TuneCore Shocker

Jeff Price the founder, CEO, mouthpiece and champion of TuneCore is inexplicably gone from the company.

This comes as quite a shock.  I knew Jeff when he ran the spinART record label.  Strangely he is still listed as CEO on the TuneCore website.  Co-founder Peter Wells  is also no longer working with them.

Jeff explains their mission and accomplishments in his open letter dated today.  Jeff was outspoken about injustices he saw in the music business, especially those against the artists by record labels.  Most of the time he was right on the money.  His goal was enabling musicians by putting the power in their hands.  They no longer needed records label and as of recently, publishing companies.  When I worked with Amoeba Records there was no question that we were going to work with TuneCore. It just made too much sense. Jeff was exited to have us on board. 

TechDirt has a detailed post, although it hasn't been revealed why Jeff and Peter are abruptly gone from the company.  This seems like a huge mistake.  Why fix it if it ain't broke? 

Update 8-17-12. 
Here's something I hadn't heard.  Since I posted this, I've spoken with a few people who worked directly with TuneCore.  They said the company was unorganized and had an inexperienced staff who could be difficult at times.  I also heard that one board member was pleasant and easy to deal with when nothing was getting done through staffers.  The old adage may hold here:  There are two sides to every story and then the truth.

Major Labels Still Using Payola The Same Old Way

TechDirt alerted me to a post by the former president of Rykodisc, George Howard on TuneCore's blog.  As George points out, radio is the last stronghold for the major labels, meaning it's the last place they have some "control".   Getting most records on the radio involves lots of money, hiring "consultants" and being a part of the good old boys network, which still exists and has not been cracked in over 50 years.

In my experience the route to getting a song played on radio has not changed in many years.  It started in the late 80's and was in full swing by the 90's.  George explains the process:

Getting a song “added” to a station’s playlist to get a certain number of plays per week involves a rather byzantine process that brings in various parties, called independent promoters (“indies”).  These “indies” are first paid by the label.  It’s important to note that the money the indies receive isn’t necessarily compensation paid directly to them for getting Program Directors to get a song played.  Rather, they work more like an intermediary to pass the label’s money to the radio station. These indies, with the money paid to them from the labels, pay the radio station money for various listener give-aways, bumper stickers and so on. To top it off,  these very same indies are often also paid a second time by the stations themselves as a consultant to advise the stations on what songs they should play.

This is essentially why very few indie artists are heard on any format other than college radio (there are consultants for that format also).  They have a better chance of being struck by lightening than hearing themselves on Top 40 radio.  The majors have the most money and are tied in to the good old boys network.  If indies have the money, they don't belong to the network.

What George didn't touch on was the cost to the artists.  All this promotion money/payola is recoupable by the artist.  It goes to their bottom line.  It explains why Vertical Horizon had a big hit with Everything You Want and got paid nothing in royalties from their record label.    When I was working with the band, the album had sold about 1.4 million units and the band hadn't seen a penny in royalties.  The flip side of this is you are so happy a label has gotten behind you and is pushing you, that you ignore it as the spread sheet numbers keeps adding up.  It did make them a profitable touring band and the songwriters got nice publishing checks.   As an artist you weigh the outcome.



Things are much different now than 15 years ago.  There are other ways to be heard than on the radio.  The good news for artists is they have access to all of them. 

Is Soundscan Relevant?

Jeff Price, the founder of TuneCore has a post asking for a new way to quantify music sales. He points to a recent CNN piece The Plan to Save the Music Business. The focus of the piece is on A&M/Octone records, but it also speaks of the amount of new records released last year and those that sold more than 250,000 copies. From Jeff's blog:

"...106,000 new (music) releases in 2008" In 2009, TuneCore released approximately 90,000 releases This means, if their numbers hold true, almost every single new music release in 2009 was distributed via TuneCore.
In addition, the article went on to quote the following Neilsen statistic "Of the 63 new releases that sold more than 250,000 copies last year, 61 were issued by major music companies." Well then, according to Neilsen, there are now four major "music companies" - Sony, Warner, EMI and, according to Neilsen, TuneCore as all of the following TuneCore artists sold over 250,000 copies....and mind you, this is a not a complete list:

He goes on to list 11 acts and concludes with the following:

And what about the arbitrary concept of looking at a weeks worth of sales, why not a days, or a months, or a years? Things are moving much faster. More music is being recorded and released. Music buyers are moving faster too. Seems to me that the age-old concept of weekly album sales has lost its relevancy. It’s time to get a new system that more accurately reflects the new “IT” – and this time, its important not to consolidate the power of the reporting into the hands of one company.