Why artists need labels like Ministry of Sound
6Music have spotted it, Music Week stuck it on the front page
and yesterday Popjustice waded in: pop's commentariat are
going crazy about On Air On Sale and whether some labels are
effectively cheating by breaking ranks.
The immediate reason for this week's flurry of coverage is a
singles chart in which four of the Top Five did not obey the
new industry accord that singles should be made available to
download as soon as they go to radio - in other words they
were serviced to radio ahead of release in order to build
demand.
But should we really be berating labels for scoring Top Five hits?
Should we really be beating up Ministry of Sound for
propelling Example to Number One with sales of over 115k in a
week?
Sounds curious to me.
***
The rationale for the On Air On Sale -expertly orchestrated for
months by the MMF's Jon Webster and Joe Taylor - was
essentially political. How can we lobby the Government for
action against filesharing, went the argument, when for weeks
at a time we don't give music fans a legal means to buy the
music we're promoting?
As a political point, it seems pretty compelling, and so it was no
surprise that on February 1, smack-bang-in-the-middle of
attempts to speed up the introduction of the Digital Economy
Act and the lobbying around the Hargreaves Review that the new
policy was formally adopted by at least two of the four major
record companies.
Despite the fact that by definition it seemed to concede the right
to determine release dates to people who preferred to take
music for free, it looked at the time like good pragmatic
politicking.
***
Fast forward four months, however, and going by some of the
reaction this week to the inevitable cracks that have appeared
in the new policy and you'd think On Air On Sale was a new
religion rather than simple political nous.
We are told of "disturbing wobbles" at the labels (sounds
entertaining). There are demands that the OCC bans any singles
which are serviced to radio ahead of release (the competition
authorities would have fun with that one). And most
over-the-top of all, the normally sensible Jon Webster demands
that people "put the interests of the industry before the
interests of an individual act".
Let's be clear: any manager who allows a label to put the
interests of the industry ahead of the interests of the act he
or she manages probably has grounds for complaint. Funnily
enough, in normal circumstances it's precisely the kind of
complaint the MMF would take up.
Surely if I'm an artist, I don't want a committee member,
a consensus-builder, a smooth politician. I want someone who
will go into the trenches for me.
I want a label that will do whatever it takes to make me
successful.
I want a label like Ministry of Sound that will help deliver me a
Number One record.
***
The point about On Air On Sale is that get it wrong and the people
who pay the price are the decision makers themselves. Thus if
I go to radio too early and lose a bunch of sales to illegal
downloading that's my lookout. If on the other hand I go early
when everyone else goes late and I steal a march on them, then
I'm the smart one.
It's no one else's business what I do. And you know why? Because
it's my artist and it's my business.
The On Air On Sale campaign has had a positive impact by
questioning a default marketing approach based on interminable
set-up campaigns which had long gone stale. But replacing one
orthodoxy with another is not the answer.
On Air On Sale may well suit huge international artists with an
active fan base. It may well not suit a baby act who no-one's
heard of.
Ultimately the only people with the right to decide what is right
are the artists investing their talent and the companies
investing their cash.
All the rest is noise.