They include:
Singer/songwriter Maylee Todd, who performs at Billboard Live Tokyo on June 22
Singer/songwriter Ron Sexsmith, who is performing at the Fuji Rock festival on July 26
“Mediterranean”-style guitarist Pavlo, who’s signing with King Records and set to play Tokyo’s Cotton Club Aug. 31
Crooner Matt Dusk, who’s due to perform at this year’s Tokyo Jazz Festival, which takes place Sept. 6-8
Female rock trio Hunter Valentine, who will play at the Summer Sonic festival in Tokyo on Aug. 11

There are also rumors that Toronto-based power-pop band Courage My Love may strike a Japanese label deal.
On the other hand, it seems to be harder for Japanese acts to break into Canada. Trumpeter Chihiro Yamazaki scored a booking for the Toronto Jazz Festival following her performance with the Route 14 Band at the CMW Japan showcase on March 20. Sebastian Mair, head of Tokyo-based consulting company Music Solutions, says many CMW delegates expressed interest in Japanese female rock act Baby Metal.
CIMA’s November trade mission to Tokyo featured a showcase of Canadian acts hoping to break into the Japanese market. And this year’s edition of CMW, held in Toronto March 19-23, included a Spotlight on Japan. It comprised a showcase of eight up-and-coming Japanese acts, a networking session aimed at developing Canada-Japan industry contacts and a panel session that discussed the current state of the Japanese market.
“To me, both parts of the mission (CIMA and CMW) were very successful,” says Canadian Music Week President Neill Dixon, who also took part in the November CIMA jaunt to Japan. “The CIMA Canadian Blast showcase was a big hit. Our objectives were met in Tokyo, and results from our incoming guests (at CMW in Toronto) have been nothing but positive.”

Dixon and CIMA President Stuart Johnston have worked hard for many years to help Canadian acts get better exposure in Japan. Also playing a key role in developing ties between the Canadian and Japanese music industries is Laurie Peters, the tireless and effervescent head of public affairs at the Canadian Embassy in Tokyo. Their collective efforts represent a very Canadian example of cooperation between government and the private sector.
Aya Ohi, general manager, international repertoire, at Victor Entertainment, says Canadian acts are right to focus on Japan.
“For Canadian artists wishing to make it in Japan, there is great potential given the wealth of talent that is available from Canada, she says. “I believe Canada has been more open historically to doing territory-by-territory deals which helps labels such as ourselves that are always in search of new artists and repertoire suitable for our market and that want to create our own hits.”

Ken Nishikawa, director of Tokyo-based music-promotion company Listen Up, came away from CMW with a positive impression of the Canadian music business. “I was pleasantly surprised by the degree of interest Canadian music industry people have in Japan,” he says.
But Nishikawa notes how hard it can be to make inroads into the world’s second-biggest music market.
“It is increasingly difficult for any western acts to penetrate the Japanese market, and Japanese acts have always been having a hard time in the West,” he says. “But I still think the potential is there. Feist became big in Japan because of an Apple commercial. Getting your tracks used in an advertisement or a TV show/drama always helps a lot.”
There are also opportunities for Canadian songwriters in the Japanese market, says Jonny Thompson, general manager, international, at Tokyo-based music publisher Nichion.

“Particularly if we are able to launch some co-writes between Canadian and Japanese songwriters,” Thompson notes. “There will be a bit of a learning curve, but if the business end is less lawyer- and manager-oriented (which is one of the hindrances for U.S. writers having success in Japan), which I get the impression it is, then most definitely yes. I think the ‘laid-back and friendly’ Canadian style might be a good fit with the Japanese songwriters.”
Thompson adds that in future it might be effective to have Japanese representatives serve as a “listening panel” and allow them to comment on songs, artists and live performances by Canadian acts. “It’s supposed to be about music, so rather than talking about music, actually having a chance to listen to some music and have the panel comment on that music’s potential for Japan would, I think, help the other attendees gain some insight as to what type of music or artists Japan (and the various Japanese representatives) are looking for,” he suggests.

Source: Asia Music News

http://www.mccluremusic.com/canada-japan-music-connection-gets-stronger

Everyone (who isn’t a cold-hearted robot) loves music. That’s led lots of entrepreneurs to start companies aiming to help listeners discover new artists and songs. But the fact is that selling music is a tough business. Selling what music to listen on someone else’s service is even tougher. BeatDeck is different. It does nothing for the listener. Zero consumer products. Instead, it focuses solely on the music industry — the artists, the labels signing them, and the stores selling them.

The first part of the equation launches today on BeatDeck.com. Artists sign up and connect their social media accounts like Soundcloud, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Instagram, and Last.fm. This lets them track their performance and compare it across channels, as well as see their fans’ age, gender, and location demographics. Artists also get fan influence and sentiment breakdowns thanks to reputation measurement and natural language processing.

For even deeper analytics about their music, artists can share their songs to social networks through BeatDeck’s publishing system. This gives them a heatmap of which parts of their songs users are skiping to, pausing at, or rewinding to so they can listen again. Conversion metrics indicate which channels best turn listeners into fans, and where they’re getting reshared. It’s valuable data mosts indie rockers don’t have the skills or time to track by hand. It could tell them where to book their next tour date, which part of their song to pitch for commercials, and which social networks they should focus on.

That’s phase one. Soon, BeatDeck will start selling enterprise licenses for its data to record labels and A&R departments (the people who decide which artists a label or management agency should sign). BeatDeck will let them monitor their artists and find new ones to catapult into fame. “We’re already in talks and worked out a couple of deals for enterprise solutions” says BeatDeck co-founder Josh Mangel. He explains that with just six big customers, which would have to include most of the big record labels, BeatDeck can be a sustainable business.

“Sustainable business” isn’t what being a startup is all about, though. BeatDeck will need additional revenue streams to truly succeed. Luckily, I was able to squeeze out of Mangel that the company is working on making its data useful to online music stores. One day it could have iTunes, Spotify, and Amazon paying it to tell them whose music to recommend to you. BeatDeck could tell them that people who try to listen to screechy industrial dubstep hero Skrillex, but pause 20-seconds in, should be recommended a lesser known artist like Robert Delong who is somewhat similar but easier to listen to.

There are plenty of music stores out there that could benefit from these kind of insights. BeatDeck will be battling it out with fellow music analytics services Next Big Sound and Musicmetric. However, they charge artists to monitor their music, and most musicians can’t afford to pay. BeatDeck’s free analytics for artists could win it lots of sign-ups who will fill it with data it can sell. It’s going to be a long, hard road convincing independent musicians that they need analytics, and bundling their data into something lots of companies want to buy.

In the end, the hope is that BeatDeck can help fledgling artists grow and get noticed by the bigwigs. Mangel concludes, “Right now the business isn’t really fair. Artists are not getting big because they’re talented, but because they’re backed by a lot of money. We want to make the music industry a meritocracy.”

Source: http://techcrunch.com

https://www.beatdeck.com

Despite speculation that Tumblr’s team could be taken apart and absorbed by Yahoo, Tumblr CEO David Karp assures users that the micro-blogging site will remain the same Tumblr many have come to love. “We’re not turning purple. Our headquarters isn’t moving. Our team isn’t changing. Our roadmap isn’t changing. And our mission – to empower creators to make their best work and get it in front of the audience they deserve – certainly isn’t changing,” Karp writes in a blog post.

Mayer is a bit more frank, noting that the team will “promise not to screw it up.” It’s reassuring to users that were protesting and glum about the future of Tumblr, threatening an exodus. “We will operate Tumblr independently. David Karp will remain CEO,” Mayer adds.

The difference you’ll notice is that Tumblr will have far more resources to pull from, meaning the blogging service will be better and faster, says Karp. Mayer, on the other hand, gets into the details, which circle around the inevitable advertising union both platforms can gain from the other.

“In terms of working together, Tumblr can deploy Yahoo’s personalization technology and search infrastructure to help its users discover creators, bloggers, and content they’ll love,” Mayer says. “In turn, Tumblr brings 50 billion blog posts (and 75 million more arriving each day) to Yahoo’s media network and search experiences. The two companies will also work together to create advertising opportunities that are seamless and enhance user experience.”

If you’re still wondering what Yahoo has to gain from the acquisition, Mayer paints a picture as clear as day.

“The combination of Tumblr+Yahoo could grow Yahoo’s audience by 50 percent to more than a billion monthly visitors, and could grow traffic by approximately 20 percent,” she estimates. Tumblr reportedly has 300 million users and 120,000 new daily sign-ups, with 50 percent of Tumblr users accessing the service via its mobile app on an average of seven times a day.

Based on earlier reports, the acquisition comes just in the nick of time for Tumblr. Despite rumors that Yahoo’s $1.1 billion asking price was too low – considering that Facebook and Microsoft were possibly in line - TechCrunch suggested that Tumblr had just “a few months of cash runway left.” Not surprisingly, seeing as how Tumblr was edging out just $13 million in revenue last year despite a $800 million valuation, the company was on the verge of running out of capital.

The survey found that from 2011 to 2012, 92% of its labels and distributors had seen streaming and subscription revenues increase year-on-year, a third of those labels seeing those revenues increase by over 100%. For almost a quarter of respondents, streaming is now generating more income than download sales, particularly in Europe, where nearly a third of Merlin members said they now bring in more than 50% of digital income through streaming. In the US, this figure dropped to 16%.

Though some in the record industry fear that streaming will cannibalise traditional downloads, Merlin’s research showed this not to be the case for most of its members. Just under 64% of companies also saw a la carte download sales increase during the period surveyed, more than 20% saying download sales were up over 50%.

Merlin also reported that its members’ share of the streaming market is 12-20% higher than their share of the overall digital market in the US and UK, with royalties in excess of $65 million expected to come in from these services alone in 2013. Overall, 73% said that their total revenues had increased between 2011 and 2012. For 20% of these, overall revenue increasef in excess of 50%.

Announcing the findings, Caldas said: “Five years on from the establishment of Merlin, it is clear that the streaming business is coming of age. We are in an exciting phase of the business. The new generation of digital services has created a new dynamic of consumer freedom, limitless choice and myriad paths to discovery. Our numbers illustrate that this dynamic is bringing incremental value to the market, and the demand from music fans for the music being released by our independent members is higher than ever before”.

He continued: “But the ecosystem is fragile: power is more concentrated than ever, and we are seeing an attempted land grab by the largest companies for digital market shares as they try to recreate the old-market advantages they are clearly losing in the digital space. Any digital service that comes to market pre-shaped to satisfy the demands of the largest companies, and without understanding this new consumer-led dynamic, is bound to fail. And in this delicate phase of the business, that is bad news for us all”.

Elsewhere, the survey found that iTunes, Spotify and Amazon MP3 are the dominant services throughout the UK, US and Europe. However, while eMusic comes in fourth in the US and in global results, Deezer is fourth strongest in the UK and Europe – eMusic coming fifth in the UK and sixth in Europe, behind Beatport. Although arguably the biggest and most popular streaming service online, YouTube, ranks fifth in terms of revenues globally, and even lower for the UK and Europe.

Global service rankings for Merlin members:

1 iTunes
2 Spotify
3 Amazon MP3
4 eMusic
5 YouTube
6 Deezer
7 Beatport
8 Google Play
9 Rdio
10 Musicload

For more information: http://www.merlinnetwork.org

Read more

Since CMW 2013 came to a close, we’ve been craving a little oversees adventure.  So we’re off to the UK for one of Europe’s leading new music festivals – The Great Escape.

CMW Festival Director – Cameron Wright – will be soaking in the conference, showcases, and of course meeting with as many industry folks as he can. Connect with him online in the delegate area or email him at concerts@cmw.net.

Never ones to shy from a showcase, we’ll also be throwing one of our own while we’re there. Join us Thursday May 16th at Blind Tiger Club for an electric night of international flair and performances by The Rumour Said Fire (Denmark), Findlay (UK), Young Rival (Canada) and Murder By Death (USA). Stay late and enjoy the vibes of KAMP! (Poland) and A Tribe Called Red (Canada).

And if you’re there, don’t forget to Tweet us your pics @CMW_Week.

The Great Escape | May 16-18 | Brighton, UK | mamacolive.com/thegreatescape/

Dubbed All Access, the service debuts today in the U.S. at $9.99 a month, with a 30-day free trial. Subscribers who sign up before June 30 will get a special rate of $7.99 a month.

The announcement, made at Google’s I/O conference for developers, came soon after the Silicon Valley technology giant cleared licensing deals with Warner Music Group in March, and in recent days with Universal Music Group and Sony Music Entertainment to be able to offer “millions of songs” for the service.

All Access features an “Explore” tab that serves up personalized recommendations based on the listener’s existing library of music and listening patterns, as well as handpicked songs from Google’s music editors.

In addition, each song can with one click be turned into a radio station with “a neverending list of tracks.”

“It’s radio without rules,” said Chris Yerga, Google’s Android Engineering Director.

The service also has a “Listen Now” option that contains new releases, recently added tracks and automatically generated radio stations so “there’s always a great selection for me, and every day, it surprises me,” Yerga said.

From: Billboard

Direct-to-fan is not a fad. From a factual point of view, direct-to-fan started off in January 1966 with the Grateful Dead and really took off in October 1984. From the early beginning, the Grateful Dead had been devoting themselves to the fans, providing them with food, accommodation, care and music. Moreover, the band would always encourage them in recording their concerts.

In the early 80’s, the number of “tapers” (fans who record concerts and share the tapes) grows exponentially. In October 1984, they have their own reserved space, right behind the sound engineer’s mixing desk, and are sometimes provided with a direct cable, thus generating the traffic of some exceptional quality recordings.

At the same time, the Grateful Dead decide to leave the system. They step away from the music industry. Nothing will be released between 1981 and 1986. The band is one of the first in the rock world to retain ownership of their master recordings and editorial rights.

Continue reading the rest of the story on Hypebot

- By Virginie Berger (@virberg), founder and general manager of the creative and development agency DBTH.

The tool is essentially a dashboard that tells artists such things as the spin counts of each of their songs, how many thumbs up (or down) their songs have received and their audience reach by age, gender and geography, among other things. Pandora has been circulating the prototype to various independent artists in recent weeks, soliciting feedback as a possible prelude to releasing a self-serve product for all artists looking to check on their performance on Pandora.

The effort dovetails with a growing chorus of musicians who have lobbied music services for access to more data that could help artists better promote their careers. Partly as a response to this movement for “data transparency,” Spotify last week began publicly displaying total play counts for individual songs.

Read the full story: Billboard

McBride indicated that the company will use the infusion of capital for developing both new and existing artists on their roster, as well expanding music licensing opportunities for their current catalog. In addition, McBride said Nettwerk would continue to be an active acquirer of catalogue music rights.

“Nettwerk for the past few years has been growing at a very good rate,” McBride told the Vancouver Sun. “We’re having a lot of success right now. Being a better capitalized company allows us to take better opportunities versus having to live off our own cash flow. So this is me seeing that the time is right to do this and grow the company rapidly.”

Nettwerk has been having some success of late with new artists on their roster, including chart-toppers fun., Chinese singer/songwriter Wanting Qu, and Australian singer-songwriter Passenger. Other additions to Nettwerk’s roster this year include BOY, Savoir Adore, The Paper Kites and The Pack A.D.

Originally founded in 1984, Nettwerk has been involved in the careers of major artists, including Avril Levigne Sarah McLachlan, with whom they partnered in the hugely successful Lilith Fair touring festivals from 1997-99. Nettwerk also played a key role in bringing Coldplay to North America, releasing their first album “Parachutes” domestically in 2000.

However, in recent years, McBride and Nettwerk have seen some setbacks, including the disastrous resurrection of the Lilith Fair in 2010 as well as the departure of long-time management clients Avril Levigne and Sarah McLachlan in 2008 and 2011 respectively.

Still, McBride seemed sanguine about these setbacks, telling the Vancouver Sun that moving away from management duties has opened the door to new opportunities.

“It was the final shift to free up my time, frankly,” McBride said. “Would we be having the success we’re having with Wanting and Passenger if I’d been locked up as a manager? Probably not.”

Strom Thorgerson, the guy who designed album covers like Dark Side of the Moon and other iconic LPs from Pink Floyd, 10cc, Zeppelin (Houses of the Holy), Genesis (A Trick of the Tail), and many others.  His company, Hipgnosis, designed hundreds of album covers, elevating that genre to a true art form.

At one time, I owned a coffee table book of Hipgnosis album art and spent hours looking over those amazing covers.  Album covers are a lost art.  During their heyday in the ‘60s and ‘70s, they allowed fans to become closer to the music and the vision of the musicians in ways that CD jewel cases, websites and Facebook fan pages cannot.

From song lyrics to art to pictures to credits, great album artwork revealed a very different side of the music.  Listening to music was a more focused activity.  Instead of shuffling from one band, genre, or style to another – and back again – the process of listening to an entire album was different.  It provided the time to sit down, look at the front, back, and in some cases the inside, while you discovered and enjoyed the music – and what went into it.  And it was designers like Thorgerson who provided their own interesting interpretations of the music with their art.

Notably, he was apparently not an easy craftsman to work with.  On Floyd’s website, drummer Nick Mason wrote,“Scourge of management, record companies and album sleeve printers; champion of bands, music, great ideas and high, sometimes infuriatingly high, standards.  Endlessly intellectual and questioning.  Breathtakingly late for appointments and meetings, but once there, invaluable for his ideas, humor and friendship.”

When we think back to some of the most creative people we’ve ever worked with in radio, chances are they were a bit lacking in the social skills department.  But you put up with that because you enjoy and benefit from their genius and talent.  …/more

- Fred Jacobs

Fred Jacobs is the President of Jacobs Media. Over the past two decades, he has emerged as one of radio’s leading visionaries. He founded Jacobs Media in 1983, when he had the notion that Album Rock could be fragmented by the creation of the Classic Rock format. Today, Classic Rock stands out as the most successful radio format in the last 20 years.

Prior to launching the company, Fred spent the majority of his time designing and managing research projects as the Director of Research for the Radio and Publishing divisions for Frank N. Magid Associates, a leading research and consulting firm. Later, Fred became Director of Radio Research for the ABC-FM Owned and Operated Radio Stations. From there, Fred gravitated to the station side, becoming program director for legendary WRIF-FM in Detroit, before forming Jacobs Media.

Along with providing the creative and intellectual direction for the company, Fred consults Jacobs Media’s major market Classic, Mainstream, and Active Rock clients, while having input in every client relationship.

Eventually, as linear TV is viewed less, the spectrum it now uses on cable and fiber will be reallocated to expanding data transmission. Satellite TV subscribers will be fewer, and mostly be in places where high-speed Internet (cable or fiber) is not available. The importance of high-speed Internet will increase.

Ten Reasons Internet TV Will Grow from Reed Hastings

1. The Internet will get faster, more reliable and more available
2. Smart TV sales will increase and eventually every TV will have Wifi and apps
3. Smart TV adapters (Roku, AppleTV, etc.) will get less expensive and better
4. Tablet and smartphone viewing will increase
5. Tablets and smartphones will be used as touch interfaces for Internet TV
6. Internet TV apps will rapidly improve through competition and frequent updates
7. Streaming 4k video will happen long before linear TV supports 4k video
8. Internet video advertising will be personalized and relevant
9. TV Everywhere will provide a smooth economic transition for existing networks
10. New entrants like Netflix are innovating rapidly.

Sound Analysis, An Examination of the Canadian Independent Music Industry, quantifies for the first time the specific economic impact of the sector. The report proves the independent music sector is a vibrant, job-creating industry that supports more than 13,000 jobs annually, pays more than $93 million in taxes to the federal and provincial governments, and provides a positive balance and net gain to the provincial and national economies.

“The independent, Canadian-owned music industry is a dynamic, entrepreneurial community of artists and small businesses comprising labels, managers, publishers, promoters, studios, venues and more,” says CIMA President Stuart Johnston. “And while the music they make and perform is indeed the lifeblood of our communities, this report also shows that it helps drive our economy forward in truly meaningful ways.”

CIMA commissioned research firm Nordicity to measure the breadth and scope of the Canadian-owned, English-language independent music industry, and to measure its importance to both national and provincial economies. The report defines industry structure, sources of revenues and expenses, industry and artist activities, salaries and wages, employment and future trends and challenges.

Key highlights of Sound Analysis:

• In total, the industry generated approximately $292 million in revenues in 2011, and contributed more than $300 million in GDP to the Canadian economy
• Artists generated another $79.4 million in revenues
• In total, the industry had a GDP impact of $8.2 million per $10 million of industry revenue, meaning that for every $10 million of revenue generated, the independent music industry added $8.2 million to the Canadian economy
• As a whole, the industry generated an average $1.22 return in taxes for every $1.00 in support from the federal and provincial governments
• Almost half of the music firms in Canada  – 46% — are sole proprietorships
• More than 13,400 Canadians are employed in the industry, 67% of which are artists
• 60% of the industry earns $50,000 a year or less in gross revenues, while the top 10% earn more than $500,000 annually
• Approximately 73% of these revenues are earned in Canada
• Employees of music companies earned an average $22,250 in wages in 2011
• Individual artists earned an average of $7,228 per year from music-related activities in 2011, though they only spent 29  hours per week pursuing such activities
• 53% of independent music companies are bullish on their future, expecting business to grow by 10% or more

Sound Analysis also concludes that, outside of Canada, approximately 19% of industry revenues are derived from the United States’ market, 3% from the UK, 1% from New Zealand/Australia and 4% from the rest of the world. While these numbers demonstrate that the independent industry as a whole is largely a domestic one, it highlights the fact that international expansion is among the key strategic objectives for the industry. And while most firms see themselves continuing to grow in Canada, close to half of companies also seek to grow in the United States, and a significant number view other international markets as key to their future growth and success.

“One of the conclusions of this report is that there are significant opportunities to grow the industry through exporting Canadian music to key global markets,” says Johnston. “The focus on exporting is a natural and important strategy to grow international revenues for the domestic industry.”