This week, Phillip Phillips made "American Idol" history.
So Phillip Phillips, besides having the most tongue-twistery name since Benedict Cumberbatch is also having some legal issues with American Idol and 19 Entertainment – namely, he wants out. Phillips won a recording contract with 19 in Season 11 of the show.
Phillip Phillips is the first Idol winner to object against his contract's oppressive terms.
He has now filed to have the hastily signed contract voided. The petition he launched on the 19th asserts that Idol producer 19 Entertainment and its affiliated companies have "manipulated" him into accepting jobs, since he won on the show. The filing recalls incidents like Phillips being forced to perform for free for a company sponsor and being kept in the dark about the title of his own album up until its release.
Phillips made it clear that he is still appreciative of the opportunity provided to him by Idol. "I am very grateful for the opportunities provided to me through appearing on American Idol," says Phillips in a statement, quoted by The Hollywood Reporter. "The value that the fans and the show have given to my career is not lost on me. However, I have not felt that I have been free to conduct my career in a way that I am comfortable with. I look forward to being able to make my own choices about my career and to being able to make great music and play it for my fans."
According to the Talent Agencies Act, a California law concerning competitions likeIdol, only licensed talent agents can procure employment for clients. In the past, the law has been used by a long list of Hollywood artists, who wished to escape paying commissions to their managers. According to THR, Phillips now hopes to have the TAA applied to an entertainment company that has had its hand in his pocket even since he won Idol's 11th season on May 23, 2012.
There was never any doubt that Spotify would one day make its way to video game console, but which one? The answer: PlayStation, by way of a new service called PlayStation Music, set to launch in spring 2015.
It’s the product of a partnership between Sony and Spotify, bringing the latter’s library of more than 30 million songs to a range of devices. The spring launch kicks off in 41 markets around the globe, including the U.S. and Canada; Brazil, Chile, Mexico, and elsewhere in Central/South America; and a large chunk of Europe. Supported devices at launch include PlayStation 3, PlayStation 4, and Xperia phones/tablets, though it wouldn’t be a surprise to see others (say, PlayStation Vita) added at a later date.
Related: Spotify passes 15 million paid subscribers, 60 million users total
PlayStation Music users will be able to link their Spotify and PlayStation Network accounts, access playlists or create new ones, and listen to music from Spotify’s library. Console users also have the ability to play music from the app alongside their games. It’s not clear how Spotify Premium features factor into the app, but a linked account makes it possible to pay for the service using your Sony Wallet.
The coming of PlayStation Music foretells the end of Music Unlimited, which was integrated into the PS4 at launch in late 2013. The service will shut down in all 19 of the markets that it’s currently available in on March 29, 2015, and “most” of those countries are among the launch markets for PlayStation Music (sorry Japan!).
The announcement doesn’t explain why Japan isn’t among the launch markets, but the answer is plain enough: There’s no Spotify in Japan (yet). Sony appears to have a plan for delivering some manner of music service to its users in Japan, based on this footnote from the press release: “The PS Music service in Japan is not yet determined. Further details will be announced when ready.”
Two things in the last 2 decades has changed the music and radio industry, the Telecommunications Act of 1996 and piracy. How did the Telecommunications Act of 1996 change the radio market? By allowing companies to merge with one another. This is why Clear Channel is everywhere now. Through consolidation, they've expanded rapidly across the nation. Since 1999, they've been slowly acquiring at least one or more radio stations in almost every market. With over 850 radio stations in their network today, it's almost impossible to go anywhere in the United States without coming across a Clear Channel radio station.
When the internet began to become the preferred way to listen to music at home and on personal devices like the iPod, piracy began to change the entire industry as well. It almost collapsed the major record label market. Many labels were bought, sold, and dissolved as a result. Now we have an entirely new industry. Fewer CD's are sold and less money is made selling music on the internet. Artists and labels were forced to find new ways to sell music, and that was through live performances and on radio performance royalties, because traditional mechanical royalties weren't paying the bills.
Labels recoup much of their initial investment from their artists through Radio Royalties. Radio royalties or what is commonly known as performance royalties are tracked and paid out by the performance rights organizations like ASCAP, BMI, SESAC, SOCAN, and SoundExchange. Artists and labels also make money through satellite radio and internet radio, but the internet radio station must be licensed in order for the artist to get paid any royalties. To find out if an internet radio station is properly licensed, look for the ASCAP, BMI, SESAC, SOCAN, and SoundExchange logos and disclosures. If they do not disclose their licensing information, they are operating illegally. WHY CAN'T I GET MY MUSIC ON MAINSTREAM RADIO?
You can, but it costs a lot of money to do so. Radio campaigns range differently in price depending on the size of the region and how large a network you want to market in. If you want to market to radio stations in the major metropolitan areas, then get ready to cough up in upwards of $250,000 per campaign. If you're doing your own promotion, be prepared to be ignored and get your CD's tossed in the garbage. A station manager or program director gets upwards of 20 to 100 CD's per day. By email, they are unsolicited by hundreds of indie labels and do-it-yourself artists. Guess who's emails and appointments they're going to accept? Not yours unless you're a rep from the "Big 3" (Universal Music Group, Sony Music Entertainment, Warner Music Group) or one of the smaller major labels including Columbia Records, RCA Records, and Epic Records. Priority goes down from there to the next highest labels in the chain. SO, WHERE DO ALL MY CD's AND PRESS KITS REALLY GO?
You want to know the truth? It goes in a big cardboard box in the back of the office or studio usually where the interns sit during six months of the year. You have to look at the industry from the radio station manager/program director's perspective. It's all about the numbers. If you're barely coming out of your parents garage and you have no following and no "virility", then you are less likely to get their attention. Also, do not just slap together a CD cover with you holding your guitar that you snapped with your iPhone and expect it to be opened and certainly don't write on the CD with a Sharpie and think it's going to be played. It won't. Radio industry folks are people and they WILL judge your book by its cover, so make sure you have a professional looking CD jacket in a professionally shrink wrapped case.
In almost ALL radio stations, guess who's opening your CD's and listening to your music? 9 out of 10 times it is an intern from a local college. These interns are individuals that are typically brainwashed by mainstream society and they most likely listen to popular music and they have no patience for bad art. If your design happens to catch their attention, it better sound the way it looks. If your music doesn't sound like the music they're currently listening to, that intern won't bother handing your CD to his or her boss. The intern already has a specific set of instructions as they go through the big box of CDs, "If you don't like it, don't bother giving it to me". That's a scary thought, right? It's true. Don't believe me, ask for yourself.
HOW DO I KNOW MY MUSIC IS READY FOR MAINSTREAM RADIO?
The best way to find out if your music is ready for the "big time" and will be accepted by a professional representative that will successfully shop your music, is send your music to alternative mainstream radio stations like KGUP 106.5FM "The Emerge Radio Networks" and various other alternative-mainstream radio stations that have a good reputation and play QUALITY independent music. Other reputable alt-mainstream radio stations in Los Angeles include 98.7fm, KCRW 89.9, KROQ 106.7, Indie 103.1,KXLU 88.9FM, and KCLA 99.3FM.
DON'T SUBMIT IT AND FORGET IT
Be proactive. Make sure you are promoting the radio station that is playing your music. Ask your fans to request your songs. If you don't, you may find that your songs aren't even being played anymore. Radio stations often keep your music on rotation based on how well you promote, so make sure you create a designated page on your website and list all the radio stations that play your songs and LISTEN TO THE STATION TO MAKE SURE THEY ARE PLAYING YOUR MUSIC. Do this weekly with all the radio stations you submitted your music to. If you don't hear your song inside of 2 hours, don't complain to the station manager, because he won't listen to you. The only way to get your music back on the air is get your fans to call the station's hotline, emails, or Tweets them to ensure your song is on rotation at all times. The moment you stop promoting, the station managers know this, because they keep a daily log of ALL requests that come in.
GET YOUR MUSIC PROFESSIONALLY REVIEWED
Before you pay thousands of dollars to a representative to shop your music to all the major radio stations in the bigger markets like Los Angeles, San Francisco, Nashville, New York, Atlanta, or Miami, get lots of reputable reviews from magazine publications, professional music reviewers, and music bloggers. If you're constantly getting rejections, that is a sign that your music isn't ready and needs to be reworked. If you are rejected, don't act proud and curse out the reviewer for rejecting your music. Instead, ask why it was rejected. You might get some constructive criticism that you might be able to use when you record your next song or album.
GET YOUR MUSIC LICENSED FOR FILM AND TELEVISION
Another sure way to get your music heard in a major market radio station is to get your music played on a major film or popular television show. Find a licensed agency that will shop your music for the right film or tv show. However, it's not that simple. You need to think like a Sound Engineer. The Sound Engineer is responsible for taking raw footage of a film, tv show, or commercial and puts music in the background of a scene. Don't just throw your music in all directions hoping it will get picked up somewhere. First, have a meeting with your agent and brain storm the available opportunities and visualize your music in that specific scenario. If you think your music will fit a specific score and the right opportunity comes up, you'll have a better chance at landing a licensing deal. Once your song is placed on a major film or tv show and it's a box office hit or a popular tv show with high viewer ratings, then likely your music video will go viral. If your song goes viral on YouTube, it will not only catch the attention of radio station managers and program directors, but also to major record label executives.
YOUR PROFILE You need a following. Don't just create a website and one profile on MySpace. You will get rejected before anyone presses "play". MySpace is no longer the barometer used to measure your popularity. Other sites like Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube are. Sites like Reverbnation will pull data from all your social media sites to measure your relevancy. Sure, 500,000 Likes on Facebook sure looks great and it does look great on your resume, but it's not necessary, because more executives know anyone can buy Followers and Likes. There are plenty of career recording artists that make a decent living by having their music played on the lessor radio markets and it all adds up. Some of these artists have less than 30,000 combined followers and fans (excluding MySpace). You have to assess your own overall profile. Industry professionals like to look at your entire profile and evaluate your activity. They often ask themselves, is this artist proactive? Are their fans interacting with them? Are they frequently performing? Are they involved in charity activities?
IS YOUR MUSIC RELEVANT?
The station manager/program director or executive will ask his or herself, "Is the music trendy today?" You cannot have aged music. Your music cannot sound like it should have been released during 1971. Even 2004 is behind the times. NEVER BE BEHIND THE TIMES. It needs to sound like today or tomorrow. Tomorrow is better, but today is acceptable. Sometimes, it takes more than just good music to engage your fans. You need to bond with them. That means you need to make more appearances and you must never stop applying to perform at festivals, appearing on radio shows, getting on network television and become the "artist of the week". All these things develop a unique persona that make fans want to engage with the artist.
PRODUCTION AND ENGINEERING
To most people in the industry and especially in radio, sound quality is as important as the timeliness and relevancy of your sound. Make sure you are working with a sound engineer that understands what "normal" compression levels are and how frequency is done correctly. But, be careful. Even if you ask the right questions, you might have some "hack" lie straight to your face. If you have any doubt, ask for referrals or don't do business with him. Compressing a song for FM radio is vital and can make or break your career before it even gets off the ground, especially if you just spent $5k or $10k to make this EP all to find out that your engineer screwed up and doesn't know how to fix it.
There is a lot to learn about the industry that most independent artists either never learn, learn the hard way, or the information is never shared, because other people don't want to see you succeed. Now you have an idea what really goes on in an actual radio station and how to get your music played on the "all-mighty" FM radio station you've always dreamed of. Now get to work.
Dubstep, which once reimagined dance music as aggressive pure syncopation, has waned to a blanched, wobbling soundtrack for action movie trailers. But Hyperdub, a label that initially helped give the style its blacklit hue, is thriving. It's celebrating 10 years in the game this year with four new compilation albums and continues to show that dance music can be both dizzyingly fun and head-scratchingly odd.
Founder Steve Goodman grew Hyperdub out of a webzine charting the Jamaican influence on dance music in London, releasing his own music as Kode9 in 2004. It might have just been a vanity label were it not for early signing Burial, whose tracks – flickering psychogeographic vignettes that reflect on garage, rave and public transport – struck a chord. "All his music is hyper-emotional and melancholy – it's pure trough," enthuses Goodman.
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Burial's success provided a war chest for signing new acts. "I was oversaturated with bass – I'd be going to [dubstep nights] DMZ and FWD», and the bass is so overwhelming, in a good way, but sometimes it can drown out colour in music," says Goodman. Consequently, his second wave of signings, with Zomby, Ikonika and others, lit up dancefloors with bright, videogame tones.
"This is a story of getting addicted to one thing, overdoing it, and then it stops having an effect on you and you go on to something else," he laughs beneath eyes rimmed with years of sleeplessness from juggling a university teaching job. His next obsession was fast, snare-driven tracks: Chicago juke, UK funky and experimental techno. "At every stage we lose listeners – you alienate a few people, but some come with you." His approach has helped usher in a new dancefloor pluralism where hoodied bass bros mingle with techno nerds.
Next up is a new Kode9 album ("I'm going to have a go at Auto-Tuning myself," he grins) and a release from Fatima Al Qadiri with a Chinese influence. "It's not some attempt to be rootsy – it's in a sterile digital environment." Hyperdub is the new world music, then – the soundtrack to the demented global culture of the internet, rather than an Islington dinner party. Ben Beaumont-Thomas
Launched in 2010, Leon Diaper runs Marshall Teller on his own from his lounge and, occasionally, his mum's house. The label quickly became a crucial tastemaker on the alt-rock scene. American youth culture and 90s nostalgia are Diaper's key creative touchstones, but what really drives him are his friend's bands. "I get excited and think, 'We should release this!' And then realise I can't as it's going to cost loads," he says. Luckily, he managed to put out the first single by his chums the Vaccines, following that up with EPs by Cheatahs and the History Of Apple Pie. Harriet Gibsone
Over the past three years, sibling-founders Ben and Daniel Parmar have eked out a space for dance music at the top of the charts, making them the most talked-about label in the UK. And all from their mum's Acton living room. Their first release, Battle For Middle You by Bristolian house producer Julio Bashmore, was the biggest club track of that year, swiftly followed by Jessie Ware's Devotion in 2012 and Disclosure's Settle, a no 1 album in 2013. New family members Javeon, Cyril Hahn and T. Williams are already racking up column inches but, testament to PMR's refusal to deal just in pop, they've also signed north London grime MC Meridian Dan. Clare Considine
A thriving offshoot of vinyl's defiant resurgence is the newfound surfeit of reissue labels. These boutique imprints pander to every walk of nerd, whether esoteric death metal fans or those with an irrepressible penchant for analogue etchings of 1970s folk festivals. For Spencer Hickman, his label Death Waltz Recording Company allows him to indulge his three loves: vinyl, art and horror films, particularly those of John Carpenter and Lucio Fulci, whose terse soundtracks played as much of a part in conjuring each film's atmosphere as the visuals.
Disillusioned with the flimsy soundtrack packages previously on offer – a cheap record and cheaper poster at odds with the quality of the music contained therein – Hickman founded Death Waltz in 2011. The label carved out its niche by re-imagining the OST through the unique artistic prism of cult horror. The packages are works of art in themselves: sumptuously designed sleeves, sprawling sleevenotes and vibrant vinyl, matching the films' moods and themes.
The label began with Escape From New York and Fabio Frizzi's Zombie Flesh Eaters. Since then, it's overseen a panoply of cult releases and today, as part of Record Store Day (which Hickman co-ordinates) it's releasing The Bronx Warriors, The Perfume Of The Lady In Black, the never-before-released The Degradation Of Emanuelle and In The Wall by Death Waltz fan Clint Mansell. "We are soundtracks" is the label's motto. It's hard to argue. Luke Holland
When radio plugger James Passmore hurriedly launched independent alt-pop label National Anthem from his north London flat in 2012, he hadn't a clue about how to run one. Having seen a then-unsigned Haim at a couple of industry showcases, he knew that a) he loved them, and b) the deafening buzz meant they wouldn't be unsigned for long. "I confirmed the release of their Forever EP, then had to come up with a name for the label, find out how you get vinyl made, find out how you put tracks on iTunes," he laughs. Since then he's released blog-friendly pop singles by Chvrches, Brolin and LA synthpoppers Sir Sly, on digital and collectable vinyl. "One of the reasons I do vinyl is because if I just did digital, once that artist's signed to a major I'm going to be asked to take my digital product down – it's as if the release never existed." The other reason? They look nice, basically. National Anthem is the embodiment not only of Passmore's passion (up until recently he shlepped all the vinyl down to the Post Office himself), but also his ear for a radio-friendly, blog-swallowing future-pop hit that thumbs its nose at classification. Michael Cragg
A few years ago, Mick Jagger was in Argentina streaming an American college radio station over the internet when he heard what he thought was a version of Jumpin' Jack Flash being played by a band from Laos. Intrigued, he consulted the station's playlist and discovered the song, Sao Lam Plearn, was by a Thai artist called Chaweewan Dumnern, from a 19-track collection entitled The Sound Of Siam: Leftfield Luk Thung, Jazz & Molam In Thailand 1964-75 – put together by, Jagger said, "some nutter".
That "nutter" is Miles Cleret, boss of the London-based Soundway Records, and the very idea of an Englishman hearing a Thai tune on an US-based radio station in Argentina goes right to the heart of Cleret's mission for the label: to dig up dance music from across Africa, South and Central America, the Caribbean and Asia and make it available, often for the first time, outside of the country it was recorded in. In a digital age, where seemingly the entire history of music has ended up online, that sets Soundway apart. Since 2002, Cleret's label has combined quality, impeccably packaged compilations with anthologies of individual artists and reissues of lost classics. Buoyed by the interest, he's recently started releasing albums by contemporary groups such as Ondatrópica (a collaboration between Colombian musician Mario Galeano and British producer Will "Quantic" Holland), Bogotá's Meridian Brothers and Ibibio Sound Machine, a London-based highlife, funk and disco band fronted by British/Nigerian singer Eno Williams. Phil Hebbelthwaite
In 2007, a group of rap and electronica-loving friends at Glasgow School Of Art met two local DJs – Mike Slott and Hudson Mohawke – and decided to start an art/party/label collective that combined "high and low art, pop and underground". Seven years and 20-odd vinyl releases on, HudMo and affiliates such as Rustie, S-Type and Cashmere Cat have gone from club producers to injecting their deranged fusions into mainstream rap, from Kanye and Drake down. Add a Rinse FM show, a fully-fledged design agency and offices in Scotland and the US, and it's clear their simple vision has come true. Joe Muggs
Watch out for: Canadian ally (and half of TNGHT) Lunice See also: Night Slugs
Attention label bosses: you don't have to be alone no more. You can start a collective with your other label boss mates instead. "Running an independent label on your own can be a little lonely and daunting," explains Kevin Douch, head of Big Scary Monsters, which is why Douch, along with like-minded souls Simon Morley of Blood And Biscuits and Alex Fitzpatrick (Holy Roar) formed Pink Mist in 2010. It's a rebel rock alliance that covers just about every shade under the spectrum of "loud music", from perky pop-punk and twisting math-rock to low-slung sludge. Individually, the four labels – Pink Mist recently welcomed Andrej Presern's Tangled Talk into their gang – have released records by many of the most prominent British rock acts of the past decade, including Gallows, Tall Ships and Pulled Apart By Horses. Yet Pink Mist allows the combined foursome a greater level of clout than they'd be able to offer individually, from the boring stuff (marketing, distribution) to the more fun side of things, such as joint Pink Mist releases, gigs and "just bouncing ideas off each other". Together they are stronger. Gwilym Mumford
The brainchild of well-connected clubber Caius Pawson, Young Turks morphed from a series of increasingly riotous club nights into a label back in 2006. After one of its parties in an abandoned Transport For London building in east London was closed down by the police, XL owner Richard Russell offered to house Young Turks within his HQ. From the moustachioed, fez-wearing skeleton logo designed by Kate Moross to an impeccably cool roster of artists – ranging from neo-soul (Sampha) to mutant dubstep (SBTRKT) – the imprint has combined style and substance for the best part of a decade. Its biggest moment came with the release of the xx's debut album in 2009, which elevated Young Turks from blogworthy upstart into bona fide chart-bothering big gun. Since then it's gone on to organise a series of worldwide festivals (Night + Day) and a New Year's Eve party in Tulum, Mexico. Not bad for a label that took its name from a Rod Stewart song. Lanre Bakare
Watch out for: FKA Twigs's debut album this autumn
Type, the label that's finding new experimental edges
Type co-founder John Twells grew up on the techno, noise and experimental sounds of Birmingham's diverse musical underground. Now based in Boston, USA, he makes up for missing home by running one of the most far-reaching independent labels going, with a pleasing A&R philosophy he describes as "haphazard". But this approach gives Type its breadth. Standout releases include the noise-pop of Yellow Swans' Going Places and the Enya-goes-forest-horror Grouper LP, Dragging A Dead Deer Up A Hill, while recent years have seen Type disseminate bleakly voguish tech-noise, from baseball-hatted psychiatric nurse Pete Swanson to Vatican Shadow's rugged musical response to the "war on terror". Scenic contrast comes from the Arctic ambience of Thomas Köner (new material is imminent) and the windswept drones of Richard Skelton, inspired by the landscapes of northern England. Luke Turner
