10at10 Club
Main Discussion Area => Stream of Consciousness => Topic started by: urth on January 19, 2006, 11:51:51 AM
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Rhino Records, an LA institution (the store, not the label), has closed its doors.
COLUMN: It takes Rhino skin not to be hurt by shop closure
By Chris Morris
LOS ANGELES (Hollywood Reporter) - They're throwing a wake of sorts for
the Rhino Records store Saturday and Sunday.
Founded in 1973, the venerable record shop officially closed its doors
after the turn of the year, hard on the heels of the folding of
crosstown competitor Aron's Records.
But, in a final gasp of Rhino tradition, old customers will gather at
the Westwood Boulevard location to paw through boxes of CDs, LPs, DVDs
and videocassettes at the store's final parking lot sale.
Rhino, a Westside institution for three decades, never recovered its
footing after moving into a large new space about five years ago. The
old shop, left open as an outlet for used and budget product, closed
within a year. A partnership with the Golden Apple comics store failed,
and an attempt to rebrand the shop as Duck Soup with the addition of
high-priced collectibles never caught fire.
These stabs at instilling new life into Rhino coincided with a
precipitous decline in the music business. Owner Richard Foos says: "As
bad as it is for everybody, it's much worse for independents. I don't
know all the reasons. It's so complicated. There's literally hundreds of
reasons."
Foos adds dispiritedly: "There's too many other things to do and too
many ways to get your music without paying $18 for a CD. . . . I don't
see a great future for physical product."
The demise of Rhino hits home on a very personal level for this writer.
For years, it was my neighborhood record store, conveniently located
between my Westwood Village apartment and the Santa Monica Boulevard
office of the film exhibitor I worked for.
It was the hip shop on the Westside -- one of the few places you could
buy that hot import album or that cool local punk 45. There, music
obsessives gathered to buy their records, socialize and, frequently,
argue with the store's highly opinionated clerks. In a gambit worthy of
"High Fidelity," Rhino for many years maintained a "Worst Customers
List," posted prominently behind the counter; the more obstreperous
patrons -- including, on more than one occasion, myself -- were duly
namechecked there.
As combative as things could get, the store also spawned its own tightly
knit community. When Rhino's fledgling record label wanted to promote
one of its early novelty acts, the Temple City Kazoo Orchestra, the
store drafted some of its regulars to march through Westwood Village,
where they serenaded passers-by with kazoo renditions of "Whole Lotta
Love" and other classic-rock chestnuts.
The era when music lovers on both sides of the retail counter bonded is
long gone. Foos notes with some astonishment that there are now no
free-standing independent stores selling music between West Hollywood
and Santa Monica. The options are Best Buy, Borders and Barnes & Noble.
"The days of going into a place like Rhino and saying, 'What's the cool
new import?' -- forget it," Foos says.
Things aren't any better for the big mall music operators: Witness the
bankruptcy filing last week of the 869-store Musicland chain.
Does this reflect a paradigm shift? Of course, but, if a new study from
England's University of Leicester is to be believed, it also reflects a
basic difference in the way consumers are looking at music. The school's
psychologists noted last week that music had "lost its aura," and was
now viewed as simply a commodity.
Says Foos with a sigh: "It's really sad and dangerous. Everybody's like
a silo."
Ave atque vale, Rhino Records. For some, you were a way of life.
(Chris Morris hosts "Watusi Rodeo" on Indie 103.1 in Los Angeles from 11
a.m.-1 p.m. every Sunday. http://www.indie1031.fm/shows/watusi.php)
Reuters/Hollywood Reporter
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Traditional retail is dying; the job of traditional retailers is to adjust their models accordingly. iPods have done wonders in reinvigorating the singles market, which leaves me to wonder why Rhino doesn't use its long history of oldies tastemaking to kickstart a market of out-of-print oldie singles. It won't be long before a "record shop" is where you go to make compilation CDs and get suggestions from staff experts.
C30, C60, C90, GO!
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Traditional retail is dying; the job of traditional retailers is to adjust their models accordingly. iPods have done wonders in reinvigorating the singles market, which leaves me to wonder why Rhino doesn't use its long history of oldies tastemaking to kickstart a market of out-of-print oldie singles. It won't be long before a "record shop" is where you go to make compilation CDs and get suggestions from staff experts.
C30, C60, C90, GO!
Damn, that's a brilliant idea. Did you come up with it by your lonesome or is it something rattling around amongst you industry insiders? I smell VC money. That sounds like one of those 'high touch' applications that requires face-to-face human interaction.
Besides, what else are out of work music geeks going to do?
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Traditional retail is dying; the job of traditional retailers is to adjust their models accordingly. iPods have done wonders in reinvigorating the singles market, which leaves me to wonder why Rhino doesn't use its long history of oldies tastemaking to kickstart a market of out-of-print oldie singles. It won't be long before a "record shop" is where you go to make compilation CDs and get suggestions from staff experts.
C30, C60, C90, GO!
Damn, that's a brilliant idea. Did you come up with it by your lonesome or is it something rattling around amongst you industry insiders? I smell VC money. That sounds like one of those 'high touch' applications that requires face-to-face human interaction.
Besides, what else are out of work music geeks going to do?
That's very kind of you to say, Mark. There's a growing number of us, not yet a critical mass, who believe that the playlist is the best-fit unit of musical consumption, and that when the music industry is democratic enough that you can buy roughly anything at any time, the keybosses will be the people who can sell you not just the song that you want, but the 10 songs you didn't know you wanted.
A friend of mine who's been working in playlist technology just sold his company, Webjay, to Yahoo last week. That gives me hope that it's more than just idle musing.
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Another impending sign of the Apocalypse.
http://disney.go.com/disneyrecords/Song-Albums/devo20/
Mark Mothersbaugh has been living in the belly of the beast for a long time now, but he's finally been assimilated by the Borg.
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Another impending sign of the Apocalypse.
http://disney.go.com/disneyrecords/Song-Albums/devo20/
Mark Mothersbaugh has been living in the belly of the beast for a long time now, but he's finally been assimilated by the Borg.
God. That is utterly frightening. What's next? Mini-Sex Pistols?
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If you haven't yet visited Village Music, you have until the end of September:
http://berlinbites.blogspot.com/2006/12/end-of-era.html
Take money. And set aside an afternoon.
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If you haven't yet visited Village Music, you have until the end of September:
http://berlinbites.blogspot.com/2006/12/end-of-era.html
Take money. And set aside an afternoon.
Ye gods! This is awful! Mike had the foresight to take me there last February. I could have spent a full day just rooting through the 45s. Ed Ward did some fantastic raconteurship there, and his idea in the comments about the EMP creating a replica of his space is genius.
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If you haven't yet visited Village Music, you have until the end of September:
http://berlinbites.blogspot.com/2006/12/end-of-era.html
Take money. And set aside an afternoon.
Ye gods! This is awful! Mike had the foresight to take me there last February. I could have spent a full day just rooting through the 45s. Ed Ward did some fantastic raconteurship there, and his idea in the comments about the EMP creating a replica of his space is genius.
Damn, we shoulda mad another trip while you were here, Gaz.
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"world's oldest record shop" (per the Guiness Book), to close:
http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,23569-2481411,00.html
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"Radio and Music: A New Blog":
http://radioandmusic.blogspot.com/
Cautionary, and with good reason.
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The best efforts of Sound Exchange et al. to kill Net radio are met with a response:
http://www.kurthanson.com/archive/news/061807/index.shtml
"In response to an impending royalty rate that, if implemented, would lead to the virtual shutdown of Internet radio in the U.S., thousands of webcasters plan to go silent next Tuesday, June 26, to draw attention to their industry's plight. . . . "
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Just a reminder: Village Music closes at the end of the month.
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2007/09/04/MNTDRT85B.DTL
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does this idea sound like something we've discussed here:
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2007/10/22/BUCFSSIE1.DTL&hw=mixtape&sn=001&sc=1000
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does this idea sound like something we've discussed here:
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2007/10/22/BUCFSSIE1.DTL&hw=mixtape&sn=001&sc=1000
That's interesting, I'm thinking there might be an angle for my startup to collaborate with them.
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RIAA sez: drop that iPod!
http://recordingindustryvspeople.blogspot.com/2007/12/riaa-files-supplemental-brief-in.html
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RIAA sez: drop that iPod!
http://recordingindustryvspeople.blogspot.com/2007/12/riaa-files-supplemental-brief-in.html
The RIAA should just f-f-f-f-f-fade away. Seriously. This shit is bringing about the industry's own demise.
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another end-of-an-era signifier: Mel's has replaced their old-school "45s" juke-boxes with CD players.
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This could be big news.
http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/industry_sectors/media/article3168528.ece
Robbie Williams issues call to arms in protest at EMI 'bean counters'
Adam Sherwin, Media Correspondent
Robbie Williams is going on strike in protest at the private equity firm that has taken over his record company, as other stars down tools in an artists’ revolt.
Williams, who has sold 70 million records for EMI, is leading a number of stars refusing to work for the company since its £3.2 billion takeover by Terra Firma, the financier. He is withholding the next album in his £80 million deal from EMI and his manager said Guy Hands, the new boss of EMI, was behaving like a “plantation owner”.
Coldplay, one of EMI’s few US chart-toppers, are also prepared to withdraw their labour. Their manager said that the band was considering its options after EMI’s head of music left this week, with thousands more redundancies expected.
Radiohead and Sir Paul McCartney have already walked out on EMI, which has cut advance payments to stars and told artists to work harder at promoting their music. EMI’s share of the British album market, already damaged by downloading, fell from 16 per cent to 9 per cent last year.
The US screenwriters’ strike, which brought Hollywood to a halt, has influenced pop stars, who believe that they can use their muscle to wrest control from the “bean-counters”.
A new Williams album, due for September release, should be a huge earner for EMI. But Tim Clark, Williams’s manager, told The Times: “The question is, ‘Should Robbie deliver the new album he is due to release to EMI?’ We have to say the answer is ‘No’. We have no idea how EMI will market and promote the album. They do not have anyone in the digital sphere capable of doing the job required. All we know is they are going to decimate their staff.”
Mr Clark discussed Williams’s future with Mr Hands, but said the financier was acting like a “plantation owner” who had stumbled into the record industry via a “vanity purchase”.
Williams, 33, who is recording with the hit producer Mark Ronson, wants to follow Radiohead’s example and release new music directly to fans through his website. Lucrative mobile deals with T-Mobile and Sony Ericsson are on the table.
He is seeking control over his back catalogue from EMI, the issue that prompted Radiohead’s departure, and a greater return on digital distribution of his music.
Mr Clark said: “EMI can sue or pay up his contract. Robbie needs to know what services EMI can provide to an artist of his standing.”
The 30-million album selling Coldplay, currently recording new material with Brian Eno, are upset at the departure of Tony Wadsworth, head of EMI’s UK music division. Dave Holmes, the band’s Los Angeles-based manager, told The Times: “Tony was the reason a lot of bands signed to EMI. Artists want to work with music people, not finance guys.”
He added: “Why would you want to release an album with a record company in the midst of massive lay-offs? Coldplay have a lot of options. They are in no hurry to deliver their new album.”
Mr Hands is keen to retain Williams. The £80 million deal signed in 2002 gives EMI a share of Williams’s substantial live and merchandise earnings. The deal protects the company from a downturn in his CD sales.
Yet Williams is holding firm. He said: “I might just put the B-sides to the next album out first online. Then put an album out in 2009. There definitely won’t be a tour any time soon.” Chris Morrison, manager of Damon Albarn, the Blur and Gorillaz star signed to EMI, said that artists did not want record companies to take a chunk of their live earnings.
Mr Morrison said: “Artists should have the freedom to make their own choices over concerts.” EMI sources said: “Many artists have raised fundamental questions about the record business in the digital age. EMI is working on a restructuring of its recorded music division to address the needs of artists in what is a very different market from the 1990s.”
Sour notes
1994 George Michael fails to persuade a court that his Sony recording deal is “contractual slavery”. Resigns to Sony years after losing £4 million battle
1993 Prince stamped the word “slave” on his cheek and changed his name to a symbol in a battle with Warner Bros for artistic and financial control
1991 The Stone Roses pour paint over the offices of Silvertone Records as a £1 million move to Geffen is delayed three years by a legal dispute
1987 Geffen sues Neil Young for $3 million after he delivers Transformer, a flop synth-rock album. The writ claims that he was deliberately making music “unrepresentative of Neil Young”
1978 Graham Parker attacks Mercury Records in the song Mercury Poisoning. It contains the lines: “Their geriatric staff thinks we’re freaks. They couldn’t sell kebabs to the Greeks”
1977 EMI fires the Sex Pistols, citing “adverse publicity”. The group kept a £40,000 advance and paid musical tribute: “E.M.I., Unlimited edition with an unlimited supply”
Source: Times database
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The comments in reply to this short article highlight a number of sites and services that should be on our collective radar (I've only tooled around with a few of them).
http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/01/23/lastfm-is-first-with-streaming-music-users-choose/index.html?hp
Probably not the best thread for this, except that it demonstrates a growing shift from push to pull in how we get our music.
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This could be big news.
http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/industry_sectors/media/article3168528.ece
Robbie Williams issues call to arms in protest at EMI 'bean counters'
that's awesome.
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A glimpse at what the future may hold, soon. Jim Griffin is a regular contributor to a mailing list I'm on; he's easily one of the most insightful people in all of music-tech convergence.
http://www.portfolio.com/news-markets/top-5/2008/03/27/Warners-New-Web-Guru
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A glimpse at what the future may hold, soon. Jim Griffin is a regular contributor to a mailing list I'm on; he's easily one of the most insightful people in all of music-tech convergence.
http://www.portfolio.com/news-markets/top-5/2008/03/27/Warners-New-Web-Guru
This might be The. Most. Accurate. description (in 25 words or less) of the state of the industry today:
"If I tell you to go listen to this band, you could pay, or you might not. It's pretty much up to you. So the music business has become a big tip jar."
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Prognostication on the future of radio and the charts from Rich Appel's latest Hz So Good newsletter:
RE-DEFINING THE HIT.
At one time, it was common to “grow an album” after putting out a series of singles. In that era, when the deejay said it was “the new song by the Lovin’ Spoonful,” he really meant it: the song hadn’t just been sitting around on an album for the past six months. In a few weeks’ time, if enough folks went out and bought the 45, it became the “latest hit” from the Spoonful: you got no argument on the terminology.
When the music world became album-centric, things went topsy-turvy: the album – the artist’s latest statement – became the new exciting thing, so second or third singles were old news to active listeners. Top 40 radio didn’t change much when that happened, even if kids were already intimate with “Bennie and the Jets” half a year before it was “new music.” It didn’t change the makeup of the pop chart, either: since Top 40 was the only format that mattered to chartmakers, everyone was happy to pretend that “Bennie” hadn’t existed until MCA released the commercial 45.
For awhile this new-but-not-really-new-single formula worked because every other radio format remained a sideshow. When fragmentation made its full impact felt, it meant that each niche could more easily use the term “new music” since, after all, it was new to those listeners. A hit was still a hit, only now everyone had different hits.
Now that we’ve come full circle - where we live in iTunes’ world, where songs rule and albums just about drool – we’re seeing a re-defining of both “new music” and the “hit.” For one, music that’s actually new tends to be available as what we used to call a single – now a “digital song” – before an album comes out. Lately, though, making just one song available before the album drops isn’t enough.
In the case of both the Jonas Brothers last summer and Taylor Swift more recently, three or four new songs were introduced over the five or six weeks before an album was made available. That wouldn’t have been a big deal in the Beatles’ day, but back then, you couldn’t buy an album cut. Now you can. So what happens? Each week when iTunes rolled out a new Jonas or Taylor track (that Taylor dated one of those boys is just a coincidence, I’m sure), fans bought it in droves and it shot up the charts. Meanwhile, since only one track was worked at radio, stations didn’t react to any of these one-week sales jumps, and the advance tracks nosedived down the chart just as fast as they’d come up.
From radio’s standpoint, nothing’s different. But from that of the music consumer, it’s a new world, one where he/she has the power to send any song up the charts no matter what radio’s doing. Since we’re only going to see more of this release strategy in the coming year, it begs the question, is this re-definition of what’s a “hit” – where the ball is squarely in the people’s court (props to Judge Wapner) - going to eventually change how hits are made?
Me says it will, but not just because of what iTunes does. Eventually, not only will iTunes have to share the spotlight with other digital song stores online, but free downloading, streaming and even iPod listening will become measurable. When that happens, look for a change in the pop charts the likes of which we’ve never seen before. When songs can be ranked entirely on the basis of how many people bought, and how many times they played any song during a week, the importance of radio airplay as popularity determinant will be severely diminished, maybe eliminated altogether. After all, active listening beats passive anyday.
This doesn’t mean that radio will stop being a tastemaker, anything but. It just means that the charts will no longer be influenced by how many times stations play a song, rather how many times the end-user does.
It may not be obvious right now, but this really is the dawn of a new day for the hit song. As they say, stay tuned. Or don’t, as the case may be.
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I'll throw this quiz in this thread (from today's SF Chronicle):
Is your favorite band a sellout?
Take this quiz to find out. You may need to make a few Internet searches. Allmusic.com is a good place to start, especially for question No. 9.
1. Has your favorite band or artist completed a "farewell tour" (or album), and then returned?
Yes (40 points per comeback)
No (0 points)
2. How many lead singers have been featured during the career of your favorite band?
One (0 points)
Two (15 points)
Three or more (30 points)
3. Have your favorite rockers (or their music) ever appeared in ...
The soundtrack to "Friends" or "Melrose Place"? (10 points per song)
A TV commercial? (30 points)
An animated movie? (60 points)
"The Star Wars Holiday Special"? (200 points)
4. Have they ever recorded a duet with ...
Sheryl Crow? (20 points)
Michael Jackson? (35 points)
A vocal track featuring a deceased artist? (55 points)
Kid Rock? (100 points)
5. If your favorite artists are not part of a hip-hop act, have they ever attempted to rap?
Yes (50 points)
No (0 points)
6. If they are a hip-hop act, have they ever attempted to sing?
Yes (25 points)
No (0 points)
7. Looking at your favorite act's discography, what percentage of total album releases have been greatest hits records, collections of B sides or other compilations?
Less than 10 percent (0 points)
Between 10 and 25 percent (15 points)
Between 25 and 50 percent (30 points)
More than 50 percent (50 points)
8. Has your favorite band or artist ever put out ...
An MTV Unplugged or VH1 Storytellers album? (15 points)
An album made up entirely of covers? (25 points)
A Christmas album? (40 points)
9. Is your favorite artist Sting or Eric Clapton?
Yes (100 points)
No (0 points)
10. Has your favorite artist or band (or any member) appeared in a reality show?
Yes (40 points)
No (0 points)
Your band's sellout total
0 to 50 - Not a sellout.
50-100 - Has some sellout qualities, but doesn't qualify as a full-on sellout. Be ready to drop out of the act's fan club if songs start to appear in movies starring Katherine Heigl.
100-250 - Definitely a sellout. These are the kinds of acts that throw one or two bad new tracks on a greatest hits album just so the hard-core fans will buy in. Best to cut ties immediately.
250 or more - Your favorite act would probably rather run you over in a crosswalk than be 30 seconds late to the recording for its latest McDonald's commercial. Find a nice Mission District alternative rock band that's never going to make it and follow it around instead.
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I'll throw this quiz in this thread (from today's SF Chronicle):
Is your favorite band a sellout?
Take this quiz to find out.
9. Is your favorite artist Sting or Eric Clapton?
Yes (100 points)
No (0 points)
that whole thing is brilliant, but the above question is my fave for obvious reasons.
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I'll throw this quiz in this thread (from today's SF Chronicle):
Is your favorite band a sellout?
Take this quiz to find out.
9. Is your favorite artist Sting or Eric Clapton?
Yes (100 points)
No (0 points)
that whole thing is brilliant, but the above question is my fave for obvious reasons.
I read that this morning and you were the first thing that came to my mind when I saw that question. :D
Also from the article:
When Steve Earle went on "Today" and had the guts to sing the controversial "John Walker's Blues" during the peak of pro-war sentiment - with Matt Lauer looking at him like he was a traitor - I felt proud to own all of his albums. And when his song "The Revolution Starts ..." showed up on a General Motors truck commercial, I kept jabbing myself with the remote control while hoping it was all a bad dream.
I heard an interview on KFOG some time back with Earle, and Irish Greg asked him about this, pointing out that Niel Young never has sold out like this. Which Steve said was true, but Niel Young already had the kind of financial success that made selling out a moot point. Earle doesn't have the kind of dough NOT to sell out, at least occasionally.
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By those standards neither ELP nor REM are selllouts.
Yay for me!
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3. Have your favorite rockers (or their music) ever appeared in ...
"The Star Wars Holiday Special"? (200 points)
For those who have never seen the JS's perfunctory performance here, it's at the 2:10 mark:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WQmlfu8KLxQ
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By those standards neither ELP nor REM are selllouts.
Yay for me!
NRBQ pulled 55 points based on 5 compilation albums out of their 36 albums released, and because one of them was a Christmas EP (mostly all originals though). They haven't appeared on any reality shows or animated movies, but they were depicted in one episode of the Simpsons. Which I think earns them a minus 10 points for sheer coolness. So they aren't a sell-out either. Sez me.
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By those standards neither ELP nor REM are selllouts.
Yay for me!
NRBQ pulled 55 points based on 5 compilation albums out of their 36 albums released, and because one of them was a Christmas EP (mostly all originals though). They haven't appeared on any reality shows or animated movies, but they were depicted in one episode of the Simpsons. Which I think earns them a minus 10 points for sheer coolness. So they aren't a sell-out either. Sez me.
indeed -
Simpsons appearance: minus 10
King of the Hill: minus 5
Sponge Bob: break-even
FamilyGuy: plus 25 ;)
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Bargain hunter alert: SF's Virgin Megastore closing in April; big clearance sales in March:
http://cbs5.com/local/virgin.megastore.closure.2.944354.html
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Riding the 49 Mission tonite, I noticed that Ritmo Latino, the big latino record store on the corner of 20th & Mission was gone! It's now a latino T-Mobile store. Ritmo Latino is a chain; dunno if it went under or just closed that particular store, which has been there for apx 15 years.
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An example of the evil in the record industry:
http://www.toomuchjoy.com/?p=1397
Warner made a $10,000 accounting error on our statement (in their favor, naturally). When I caught this mistake, and brought it to the attention of someone with the power to correct it, he wasn’t just befuddled by my anger – he laughed at it. “$10,000 is nothing!” he chuckled.
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Didja know the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame opened an annex in NYC's SoHo district last August? Well, don't bother now: it's closing already (http://networkedblogs.com/p19923711).
They had promoted an exhibit on John Lennon's years in NYC, but when I looked into it 9-10 months ago, I found it distressingly limited in its offerings, certainly nothing to warrant its hefty price tag (I forget exactly, but over $20.) So this doesn't surprise me one bit. If you can't sell me on John Lennon, you aren't going to make it.
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As Homer Simpson would say, "it's funny because it's true..."
http://www.theonion.com/articles/report-music-industry-made-18-in-2009,17051/