Jonatha Brooke
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THE FINGERTIPS Q&A Jonatha Brooke [continued] |
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Q: Ringtones: good or evil? A: Ringtones are just something I don't get. I just don't get it at all. So it's not even about good or evil. Why will a kid happily fork over two to five bucks for a hip ringtone but balk at paying 10 bucks for an album of music that he/she can listen to forever? It's just a phone!! But it's our next platform. It will apparently be our everything, so...Status? Comfort? Style? At least someone figured out how to monetize that! Anyway, it's such a narrow demographic. There are some hip hop and pop artists who have scored well and will probably continue to. But it's just not my market. I haven't made 10 bucks on ringtones! Q: Does the existence of the internet, and digital distribution of music via the internet, now influence how you think about music, and how you write music? A: It doesn't influence how I write music, but certainly how I think about it, and its "delivery." For instance, there are always opportunities now to create exclusive "gimmes" for internet destinations. Where before, maybe you would do a Borders exclusive version of the record. Three extra tracks and you could only buy it at Borders. Now it can be ongoing. You have a new live video from a great show somewhere? You can offer it to iTunes and keep your momentum going even in the middle of the cycle of a record. These are good things that I'm actually embracing. Okay. What can we use next month to keep the interest, to bring in new listeners? It's much cheaper to upload new things digitally, it's immediate, and it's kind of fun to come up with the ideas. And I have to say, iTunes has been a great, fair model from the get-go. Q: A lot has been made of the assertion that in the future, people won't buy music, and artists will make a living only via performance. What are your feelings about that idea? A: If you've ever been on the road that's a pretty scary notion. It's just not glamorous. It's exhausting. It's hard. You drive all night to get to the next city. But you can't check into the hotel until 2pm, you're tired, cranky, haven't had any real food in a couple days. And maybe the fee from the club covers the cost of your hotel, transportation, and a couple of band members. And how would anyone know your music so that they would even want to come to the show? No record sales? Probably no terrestrial radio at that point too. (It's too expensive to get your songs played anyway.) So where's the future in that for most mid-level artists? I think that means a lot of folks are going back to school or picking up second jobs! I hope there will always be people who will buy music. Maybe it will just be a generational thing. You either grew up with that model or not. And maybe the din of all the disposable stuff out there will quiet, and that hunger for really good music will win out. It's funny because I was on a panel recently where we were talking/arguing about "new music, new media, new money." I kept asking where the new money was? And of course not really getting satisfying answers. All the web entrepreneur/panelists kept saying, "Well, the good stuff always rises to the top--you just have to make really amazing records." But then the conversation would invariably turn to the stuff that really does rise to the top. "Chocolate Genius"--sensational, weird, bad accidents that we can't look away from. That is what the internet is best at. Or really high profile artists that the major labels have invested in heavily. Not necessarily really quality music. I guess I just have to have faith in people. Maybe the income streams will be vastly different, and we'll continue to scramble to piece together the same living that used to be more obvious. But hopefully people want great music, we'll just have to work our butts off to get it them, to make it rise to the top! It's like that schtick on Letterman: "Will it Float??"  © copyright 2008 Fingertip Productions |