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.
A terrible thing is happening to the recorded music business as we know it. It is literally going away. For years now many of us have been predicting the demise of the record labels, falling CD sales, the erosion of radio as a promotional channel, lack of barriers to entry into music making – and […]
CBS is showing a unique ability to adapt to changing circumstances and opportunities: Television has proven to be a powerful marketing tool for young artists — most famously Death Cab for Cutie, an indie band with a cult-size following until featured placement in Fox’s "The O.C." catapulted the group to mainstream stardom. Now CBS is […]
There is really so much happening in this space right now, it is challenging to keep up. While the well known pioneers of music recommendation (like Pandora, LastFM) continue to make headway, new entrants are continuing to redefine how it all works. Extremely interesting developments almost on a daily basis. Here are two I recently […]
Despite the millions of dollars that record labels spend on advertising, it may be folks like Robert Burke who determine the future of music marketing. Burke, a South Carolina software tester, operates a popular series of Web sites called Scopecreep.com, where he’s posted thousands of digital music playlists, from "Best songs of 1989" to "Palindrome […]
Over the past four years, Berkleemusic the online extension school of Berklee College of Music has helped over 11,000 students from around the world study music and music business online and will teach another 6,000 this year alone, making it the world’s largest online music school. In addition, Berkleemusic has over 100,000 registered members involved […]
The music industry flocked to Midem in Cannes, France in January, and event organizers reported attendance levels of nearly 10,000 according to Digital Music News. That is an impressive crowd, though a critical component of the business was also well represented at the annual NAMM Show in Anaheim, CA, staged the week prior. The National […]
Jason Herskowitz and Paul Lamere have begun to compile a directory of Music 2.0 sites and businesses that you definately want to check out. See the Music 2.0 Directory/Wiki What is a Music 2.0 site? Yeah, I don’t really know what "Music 2.0" is supposed to mean either, but I’ve compiled a list of companies […]
We wrote about it in our book, and it is wonderful to see music discovery services and recomendation engines getting well established in the marketplace. From the big digital music distributors like AOL, Rhapsody and iTunes and eMusic, to the stand-alone discovery platforms and technologies like Last.fm, Pandora and Qloud, to the playlist and mashup […]
All signs are pointing to the eventual dominance of the MP3 format for paid digital music in the near future. Last fall there were lots of signals that 2007 would be the year where the labels and publishers would be forced to face a future where MP3 become the latest legitimate format for digital music, […]
The Recording Academy, the organization that brings us the Grammy awards, has spent the last two years on a project to "create a dialogue between music makers and music fans to help shape an exciting digital music future". This is some amazing work and the academy should be recognized for their grass roots efforts to […]
(CelebrityAccess MediaWire) — Barenaked Ladies grossed $978,127.99 in revenue from intellectual property in its first week music sales from their new album, Barenaked Ladies Are Free (Desperation Records/Nettwerk Music Group). Understanding this sales figure requires looking beyond the numbers on the charts, according to Terry McBride, band manager and CEO of the Nettwerk Music. McBride […]
"There has never been a more exciting time to work in the music business. Digitalisation gives customers more music in more formats, whenever they want it, wherever they want it, presenting an enormous business opportunity for the music and entertainment industries as a whole." – Event director for Music Matters, Jasper Donat A significant number […]
A few months ago, singer-songwriter Emilia Dahlin received a phone call from a stranger offering her $15,000 to promote her music – no strings attached. "I was sure it was too good to be true," said Dahlin, of Portland. "I went over the contract with a fine-tooth comb and put my trust in a friend […]
Ok, while not exactly on topic, the following report from Phil Leigh at Inside Digital Media on the Future of Newspapers illustrates some of the same challenges the record business is facing. Interesting reading. From the conclusion: To conclude, despite shrinking circulation and layoffs, it’s a great time to be in the newspaper business. There’s […]
LOS ANGELES/NASHVILLE (Billboard) – It’s 9 p.m. at The Gig in Hollywood and a crowd of L.A. hipsters is trickling in to catch the evening’s act. The bar itself is just one of several live music venues scattered throughout the city that caters to emerging artists hungry for a stage — however small — to […]
For years, old recordings have piled up in the archives at Verve Records, including beloved jazz tracks that had no market big enough to justify pressing new discs. But thanks to the Internet, music lovers are rediscovering iconic titles like Ella Fitzgerald’s "Sunshine of Your Love" and Quincy Jones’s "Body Heat" — rekindling enough popular […]
NPR / Marketplace Listen to this story Universal Music wants to save the compact disc. The company said today it’s unveiling new packaging to make CDs more attractive to consumers who’ve been lured about by digital downloads. Lisa Napoli reports. function emailPop() { window.open(‘/tools/mail/mailstory.php?title=The emperor’s new CD?&storypage=http://www.marketplace.org/shows/2006/07/05/PM200607054.html’, ‘pop_up’,’height=435,width=475,resizable=yes,left=4,top=4,titlebar=no,menubar=no,scrollbars=no’); } KAI RYSSDAL: We talk a lot […]
NPR / Marketplace Listen to this story Universal Music wants to save the compact disc. The company said today it’s unveiling new packaging to make CDs more attractive to consumers who’ve been lured about by digital downloads. Lisa Napoli reports. function emailPop() { window.open(‘/tools/mail/mailstory.php?title=The emperor’s new CD?&storypage=http://www.marketplace.org/shows/2006/07/05/PM200607054.html’, ‘pop_up’,’height=435,width=475,resizable=yes,left=4,top=4,titlebar=no,menubar=no,scrollbars=no’); } KAI RYSSDAL: We talk a lot […]
After years of digital disruption, the music industry is still divided on the best strategy to move forward with. So far, recorded music distribution has commanded most of the attention during this disruptive phase, at least in major press circles. Sales of CDs, the rise of online formats, the challenges presented by P2P networks – […]
"Hey mister record man, the joke’s on you.Running your label like it was 1992.Hey mister record man, your system can’t compete,It’s the new artist model, file transfer – complete." – Download this Song – MC Lars 2006 MC Lars sits on a stool in front of his computer music system in his […]
P2P SUITS MAKE NO SENSE FOR MUSIC BUSINESS Terry McBride, CEO of Vancouver-based record label and management company Nettwerk Music Group, offered to pay the legal bills of David Greubel, a Texas father of four who the RIAA has targeted with a suit for illegal file sharing. McBride contends that the RIAA’s suits against music […]
SFX Entertainment founder Robert Sillerman challenged the business thinking of the traditional recording industry during a recent keynote address at the Billboard Music & Money Symposium Thursday. Sillerman criticized labels and distributors for "ignoring technology and consumer preferences," eventually creating the conditions for file-sharing pioneer Napster to thrive. But years after Napster faced its legal […]
Speaking at the Music 2.0 conference in Los Angeles on February 23, Yahoo Music’s general manager Dave Goldberg startled listeners with a statement probably never previously heard from the head of a for-pay digital music service: Lay off the DRM. "DRM is not a consumer value proposition, it’s a consumer cost," said Goldberg. "It creates […]
After selling one billion downloads on its iTunes Music Store, Apple has cause for celebration. But should record labels be joining in? According to Eric Garland, CEO of media monitoring firm BigChampagne, the economics of paid downloads are a major cause for concern. During a keynote presentation at Music 2.0 in Los Angeles, Garland compared […]
The MC Lars thread continues… here is a post from myspace to MC Lars about his track "Download this Song". Dear Lars, I enjoy "Download This Song" greatly. But more so it hits home. My family is one of 10 seemingly randomly chosen families to be sued by the RIAA. No fun. You can’t fight […]
In the fall of 2005, I was giving a presentation to all the artist managers at Nettwerk Management on the future of music. We had a very lively discussion about where the industry was headed and how to take advantage of the changing circumstances and marketplace. Tom Gates, who manages the bands Brand New, MC […]
Vivendi Universal Games has reported sales of over one million units of "50 Cent: Bulletproof," available on both the PlayStation 2 and Xbox. In a brilliant multi-format strategy, the game includes four CDs worth of music, including exclusive tracks from 50 Cent. More than a dozen music videos are also part of the offering. "Gamers […]
In the January issue of Rolling Stone there is a year end wrapup piece on the continuing woes of the ‘music business’. Readers should note that in the same issue is a piece about how the concert business has suddenly rebounded. Now even the venerable RS should know that the Music Business is not just […]
“David Kusek has an amazing grasp of where today’s music business resides, where its been and where its going. He has a unique ability with factual analysis to cut through the hype and buzz and give us all a clear picture of what is actually taking place in today’s environment.”– Terry McBride, CEO Nettwerk Productions […]
Music Like Water…Reigning Down Review from Michael Stevens On the way back from Indy Friday, I switched the iPod over to the podcast, The Future of Music : Manifesto for the Digital Music Revolution by Dave Kusek, Gerd Leonhard. I only made it through the first hour or so but let me recommend this title […]
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