of panels, seminars and master classes on the current state of the music industry and,
more importantly, where many of its key players think it's heading next. The event made
for some highly quotable moments.
Come, take a walk with me down soundbyte lane...
"Jonny Marr was talking backstage at the Modest Mouse show about being in The
Smiths, when they used to only record 3 songs at a time, because those were all the
songs they had at any one time. So they'd release each as singles, and then when they'd
released enough singles, they'd put out an album. And now the downloads business has
put us back into that model."
--Andy Gershon, EVP, Epic Records
>>Rodney Jerkins, the award-winning songwriter-producer of some of the biggest
R&B hits in the last 15 years, gave us a candid and innovative vision of the music
industry and what can be done to save it. As the man behind the music, you may
not know his name, but you'll recognize his track record of outrageously huge hits:
Brandy & Monica's "The Boy Is Mine", Jennifer Lopez's "If You Had My Love",
Destiny's Child's "Say My Name" and Beyonce's "Deja Vu", Mary J. Blige's "I Can
Love You" and "Enough Crying", and dozens more.
"What's going to save the music business? Real music. Real music. That's it. The hunger
for real music right now is bigger than ever before. The record companies haven't
embraced technology. Music execs coming out of school don't know music. They
wouldn't know a hit if it hit them in the head. We have people in position that shouldn't be
in position."
"In anything you do you have seasons. There are ups and downs and ups and downs.
Even when you have a hit song , instead of saying 'I'm going to St. Tropez', I'm going
back into the studio to get started writing the next hit. You can't rest on your laurels. You
gotta work harder than the next guy."
"You have to be careful with trendy music, cuz trendy comes and trendy goes. You don't
make real music that way. You need to be writing real music that becomes classic. I don't
understand it when they say 'you gotta give us a song that sounds like this other hit song.'
That's wrong. You can't use the radio to tell you what music to make. You tell the radio
what music to play."
"I want to train my successor. I want to find the next Rodney Jerkins, and train them.
That's how you stay relevant in the game. The only person who has really done that is Dr.
Dre. He's 43yrs old, and he stays relevant in the game because he's got young people
under him that keep him current."
"Know your music history... We gotta get rid of the people who aren't music people. We
got to minimize to maximize."
"You can't trick the consumer. You can't just put somebody on TV and hope and trust
the exposure to make an artist. It comes down to the talent. If there's no hit song behind
them, no amount of exposure in the world is gonna help their career. That's why Kelly
Clarkson is where she is. Ruben Studdard and Fantasia had the same exposure, but they
couldn't sell a record. Kelly had 'Since U Been Gone,' and she blew up. Then she had the
follow up, and she was outta here."
--Rodney Jerkins, Songwriter-Producer, VP of A&R, Island Def Jam
>>David Massey, the man who signed Oasis, spoke with ITCNY Conference
organizer, Anthony Wilson about his experiences coming up as a manager in the
music industry thru his transition into a brilliant A&R EVP at Sony, and finally
landing in his current role as President of Mercury Records at Island Def Jam.
"Paying for music has become a choice that people make. And the technology has made
buying music a voluntary act."
--Jim Griffin, CEO, One House
"Records sold isn't the only measure of a band's success! There are six: Obviously the
bottom line - money, then ticket sales, merch, digital downloads, records sold, and also ringtone sales."
--Marc Geiger, SVP, William Morris Agency and Ex-Vice Chairman & President, ARTISTdirect Inc.
"The measure of success in breaking a band is ticket sales. For hip-hop, it's number of
ringtones sold."
--Andy Gershon, EVP, Epic Records
"Radio is still #1 for music discovery. Video is 2nd. Friend recommendations are 3rd. No
one uses iTunes to discover new music."
--David Card, Jupiter Research
"Viral recommendations are key for future momentum. It's about breaking bands.
Interoperability [of music files] is not the key to breaking bands."
--Rob Wetstone, VP Label Relations, EMusic
"iTunes is the biggest check the labels are going to get. EMusic is 2nd biggest."
--David Card, Jupiter Research
"Sony's new standard contract now asks for 30% of all ancillary activities of the artist -
that's 30% of publishing, merch, everything. But why would an artist want to sign that
when the label can't deliver?"
--Patrick Moxey, Ultra Records
"Record companies need to become music companies. The music has to be the focus.
Then the contracts can change entirely."
--Andy Gershon, EVP, Epic Records
"Music-the-product is in its last days. The case that's seeing growth is music-the-service.
So this is where we need to focus our monetization efforts. Music services are aplenty
and growing, so we need to focus on collecting the fees... We're in the midst of an
Exxon-Valdese disaster. And its our own fault. We created the situation. We poisoned
the well. We need to monetize music the service to make up for the revenue we've lost
from music the product."
--Jim Griffin, CEO, One House
"We need to focus on trying to monetize the casual listener who only ever downloads 200
songs, goes to 1 concert a year, and listens to Lite FM. They aren't the hardcore fan. We
need to try and monetize the casual listener in the over 25 demo."
--Adam Sexton, Groovemobile
"In Korea there is no such thing as a physical record anymore. The only consumption
model is via a subscription service over their cell phones."
--Andy Gershon, EVP, Epic Records
"The artist doesn't really need a record label anymore. The important part is the pricing
structure and the deal structures. They're trying new things all the time! Live Nation and a
label and a major corporation are banding together to go out and try and resign Pearl Jam!"
--Marc Geiger, SVP, William Morris Agency and Ex-Vice Chairman & President, ARTISTdirect Inc.
For more on the conference and its founding fathers in the UK, check out the official In The City blog.
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