ALEXANDER MAGAZINETM

Feature Article - Christmas 2001 Issue (12.21.01)

THE RIGHT STEPS ON THE ROAD TO A HIT

by tom gelardi

"The formula for success In the music industry follows the same formula as with other business - get a solid foundational sales base and build from there" - Tom Gelardi (2 Times Billboard Promotion Person of the Year)
It amazes me how many local musicians and performers truly believe that they can go from basement demo to "national recording artist" in just one step.  Having seen hundreds of acts try and a few succeed, having helped those who made it and those that only tried (for nearly 4 decades), I can tell you that I have never seen anyone successfully make that giant step.
The music industry hype is probably to blame for the public's misconception about the path to a national hit record.  "Overnight Success"  makes an excellent headline for a promotional article that is "planted" in a music industry magazine, and the "story" makes good reading.  It's not usually the magazine's fault, it's just that "stars" and their publicists like to spin tall tales.  They like to talk about how their talent was suddenly discovered and don't mention the years of sweat and effort that everyone went though to get the act "ready" to be discovered.  
A recent tall tale has been about the rock group "Creed" who sold 6 million copies of their first national record.  The "A&R Insider" column of the December 2001 issue of Recording Magazine by Doug Michael Minnick interviews Joel Mark, the A&R director who signed Creed to their platinum national record deal on WindUp Records. The interview paints a quite a different picture of Creed's start.  "A&R Insider" is a regular column in Recording Magazine that is put together by "Taxi," an independent A&R service that has been successfully helping those starting out in our business for years.  
First of all, Creed was selling "300 or 400 records in Tallahassee" [on their own] before they were signed.  "Every label" in New York [possibly a slight exaggeration] had rejected signing the band already or said "Maybe next year." They started "selling out to 500 -700 people."  So the truth is that there was a lot of work done to get the band established before they could be signed.  
For years I've had a saying of "If you want to sell a million, figure out how to sell a thousand and then actually sell that thousand".  After you sell a thousand, put out another release that may sell 3000 - 5000 copies - then you are in a position to think about a national record deal. If you are the one-in-a-million act (that I never met) that sells a lot of copies and gets signed on their first record, more power to you.  The formula for success In the music industry follows the same formula as with other business - get a solid foundational sales base and build from there.
What the new act needs is to test market, something that I have been stressing in seminars for decades.  A manager-producer, Peter Nichols, in his famous "Doing Music Business and Nothing Else" seminars also echoed that theme for many years.  In fact, just about any music industry professional  would tell you this, if they were really being honest and candid with you. 
"How to get a gold record" starts with "how to sell a thousand copies" and this a subject that I am very familiar with, being in the music promotions and distribution area of the field for a "break-out" market.  The market has changed dramatically in the last two years and is continuing to have huge changes.  As a result, you must make sure that you have very current marketing strategies that will work in the current music scene.  Working on information a couple of years old could result in failure - no matter how good your product is.  If you pick up a magazine article that first advises you how to get airplay, you can be pretty certain that you are getting outdated advice.  To bridge the gap of current information, I am writing a series of tips called the "Music Marketing Tip Series" posted through Recording Engineer's Quarterly's "Tip Of The Week" during the month of December. 
Music Screening & Referral Services
I know of two services that will screen and give you professional feedback on your productions or tunes.  In the New Year's issue of Recording Engineer's Quarterly, Bob Dennis will be reviewing these services.  The services are 1) Taxi,* which has been around for just about a decade and 2) Inside Sessions,* a relatively new service started in conjunction with Universal Music Group.  These services are tools and not something that will magically make you a star or teach you everything you need to know to be successful.  When to use these services is another thing to be looked at.
If you're going to be successful in getting a national record deal is is possible that one of these services will be very helpful to you, if properly used.  Both services can get your song heard by professional A & R screeners and you will get written feedback from them.  The feedback could be extremely valuable in judging which cut(s) should be released on your CD or which is the "single."  My only word of caution to you is that feedback is always the opinion of one person.  Even if you get a good professional opinion, don't blindly follow it - remember that there are a dozen or more A & R directors in New York that are kicking themselves because they passed on Creed.
Once you have successfully test-marketed a record and sold more than 1000 copies, you may well want to start submitting your product to record companies for consideration.  On this front, these paid screening and referral services shine.  Large record companies literally get hundreds of submissions every week.  What do they do with all these tapes and CDs that are submitted?  The answer is that a majority of these find their way to a trash can before they are actually listened to.  If they are listened to, it could be the first 15 seconds of the first cut - and then they send out the form letter that starts off with  "Thank you for your submission..." and goes downhill after that.  But when a submission has passed through a professional screener, the A&R executive pays a lot more attention to the submission.  So at the point that you have sold some records these services could prove invaluable - especially if you don't have an attorney or manager who can get your tape to the right record company executive.
These services will also try and educate you about the A&R Process of record companies and teach you how acts get signed and how to "make it."  This is especially true for the Inside Sessions package which offers a "completion certificate"  from Universal Music Group.  Their moto is "Experience Is The Best Teacher."  Industry stars answer specific questions in sound bytes.  
I agree whole-heartedly that experience is the best teacher, but always keep in mind what is being taught.  Its real good information to hear about how Sheryl Crow made it and get her view on what's necessary to make it, but your main focus initially needs to be on how to successfully test market in a fast-changing industry.  
Services For Free (or nominal cost)
Taxi, has a way of getting it's subscribers current information about the A&R scene and it does it for no charge (beyond the cost of buying a magazine).  In addition to any information supplied with their paid service, they publish interviews with current A&R executives each month in a column of Recording Magazine.  They also post listings of what different companies are looking for (their 75 or so "active" listings) and links to many interesting industry articles which are available for free at their website. Although these free services are not codified into a structured course, reading them will give you the same type of valuable information that a course could.  Taxi augments this help with an annual music convention (called the "Road Rally") that is available to paid clients. 
Don't forget about our free web publication, Recording Engineers Quarterly.  You'll find many articles and tips about recording and production - the one of the first things you'll need to deal with to be in this industry.  But we go on and give tips and articles about the music business both by myself and by industry professionals such as Ron Dunbar, project manager for Holland-Dozier-Holland Records in LA.  And our paid training site (Alexander Magazine) will be posting the extensive music business section of Recording Institute of Detroit's Recording Engineer/Producer program in the middle of next year.
The Right Steps 
Maybe the first thing you can do on the path from where you are right now to national stardom is adjusting the length of your "Step."  If you try to make too big of a leap you're likely to fall on your face.  If you take baby steps you may never get down the path.  So in this article I am going to give you what I consider the steps that could be the right size for you.  As soon as you have accomplished one step, move to the next as quickly as practical.  There will be a few steps to take in your travels: 

TOM'S RECOMMENDED "RIGHT" STEPS

STEP 1

 Get some music together and get heard by the public. To sell records you will have to be doing shows/appearances regularly, at least 4 a month.  Start writing (or obtaining the use of) original songs.  Even if you don't perform them, practice them - you'll need songs to record.  

STEP 2

 Start to record and plan on continuous recording.  You will probably need to record twice as many tunes as you plan to release.  Your first efforts won't be your best and probably unacceptable to you by time you are halfway into the project.  Take the free recording training that is available through this site, no matter what your job in the group is. Have the person  who is responsible for your recording go further, like getting an Alexander Magazine training subscription or attending a recording school.

STEP 3

 Plan and execute your first release, where you target selling a thousand copies.  At this point you should consider getting a paid A & R screening service to help you judge the quality of your product and to obtain professional advice on which tunes to include in your release.  Definitely study marketing strategies and at least take advantage of the free services that we recommend, as well as any others you can find.

NOTE

 Realize that you need to obtain the target on each step before progressing to the next step.  If, for instance, you put out a record and only sold 500, you will need to repeat step 3 as many times as you need to for obtaining the goal.  The next step often has to be repeated.

STEP 4

 On your next release, use a target of 2500+ sales.  You'll need to use your experience with the first release to make the elements of your second release better than the first - things like the quality of recording, songs and performances.  Try to recapture your old customers and get new ones.  Professional training and advice becomes much more of a necessity to finish this step.

STEP 5

 This step can be started in the middle of step 4, especially when achieving the goal of step 4 looks promising.  Start your submissions to national labels, touting both your music and your test marketing success.  Professional handling becomes critical and by now you need to have developed vehicles for getting submissions heard.  If you didn't get a paid A&R screening/submission service, you will need to find good professional representation (and you probably need both).  The result of this step is some kind of offer.

LAST STEP

 With professional advice and representation (read "lawyer") you take one of the offers.  The steps don't stop at this point but they sure do go beyond the scope of this article.
And good luck!  I hope that I've been helpful in your success.

* trademarks

LINK TO CURRENT ALEXANDER MAGAZINE ISSUE

LINK TO ALEXANDER MAGAZINE HOME PAGE

LINK TO RECORDING ENGINEER'S QUARTERLY

 BACK TO REQ NEW YEAR ISSUE

Copyright © 2001 by Alexander Magazine - ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

Published in Recording Engineer's Quarterly and Alexander magazines with permission

USE OF THIS ARTICLE SUBJECT TO USER AGREEMENT