Dave Kusek is a teacher, consultant, entrepreneur, digital music pioneer, author, speaker, mentor and Senior Partner at Digital Cowboys and New Artist Model. Dave was Vice President at Berklee College of Music in Boston for 14 years, where he created Berkleemusic.com, a hugely successful online enterprise for Berklee. Berkleemusic has since become the world’s largest music school reaching over 20,000 students in 170 countries.
Prior to that, Kusek helped develop the Musical Instrument Digital Interface (MIDI), was co-inventor of the first electronic drums called “Synare”, and founded the first music software company in 1980, Passport Designs, which made it possible for musicians to record and produce their music at home with its award- winning software. His efforts, along with others, set the stage for the multi-billion dollar digital music market that exists today.
In 2005 he co-authored the best selling music business book “The Future of Music: Manifesto for the Digital Music Revolution” which predicted much of what has happened in digital music, including the iPhone, Apple’s SIRI, Spotify, streaming music and the decline of the recorded music industry.
Kusek was a faculty member at Berklee College of Music where he taught music business and a founding faculty member at Berklee Online where he taught The Future of Music and the Music Business.
Kusek has written for or been featured in the New York Times, Boston Globe, Billboard, Wired, Christian Science Monitor, Huffington Post, Associated Press, Boston Business Journal, MTV, CNBC, SF Chronicle, Forbes, NBC-TV, Nightly Business Report, NPR, Financial Times, and the Guardian. Kusek has been a speaker at Midem, Music Hack Day, Digital Music Forum, NAMM, AES, IEBA, MacWorld, Comdex, SXSW, ADISQ, Digital Hollywood and a featured guest on radio and television stations around the world.
OK Here are some good summaries of trends that apply to music. More to follow… 10 music-tech trends that will shape the next decade – from CNET “With recording revenue plunging, bands must draw fans to their live shows in order to make a living. The common wisdom today dictates that musicians need a personal […]
My friend Mary aka DJ Fusion wrote this rant on Hip Hop for 2009. This is a great example of an indie scene flourishing and a good read for anyone thinking about a career in music these days. “We’re approximately 35 – 40 years into a musical art form and culture that has traveled from […]
This is funny as hell, and probably not all that far off from what’s coming… The Ultimate Rack: Make Sound Like Creative Difference Engine Excellentalizer Ego Controls Decade Selector IQ Presence Satire created for: www.theinternetnowinhandybookform.com Great info-graphics at: www.informationisbeautiful.net
Here is a great info-graphic from the New York Times showing the relative performance of various music formats over the past 37 years. Unfortunately it does not show the impact of free music online. That would be an interesting addition to see how big file sharing and torrent downloads really are, relative to the physical […]
In this economy, it’s hard to imagine anyone making thousands of phone calls trying to give money away. But that’s exactly what is happening as Sound Exchange contacts musicians who have earned, but not yet claimed, digital performance royalties. And they are building their database fast, by tapping into the cloud of musician profiles available […]
“Maybe music consumers don’t have to own their songs anymore.” – USA Today After years of resisting efforts to offer music fans the ability to “rent” music instead of buying downloads, Apple is finally joining the party. Apple’s purchase of online music service Lala brings the No. 1 music retailer into the streaming music business. […]
With big record companies willingly bucking technology, musicians and software types gathered in Cambridge to revolutionize the industry. On an unheralded fall weekend right before Thanksgiving, a roomful of amateur hackers and Web rock stars gathered in East Cambridge for a historic convention that could dramatically reshape the way we get our music. At […]
People should pay for their music the way they pay for gas or electricity. I originally published this article in Forbes Magazine nearly 4 years ago. “More people are consuming music today than ever before, yet very few of them are paying for it. The music recording industry blames file sharing for a downturn in […]
My friend Ian Rogers, CEO of Topspin has started to co-manage the band “Get Busy Committee“. He has begun to blog about ALL the activities that an artist manager needs to drive their band to success. It is a fascinating read and a real world education on how to take a band to market in […]
Ian Rogers and his team at Topspin are on in. Listen to what he has to say in this brief interview from Wired and think how it can apply to your situation. The more you know, the better decisions you can make and the further you can go. Simple as that. Topspin is generating data, […]
Does selling records have anything to do with the music business anymore? What do you think? 115,000 new albums were released in the U.S. in 2008. Of those, only 110 sold more than 250,000 copies. Only 1,500 titles cracked the 10,000 mark. Read more from CNN here.
Patronage of the arts is a time honored practice that is still alive and well in the music business. Many examples of fan financing from Ellis Paul, to Jill Sobule and many others have been reported and detailed recently in this blog and others. Now a group of musicians from California have put together a […]
A friend just sent over this post on how the newly elected Chairman of the Entertainment Retailers Association, said that illegal P2P filesharing is the greatest challenge facing entertainment retailers and urged members to lobby Government for a crackdown on a problem he said “is bleeding our industry dry”. Speaking at the association’s annual general […]
A friend just sent over this post on how the newly elected Chairman of the Entertainment Retailers Association, said that illegal P2P filesharing is the greatest challenge facing entertainment retailers and urged members to lobby Government for a crackdown on a problem he said “is bleeding our industry dry”. Speaking at the association’s annual general […]
A new study, released by the US Department of Education, found that many types of online education for a college degree are better at raising student achievement than face-to-face teaching is. That’s quite a seal of approval. The big advantage in digital learning is the “time on task,” or flexibility for a student to absorb […]
A new study by research teams from Carnegie Mellon University, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and Stanford University verifies that downloading music cuts energy consumption and CO2 emissions significantly in comparison to shopping at your local music store. The study shows that purchasing digital music downloads results in a 40-80 percent reduction in energy use and […]
The teacup clattered quietly on its saucer, and McCartney thought about the changes he’d seen in the music world. “There were no cassette recorders” when he and Lennon first started writing songs, he noted. “We just had to remember it. Then suddenly there were cassettes, then we were working on four track instead of two […]
More from Gerd Leonhard via Berklee Today 1. Think hard about what you are all about and the message you want to relay to people. Are you the next hot guitar player or the new John Coltrane? Shape your image and message to support that. 2. Attract as much attention as possible. Performing live is […]
Here is an interesting article/interview by Mark Small and Gerd Leonhard on the future of music marketing from the latest issue of Berklee Today. “There is no recipe. We can’t go to Universal, Warner Music, EMI, and Sony and say, ‘Here is the solution so you can stay in business.’ says Gerd Leonhard. There is […]
I highly recommend taking a break for a little while this summer. I have decided to ponder the future of music on Martha’s Vineyard for a while. Hope you enjoy your summer while you can.
I did a radio show yesterday on NPR on the Future of Music along with Jeff Price from Tunecore and Tim Westergren from Pandora. You can listen to the show online here or download an MP3 of the show. In a 2002 New York Times article, David Bowie said that “music itself is going to […]
Great post from Mashable about how artists are creating upgrades and enhancements to music business models. Earlier Mike King reported in his blog how Amanda Palmer made $19,000 online using Twitter on a Friday night. The important thing is not the fact that she used Twitter, but that she found a way to engage her […]
In 1973 – $4.99 was then the going rate for a single LP. Then the prices slowly starting climbing over the years, despite Tom Petty’s very public efforts in the early 80s, and vinyl rose bit by bit until it was about $7.99 or $8.99. When CDs came along in the late 80s, even though […]
“Alongside the explosive growth of online video over the last six years, time spent on social networks surpassed that for e-mail for the first time in February, signaling a paradigm shift in consumer engagement with the Internet. According to a report released in April by Nielsen, Internet use for “short-tail” sites with large audience reach […]
Neil Young’s ‘Archives’ Shows the potential of new formats. New formats have driven the music industry forever. That and new music. While Blu-ray may not be the “next big thing”, it shows what can be done with more storage and bandwidth. The evolution of music formats will determine the path for the future. MP3 was […]
Bruce Houghton posted a positive view about the music business at Midemnet that I think paints a realistic picture about our short-term future. Its a good read and uplifting. “My greatest source of optimism for the music industry comes from the rising musical middle class – a middle class not just of artists who from […]
More from Gerd Leonhard as he once again attempts to predict the future. While many people scoff at those who try and look ahead and light the paths for the rest of us, Gerd is actually quite good at it. Here is a glimpse into his mind and some trends he suggests for the rest […]
Kevin Kelly has written extensively on the need to create value around digital copies in order to create the revenue opportunities that are falling away every day for digital media. Here is an excerpt from his great essay “Better Than Free”. Eight Generatives Better Than Free Immediacy — Sooner or later you can find a […]
Another post from my co-author Gerd Leonhard. “What are the new, web-native, social & inter-connected business models that will power the future of content creators and their industries? In 2008, the disruptive force of the Internet finally hit home, and – as is usually the case – it all came much later than we had […]
Here is an excellent post by Gerd Leonhard that is well worth repeating. “We are indeed heading into a future of Attention Revenues exceeding Copy Revenues – and I am talking within 3-4 years here, and probably much sooner in Asia where ‘selling copies’ has never been the #1 money maker for content creators. A […]
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