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Jem Aswad: What's the musical climate like now?
Bill Brown: I think things are more song-driven than artist-driven. It's been like that in Europe for quite awhile. I think consumers have a shorter attention span, less patience, they want to be hit over the head immediately. They don't really listen to an entire album, and if a song doesn't hit them immediately they don't really go back to it. I guess I'm speaking primarily from an urban/hip-hop/rap world because that's what I deal with more than anything, but I think it's true, to a lesser degree, across the board. I also think technologically, we're sort of teaching people to go after songs rather than artists, with the ipod and downloading, and the fact that compilations continue to sell really well.
JA: It's like if you think of an album as a container, the container's gone. Mark Fried: We've been limited to 12 or 13 tracks historically, but now it's as many as an artist wants to present or post, which is kind of exciting, because it opens up the boundaries. And publishing-wise, it potentially adds mechanical royalties.* Andy Fuhrmann: I think it actually might turn the record business into a pennies business, like publishing. Plus, if you load in an album, the songs come up alphabetically, which means the concept of sequencing is gone. So artists should probably sequence their albums alphabetically.
(laughter)
Randy Sabiston: I got the Beatles' new "Let it Be… Naked" album—and I bought it!—and when I downloaded it onto my ipod, I renamed it "Get Back," which was the album and the film's working title. The fact that I could change its name—and now you can buy half an album or make your own album, it's a great thing to be able to customize something like that.
MF: Yeah, you can make a greatest-hits collection based on how many times certain songs have been downloaded.
AF: What happens to all those songs that we count on that are along for the ride that don't get to ride anymore? Like b-sides?
MF: It's going to change the way we do business, the way we market songs and catalogs, drastically.
AF: It also enhances what we do because better songs will be selected. JA: How has downloading changed your jobs? RS: I don't feel like it's that different. I'm still motivated by the hair-standing-up facstor. If I'm moved, it doesn't matter what format I hear the song in. That's always been my criteria. BB: I actually started as a publisher just as the transition began, so it's been a real learning experience. Because you sort of expect publishing to be one thing, and it's transforming before your eyes, so you're learning and transitioning at the same time.
MF: I don't think A&R has changed. That gig is the same—if anything, with the internet, we have more means of gauging what people are liking. Before, we relied on a kind of clunky network of mom-and-pop record stores and college radio DJs, and now we have the whole world online talking to each other. We can witness those conversations, and that gives us a great sense of what the trends are.
AF: The record business is having all kinds of problems, but the entertainment business—the celebrity and media business—is thriving! The record business is modifying to become a component of that, and we publishers are actually well situated to stay in the game, just in a different way.
RS: We're in better shape than record companies. Our sole income isn't from the sale of CDs; obviously it's a big part of it, but there are other new revenue streams coming into play that are filling those gaps, although obviously not entirely. And it's easy for me as a publisher to blame the record companies for getting our industry into this situation, because I feel like the genie was let out of the bottle with the CD: once master-quality recordings became widely available, it was just a matter of time before people would be able to copy them.
JA: What are those revensue streams?
AF: I know that we as a creative department are diversifying and redirecting our efforts a lot, which is great. Being a song and songwriter-based creative person, it's as much about the deal as it is about nurturing writers and placing songs. Suddenly, that's become acceptable and interesting. I spent many years hearing things like, "Stop pitching so many songs, go out and sign bands," and now it's okay to do both, which is great. We're looking at our catalogs more, trying to create opportunities, compilations, dealing more with (reissue-oriented labels like) Rhino and the Hip-O, presenting catalogs in different ways. For instance, certain artists are featured on our website that aren't really our writers. The Platters didn't write, but they're the icon for all these songs that got recorded; same with Petula Clark, Gladys Knight and the Pips. We are using the artists' success as a way to pitch the songs.
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Cathleen Murphy: Catalog records are back in a big way. Bette Midler doing the Rosemary Clooney catalog, Rod Stewart's two recent standards albums, Michael McDonald's Motown album. RS: McDonald's record was certified gold, and it got no radio play!
CM: But they get a 30-second video (via the Verizon commercial featuring McDonald) on prime time TV every night. Everybody knows the songs, everybody knows the voice, but it's a way to repackage and reconceptualize the catalog, attaching it to an artist. Of course, it's cyclical, it's been done from the very beginning of albums: "Ella Fitzgerald Sings Gershwin."
EMI has an entire department that's based in New York, eight people strong including support, and all they do is serve the New York advertising and film industry—the New York film industry is HBO and Miramax and some cool studios. They're animals—two of them are former advertising guys, and their clientele is Madison Avenue and toy companies that put music in toys and video games and media like that.
AF: They don't like to spend much money, though.
CM: But you know what? When you have a bunch of people dedicated to getting those placements-an HBO promo isn't about the money, it's about the amount of times they roll it and the times they're rolling it, which is before and after "Angels in America" or some other Sunday night show. The value is really extraordinary.
RS: A lot of our artists used to be… not opposed, but apprehensive about having their music used in commercials. But that's all changed, especially now with Led Zeppelin in the Cadillac spot, various Moby usages. JA: Are you encountering any resistance to it?
ALL: Not much.
BB: In hip-hop, I think that's the first thing they're looking for! There's a sort of aggressive solicitation: "Get me on a commercial, get this song somewhere," because it's another way to market yourself, and that's important with marketing budgets being as low as they are. Sometimes it's the debut artist, who doesn't have as much support from the label, who is the most aggressive: "I need another outlet." RS: Before, they didn't want it to affect their credibility, and it's a different mentality now.
BB: It's more credible—
CM: —if you're multimedia. Because every artist that we're talking about now is multimedia: they're doing films, they're doing commercials.
MF: What you're hearing here at this table is that synch (synchronization rights*) has been our salvation. There's no question, certainly in the past five years, that we've been watching traditional means of income slip away. This is real publishing: it's aggressive, it's face-to-face, it's, frankly, where we should have been all along. RS: Something we're doing a lot now is re-records (rerecordings) of masters after a certain amount of time passes, the term of the label deal expires and the artist can rerecord their material. Roger Daltrey's done some. That had always been a problem for us because labels want so much money for the master use. So now, we go in and rerecord them, and we co-own the masters with the people who rerecord them. We don't even have to run it by the labels.
AF: Another way we're bypassing labels is, certain writer-producers of ours, by design, are making demos that are completely licensable: the vocalist is either one of the writers or there's some (legal) arrangement there. So we can license demo masters directly from our writer-producers-the recording quality is excellent and they cost a lot less than something from a record company.
RS: Sound quality isn't an issue anymore, which is another mistake that I think many record companies make. Everyone is under this old-school assumption that to make a record you have to have a $350-400,000 budget. New artists get buried under that, and you don't have to do it that way anymore.
MF: TV and advertising are looking for a vibe these days more than they're looking for the big huge song that everybody knows. And if you can give them that vibe, it can be a home demo. It can happen quickly if you represent the publishing and master. And that one highly visible sync can do more to expose a song and an artist than many record companies seem to be able to manage these days.
AF: One of our artist/writers, Andrew W.K.—we did so well with him on the licensing side. He didn't sell tons of records, he didn't get to be a huge star, but you couldn't get away from him last year.
MF: Which was brilliant, it shows the economic feasibility of some of the deals you guys are doing.
JA: But his lyrics are so short and simple—I swear some songs have twelve words—that the message, such as it is, is being hammered home.
CM: That's great for advertising, those guys are looking for three words and a chorus that go with the product, with the visual…
JA: Like "Time To Party!"
CM: "Time to Party" works! Feel-good songs. In a commercial, you only have 22 seconds or so-you have copy and voiceovers and everything else—so if you can say it in ten words or less, you're getting advertising.
AF: Also, there are probably ten songs we should create a hall of fame for, because they are used endlessly in traile
RS: "This Will Be," "Walking on Sunshine," there are a few others that are always there.
RS: They're modern-day standards.
MF: Frankly, we overuse those songs sometimes, because people eventually do have a burnout factor: Please give me something different! JA: Has that changed the type of songs you've been able to sell? Are you encouraging writers to do songs like that?
AF: Yeah!
CM: I'm encouraging my writers, all the time, to shore up and deliver a really high concept, well put-together hook, as many times as possible. It's raised the barometer a little higher. If they're getting conceptual, that's great, but shore it up and make it as concise and cool as you can: "Get this party started." If a writer's in the middle of a song, the first thing I ask them for is the title. And if it's great—go go go! A writer of mine is doing a song called "Faultline"—good, that's one word, it's interesting. That's where it's going for me now, show me something tight and immediate— MF: And eminently pitchable. We've taken it a step further by gathering concepts from the film and TV and advertising communities: "What are you looking for?" We then build a consensus and feed it to our writers and our artists. We work with a U.K. band called Junk and we kept hearing from people, "We need a life-is-good song." So I went to the band and said, "Can you write us a life-is-good song?" and they wrote a song called "Life Is Good!"
(laughter)
RS: Did they give you a (percentage) for the title? MF: It's a perfect pop-punk song, and it's true to their vibe, so there's no issue in terms of their artistry. We sold it like crazy: three soundtracks, loads of TV.
JA: What are some other big concepts now?
MF: "I can do it," "You can do it," "Anything is possible" —type stuff, songs about female empowerment.
CM: "Change the world." AF: Most songs, generally, are about adult interaction, about "you and me." There aren't a lot of global, worldwide, universal concepts that people write about. You kind of have to give your writers permission—to remind them to step out and write something big, because writers shy away from things like that. They don't think it's gonna work. JA: Why? AF: Because I think a lot of people are afraid of the obvious, it's better to be asked to be simple. And there will always be successful, obvious, simple songs on the radio or in a film or advertising, but people don't write that way a lot anymore. MF: "I Believe I Can Fly:" you knew in a second it was one of those songs. BB: I think it's really difficult to write a great, simple song that distills things so the message really comes across. And I think a great simple song is one you hear where you think, Oh, I can do that. But it's really difficult—there have been a lot of bad simple songs! Lyrically too, it can be really challenging to be simple.
JA: Musically, what trends are happening now? MF: It's cyclical and we recognize that. We went through our tenth wave of teen idol/boy bands a couple of years back and it was followed by the resurgence of some pretty organic rock and punk. BB: In hip-hop, the Dirty South/crunk thing is very huge and probably selling more than almost any form, but by the same token, and I don't mean to be the negative voice, but I do find that hip-hop… I don't know if it's reached the ceiling creatively, but it tends to be so redundant, and it would be nice if there were some new, creative… something. The marketplace is so flooded with hip-hop artists and they're all saying the same thing. RS: Jay-Z says that's why he's retiring: He's not being pushed by his peers. AF: But it sets the stage, though. That's the perfect climate for something really fresh to blow up.
MF: I think it's on us, the music business, to keep it fresh. And my advice is always to dip into the well; great songs and ideas always come from the veterans who know their songcraft. You know ('80s R&B artist/songwriter) Angela Winbush? We're flying her in to work with hip-hop and R&B producers, who've sampled her like crazy for years but never thought they'd get the chance to work with her. But there'll be legitimate collaboration there and everyone will benefit from the experience. BB: Yeah, I think that's true. For our part, Chucky Thompson (who has worked with Mary J. Blige, Nas and Notorious B.I.G.) and (Chic founder) Nile Rodgers have been doing really great work together. I had a great discussion with one of our writers, and he said that until he went back and listened to old music, he really didn't know anything. Until you know what came before, as a hip-hop producer, you have no reference points. You might be able to create a great beat and have a nice sound and make something happen, but until you can articulate the language of the music, he said you really don't know what you're doing. And he doesn't play an instrument—but he's musically inclined and he now has a sense of history. For me, as a kind of old-school head who grew up with music before hip-hop, it was sort of reassuring to hear someone of his generation echo my own thoughts about it. Because so often I can look at hip-hop and feel a little jaded. JA: Do you see a lot of younger writers who are deeply steeped in older music that they really have no reason to know about? MF: Absolutely. And so some degree it's thanks to sampling, so it just ups the ante even more to hook up cross-generational collaborations. That's mentorship: this is the first generation that hasn't really benefited from that in the business, and we're obliged to bring it back. BB: And the musical hunger is the same. The thing that drove us as kids to buy music every day still drives kids. I think music is more popular now than it's ever been. Even though the industry is in dire straits, the popularity of music is exploding, music is on everybody's lips all the time in every way, and it's so fundamental to… I'm starting to sound a little weird here… MF: We're with you! BB: But music is so profound to our lives in so many ways, and it's a very exciting time. It's exciting to be a part of the music industry in this
transition, however difficult it is, because it's interesting to watch all the changes.
AF: I think the resistance to change is coming from the people who own trucks and manufacturing plants and have distribution networks. You don't have to go to the mall anymore to buy an album, and everyone is adjusting to what is now happening. It's almost as if the retail record business has been swallowed up and absorbed into a larger conglomerate—which is actually true in some instances—but it's really about pop culture and mass culture, and where music and the delivery of music fits into that mass culture. Music's not a stand-alone thing anymore. I actually did an interview with Canadian Business magazine—it's like Fortune—they were doing an article on Celine Dion, and this ties into something I wanted to talk about today.
I believe something happened when record companies made these huge deals with Pepsi and Chrysler and companies like that: It changed the face of retail record business. Because of the overall drop in CD sales, perhaps Celine Dion and her label knew that she wasn't going to sell 25 million album this time, so basically she and her label, Sony, allowed Chrysler to buy into the project, and that money replaced the sales she wasn't going to have; it also created massive exposure. But does that sort of undermine everything? And are we moving toward being more like the Japanese market? There, for instance, a song is created for an ad agency for an airline commercial using a major artist. If the commercial is successful, the song is released for sale. It's the opposite of what we historically have done here.
Next, corporate sponsorships: Celine and her record label got millions from Chrysler, and that album was created to support Chrysler's advertising campaign: the songs were selected to be about driving and movement and things like that. Everybody made money, the campaign looked beautiful, she looked great, it was a great idea on paper-but the campaign was ultimately considered unsuccessful: they actually started selling less cars! These things chip away from people going out and buying an album. And as a result, CDs don't have the perceived value that they once did, and that's one reason why prices have dropped. CDs are often used as loss leaders for the biggest chains, they're used to get people in the door. CDs have smaller profit margins than private label or store branded merchandise.
CM: Publishers often get looked at as the caboose of the train, and that's so ironic to me, because we actually have the edge: We can wrap our heads around the idea of how a consumer uses music without it being a physical sale. For record companies, everything has to be a physical sale. But the business has changed, and it's sad that publishers haven't become a leader instead of the caboose during this time. The step-up has got to happen, because I would love to see us educate the consumer and the business about how people use music and how they pay for it in this weird, amorphous, interesting way. Publishers represent so much of what's in the air when you're in Walmart; we represent the music that's playing, we represent the song in the Barbie doll, and we represent the CD you buy. MF: And we have the means to do whatever we want with our music and drive a truck through a business that's completely stalled and stymied, because we can envision from start to finish what to do with a songwriter or an act, and we have all the means to do it. CM: My vision of the future business model is a marketing-promotion-music company; the sales guys won't have the power anymore. AF: A freestanding music publishing company that is not tied to a record company, that's something they never thought that would happen. But if it happened? Wow. RS: EMI is the closest model to that. MF: Publishers had to operate smart, unlike record companies, over the last four decades, and that set us up really well. AF: Although being creative in a corporate setting is a very interesting, challenging thing. RS: And every day it becomes even more challenging! AF: We're basically the conduit: we represent the creative community to the business side and the business to creative. We're translators, and whether you're creating your own deals or not, we're the ones who are soft-selling, spoonfeeding a lot of concepts back and forth. In order to keep it creative, you have to hide the ugly business stuff, because the minute creativity hits the big corporate radar, it's not a nurturing thing. MF: As a smaller independent company, we've been able to plot our own destiny and avoid the bureaucracy and grab for market share the big companies are engaged in. The result has been a deliberately built, manageable roster and catalog that enables us to be partners with our writers. JA: Where are you finding new writers these days? BB: That hasn't really changed for me. The longer you stay in the business the more relationships you have, and relationships are the wellspring for new writers—and that would be relationships of every kind, from attorneys to producers to songwriters to acquaintances and people whose taste you respect. It comes from everywhere. CM: Other writers for me, primarily. One of my writers who's collaborating will bring me a new song and I'll ask, Who's the cowriter? It's through collaboration, that's who I'm meeting and how I'm meeting because they all meet each other. AF: There are writers I'd like to sign and maybe there's not enough justification at that time, but if they're writing with my writers I have every excuse in the world to be in business with them; I just don't happen to publish their part of whatever's being written at that time. Most companies want 100% copyrights. But at the same time, we're looking for 5% here or 10% there or whatever's available to increase visibility and market share.
The other thing that's helpful is the relationships that we have with each other. Say, Cathleen and I: based on our years of knowing each other in different jobs and capacities, we know each other and each other's writers, and that can create some exciting things. If Cathleen calls me and says, "I have this writer you don't know who I know would be great with so-and-so," that's our relationship working toward creating something. MF: The network is critical, but it's also important to go outside the network to get fresh ideas, because we work in our offices and it's very easy to lose touch with trends. The internet is incredible, I spend most nights surfing because writers and bands have their websites up and I'm constantly finding interesting stuff. JA: What would you say to a new writer looking for a publishing deal? MF: Come find us through professional resources-attorneys, managers, agents, that kind of thing—or find us in the clubs. Networking is critical. JA: Do you listen to unsolicited material? RS: I think our company's policy is that we don't listen to unsolicited material, but if I get a package, I'll listen to it—you never know what's in there. I'm lucky enough to have a job where I'm working with music, so I'm gonna turn over every rock I can. AF: I tend not to. Sometimes the package will get opened, but there's a lot more to it than, "Here's something, listen to it." RS: That's where it starts, though. AF: I had a conversation with some of my coworkers, which would be delicate if misunderstood, but hopefully it won't be here. There's a certain type of writer; there's almost a profile of a writer that hits all of the marks that you want them to hit. If you look at your roster and the writers out there who are consistently successful, they have many of these qualities: They are self-starting, they are networkers, they perceive their business with you as a 50/50 arrangement, they will work as hard as you do. I think we all gravitate toward certain writers. They're easy to work with, they're as committed as we are, they're on the edge of success, they may be difficult but it's worth it because you know what you're gonna get.
If I'm signing an artist, I don't want to sign an artist who couldn't be a great writer if they fail miserably as a recording artist. Statistically, it's like slipping through the eye of a needle to have a successful career as a recording artist. It's kinda shocking to them when I say, "Listen, I hope your record does well, but you need to sign with whoever's gonna call you when nothing happens with this record." RS: They've gotta hustle, especially if they're a pure writer and not an artist. But the other side is, if you've got someone in that situation, it's worth investigating: "What do you have, where do you want to go, and how can I get involved to help you get there?" It's a matter of working with what you have. CM: Actually, every writer I work with was an artist at one point—they were in a band but they were the keyboard player or whatever—and I've been with quite a few of them during their transition from an artist to a writing career. Some are fit for it and some are not; luckily I inherited a couple of people who were primed and ready for it. And I have to say I love being with them during this part of their careers, because they're embracing it in the most noble way: waking up in the morning and saying, I loved being an artist, but now I'm going to use that to benefit someone else, and I'll get equal benefit from it. I inherited a couple of people who are great writers whose recording careers were waning, and I got lucky because they were in a good transition period and it was about being supportive to them on this side. Because songwriting isn't a secondary career to me; I think it's an equal career. I think three of the most powerful entities in the music business right now-not necessarily Justin Timberlake or whoever-who could get any record company president on the phone, are (massively successful writer/producers) the Matrix, Linda Perry and the Neptunes. There are others too, but if a record company president were on vacation in the Bahamas, he would take the call. These writers are running their careers on their own terms: Linda and the Neptunes have their own record labels, the Matrix have a record deal, and (the Matrix's) Lauren Christy is allowed to make the record she always dreamed of making as an artist-including, if she decides in two months, that she doesn't want to make a record after all! Very, very few recording artists have that much choice right now. JA: It's interesting that two of those entities—the Matrix and Linda Perry—had unsuccessful, or briefly successful, careers as artists. AF: It's also interesting how their artistry comes out: When you hear a Pink song that was cowritten by Linda, you know it's Linda. CM: it's really helped me with a couple of writers. I've been able to tell them that they, too, have the potential to do that. AF: I'm looking at a deal right now with someone who's putting their first record out, and I think they're much better than that album, but I have to explain that to the people who are basing their decision solely on the record. JA: That makes for a difficult pitch-"the thing you're about to hear isn't that good but…" AF: Yeah! I mentioned it to the manager—well, I didn't say it quite that way—and the manager was like, What are you talking about? Um… am I being vague enough here? (laughter) BB: I've done a deal like that with a writer. And you have to think beyond… the way we pitched it was, we might not get it back on this record, but this artist is a great writer who can do it for the rest of their career. AF: See, in my world, that is not a selling point. Some companies will say, "Okay, we'll go with this, but we're not gonna spend a whole lot of money." I have to have a really good reason to do a deal. The fact that they're incredibly talented is like my secret weapon. MF: As an independent, our priorities are a little different. If anyone on my creative staff brings in a writer they're completely passionate about and for whom they have legitimate marketing ideas, we'll try to do the deal. In an age of fewer publishing companies and lower advances, pubs are now focusing on the job they were set up to do: active, penny-chasing administration and song-plugging. JA: How long do you give a writer to produce? At what point do you say, "This isn't working?" AF: I think when it's time to give them another truckload of money and you haven't made back what you invested. Or if you're spending too much time on them without getting enough back, or when you start working harder than they are, or you're very aware of their limitations or their own self-sabotage. When things like that happen, I tend to back away a little bit. MF: You try to figure that stuff out before you sign the deal, as best you can. AF: Yeah, it's difficult. You follow your heart and your instincts in signing an artist. How do we distinguish between good business and passion? You can't walk away from a good deal; we wouldn't be doing our jobs, but if there's 50% of a song by an unsigned writer available on an Eminem record and everybody jumps in and suddenly that person is getting a lot of money, you know you're gonna get it back. But then when that record's over, they may never write another thing in their lives. JA: And they've got highly inflated expectations. AF: Exactly. Or, you identify a deal you want, and the higher-ups like it too, and they decide they've gotta have it at any price. And suddenly your sensible deal gets tripled, and you win, and they hand it back to you and say: Go make it work! And the numbers are ridiculous, you'd have to sell eight million copies to recoup. CM: Luckily, we are making much more reasonable deals these days, in general. It's a great feeling to be able to say, I love this, it would be a great fit, but we can't make these numbers work. And they come back a couple of weeks later and say, Hey, we'll make the numbers work! That didn't happen three years ago. RS: But that's not what these people are usually told by the people who represent them. BB: That's because they're getting a piece! RS: Of course! But they see it as protecting the writer, that the more money they get the more protected they'll be. And that's where it's breaking down, because that's not what happens. In actuality, they're digging a hole that the writer will never get out of. CM: Their mentality was, Who knows if this artist is ever going to have a hit or not? Get the money now! RS: The ironic thing is that 99% of these deals never blow up the way everybody thinks they're going to, so the guy in the band that just got a gazillion dollars ends up getting dropped, can't get his attorney on the phone, and he's still signed to us.
JA: What are some things you've done to help inspire and encourage writers? What works? AF: I take ‘em "on tour," that's what I call it. You take them to every A&R person that makes sense for them to see, other publishers, other writers. You circulate them, and it can really help. You don't ever want to waste anyone's time on either side—they will be hesitant to take another meeting with you—but it's just shuffling the deck, stirring the pot, shaking it up a little bit. It means a lot to people if they get a tour. You can't do it every day, but if someone's got potential, you've got to pay attention to them and commit to them for a period of time. CM: We interact a lot with the A&R community, and as I learn what kinds of records people are making, I'm constantly thinking "I've got a writer who would get along well with so-and-so." Or I'll send a writer to a meeting with an A&R person with whom I know he or she will have a great rapport, but only if I've gotten to know the A&R person and project, and I'm sending my writer to someone who has a very specific need, repertoire-wise. And also, I like just putting two people together and giving them a very specific brief, a very specific assignment. I don't care if I don't get that thing that I'm looking for, but I love to give them the brief, because you can get a much more focused session. JA: How specific are the assignments? "I want you to write a song for someone who sounds like Celine Dion?" "I want you to write a Nike commercial?" RS: From the vaguest of the vague to… AF: I think we've gotten a lot more specific than we used to be. It used to be you'd say "Celine Dion" and know if she didn't cut the song, you'd have B, C, D, E and F as backup. Now, it's like, "They need an end title for a Hillary Duff movie" or "We need a theme for the Olympics" or "This global company is looking for something that sounds like Moby." CM: Or have them meet the artist they'll be writing for. Push them in the room, hang out, get to know them and maybe the A&R person. And the writers will literally write down things that the artist said or talked about. MF: As Andy said, A&R is a finite universe but media is endless. You study your writer, figure out what their strengths are in terms of how they write and who they collaborate with, and send them to, say, soap operas. Get them writing background music for TV shows. Specific service, specific information: get the info from the in-house group and turn it around in a week! With A&R, you're waiting a year for cuts to happen, if they happen at all. AF: Also, you identify your writers who are willing to take the chance. A lot of people are burned out: "I've done this before, I wrote an end title, got it done in two days, the music supervisor loved it but the director hated it and I can't be bothered!" RS: That's always the most frustrating part of the song-plugging process, there are so many cooks and so many people who have to approve. That's why getting a cut is such a sweet thing, because it's so much work! BB: I find collaboration is a great way to reinvigorate an artist. Have them find and develop relationships with writers they haven't worked with before. And a lot of it is just being sensitive to what they're going through: just talking and listening or spending time with them. A lot of it is like being their psychologist or their psychotherapist or their mother or whatever, although you can't do it for everybody because then you start going nuts. I think I learned that here at ASCAP, because your door is open and you have to be there for every single writer, whether they're "somebody" or not.
JA: Any predictions about what trends will be big in the next couple of years? You mentioned cycles but you didn't say where we are now. BB: I hate questions like that! I'd rather not know. I love the idea that creativity is unpredictable. I don't know. AF: But sometimes you wake up and something's already happening. BB: But I think when you think about things like that you sometimes miss what's actually going on. And it's really about observing and finding and being a music lover and being out there and listening to not only what's on the radio but what's not on the radio. RS: Also, that old mentality, like when Nirvana and Pearl Jam were big: "How come we don't have Nirvana? Where's my Pearl Jam?" And then boom, here comes Creed. So even if we're here saying whether the Strokes or Jet is the big thing, the fact that they're on the radar means they're part of what's next. BB: And whatever's bubbling under—well, those groups aren't really bubbling under—you're going to hear in what's big next year, it will be absorbed into the mainstream and effect what's going on. Like the Indian thing in hip-hop that was happening a few months ago. AF: You can almost create what will happen by discussing what's not happening. The whole boy band thing is dead— RS: For now. AF:—but it's not really dead. If you look at the charts over history, in the top 20 or 40 there's always going to be a certain amount of female voices, male voices-you can almost dissect the charts and do an analysis. There's always a need for the sound of female singing, whether it's a singer-songwriter or the Spice Girls or Heart; there will always be a couple of songs in the Top Ten because they're in a movie. Things happen for a reason. MF: Like we've been saying, it's cyclical-and we haven't even talked about Norah Jones. It's not a terribly diverse record, it's just a beautiful place you want to go to and stay at because it's a nice antidote to a
lot of other things out there. JA: Its timelessness makes it an exception to any trend or cycle because it's an evergreen sound. That record could have come out at almost any time in the last 30 years and been successful. MF: But it was successful at that time because it was so different from everything else. And it happened with so little promotion—people embraced it because they heard it and loved it. AF: But how many artists can you say that about over the last five years? Maybe five? Alicia Keys has that timelessness, although she had a lot of promotion. I see her as more of an Anita Baker. BB: Why? AF: She's a great talent… CM: …that made a cross-genre record. Anita was everywhere: jazz fans, pop, rock, adults, kids all loved the Rapture album. MF: It's the song and the voice. Strip away all the trappings-and that's what you've got.
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LOU LEVY (1912-1995)
