payola |pāˈōlə|
noun
the practice of bribing someone to use their influence or position to promote a particular product or interest : if a record company spends enough money on payola, it can make any record a hit.

A tweet-link from the prolific, intelligent, and fine-looking independent music revolutionary Ariel Hyatt caught my attention today, linking to an article by Bobby Owsinski about Payola. In a nutshell, the fact that 60 million people have watched that godawful Rebecca Black “Friday” music video and yet radio stations aren’t running with that ball into the endzone pretty much proves how out of touch they are with what music consumers actually consume.

Owsinski also links to (and quotes) another article where a radio Program Director admits that a song doesn’t make it to radio unless a major record label “brings all of its resources to get it played.” Having interned at a well-known label, I heard all kinds of stories about non-payola payola. Even a decade ago the industry was rife with “this big-screen TV is totally just a gift and has nothing to do with the new single we just sent you (*wink wink*).”

Slimy? Of course. Illegal? Nope. Promotional expenses are as tricky to control as campaign financing; the line between legitimate contribution and vote-buying is purely subjective. Payola is still alive and well despite the laws against it.

And I’m all for it.

Competition Is Good

Payola might have been bad when no competition existed for music radio. Now we have terrestrial radio, satellite radio, podcasts, internet streams, and the vial of liquid awesome that is Pandora. Rumor has it iTunes and Amazon will be duking it out for market share in this field soon.

With all these venues gaining traction to compete with terrestrial radio, record labels could go broke bribing (or totally-not-a-bribing) all of them, if they even can. Pandora’s playlists are picked by algorithm, not by meat-based decision makers. It’s hard to bribe a robot, I’ve tried. At the end of the day it will be the consumers that drive the industry, not the program directors. The days of dictating taste from on high are over.

I say Payola should not only be legal, it should be encouraged. Let the stupid record labels funnel so much money into radio that they bankrupt themselves and flood the airwaves with mediocre over-compressed crap (*cough* Nickleback *cough*). People have options now- I can listen to Pandora through my refrigerator, for shit’s sake. I’ve already abandoned everything but NPR on the airwaves because half the artists I’ve fallen in love with lately (see my recommendations below) don’t get played.

The smart record labels (yes, they exist, somewhere) will focus on helping good artists develop their craft into music that stands on its own. Or they’ll spend money outside the music stream, promoting the artists where it makes more sense. Who knows, they may even come up with creative marketing ideas. If the airwaves are a known paid-for entity, the public at large will gravitate towards the organic sources of good ideas.

Payola on the Internet

Oh yeah, and it’s not like Payola isn’t thriving on the internet either. A new music site seems to pop up, function, and die about every month or so, nearly all of them taking bribes- sorry, Premium Artist Payments -for better playlist positioning. Nothing ever changes.

Anyone remember MP3.com? Anyone? Beuller? At the turn of the millennium they were big- so big, in fact, they couldn’t cover their bandwidth costs. So they opened up a pay-for-a-promoted-chart-position system that didn’t actually move your songs up in the charts, but placed your song just below the legitimate #1 spot. Payola? Maybe, but as you can imagine it guaranteed that the people with the most money got more plays.

A decade later we have the shitty music service Jango. If you’re a consumer, it’s totally free. If you’re a band, you have to pay for guaranteed plays on their service. Wait, let me get this straight… musicians that are most likely barely paying their bills are providing your website with thousands of hours of content and not only are you not paying them anything for it, you’re asking them to pay you? Count me out.

Robots (and humans) to the Rescue

With the explosion of new media, the signal-to-noise ratio of bad music versus shining stars has grown almost unbearable. Radio once functioned as the sole taste-maker, but everyone knew the system was corrupt. As the industry’s adolescence catches up with it, two new taste-makers will arise: Robots and humans.

Like I said, robots can’t be bribed. Services like Pandora force the listeners to decide what they like based on a complex algorithm. It also forces musicians to produce material that can survive on its own merit. On the human side, there are disc jockeys everywhere. Not the talking heads that sit in broadcast booths playing a pre-set playlist, I’m talking about your BFF on Facebook that puts up a link to a track. That podcaster whose show you like and whose taste you trust. That artist you’re already listening to that recommends another artist she’s fond of.

I believe that opening the floodgates of Payola will simply accelerate a process that’s already happening: Corporate douchebags will blow all their money promoting tepid product while smart consumers move on to greener pastures. The situation’s like a boil that needs to be lanced.

Let the money flow, let the system devour itself, and let the music live or die on more level playing fields.

Those of us that live for The New face a challenge that never changes: When is it the right time? I’m a fan of all things technological and it’s difficult- sometimes outright painful -to come to terms with a new development while the majority of the population still doesn’t “get it”. The trick is to equip your Robot Army with the Cutting Edge, then implement it when the rest of the world is ready.

Example 1: Virtual Reality

Remember Virtual Reality? If you weren’t around to witness the 90′s, just read the Wikipedia article. Otherwise, you’re well aware of the big hype that kinda went nowhere. VR hit pop culture like the Hula Hoop, from Nintendo’s migraine-seeding Virtual Boy to Stephen King’s The Lawnmower Man to the thank-God-it-was-never-widely-adopted Quicktime VR. All this at a time when the hottest Power Mac sported a whopping 110 MHz processor and could hold up to 264 MB of RAM.

Here we are in 2011. High-resolution LCD screens are so ubiquitous we’re turning iPods into digital watches with them, yet you can’t find VR goggles in the gaming peripherals at Best Buy. CPU’s, memory, and graphics technology have improved to the point where fully-rendered 3D games exist on your iPhone. Broadband internet now makes it possible for dizzyingly complex render files to travel across the world in milliseconds.

Shit, we actually invented Virtual Reality the way it was hyped up 20 years ago. For real. Virtual people, virtual objects, virtual sex, prims, and rock and roll. And the majority of the public couldn’t give a shit. Why? Because the hype happened 20 years too early. We saw the potential on the horizon and had our party before the birthday boy actually arrived. Now that he’s here, we’re all sick of cake and booze. Virtual Reality happened at the wrong time and now it’s merely a toy that lonely geeks and marketers play with.

And most of the marketers have already left.

Example 2: Podcasting

If only there was a way to listen to new music, talk shows, fiction, and all that cool radio stuff without having to schedule a time to sit in front of the magical talking antenna-box. Imagine it’s 2005 and Apple’s iPod has been out for 4 years. Everyone had one by 2003. Yes, everyone. Don’t argue with me, Steve is watching.

More importantly, blogs existed and circulated via something called RSS. By 2005 RSS had been around for six years and most people today still don’t even know what it is. Then someone (maybe Adam Curry) decided to test if an audio file could ride on that RSS feed. MP3′s started floating around college campuses five or ten years before iPods did. All three of these technologies had been invented, circulated, and field-tested for years. Unlike VR, they had no sex appeal. Stephen King didn’t write any short stories of crazed men killing people through blog feeds (at least, not that I know of anyway). Duke Nukem wasn’t reprogrammed and brought to video arcades as an XML stream.

I won’t say Apple started it (hi, Steve, I love you), but it certainly hit the public consciousness when iTunes added a little extra icon on the left side of the screen. Suddenly there’s a feeding frenzy: Podcasting companies open, rise, fall, and dissolve faster than sand castles. Companies throw marketing budgets at podcasting with a fervor rivaling a squid orgy. The RIAA sends out CDL’s to anyone who even thinks about the possibility of maybe considering the merits of planning to play big-label music on their own little show.

And because of that last part, guys like me suddenly have a career. Thank you.

Now it’s six years later and anyone with an iPod knows what a podcast is. NPR re-broadcasts all their content this way, formerly unknown authors are now well-known among the podcast-listening public. Some of us musicians are earning most of our living through podcasting. And we didn’t even need Pierce Brosnan and Jeff Fahey in rubber suits to pull it off.

Is It The Right Time?

I’ve ditched cable TV and watch all the same programming I used to via HD broadcast, iTunes, and web streams. I only torrent shows when their producers are too stupid to give me a legitimate means of buying them directly- but I still get the shows I want. Is it the right time for everyone to do this? Maybe, I’d give it another 2 years before everyone’s got a Mac Mini replacing their cable box.

I’ve stopped listening to commercial radio and find much better quality music with far fewer commercials via Pandora Radio and, of course, Podcasting. Is it the right time for everyone else to get their music digitally? Absolutely. The variety is much wider, the barrier to entry much lower. Services like Pandora and some podcasts ensure that musicians get paid every time their songs are played. Radio doesn’t do that, yet they run 1 minute of commercials for every 2 minutes of music.

I live on a spaceship somewhere just outside the Earth’s atmosphere and live on a diet of squid meat and quinoa. Is it time for everyone else to follow me? Hell no, will someone please send up a steak and some ice cream? It’s definitely the right time for that.

Welcome, Rolling Stone readers and Pandora fans! In case you haven’t caught the Feb. 17 issue yet, RS ran an article on “Pandora’s Digital Kingdom”, all about the cutting-edge internet radio service that’s been making me happy for years now.

“Pandora is the first true music meritocracy,” says independent musician Matthew Ebel (an artist likely to pop up on a Ben Folds Five station). “The fact that there is no fat guy in a ponytail and suit in Chicago determining what 20 songs they are going to play is a huge thing.”
Rolling Stone

Now I know I should be super-excited about my name appearing in Rolling Stone- even if only in a brief line like that. And believe me, I am. I went out and picked up this issue before getting my morning coffee, if that gives you an idea of how jazzed up I am about it. In this day and age of new media (especially when a guy like me has championed podcasting, blogging, and the like for five years now), should I really be that thrilled over getting a tiny blurb in an old-school print mag? I don’t care, I’m pretty hamn dappy about it.

Truth be told, however, I was more excited to wake up and find a tweet from C.C. Chapman about finding the quote. Having my name printed once in four columns of text in an industry mag is one thing, but having someone with an alarmingly large retweet community mention it? That is far more relevant.

In any case, I encourage you to read the article. My involvement may be small, but the article really nails the direction I think music is heading. One of these days I’d like to meet Tim Westergren, founder of Pandora Radio, and shake his hand. If you want to read the full story, though, you’ll have to buy the issue or subscribe to Rolling Stone online, sadly- they don’t give this stuff away for free.

Update: I go into a bit more detail about Pandora itself here.

I field a lot of questions about posting videos of my concerts on YouTube, using my music for various projects, and so on. These days the term “fair use” seems to be as nebulous as “pop rock”.

So a while back I set up a Terms of Service page (just like a real company) that specifically deals with my music and how my fans should treat it. This isn’t a legal document and shouldn’t be considered as such- I just want to clarify my position on some really confusing issues. Honestly, I’m surprised more artists haven’t already set up something similar.

Here’s the current version, though the full TOS will always be available at www.matthewebel.com/tos

Rules of Thumb

Here are some basic guidelines to follow when considering using my music. These rules supersede all the others, so take them to heart:

If you’re going to be making money off of my music, I should too.

For example, if you’ve got a podcast with sponsors, a music-playing website with Google Adwords, or you’re making a video that’s promoting a product, do the right thing and contact me about licensing.

If you’re doing it for the right reasons, do it.

You’ve got a conscience, you know if you’re being cool or being a schmuck. The RIAA will not notice if you rip off an indie artist, but I will.

Keep politics out of this.

I am very careful about which politicians, groups, and causes I support, so if you’re thinking of using my music to support a candidate or cause, please ask me first.

Post links back to www.matthewebel.com

Should be self-explanatory: Send people to this site whenever you can, please!

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So Obama hasn’t cerated three million new jobs in two years. What the hell were you expecting? I know I wasn’t counting on a government check to pay for a personal assistant for me, as much as I know I need one. How is it possible that people who believe so strongly in the power of the free market can turn right around and blame the government for not solving their problems? I’m an American, I will fix my own damn country.

As usual, let the music industry be an example of how the future’s going to look. They had a business model for decades that went something like this:

1. Sign artist to label.
2. Record album that label owns 90% of.
3. Send artist on back-breaking tour schedule to promote album.
4. Bribe or outright own radio stations to promote album and tour.
5. Profit.

If you haven’t read any articles or watched the news lately, you might assume that this model still works. I’m sorry to tell you that the little-round-disc industry (formerly the music industry) isn’t making a profit like it used to.

1. Why sign new artists when it’s easier to manufacture them for a pre-existing marketing plan? Or just sign a 15-year-old starlet that’s too young to understand the way contracts work, too young to stand up for their rights, and too young to sing on key with any semblance of soul.
2. Albums can now be recorded in basements with an iMac. No label required.
3. Gas is over $3 per gallon in many places, making touring expensive and keeping concert-goers from driving anywhere.
4. Radio’s still big, but Pandora’s getting bigger. And it’s not controlled by people… the robots pick the play list!
5. Blame, demonize, and eventually sue alleged “pirates” to recoup less than a million in lost profits. Spend multiple millions doing so.

So what do we do to “save the music industry”? Do we write to our government asking for money or tax breaks so major labels can hire more people even though they’re not actually making a profit any more? Maybe we should ask the government to bring back the 1960′s, that would be about as effective.

How about we change the whole industry instead?

The reason I say “the little round disc industry” as Chris Penn calls it instead of “the music industry” is because the music industry is doing perfectly fine. Entrepreneurs and small startups are popping up left and right- many of them failing, many of them succeeding -and doing the jobs that the old industry used to do profitably. Independent artists like Derek Sivers started bypassing the labels and selling their own music, and we all know how that turned out. The internet has made PR, distribution, and promotion much more affordable and much easier for guys like me to flourish.

I made my own job. I make an American product with American labor. I export that product to other countries. Though it’s kinda tiny, I do indeed make a profit. When I get the money to do so, you can bet your ass I’m hiring some American help.

I know not every industry can evolve the way my industry is changing, but I sure as hell hope that people aren’t expecting the government to wave a wand and make more jobs. Make your own jobs. Make better products. Provide better services. Hire American workers and spend your money at American businesses. You’re the only one that can create jobs.

Hell, we should get Obama to wear a State Park Ranger hat and just hold a press conference saying, “only YOU can prevent unemployment.”

The exchange was short, but I felt it needed to become a full-on blog post. To give you a little context, I have about 3,000 Twitter followers, she’s got 1.3 Million. I just broke 1,000 fans on Facebook, she’s got six times that. So when I say that Zoe Keating is 100% independent and has never been on a major label or part of some slick industry power team, it doesn’t mean she’s at my level, still trying to grow the fan base enough to survive. She has gone forth, become fruitful, and even multiplied.

And yet, there’s this:

@matthewebel: Since touring is my weakest link, I’ll be watching you as you do this process. I really want to get out on the road again.

@zoecello: Yeah, I think its the missing piece in most DIY careers. I don’t know any booking agents.

I’ve said it many times on stage, in interviews, and when talking to music start-ups and record label people: Booking is the only thing independent musicians are getting no help with, and the last thing we need are venue suggestions and how-to advice. If Zoe Keating’s having a difficult go at it, God help those of us with 1/450th the follower base.

Who out there will step up to the plate and fill this need?

There are days when I lament the inaccessibility of major publications to one-man operations like myself. I, like a lot of people, still assume that big print magazines are “taste-makers” that people actually read before buying CD’s. Reviewers, after all, are people that matter. Getting a blurb from something like Billboard or Rolling Stone makes for great press kit fodder, but does anyone else really care? In fact, would the person writing the quote even care? Would a quote from these people make my music any better or worse?

Then there are days like today when I get quotes from people that actually matter. They’re from people that don’t write for major publications or run radio stations. Quotes like these remind me why I do what I do:

I just wanted to thank you for the song I Will Wait for You. last FWA I nearly made a terrible decision to end a relationship with a girl that I really care about over stupid reasons that weren’t my own… We went to your show that night, having missed half of it due to our discussion about breaking up, which ended with both of us in tears.

That night you played a few songs I’ve already sent a note of thanks about, but I Will Wait for You was the one that mended everything that had been said and done that night. To this day whenever we hear it we always tend to get a little choked up.

…We just recently celebrated one year of being together, and I just keep thinking about what I would have missed out on had that night at FWA not gone the way it did.

I wouldn’t mind being photographed for the cover of Keyboard, but messages like these mean a whole lot more to me than any industry mags.

Here’s the 1-frame-per-minute video stream (the wifi at the BBEC sucked) of the Music panel with me, Ariel, Ted, and Amanda. Hope you dig it!

Video courtesy of Steve Garfield

To say the least, the 140 Characters Conference was fun. I got to lead the Music panel and I was fortunate enough to convince Ariel Hyatt, Amanda Palmer, and Ted Cohen to join me. I’m so glad Jeff Pulver invited me to moderate this panel, I never thought I’d get all three names at the top of my list to sit at the table. I felt like a little fish in a very big pond, given that they’ve all dealt with major labels and real established acts in the past and I’m still working my ass off just to bring you all some tunes on a monthly basis. Still, I think each of us managed to provide some insight into the real-time web that your average corporate marketing type wouldn’t really have seen.

Honestly, though, what makes social media events like this fun aren’t really the events. It’s the socializing. Getting to talk about indie music promotion with Ariel is always a highlight. Hearing stories of touring with Van Halen and Prince and the like from Ted Cohen never gets old. And Amanda Palmer? Yeah, she’s as groovy as I anticipated. Busiest woman I’ve ever seen, though, she’s literally the CEO of her own company just like me. Her business is significantly larger, though, so I can see why she needs caffeine. What we talked about on stage mirrored what was happening backstage: Talk to people online, Don’t just promote shit, actually converse. If you’re not interacting with your fans as a human being, you’re not interacting with your fans.

And speaking of interacting with your fans, the most unexpected surprise for me was meeting Derrick, one of my VIP’s, for the first time. He’d been a VIP member since day one, but I never thought I’d actually get to meet him. Why? He lives in frickin’ Singapore. Right now he’s in the Boston area, though, and was attending the 140 Characters conference. I don’t think he knew I was going to be there, but I’m damn glad he showed up. I don’t know if many of you know how cool it feels to meet someone who’s a big supporter even though you’ve never seen them and never played a show in their country. It takes a real fan to take part in something like Matthew Ebel dot net without knowing if you’ll ever actually get to SEE the artist you’re supporting, so I considered it a stone-cold honor to bump into Derrick.

The dinner afterwards sealed the day perfectly. NY Times best-selling author Julien Smith sponsored this indie rocker’s meal that night, and man am I grateful. I got to spend the final hours of the day talking with friends like CC Chapman, Chris Penn, Chel Pixie (who organized the dinner), Jeffrey Sass and his aspiring-rock-star son, and more. These kind of people create a notable change in conversation every time I’m around them. I’m usually among folks who create or manage technology- networking, storage, programming, etc. -but the people I ate dinner with are a different kind of cutting edge. They don’t make the tools, they use them in ways nobody else imagines. It’s refreshing to hear from people who are paving new roads using the toys that my other friends are crafting. It’s a hell of a perspective and I’m thankful for the opportunity to see all sides of the picture.

So here’s to the con-goers at 140 Characters. I hope to see you all next year!

I don’t know how many of you follow the CD Baby DIY Musician Blog, but something happened there recently that reveals a lot about what the Major-Label Music Business has done to the independent artist. Take a look at this screenshot from their blog:

Sure, they get a decent amount of comments on each blog post, anywhere from 60-100. That’s a good conversation right? Now read the top article: 323 Comments as of this writing, more than three times their average response. This sort of thing can’t be just a fluke, Scott James really touched on a nerve in the community here. While this isn’t an accurate sample of the labels and in-crowd themselves, it certainly spells out the number one fear of unsigned artists:

You are dead to the Music Industry when you turn 30.
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