A Roadmap to New Music Stories From The Disrupted Record Industry

Stephen (Steve) Love
Socially Driven Music
6 min readApr 27, 2021

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Find out what everyone in the #musicbusiness is talking about. We welcome forward thinking music companies, artists, songwriters, super fans (Stans) and, of course, social causes to contact us and join the conversation.

Are you a #musicartist, #songwriter, music industry luminary/mentor, super fan or social cause?

If you care about improving music creators’ livelihoods and working with social issues from voting rights to immigration to discrimination to food insecurity to reasonable gun control to saving the elephants, and much more, see the PowerPoint slideshow below…and connect with us at: http://bit.ly/SDMMailChimp.

SDM is literally a “Labor of Love” (pun intended): see Stephen’s IMDb profile: https://bit.ly/Stephen_Craig_Love_IMDb_Profile. It is the result of years of a passionate involvement in the music industry, creative and administrative experience, and a deep dive into the music industry’s current challenges, resulting in a set of solutions. The main challenges and value propositions include:

(a.) How to re-engage the enormous groups of older fans who are disfranchised by today’s music which doesn’t reflect their values and realties.

(b.) How to make music relevant to a wide demographic that is not reliant on curated playlists and unrepresentative charts.

(c.) How to energize music creators and their fans to rally around myriad social good causes and to effect positive change in an increasingly troubled world.

(d.) How to reactivate the many master songwriters for a socially poignant purpose and who will fuel collaborations with emerging talent.

(e.) How to maximize revenue for under-performing catalogues and reenergize established songwriters likely possessing unpublished hidden gems in their metaphorical piano benches.

(f.) How to Identify and exploit growth areas, with particular attention to the 80/20 rule where much of a catalogue tends to languish while most attention is paid to the newest music.

(g.) How to activate untapped hyperlocal super-fans, becoming a community of grassroots Musicpreneur ambassadors for the discovery and development of emerging artists and songwriters, and support of mutual interest social causes.

(h.) How to enlist the treasure trove of sidelined experienced music industry veterans and have them participate as Mentors to the grassroots Musicpreneurs and their new music discoveries.

(i.) How to take advantage of new revenue and funding tools, such as Non-Fungible Tokens (NFT’s) for integrated music, social impact and branding; Possible use of: Special Purpose Acquisition Companies (SPAC’s); DAO’s (Decentralized Autonomous Organizations); and Fractional Ownership.

(j.) How to create an architecture for repeating the process of building and selling music catalogues.

(k.) Recognizing the fundamental changes in music and entertainment consumerism and creating innovative solutions for engaging and interacting with an unusually wide swath of users. The potential for avenues of additional revenue is made feasible by combining visual and musical art in a new exploration of imagination, especially in virtual spaces with branded avatars.

Premise

Socially Driven Music’s overarching premise is that the term music publisher is an archaic misnomer in today’s music industry reality. It doesn’t describe the breadth of services of this integral profession. When truly fulfilling its purpose, the more befitting description is music facilitator (including worldwide discovery, cultivation, development, production, marketing, promotion, administration). SDM is about visualizing the evolution of the business in the context of the changing world which, at its best, it must reflect. Its mantra is that now is the inflection point for a paradigm shift and a renaissance of thought-provoking music based upon powerful song copyrights versus production tracks: #MusicThatMatters. SDM believes that the industry is always renewed and reinvented from emerging entrepreneurs and independent artists (e.g., Asylum, Island, Chrysalis, Def Jam) during a creative drought such as it sees now.

Mission

So, SDM was created to improve the livelihoods of music artists and songwriters by connecting them and their fan bases to social causes for regular hyperlocal interaction and reciprocal benefit: http://bit.ly/SDMMailChimp. It is first to recognize that there are myriad organizations comprised of tremendous amounts of supporters who are essentially preexisting fan bases for any artist and writer who is genuinely passionate about that cause. It’s a plan to prioritize the cultivation of socially poignant music (other music themes will also be developed) through the intersection and championing of social causes. This very process serves to integrate the artists, causes and their respective fan/support bases essentially on a daily basis. SDM facilitates connections for which it performs as the nucleus and catalyst, and which feeds it available established and emerging talent and fanbases.

Methods

What’s more, SDM’s methods rely upon creation of untapped marketing concepts such as its proprietary Mentors & Musipreneurs programs, which identify hyperlocal emerging talent and promotes it and established talent (much of it no longer garnering the attention it deserves) via an unusually coordinated integration with these wide-ranging positive social causes. It aggregates grassroots music fans who also care about social issues from voting rights to immigration to discrimination to food scarcity to reasonable gun control to saving the elephants, and much more. SDM creates a community of music and social good ambassadors and advocates who can execute on its vision and with a shared passion for creating #MusicThatMatters. This potential is further fueled by a dedication to utilizing cutting-edge tech, Artificial Intelligence, and analytics to major advantage.

More Business Model Distinctions

SDM quickly recognized that its business model is enhanced by influencing the politics integral to it all (during and between election cycles). SDM will become the music industry’s de facto advocacy/activism group. It strives to increase music revenue through altruism and, by extension, the encouragement of a return to the tradition of socially poignant music, especially in today’s divisive climate when music can and should be as impactful as it was during the turmoil of the 60’s and ’70’s (Socially Poignant Music Playlist on Spotify: https://bit.ly/Socially_Driven_Music). The contention is that the enormous older demographic of music fans who have been disenfranchised by repetitious, banal productions (versus songs), is ripe for reengagement with songs that speak to something beyond adolescence. And further, that this fact can be extrapolated to include the many master songwriters who will be reactivated to create “music for a purpose” and who will fuel collaborations with emerging talent.

As it develops new music catalogues, SDM was designed as a full-service component system to be inserted into or exist alongside an existing music company, acting as a music facilitator catalyst across a spectrum of services. As a consultant and/or strategic partner, it can also identify and exploit growth areas, with particular attention to the 80/20 rule where much of a catalogue tends to languish while most attention is paid to the newest music. Opportunities abound for collaboration which can be energized with social impact themes and exploited through clever placements. Use of tech and analytics also benefits sync licensing in a manner that is untapped, and which is one of SDM’s unique, core strengths. (As a secondary result, SDM can transform the licensing budgets of original visual production companies such as Amazon and Netflix from an expense to a revenue generator.) And SDM demonstrates how to utilize Non-Fungible Tokens (NFT’s) and the Metaverse as marketing tools and revenue generators in an array of innovative and ultimately disruptive strategies.

Summary

It can be said that Socially Driven Music is an innovative system for the development of copyright annuities from emerging talent, as well as languishing established talent whose ability and work is still as viable and relevant as ever. And it reawakens dormant older fans. SDM projects that, in addition to under-performing catalogues which will be reenergized, established talent likely possess unpublished hidden gems in their metaphorical piano benches. This is artist/songwriter><Mentor/Musicpreneur<>social causes><fan base model is built to scale and syndicate around the world. SDM is also a big proponent of Blockchain platforms for emerging artists and songwriters and their collaborators, which add value to the catalogues it will build. Ultimately, SDM is the architecture for creating new music catalogues which may be co-administrated with its partner and possibly later acquired while the system proceeds to repeat the process.

Calls To Action

Please have a look at Socially Driven Music’s PowerPoint presentation, below.

We look forward to scheduling an appointment to discuss a possible alliance.

info@sociallydrivenmusic.com

See our Landing Page: http://bit.ly/SDMMailChimp

#musicindustry #musicbiz #musicartists #songwriters #socialimpact #stans #mentors

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Socially Driven Music
Socially Driven Music

Published in Socially Driven Music

New Publication, Spring 2020: The Roadmap for the New Music Business Where Music and Social Good “Come Together” for Activism, Mutual Benefit and Greater Revenue

Stephen (Steve) Love
Stephen (Steve) Love

Written by Stephen (Steve) Love

Music Biz; Fitness Evangelist; Animal Rights Advocate; Politico; Palm Springs (CA) Area Real Estate; Big Thinker! https://bit.ly/Stephen_Craig_Love_IMDb_Profile

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