The most interesting anecdote from The New Yorker’s recent profile of Justin Bieber’s manager Scooter Braun, came when Braun explained how he had turned “the most Googled person on the planet” into a money-making dynamo, even within an industry that seemed determined to not make any money.

It bears quoting at length:

When Braun met David Geffen, at a party a couple of years ago, he said that Geffen had one bit of advice for him: “Get out of the music business.” So Braun has been converting his twelve-person company, SB Projects, into a many-faceted organization: it now has film and TV arms (Braun recently sold a scripted show, and has reality shows in development), a publishing division, and a technology-investment unit, in addition to a label and a management company.
Bieber’s success, at least from a financial standpoint, has come as much from cross-platform branding as it has from the sale of actual music. Consider the 5 million sales of Das-Bieb’s two albums to date, versus the 50 million sales enjoyed by Adele’s similarly sized catalogue. Bieber, however, is raking in far more dough, thanks to the sale of such items as concert tickets ($83 million), feature films ($98 million) and perfume ($120 million).

As cross-platform branding turns the music industry into what is essentially a series of advertisements for other services, Bieber has found himself with some unlikely company in the business’ forefront: the Odd Future.

Like Bieber (or, to be more accurate, like Braun), the Odd Future has proven tenacious when it comes to leveraging its acclaim into non-musical pursuits. In addition to the small universe of splinter groups that have capitalized on the Odd Future brand (Domo Genesis, Mellowhype, Frank Ocean), the group has placed its name on everything from throw pillows to key chains, not to mention the infamous cat t-shirts that Tyler, the Creator has turned into a closet industry in and of themselves.

Perhaps most significantly, Odd Future has sold its image to Cartoon Network in the form of its Loiter Squad sketch comedy show.

Rappers have long harbored a talent for turning their popularity into monetary reward, but it appears that in the future, the industry as a whole will be forced to adopt a similar logic, following in the wonderfully mismatched footsteps of misters Justin and Tyler.

Source: Recordingconnection.com

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Guaranteed to become every music-makers favorite pass time, Google has released a new feature on its Chrome platform called "Jam With Chrome" that allows you to collaborate with musicians wherever they are through your web browser. Just imagine, you could literally host a jam session with a drummer in LA, a guy in France on the keys, you play the base in Atlanta, and your buddy in New York on the electric guitar... on your lunch break. It's like Scramble With Friends, without the 'Scramble' (couldn't resist). Now considering you can't record or save your session it's definitely just another way to pass the time, but it's still kinda dope!

Check out the video below and click the link to read the full article.

Click HERE for the full article

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For all you producers out there, the question is, “How do you sample 70’s soul records without completely stealing the artist’s recording?” Well, here are a couple of lessons from Kev Brown to help start you off. Kev Brown has produced tracks for Goapele, Raheem DeVaughn, Busta Rhymes, Marley Marl, and Pete Rock, just to name a few. Here are some of what he suggest:

Step 1: Find a DOPE piece of a record (key term is “piece” )

Step 2: Chop the piece into small phrases or samples

Step 3: Time-stretch your sample

Step 4: Arrange a unique loop (this is where you can get really creative)

Step 5: Add drums to give your production a nice swing

(swing = feeling of the track)

Viola! You have now arranged the anatomy of a classic hip-hop soul record! Give yourself some props, not everyone is capable of creating a DOPE joint. Now check out the video below for more Kev Brown.

Post by Joel Grant

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Our home girl "GADIVA" is doing her thing on this coming Tuesday, November 20th, at Eastside Lounge. She always puts on a good show. If you ask us, she's definitely one of those artists you just have GOT to know (ya know!?) Click the flyer for details.

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The viral video “Gangnam Style” from Internet K-Pop sensation PSY is officially documented in the Guinness Book of World Records as the most liked video in YouTube history. Also, it has been viewed over 850,000,000 times, surpassing Justin Bieber’s hit “Baby”. The electro-influenced record has reached the number one position in across the world in countries such as Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Spain, and the U.K. But why? Before we break it down, peep the video:



Besides having a sick up-tempo beat that easily translates across cultures, and ridiculous lyrics to match, Gangnam Style also has some cultural relevance that fuels it's success. The term Gangnam refers to a district in Seoul, South Korea, which resembles the well-known district of Beverly Hills, California. Ironically, this video is portraying the exact opposite of what the Gangnam district is understood to be. But as we all know - irony has always been entertaining and not to mention a good strategy to make people pay attention.  Note and execute!

Joel Grant

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Have you ever had a studio session approaching only to find that you have a hoarse voice? This can be disastrous when schedules have been set and money has been invested. Rest assured, there are ways to prevent hoarseness and techniques you can try to get your voice back in shape. Here's a few from a well known vocal coach and artist development expert. She has worked with Donald Fagen from Steely Dan, Courtney Love from Hole, and the band Journey.

• Drink lots of water. Eat healthy fruits and vegetables, which have lots of moisture. 99% of the time, dehydration is the number one cause of a hoarse voice.
• Be sure to get sleep! As artists, living a rock star lifestyle is fun and sometimes necessary, but also leave you with a dreadful voice the next day. Learn to balance your time to get those zzz’s in.
• Technique- Gently pull the laryngeal muscles down (check the video).
• For long term correction of a hoarse voice:
• Get a vocal coach to learn to sing correctly. Maybe you are straining your vocal chords while pushing those melodies out.

If your hoarseness last more than a few days, go to an ENT (throat doctor). It could possibly be a reflux issue.

-Amber L.

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There is a war going on outside no man is safe from! Deception is at an all time high. Ever wondered how extremely horrible videos receive such a high view count? As you may already know there are a few "buy hits" websites all over the net. One of the more popular YouTube channel platforms made available are Vagex which is partially held responsible for this disaster.

The views are by real people mostly held in the United States. They price credits so cheap that you could possibly go on eBay and Fiverr and sell 2000 views for $5! If you choose not to do this then you can earn credits by downloading one of their free viewers and letting it "watch" videos for you in the background.

Remember in December when YouTube put the hammer down on the major labels for faking the funk? Check it out:

Sony/BMG: 850 Million to 2.3 Million
RCA: 159 Million to 120 Million
Universal: Lost more than 1 billion views, now stands below 6 Billion

The biggest fail about this is yeah you generate hits but make no real fans at all. You hear that all my indies? No future in your faking!

The FAQ for Vagex lists these benefits for using their services:

• Greater perception of popularity
• Your video will show up as suggested/related more often
• Higher search rankings on Google and YouTube
• In search results, people tend to choose videos with more view

Check out the website MusicThinkTank for examples of how it goes down. This is just a travesty in my opinion. I'm pretty sure anybody that would use their services wouldn't admit to anyone anyway!

Source: MusicThinkTank 

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Say hello to perhaps one of the most important resources a touring musician could ever have.  The app called Tourch is only found on iPhones will be your new best friend. It is a mobile application created to make musicians life easier when it comes to handling merchandise, touring, etc.

Tourch accounts and tracks all of your merchandise sales on any given night of your tour. A great way to keep organized and up to date with how much merchandise you're going through and how much you need to keep on hand.

This becomes a must have for any tour manager considering you can create multiple accounts for each artist and/or band being handled.

There is a journal section so that you can track things such as:

-load-in & load out information
-club owner dynamics
-mileage
-how the show went
-photos of your receipts, venues, band mates, audiences, etc

Expense: Keep track of your expenses on the road & export your information to a spreadsheet to manage your Profit & Loss

Category totals: Keep track of your different merchandise categories and how much you sold over the course of the night. Create quick recaps of how many CD's your sold, how many t-shirts you sold etc. Find all these categories in one place!

Product totals: Keep track of your different product totals including CD's, t-shirts, hats, USB drives, books, etc.

The key to heading out on tour is thorough organization and now we have an app that can make it 10X easier to execute! This is an app well worth the $5 considering what you get in return.

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