07 July 2009

French Psy Trance DJ/Producer' Jeff Alford's interview with Such Cool Stuff

Psy Trance DJ/Producer Jeff Alford talks to the Such Cool Stuff! crew about his music...and how living around the globe has made him the DJ & producer he is today.

Catch Jeff Alford's interview here:

04 July 2009

Nu Jazz & Downtempo DJ/Producer Chris Hale's interview with Such Cool Stuff

Nu Jazz & Downtempo DJ/Producer Chris Hale talks to the Such Cool Stuff! crew about life as an American in Tokyo...and how Donna Summer's "I Feel Love" changed his life forever as a child.

Catch Chris Hale's interview here:

30 June 2009

Such Cool Stuff! interviews UK AAC Pop trio Riveraire

The UK AAC Pop trio Riveraire talk to the Such Cool Stuff! crew about their career-to-date...and the inspirations behind their very catchy Adult Contemporary pop tunes.

You can catch the interview here

25 June 2009

Catch Firedance's interview with Such Cool Stuff!

Catch Marcel Otte from Firedance's interview with the music & fashion blogzine Such Cool Stuff!

The German Technotrance DJ & prodcer talks to the Such Cool Stuff! crew about his career-to-date...and the things that get him fired up.

You can catch the interview here 

23 June 2009

Ninja Kodou interview with Such Cool Stuff!

You can catch the latest Ninja Kodou interview with the people behind the music and fashion blogzine Such Cool Stuff!: http://suchcoolstuff.blogspot.com/2009/06/ninja-kodou.html


The Israeli Progressive Breaks producer discusses everything from his sources of inspiration to his favourite activities.

16 June 2009

In business, less is more

The not-so-new digital economy may have shrunk the globe we live on, speeded up the way business is conducted online and opened up bold, new frontiers…but it sometimes seems that all of this was done at the expense of business relationships.

Before I entered the hallowed halls of the music industry, I worked in the PR and advertising agencies. In those worlds, client relationships were Ace, King, Queen – and sometimes a joker. If you bungled a client account, the company lost the client. It was as simple as that. Whether it was a bread and butter client – or one that brought in millions – it hurt. If someone continued to lose their company clients they were sacked. The attitude these days is that clients are disposable. Especially in the music industry.

I’ve just finished doing an audit of our primary B2B partners. This includes digital aggregators, audio and video content licensing and music synchronisation partners. The audit followed a period at the beginning of the year where we discussed our various sales targets with our B2B partners…and means to achieve them. A few were surprised to say the least. I suppose target setting and involving B2B partners in that process isn’t as commonplace as I thought in the music industry.

Post-audit, results were weighed against the set targets – and matched against the activities our partners engaged in to promote our catalogue. Those partners whose work returned solid sales results were enthusiastically praised. Those who were pretty much on target were also congratulated. And further conversations with both of these groups have been had to further improve sales revenue.

Those who failed to meet the targets – and pretty much failed to do anything to promote our catalogue – were placed on notice. And this seems to have genuinely shocked them. I could see the deeply furrowed brows and quizzical looks at the other end of the phone or on the other side of emails. ‘You’re holding us accountable for our performance?’ Indeed!

I’m not one for excuses. I don’t make them and I really don’t want to hear them. I don’t want to hear a litany of excuses about bad sales performance. I want to hear ‘this is what went wrong and this is what we’re going to do about it. I’m on the case mate’. Then again, I am proper old school.

However, in and amongst the many conversations that have been had with those partners who performed badly against targets, there has been a distinct apathy amongst a notable handful. That apathy screams volumes: “We have loads of labels. Yours is just one of many. We don’t care. We don’t have to. There are loads more where you came from.”

Indeed. Apathy in business can work both ways. And if enough labels become apathetic with their digital content partners and go to other providers, I doubt very much if such aggregators’ apathy will lost for long.

We will be dealing with fewer aggregators in the future. For us, the old adage is true: less is more.

11 March 2009

YouTube video fallout continues in the UK...

from Digital Music News

The YouTube imbroglio continued on Tuesday in the UK, sparked by an unceremonious pulldown of thousands of artist videos. The content removal follows a contentious negotiation between YouTube and performance rights organization PRS for Music, one riddled with heavy payment demands and a "lack of transparency," at least according to Google. In the end, it was Google pulling the plug, not PRS.

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