Glastonbury Festival

I may be living in Canada but being English I wanted to talk about the Glastonbury Festival. This is a legendary festival that I have always wished I could attend this year the line up was pretty amazing.

 Most people were not happy when Kayne West was chosen to be a headliner and they made fun of him while he was on stage one audience member berated him with a flag of his wife's sex tape, also a british comedian decided he would jump on stage and dance with him in respect for Taylor Swift. Though many people were not interested in Kayne's set they were happy to see other musicians such as Lionel Richie, The Who and Mary J Blige.  

The Festival is a five-day event, which allows the public to camp at the festival, they sponsor many charities and are very green friendly.

 Glastonbury was a childhood dream of mine I have been on stage at a concert in Glastonbury but nothing like the festival. I will go to the festival one day even if Kayne West is playing just to say I made it to a legendary festival. 

John Feldmann Interview

I watched an interview with John Feldmann at Namm. He is known as the Top record producer and has produces many albums over the years but he also has other strength he is a band member of Goldfinger that had been together since 1994 and are still touring today. Lastly he is an A&R rep for Red Bull Records.

In this interview he is mainly talking about the equipment he uses in his studio but I picked out some advice he talks about his technique for looking at new artists music he wants the music to make feel something and the first thing he hears is tone of the vocal then lyrics and lastly melody. It is great to know the process of a A&R rep’s process of listening to new music it could be helpful in my future if that is the path I take.

http://dyingscene.com/news/john-feldmann-goldfinger-interview-about-goldfinger-and-producing/

Another Record Broken

As we all know, Taylor Swift is a genius of everything that is music, but recently she just topped off a new world record with her new music video “Bad Blood” on Vevo. The video received 20.1 million views in 24 hours.  This music video consisted of Taylor Swift battling another woman (who happened to be Selena Gomez), and throughout the video Taylor Swift brought in many females in the music industry, acting industry, and modeling industry.

This is a genius plan for her music video. I personally believe that this is the reason she had broken the record for the most views on Vevo in twenty-four hours. By bringing people like Hayley Williams from Paramore, she got all of the Paramore fans to view the video. She also brought in Ellen Pompeo of Greys Anatomy, which will bring in all of the Grey’s Anatomy viewers. This music video literally offers something for everyone.  

The only bad note I would say about this video is that Kendrik Lamar is a bad fit for this song with all the females in this video I would have said that someone like Nicki Minaj or Iggy Azalea would be a better fit as they are empowering females. Even though adding a rapper breaks up the song a little I do prefer the original song.

Furthermore, everyone in the music video (that was significant) was a female. With that being said, Taylor Swift also found a way to empower females. This will also empower the youth that is okay to be strong. This just proves that she nails it every time. Taylor Swift is a musical, and marketing genius. Forever and always.

Artifact - 30 Seconds To Mars

Regarding Artifact, the documentary 30 Seconds to Mars' struggles with record label EMI, I want to start by saying this documentary was very interesting and informative to what the record industry is really like behind the glitz and glamour, showing just how cut-throat it really can be.

Many musicians have come to the realization that a big label such as EMI are based upon a business model that do not have their best interests at heart - they are a business, and are there to turn a profit by any means necessary. During the filming of this documentary, multiple musicians and bands decided to sue their respective label after being encouraged by the experience of 30 Seconds to Mars. Musicians began to stick up for themselves, and some of them were able to get what they were looking for. Unfortunately , some were not victorious and had to pay the label. After negotiations highlighted by the film, the band was able to get the deal they wanted from their label and they resigned to EMI just before they were split into new l labels. However, even though EMI has been broken up,  they still believe 30 Seconds To Mars owe them $1.2 million despite the fact that the band has not made a penny off their albums they made under EMI.

An interesting part of the story, which came up a couple of times during the documentary was about digital media and how labels should have thought of the future and began work on proper distribution in the digital age but did not. It's obvious to just about everyone that they should have been the one's to start things like iTunes and Spotify, but instead become dependent on them. The music industry was and is slow to change, even though most music is sold in digital format rather than physical disk or records, there are still damage and breakage feed on the music, so musicians are being charged for these things when you simply cannot break or damage a digital copy of a song.

During his presentation, Tomo Milicevic told us something Jared Leto mentioned to him. " In the future musicians are going to be snot nosed kids making millions from the music they make in their bedroom, putting it up on the internet and basically telling the label they do not need them as they are making money for themselves". The term Artist Development came up, which is where you find a new artist and generate a fanbase for them basically in order to get them known. This is not used as much in today's world as most musicians have already done their own development, built up a fanbase and done the work themselves. With social media being a huge part of a musicians career, they are speaking directly to the people who want their music. The way of the future are the fans and they are the gatekeeper to a successful career as a musician.