Death of The Superstar: Fact or Fiction

Are we in the days of witnessing the death of the superstar? I think it’s a pretty decent argument, especially in this individualized society right now. Who’s to say who’s a superstar anymore? If I have a favorite artist, why can’t they be a superstar to me? Or should LMFAO be considered superstars because that dam song is everywhere. No really everywhere, I was at the Universoul Circus this morning and everybody was SHUFFLING.

Do we even need titles like that anymore? Why should I care if you’re a Grammy Award Winner? Honestly your first week sales don’t matter to me. I care about the music first, and it helps if you have an interesting personality, because then I have more reasons to connect with you….artists. Sure we still have the Beyonces and Gagas and Springsteins of the world…wait…do you need to be signed to a major label to be considered a superstar? I’m getting confused for no dam reason and I believe more people will be feeling the same. As the options grow for me to discover and choose who I want to listen to, I will decide based on ME, not a title, award, or ad spot. I don’t need, moreover, I do not want “the machine” trying to force me to I understand that the next great source of income for “superstars” became brand partnerships, but it’s not cool when its overload. And that’s what it has been….overload after overload after overload. In the end I believe people will be more turned off than to those “superstars”, along with future “appointed superstars”, and the “superstar” creators will have yet another issue at hand on why they are failing.

Click to read more ...

So Now Spotify is The Enemy?

We are in a day where the choice is yours. No one is obligated in using particular services or products. Believe it or not I own no Apple products. I was given a 4gb iPod shuffle as a gift one year. I lost it about a month or two later. I went out, bought an 8gb memory card, loaded up my blackberry with music and never looked back. Sure the commercials and other marketing campaigns for Apple looked and continues to be great, but at the end of the day I have a choice. I say this to say, I don’t understand why artists & music industry personnel continue to lash out at Spotify. As I tweeted earlier today, if a download is .99, how much do you expect to get from a stream? That’s not Spotify’s fault. They didn’t create streaming, they just created a great model to capitalize off it.

Click to read more ...

What is Going on Here?

Here we are in the land of “Best music apps for Facebook”, “2011’s Best Music Start-Ups”, “Creating a Powerhouse Website”, and so on and so on; yet there are so many artists still aimlessly drifting around as if we are still in the 90s.  Please someone tell me what is going on here? Does it not make sense to think that what you’re doing does not make sense anymore? Today there are artists still fighting to get a record deal, yet they haven’t sold a single song, no strong online or offline presence, mundane social media activity, no knowledge of the available technology and programs, but in 2011 they want a record deal. It’s a joke. We have to get to a place where we’re serious about the industry that we chose to sustain and in return it sustains us.  You can’t expect fans to make the transition in supporting a non-major label driven music industry, if you haven’t made a transition yourself.

Click to read more ...