When Eric Massimino and his childhood pal Mark Hermann started a band in 1997 called the Fire Ants, it was mostly a labor of love.
Having played with several major-label bands over the preceding 11 years, Massimino cherished the opportunity to work with his close friends to record and market an album outside the industry's control. One of the Fire Ants' promotion strategies was to post a song on the MP3.com Web site, which has become the ratings chart for online music, visited by hundreds of thousands of music fans every day.
After Save the World moved up the MP3.com rock chart to No. 2, hundreds of people started downloading it, and fans from around the world emailed messages to the band.
Then came a call from CNN, which brought a film crew to New York to videotape one of the band's live shows. The international news network plans to broadcast a half-hour segment in March that will feature the band. Soon after CNN left town, Rolling Stone magazine called to interview them.
While unknown bands like the Fire Ants may have the most to gain from online music, including getting access to a worldwide audience and distribution network overnight, it is also a boon for established artists looking for more control over the promotion, distribution, release, and even pricing of their work. By striking deals with Web sites like GoodNoise, bands are able to reap more of the rewards from their work, cutting out the middlemen and getting a direct pipeline to their fans.
Massimino said the Net has helped the Fire Ants develop a following that it might take years to establish via the traditional, convoluted network that is the music industry.
"I was with A&M in 1995-96 and spent two years on the HORDE Festival, and they never even released the album," Massimino said. "When you get into a label situation, there can be any number of corporate infighting and politics that come into play. With this, you're the master of your destiny, and you let the quality of the work stand for itself. We're ecstatic at the moment."
Massimino said the Fire Ants have gotten more exposure from MP3.com than he ever imagined. On Thursday, 1,097 people downloaded their song, and he estimates that since December, at least 4,000 people have dropped it on their drives. After receiving fan email from Europe, the band decided to go to a music conference in France, where they found top executives from major European labels eager to talk with them.
While MP3 and online music distribution presents dramatic, sometimes frightening, new business paradigms for the music industry and independent labels, it also gives artists much more control over the rights to their music and how they want to promote it.
For well-established bands, it might be enough to post a new song on their site every now and then to keep their audience on board until the next album arrives in stores or on sites like GoodNoise. But for unknown artists who want to make a name for themselves, sites like MP3.com offer the chance to become an overnight success. Since its rating system is democratic -- based on the number of downloads a song receives -- new bands can get the recognition it takes years to develop via traditional channels. In the case of Poster Children, a critically acclaimed post-punk band from Champaign, Illinois, which has toured around the world and recorded seven albums over the last 12 years, computers and the Net have always been a component of their work.
For the past few years, the band's Web site has featured fan chat rooms, and while on tour, some band members will post daily diary entries. So, when MP3 and online distribution came around, Poster Children were quick to embrace it.
"The first time we started talking about distribution over the Net, we said, 'Oh my god, that's the future,'" said Rose Marshack, the band's bass player and, often enough, lead programmer. "Especially with the Rio [handheld MP3 player], this is a sign that the future is coming, and it's exciting and wonderful. It completely puts power back in the hands of musicians."
Poster Children's newest album, New World Record -- "tomorrow's punk for today's geek," said Marshack -- is due for general release 23 February. However, earlier this month the band posted one of the new singles on GoodNoise, and 15,000 people have already downloaded it. The Poster Children also made the full album available on advance order for US$8.99.
Having worked with both independent and major labels over the last decade, Marshack said that either route is difficult to make a living, even if a band is very successful. Indie labels give artists about 50 percent of the profits after they've broken even on production and distribution costs, and major labels only give about 10 percent to the artists.
Richard Dekkard, an electronica artist and producer who thrived in London and New York City for many years, recently set up a one-man shop in Maine, where he records, produces, manufactures, and distributes his own music over the Net. Dealing with most of the major labels over the last decade, he has become cynical about how they operate.
"It's only the David Geffens of the world who get rich," he said. "I would sell 500,000 to 600,000 copies of an album, and after [the label] recouped the cost of their infrastructure and administration, and $15 million buildings in Manhattan, I would make about 30 or 40 grand," he said. "[Artists] need to realize that you can make the same $100,000 by selling 15,000 records, rather than a million with a major label."
As MP3 files are easy to copy and distribute, Dekkard said he is concerned about piracy. For now, he said, MP3 is a good format for promotion, and a more secure means of distributing files will eventually emerge.
Another issue with online music distribution is the pipeline that delivers it into people's homes.
"Without a broadband connection, the realistic market to download things is slim. As that changes, it will be amazing and convenient to click and download songs they want to burn on their own CDs," Dekkard said. In addition to individual artists and bands, independent labels and managers are embracing online music distribution and seizing the cross-promotion opportunities the Net provides. Poster Children's label, Spin Art Records, distributes all its artists' music through GoodNoise and is working to get its entire catalog of music available in MP3.
Jeff Price, Spin Art's founder, said MP3 virtually eliminates some of the most expensive aspects of his business, including CD production, packaging, and shipping. In the process, he said, it has helped level the playing field for indies to compete with the major labels and their massive, monopolistic distribution channels.
"We just cut them off at the knees -- we have worldwide distribution overnight," Price said. With about 80 percent of the $12 billion music industry controlled by 5 major distributors, he said, independent labels are left to fight over the remaining 20 percent.
"Wal-Mart accounts for 20 percent of the sales in the US, but I can't get my records in there," he said, explaining that the window displays, listening stations, and other retail promotion points are tightly controlled by the major labels.
Kevin Carmony, an agent with True Verse Management in Los Angeles, represents several artists who are doing well on the MP3.com charts. He said getting real-time feedback on a song is an invaluable tool in promoting his musicians.
"In the early days of MP3.com, if your song was downloaded a few times, it would affect the chart, but now it has to be downloaded hundreds of times ... and tomorrow it starts all over again," he said. "Emily's [Richards] new song debuted at 1,002 yesterday, and already today it's at No. 31. By tomorrow, I guarantee you it will be No. 1."
Carmony said that since he doesn't have access to the big distribution chains, he spends about 80 percent of his effort online. Instead of pasting flyers to telephone poles, he's posting hyperlinks to the artists' Web sites.
"The Net won't replace major distribution, but today it is allowing the little guy to try his stuff out and test it with the people like never before," he said.
Evidently some labels are taking note. Carmony said he periodically receives calls from major label A&R (Artists and Repertoire) reps who watch MP3.com's charts to scout talent and to keep an eye on the newest threat.
Carmony is in the process of organizing the first major live broadcast of popular MP3.com bands, which will probably, ironically, use the RealNetworks audio-video streaming platform. MP3 is not quite ready for prime-time streaming to large audiences.
As new models of online music distribution evolve, the movement will likely mirror the innovation and pace of the computer industry as much as the music business itself.
"For me, MP3 is the radio of the Net," said Carmony. "The record companies are freaking out about this thing. One day, they are paying the radio stations to play their songs, and the next day they are paying attorneys to shut down this stuff on the Net."
