According to a recent article, Lily Allen is complaining about being bullied. Apparently, iTunes are twisting her arm into releasing a remix early, exclusively to them, in exchange for promoting her on their front page
The first thought to enter your head is, “Lily Allen? Complaining? Surely not!” – followed by a flash of horror that the music business should work in such a dastardly, mercenary fashion.
After all, ‘twas ever thus. This mutual back-scratching or ahem, “exchange of values” is a fundamental tenet of business. So what is she complaining about, and who cares? Well, we all should, actually.
Let’s look at what she actually said: “iTunes [is] kind of bullying people into corners by making sure they have extra, you know, extra songs so they can put them on the front page. And they won’t [advertise] your album unless you kind of give them extra material and so on. And we’ve kind of been backed into a corner. We want to do this remix, but the remix isn’t ready, but they need it delivered by today and blah blah blah. So I said, ‘Okay, fine, give iTunes the rubbish remix, and then what I’ll do I’ll get the people remixing it to do a good remix and then we’ll give it away for free on MySpace.”
You can hear the interview here
It is not the trade-off between promotion and content that niggles. It’s that bullying allegation that makes leaves a sour taste. Rushing an artist to release material before they are happy with it because you can is just wrong. And you’ve only got to look at recent events on a UK TV show industry to see how much we hate bullies. Oh yes.
But with my commercial hat on, what would we do if she came to 7digital, with a secret little exclusive in her handbag? Would we put it on the home-page? Well, yes, there’s a good chance we would. But, conversely, would we give her a deadline, and threaten her with expulsion if she handed it in late? Erm, no.
Don’t get me wrong: I’m not writing this with a view to playing pointy-finger, name-calling games with iTunes. This is after all only Lily Allen’s account, and let’s face it, pop-stars don’t make for the most reliable witnesses. The broader question is of balance. Whom should a digital store serve? Should it be:
a) the consumer?
b) the artist/label?
c) the shopkeeper?
d) all of the above?
It should be d) shouldn’t it? And while that might be slightly Utopian, it is a better goal than allowing one of the players in this game to become super-dominant & slap the others about for their own ends.
Stephen Somerville Commercial Director
Contact me: stephen.somerville (at) 7digital.com
May 26, 2007 at 8:13 pm
Poor old Lily Allen….I wish I could actually sell some tunes and have the backing of a huge record company! A digital store should serve all of the above, but some I know certainly don’t. Indiestore and 7digital seem to be some of a very few exceptions.
March 2, 2008 at 12:44 pm
Whom should a digital store serve? All of the above;
The Consumer is everybody’s priority
Artist/Label aims to maximize sales by investing efficiently
Shopkeeper aims to maximize sales by nurturing existing Consumers, attracting more Consumers (growing market share) and subsequently winning more investment from the Artist/Label
Super-dominant players (usually Labels like Universal and SonyBMG) will get away with using their dominance for as long as the Shopkeeper allows them (it is business after all)…
The smaller Shopkeeper must often accept Super-dominant behavior in order to protect his Consumer (market share) but when negotiating support for ‘fringe’ releases, it can be more beneficial in the long-term not to stock/profile it (especially when you know it’s politically important to the Label). This can influence the Super-dominant player toward a new behavior that’s increasingly beneficial to the Shopkeeper
April 17, 2008 at 8:26 pm
Blog Hopper…
Hi There. I’m blog hopping….
February 28, 2009 at 4:16 pm
I love your site!
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