Music Matters kicked off the first day of its three day programme at the Ritz-Carlton Millenia in Singapore with a panel on Asia’s largest emerging market: China.
Moderated by Ed Peto, the Managing Director of Outdustry, the panel of four industry experts from AEG Live Asia, Split United, EN.DI.ASI and S.T.D. outlined touring strategies in the region, the influence of social media and how international acts can break into a market that points inward.
The panel pointed to language barriers and Chinese media as the main challenges international acts face when trying to break into the market. With traditional media, which is held up by the government, everything is pay to play… “editorial is advertorial… no one writes about interesting stuff unless they get paid for it. So unless you’re so big you don’t need the media, it’s expensive.” And though social media creates new opportunities, it’s important to know the local programs that are used. Finding good people to work with on ground – people enthusiastic about you or your artist – is key to entering the Chinese market.
The line between digital and music matters is a fine one, and the next panel looked at how multimedia helps artists and labels achieve success in the digital era. Moderator Sandy Monterio of Universal Music Group International asked the question: Is it possible to be relevant without being multimedia? The easy answer is no, though the panel agreed that it’s important you never try and force a result. It’s more important to be authentic than to try and be “cool”. It has to be left up to the public as to who has the “cool factor”.
Digital multimedia allows for global reach and the ability for an artist to establish themselves. The panel reflected on some of their own experiences, “giving away your debut album for free can then allow that artist to grow their business and monetize their music in the future.”
During the hour long “Caffeine Matters” break, delegates and artists were able to head down to the main ballroom and the Digital Matters programme to see local Singapore act Monster Cat perform two tracks live.
The morning of Music Matters panels wrapped up with the panel “Sold Out”, taking the earlier discussion of the Chinese music industry into the broader Asian market, looking into the future of live music across the region.
Moderated by Billboard Magazine’s Tokyo Bureau Chief Rob Schwartz and presented by the Singapore Tourism Board, representatives from China, Japan, Australia, Singapore and Malaysia graced the panel. The overbearing message from the panel was that in a fragmented market, things are booming. From the EDM craze in Malaysia with 35,000 attending Armin Van Buuren and the popularity of the Future Music Festival (which was revealed to be returning in 2015 in spite of the event’s final day cancellation this year following the multiple drug related deaths), to the US$2.3 billion in ticket sales in Japan, and over 50 festivals in Korea, the overall message was a positive one.
Regions like China and Japan remain more “inward focused” on the domestic market, to the point that in China, a local artist can play up to 50 cities – but thanks to the internet and social media, there is more and more interest in international, Western music across Asia. And making this all possible is growing government assistance and of course, events like Music Matters.
After lunch, Music Matters got a little bit more technical with the publishing mega panel, talking with music publishers and the bodies that ensure musicians get paid – like APRA AMCOS in Australia, which was represented by International Director Scot Morris and BMI with Brandon Bakshi. Morris said that APRA AMCOS collects royalties for its 88,000 international members, and as it does this, providing some $25 million in royalties, they lobby to improve copyright protection in government and also take that knowledge and bring it to other, developing countries where such rights administration may not have otherwise existed.
The challenges they face in the changing digital marketplace include things like a karaoke system that just uses YouTube, bypassing publishing discussions. But ultimately it all comes back to the song, and it was inspiring to hear how much emphasis these panelists place on the songwriting process, many setting up writing camps across the world which create international musical partnerships that go on to do big things.
Scot Morris continued on for the “why metadata matters” panel which followed, accompanied by Bernie Cho, Alex Goatcher, Mark Isherwood and Mohammed Mountadene, moderated by Bill Wilson, VP of Music Business Association (been around since 1958, previously known as NARM). Metadata is the key to ensuring the money gets out to the right people. The overall message was how important correct metadata is, “Computers are pretty stupid unless you tell it exactly what you need it to do… This information needs to be 100% right.”
Bad metadata can lead to multiple claims and mismatches of content to content creator – the person who should be getting the royalties. But good metadata is why Korean music is so successful and profitable, over other Asian music: it was created in English and Korean. This promoted sales across different territories and protects their rights. It also made it easier to find on piracy sites and shut those sites down.
Things got a bit less technical for “All By Myself”, about building a successful independent label, after a short break. Moderated by Simon Wheeler of Beggars Group, the panelists were made up on Benjy Grinberg of Rostrum Records, Daniel Glass of Glassnote, Soumini Paul of Artist Aloud (India) and Andrew Lazonby of Hostess Entertainment. This was one of the most interesting panels of the day, as well as one of the best attended.
Andrew Lazonby talked about his experiences in Japan, “…the Japanese music industry in incredibly well run, it’s making an amazing amount of money even now. Our focus isn’t about the individual product, it’s about the market.” With Daniel Glass, his company Glassnote have become one of the most influential in the world. “We’ve never signed a record in the history of the company. We want the best live bands in the world. Daughter, a mesmerizing live band, we’re not working with them for an album or a single. They just get better and better. Pheonix took 58 weeks to break the first song. That was fun. We get radio though because we get people to see them live.”
Soumini Paul talked about a very different marketplace in India, where she runs a five year old digital company that would be called a “platform” more than a “label”. “We became more of a platform because media wasn’t playing the music we were working with. We are building the ecosystem that we need to use.” And as for Benjy Grinberg of Rostrum Records, he talked about one of his first big successes, Wiz Khalifa, who took some five years to break, “I believed in him the moment I met him. I wanted to help him and work with him.”
Finishing up the first day of the Music Matters conference was a panel on mobile and streaming services on Asia, featuring panelists from Rdio, Haldanes, Microsoft, Guvera (Indonesia), Google and Deezer, with Jeff Hughes, CEO of Omniphone serving as moderator. The panel led us through the current state of streaming services internationally, none of which are profitable. Everyone on the panel pointed it to being a work in progress. With music as the number one add among all devices, profitability for these services is about reaching a “critical mass”. Moving people into valuing music again through subscription and ad funded models. And another thing could be agreed on: “only the truly global will survive”.
Stay tuned for ongoing coverage from Music Matters, exclusively on the AU!
Words by Larry Heath. Photos by Johnny Au.
