"The Music Business An Insider's Guide To Breaking In"
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This month I decided to try a different format and review a DVD instead of a book. “The Music Business: An Insider’s Guide to Breaking In” is one in a series presented by Inside Sessions. There are certainly many insiders interviewed here. Producers, managers, artists, attorneys, A&R, label executives; from CEO’s to managers of all levels. The DVD is in four chapters: How To Get In, The Art of Music, The Business of Music, and Inside A Record Company. The first section is fairly innocuous, various artists discuss how they got their start and execs and business people discuss what they are generally looking for in artists. Jimmy Iovine, Enrique Igeleias, Sting, Elton John, Sheryl Crowe, Lyor Cohen, and Russell Simmons are among the many that are interviewed. It is a very general introduction, I thought that this might be the extent of the presentation, but luckily I was wrong, the next two sections were really good. “The Art Of Music,” although fairly general is interesting in its content. It is compelling to see and hear so many industry people in one place discussing how they make the music and run the business. Subtopics include Writing The Song, Making The Demo, and Inside The Recording Studio. Barry Gibb makes a couple of brief appearances offering up songwriting advice. Bernie Taupin gives good advise on collaboration and what made him want to write songs in the first place. Jimmy Iovine from Geffen gives some of the best advise on recording in a new era. DJ Luck gives a good summary of home recording. Surprisingly, Elton John discusses how he can still get frustrated with the artist/producer relationship in the studio. Rob Zombie is interviewed throughout the DVD and gives some excellent advise on working in the studio. My only complaint with this section of this chapter is that the background music is a little louder here and it gives an annoying infomercial feel to the interviews. Things do get back on track in the next chapter, “The Business Of Music.” This chapter is, again, broken into several parts. How To Get A Label Deal, Making The Right Deal, Building a Team, and Getting Your Music Out There. These are by far the best sections and make the whole thing worth the price of admission. Music publishing, advancing and royalty and recoupability are all talked about. The subchapter on recoupability is especially insightful (and humorous) from various rappers. How to find and what to look for in attorneys, managers, and even fellow band members is discussed. There are fairly good tips on promotion outlets such as radio, street teams, building a fan base, touring, and various other publicity and promo tips. Don Passman, attorney and author, gives some advice on industry agreements. Various people tell us how they source bands and entertainment. This was by far the best part of the whole show for me. “Inside A Record Company” covers A&R, Marketing and Promotion, Art Department, Publicity Department, Sales Department, and Radio & Promotion. No one here gives a real definition of what A&R really is, although a few are good at describing what they do. The art department gets a very brief description here, as does radio and promotion. The sales department type people give descriptive interviews on distribution and how product gets from the final artistic product to the stores. I have always wondered what this series was like and I have to admit that I was pleasantly surprised. As I said above, the interviews are sometimes humorous, sarcastic, persuasive, and almost all were interesting. The Inside Sessions website sells more tapes and DVDs including a ten part series that gives more detailed interviews with all the artists on the DVD. “The Music Business” DVD was 111 minutes long, as is the VHS version. This general overview is only slightly more expensive than buying a book and it was cool to see all the people discussing the business of music instead of just seeing them at some awards show or hype event. I would recommend it to anyone who wants a general overview of the business of music and some nice entertainment to boot. |
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