A Public Service Music Label?
The record companies don’t get it. I think we can all agree on that. If they can’t monetise a unit sale then they can’t make their old business model work, and with the unit price of music online close to zero, (iTunes at al notwithstanding), the labels’ old model is probably dead, or at least waving its feet in the air twitching uncontrollably. They also appear to not be able to move to a new model, instead attempting to lobby and sue their way back to the good old days before Napster came along.
Presumably, at some point, we’ll see labels signing fewer bands, and certainly fewer good bands, instead concentrating on the sure-fire X-Factor end of the market and the long tail of their back catalogs. This leaves a pretty epic cultural gap for genuinely good music to be heard by lots of people.
It’s okay for Radiohead and Trent Reznor to not have labels; they’re leveraging the profile that their old labels bought in the earlier years of their careers. New bands can’t do that. It’s easy to say that there are opportunities for new bands to come along and use the interwebs to kickstart their careers, but without that crucial initial marketing spend, it’s still practically impossible to launch an actual career without the backing of a label.
So if the labels won’t bring us great new music in the future, who will? How can bands generate that level of media profile where people will come out on a wet night to watch them play, generating money through merchandising and ticket sales? Without label backing, you’re screwed.
How about a system of non-profit-driven promotion, handled by an culturally aware organisation which has a vertically-integrated structure handling content creation and delivery? Fat chance. Oh… hang on. What’s that you say auntie?
Yes, the BBC has all this in droves, so here’s my plan in a nutshell; the BBC should become a sort of public-service label.
It already dabbles of course. Lamacq will play something once from some band in the middle of nowhere, and a few people will hear it, but there’s no coherence or conviction, it’s just messing about. If there were a few people at the BBC genuinely seeking out new talent (A&R, effectively), rather than playing what the labels spoon-fed them, the BBC could coordinate its entire network to promote new music. It would put a whole new spin on the phrase “in new music we trust”.
Wouldn’t it be great if a band featured on Lamacq had a chance to be nurtured by the BBC, to be guaranteed some kind of rotation on the BBC radio network? At the higher echelons, there’s Jools Holland and Radio 1. Wouldn’t it be fantastic if an “unsigned” band got a slot every week on Jools, and corresponding daytime rotation on a national radio station? Profile that would previously have cost the label (and by extension, the artist) massive amounts of money could then be had for free.
Hell, it could even rejuvenate Top of the Pops, which everyone wants back, but which the BBC can’t seem to find a way to reformat so it’s convincing. Regular prime time TV exposure for unsigned acts alongside label-sponsored bands? How fucking cool would that be?
The BBC could even release music. Really, there’s not a lot of difference between shifting a “Blue Planet” DVD and releasing an album by a band, and CD sales could subsidise the system to a degree. Also, music fans are willing to pay for music, and if you sign genuinely good music, you’re in with a decent chance of tapping into that market.
There are downsides. Should the taxpayer pay for this kind of thing? I don’t know. I speak as a music fan and a musician, and the niceties of whether this would be public money well spent are slightly lost on me. I think so, but then I would, wouldn’t I? I would imagine also, that Offwatch, Offcom and their ilk would have something of a cow. Competing with the labels? How dare they?
And yes, there couldn’t be that many new acts “signed” to the BBC every year, but with a cultural brief, rather than an overtly commercial one, they’d probably be pretty good.
It’s only a thought. But isn’t it an exciting thought?
More newspaper stuff: We edge closer
I note with interest we now have on-demand book printing:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2009/apr/24/espresso-book-machine-launches
How long can it be before my plan for newspapers comes around? Admittedly the machine costs £175k, but that’s for a book machine. Maybe it’d be cheaper to make newspapers?
Surely, surely, this is the future?
New Music for TH2
I was recently asked to write some original music for the diffusion range of the rather swish Taylor Howes. You can hear it on their site (created by the ultra-talented team at Camber):
I was of course happy to oblige. It’s always weird doing music for websites, since you never know quite how it’s all going to gel together. I think though that the end result is really nice, and has the desired effect.
Banging on about Newspapers again
I just watched Jacek Utko do a TED talk:
http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/jacek_utko_asks_can_design_save_the_newspaper.html
His point was that design can save newspapers, and certainly the work he’s done is great, and has yielded massive business benefits to the circulation of the papers he works on, presumably because the papers become such lovely desirable objects.
There is, though this unfortunate truth that the paper-based model as we know it has had its day. I would refer you to my perennial rant about how best to do newspapers. But imagine if we applied Jacek’s design philosophies to the “vending machine” model.
How cool would that be then? Bang up to date news, with the desirability of a wonderful object. Seriously, give me the money and I’ll turn newspaper fortunes around inside a year.
The Commonwealth Expedition on the BBC
Recently, i helped set up a website for The Commonwealth Expedition, and I noticed today that they have a write-up on the BCC News site:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/7962311.stm
This is great news for the endlessly-energetic Felicity Aston, who’s running the show, since publicity is always helpful. The idea is to take eight women from the Commonwealth countries to the South Pole.
Good luck Felicity et al!
Delivery of the Cool
In the post this morning courtesy Amazon : Miles Davis’ Birth of the Cool.
Seriously. Look at the typography and imagery. Nothing that looks like this can ever be uncool. It’s the epitome of cool. I don’t need to tell you what it sounds like because clearly, it’s going to be cool.
The Future of Newsprint : Revisited
Three years ago in February 2006, I wrote the blog entry below for a previous incarnation of this site. Having read “The Scotsman’s Insanity is an industry problem” I still think I nailed it. This is a good idea, so I’m resurrecting and “reprinting” it, if only to be able to say “I told you so” if and when it happens.
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The Future of Newsprint (First published 15/02/06)
There was a piece in Creative Review last month regarding the new Observer redesign. All mostly the usual “it’s great”, “it sucks” stuff. Amongst the industry bitchfest though, were some very forward thinking ideas from Jon Hill (http://www.jonhilldesign.co.uk/ [URL Now Defunct]). His premise is that within a few years, amongst other things, you’ll see newspapers being printed sectionally on-demand. This article just takes this idea and builds on some of the practicalities of that.
The current problem for the newspapers is that with the advent and spread of 24-hour news channels, internet news and the ever-expanding blogosphere they’re becoming irrelevant. People consume news online, on their phones, even waiting around for trains on big screens, all for free. The prevailing view is that newspapers will become more focused on in-depth reporting and almost become “viewspapers”.
But what if you could do something a little cleverer than this? Imagine getting a newspaper on your way to work that was right up to the moment, cheaper than what you pay now, and tailored to what you wanted to read.
A vending kiosk at stations, garages etc with a touchscreen interface could dispense only the elements of the normal paper that you wanted, charging accordingly. The paper would be printed A4 on-demand in the kiosk itself. The clever element though would be a web link that would allow the paper to be constantly updated “live” throughout the day, so you’d never have an out-of-date news story on the way home. And in a twist of fate, this would no doubt be done using XML feeds, thereby competing with the bloggers and news websites using their own technology.
A handy side-effect would be the ability to constantly update advertisements within the paper, which would be great from advertisers perspectives, allowing them up-to-the-moment tie-ins with events, as well as a new segment for the creative industry to exploit.
Taking it a step further, customers could sign up for an more in-depth personalised newspaper on a website, and then pick it up on the way to work from the kiosk. Again, this would enhance the advertising potential of the papers, and potentially allow customers to pay a premium to be rid of adverts too.
A system like this would allow news editors to keep their papers up to date, and maybe claw back some of that depleting market share. It provides an elegant and innovative approach to news distribution which could run alongside traditional papers and online/24-hour tv outlets.
Lastly, it’s worth noting that people are still reading newspapers. Why? Because reading from paper is still so much nicer than reading from screen, plus people like them because they mean something to us. Newspapers have a future, and the public want to see it.
Small in Japan
Very pleasing news. The Wonderland Project have their first CD in Japan! Thanks to Kimi for the drop in Fukuoka City!
Safari 4: Where’s my Reload button gone?!
So, like the rest of the known world, I downloaded the new Safari 4 beta the other day. It’s nice; dead fast, some slick new interface features, and it renders the Guardian homepage twice as fast as the last version. So all good. Even the new “tabs at the top” feature, whilst a bit weird, is something I can live with.
What I’m having real issues with though is the lack of a reload button. As a designer/developer type, I reload pages all the time, and I often click to do that, rather than use the keyboard shortcuts. Every time I wanted to do that for the last few days, my mouse has strayed to the place where my old reload button was, only to be thwarted by its absence:
Where the hell is it?
So, I found it. Eventually. It’s in the location bar, away from all the other buttons you might want to click, just for your convenience. And it’s such a handy size too, check it:
Ahh, where else?
I’m trying to like the new Safari, but this is a real killer for me. If Firefox was a bit better and more mac-friendly, I might even be tempted to jump ship. That’s how much this is bugging me. And no, you can’t customise the toolbar to add it back in. Maybe in the final version. Please. Pretty please. With a cherry on top.
Eyelash Album Artwork
In the post this morning I received a prerelease copy of the new Eyelash album, “Recession”, for which I designed the artwork in collaboration with the band’s guitar player, Ru Cook. The design was based on illustrations by the mysterious Hectik, who Ru found online.
I’m a web designer by trade so it always scares the crap out of me to see print work come back, but I’m pleased to say that we nailed it! The colours are true, the type smooth and the disgustingly up-rezzed images look fine, thanks to the good folk at Key Production.
So without further ado, here are some more pictures:
