fancy antennas to broadcast all those signals. It also meant nine separate in-ear monitor mixes.

So we rented a bunch of gear, along with the same digital board that the venue has in-house. We brought it to our practice space along with all that other stuff to work out the tech and mixing details ahead of time, and saved the custom mix settings to load into the venue’s board on the day of show.

That’s just one of many examples of how we relied on a wide spectrum of tech (image mapping and projection, digital mixing, loops and samples, etc.) to make this show as good as it could be.

I don’t want this to sound like you need a billion dollars worth of the latest gear in order to be successful — in fact, Steve Lacy would tell you the opposite: start NOW with whatever you already have on-hand — but whatever tools you’re using, be sure they’re up for the task. This leads back to point #1: have adequate time to test and adjust.

If you don’t own what you need, call in favors, borrow, rent, or do that thing where you buy from Guitar Center and then return it after the gig (JUST KIDDING!)

9. Throw the Hail Mary.

Despite all the preparation, things will go wrong and you’ll have to scramble and improvise to navigate around the setback.

The only window of time our 3D-mapping expert could get into the venue to dial in his settings was the exact same time as soundcheck, so both processes were competing with one another, and both were delayed. This pushed right up to the time the doors were about to open.

It also meant we didn’t have time to do a cue-to-cue for every single song, which we’d planned to do with our sound, lighting, and projection teams. During the show, a few “important” lighting and projection sequences didn’t happen as planned.

I put “important” in quotes because you know what? No one in the audience knew any different. The music and performance had to carry the moment, and it did.

Things will go wrong. So be it. Roll with it. You might throw a desperate pass and win the game.

10. Celebrate, or at least post-game.

This Peter Gabriel tribute show I played was a success (bragging!) and we knew the moment we stepped off-stage that we’d done a good job. It was all love and congrats and celebration. That’s important. Striving to make a connection with music is a difficult path in life, and sometimes we’re too cool for our own good. It’s important, vital even, to sit on these little victories for a second and soak up the good feeling. (Those feelings might have to power you through some rough patches).

But even if your collaboration isn’t a smashing success, you should still rally the team afterwards, give thanks where thanks are due, figure out what could’ve been better, and assess how you’ll improve the next time around. Don’t just disperse into the night.

Win or lose, every team looks back on the game for lessons and a sense of camaraderie.

20 Estórias De Criatividade Para Músicas Independentes Parte 2

20 stories of creative musical independence, Pt. 2: Gospel Lee

“Quality Hip Hop Your Mom Would Be Proud Of.”

Gospel Lee is a study in the power of knowing your niche, knowing what to do with it once you figure it out, and knowing how that guides your future.

For several years, this CD Baby artist fit his music career around his day job, until a missed flight after a performance led to a missed day of work. “I realized my heart was in my music and I needed to give it my all,” he recalls.

Lee, who lives in Oklahoma, quit his day job and started working the phones. What happened next reveals how this hip-hop artist found his niche, which then helped him carve out his own path.

1. Know Your Niche.

Lee’s tagline, “Quality Hip Hop Your Mom Would Be Proud Of,” came about as a T-shirt design. Over time, he realized that it was actually a true expression of where he fits in the world and it was also a great branding statement. As he says “If you can’t sum up who you are or what you are about, and make it plain on a t-shirt … well, that’s the ground floor.”

Gospel Lee performs faith-based and positive message hip-hop. This articulation of his brand naturally led to a deeper exploration of his niche. “It’s rap that you don’t have to turn off because your parent is in the room,” he says. Instead of trying to stand out in the world of hip-hop, Lee built his own distinctive brand.

2. Know Your Fan Demographic.

“Once you know who you are,” Lee says, “you can then start to think about who your ultimate fan is.”

If you understand who is most likely to respond to your music, you will gain a deeper clarity of how to reach them, how to speak to them, and what they want. He frequently looks at Facebook and Instagram analytics, and he began to notice a trend that matched what he observed at performances: His demographic is made up of 12-18 year old girls. They are the ones who stay after the show to meet him, who buy his merch, and post his photos on Instagram. “Honestly, the data is there, you just have to pay attention.”

Once you know who you are playing music for, you can ask:

• Where are the venues for that specific audience?
• How do I talk about my music to this crowd?
• What can I sell to them to add to their experience?

“My audience might buy a CD just as a keepsake of the show, but they aren’t going to listen to it,” explains Gospel Lee. So among other things, branded popsockets (phone grips) are in the works.

3. Play Unexpected Venues.

Lee has found an ingenious way to exist outside of the traditional booking treadmill in and around Oklahoma. In thinking about where to perform, the obvious choice for reaching teenagers is schools, youth groups, and churches. Lee had been booked in the past on a drug-free tour of schools. So he went back to his notes, pulled out old contacts, and got to work booking himself.

While everyone else is competing for the same slots at the same clubs or festivals, Lee is carving a path with little competition. Not all hip-hop artists can pitch a school, but his niche and his ideal audience make him optimal for a school show. His brand matches this unexpected venue.

4. Combine Free and Paid Shows.

The plus side of a school performance is that you have a captive audience. The downside of a school assembly is they usually don’t have money to pay performers. So when Lee tours, he books a show at a school and will also play a paid gig at a local church the same night. Win-win. The school gets a free show with a positive message (he doesn’t push his faith at public school performances). The church or youth group attracts a room full of teens there to see the cool performer they met earlier in the day. And Lee gets to expand his audience, sometimes with as many as 700 students at a time. Plus he gets paid a fee for the nighttime shows.

5. Play Towns Nobody Else Plays.

Since Lee lives in Oklahoma, you might think that he focuses most of his effort on the bigger cities. Not so. “There are a lot of small towns here,” he explains. “They are so small that nobody really plays there, but they all have a middle school and a high school.”

Once again, he turns common practice on its head. While small towns are often overlooked, Lee realized the economics aren’t working against him and he has no competition in these towns. Students find out about the nighttime show and many parents are happy to bring their kids to an event at a church.

6. Give Learning Your All.

“Bringing light into dark places and encouraging others to do what they love,” Lee explains, “…This is my why, and music is how I do it.”

Vinyl Me, Please - CEO Fala Da Criação De Um Clube Que Faz O Que O Spotify Não Faz

Spotlight: Vinyl Me, Please CEO Matt Fiedler on Building a Record Club That Does What Spotify Can't

"We want to work with artists that we are freaking out about and are fanboys and girls of ourselves." 

Over the past decade or so, the revival of vinyl records has proved a bright spot in a music industry looking to regain its footing. With vinyl sales growing more than tenfold over this timeframe, it has proven fertile ground for the subscription-based record club Vinyl Me, Please to build its business.

Celebrating the company's fifth anniversary this year, as well as its millionth record shipped, CEO and co-founder Matt Fiedler maintains that a "genuine passion for music" has been key to Vinyl Me, Please's success in the marketplace. 

"We want to work with artists that we are freaking out about and are fanboys and girls of ourselves," he says. "And I think that that's really come through in our product, it comes through in our marketing, it comes through in the way that we built the club over time, that people just want to be a part of it because they see how excited we get about certain records that they can't help but be excited about them as well."

Fiedler also points to the concept's communal aspect as another key to its appeal, and says tapping into that fandom it shares with its customers is a major reason why this club is succeeding where so many others have failed. Over the years, it has grown beyond a monthly vinyl record subscription to include an online store, editorial, podcast and monthly events around the country. It has yielded dividends too. According to Fiedler, Vinyl Me, Please currently has about 30,000 active subscriptions from 25,000 active members across 40 countries around the world, all of whom receive one curated monthly "essential" record, which spans genres with new releases and reissues, as well as some who have enrolled in more genre-specific offerings. The Denver-based company with 20 full-time employees has grown about 40 percent since 2015, with this year trending the same so far. Last year, it shipped out about 430,000 records over the course of the year with a gross revenue Fiedler says is at several million dollars a year.

With a sense of pride, Fiedler explains the whole operation has been "bootstrapped" without any outside financing until recently, with a new round of funding that will help Vinyl Me, Please "grow into the next phase of the company," he says. "But literally from zero to that, we've been about break-even the whole time. Just by nature of cash flow and being self-funded, we've had to have some sort of profitability built into the business along the way."

Fiedler launched Vinyl Me, Please with his co-founder Tyler Barstow in 2013 while living in Chicago, having built the concept while working nights and weekends, covering their costs with about $1,500 on a credit card. He had recently graduated from Belmont University in Nashville, where he studied music business and entrepreneurship and had arrived at the decision he wanted to work with music without actually working in the music industry. The first month, they had just about 12 members onboard who were mostly friends and family, shipping them out copies of Langhorne Slim & The Law's The Way We Move that they bought on wholesale. "And the whole idea was just, 'Let's make something as cool as it can be,'" he says, hoping the service would be strong enough to spread through word-of-mouth.

"That's what kind of led the majority of our growth over time," he says. "Now that we have bigger budgets, we have more money to work with, we have more technological capabilities, which make that all easier. But the nuts and bolts, we're trying to create a remarkable service for our members and our customers, and we're trying to do that in such a way that helps them discover themselves through music and discover a kind of the breadth of what's available through music. 

In late 2013, Fiedler was offered a new job at a tech startup in Boulder, Colorado, so he relocated with his wife and continued to work on Vinyl Me, Please on the side with Barstow remotely. By mid-2014, the staff had grown to four and they all decided to quit their other jobs and moved the entire operation to Colorado.  

Operating outside of a major music market has been a mixed blessing, Fiedler says. On the one hand, he and his staff may miss out on the social aspects that can build close industry relationships. But on the flip side, he says it helps keep their pursuit more "genuine" where people won't assume they're under the influence of a major label or the like. "And so it's given us a little bit of clout to where we can be mysterious and be a little bit of a stealthy company that's making big waves, but like in Denver," he says.

As Vinyl Me, Please grew, Fiedler says one of the company's major hurdles was finding records to feature with a subscription base in the hundreds that did not yet have the buying power to command its own pressings. (A standard minimum -- at least at a price point that makes sense -- for vinyl manufacturing is 500 units.) But once they hit the 500-member mark, he says, people in the industry began taking notice, and opportunities to work with bigger artists and execute bigger projects have followed. 

"What we're realizing more and more is that we built this really interesting distribution channel and we built it around a highly engaged audience with trust and loyalty inside of curation," says Fiedler. "We've proven ourselves as storytellers through content and being able to find these stories that are unique and put them in front of people, give them context, and then ultimately lead that to a product that is exclusive to Vinyl Me, Please. So there's this interesting marketing product distribution life-cycle that we've stumbled upon, and the future is about doing more of that and continuing to cater to the idea of the super fan. ... And then the flip side becomes, what else can we do to serve artists? What else can we do to make their story more impactful? What else can we do to help them launch their career or build their career or reactivate a fan base that maybe is dormant or something like that? And so there's this interesting kind of equilibrium that we're trying to find where on one side we have to serve our customers, we have to serve the superfans, we want to build something specific to them. And if we can do that, if we create value for those people, then of course we can create value on the artist side."

Part of that equation is the Vinyl Me, Please Rising program that highlights developing acts and supports them throughout their careers, which Fiedler says has been a big "credibility builder" for the company. (One notable artist has been Moses Sumney, whose 2016 debut EP Lamentations received special editorial and marketing support and then last year his debut LP, Aromanticism, was featured as an essential album.) Artists appreciate Vinyl Me, Please putting its brand behind supporting their careers, while the discovery aspect resonates with fans. At the end of the day, Fiedler says this is the sort of thing people come to Vinyl Me, Please for: to discover new music as part of a community with similarly adventurous taste. 

"Spotify algorithms, that whole thing, it's amazing, but really what it does at the end of the day is it provides you more of what you already know you like," says Fiedler. "And so it doesn't allow for these serendipitous discovery experiences and it doesn't allow for a kind of a randomness to creep in where you're like, I never would've picked this up or I never would have considered this previously, but now here I am and I can't put it down."

SPOTLIGHT:

When you're coming up, stay curious. Stay humble. Approach every opportunity as an opportunity to learn something new. These traits will carry you way further than anything you "do."

I've learned leadership is hardly about being the loudest person the in the room. It's about getting people to subscribe to your vision and motivating them to want to act on behalf of it. You do this by enrolling people in your process, telling stories and getting them to see the world the same way you see it.

The best advice I've received is "Every time you double, everything breaks." This applies to everything... Your team, your customer base, your budgets, etc. The systems and processes you have today will not work when you're twice the size. Simple. Realizing that and proactively planning for those breakpoints helps you identify bottlenecks before they become glaring issues. 

I am learning the world is not black or white. What we think we know about the world is simply a representation of the experiences we've had. Those are singular, and often unique to us. We're all still learning so much about the world that it's impossible to think in absolutes. What is true today may be proven wrong tomorrow. The lesson? Make the best decisions you can with the information you have and assume you'll be wrong (and then adapt).

It's good to have distractions. So much of leadership lives in the abstract. There's rarely a clear "to do" list. At times that stresses me out. I'm a doer. I like completing tasks. Always living in the abstract leaves me feeling incomplete and like I'm failing at being productive. I've started invested in hobbies (i.e. distractions) that give me an outlet to work with my hands. They give me clear tasks to complete which recharges my mind and helps me find balance between the tangible and the abstract.