It seems like years since I’ve posted an interview here, which, I
assure you, is my fault and not my subjects’. The good news is, we have
an exquisite line-up for the next few Fridays. For those of you just
joining us now, on Fridays I’ll (try to) post an interview with someone
far more
knowledgeable than myself on specific marketing and publicity
subjects. This week, FatCat USA label manager Anna Bond on record placement in iTunes vs. stores, being a girl, and how the industry needs to reinvent itself.
Anna Bond has been co-label manager of FatCat USA for two years. She has worked in the music industry in NYC for just over five years, and has spent time in artist management and retail in addition to record labels. The only things she likes more than records are vegetables.
Can
you please tell the scores of Life’s a Pitch readers about the
classical imprint on the label? First, what is an “imprint”? What was
the reasoning behind creating it?
130701 was created in
order for FatCat to release modern composition records that didn’t fit
with the aesthetic of FatCat proper. Artists released on the label
include Max Richter, Sylvain Chaveau, Set Fire To Flames, and Hauschka.
“Imprint” means different things, technically, depending on where you
are, but for FatCat, it’s simply a genre marker – the same folks work
on promoting and selling the records as for all FatCat releases. At a
major, an imprint might be a subsidiary label with an entirely separate
staff and office.
Do you think record labels have become
literally-labels? For example, if pianist Max Richter was on Decca, he
would be classical, but because he’s on FatCat, he’s “indie”?
Conversely (or, similarly, depending on how you look at it), when an
artist on a classical label does anything in another genre sphere, they
are immediately labeled as (and often criticized for being) “crossover”.
This
is a tough question. To an extent, I think the answer is yes. Some
music buyers notice and even follow labels, but I think the importance
is more in the industry realm – retail, press, and radio, who will all
influence the way an artist is perceived by the music-buying public,
are more likely to know different labels and their rosters, and
therefore have notions of what to expect from them. Labels who become
closely identified with one very specific type of music, like Americana
or heavy rock, may have a tough time shaking those preconceptions, and
releases outside their mold may suffer.
How do you submit
an artist like Max Richter to iTunes? To record stores? Are we dealing
with different genre labels for those different platforms?
Lots
of record stores don’t have classical sections, or if they do, they
don’t carry modern composers – just your Carmina Burana, all the big
guns, La Boheme, and the holiday stuff, because that’s all that will
sell in a lot of markets – so we use our wiggle room as an “indie” or
rock label to classify Max Richter as “rock” for retail solicitations,
so that those stores who don’t buy classical don’t ignore the record.
Once store buyers do read our solicitation materials, they’ll know what
the music is, but in order to get them to that point, we can’t be under
the classical heading. And honestly, that’s an appropriate genre
classification for a lot of the buyers of his music: sure, avant-garde
heads will pick up the CD, but a lot of our sales will be to folks who
are also looking for Sufjan Stevens, Yeasayer, or Godspeed.
The
digital realm, on the other hand, presents its own challenges and
opportunities. Placement on sites like iTunes and eMusic is very
competitive for rock releases, especially for crowded fall release
dates, but less so for classical, so in the digital realm, we find it
more advantageous to group it with classical releases, where we have a
much greater chance of featured new-release placement – and a greater
chance of reaching curious fans of classical music. With digital, we
don’t have to worry about a retailer choosing not to carry the release
due to its genre classification.
Are indie record sales
as bad as classical record sales? Do you think the whole industry will
actually croak? When? Exact date and time, please.
Sales
overall have obviously decreased, but there are pockets of hope
everywhere, especially with vinyl and special packaging. I think the
music industry will continue to change radically – to the extent that
it may be unrecognizable to many in, say, ten years – but it’s hard for
me to believe it will dissolve entirely. That could be wishful
thinking, though.
How many rock/electronica critics are women? How many managers? Publicists?
I’m
not sure exactly, but I’d estimate roughly that no more than 25% of the
writers we send to are women. I have long noticed that women are
disproportionately represented as managers and publicists vs. in other
areas of the industry, which I can’t help but attribute to our
acculturation as nourishers and communicators.
How many
women artists are on FatCat? The indie rock industry seems very
male-dominated to me, but then again, so does the classical music
industry. And…life in general.
FatCat has several women on
the active roster, including two of our highest-profile artists, Vashti
Bunyan (she is on FatCat in the UK only) and Nina Nastasia. Also Silje
Nes, members of Múm, Welcome, and Vetiver (again, Vetiver is on FatCat
in the UK only)… once you include the inactive roster and the split
series, there are lots more. But there are definitely more male
artists, by a wide margin.
Yes, the music world is quite
male-dominated, but so is pretty much everything except like,
elementary school education and social work. My theory about this would
take pages to expound, but I think one reason most popular bands are
male is because the most passionate music followers are male.
This
is not because men are innately more passionate about music than women,
but because women are pressured to cast aside hobbies and passions like
record-collecting or insatiable music-listening earlier than men are,
in favor of practical responsibilities like, say, getting one’s career
sorted before it’s time to have babies.
On the same token,
it’s likely that these pressures also discourage musical women from
pursuing the slow grind toward making music as a career.
It’s
hard to make this claim without sounding flippant or reductive, but
it’s certainly been my experience, and that of my close women friends,
both in and out of the music industry.
Between you and me
and whomever’s reading, do you ever leak albums? Like, send them to
bloggers from a secret Gmail account or whatever?
Nah, they
leak soon enough on their own. Though I have noticed that the lag
between mailing and leak, even for relatively high-profile releases,
has increased. Maybe leaking for leaking’s sake has gotten old? I’m not
sure.
What press is considered the Holy Grail for your
albums? Pitchfork? Why does everyone keep saying Pitchfork is over? I’d
really like to know…
Pitchfork is a big one, but I don’t
think there is a Holy Grail. It’s a combination of attention across the
board from print and online press. For a couple of years – 2004-2005
maybe? – Pitchfork was a massive sales driver, with the ability to
launch careers seemingly out of nowhere. But the record had to appeal
to enough people who sought it out after the Pitchfork review to become
a real phenomenon like the Arcade Fire or Clap Your Hands Say Yeah –
I’m pretty sure William Basinski’s Disintegration Loops didn’t sell
100K after getting Pitchfork’s Best New Music, and I know that Max
Richter didn’t. Though both releases undoubtedly received more
attention due to the Pitchfork review than they otherwise would have.
Now
there are simply so many review sites, mp3 blogs – so many sources for
reading about music – that it’s impossible for one site to have as much
impact anymore. Getting a high Pitchfork rating is still a boon in
terms of press attention and sales, but it’s definitely not going to
guarantee success, especially for artists who are more left-field.
Our
friends at Sequenza21 offered three free Max Richter track downloads,
but, to my knowledge, that was one of the first times a classical blog
has ever done that. Do the blogs you usually work with offer free
downloads all the time? How does giving away product for free like that
affect album sales?
Rock sites do a lot of mp3 download
giveaways and streaming audio samples – it’s standard at this point. We
generally offer one or two mp3 download giveaway tracks for each
record, and we consider the attention drawn to the music by these early
previews an upside greater than any downside in terms of sales.
Have
you found an online equivalent to flipping through CDs/records/tapes in
bins at record stores, or do you think that’s irreplaceable?
I
am going to be totally honest with you: I can count on the fingers of
one hand how many albums I have ever downloaded. I’m a dinosaur. I work
at computers – why would I want to shop for records at one? I love
record stores, possibly to a fault in terms of my marketing
perspective, and definitely to a fault in terms of my wallet. There is
no substitute for walking into a friendly place, checking out the new
release rack, looking at employee suggestions, asking the person behind
the counter what’s good and new…I know it’s not how everyone prefers
to shop for music, but to me, it’s absolutely irreplaceable.