Perceptions Of Success In The Music Industry

With Duffy being proclaimed a success at the 2009 Brit Awards, Breaking More Waves asks how we measure such success.

If there is one thing that the on line revolution of the noughties has changed in relation to music, it may well be the accuracy of public determination of what is successful. In the past for the majority of the public, success has been related to commercial sales.

However, with the IFPI estimating that more than 40 billion songs were downloaded illegally in 2008 - that’s 95% of total music downloads, it is becoming increasingly difficult to judge who is really popular. This year one of Breaking More Waves favourite new pop stars Victoria Hesketh aka Little Boots gave away her single Stuck On Repeat free as an I Tunes single of the week. It was the most downloaded I Tunes free single of all time. But it will not feature in the UK Top 40 Charts as nobody paid for it. So does that make Little Boots successful ? She certainly won’t have made any money from those downloads. Hesketh has said that she views this as a success. As an artist she wants people to hear her music, the free I Tunes single has enabled that to happen. She has gone on to say that she believes that where there is good music people will find a way to make money from it, but maybe not in traditional form of CD sales.

What Hesketh is alluding to is the now widely used term synchronisation. These days artists can earn significant revenue from getting their music on computer games, television adverts, ringtones and the like. An artist could make large amounts of money, have their music heard all over the world and yet only sell a small handful of singles or albums. So is high potential earnings through synchronisation ‘success’ ? And if so how can it be measured for the public to gauge who is successful ?

Breaking More Waves believes that from an artist perspective success should not just be viewed in terms of sales. As Einstein once said “Try not to become a man of success but rather try to become a man of value." We believe success is about completing what the artist intended with integrity. For one artist this can mean making money, but for another like Little Boots it may mean being in a position that the public get to hear your music irrespective of if you make or lose money, for another it may be putting on their own live show to just a handful of friends. Simply finishing what the artist planned to do can be viewed artistic success. Unfortunately many artists don’t actually have a plan or any particular goals when they start out, and so are never able to appreciate success. Without an appreciation of success it is easy to lose inspiration and momentum irrespective of initial motivation.

Success for the artist is judged by the artists own criteria, but this may not match with public perception. Old perceptions of success for the public were usually benchmarked against if an artist was riding high in the singles and album charts and if they were appearing on programs such as Top Of The Pops. From this information the public knew that the artist was popular and probably earning significant amounts of money from sales of their albums. It was a simple and effective model to measure pop success.

To measure commercial success now however there are a huge number of factors. Synchronisation earnings, ticket sales, indie label profitability against major label profitability (on a major an artist may only see 5% of whatever profits their CD’s sale, on their own indie they would reap a much larger share), legal downloads, merchandise, product endorsements and many more factors means that the music industry and the public have no single and reliable means of measuring commercial success.

There are lots of different models of success. and artistic success and commercial success may not always be the same thing. In this digital age, personal artistic success can still be easily defined by the artist themselves and with the cheap availability of technology artistic goals can often be more easily accomplished than the past. Commercial success is however a much more complex being for both the music industry and the public to grapple with. Perhaps it is for this reason that there are now so many awards shows such as the Brits, Mercury, Mobo awards etc as the industry attempts to clarify the artists it deems are succesful.

War Child - Heroes

The War Child Heroes album is no ordinary compilation album. Rather than a series of casts off and B sides that form the usual charity CD, War Child take a highly prescriptive approach in the formation of their releases. This approach leads to a much greater focus on the quality of the music. The concept for Heroes combines some of the greatest icons of rock music with some of the most popular contemporary artists of today. The charity asked fifteen rock greats, from U2 to Bowie to Iggy Pop to choose a song from their back catalogue and to nominate a modern act that they would most trust to create a unique interpretation of that song. The end results of these new cover versions are such that irrespective of the charitable status of the project, the album is worth buying for a significant amount of musical merit alone.

Most surprising is how some of the covers that you would expect on paper to be disasters are very good indeed. Take Duffy covering Live And Let Die; whilst at Breaking More Waves we were fans of the Duffy album, the recent screeching on previous single Rain On Your Parade left a sour taste in our mouth. Here Duffy redeems herself with Bernard Butler on production duties and his long time collaborator David McAlmont providing sweet soulful backing vocals. Her version is restrained and sultry, a torch song version of the classic.

Lily Allen also shocks with a very modern middle of the road pop version of Straight To Hell by The Clash, with Mick Jones on backing vocals. It should be a disaster, but Lily gives Joe Strummers difficult anti war lyrics a delicate sugary touch that actually makes them stand out more.

Elbow fare even better, taking Running To Stand Still by U2 and making it sound even more tender and intimate than the original. It’s worth buying the album for this song alone. Bono chose wisely. Elsewhere TV On The Radio deliver a bold mountainous electronic beat laden version of Heroes that follows neatly on from the Dear Science album whilst The Hold Steady, who let’s face it sound like a Bruce Springsteen covers band, get to cover The Boss on Atlantic City.

There are very few duffers on the album. Hot Chips minimal electro calypso of Transmission will probably be hated by most Ian Curtis fans, but one track out of fifteen isn’t bad.

It would seem almost a disservice to review a charity album and give it the thumbs down. Fortunately in the case of War Child Heroes there is no need to do such a thing. Rather than going out this Friday night and spending your spare cash on a round of drinks, buy this album, stay in, listen to it and know that you have helped provide vital funds for War Childs essential and unique work in helping children who live with the brutal effects of war.

Album Of The Year 2008 #9 - Duffy - Rockferry

OK, if you are a regular visitor to Breaking More Waves you may well be cringing at the title of this blog. Yes, Breaking The Waves 9th favourite album of the year is Rockferry by Duffy.

The welsh songstress has sold bucket loads of albums this year, and her music was described in the press as an alternative to Dad Rock - yep, Mum Soul. Not the greatest title admittedly, and certainly Aimee Duffy is not producing cutting edge, inventive or original music. I’m sure many Radio 2 listening housewives have purchased Rockferry whilst shopping at Waitrose, and the music police will shoot them down for their actions. How can middle aged mums have such poor taste you may ask ? Is that what happens when you reach a certain age, does all quality control go out of the window? Well this middle aged dad is right with those mums and votes that Rockferry is really a rather good album, and that the quality control is working fine. I do not seek the approval of the music police. Sorry, I can’t help what I like, and sometimes my choices and arguments will contradict each other. Consistency is boring.

Essentially Rockferry is gorgeous piece of heavily produced retro sounding pop. Sure, there are a couple of songs that are just a little lacking in balls, and arguments remain about the authenticity of a girl who once appeared on the Welsh version of X Factor. But when Breaking More Waves leaves all prejudices aside and simply listens to the music with no preconceived ideas, there are some show stopping 60’s styled classic pop songs on this album. From the epic Distant Dreamer which is quite possibly the best song Bernard Butler has produced since Suede and the McAlmont and Butler projects, to the Lulu like hit single Mercy, with its “Yeah Yeah Yeah” chorus that gets deep inside your head (even if it was a little too similar to a certain Ms Winehouse’s “No, No,No,” refrain), this is a well constructed pop album that captures perfectly the sixties soul sound.

Sorry music police. I’m right, you’re wrong. Maybe thousands of middle aged housewives are right after all. But if you don’t agree maybe my No.8 choice will be more your cup of tea ? Here's why thousands love her.....and her performance on later with Jools.