Here's the pie chart proof! From my iTunes analytics, this is the breakdown of the top 5 sellers on iTunes. Notice, I have a video for every one:
Check out the Official Videos!!
"How Good" ft. Meek Mill video here - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eTo9vbA6KW8
"Back" video here - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=do_fY3HikkQ
"Echo" video here - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YSBrI6i-NwA
"Too Proud" video here - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bNPjCLT9eqo
I know there are still a lot of yall out there who still don't understand why "getting a record deal" is no longer something that, um, smart artists are whole-heartedly aspiring to do.
If I am ever offered a deal from a major, I want a Kanye West-style deal. I'm not interested in the biggest signing bonus. I'm interested in creative freedom. When you really look at it, what's $3 million worth anyway? Money doesn't bring me happiness, I know that for a fact. I want a label or team behind me that believes 100% in what I do and will let me do what I want, not tell me what to do or tell me to hit the road.
I know a lot of you reading this are rolling your eyes. Well, if you don't believe it from me, believe it from Hip-Hop legend NAS. In a recent blog post from Bob Lefsetz (www.lefsetz.com), he attached an email written from NAS himself to his label, about exactly this subject:
"A little birdie sent me the below e-mail with this note attached:
'In a nut shell he has an album titled 'Lost Tapes 2' that his fans have been dying to have since his first one came out in 2005. They seem to not understand the cultural impact the first one had. The album is done and now they are saying he can put it out but it won't count on his deal and they won't pay for it but still want all the benefits of a new nas album.'
And here it is:
From: Nas
To: LA Reid, Steve Bartels, Steve Gawley, Michael Seltzer, Joseph Borrino, Chris Hicks
Subject: PUT MY SHIT OUT!
Peace to all,
With all do respect to you all, Nas is NOBODY's slave. This is not the 1800's, respect me and I will respect you.
I won't even tap dance around in an email, I will get right into it. People connect to the Artist @ the end of the day, they don't connect with the executives. Honestly, nobody even cares what label puts out a great record, they care about who recorded it. Yet time and time again its the executives who always stand in the way of a creative artist's dream and aspirations. You don't help draw the truth from my deepest and most inner soul, you don't even do a great job @ selling it. The #1 problem with DEF JAM is pretty simple and obvious, the executives think they are the stars. You aren't.... not even close. As a matter of fact, you wish you were, but it didn't work out so you took a desk job. To the consumer, I COME FIRST. Stop trying to deprive them! I have a fan base that dies for my music and a RAP label that doesn't understand RAP. Pretty fucked up situation
This isn't the 90's though. Beefing with record labels is so 15 years ago. @ this point I just need you all to be very clear where I stand and how I feel about "my label." I could go on twitter or hot 97 tomorrow and get 100,000 protesters @ your building but I choose to walk my own path my own way because since day one I have been my own man. I did business with Tommy Mottola and Donnie Einer, two of the most psycho dudes this business ever created. I worked well with them for one major reason....... they believed in me. The didn't give a fuck about what any radio station or magazine said....those dudes had me.
Lost Tapes is a movement and a very important set up piece for my career as it stands. I started this over 5 years ago @ Columbia and nobody knew what it was or what it did but the label put it out as an LP and the fans went crazy for it and I single handlely built a new brand of rap albums. It's smart and after 5 years it's still a head of the game. This feels great and you not feeling what I'm feeling is disturbing. Don't get in the way of my creativity. We are aligned with the stars here, this is a movement. There is a thing called KARMA that comes to haunt you when you tamper with the aligning stars. WE ARE GIVING THE PEOPLE EXACTLY WHAT THEY WANT. Stop throwing dog shit on a MAGICAL moment.
You don't get another Nas recording that doesn't count against my deal....PERIOD! Keep your bullshit $200,000.00 fund. Open the REAL budget. This is a New York pioneers ALBUM, there ain't many of us. I am ready to drop in the 4th quarter. You don't even have shit coming out! Stop being your own worst enemy. Let's get money!
-N.Jones"
I'm sorry, but lyrics deserve no credit at all on the copyright sheet. Yeah yeah you're all up in arms ready to debate about how much time you spend on lyrics but I'm here to tell you it makes no difference. It all has to do with the song. The music. The production.
I was going to cite songs like Rihanna's "Rude Boy" as examples, but I figured someone would argue the lyrics are great and really make the song because they're party lyrics and they have sexual undertones which are perfect for Rihanna's image... *cough* bullcrap *cough*
So I have been looking for the perfect case song, and I think I have found it. Train's "Hey, Soul Sister"
- I love this song
- This song was #1 on iTunes for I believe 5 or 6+ consecutive weeks
- It's a perfect summer song. Actually, it uses the same 4 chords as Jason Mraz's "I'm Yours", which was last summer's perfect summer song lol
- THE LYRICS ARE SO BAD but it makes no difference...
OK so yeah everything is subjective but please tell me you dont think these lyrics absolutely suck:
"Your lipstick stains/on the front lobe of my left side brains..." wtf
"I'm so obsessed/my heart is bound to beat right out my untrimmed chest..." gross who the heck sings about their hairy chest... it becomes even more, eh, uncanny? when you realize that the guys in this band are all 45 years old...
AND FINALLY...
"The way you cut a rug/watching you is the only drug I need/so gangster I'm so thug..." I have never heard a more futile attempt at being hip with the lingo of today's youth. And no, do not try to tell me that they're actually making fun of the way kids talk these days. No one, I repeat, no one has ever said "cut a rug" since Lynyrd Skynyrd in "Gimme 3 Steps" 40 years ago.
The reason I am using this song as an example is because I am looking to cover it for my live show. When I printed out the lyrics I was legitimately embarrassed to sing it. The lyrics are TERRIBLE hfjdalfhdsa
But, who cares? The song was on iTunes for like 6 straight weeks at #1. I love the song, it's on repeat on my ipod half the day.
My argument here is that lyrics have nothing to do with how good a song is. Songs are good because of the feeling, the vibe they give off. That all comes from the music, not the lyrics.
On the other side, there are songs with arguably "amazing lyrics" that no one knows of because the MUSIC SUCKS:
- Jimmy Buffet sings about the same thing in all of his songs, yet only a few are popular. Margaritaville, Cheeseburger in Paradise, etc. Why? Because these songs are catchy and musically awesome. Not because of the lyrics. His other songs are not, hence why no one knows them.
- The entire collection of Emerson Lake and Palmer. Case closed.
- Niel Young, Bob Dylan. Case closed for the same reasons as Jimmy Buffet.
- All of Justin Beiber or Miley Cyrus' songs are popular because of how awesome the music is, not because of the lyrics.
And the game-winner:
Every rapper of all time. All rap music of all time.
Please listen. Rappers do nothing but rap. Who knows what they're rapping about. The point is, why are some songs super-popular and others not? BECAUSE OF THE MUSIC THEY RAP OVER. That's it! That's the only reason one song is better than the other. Sure there are memorable lines that people love to sing out, but they would be there regardless of the rapper. The production and music is what makes the song popular.
OK, one last thing to throw in there. Pop music... you think Justin Beiber, Miley, Britney, CORNY, CONTRIVED, NOT REAL MUSIC, etc... I know I know. But how do these artists get so dang popular? Because of the songs that are written for them. Check out this video below. 36 songs using the same 4 chords. Why do they all use the same 4 chords? Because they are failsafe. They are catchy to everyone and have always been and always will be. Doesn't matter wtf the lyrics are, the song is instantly attractive to whoever hears it (or at least the masses, maybe not to ye who is so much more musically advanced than the rest of us)
Alright I'm done ranting lol
What a pain. If only we filmmakers had unlimited money to create our projects! haha. For my newest music video, "Echo", I'm looking to raise a little bit of money to run a promo campaign through HIP Video Promo, the bosses.
Kickstarter.com is a great place for investors to come check out projects they might be interested in. They also have a screening process so not just anyone can create a page. I applied last week and was accepted yesterday! I'm pumped. I just created the page. My deadline is the end of May, so we'll see what comes of it.
Take a look at the official "Echo" page - http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/davepatten/get-dave-pattens-echo-music-video-distributed
One of many massive wastes of my money that has been taxed away. Why would you ever consider such cataloging a valid use of time and effort? They're documenting everything from 2006! I can't even fathom how many actual tweets that amounts to. Everything anyone has ever said on twitter. Big brother tracking us all down even more ahhhhhh
It takes 10-12 frickin months to officially copyright music... why don't they figure out how to expedite that process instead lol
Library of Congress to Preserve Tweets for ETERNITY
Dave discussed our Jango Airplay experiment about six weeks ago. Jango.com is a website that streams music by popular artists and allows independent artists to pay to have their songs played with the popular songs. Fans can create "radio stations" based on songs they like and can rate the new artists as well. It is basically internet "pay for play."
Overall, the experiment was a positive one. Dave picked up over 3,000 new fans and his music was exposed to many new listeners. He posted seven songs on Jango. Jango calculates what artists his fans also liked best, song by song. For example, below is their report based on the song "Back." It demonstrates that Dave's music is enjoyed by people with a wide range of popular artists spanning fifty years of work, from The Beatles to today.
(click to enlarge)
Jango also gives you fan gender and age stats. Most of his songs look like this--I think the Jango listeners are younger and that there are more females than males, but that's just a guess based on these charts and six weeks of experience with Jango.
Jango allows the artist to select popular artists that might like his music. We ran many experiments with different target artists to determine which yielded the highest number of new fans. Here's our best performing list:
nOur new fan capture rate ran at around 4% during the campaign. This seemed pretty good, because as Dave's music was favorited by new fans, his songs were included in their radio stations. They listened to the songs but were not able to become new fans again. So over time, you would expect the fan capture rate to drop.
Jango appears to be growing lately--the number of new artists seems to have increased significantly in the last couple of weeks and they increased their prices for plays by 20% this week. At the end of the day, the Jango decision becomes a cost/benefit analysis. Their top package is now $1000 for 40,000 plays per month. It would be an easy decision if those 40,000 spins generated an additional $1000 of sales on iTunes, but I doubt that would happen often. Part of the reason fans listen to Jango is because it is free to them!
We're going to take some time off from Jango and see if Dave's music continues to get spins or just fades away. Let us know your thoughts on the Jango experience, as both an artist and a fan!
WHITE rapper Sam Adams from Boston comes out of NOWHERE to the #1 spot on the iTunes charts last week, beating out simultaneous Lil Wayne and DJ Khaled releases. What a joke. He absolutely 100% fhdjafhldsjakfh paid to have his track debut at #1 on iTunes!
iTunes has even removed him from their top chart list.
If you google his name, he is nowhere to be found. If he actually had a fan base of that caliber, he would be all over google when you search his name! If you track his songs on BigChampagne.com being shared via P2P he has almost no activity.
Once again might I mention that he's white, rapping, and he blows!
Read the full article on how BS this kid is via FuturehitDNA.com below. This dumbass may be at the top this week, but he is one and done and certainly will not have a lasting career.
I don't know his whole story, I've only seen a few interviews on youtube. I know he was recognized for being a musician up in Canada when he was 17 or 18. Not sure what happened there. What I'm interested in is his choice to go the independent route, because this is something I have been considering myself.
In this interview - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QOPTPIOtFYg - Justin notes that he had offers from Universal Music in Canada and he decided to pass on it!! He wants to build things up organically, let things develop and take their natural path.
This is what worries me. Justin had a huge video "After Tonight" a few years back, but it was definitely being pushed by a major label. Now, he's on a mini label and still touring around. Same thing goes for Eric Hutchinson.
Are these smart decisions? Is it smart to bypass the label? I think what matters is what you want in the long run. Do you want to keep your rights and your music, and keep close with your fans and continue putting on intimate live shows or do you want the masses to know your music and put on shows at Wachovia?
It's my Taylor Swift/Kanye West vs. Eric Hutchinson/Justin Nozuka argument. The former gave up all the rights and masters to their music, but everyone knows them. The latter are still unknown. What do you do?
I still need time to think about it and really figure out what I want for myself. For now, I'm going to continue working on the live show and see where things go from there. If at the end of this summer nothing has accumulated, I'll go into a rather sweeping depression and record another full album for a Christmas release. Win win, bitches.
I knew it! If you look back a few posts I ranted about the glorious Nikon D90 that I bought, because digital is the way to go. I bought a $49 16G memory card, have filmed around 4 hours of footage and not even 7G have been used yet... That's already $30 in miniDV tape stock. Plus, no time wasted log-and-capturing, instant footage-review, and more. I couldn't be happier.
I was talking with my friend David Ricks here at Temple University yesterday about film (I'm trying to enlist him as a producer on my next short film), and we got on the subject of the digital SLR and I started explaining the D90 and all it's beauty. He mentioned seeing something similar on the "behind the scenes" of the Young Money "Bedrock" shoot, but he wasn't sure what it was...
I just checked it out, and it is hard for me to contain myself. If you strip away the big shoulder mounts, hand grips and follow-focus mounts... all these guys are using is a digital SLR... possibly even the D90 itself! I FREAKIN KNEW IT!! I freakin knew it was a good buy and that I'll be ahead of the game and look! Now I'm eye to eye with the dudes that got the gig to produce this music video.
I'm going to go bask in the glory of this foresight I have so awesomely taken advantage of :)
PS - At around 55 seconds, you'll see the guy holding the little SLR in his hands. Oh the joy. This is what my video shoots look like. One guy walking backwards (usually Josh West) trying not to fall! haha
