Jumpstarter, kickstarter, trouble-starter. Jonathan Sexton is an instigator – the kind that makes you get off your ass and go do something. Jonathan is the CEO and co-founder of Bandposte.rs (a Back Porch Group portfolio company), and co-founder of Nashville startup Artist Growth. Here we welcome his first guest post to our blog.
Google recently made a daytrip to Ground Zero of the music business (ahem…Nashville), to teach and learn about the impact YouTube is having on the music business. It was a great day for Nashville, but the entire experience left me with the feeling that there are miles to go before YouTube/Music Business relationship status reads something other than: “It’s complicated”.
There is no denying the gravity of Google’s role in music and I do agree with the statement heard over and over again at the recent Google for Creators event in Nashville, that “music and tech are now forever intertwined.” I can get behind any tool that is a) “free” b) actually works and c) can be monetized. YouTube meets all the criteria with flying colors, yet, there are still doubts among many artists that YouTube is the proverbial “Savior of the Music Business”.
1) It’s not you, it’s me.
Sheryl Crow hit the stage at G4C and introduced her new song like this: “I’m going to play you guys some new content. That’s what its call now right? Not music or art?”
Clever banter? Yes. In jest? Not a chance. Dave Grohl also made a recent statement that artists need to make music and not worry about TV and the internet. I don’t 100% agree, but it highlights the issue that YouTube has a user experience/customer development problem.
It’s an old rule in business not to mistake what you have with what people need. This goes for any business, music or not. Most music artists don’t view YouTube as a “go-to” creative outlet. Its another hoop to jump through like Twitter and Facebook, but harder to use. If this isn’t addressed, YouTube will fail. Not as a business (obviously), but they will fail at winning the hearts of musicians and creators all over the world.
Matt Kearney said at G4C, “it’s the highlight of my life to be playing the Nashville Google er..um..YouTube event, now I know I’ve made it.” Spoiler Alert: He wasn’t serious. As the Tech folks stood around being enamoured by rockstars, the rockstars couldn’t seem to figure out if everyone is on the same team or not, which made one thing clear: Musicians don’t love Techies as much as Techies love Musicians.
2) Maybe if you weren’t so high maintenance
Artists making tons of video content and leveraging their YouTube audience into piles of money are a different kind of artist than Sheryl Crow and Matt Kearney. For artists like these, the truth is simple. “You can make a lot of money with your music on YouTube, if you’ll just change everything.” I, personally, am invested in the journey to 10,000 hours of video editing. But, I also have a software background and 2 startups under my belt. Will anyone else be? And if not, are they forever damned to the rubble of the past, laid to rest somewhere between Minidisc players and Laserdiscs?
This maybe a dealbreaker for an artists without a videographer on staff. Yes, anyone can film songs in the bedroom and post them,and should, but unless the content is “Double Rainbow” funny, the video production quality DOES matter. It’s not the only thing that matters (content is king), but it matters. OK Go didn’t film on iPhones. Beyond that its not just about production, its about being efficient enough with YT to actually be able to finish.
3) Ain’t nobody got time for that.
Spend the time and money now learning how to edit video, participate daily in the YouTube community, and one day when you get to 50k views you can start getting paid. It often seems like the payday is too far away to start – unachievable. The newly announced subscription revenues channels may end up being the silver bullet here, especially if they end up being “Pay what you like”, but only time will tell. I’m trying to learn slide guitar and video editing at the same time, starting a new company, touring, coaching little league, and sometimes I like to sleep.
My biggest challenge is finding time to start something else new. Learning YouTube efficiently is like starting piano lessons at the age of 30, but with a lot more buttons.
If YouTube is to be the great hope of the music business, I’m all for it, but continuing to find ways to make artists feel empowered, valued, and creative would go a long way in their quest NOT to be remembered as the company who simply killed the music business. Then again, musicians still may end up blowing you off.
