With the Grammys hours away, I figured now is as good a time to make my Grammy picks on some of the bigger categories:

Record of the Year
Beyonce - Irreplaceable
Foo Fighters - The Pretender
Rihanna - Umbrella
Justin Timberlake - What Goes Around...Comes Around
Amy Winehouse - Rehab

Album of the Year
Foo Fighters - Echoes, Silence,  Patience & Grace
Vince Gill - These DAys
Herbie Hancock - River: The Joni Letters
Kanye West - Graduation
Amy Winehouse - Back to Black

Song of the Year
Carrie Underwood - Before He Cheats
Plain White T's - Hey There Delilah
Corinne Bailey Rae - Like a Star
Amy Winehouse - Rehab
Rihanna - Umbrella

Best New Artist
Feist - The Reminder
Ledisi - Lost & Found
Paramore - Riot!
Taylor Swift - Self Titled
Amy Winehouse - Back to Black

Best Female Pop Vocal Performance
Christina Aguilera - Candyman
Feist - 1234
Fergie - Big Girls Don't Cry
Nelly Furtado - Say It Right
Amy Winehouse - Rehab

Best Male Pop Vocal Performance
Michael Buble - Everything
John Mayer - Belief
Paul McCartney - Dance Tonight
Seal - Amazing
Justin Timberlake - What Goes Around...Comes Around

Best Pop Vocal Album
Bon Jovi - Lost Highway
Fiest - The Reminder
Maroon 5 - It Won't Be Soon Before Long
Paul McCartney - Memory Almost Full
Amy Winehouse - Back to Black

Best Solo Rock Vocal Performance
Beck - Timebomb
Paul McCartney - Only Mama Knows
John Mellencamp - Our Country
Bruce Springsteen - Radio Nowhere
Lucinda Williams - Come On

Best Rock Album
Daughtry - Daughtry
John Fogerty - Revival
Foo Fighters - Echoes, Silence, Patience & Grace
Bruce Springsteen - Magic
Wilco - Sky Blue Sky

Best Alternative Music Album
Lily Allen - Alright, Still...
Arcade Fire - Neon Bible
Bjork - Volta
The Shins - Wincing the Night Away
The White Stripes - Icky Thump

Best Male R&B Vocal Performance
Raheem DeVaughn - Woman
Musiq Soulchild - B.U.D.D.Y.
Ne-Yo - Because of You
Prince - Future Baby Mama
Tank - Please Don't Go

Best Female R&B Vocal Performance
Mary J Blige - Just Fine
Fantasia - When I See You
Alicia Keys - No One
Christte Michele - If I Have My Way
Jill Scott - Hate On Me

Best R&B Album
Chaka Khan - Funk This
Ledisi - Lost & Found
Musiq Soulchild - Luvanmusiq
Jill Scott - The Real Thing
Tank - Sex, Love & Pain

Best Rap Song
50 cent - Ayo Technology
TI - Can't Tell Me Nothing
Kanye West - Can't Tell Me Nothing
Soulja Boy Tell'Em - Crank That
Kany West - Good Life


Best Rap Album
Common - Finding Forever
Jay-Z - Kingdom Come
Nas - Hip Hop Is Dead
TI - TI vs TIP
Kanye West - Graduation

Best Female Country Vocal Performance
Allison Krauss - Simple Love
Miranda Lambert - Famous in a Small Town
LeAnn Rimes - Nothin' Better to Do
Carrie Underwood - Before He Cheats
Trisha Yearwood - Heaven, Heartache, and ...

Best Male Country Vocal Performance
Dierks Bentley - Long Trip Alone
Alan Jackson - A Woman's Love
Tim McGraw - If You're Reading This
George Strait - Give It Away
Keith Urban - Stupid Boy

Best Country Album
Dierks Bentley - Long Trip Alone
Vince Gill - These Days
Tim McGraw - Let It Go
Brad Paisley - 5th Gear
George Strait - It Just Comes Natural

EMI recently announced it's much anticipated restructuring, during which it will release 2,000 employees. Along with these cuts EMI plans to decrease the size of it's artist roster, consolidating administrative services, and focusing more on A&R.

Overall I am appreciative of the much needed change at EMI Music. With an effective vision for the future of the company Guy Hands and his management team need to be careful to implement the new plan. Focusing their attention on fewer artists will hopefully allow the company to get the greatest return from each of its artists. Combining administrative services such as accounting, business and legal services should help the company reduce overhead. One important note on combining some indirect services: DO NOT CONSOLIDATE MARKETING! Consolidate marketing would undercut any efforts by the individual labels under Warner Music Group to become distinct brands.

Despite the fact that it sucks to be let go, if it's done right EMI can put itself in a place to be one of the most successful of in terms of return on investment. What is important to look at now is Hands's ability to lead the company through the upcoming change.

Regardless of my optimism, the artists don't seem to be as convinced. Since EMI changing hands (no pun intended)  Robbie Williams has expressed his discontents, Radiohead has gone solo (OK maybe this was before the sale of EMI to Terra Firma but still in anticipation of it), and the Rolling Stones are allegedly looking at a deal with Live Nation, similar to their contract with Madonna. Most interesting is these are the artists that one would think would benefit most from EMI's newest artist-centric structure, but they obviously perceived the risk to be too much to be worth the reward of EMI's 3+ year restructuring.

With the writers strike in full swing, and the WGA having seemingly all of the power over the upcoming awards shows, I think now might be a good time to consider the impact that the writers strike will have on the music industry.

Luckily the Recording Academy escaped the disaster that would be the WGA not waiving it's strike for the Grammy's. But it's also important to consider the other implications of the writers strike on the music industry. First, and possibly the most obvious impact is on licensing for artists. With fewer new TV episodes being released it will be much harder to find the licensing opportunities on TV. This could move record labels to focus their efforts on commercial licensing (although it would make sense to move away from this as viewers move away from TV) and licensing in movies.

Second, we need to look at the way in which the trend changes resulting from the writers strike will impact music. Namely, as people move their search for the TV fix from broadcast and cable television to online episodes, we could see a slight increase in online music habits.

Finally, hopefully consumers will supplement their TV habit with a music habit. With less time being devoted to television, it is possible consumers will move to music, video games, and movies.

Any thoughts? Will the writers strike have any impact at all?

Congratulations to the Grammy's for finally getting approval from the WGA to use writers on their awards show. This is a huge win for the music industry when you consider the impact the Grammy's have on the next weeks sales, along with the impact that the WGA Strike had on the Golden Globes this year.

One positive step I’ve seen in restructuring the music industry is the emergence of several new record deals and models for releasing records. Three of the most notable business structures are those instituted for Madonna, Radiohead, and Korn:

 

Madonna
Madonna avoided record labels all together, and signed an agreement with Live Nation, a company dealing primarily with concert venues. Under the $120 Million, 10 year deal, Live Nation will have control over all of Madonna’s music related business. During the length of the deal, Madonna is expected to put out 3 albums (for each of which she is receiving a $17 Million advance) and 4 concert tours.

One of the biggest debates is whether or not this deal could be profitable for Live Nation. The $17 Million advance per album alone seems hard to recoup on, but more important to Live Nation than record sales is the amount incredible amount of money generated from touring. Using the 360-degree model, Live Nation can use all music revenues generated by Madonna (including touring, and merchandising) to profit from the seemingly expensive deal.

 

Korn
Before the Madonna deal was signed by Live Nation, Korn had a similar approach in their new agreement with Warner Music Group. Also a 360 degree arrangement, the agreement between Korn and EMI is both a record deal and partnership. While agreeing to a more traditional record deal (for their next two studio albums), Korn and EMI will be partnering on all non-album activities such as licensing, touring, and merchandising. Given their record sales, touring successes, and the upcoming licensing of their music for the upcoming video game Haze, it is much more likely this deal will be very profitable for both Korn and EMI.

 

Radiohead
Radiohead decided to avoid a record deal all together and released their records on their own, allowing fans to set their own price for downloads of the album. They also recently released the album more traditionally lately by licensing the mechanical rights to the album to record labels.

Despite concerns that this model would not be very profitable for the band, with very low overhead costs the band seems to be doing very well for itself. Even after allowing consumers to name their own price, the physical album has been in the top 5 on the charts for the last several weeks.

Conclusion
All-in-all it is very exciting to be able to observe the changes taking place in the music industry. As we can see from these three models, the trend has been away from traditional record labels. It will be interesting to see which the prevailing model is in the future.

It is also important to note that so far the only artists able to negotiate these deals have been those with proven track records, although there is no reason that Radiohead’s model could not apply to smaller bands, since it requires little to no leverage on the artist’s part.

Welcome to MusicIndustry360.com, a site dedicated to addressing the issues that have been plaguing the music industry. The main purpose of the site is to facilitate discussion between employees in the music industry as well as music fans in hopes of finding some common ground on where we think the music industry is going, and where it should be going. In the next few months I hope to roll-out the following communication types:

Blog
The site will be regularly updated with posts regarding my thoughts on some of the more current events in the music industry.

Video Blog
A video will be posted on the website which will address some broader problems that the music industry has been battling with for years.

Podcast
A podcast will be released to serve as a more comprehensive discussion of the music industry.

I strongly encourage people to get involved in the discussion by replying to the blog postings, video blog, or participating in the site message board.

Thanks for visiting.

-JH