The Return of Vinyl Records
How Vinyl Records Made Their Comeback. Thanks to Liberty Games for this great graphic. http://www.libertygames.co.uk/blog/how-vinyl-records-made-their-comeback/
About newartistmodel
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.
Entries by newartistmodel
Inside Abbey Road Studios
If you like the Beatles you have to check this out. If you are into recording or music production you have to check this out. If you love music you have to check this out. Am I making myself clear? http://g.co/insideabbeyroad Extremely well done multimedia tour of the infamous studios. Google produced it and it […]
Frequency and Repetition
DUH! This just in… Researchers find most popular chart songs repeat same words over and over again. They claim the secret to a smash hit single is the frequency and repetition of the lyrics and found songs that repeat phrases are more likely to be smash hits and successes. Hit singles at the top of the charts repeat their lyrics […]
The Dawn of Online Piracy and the Steady Drip of Music
The man who broke the music business… Read the tale of how music leaked from the pressing plants into the digital realm with this interesting piece from Stephen Witt and the New Yorker. Like water seeking it lowest point. “In 2001, Lydell Glover was the world’s leading leaker of pre-release music. He claims that he never […]
YouTube Cards for Musicians
YouTube is an incredible platform for indie musicians, and a few recent updates will make it even better. YouTube has always been a great platform to attract new fans and forge deeper connections with your fanbase, but there are actually a lot of features that enable you to monetize those fans and drive them to […]
The $25K House Concert Strategy
Shannon toured and gigged as a musician through college. She was able to fund her own tours by playing colleges, a venue that’s typically pretty well-paying. However, she wasn’t seeing the exponential growth she wanted – it was more of a very slow build. During the summer of 2011, she got an email from a […]
Get More Fans with Fluence
“How do I reach new audiences and grow my fanbase?” is a question I get all the time. It’s easy to stay in contact with your current fans – there are amazing tools to sell your new music, create engaging fan experiences, and send direct and targeted promotions. The problem was always reaching new fans, […]
Nashville’s Musical Middle Class
For the most part commentary on the music industry tends to be a lot of doom and gloom. We compare where we are now to business models of the past and we’re constantly looking for a saving model or holy grail for the new music industry. I believe we’re already there. Each and every independent […]
Network your way to Success
Who will help you succeed in music? There is really nothing more important to your career than the RELATIONSHIPS you develop over time. It’s all about who you know and who knows you – and how big your network is. Are people taking you seriously? Do you know how to approach them and get their […]
Ring Your Cash Register Again and Again
As an independent artist, it’s frustrating to be stuck and broke. You find yourself wondering why others are successful and where all the money is hidden. Yeah I know, it’s really all about the music, but the reality is you need money to operate your business and invest in your future. In my continuing Mini Series, […]
Creating Amazing Fan Experiences
I hope you are enjoying my new Mini Series on the music business. It’s truly amazing how in the first video you saw New Artist Model students Steel Blossoms and Colin Huntley applying my strategies to turn their passions into a career. These musicians are just like you. They started with a small following and have grown their […]
Build a Community of Super Fans
Do have a base of loyal fans for your music? Building a community of fans and super fans is the #1 thing you can do to enhance your music career. This is critical to your success. Let me show you how. In this new Mini Series I address the biggest problems that independent artists, songwriters, DJs and producers face and walk you through practical […]
A New Music Industry by Fred Goldring
The health of the “music industry” has been in question since the rise of the internet and digital communication technologies, and finding a happy medium between all the parties involved has not been an easy task. Countless companies and artists have risen up with unique business models, but for the vast majority of musicians, their income from […]
Creating Revenue Streams with CD Baby
Being an independent artist is challenging. There’s so much to manage from creation and business, distribution and licensing, to your website and social media. However, being an independent musician can also be rewarding – the key is learning how to effectively manage your time and resources to get the most done each day. Now there […]
Pomplamoose’s 2014 Tour Profits
Pomplamoose just finished a four week tour, hitting 23 cities around the US. They sold just under $100,000 in tickets – pretty good for a duo with no label support. They may not be the biggest name in the music industry, but Jack Conte and Nataly Dawn know what it takes to be independent musicians in […]
Social Media: What to Post and When
There are A LOT of social media platforms out there, and each requires a unique approach to posting. Different platforms cater to different target demographics and, as a result, the most effective time to post will vary. For example, Pinterest draws primarily women, Instagram has a large teen user base, and Linked In caters to […]
6 Reasons House Concerts are Better Than Traditional Gigs
In today’s music industry, there is a lot of hype around direct-to-fan models. You can talk with your fans directly on social media or through email, you can sell directly to your fans, and now many artists are applying direct-to-fan strategies to the live industry and taking concerts right to their fans’ houses. Shannon Curtis […]
Google’s Big Picture of Music
Google’s Research Group has put together this “Big Picture” interactive exploration of musical genres over time. With this tool you can see the rise and fall of genre popularity over time, break down each genre into smaller sub-genres, and even explore the bands, musicians, and albums that make up that musical era. It is a really […]
Tycho: The Slow Ascent to Success
Scott Hansen’s rise to music success wasn’t a fairy tale story of the music industry. He was in his 30’s, working in various tech jobs, and quietly honing his music and graphic design skills in his free time for a good 10 years. On top of that, his music isn’t top 40 pop fueled by […]
Interview With The Jazz Spotlight
I recently had the honor of being interviewed for The Jazz Spotlight’s Podcast. The podcast is a great resource for indie musicians, so I recommend you check it out. In the interview we discuss my new book, Hack the Music Business, New Artist Model, and some great strategies for indie musicians including: Today’s music business […]
How to Sell More Merchandise at Your Show
Selling merchandise at a show is probably one of the biggest sources of revenue that an artist has left today. It’s clear to anyone in the music industry that selling music has taken such a dramatic dive in sales that it’s almost a necessity to search and reach out for other sources of income as […]
Make a Career in Music: Free Webinar
Taking the leap from a day job to a full time career in music can be scary, after all, you’ve got bills to pay. However, not only is a career in music possible, there’s also a ton of musicians out there already doing it! Will Dailey is an independent, Boston-based recording and performing artist. He is […]
Sustainable Music Careers
The music industry isn’t the same as it was in the past. A lot of people have spent a lot of time complaining about this following the rise of the internet, but like everything else, it’s just change. Change isn’t positive or negative, rather it’s what you do with that change that matters. The successful […]
Music Discovery Trends
Earlier this year, Edison Research and Triton Digital released their Infinite Dial Report describing the trends in music, streaming, radio and digital music. They report that: Mobile devices are quickly rewiring behavior, especially with young users and image sharing (Instagram and Snapchat) Internet Audio is growing at a fast rate with Pandora as the #1 player in online […]
The Changing Face of Music
Two related pieces of content rolled through my email inbox this morning that I have to share. The first is a Apple produced video from 1988 on MIDI, that helped to popularize the use of computers in music in the early days of “desktop music publishing”. Like most things from Apple, the video does not mention […]
Get Licensed: Contacting Music Supervisors
There has been a lot of buzz about music licensing in the music industry in recent years, and with good reason! Compared to other revenue streams, like streaming, licensing can have potentially big payouts for indie musicians. It’s also a pretty confusing aspect of the music industry. Just how exactly do songs get on […]
Music Business Strategies
There are a lot of musicians out there struggling to pay the rent, grow their fan base, and make a profit on tour. It’s a tough road, but if you’re dedicated you can make music your career. In today’s music business, it’s not about forcing yourself into a one-size-fits-all box, or throwing a dice and […]
Tips From Jack Conte: 6 Keys to Success
The new music industry is really about finding your own path – one that is unique to your music and career. That’s exactly what Jack Conte and Nataly Dawn did with Pomplamoose and it is the foundation on which Jack’s new endeavour, Patreon, is built. Recently, I talked to Jack Conte about some of the […]
Lessons From the Lean Startup
The New Artist Model is all about looking at your music career in the same way an entrepreneur looks at a startup company. You are a music entrepreneur! And there’s no better entrepreneurial book out there than The Lean Startup. I would recommend everyone giving it a read, but Ed Rex, a musician a CEO […]
Get More Gigs
In today’s music industry, gigging is a huge revenue for a lot of indie musicians. Unfortunately, there’s also a lot of competition for the limited gigs available. Just standing out of the crowd of talented performers can be a challenge, especially when you’re trying to grow into cities and towns you’ve never played before. If, […]
