iTunes vs. Spotify

iTunes vs. Spotify

Today I ran across an article regarding the new music streaming service, Spotify. The article was discussing the assumption that Spotify will overtake iTunes within two years. If you were to ask me to describe/explain Spotify, I would say that it is a mix between iTunes, Naptser, and Pandora. Now, I am not sure if I agree with the prediction that Spotify will overtake iTunes, however, I would not doubt if it came close. I had to look at this from a personal standpoint first. Over the last couple of weeks, I have noticed that I hardly ever open my iTunes anymore; I am always using Spotify. What drew me to this new application was the Pandora-type feature. I do feel that Spotify can easily overtake Pandora within the next two years. At the same time, there are some individuals who genuinely love the idea that they can search an artist name and create a station of all similarities. I on the other hand love the fact that I can use Spotify to  search an artist name and pull up all of their music.

Because my entertainment industry of interest is artist management, I believe that this new application will cause a bit of up rise within music artists, if it hasn’t already done so. After downloading Spotify, I learned that one is able to search an artists’ name, create a playlist of all the music they like from that artist, then have it available to them, ready to play at any time. This came as a shock to me, simply because of all the artists that I searched, the returned results were all updated. For example, the same day Robert Glasper’s new album “Black Radio” was released, it was available on Spotify. I believe that this can cause artist to lose out on money from CD sales. While I did not find an option to burn music to CD, subscribers to have the option to access the mobile apps and have their same playlists with them wherever they go. 

Talk About Me If You Please

Talk about me if you please.

One thing I love about my life is the fact that I am always gigging. Every weekend, if not every day, I am doing what I love most, and that is playing the drums. I joke with people and tell them that I could probably write a book about some of the things I have seen/experienced while travelling. This past weekend, I was able to add something new to my list of gig surprises.  I had to play in Gastonia, NC on the 25^th of this month. When we walked in, we realized it was the normal, church setting, bunch of different groups, as it was a benefit concert. There was a group singing gospel artist, Fred Hammond’s, “Blessed” as I was setting up my equipment. I paid no attention to them, until I heard something rather strange. The leader of the group was using Auto tune through the entire song! Never in my life, had I heard someone use auto tune to such an extreme in this genre. As you can imagine, this became the talk of the night, weekend.

That’s when I had an epiphany. As foolish as it was, it was almost ingenious. It reminded me of this year’s Grammy Award Show and the highlighted performance by Nicki Minaj.

While her performance may have been considered demonic, crazy, foolish etc., the fact of the matter remains that it is still the “talk” of the Grammy’s. I realized that these acts might have been more purposeful than people think. Whether people enjoyed the gospel hit auto tuned and the outrageous wardrobe/performance or even hated it, they still talked about it.  For the artists, this turned out to be great marketing tools for each of them. I believe I can speak for many when I say I will never forget hearing that classic gospel chart being auto tuned.  The same goes for the Nicki Minaj performance.  In a recent interview, Nicki Minaj spoke on her performance and shares how she was strategic in introducing her new movie “Roman Holiday. Minaj said, “I can't do a song like that and stand up there with a microphone and a band behind me - I have to paint the picture and I'm gonna always do that to the fullest."

One thing new and old artists should consider is their personal branding/self-marketing. What part of their performance or presentation really captures the audience and makes them continue talking about them? Once the outlying marketing tool is discovered, find out if it is working as positive or negative marketing. Deciphering between the two will help one see why they receive the recognition they receive. 

We've Lost Another Legend

We’ve Lost Another Legend

While many people are probably writing blogs, posts, tweets etc. about the late Whitney Houston, I would count it robbery, as a person in the entertainment field to not have words regarding her passing. As many know, Whitney Houston was considered one of the pioneers of pop music. Many artists from several genres recognize Houston for her talent, and those artists who know her personally recognize her for her warm heart. As I was watching CNN during the live coverage of her shocking passing, they had many interviews with various people from the industry on the line. The one that stood out the most to me was with Lionel Richie. He took time to plead that people understand the stress and heartache that comes with being an artist. He broke down the fact that it is such a struggle to go from being great to now struggling, not even touching on how the press slandered her with her drug struggle. It is my hope that new artists, artists who are already established, and even those who are not in the industry, take this horrific event as an eye opener.

One thing that Lionel said that stood out to me was “If you can imagine this, there used to be a time when all you had to do was survive your own craft; the press didn’t know anything about your personal life…Now every singe day there is a tweet, blog, blurb about some part of your personal life.” He went on to talk about how an artist is “a business of psych, how can we hold ourselves together and still maintain the voice, the psych, of who we are, and still maintain that?” It was not shocking to me to see that as soon as it was reported that she passed away, so many people went straight to discussing her past struggles. It saddens me many times to see how media now thrives off of the downfalls of people, more so than their upcoming.