How Data Helped UMEK Make One Of The Biggest Techno Comebacks In Years [Case Study]

Since 2018, UMEK has produced eight #1 tracks and 46 tracks that charted among Beatport’s Top 100. His label, 1605, launched 13 years ago, is also among the Top 10 labels on Beatport, signing rising talent such as Cosmic Boys, Space 92, and Teenage Mutants.

It’s one of the biggest comebacks any techno artist and label have made in recent years. How did they do it? By combining their 30-year industry experience and talent with data science – something that most of the music industry still sleeps on.

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Indie Artists in the New Music World

It is a new world order for musicians. There’s also a high degree of change in the world of radio. Expectations, though, shouldn’t be changing all that much due to the complexities of rising to the top in a still very difficult system.

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Solving the Symphony Crisis

The major symphony orchestras in the United States are facing an increasingly dire financial situations – not just because of a decrease in consumer demand and a decade of economic recessions – but because of systemic, short-sighted and self-inflicted deficiencies in their current business models. But it doesn’t have to be like this.

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The Next Era Of The Music Business

The music industry is about to change in a profound way as it turns to streaming as its primary distribution model.For labels, artists, songwriters and musicians alike, their financial lives may hang in the balance.

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SOLVING THE PROBLEM OF NEW MUSIC AND ARTIST DISCOVERY

Whether they ever choose to regain some of their former financial stature and growth, record companies, majors and indies alike, along with unsigned and unknown independent artists, too, must cultivate and create, as quickly as possible, a SINGLE new digital marketplace.  Here competition will flourish and some semblance of reasonable choice and control over the discovery of new artists with original new music will be exercised by whatever is left of the music listening mainstream audience.  In this brave new world, record companies will need to collaborate and combine forces with each other and with independent artists at large.  They will need to move quickly to consolidate into one place a dynamic customer base made up of the depleting record companies’ sales bases along with the ever increasing independent artist fan bases. The passionate members of the music listening public will ultimately choose to gather in this one place and make quick decisions about new music and new artists.  

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Major Labels Still Invest in Music (Kinda)

In the graphic below you’ll see how major labels are currently advancing and promoting acts, primarily pop acts, in order to break them to the general public. It’s an interesting refresher in how much major labels are still able to put towards music, albeit music we may not care for. Their options are minimal and their expectations are high. With this still hefty investment, it makes you wonder how successful they could be pushing smaller, touring groups instead of putting all their eggs into one basket.

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The Shattered Hit Record Model

We’ve all heard the complaints about the current Music 3.0 music industry model: physical product doesn’t sell anymore, download sales don’t make up for the shortfall, and streaming music cannibalizes sales and pays a pittance in royalties. Then let’s heap on the accusation that music today is so formula and soul-less and generally a shadow of what it once was. But how does that explain the recent success of Mumford & Sons and Adele? Here are two principles that hold true in any age.

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What Actually Drives Music Consumption

I created the conceptual model to understand the independent variables that help predict music consumption, along with predicting how much change in those independent variables can impact one’s consumption of music in a way that leads to revenue for an artist, an artists’ label et al.

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An 11th Simple Truth for a Delusional Music Industry

It seems like a week doesn’t go by without new proposals for streaming music services — some real, some imagined. Most services position themselves to be more convenient than digital downloads. Few promise better quality than CD audio. Therein lies the problem with listener-paid business models, a simple truth from the software industry that should be heeded.

When I got into the commercial software business, titles were delivered in boxes containing install discs accompanied by paper user manuals. From there it became commonplace to purchase a license key to download software and soft-copy documentation. It remains to be seen whether full-feature software can now be accessed solely through the cloud.

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Forget Your Business Model. What is Your Vision?

Author Alistair MacLeod once said starting to write a story without a vision of its ending to guide him was like handing a cabdriver $20 and saying, “take me somewhere.” I was reminded of this when the largest African-American-owned bookstore in the USA abruptly announced it would close. If you are in either the music or consumer audio industry, there is a lesson here for you.

It’s not that sales are down at the Hue-Man Bookstore & Cafe in Harlem. In fact, co-owner Marva Allen said in a Marketplace Radio interview that “sales are up 37 percent.” Though currently successful, the store ceased operations because the owners recognized their business model is unsustainable in the long t

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The Next Music Format Case-Study: Twisted Music

This contribution is by Bas Grasmayer (@Spartz), head of information strategy at Zvooq, the leading music-streaming platform in Russia & CIS.

Recently music industry analyst Mark Mulligan presented his plea for a serious adoption of a new music format. He claims that most new business model ideas in the music business are retail innovations, but not format innovations. In short, he argues that the new music format should be Dynamic, Interactive, Social and Curated (DISC). For the full vision, check out his speech at midem 2012, or read his full 15-page ‘manifesto for the next generation of music products’.

In my thesis about marketing music through non-linear communication, I wrote a case-study about a record label called Twisted Music and their remarkable adoption of an excellent business mentality for the digital age.

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A Response to SOPA: Free Pays(More)

So as we know, if a song reaches a certain level of popularity these days, there’s pretty much a guarantee that someone, somewhere is going to pirate it. This is now a fact. Should it happen? Some say yes, and some say no, and there will probably never be a consensus. Regardless of the answer to that question, the unrelenting truth of the matter is that it DOES happen. The smartest response in this case then is to stop arguing about the should’s or the why’s, and simply accept the fact that this is happening. The ground is shifting below our feet, and we need to act or we will all get sucked under.

To me it seems pointless to even bring up the prospect of a subscription service, or even a pay-as-you-go model as a viable solution for a future sustainable industry model. This is because the internet, now the basis of content consumption, is like a huge river of information. A paywall is like a little pebble being thrown into it. The water in the river has no trouble getting around the pebble. Paywalls will never solve the piracy problem, and damming up the whole river, as we’ve seen with SOPA, will not be easy, and most likely will never happen.

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Spotify: Millions of DJs

Spotify: Millions of DJs

As a music fan, the growing number of free and subscription based streaming services can be a dream come true. Install Spotify (or Rdio, Mog, Slacker, Rhapsody, Deezer, etc.) on your computer, your mobile phone, your internet-enabled stereo, and you have instant access to pretty much all the music that’s out there. Build playlists, see what your friends are listening to, those services have become a great tool to discover and enjoy music. Amazing.

From the artists that create this abundance of music, there’s been a very mixed reaction. I strongly suggest you read this 2011 recap by Bandzoogle friend and Nashville music marketing genius Charles Alexander. In it, he links to many articles and posts about Spotify that give you a good sense of why so many are worried or pissed off about it. You can also read the comments section to any post about Spotify on Hypebot, or Digital Music News and you’ll see that very graphic language is often used.

The short version ?

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Why You Should Give Your Music Away for Free

Digital music caught the record labels off guard and smashed their business to pieces, and from the rubble new economic realities are emerging. In this new reality, most independent artists, especially those who are just starting out, should give their music away for free. Sound crazy? Maybe, but hear me out. It boils down to 3 main concepts.

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