Worth Making Music?: Profiting Today

Spotify has become my main music source today. For $10 a month I receive high quality and commercial free streams of whatever songs I want, even on my phone. I don't have to worry about downloading illegally or purchasing albums because almost everything is made available (almost always very quickly as well) on Spotify's database.

We all know (or remember) that going to Best Buy and buying a new released CD on Tuesdays used to cost around $10-14...and it probably still does. But after listening to loads of albums worth of music this past month for only $10, I started wondering how the hell can these artists be making legitimate money today? With 4G LTE and wireless networks being available almost everywhere we spend most of our time throughout or days, streaming music has become a completely OK alternative to downloading songs and loading them on your phone or iPod's hard drive.

Behind every artist, there are producers, promoters, label personnel, etc. - all of who are given a slice of the profits that come in. After searching around, I came across this great infographic that summarizes how many CDs or streams an artist would need to have sold or played in order to meet the monthly minimum wage of $1,160.00. Pretty interesting:

Purchasing an album ($10 CD)
Independent recording artist - ~$8 goes to the artist (need to sell around 150 CDs)
High end record deal, retail artist - ~$1 goes to the artist (need to sell around 1160 CDs)
Low end record deal, retail artist - ~$0.30 goes to the artist (need to sell around 3871 CDs)

iTunes ($10 Album download)
$0.94 goes to the artist (need to sell 1229 CDs)

Amazon/iTunes Track Download ($0.99 Song)
$0.09 goes to the artist (need to sell 12,399 songs)

Rhapsody Stream (Fixed rate)
$0.0022 goes to the artist per stream (need to stream 849,817 times/month)

Spotify (Fixed rate)
$0.00029 goes to the artist per stream (need to stream 4,053,110 times/month!)

An immediate reaction to this might be that oh, the artists are getting shafted! But there are just a lot of different things that seem to come into play when making, distributing, and legalizing/copyrighting a product, and a lot of people behind each of those various steps who need to be paid. Lesson learned from this though is that if there's an independent artist you really like, go to a show and buy their CD if you really want to support them directly!

Trip-Hop: The Return?..It's Too Good Not To + Phaeleh Mashup by Yours Truly

Over the past decade, we've seen a huge merging of musical genres with the help of technology. Coldplay working with Jay-Z. John Mayer with Kanye West. David Guetta with Akon. But one bridge I feel that hasn't really been built is the one between hip-hop and electronica. In college I'd try to mix these two at parties but it would be really tough and usually only sound decent for a short while. Their speeds and simply the attitudes each genre bring seem so polar.

Enter trip-hop.

Recently I've been taking full advantage of my $10/month Spotify subscription and exploring through the ocean of great artists trying to spread their work. Side note: It's amazing how many bands and individual acts are out there, and so many of them sound really great - definitely something worth doing if you're into finding new music. But eventually I came across Portishead, one of the premier acts of the trip-hop movement back in the 90's.

Trip-hop according to Wikipedia is:

…a music genre consisting of downtempo electronic music. It began in the mid-1990s, growing out of England’s hip hop and house scenes, including that of the Bristol underground. It has been described as “Europe’s alternative choice in the second half of the ’90s”, and a fusion “of Hip-Hop and Electronica until neither genre is recognizable.”...

I hadn't heard Portishead before, but I started using them to find related/recommended artists (especially after reading that Kanye West said Portishead had a massive influence on his sound...I'm an avid Kanye fan :D). Most of you have probably already heard another huge trip-hop band from the 90's, Massive Attack...whose track 'Teardrop' is used as the theme song to the show House M.D. The band Zero 7 also had a hit song 'In the Waiting Line' on the Garden State soundtrack.

Massive Attack

Although the trip-hop movement of the 90's didn't last long, I quickly realized that its sound is going to be revived bigger and better in the near future as I went from one related artist to the next . It's simply too good not to be, and the possibilities are so vast especially with today's music production softwares. Trip-hop beats are really bent on being as creative as possible and exploring...while today's Hip-hop beats I feel are coming to some sort of relative maxima in terms of structure and sound. There aren't many people pushing the limits of hip-hop sound (which is why I like Kanye because he pushes its bounds with utilizing orchestras, opera singers, soul samples, etc.). A few sub-genres such as Trap have emerged, but I don't think many of them will last long.

One of the names I came across was Phaeleh (pronounced 'fella'), an artist from Bristol, UK (where trip-hop originated hah) who started in 2006. Another side note: I tweeted at him saying I dig his sound, and he tweeted back! His music is chill and trance-y but has really unique/creative beats. Like while listening to a lot of the other related artists I came across, I couldn't stop thinking of what amazing things would happen if artists like him and hip-hop super producers 9th wonder or D.J. Toomp were put in the same studio together for a week, and also how close his sound is to being able to be used by guys like Drake.

To sort of showcase this point, I took one of Phaeleh's tracks 'The Cold in You,' chopped/sped it up, and chopped/layered acapellas from Jay-Z's 'Song Cry' and Notorious B.I.G.'s 'Suicidal Thoughts,' which you can listen to below. I apologize in advance for the quality not being ideal - the beat has a lot of bass (most trip-hop beats I've noticed tend to) and when I sped it up some of the bass clashed at a few points. I wanted to use a Drake acapella because he does a lot of more mellow stuff which would be appropriate for this beat, but finding acapellas isn't easy.


Phaeleh - The Cold in You vs. Jay-Z and B.I.G. [Mashup] by Ayes Music

Hook (kinda hard to understand):
I've, got it all worked out...and
I've, got it figured out...and
I've got it all worked out...and
I've got it down, got it down

^The point of that was just to show a peek at the potential of these two genres coming together btw lol. Other trip-hop/close to trip-hop acts besides Portishead, Massive Attack, Zero 7, and Phaeleh include Sneaker Pimps, Hooverphonic, Thievery Corporation, Everything But The Girl, and more recently Berry Weight, Submotion Orchestra, and Paper Tiger. I'm sure there will be more emerging soon...pretty exciting sound to look forward to.

Paul Epworth: Man Behind Adele and Florence + The Machine

Adele's Skyfall, the track to accompany the upcoming release of the new James Bond movie Skyfall, was released a couple days ago and has received a lot of positive reviews - including from me :). When I think of James Bond songs though, I think of how epic tunes like Goldfinger and Diamonds are Forever have stood the test of time...and how this Skyfall track really lives up to that caliber and expectation. I then realized that Adele's whole 21 album sort of has that sound that could cross many generations to come...

Last year at the Grammys, the Producer of the Year was Paul Epworth, Britain's highly sought after super producer. I remember watching the Grammys when he won and not really knowing who he was...especially since most producer nominees aren't as well known as someone like Dr. Dre. But he won four Grammys last year for his work with Adele...four! Thursday night I read up on the Skyfall track and saw that he co-wrote the song with Adele and produced it. 

Paul Epworth and Adele

In this recent interview he talked about how every song he works on, the song transcends all else and he tries to go for sounds that will stay for many years to come. Keep in mind that this is the main guy - the director - with the grand vision of what the final product of these artists' songs will sound like. Along with Adele, he worked heavily on Florence + The Machine's 1st album Lungs, and is the sole producer and co-writer with Florence Welch on their most recent album Ceremonials (e.g. Shake it Out).

Other acts he's worked with include Foster the People, Plan B, and Bloc Party. If you're into the sound these artists put out, you might dig the other smaller acts he's worked with. His Wikipedia page includes all of them, and I'm sure they're all on Spotify/iTunes.

Om and the 808 Kick Drum

This post might be a giant stretch for some (possibly all) of you, but it's something I've always legitimately believed to be true so I thought I'd share - bear with me and hear me out. If you're Indian (dots, not feathers - to quote Professor Lambeau from Good Will Hunting), you know what Om, or Aum, is. If you're not Indian, you might recognize this symbol at least - which is the glyph form:

The symbol form of Om.

Without diving too deep into details, Om is also known as the Primordial Vibration (primordial meaning beginning - I had to look it up so I figured I might not be alone lol). The idea is that everything in the universe originated from this first vibration of energy, and all things and thoughts existing today are different states of this energy vibration. It's almost sort of like the Big Bang Theory - very similar actually.

The reason I'm writing about this is because throughout the years, I've been told to take up Yoga by friends and family (but haven't) and the most important mantra in Yoga is Om. The idea is that when you meditate and say Om, you are creating these powerful vibrations in your head which ultimately tune your mind, soul, and body and therefore calming and deeply relaxing yourself and achieving an inner silence. I've done it a few times and I mean it works, it's actually legitimately very relaxing and refreshing.

But what's interesting though - and I mean this sincerely - is that I've gotten a similar feeling after listening to music that's loaded with bass. Again, just hear me out. I'll admit of course it's not as intense as sitting down in a quiet area, closing your eyes, meditating, letting go and saying Om. But listen to an instrumental like this using good headphones that really do the lows and the 808 justice for awhile:

^Possibly the hardest kick I've ever heard btw. If you know a better one, I'd love to hear.

A note about this to work is that you have to be using good headphones or speakers that properly deliver the bass to your ears. If you listen to albums like Yelawolf's Trunk Muzik which are loaded with ridiculous bass in every track or just any of the plenty of today's songs that are dominated by the 808, there is a unique feeling of refreshment there if you listen to those songs for awhile.

Some of you music lovers may recollect a time when this happened to you and be able to relate, and most of you are probably giving me the -_- face but will be surprised if and when this happens to you in the future. It makes logical sense in my opinion - instead of saying Om, you partially tune your mind using vibrations from powerful drums. I feel like this is a important aspect of music and low percussive instruments in general in their ability to make us feel a certain way.

I've used this as a viable alternative to staying on top of my Yoga at the least, but I digress.

GOOD Music - Cruel Summer

Wow it's been over a year since my last post - so I thought I'd try and revive this dead effort hah. With super groups now seemingly becoming a trend with Young Money's success, I thought I'd talk about what I think is going to be an awesome collaboration this year in Kanye West's upcoming GOOD Music album titled Cruel Summer and give a short and sweet run down on who they are and what you can expect from them.

First, the basics:
- GOOD Music stands for Getting Out Our Dreams
- Founded in 2004 by Kanye West
- Big names include: John Legend, Common, Kid Cudi, Big Sean, Mr. Hudson, Cyhi the Prynce, Mos Def, Pusha T, and of course Kanye West
- Big name producers: Kanye West, No I.D., Mannie Fresh, and Hit Boy

The label's been around for awhile and has been successful with 7 Grammy nominations between Common and John Legend. But it's only recently come more into the spotlight as a unit with singles like Mercy and New God Flow being released this year.

Cruel Summer is going to be released in four days on September 18, and I personally think this is going to be one of the best hip-hop albums of the year. It's not going to be an album with pop songs or tracks that you might necessarily play at a party, I don't think that's what Kanye West intends. I think the sound he's going for stems really from his last album, My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy - especially from tracks like So Apalled. I think the album will be full of beats that are unique in their sound as far as instruments, operas, choirs, cellos...and hit hard, but at the same time stay in their essence of rap and give room for each artist's voice to come out and be heard. I also don't think Big Sean and Cyhi the Prynce were picked up by Kanye just for their lyrics...those two guys have voices that really can cut through a beat - something I feel is pretty rare and really important as far as the persona/sound these guys try to go for.

The album's stacked with really creative artists and will feature guys like Jay-Z and Mase too. I'm looking forward to it.

Singles already released:
- Mercy
- New God Flow
- Don't Like
- Clique (my personal favorite)
- Cold