From the British Invasion in the '60s to grunge in the '90s, modern music's movements always seem to fit conveniently within the boundaries of decades.
Not so the naughts, when the most ubiquitous, significant hit turned out to be the iPod, while pop diffused into a shuffle of fleeting microtrends from dubstep to crunk to screamo.
And the music industry tanked, turning the oh-ohs into the uh-ohs. A benign paranoid hiccup for everyone else, the Y2K threat found a target in the record business as the turning of the millennial odometer signaled the start of a slow-motion crash brought on by the booming computer age. Piracy flourished, revenue fell and the CD steadily lost its status as coin of the realm.
On the upside, the digital rise also swept in unprecedented access to music, generated fan communities and enabled artists to record and distribute songs cheaply without label backing.
Music's fragmented landscape meant fewer mainstream goliaths, yet Avril Lavigne's Girlfriend video managed to log nearly 130 million views on YouTube and Shakira's Hips Don't Lie was streamed 85 million times.
Nothing defines pop's past decade as much as the Internet and its evolving powers to alter the way music is created, marketed, shared and consumed. And, some would say, devalued and plundered.
In 1999, the most profitable year in music history, the industry seemed to be riding a wave of limitless expansion. In March 2000, the boy-band boom had yet to go bust, and 'N Sync's No Strings Attached sold a staggering 2.4 million copies its opening week, still the biggest one-week tally on record. The album moved 9.9 million copies by year's end to help boost the industry bottom line to $14 billion.
Wave Bye Bye Bye to those fat numbers. The growing tentacles of piracy also had a grip on 2000 as Napster and Kazaa kicked off a frenzy of illicit file-sharing. Though both eventually were retooled into legitimate services, piracy foes spent years in a losing battle of Whac-A-Mole. The Recording Industry Association of America, the labels' lobbying group, sued 35,000 file-sharers from 2003 to 2009, when it abandoned the strategy.
Digital sales have climbed steadily, but not enough to offset declining CD sales, which have been off nearly 50% since 2000. In 2007, the Dreamgirls soundtrack set a SoundScan record for the lowest sum to occupy the No. 1 spot: 60,000 copies.
The single rises to power
Theft has taken a big bite. Worldwide digital sales reached $3.7 billion in 2008, according to the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry. But that's only 5% of what's actually consumed. Users illegally downloaded 40 billion files last year, the IFPL estimates. Peer-to-peer monitoring firm BigChampagne calculates that U.S. fans swipe 1 billion songs a month.
Though not reflected at the cash register, music consumption has grown to an all-time high, not just because of forbidden freebies, but also because it has never been so plentiful, accessible and portable.
Credit the iPod and iTunes, both introduced in 2001 to the joy of music lovers tired of forking over $18 for CDs with two or three desirable tracks. As albums sagged, the single rose to power, granting stellar runs for such earworms as Outkast's Hey Ya, James Blunt's You're Beautiful, Gnarls Barkley's Crazy, Train's Drops of Jupiter and Flo Rida's Low, the decade's top-selling digital song, with 5.2 million downloads.
The Internet's universe of music stretched to infinity at warp speed, empowering fans not only to cherry-pick tunes but also to anoint new stars, whether by texting votes for American Idol contestants or championing Lily Allen, Colbie Caillat and Sean Kingston, all launched on MySpace, activated in 2003.
In 2005, the 10-city Live 8 concerts boasting U2, Paul McCartney, Madonna and Pink Floyd drew 5 million viewers to AOL's live stream, nearly double the audience for ABC's prime-time highlights special.
YouTube's arrival in late 2005 instantly broadened music's reach, starting with OK Go's Here It Goes Again clip of the band on treadmills, viewed 48 million times. (Talent wasn't vital for a viral hit: The same year brought Tay Zonday's creepy Chocolate Rain, viewed 40 million times.)
As labels shrank, artists struck out on their own or sealed record pacts with Wal-Mart (the Eagles) or Starbucks (McCartney). U2 and Madonna signed huge deals with tour promoter Live Nation.
In 2006, the Tower Records chain went belly up. About 2,680 record shops have closed since 2005. Studios have struggled, too, as musicians — inspired by cyber-trailblazers from Prince to Nine Inch Nails— have adopted Pro Tools and a host of do-it-yourself computer programs and Web tools. Musicians communicated directly with fans via websites, Facebook and Twitter. (In February, Erykah Badu tweeted the minute-by-minute birth, from contractions to delivery, of her baby girl.)
A changed landscape
The innumerable online outlets and sheer volume of music has resulted in a culture of a gazillion spokes and no hub. With fans' shortened attention spans and labels' dwindling resources for nurturing acts, the pop machine no longer erects tentpoles like Michael Jackson or Bruce Springsteen. Eminem, the decade's top-selling artist, was one of few to attain water-cooler status. Will he, Kanye West, Taylor Swift, Beyoncé, Kings of Leon and a few other '00s standouts still make a stir in 2030? The Beatles have bragging rights to the decade's best-selling album, and they broke up in 1970. U2, formed in 1976, is the only act capable of mounting a global stadium tour.
As the decade fades, nobody has figured out an approach to replace a broken business model. Radiohead tried in October 2007, when it initially released In Rainbows with a digital tip jar for voluntary contributions, then as a physical CD three months later, when it sold 122,000 its first week.
Though the band offered fans an option to get the album free from its website, fans downloaded it from illicit outlets at 10 times the rate of new albums by other top acts.
Perhaps more troubling, In Rainbows may be remembered more for its experimental distribution than for its songs, just as the past decade's digital leaps will leave a deeper imprint than the endless march of prematurely hatched sensations, from Mims to Tweet to Blu Cantrell, who were hyped, devoured and dismissed in the course of one or two disposable ringtones.
source
Thursday, December 31, 2009
Monday, September 28, 2009
Music industry dynamics suggest iTunes price hike
Online music consumers likely to pay more if ASCAP and BMI succeed in download revenues grab
On April 7 of this year, the American public did a double take when the prodigious increase in select iTunes music was finally implemented. Prepare for a repeat performance. In a recent CNET report, various music associations including the American Society of Composers, Authors, and Publishers (ASCAP) and Broadcast Music Inc. (BMI) are currently lobbying Congress for legislation that would make it mandatory for anyone selling a download to pay performance fees. If passed, this delegation of payment would likely bring a second hike in music prices — a hike that will again test consumers’ devotion to the music industry.
Last Spring, iTunes announced their plan to create a “flexible” pricing structure after their dealings with three major music labels — Sony BMG, Warner Music and Universal — exempt Apple from complying with the corporations’ copyright protection software. These negotiations resulted in the categorization of iTunes songs into three types: current and classic hits, midline songs (moderately popular) and older songs. This proved to be a regrettable decision on the labels’ part; Digital Music News reported the major labels’ noticeable drop in sales in the following weeks.
Apple rivals have been quick to use iTunes’ supposed indiscretion to their advantage. Danny Stein, Chairman and CEO of eMusic, tried to subdue the flare-up by publicly pledging to never raise the price of a song above 99 cents, as long as he held his position at the company. With a monthly subscription of $11.99 and every song priced at 50 cents or below, eMusic consumers would actually stand to benefit financially, depending on their personal purchase volume.
With the dynamic of mass media in constant upheaval, the way music is produced and distributed will continue to change, as will our methods of obtaining it. The complaints about iTunes’ last price augmentation have not yet died down as this new situation is thrown into perspective. A Business Insider poll indicates that a majority of media consumers have started searching for alternative download sources after April’s fee fiasco; a prospective increase in already inflated music prices will undoubtedly make the iTunes Store even less popular.
According to CNET, ASCAP and BMI are focusing on elevating revenues by imposing fees in three discrete areas: music downloads, movie and television show downloads, and those 30-second song samples that have become a great resource to the hesitant buyer.
The opposition is fronted by Jonathan Potter, executive director of Digital Media Association (DiMA), a group that represents a variety of Web media corporations, Apple among them. CNET quotes Potter on the proposed performance fees:
“These guys are afraid that the business model is shifting away from public performances to a model of private performances … Songwriters are getting paid. They’re paid sync rights and [mechanical] rights. They aren’t getting paid for the public performance in a download because there is no public performance in a download.”
A 2005 verdict in a similar court case favored Web media companies, affirming that music downloads were not considered public performances, therefore were not chargeable. Apple in particular is a major target due to their larger-than-life profits and strict copyright laws.
David Renzer, Chairman and CEO of Universal Music Publishing Group, sides with songwriters and composers on the imposition of obligatory fees. In an interview with Encore, he publicized his support:
“[On iTunes] you can stream radio, and you can preview (tracks), things that we should be getting paid performance income for.”
In theory, we as consumers want nothing more than the artists and songwriters of our generation to benefit from their music. Without their dedication and talent we wouldn’t have any music to pay for. What I cannot write off as acceptable, however, is the “performance fee” on a sample of digitized music. Potter makes a compelling point in his argument against the music association’s suggested policy when he states plainly that we should not be paying for a non-existent public performance. Approving this policy will put pressure on Apple once again to shift the burden to music buyers, a prospect that will not bode well for the future of iTunes or the pocketbooks of its customers.
Apple is countering the inconvenience of raised costs with newer, more effective versions of the iPod, iTunes and MacBook laptops. Notably, chief executive Steve Jobs returned to the public sphere to the tune of lowered starting prices on Apple products, such as the iPod Touch, now starting at $199, down from $229. New iTunes software includes updated digitization called iTunes LP, an application that provides simple music sharing within households. These revisions to the Apple world are motivated not only by anticipated reaction to price swell, but also by competition from other music device suppliers, such as Microsoft.
In the end, it all comes down to how much we as consumers of mass media are willing to pay for technological advancement and how receptive corporations stuck in the past will be to the digitization of media in the future. Today, the debate is concerning music and movie download fees; tomorrow, the Internet will pose new problems to solve and crises to conquer. The world as we know it is changing; adjustment is imminent. The only uncertainty lies in who will be forced to adjust.
Source
On April 7 of this year, the American public did a double take when the prodigious increase in select iTunes music was finally implemented. Prepare for a repeat performance. In a recent CNET report, various music associations including the American Society of Composers, Authors, and Publishers (ASCAP) and Broadcast Music Inc. (BMI) are currently lobbying Congress for legislation that would make it mandatory for anyone selling a download to pay performance fees. If passed, this delegation of payment would likely bring a second hike in music prices — a hike that will again test consumers’ devotion to the music industry.
Last Spring, iTunes announced their plan to create a “flexible” pricing structure after their dealings with three major music labels — Sony BMG, Warner Music and Universal — exempt Apple from complying with the corporations’ copyright protection software. These negotiations resulted in the categorization of iTunes songs into three types: current and classic hits, midline songs (moderately popular) and older songs. This proved to be a regrettable decision on the labels’ part; Digital Music News reported the major labels’ noticeable drop in sales in the following weeks.
Apple rivals have been quick to use iTunes’ supposed indiscretion to their advantage. Danny Stein, Chairman and CEO of eMusic, tried to subdue the flare-up by publicly pledging to never raise the price of a song above 99 cents, as long as he held his position at the company. With a monthly subscription of $11.99 and every song priced at 50 cents or below, eMusic consumers would actually stand to benefit financially, depending on their personal purchase volume.
With the dynamic of mass media in constant upheaval, the way music is produced and distributed will continue to change, as will our methods of obtaining it. The complaints about iTunes’ last price augmentation have not yet died down as this new situation is thrown into perspective. A Business Insider poll indicates that a majority of media consumers have started searching for alternative download sources after April’s fee fiasco; a prospective increase in already inflated music prices will undoubtedly make the iTunes Store even less popular.
According to CNET, ASCAP and BMI are focusing on elevating revenues by imposing fees in three discrete areas: music downloads, movie and television show downloads, and those 30-second song samples that have become a great resource to the hesitant buyer.
The opposition is fronted by Jonathan Potter, executive director of Digital Media Association (DiMA), a group that represents a variety of Web media corporations, Apple among them. CNET quotes Potter on the proposed performance fees:
“These guys are afraid that the business model is shifting away from public performances to a model of private performances … Songwriters are getting paid. They’re paid sync rights and [mechanical] rights. They aren’t getting paid for the public performance in a download because there is no public performance in a download.”
A 2005 verdict in a similar court case favored Web media companies, affirming that music downloads were not considered public performances, therefore were not chargeable. Apple in particular is a major target due to their larger-than-life profits and strict copyright laws.
David Renzer, Chairman and CEO of Universal Music Publishing Group, sides with songwriters and composers on the imposition of obligatory fees. In an interview with Encore, he publicized his support:
“[On iTunes] you can stream radio, and you can preview (tracks), things that we should be getting paid performance income for.”
In theory, we as consumers want nothing more than the artists and songwriters of our generation to benefit from their music. Without their dedication and talent we wouldn’t have any music to pay for. What I cannot write off as acceptable, however, is the “performance fee” on a sample of digitized music. Potter makes a compelling point in his argument against the music association’s suggested policy when he states plainly that we should not be paying for a non-existent public performance. Approving this policy will put pressure on Apple once again to shift the burden to music buyers, a prospect that will not bode well for the future of iTunes or the pocketbooks of its customers.
Apple is countering the inconvenience of raised costs with newer, more effective versions of the iPod, iTunes and MacBook laptops. Notably, chief executive Steve Jobs returned to the public sphere to the tune of lowered starting prices on Apple products, such as the iPod Touch, now starting at $199, down from $229. New iTunes software includes updated digitization called iTunes LP, an application that provides simple music sharing within households. These revisions to the Apple world are motivated not only by anticipated reaction to price swell, but also by competition from other music device suppliers, such as Microsoft.
In the end, it all comes down to how much we as consumers of mass media are willing to pay for technological advancement and how receptive corporations stuck in the past will be to the digitization of media in the future. Today, the debate is concerning music and movie download fees; tomorrow, the Internet will pose new problems to solve and crises to conquer. The world as we know it is changing; adjustment is imminent. The only uncertainty lies in who will be forced to adjust.
Source
British Music Industry Split on Whether to Constrain or Terminate File Sharers’ Bandwidth
During a three hour meeting in London on Thursday night, a group of prominent British recording artists voted overwhelmingly to support a plan to warn music file sharers twice, then restrict their bandwidth. Although this debate directly concerns the U.K., legislators in other countries will likely watch how the situation plays out and could adopt similar legislation if Britain deems it a success.
The Featured Artists Coalition, including Lilly Allen, George Michael, Ed O’Brien of Radiohead, Billy Bragg, Badly Drawn Boy, Kate Nash, Robbie Williams, Mick Jones, Nick Mason of Pink Floyd and others, voted strongly in favor of a proposal to limit repeat infringers’ internet access, but stopped short of Lord Mandelson’s proposal to boot file sharers from the internet entirely.
This represents a more united front than these artists had presented in the past, when some members backed booting file sharers from the net while others (especially O’Brien and Mason) proffered a more tolerant view of file sharing. Their opposition to terminating infringers’ internet access is derived from research indicating that file sharers spend more money on music than other segments of the population.
However, much of the rest of the British music industry agrees with Mandelson that repeat infringers should be kicked off the net — at least temporarily. The Musicians’ Union, the royalty organization PRS, and several groups representing labels, managers and musicians support the idea of warning then temporarily suspending the heaviest infringers’ internet accounts “as a last resort.”
Regardless of whether heavy file sharers will have their accounts restricted or terminated, British ISP British Telecom claims that monitoring, warning, and restricting the bandwidth of file sharers would cost them $1.6 million a day, raising the rates of British internet subscribers — regardless of whether they’re music fans — by $38 per year, while adding no direct revenue to the music industry.
Considering the high cost of policing and disciplining internet subscribers, some wonder whether the money would be better spent directly compensating copyright holders for music being traded, rather than spending the money on enforcement. However, Geoff Taylor, chief executive of the British Phonographic Industry, called BT’s $1.6-million-per-day figure “unsubstantiated” and told the Guardian UK that the ISP should “recognize that reducing illegal use of its network is a cost of running a socially responsible business.”
One of the main stars to come out against file sharing, Lilly Allen, changed her tune after TechDirt pointed out the hypocrisy of her anti-file-sharing stance. The pop star had uploaded several MP3 “mix tapes” to her website containing the work of other artists and encouraged her fans to download them for free without compensating anyone. (If using bit torrent to access music results in getting your internet privileges limited to “basic e-mail and web access,” then putting free MP3s on a well-publicized website to boost your profile among fans should probably be grounds for losing cellphone access too.) Allen responded by deleting the MP3s. Then, after fans posted arguments against her position on her anti-file-sharing blog, she deleted just about all of the content on the website and threw her support behind the Featured Artists Coalition for last night’s vote.
“The last week or so there has been a perceived split in our opinions as artists… [but] we all came together,” Radiohead’s Ed O’Brien told The Guardian UK. “I think everyone has listened to one another and been human beings and reasonable
Source
The Featured Artists Coalition, including Lilly Allen, George Michael, Ed O’Brien of Radiohead, Billy Bragg, Badly Drawn Boy, Kate Nash, Robbie Williams, Mick Jones, Nick Mason of Pink Floyd and others, voted strongly in favor of a proposal to limit repeat infringers’ internet access, but stopped short of Lord Mandelson’s proposal to boot file sharers from the internet entirely.
This represents a more united front than these artists had presented in the past, when some members backed booting file sharers from the net while others (especially O’Brien and Mason) proffered a more tolerant view of file sharing. Their opposition to terminating infringers’ internet access is derived from research indicating that file sharers spend more money on music than other segments of the population.
However, much of the rest of the British music industry agrees with Mandelson that repeat infringers should be kicked off the net — at least temporarily. The Musicians’ Union, the royalty organization PRS, and several groups representing labels, managers and musicians support the idea of warning then temporarily suspending the heaviest infringers’ internet accounts “as a last resort.”
Regardless of whether heavy file sharers will have their accounts restricted or terminated, British ISP British Telecom claims that monitoring, warning, and restricting the bandwidth of file sharers would cost them $1.6 million a day, raising the rates of British internet subscribers — regardless of whether they’re music fans — by $38 per year, while adding no direct revenue to the music industry.
Considering the high cost of policing and disciplining internet subscribers, some wonder whether the money would be better spent directly compensating copyright holders for music being traded, rather than spending the money on enforcement. However, Geoff Taylor, chief executive of the British Phonographic Industry, called BT’s $1.6-million-per-day figure “unsubstantiated” and told the Guardian UK that the ISP should “recognize that reducing illegal use of its network is a cost of running a socially responsible business.”
One of the main stars to come out against file sharing, Lilly Allen, changed her tune after TechDirt pointed out the hypocrisy of her anti-file-sharing stance. The pop star had uploaded several MP3 “mix tapes” to her website containing the work of other artists and encouraged her fans to download them for free without compensating anyone. (If using bit torrent to access music results in getting your internet privileges limited to “basic e-mail and web access,” then putting free MP3s on a well-publicized website to boost your profile among fans should probably be grounds for losing cellphone access too.) Allen responded by deleting the MP3s. Then, after fans posted arguments against her position on her anti-file-sharing blog, she deleted just about all of the content on the website and threw her support behind the Featured Artists Coalition for last night’s vote.
“The last week or so there has been a perceived split in our opinions as artists… [but] we all came together,” Radiohead’s Ed O’Brien told The Guardian UK. “I think everyone has listened to one another and been human beings and reasonable
Source
Saturday, July 18, 2009
Burst the Industry Bubble
The balloon in the picture represents the industry... the music industry that is. The industry that continually suppresses the talents and creative expressiveness of the independent artist.
As with all things, new opportunities evolve and new venues are created that revolutionize the utter stagnation of each industry. The evolution of the music industry comes in the form of Official Street Buzz.com... Sign UP. Your Fans Vote. You Get Paid!
Now, if your fans can double click, you can get paid.
Source
Thursday, July 2, 2009
Pay for Play
Why does radio suck? Because most stations play only the songs the record companies pay them to. And things are going to get worse.
Does radio seem bad these days? Do all the hits sound the same, all the stars seem like cookie cutouts of one another?
It's because they do, and they are.
Why? Listeners may not realize it, but radio today is largely bought by the record companies. Most rock and Top 40 stations get paid to play the songs they spin by the companies that manufacture the records.
But it's not payola -- exactly. Here's how it works.
Standing between the record companies and the radio stations is a legendary team of industry players called independent record promoters, or "indies."
The indies are the shadowy middlemen record companies will pay hundreds of millions of dollars to this year to get songs played on the radio. Indies align themselves with certain radio stations by promising the stations "promotional payments" in the six figures. Then, every time the radio station adds a Shaggy or Madonna or Janet Jackson song to its playlist, the indie gets paid by the record label.
Indies are not the guys U2 or Destiny's Child thanked on Grammys night, but everyone in the business, artists included, understands that the indies make or break careers.
"It's a big fucking mudball," complains one radio veteran.
At first glance, the indies are just the people who grease the gears in a typical mechanism connecting wholesaler with retailer. After all, Pepsi distributors, for example, pay for placement in grocery stores, right?
Except that radio isn't really retail -- that's what the record stores are. Radio is an entity unique to the music industry. It's an independent force that, much to the industry's chagrin, represents the one tried-and-true way record companies know to sell their product.
Small wonder that the industry for decades has used money in various ways to influence what radio stations play. The days are long gone when a DJ made an impulse decision about what song to spin. The music industry is a $12 billion-a-year business; today, nearly every commercial music station in the country has an indie guarding its playlist. And for that right, the indie shells out hundreds of thousands of dollars a year to individual stations -- and collects a lot more from the major record labels.
Indeed, say many industry observers, very little of what we hear on today's radio stations isn't bought, one way or another.
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The indie promoter was once a tireless hustler, the lobbyist who worked the phones on behalf of record companies, cajoling station jocks and program directors, or P.D.s, to add a new song to their playlists. Sure, once in a while the indies showed their appreciation by sending some cocaine or hookers to station employees, but the colorful crew of fix-it men were basically providing a service: forging relationships with the gatekeepers in the complex world of radio, and turning that service into a deceptively simple and lucrative business. If record companies wanted access to radio, they had to pay.
In the 1990s, however, Washington moved steadily to deregulate the radio industry. Among other things, it removed most of America's decades-old restrictions on ownership. Today, the top three broadcasters control at least 60 percent of the stations in the top 100 markets in the U.S.
As that happened, indie promoters became big business.
Drugs and hookers are out; detailed invoices are in. Where indies were once scattered across the country, claiming a few dozen stations within a geographic territory, today's big firms stretch coast to coast, with hundreds of exclusive stations in every major format.
In effect, they've become an extraordinarily expensive phalanx of toll collectors who bill the record company every time a new song is added to a station's playlist.
And the indies do not come cheap.
There are 10,000 commercial radio stations in the United States; record companies rely on approximately 1,000 of the largest to create hits and sell records. Each of those 1,000 stations adds roughly three new songs to its playlist each week. The indies get paid for every one: $1,000 on average for an "add" at a Top 40 or rock station, but as high as $6,000 or $8,000 under certain circumstances.
That's a minimum $3 million worth of indie invoices sent out each week.
Now there's a new and more ominous development. There are rampant industry rumors that Clear Channel Communications, the country's largest radio station owner, is on the verge of formalizing a strategic alliance with one of the biggest indie promotion firms, Tri State Promotions & Marketing. The Cincinnati indie company has been closely aligned with the radio chain for years; now, sources suggest, Clear Channel will be using Tri State exclusively for the company's hundreds of music stations.
If the talk proves to be true, the move would dramatically alter radio's landscape in several ways -- and raise new questions about the effect of the nation's payola laws at a time when the Federal Communications Commission has seemingly given up on regulating radio.
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According to the FCC, there's nothing wrong with a radio station's accepting money in exchange for playing a song. The payment only becomes payola -- and illegal -- if the station fails to inform listeners about the cash changing hands.
But stations, of course, are reluctant to pepper their programming with announcements like "The previous Ricky Martin single was paid for by Sony Records." Besides that, stations want to maintain the illusion that they sift through stacks of records and pick out only the best ones for their listeners.
The secretive, and at times unseemly, indie system has been in place for decades. Rock radio pioneer Alan Freed was convicted in 1960 for accepting bribes in exchange for playing records. (What became known as the payola laws were passed as a response soon afterward.) More recently, legendary indie heavyweight Joe Isgro battled prosecutors for nearly a decade over payola-related charges before they were dismissed in 1996.
Isgro's tale of money, drugs and the mob was told in "Hit Men," Fredric Dannen's revealing 1991 book about the world of independent promoters and the extraordinary power they wielded over record companies.
Amazingly, says one radio veteran, "nothing's changed since 'Hit Men.' The cast of characters is different, but nothing's really changed."
One major-label V.P. agrees: "It's only changed color and form, but in essence it's the same. It's nothing but bullshit and operators and wasted money. But it's very intricate, and the system has been laid down for years."
Some in the increasingly sophisticated and global music business wonder if the time has finally come to break free from the costly chains of independent promotion. After all, no other entertainment industry vests so much power and pays so much money to outside sources who do so little work. Yet just-released figures indicate music sales were soft last year. Will record companies have the power, or the nerve, to walk away?
"Labels claim they're trying to cut back on indies, but everybody just laughs," says one radio veteran, who has both programmed stations and done indie promotion work. (He, like most of the people interviewed for this story, asked that his name not be used.) Adds another veteran: "Labels are pissed off and want to cut back, but they're powerless to do anything about it."
"The labels have created a monster," agrees longtime artist manager Ron Stone. Nevertheless, Stone views indies as an important insurance policy for his clients. "I never want to find out after the fact that we should've hired this indie or that indie. I want to cover all the bases.
"Because you only get 12 weeks for your record to get any traction at radio. After 12 weeks the next wave of record company singles come over the breach and if you don't have any traction you get washed away. But now it's become even more complicated and expensive because of consolidation. It's a high-stakes poker game."
Playing off record industry insecurities, indies have been winning this poker game for decades.
The Clear Channel/Tri State move would be a watershed. Arguably the most powerful force in the music business, Clear Channel's multibillion-dollar assets include 60 percent of the United States' rock-radio business and the leading Top 40 stations in major markets across the country, including KIIS Los Angeles, WHTZ New York, WJMN Boston, WKSC-FM Chicago, KHKS-FM Dallas and WHYI Miami. The company also has extensive holdings in concert venues, concert production firms and outdoor advertising companies, stemming from its merger with the SFX conglomerate last year.
In that arena, Tri State would appear to be a minor player. But by maintaining a close relationship with Clear Channel as the conglomerate mushroomed and bought hundreds of new radio stations in recent years, Tri State has become synonymous with Clear Channel in the industry.
That relationship has translated into power and wealth. "Tri State's billings are probably up more than 1,000 percent since deregulation, considering how many more stations they have influence over," says one indie promoter.
Tri State's chiefs, Lenny Lyons and Bill Scull, did not return phone calls seeking comment.
Clear Channel stations not already using Tri State exclusively are likely to have to terminate their contracts with indie competitors, such as longtime powerhouse Jeff McClusky & Associates. That already may be happening. "They're clearing the decks," says one person who works at a major-label radio promotion department. (McClusky declined to comment.)
The move could mean higher indie fees for record companies. Tri State was charging labels $1,000 an add at some stations, but sources say those rates could jump considerably if Clear Channel and Tri State join forces.
Indeed, particularly in this deregulatory era, Clear Channel can basically charge whatever it wants. Why? Because record companies realize they can't create a hit without help from the conglomerate.
With that kind of clout, Clear Channel, through Tri State, could institute national buys for new singles. "Labels would pay $100,000 or $200,000 to get a single added to all the Clear Channel format stations one week," suggests one radio source. "And if they don't pay, there is no chance in hell they're getting that song on the radio without Tri State. If it's not on the list, it's not on stations."
And if the song isn't played on the radio, chances are it's not going to make the record company any money.
That raises real red flags at the record companies. "Tolls go up if there's only one road into town. And today you cannot have a hit record without Clear Channel or Tri State," says one record company president whose label recently scored a top-five hit on pop radio with the help of indie promoters. "That allows for an abusive type of toll collections. It seems to be getting out of hand. It's creating burdensome costs and it's screwing with the economics of the music business."
And perhaps most important, any long-term deal between Clear Channel and Tri State would essentially eliminate the all-important middleman. Record companies would instead be paying Tri State for airplay on Clear Channel stations. "That would put it into the realm of payola," says one record company promotion exec.
Clear Channel CEO Randy Michaels recently told the Los Angeles Times that the company does want a piece of the promotional pie, but only through an odd new twist: It plans to sell promotional packages to record companies that would identify the artist after each song is played.
But in a business swimming in money, some doubt things could become that cut and dried. For instance, what Clear Channel is proposing is something stations usually do for free; it's called "back-announcing," letting listeners know which artist they just heard. Will Clear Channel stations now only I.D. songs if the labels pay for the service?
"It sounds like extortion to me," says a former programmer. (Clear Channel executives were not available for comment.)
If the practice takes hold, look for competing groups, like Viacom's Infinity Broadcasting, to start hitting up labels for similar commercial buys. "It will throw the whole system into chaos," fears one indie.
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The indies' power illustrates just how crucial radio, especially Top 40, is in generating CD sales. (U.S. consumers bought more than 700 million CDs last year.) Steady touring, an Internet presence, glowing press and MTV help, of course, but mainstream radio play is still the engine that drives the music business.
Yet radio has traditionally been a brood of literally thousands of sometimes spatting siblings, each typically run by a P.D. with high self-regard.
The problem for record companies has always been that there are too many radio stations -- and too many egos -- nationwide for label staffers to keep close tabs on. So they need to hire indies, people with close business relationships in different markets. (Third-party indies have traditionally insulated labels from direct involvement in any payola activity as well.)
Here's how the game is played today:
The reality is, disc jockeys were cut out of music-making decisions at stations many years ago. Virtually all commercial radio airplay is determined by program directors, who typically construct elaborate schedules directing the DJs what to play and when.
Today, thanks to consolidation, even station program directors often get their playlist cues from above -- from general managers, station owners or, in this age of consolidation, regional program directors.
So many indies no longer bother to target the P.D.s. Instead, they go straight to the general managers or owners and cut deals, typically guaranteeing a station in a medium-sized market roughly $75,000 to $100,000 annually in what is termed "promotional support." The station claims that the money goes to buying new station vans, T-shirts or giveaway prizes; in reality, the station spends the cash any way it wants.
That payment makes the indie the station's exclusive point man, the only one (or at least the first one) its programmers will talk to about adding new singles. Once that indie has "claimed" a station, he (there are very few shes in the business) sends out a notice to record companies, letting them know he will invoice them every time the station adds a song to its playlist.
"The truth is, you could making a handsome living, and have a gigantic house in Greenville, S.C., for instance, if you have just six exclusive stations there," explains one industry veteran. (Arbitron ranks Greenville as the 61st largest radio market, with a metro population of 750,000.) "You could gross between half a million and 1 million dollars each year. That's with no staff -- just a couple of phones and a fax machine. Because somebody is going to pay you $1,000 every time one of those Greenville stations adds a song. And that $1,000 is just the average. Columbia records may be dying to get a single on, so they say, 'We'll pay you $2,500 for this add.'"
Do the math: six stations in a market like Greenville adding three songs a week, 50 weeks of the year. That represents about $900,000 worth of invoiced adds. If the indie is paying each station $75,000 a year in "promotional support," that leaves him with $450,000.
But that's just the beginning. There are additional sources of indie income, including retainers, "bill-backs" and "spin maintenance." Along with being paid on a per-add basis, some indies earn a retainer (roughly $800 a week) just to call stations on behalf of a song. Bill-backs are essentially second invoices -- to cover "promotional purposes" -- that indies send to record companies on top of the one for the add. If the add cost $2,000, the indie often sends a $1,000 bill-back invoice as well.
Meanwhile, the cost of the add covers just that: getting the song added to the playlist. If labels want to increase the spins (or number of times a song is played each week), that costs money, too. "There are spin programs you can buy," explains one record company source, such as "$4,000 to make the song top 15 at the station."
In the past, if indies wanted to increase their billings by getting stations to add more songs, they could employ "paper adds." Stations would notify labels that a song was on the playlist so the indie got paid, but in reality the single never got spun. Today, however, all key radio stations are monitored electronically by a company called Broadcast Data Service, which gives labels a detailed readout of actual airplay. Paper adds no longer pass the test.
The solution? A so-called lunar rotation.
"I've got one station that during crunch time in September and October, when every label is desperate for fourth-quarter adds, will do eight adds a week for four weeks in a row at $2,000 a pop," says one label source. That's 32 added songs -- and $64,000 in indie invoices -- for just one month. But the station's playlist could never support that many new songs. (With today's tightly controlled playlists, any new song is a risk that can cause listeners to switch to a channel with an older and more comforting hit.)
Most of these new "adds" are played only in the early-morning hours, or in the "lunar rotation." They are detected by BDS, but don't really affect the station's playlist or ratings.
For record companies, indie costs can be staggering. Just to launch a single at rock radio over several weeks can cost between $100,000 and $250,000 in indie fees. What exactly do labels get in return? "I'll be damned if I know," says artist manager Stone. "It's bizarre." (Labels can sometimes get artists to pay the indie promotion costs, but not always.)
Regardless, the No. 1 rule of radio promotion is that the indie always gets paid. Even if rock programmers discover a good song by a new band on their own, and add it to their playlists because they like it, the station's indie gets paid for it.
Even if someone at Universal Records persuades a pop station to play Nelly's new single "Ride Wit Me," the indie gets paid. Even if the song is a sure hit that needs almost no promotion, like Aerosmith's latest, "Jaded," the indie gets paid. "Either way the invoices arrive and you pay, in the interest of keeping everybody happy," says one former programmer.
The fear is that if a label tangles with an indie over billing, he could torpedo the label's next project by bad-mouthing a new single or keeping it off the air until his previous invoice is paid.
As messy as the relationship can be, the third-party arrangement between labels, indies and stations is crucial for appearance' sake. Today, indies pay stations for "access," not airplay. At least in theory.
"Everyone says indies don't force stations to add records. That's ridiculous," says one rock programmer who has worked in a Top 10 market. "Because [if there is friction] the indie will get on the phone with the station G.M. and say, 'Look, your P.D. has not been cooperative over the last few months on adds I need.' The G.M. either says to the indie, 'Our relationship is about access, not influence,' or he caves. Most G.M.s cave and have a word with the P.D.: 'Look, we have $100,000 a year riding on this relationship with our indie.' Then suddenly -- bam -- a song you know the P.D. hates shows up on the air."
"Record companies say, 'We're not doing anything illegal; we're just paying indies to promote the records," says another programmer. "And indies say we're not doing anything wrong; we're just helping market a radio station. Everybody toes the company line on this.
"But indies are like money launderers; they make sure record company money gets to radio stations, but in a different form."
Source
Does radio seem bad these days? Do all the hits sound the same, all the stars seem like cookie cutouts of one another?
It's because they do, and they are.
Why? Listeners may not realize it, but radio today is largely bought by the record companies. Most rock and Top 40 stations get paid to play the songs they spin by the companies that manufacture the records.
But it's not payola -- exactly. Here's how it works.
Standing between the record companies and the radio stations is a legendary team of industry players called independent record promoters, or "indies."
The indies are the shadowy middlemen record companies will pay hundreds of millions of dollars to this year to get songs played on the radio. Indies align themselves with certain radio stations by promising the stations "promotional payments" in the six figures. Then, every time the radio station adds a Shaggy or Madonna or Janet Jackson song to its playlist, the indie gets paid by the record label.
Indies are not the guys U2 or Destiny's Child thanked on Grammys night, but everyone in the business, artists included, understands that the indies make or break careers.
"It's a big fucking mudball," complains one radio veteran.
At first glance, the indies are just the people who grease the gears in a typical mechanism connecting wholesaler with retailer. After all, Pepsi distributors, for example, pay for placement in grocery stores, right?
Except that radio isn't really retail -- that's what the record stores are. Radio is an entity unique to the music industry. It's an independent force that, much to the industry's chagrin, represents the one tried-and-true way record companies know to sell their product.
Small wonder that the industry for decades has used money in various ways to influence what radio stations play. The days are long gone when a DJ made an impulse decision about what song to spin. The music industry is a $12 billion-a-year business; today, nearly every commercial music station in the country has an indie guarding its playlist. And for that right, the indie shells out hundreds of thousands of dollars a year to individual stations -- and collects a lot more from the major record labels.
Indeed, say many industry observers, very little of what we hear on today's radio stations isn't bought, one way or another.
- - - - - - - - - - - -
The indie promoter was once a tireless hustler, the lobbyist who worked the phones on behalf of record companies, cajoling station jocks and program directors, or P.D.s, to add a new song to their playlists. Sure, once in a while the indies showed their appreciation by sending some cocaine or hookers to station employees, but the colorful crew of fix-it men were basically providing a service: forging relationships with the gatekeepers in the complex world of radio, and turning that service into a deceptively simple and lucrative business. If record companies wanted access to radio, they had to pay.
In the 1990s, however, Washington moved steadily to deregulate the radio industry. Among other things, it removed most of America's decades-old restrictions on ownership. Today, the top three broadcasters control at least 60 percent of the stations in the top 100 markets in the U.S.
As that happened, indie promoters became big business.
Drugs and hookers are out; detailed invoices are in. Where indies were once scattered across the country, claiming a few dozen stations within a geographic territory, today's big firms stretch coast to coast, with hundreds of exclusive stations in every major format.
In effect, they've become an extraordinarily expensive phalanx of toll collectors who bill the record company every time a new song is added to a station's playlist.
And the indies do not come cheap.
There are 10,000 commercial radio stations in the United States; record companies rely on approximately 1,000 of the largest to create hits and sell records. Each of those 1,000 stations adds roughly three new songs to its playlist each week. The indies get paid for every one: $1,000 on average for an "add" at a Top 40 or rock station, but as high as $6,000 or $8,000 under certain circumstances.
That's a minimum $3 million worth of indie invoices sent out each week.
Now there's a new and more ominous development. There are rampant industry rumors that Clear Channel Communications, the country's largest radio station owner, is on the verge of formalizing a strategic alliance with one of the biggest indie promotion firms, Tri State Promotions & Marketing. The Cincinnati indie company has been closely aligned with the radio chain for years; now, sources suggest, Clear Channel will be using Tri State exclusively for the company's hundreds of music stations.
If the talk proves to be true, the move would dramatically alter radio's landscape in several ways -- and raise new questions about the effect of the nation's payola laws at a time when the Federal Communications Commission has seemingly given up on regulating radio.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
According to the FCC, there's nothing wrong with a radio station's accepting money in exchange for playing a song. The payment only becomes payola -- and illegal -- if the station fails to inform listeners about the cash changing hands.
But stations, of course, are reluctant to pepper their programming with announcements like "The previous Ricky Martin single was paid for by Sony Records." Besides that, stations want to maintain the illusion that they sift through stacks of records and pick out only the best ones for their listeners.
The secretive, and at times unseemly, indie system has been in place for decades. Rock radio pioneer Alan Freed was convicted in 1960 for accepting bribes in exchange for playing records. (What became known as the payola laws were passed as a response soon afterward.) More recently, legendary indie heavyweight Joe Isgro battled prosecutors for nearly a decade over payola-related charges before they were dismissed in 1996.
Isgro's tale of money, drugs and the mob was told in "Hit Men," Fredric Dannen's revealing 1991 book about the world of independent promoters and the extraordinary power they wielded over record companies.
Amazingly, says one radio veteran, "nothing's changed since 'Hit Men.' The cast of characters is different, but nothing's really changed."
One major-label V.P. agrees: "It's only changed color and form, but in essence it's the same. It's nothing but bullshit and operators and wasted money. But it's very intricate, and the system has been laid down for years."
Some in the increasingly sophisticated and global music business wonder if the time has finally come to break free from the costly chains of independent promotion. After all, no other entertainment industry vests so much power and pays so much money to outside sources who do so little work. Yet just-released figures indicate music sales were soft last year. Will record companies have the power, or the nerve, to walk away?
"Labels claim they're trying to cut back on indies, but everybody just laughs," says one radio veteran, who has both programmed stations and done indie promotion work. (He, like most of the people interviewed for this story, asked that his name not be used.) Adds another veteran: "Labels are pissed off and want to cut back, but they're powerless to do anything about it."
"The labels have created a monster," agrees longtime artist manager Ron Stone. Nevertheless, Stone views indies as an important insurance policy for his clients. "I never want to find out after the fact that we should've hired this indie or that indie. I want to cover all the bases.
"Because you only get 12 weeks for your record to get any traction at radio. After 12 weeks the next wave of record company singles come over the breach and if you don't have any traction you get washed away. But now it's become even more complicated and expensive because of consolidation. It's a high-stakes poker game."
Playing off record industry insecurities, indies have been winning this poker game for decades.
The Clear Channel/Tri State move would be a watershed. Arguably the most powerful force in the music business, Clear Channel's multibillion-dollar assets include 60 percent of the United States' rock-radio business and the leading Top 40 stations in major markets across the country, including KIIS Los Angeles, WHTZ New York, WJMN Boston, WKSC-FM Chicago, KHKS-FM Dallas and WHYI Miami. The company also has extensive holdings in concert venues, concert production firms and outdoor advertising companies, stemming from its merger with the SFX conglomerate last year.
In that arena, Tri State would appear to be a minor player. But by maintaining a close relationship with Clear Channel as the conglomerate mushroomed and bought hundreds of new radio stations in recent years, Tri State has become synonymous with Clear Channel in the industry.
That relationship has translated into power and wealth. "Tri State's billings are probably up more than 1,000 percent since deregulation, considering how many more stations they have influence over," says one indie promoter.
Tri State's chiefs, Lenny Lyons and Bill Scull, did not return phone calls seeking comment.
Clear Channel stations not already using Tri State exclusively are likely to have to terminate their contracts with indie competitors, such as longtime powerhouse Jeff McClusky & Associates. That already may be happening. "They're clearing the decks," says one person who works at a major-label radio promotion department. (McClusky declined to comment.)
The move could mean higher indie fees for record companies. Tri State was charging labels $1,000 an add at some stations, but sources say those rates could jump considerably if Clear Channel and Tri State join forces.
Indeed, particularly in this deregulatory era, Clear Channel can basically charge whatever it wants. Why? Because record companies realize they can't create a hit without help from the conglomerate.
With that kind of clout, Clear Channel, through Tri State, could institute national buys for new singles. "Labels would pay $100,000 or $200,000 to get a single added to all the Clear Channel format stations one week," suggests one radio source. "And if they don't pay, there is no chance in hell they're getting that song on the radio without Tri State. If it's not on the list, it's not on stations."
And if the song isn't played on the radio, chances are it's not going to make the record company any money.
That raises real red flags at the record companies. "Tolls go up if there's only one road into town. And today you cannot have a hit record without Clear Channel or Tri State," says one record company president whose label recently scored a top-five hit on pop radio with the help of indie promoters. "That allows for an abusive type of toll collections. It seems to be getting out of hand. It's creating burdensome costs and it's screwing with the economics of the music business."
And perhaps most important, any long-term deal between Clear Channel and Tri State would essentially eliminate the all-important middleman. Record companies would instead be paying Tri State for airplay on Clear Channel stations. "That would put it into the realm of payola," says one record company promotion exec.
Clear Channel CEO Randy Michaels recently told the Los Angeles Times that the company does want a piece of the promotional pie, but only through an odd new twist: It plans to sell promotional packages to record companies that would identify the artist after each song is played.
But in a business swimming in money, some doubt things could become that cut and dried. For instance, what Clear Channel is proposing is something stations usually do for free; it's called "back-announcing," letting listeners know which artist they just heard. Will Clear Channel stations now only I.D. songs if the labels pay for the service?
"It sounds like extortion to me," says a former programmer. (Clear Channel executives were not available for comment.)
If the practice takes hold, look for competing groups, like Viacom's Infinity Broadcasting, to start hitting up labels for similar commercial buys. "It will throw the whole system into chaos," fears one indie.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
The indies' power illustrates just how crucial radio, especially Top 40, is in generating CD sales. (U.S. consumers bought more than 700 million CDs last year.) Steady touring, an Internet presence, glowing press and MTV help, of course, but mainstream radio play is still the engine that drives the music business.
Yet radio has traditionally been a brood of literally thousands of sometimes spatting siblings, each typically run by a P.D. with high self-regard.
The problem for record companies has always been that there are too many radio stations -- and too many egos -- nationwide for label staffers to keep close tabs on. So they need to hire indies, people with close business relationships in different markets. (Third-party indies have traditionally insulated labels from direct involvement in any payola activity as well.)
Here's how the game is played today:
The reality is, disc jockeys were cut out of music-making decisions at stations many years ago. Virtually all commercial radio airplay is determined by program directors, who typically construct elaborate schedules directing the DJs what to play and when.
Today, thanks to consolidation, even station program directors often get their playlist cues from above -- from general managers, station owners or, in this age of consolidation, regional program directors.
So many indies no longer bother to target the P.D.s. Instead, they go straight to the general managers or owners and cut deals, typically guaranteeing a station in a medium-sized market roughly $75,000 to $100,000 annually in what is termed "promotional support." The station claims that the money goes to buying new station vans, T-shirts or giveaway prizes; in reality, the station spends the cash any way it wants.
That payment makes the indie the station's exclusive point man, the only one (or at least the first one) its programmers will talk to about adding new singles. Once that indie has "claimed" a station, he (there are very few shes in the business) sends out a notice to record companies, letting them know he will invoice them every time the station adds a song to its playlist.
"The truth is, you could making a handsome living, and have a gigantic house in Greenville, S.C., for instance, if you have just six exclusive stations there," explains one industry veteran. (Arbitron ranks Greenville as the 61st largest radio market, with a metro population of 750,000.) "You could gross between half a million and 1 million dollars each year. That's with no staff -- just a couple of phones and a fax machine. Because somebody is going to pay you $1,000 every time one of those Greenville stations adds a song. And that $1,000 is just the average. Columbia records may be dying to get a single on, so they say, 'We'll pay you $2,500 for this add.'"
Do the math: six stations in a market like Greenville adding three songs a week, 50 weeks of the year. That represents about $900,000 worth of invoiced adds. If the indie is paying each station $75,000 a year in "promotional support," that leaves him with $450,000.
But that's just the beginning. There are additional sources of indie income, including retainers, "bill-backs" and "spin maintenance." Along with being paid on a per-add basis, some indies earn a retainer (roughly $800 a week) just to call stations on behalf of a song. Bill-backs are essentially second invoices -- to cover "promotional purposes" -- that indies send to record companies on top of the one for the add. If the add cost $2,000, the indie often sends a $1,000 bill-back invoice as well.
Meanwhile, the cost of the add covers just that: getting the song added to the playlist. If labels want to increase the spins (or number of times a song is played each week), that costs money, too. "There are spin programs you can buy," explains one record company source, such as "$4,000 to make the song top 15 at the station."
In the past, if indies wanted to increase their billings by getting stations to add more songs, they could employ "paper adds." Stations would notify labels that a song was on the playlist so the indie got paid, but in reality the single never got spun. Today, however, all key radio stations are monitored electronically by a company called Broadcast Data Service, which gives labels a detailed readout of actual airplay. Paper adds no longer pass the test.
The solution? A so-called lunar rotation.
"I've got one station that during crunch time in September and October, when every label is desperate for fourth-quarter adds, will do eight adds a week for four weeks in a row at $2,000 a pop," says one label source. That's 32 added songs -- and $64,000 in indie invoices -- for just one month. But the station's playlist could never support that many new songs. (With today's tightly controlled playlists, any new song is a risk that can cause listeners to switch to a channel with an older and more comforting hit.)
Most of these new "adds" are played only in the early-morning hours, or in the "lunar rotation." They are detected by BDS, but don't really affect the station's playlist or ratings.
For record companies, indie costs can be staggering. Just to launch a single at rock radio over several weeks can cost between $100,000 and $250,000 in indie fees. What exactly do labels get in return? "I'll be damned if I know," says artist manager Stone. "It's bizarre." (Labels can sometimes get artists to pay the indie promotion costs, but not always.)
Regardless, the No. 1 rule of radio promotion is that the indie always gets paid. Even if rock programmers discover a good song by a new band on their own, and add it to their playlists because they like it, the station's indie gets paid for it.
Even if someone at Universal Records persuades a pop station to play Nelly's new single "Ride Wit Me," the indie gets paid. Even if the song is a sure hit that needs almost no promotion, like Aerosmith's latest, "Jaded," the indie gets paid. "Either way the invoices arrive and you pay, in the interest of keeping everybody happy," says one former programmer.
The fear is that if a label tangles with an indie over billing, he could torpedo the label's next project by bad-mouthing a new single or keeping it off the air until his previous invoice is paid.
As messy as the relationship can be, the third-party arrangement between labels, indies and stations is crucial for appearance' sake. Today, indies pay stations for "access," not airplay. At least in theory.
"Everyone says indies don't force stations to add records. That's ridiculous," says one rock programmer who has worked in a Top 10 market. "Because [if there is friction] the indie will get on the phone with the station G.M. and say, 'Look, your P.D. has not been cooperative over the last few months on adds I need.' The G.M. either says to the indie, 'Our relationship is about access, not influence,' or he caves. Most G.M.s cave and have a word with the P.D.: 'Look, we have $100,000 a year riding on this relationship with our indie.' Then suddenly -- bam -- a song you know the P.D. hates shows up on the air."
"Record companies say, 'We're not doing anything illegal; we're just paying indies to promote the records," says another programmer. "And indies say we're not doing anything wrong; we're just helping market a radio station. Everybody toes the company line on this.
"But indies are like money launderers; they make sure record company money gets to radio stations, but in a different form."
Source
Sunday, January 11, 2009
When The Streets Take Yo A** Under
We like to keep the blogs music related until we see some ish like this... no more words for this one, check it out.
Absolutely crazy...A Texas death row inmate with a history of mental problems pulled out his only good eye, authorities said Friday.
Andre Thomas told officers he ate it.
Thomas, 25, was arrested for the fatal stabbings of his estranged wife, their young son and her 13-month-old daughter in March 2004. Their hearts also had been ripped out. He was convicted and condemned for the infant’s death.
While in the Grayson County Jail in Sherman, Thomas similarly had plucked out his right eye before his trial later in 2004. A judge subsequently ruled he was competent to stand trial.
A death-row officer at the Polunsky Unit of the Texas Department of Criminal Justice found Thomas in his cell with blood on his face and had him taken to the unit infirmary.
“Thomas said he pulled out his eye and subsequently ingested it,” agency spokesman Jason Clark said Friday.
Thomas was treated at East Texas Medical Center in Tyler after the Dec. 9 incident. Then he was transferred and remains at the Jester Unit, a prison psychiatric facility southwest of Houston.
“He will finally be able to receive the mental health care that we had wanted and begged for from day 1,” Bobbie Peterson-Cate, Thomas’ trial attorney, told the Sherman Herald Democrat. “He is insane and mentally ill. It is exactly the same reason he pulled out the last one.”
Thomas does not have an execution date.
The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals in October upheld his conviction and death sentence for the death of 13-month-old Leyha Marie Hughes. Also killed March 27, 2004, were his wife, Laura Christine Boren, 20, and their son, Andre Lee, 4.
Thomas, from Texoma, walked into the Sherman Police Department and told a dispatcher he had just murdered the three and had stabbed himself in the chest.
Thomas told police how he put his victims’ hearts in his pocket and left their apartment, took them home, put them in a plastic bag and threw them in the trash.
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