READ TRAXPLOITATION

Prefer to watch? Watch What Happened To Johnny Ace → It’s the evening of Christmas Day, 1954, and Johnny Ace — one of the biggest singing stars of the day — is due to take to the stage at the City Auditorium in Houston, Texas. But backstage, a gun goes off… and he never makes it. Depending on who you ask — or which version of the story you hear — it was either a tragic accident… a reckless mistake… or something darker. Early Life Born John Marshall Alexander Jr. in 1929, he w

You have probably seen the promise that you will “Keep 100% of your royalties” when taking up a subscription-based distribution deal with...

Robert George “Joe” Meek was a song-writer, producer and sound engineer. He was also an independent label, publisher and studio owner. He was the epitome of independence in the music industry. He wrote, recorded, mixed and mastered the first song by a British group to go to number 1 in the USA and sold well over 5 million records, all from his rented flat on the Holloway Road in North London. Joe Meek is often described as the British Phil Spector this is probably as much t

Several countries around the world offer incentives to get movies and TV shows filmed and produced in their country. It’s usually some kind of tax relief but in many cases, it’s a cash rebate. The majority of these deals are only offered to large budget, high profile productions. One of the countries that have offered such a rebate is Iceland, they offer up to 25% cash rebate on the movies and TV productions made there. The movies Batman Begins, Prometheus and Star Trek: In

I’m sure you’ve heard at least one of the versions or adaptations of “The Lion Sleeps Tonight”. It has been re-recorded or adapted over 150 times since it was first recorded in 1939, yet it took until 2006 for the writer Solomon Linda to be credited as a writer. Who was Solomon Linda? Solomon Linda (far left) & The Evening Birds, holding 3 of their trophies for singing contests. Solomon Popoli Ntsele, also known by his clan name “Linda”, was a South African singer known for

Prefer to watch? Watch Mime & Punishment → On the 21st of July 1989, during a “live” performance for MTV the playback device failed and began to skip. Not only did it halt the performance it triggered the beginning of the end of one of the biggest scandals to rock the music industry. This is the story of Milli Vanilli… Milli Vanilli was put together in 1988 by German producer and songwriter, Frank Farian, but we have to go a little bit farther back to truly understand how Mi

In early May 2019 music crowdfunding website PledgeMusic announced it was officially entering bankruptcy. Most of the artists who were pledged money through the website will almost certainly not receive the money that was promised to them as the company had used this money to pay company debts instead, breaking their own promise that all funds go directly to the artist. So what went wrong? Is crowdfunding still a viable way to raise money for your projects? How it all began

At the 2019 Ivor Novello Awards, Richard Ashcroft announced that after 22 years the dispute over his song, “Bittersweet Symphony” was over. The Rolling Stones would no longer be listed as songwriters or collect any royalties from the song. Many people are applauding Keith Richards and Mick Jagger for doing this, I’m not so quick to give them credit (pun intended!). At the time the message coming from The Rolling Stones camp was they were entitled to every penny from the tra

Aside from the distributors and retailers of music, there are a huge number of societies, organisations and companies that collect and distribute the many other revenue streams in the music industry. Some of them are the source of the revenue, like in the case of “Collective Management Organisations” (CMOs) in the areas of Performing Rights and Neighbouring rights, others are middle-men who collect from the various sources and then distribute to their members. So which should

As March 29th, 2019 approaches, with no Brexit deal in sight, it’s still unclear what will actually happen if the UK leaves the EU as...

A well known UK distributor early last year starting dumping independent labels, sending some the following letter. “Dear “label name...

What Not To Do As the modern music industry is in constant change, with many of the platforms and resources we now rely on in their...

In part 1, I went over the basic principles of how Spotify works and addressed some of the talking points around the audio streaming...

Streaming accounts for 37% of all the revenue from recorded music and with over 220million subscribers and a market share of 36% Spotify...

One of the most important decisions you will have to make as a self-releasing artist and/or independent record label is which digital...

On the 11th October 2018, President Trump signed the Music Modernization Act (MMA), or the Orrin G. Hatch-Bob Goodlatte Music...

I first started selling music online, independently, around 2005. At that time there were almost none of the tools and resources...

And now on centre stage…TheMusicLicence You may have seen in the music press that PPL and PRS for Music have launched a joint venture, PPL PRS Ltd, to bring public performance licenses under one roof, but what does this mean for you, the composers and performers. Well, with regard to royalty payments, there will be no change. For those of you registered with PPL and/or PRS for Music you shall continue to receive your royalty payments as you always have. PPL will continue to r

0n June 29th, PPL made their main annual distribution of royalties to its members. More than £150million was paid out, a 12% increase on...

So you’ve finally finished mixing your latest project and you’re ready to release it, or are you? I’ve met a lot of people who spent...