Black Sabbath Scores During Farewell Tour's Latin American Run
Black Sabbath’s The End Tour, billed as the band’s farewell trek, wrapped its 2016 run through four continents in early December 2016 with a final stadium performance in São Paulo, Brazil, which leads the latest roundup of Hot Tours (see list, below).
The tour stopped in eight Latin American cities during November and December to cap a busy year on the road that began in mid-January with an opening North American leg. An Oceania trek in April and summer runs through Europe and the U.S. and Canada preceded the tour’s final stretch of the year that included Mexico, Chile, Argentina and, finally, Brazil.
The São Paulo concert held at Estádio do Morumbi was the last of four Brazilian dates on the itinerary. The Dec. 4 show was attended by 64,744 fans and racked up box office sales topping $5.5 million to rank as the tour’s highest-grossing engagement, based on reported Boxscores. Two nights earlier the band played in Rio de Janeiro at Praça da Apoteose, a square in the city that is often the site for major outdoor concerts. The Rio performance drew a crowd of 26,764, earning $2.1 million in ticket sales. Both events were produced by Brazilian concert promoter T4F-Time For Fun.
Black Sabbath also played in Mexico City during the fall run through Latin American cities, grossing $2.7 million from an outdoor performance at Foro Sol stadium. Attendance was logged at 60,506 for the Nov. 16 event that was produced by Latin promoter OCESA. The band played at the same Mexico City venue in 2013 during its Reunion Tour and drew an even larger crowd that reached 61,433. Ticket sales for that performance totaled $3.7 million.
The End Tour is set to resume on Jan. 17 with a final sweep through seven European cities before ending next month. The tour finale is booked in England at Birmingham’s Genting Arena. The venue will host the band for a two-show stint on Feb. 2 and 4.
Music streaming hailed as industry's saviour as labels enjoy profit surge
Some record labels have had their biggest revenue rise in more than a decade thanks to services such as Spotify and Apple Music
Five years ago, the demise of the music industry seemed almost inevitable. Recession, rampant piracy, falling CD sales and a fear that “kids just don’t buy music any more” had giant record labels, once oozing wealth, counting the pennies.
Yet 2016 has seen a reversal of fortune – and the industry’s saviour is not what many predicted. Profits from music streaming, first championed by Spotify and now offered by Apple and Amazon, have given some labels their largest surge in revenue in more than a decade.
At the beginning of December, one of the world’s biggest labels, Warner Music, announced revenues of $3.25bn (£2.66bn) this year – its highest in eight years. More significantly, $1bn of that was from streaming, more than double its download revenueand more than $100m more than its physical revenue.
The surge in profits is being seen across all the major labels. In the first half of 2016, streaming revenue in the US grew by 57% to $1.6bn, and worldwide digital revenues overtook those from physical sales for the first time in music industry history, mainly because of streaming. This year’s most-streamed artist was Drake, with 4.2bn streams.
Taylor Swift had a public row with Spotify over the amount it pays artists when their songs are streamed on the service. Photograph: Darron Cummings/AP
There are 90 million people signed up to streaming services worldwide and the shift, and the aggressive speed at which it has taken place, is having the greatest impact on music since digital downloads were introduced. It makes boycotts by artists such as Taylor Swift, who condemned Spotify for only paying between $0.006and $0.0084 each time someone listens to a song, seem redundant.
Paul Smernicki, who was head of digital at Universal Records for 17 years before leaving this year to start his own venture, Restless Natives, said: “I thought the days of the music industry talking about anything in terms of millions were gone, but now we are looking at billions of streams on an almost daily basis. If you look at the the raw numbers of people who are streaming, I think you could now argue that music has never been more popular.”
Spotify’s Today’s Top Hits playlist. Labels now see getting songs on to streaming playlists as a big part of their marketing strategy. Photograph: PR
Smernecki said streaming had democratised access to music by making it easy and cheap, even for those who were previously unwilling to buy it.
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“The value of reliability, convenience and accessibility to an enormous catalogue of songs for a small cost now trumps illegally downloading a song free,” he said. “Spotify and Apple Music are now simply better than any hassle of an illegal download service and come without the risk, so people are willing to invest.
“You don’t even have to be a hardcore music fan for it to seem like good value. People who previously thought they weren’t that into music, or didn’t like artists enough to buy entire albums, are now discovering they are far more interested in music than they thought. I think streaming has woken people up to how music can really find its place in your life.”
The format is so popular that less than a year after the Official Charts Company decided to count streams, as well as physical sales and downloads, it has had to change the formula. Currently, 100 streams count as one “sale” of a song, but from January, the ratio will become 150:1 to avoid certain songs, such as Drake’s One Dance, remaining unmoved at the top of the chart for weeks based almost entirely on their popularity on Spotify.
The figures now generated by a select few artists also make Sony’s decision to poach Adele from indie label XL for a mammoth £90m this year, the biggest record deal with a British musician, seem like savvy business sense; her hit single Hello has been streamed 632m times and counting.
But it is not just the three major labels, Universal, Warner and Sony, that are benefiting. With album purchases and single downloads, it made no difference if they were ever played, but streaming rewards consumption – the more times a song is played, the more money it makes. That shift has rewarded many independent labels, particularly those with big-hitting artists on their roster.
Jamie Oborne, manager of Mercury-nominated band the 1975, said that streaming was responsible for a music industry “renaissance”, financially rewarding not just labels but also musicians. ““We’ve seen this cultural shift where people are willing to pay for music again, not just illegally download it from LimeWire, so of course my artists have benefitted from that. Sales used to be decimated by a leak, whereas now it just doesn’t matter. Digital downloads are shrinking so rapidly that I’d say they will almost certainly be gone in a couple of years”
Jane Third, senior vice-president of Because Music, whose artists include Metronomy, Christine and the Queens, Major Lazer and Django Django, said revenue from streaming had ensured profits more than doubled on last year. Third attributed it almost entirely to the success of Christine and the Queens, the French singer who became one of this year’s most talked about musicians, and Major Lazer, whose track Lean On was the most-streamed song of 2015.
The singer Christine and the Queens is one of the most talked about artists of 2016. Photograph: Alamy
“Streaming is a positive thing, 100%,” Third said. “We have seen an upswing this year for the first time in more than 10 years and it’s going to continue to grow. Our company has grown exponentially, and as soon as we started having hits in the streaming world, our revenues doubled. Overall, streaming is going to save the industry.”
Third said playlists on streaming services, particularly Spotify, were becoming as essential as radio in generating interest in a track. Indies and major labels see streaming playlists as a major part of the marketing strategy around a song, trying to “put your music into people’s consumption habits, whether it’s a playlist they listen to on the way to work, at the gym or just as part of their streaming library”.
Streaming playlists are increasingly the way many people find their music. Creating interesting playlists is also a major focus for Spotify, which recently hired the former head of music at Radio 1 George Ergatoudis to head up its playlisting team and seek out new music to champion. Streaming playlists have become so important that the major labels now have “streaming pluggers”, just as they have radio pluggers who push for songs to be played on major stations.
Third was adamant that this shift towards play count, or consumption, would not have an impact on the sort of artist signed and championed by the indie sector. However, Darius Van Arman, the co-owner of the Secretly group, whose artists include Bon Iver, Angel Olsen and The War on Drugs, predicted there would be some impact on more experimental artists who in the past might have sold well due to credibility, but were unlikely to generate numerous repeated plays on streaming services.
Van Arman said independent labels were definitely “keeping up with the majors” in terms of benefiting from streaming, but added: “I think it’s probably inevitable that the market is going to invest more in music that is accessible and caters to repeat listening. For labels and artists who are more experimental, the new streaming economy is going to make it harder for them to earn money on their recordings.
“It has some impact on our A&R philosophy. We do think it’s very important that experimental music and challenging music is released. There are important artists that need to be supported because they are culturally exciting and push the boundaries of what is mainstream, so we will always have one foot in that world.
“But we have to be realistic and have another foot in the world where we are working with artists to make recordings that people want to listen to over and over again.”
The focus of labels and artists has shifted even more towards generating a hit single, but Van Arman emphasised that streaming had not completely eliminated the album format. Albums tend to perform less well on streaming – currently it accounts for 30% of most album revenues, with the rest from downloads and physical purchases. However, Van Arman pointed to Bon Iver’s recent release, 22, A Million, which data from Spotify showed most people were listening to the whole way through. The flipside is that labels are encouraging artists to make longer albums to monetise the format as much as possible for streaming.
The domination of streaming has not benefited the entire industry. Geoff Travis, the founder of Rough Trade records, said: “Our sales figures seem to me shockingly low given the acclaimed quality of the releases. [But] other people seem optimistic and we are still in the game, so maybe there is a future.”
What’s the key to successful audio branding? UK sound designer Henry Daw knows a thing or two about that: For over a decade, he was one of the people who helped build the brand sound of Nokia, one of the world’s most recognized audio brands. At the height of Nokia’s popularity, it was estimated that the Nokia tune was heard 1.8 BILLION times a day (!).And in this special A Sound Effect post, Henry Daw shares his key takeaways, tips and insights from 11+ years of working with audio branding:
Today every brand has a sound – whether it’s through product sound (both the physical and digital), music in marketing, ambience, or tone of voice. Audio branding has taken big strides in recent years, as those who follow the excellent Audio Branding Academy would tell you, but audio branding still has some way to go to get the recognition that it deserves. Sound can be incredibly powerful, and if harnessed well, it can add a whole new dimension to a brand. I’d like to take this opportunity to share some of the insights I have gained, through my work as a sound designer for Nokia and Microsoft, and now through my own company Oblique Sound.
Audio Branding as a Philosophy We hear a lot of talk about audio branding today, but as a term it is quite vague. It’s meaning depends on the context or whom you’re talking too. It is clear that audio branding has moved on from merely owning a ‘catchy jingle’. Audio branding is about having careful consideration for every single touchpoint that makes a sound, within your product or brand.
Audio branding is about having careful consideration for every single touchpoint that makes a sound, within your product or brand
It’s about striving for that consistent high quality – enhancing the design experience, improving usability, and reflecting brand character. Audio branding shouldn’t be forced in any way. It should be part of a coherent design – your goal should be to make the sonic experience optimal and of the highest quality.
Keeping Brand Sounds Consistent Consistency is vital for any audio brand, whether we’re talking in the context of an individual product experience or the wider brand. During my time at Nokia, consistency was especially important for the core brand sounds, which included the default set of notification sounds on a device. These sounds would be created and developed as a close-knit family of sounds, using similar tonality and design, very much aligned to the industrial and UX design drivers.
The core sounds were exceptional in the way they collectively communicated a strong brand statement. All other device sounds, whether a system UI sound or a ringtone, were not so heavily brand-focused, allowing us to provide more expression and choice to the user. It’s important to understand that consistency doesn’t mean that everything needs to sound the same. Rather the aim is to sing from the same hymn sheet – your overall brand sound needs to follow similar guidelines and design principles. Each sound should be designed to world-class standards, all optimized and mastered to a similar level. If just one sound is sub-optimal, it could ruin the perception of the complete audio experience.
The challenge will often be about ensuring a similar level of consistency with sound in areas largely outside your control, such as marketing and retail. To avoid any major disconnect between product sound and marketing, you can turn to sound mnemonics (or audio logos) and music, both of which act as strong unifiers.
Audio logos pose a challenge to a sound designer – they are likely to be driven by marketing, and their success will undoubtedly be influenced by how much coverage they get in an already crowded space. Too much coverage however, and they risk becoming annoying and having a negative effect. The audio logos of today and tomorrow need to embrace this challenge. They need to act as more than brand reminders.
The audio logos of today and tomorrow need to embrace this challenge. They need to act as more than brand reminders.
What does an audio logo say about the brand? How does it link to the user experience? How is it unique? In some cases it might work to use a specific product sound in marketing, coupled with some appropriate music – a notable example being Microsoft’s use of the “click” sound in their original Surface ad (seen below).
Updating Your Brand Sound Your audio brand will often demand an update as times change and the brand evolves. However, if you’re chopping and changing too often, you can lose continuity and your brand communication can become muddled. Whilst at Nokia core audio brand refreshes were carried out, on average, every couple of years, but other factors may determine the frequency. Refreshes are often aligned to key product or software release timelines. In general, you should try to have a longer-term strategy to your audio brand development – you shouldn’t always change based on current trends of the time.
Your approach to updating your brand sound is obviously key. Modern design has become increasingly about refinement – using only the beautiful essentials. The Nokia audio brand development was very much a reflection of this, starting from the audio brand refresh I led in 2010 up to the subsequent refresh a few years later. The key brand sounds went from the laid-back folky guitar style, to the more neutral, confident and refined mallet-based sounds.
It was very much about refinement, and making things meaningfully better – not introducing new for the sake of new
This was followed by another refresh a few years later (Nokia Core Sounds 2013), although the changes were minimal in comparison to the previous update.It was very much about refinement, and making things meaningfully better – not introducing new for the sake of new.
Functionality versus Branding Branding is a vital means of connecting with the people who use your products, a way of forging strong and positive relationships. Sound, if used smartly, can play a big role, creating a strong recognition to your brand. However, if you overly focus on branding when designing a sound, there’s a danger of compromising functionality and usability. A sound needs to first and foremost do the job for which it is intended, whether it’s a system UI sound or a notification alert. That said, using a sound that has a certain amount of character can help bridge emotional connections, something that is challenging with a generic and purely functional sound.
During my time at Nokia we were lucky in that we had the Nokia Tune in our armoury, said to be one of the most brand recognizable pieces of music in the world.
Using a sound that has a certain amount of character can help bridge emotional connections, something that is challenging with a generic and purely functional sound.
The tune was continually refreshed, on average every couple of years, yet it always remained distinctly recognizable and importantly the functionality was never compromised. It needed to work effectively as a ringtone – especially important if you consider the fact the majority of people would never change the ringtone from the default setting.
Secondary to the functionality and usability, product sound should ideally reflect the design principles and brand character of what you are designing for. This is where you have potential to create more meaningful connections to the brand. Think of the sounds as a collective voice coming out from the device – does it communicate the product design, the materials, the colours, and the feel? The Nokia N9 was a nice example of how far you can take this – a beautiful device that became a strong design-statement.
Finding Your Target Audience Ideally you would have a clear idea of whom you are designing for. But sometimes this is not so straightforward.
During my time at Nokia, we needed to cater for an exceptionally wide array of user tastes and preferences, anyone from a teenager in Finland to an elderly person in China. For the ringtone content it was always about offering choice, whilst staying true to the brand. It was also important to not be overly subjective when putting together the ringtone content, which is why user studies were vital aspects of our work at Nokia. For any new sounds, whether it’s a China-specific ringtone, email notification sound, or camera shutter sound, we always found user testing to be insightful. On the other hand, user testing is only indicative – it’s also important to have confidence in your expertise and instinct. If the ringtone lists were based on user studies alone, you would invariably end up with a very one-dimensional selection.
A successful audio brand should also have flexibility, which Nokia certainly had during my time there. That flexibility allowed us to engage with communities and brand followers from all over the world, as well as innovate in the areas of audio crowdsourcing and localization.
If the ringtone lists were based on user studies alone, you would invariably end up with a very one-dimensional selection
We had the popular Nokia Tune Remake contest in 2011, and one of my personal highlights from my time at Nokia and Microsoft, the ambitious Sounds of the Worldstudent collaboration project in 2014. These projects were about getting everyone involved with the audio brand development, whilst designing for a truly global brand.
Final Thoughts During my 11+ years working at Nokia, I felt immensely privileged to be able to help shape one of the most recognizable audio brands in the world. In many ways the Nokia audio brand was unique, not least because of the association with the Nokia Tune, but the same principles and learning’s discussed here can be applied to any brand, whether it’s a start-up or an established company.
I have already applied similar principles since setting up my new company, and I’m hugely excited at the prospect of working with the products and brands of today and tomorrow. I’ve no doubt that sound will play an increasingly important role in our everyday lives, as our product experiences become smarter, less attention-demanding, and more holistically-designed – rapidly growing areas such as the ‘Internet of Things’ and virtual and mixed reality are testament to this. In my opinion it’s never been a better time to be a sound designer and audio branding professional – we all need to take the opportunities that come our way, and communicate clearly the benefits of considered and holistic sound. Only then will sound have its rightful recognition, and we can hopefully all look forward to a better-sounding world.
Norway Shutting Down National FM Radio Broadcasts in Switch to Digital
Starting tomorrow FM stations will gradually switch to digital audio broadcasting.
Norway will start next week on becoming the first country to phase out the analog frequency modulation technology, or FM, for national and some regional broadcasting.
Starting Wednesday (Jan. 11), FM radio stations across Norway will gradually switch to digital audio broadcasting standard, known as DAB. The shutdown process that starts in northern Norway is due to be complete by Dec. 13.
The Norwegian government has cited its landscape with deep fjords, high mountains and scattered communities for making it expensive to operate FM networks.
Norway's Parliament took the decision in May 2011. The switch-off applies only to national radio stations and certain regional ones, most local radio stations can keep transmitting on their FM networks.
An estimated 200 million kroner ($23.4 million) will be saved, according to official figures.
Guitar Giant Goes Custom And Digital To Please The World's Players
Fender CEO Andy Mooney
When Fender Musical Instruments Corporation hired CEO Andy Mooney in the summer of 2015, he was given a mandate to stoke the company’s core business while launching new digital products.
The stakes are high, given the legacy of the brand. Even those who know little about guitars are familiar with Fender products, whether they realize it or not. Rock and roll God Jimi Hendrix was a committed user of Fender instruments, as have been artists like Eric Clapton and Bruce Springsteen, among countless others. Last year the Scottsdale, Arizona-based company generated nearly $500 million in revenue—50% of which came from instruments and amplifiers, another 20% from musical accessories. Annual growth clocks in at between 5% and 10%, Mooney claims.
The partly burnt 1965 Fender Stratocaster guitar which the late Jimi Hendrix set alight during a concert at the London Astoria in 1967, is displayed in London Thursday July 24, 2008. (AP Photo / Max Nash)
In taking on the task of revamping Fender’s offerings, Mooney, who was most recently CEO of surf and snowboard apparel company Quicksilver and previously chaired the Walt Disney Company after spending 20 years at Nike, is refocusing on the wants and needs of experienced musicians as well as students.
Most ambitious, perhaps, is Fender’s plan to launch a subscription-based guitar learning system in late spring which will include 500 hours of theory and guitar practice content for any device, priced at $99 per year. Says Mooney: “When we looked at the overall market, what’s interesting is the lessons side of the business is roughly double the size of the sale of new instrument business. You couple that with the fact that 90% of guitarists abandon the instrument in the first few months, if not the first year at the latest. We felt there was a commercial opportunity to develop the brand in the digital learning space because clearly the trends in learning are heading towards digital, as are many other parts of life.”
Fender is hoping that an organized, branded guitar training regimen will appeal to new guitarists, hopefully more so than the troves of guitar-lesson content made available for free by a slew of online-focused guitarist on channels like YouTube. A free sample of lessons will be available with every guitar and amp sold when the program emerges. “Simply organising the content in a cogent way with a high quality production, we think, will warrant some percentage of the student universe gravitating toward a subscription model,” says Mooney.
Taking aim at guitarists who already know how to play, Fender launched what it calls its Mod Shop this past June. The shop acts as a customization engine that allows consumers to choose the components that make up their instrument and then order the completed product online. This year the company plans to expand the number of instruments that can be customized and include some amplifier products in the shop as well.
Mooney, who estimates his own guitar collection numbers around 50 instruments – many of them Fenders – stepped into the CEO role left vacant by Larry Thomas, a company board member who took on the roll following the 2010 retirement of Bill Mendello, a 30-year veteran of the Fender. Following Thomas’s exit in 2014, interim CEO Scott Gilbertson helmed the firm until a replacement could be found.
Looking back at his career, Mooney says Nike provides the closest comparison to his current company of any firm for which he’s worked in that the shoe and sportswear giant maintained an impressive roster of pro endorsers, as does Fender with renowned musicians. Nike, however, was able to parlay that sizzle into larger shares of its markets than Fender does. “My belief,” says Mooney, “is we’ve got tremendous runway for growth and over time we can grow the percentage of artists that are adopting our product and translate that into market share.”
Producer Greg Eidelman and the music of Metallica's Hardwired…To Self Destruct
This week we spoke with music producer Greg Fidelman who recently finished Metallics’s new album Hardwired...To Self-Destruct.
This is Metallica's first studio album since 2008 and is not the first time Fidelman has worked with the band. Greg also worked as an engineer and mixer on Death Magnetic and was the co-producer, engineer and mixer on Lulu, the band’s collaboration with the late Lou Reed. He also oversaw the band’s live soundtrack to their first-ever feature film Through The Never.
Greg has also worked with other bands such as Slayer, Black Sabbath, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Bush, Audioslave, Marilyn Manson, Slipknot, and System of a Down.
ardwired... to Self-Destruct is the tenth studio album by American heavy metal band Metallica, released as a double album on November 18, 2016 by their vanity label Blackened Recordings. It is their first studio album in eight years following Death Magnetic (2008), marking the longest gap between two studio albums in the band's career. It is also their first studio album not to feature songwriting credits from lead guitarist Kirk Hammett since he joined the band in 1983, and their first studio album released through Blackened. Hardwired... to Self-Destruct was produced by Greg Fidelman, who engineered and mixed Death Magnetic. The album was Metallica's sixth consecutive studio album to debut at number one on the US Billboard 200, selling 291,000 album-equivalent units in its first week. Overall, the album topped the charts in 57 countries. Critical reception of the album was mostly positive.
There is probably no other group that has as a fanatical a following as Rush. It seems like there’s no in-between with the band – you either love them or hate them, intensely. There’s no denying that Rush has had some huge hits though, and “Tom Sawyer” is one of their biggest. Here’s the isolated guitar track from the song. Listen for the following:
1. The guitar uses the same sound throughout the song. It’s a big stereo chorus that takes up a lot of space. In a power trio there are fewer instruments and mix elements so you have to make each one bigger in the mix and that’s what happens here.
2. There’s also a room reverb with a short decay on the guitar. It may even be the original room ambience.
3. The guitar solo is clearly an overdub with a slightly different sound. It doubles with the original guitar at the end of the solo and again at the end of the song.
4. As you’d expect, Alex Lifeson plays with extreme precision, although there are a few notes here and there that are ever so slightly rushed (like in the outro). Boy, you have to be pretty picky to even hear or care about them, and certainly you never hear them in the context of the mix. That said, this was an amazingly precise performance given the time it was recorded in (1980) and the tape technology that was in use.
