Stop Pay-To-Play In Music Licensing

At last, some buzz is going around about how artists and composers get ripped off by so-called music submission services. Other than music publishers who get their publisher’s share of royalties once they have placed a song (and the song generates money) such submission services charge fees right before they even take action. Annual membership fees (from ‘Basic’ to ‘Platinum’), per-submission-fees (anytime an artist wants them to submit a song to a potential client) or even a combination of both – these ‘companies’ still seem to be successful using a make-believe tactic, trying to tell all those often unexperienced artists that this is how the business really works.

Now anybody in a healthy state of mind can do the math:

If a music publisher places a song and the song generates 20,000.00 in royalties, his publisher’s share of 50% / 40% (depending on type and country) will still be a lot more than the submission fee of, say, 100 bucks. So why settle for less? There are two possible answers:

1. Those submission services count on the money (submission and membership fees) they still get from the large number of ‘failures’
2. Those submission services know damn well that they won’t be able to place a song due to their lack of contacts and thus won’t be able to make any money in back end royalties
Option 3 would be a combination of both, which is probably the only truth.

Now I have personally talked to a few people who are very successful in the music business and I read Jim Peterik’s (of Survivor) statement in “Songwriting For Dummies” (real fun) and they all shared the same experience:

You don’t pay song pluggers and publishers up front. Never. Everybody gets a piece of the cake at the end and that’s how they want it. Because they know there’s far more money to make than by collecting some up front service fee.

I am not sure about how music supervisors, ad agencies and record labels see such submission services, but I’m making a plea for professional music users (and artists too) to avoid dealing with “services”, “pluggers” and “libraries” who charge their artists regardless of any success. Since such submission services need to take on (and charge for) every piece of music in order to secure their income, the greater part of quality music will probably be found in serious places.

Think about it – and act !!!

Julian Angel
www.soundsofaction.com
The Loudest Music Library

Music in new Yves Saint Laurent spot is awesome

Don’t get distracted by Kate Moss – listen. It’s one sexual piece of music. It couldn’t fit any better:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DlVwjzyCvZM.

Yours truly

Julian Angel
www.soundsofaction.com

Music supervisors and the curse of romantic scenes ?

There are literally thousands of possibilities to underscore romantic scenes with music in film.
As for instrumental music a grand piano comes to mind; just think of the scores in legendary super-romantic “Pretty Woman”. When romance gets one step further a saxophone has established itself as an ideal instrument.
If music with vocals comes in, though, options are definitely overwhelming:

A music supervisor will not just have to pick any romantic, balladesque piece of music, she will also have to make a decision about

- genre (yes, something slow; but should it be pop, rock, r&b, AC, country…?)
- vocal type (male, female or both)
- lyrical message (which lyrics fit the scene best)

Only then will it come down to picking the best piece available, but choice will still be overwhelming: Since most movies are about love and relationships, many songwriters seem to target such scenes and come up with loads of love songs. So here’s to the music supervisors working on ‘romantic projects’…

Yours truly

Julian Angel
www.soundsofaction.com

 

What is the right music for bikers (in film and tv)

There aren’t many folks as “real” and “down to earth” as Harley riding ‘rockers’. They like their hogs to be loud, their beer and whiskey to be strong and their women to have all those attributes a man could ask for. Not much of a chance of fooling them. For a biker things have to be real. Genuine. Authentic.

Bands who perform at Biker festivals from local to Sturgis reflect that authenticity in their music: Hand-made, powerful and driving rock music, often blues-induced, definitely without synthesizers, samples, loops or sequences.

Such music, contrary to prejudice, comes in many varieties: Fast and driving for the rambling gang, cool and groovy for the swaggering rider, bluesy for the local hangout and soft and slow for the biker in love.

What kind of music do you pick once a street-wise dude shows up in your movie with his Harley?

Yours truly – and authentically

Julian Angel
www.soundsofaction.com
…and for the biker music: www.soundsofaction.com/motorcycle.html

Heavy Metal for moving pictures

Heavy Metal music. That stands for power, energy, velocity, danger and aggression – just to name a few.

In film, television and commercial spots hard and heavy music has usually found its bed in action driven scenes such as car chases, racing, extreme sports or fighting. More than just being fast and furious Heavy Metal can also, as its name predicts, have a big and weighty character making such music an ideal choice for moving pictures showing all kinds of machinery and other industrial behemoths.
Another feature of Heavy Metal is intimidation or even terror – at least for the rather squeamish. Ever since the 1980s we know that screeching guitars and pounding drums have always felt ‘great’ (rather than comfortable) in horror movies.

The use of Heavy Metal music in film and television can be broadly based if desired. No other genre probably demonstrates as much brute force caused by overdriven guitars and either hard hitting or driving drums. Time to reconsider that electronic beat during that motorcycle stunt…

 

Yours truly

Julian Angel
www.soundsofaction.com/metal.html

Reasons to license independent music for film, tv and advertising

Here are five reasons why you, the music supervisor, film producer or ad creator should license independent music for your projects:

Choice
There is more music to be found in the long tail of independent and unsigned music than on a major’s roster.

Variety
Indies have the freedom, time and guts to experiment with music. Most of them are not working under pressure applied by guidelines and market conventions and come up with something new and different. Which leads to your chance of becoming a…

…Trendsetter
Being the first to travel new sonic avenues can lead to admiration and recognition. You may, for example, try using industrial rock music for war scenes and counter the recent moaning about too many Hans Zimmer sound-alikes.

Easy clearing
Independent music libraries have their music pre-cleared and ready for use. Negotiations will thus be less of a hassle than for a major hit whose synch fee may vary weekly according to its chart position.

Lower fees
Well, price – in contrast to quality – should never be a reason, but if your budget is rather tight, then independent music is definitely an option: You get something with the same effect at a lower price.
Yours truly

Julian Angel
www.soundsofaction.com

Bad Monkey Music

A tv documentary about an organisation that rescued chimpanzees from laboratories not only made me think about animal abuse but also about a music supervisor’s job – again. I have written about this before: Music supervisors that select music by lyrics and not by style.

So it happened in that documentary. When the first chimpanzee showed up I could hear Manu Chao’s former chart hit “King Of The Bongo”. Well, the track of the music supervisor’s thoughts was obvious: A bongo is a percussion instrument of African origin, chimpanzees live in Africa, there you go.

Since there isn’t any bongo used in Manu Chao’s song the only way to deliver the “African” message was by the song’s lyrics. If, however, there is a narrator talking in that very same scene viewers will definitely listen to him, not to the song lyrics.

Once again I wondered why the music supervisor hadn’t picked a more genuine piece of music with real African instruments such as congas, the djembe, balaphone or the kalimba. This would have suited the monkey a lot better than a former hit song that mentioned a bongo. Besides that an instrumental would not have interfered with the narrator’s words.

It seemed the production company had gone for the easiest, most obvious and – considering the hit song – most expensive way. There would definitely have been a huge selection of more authentic and even cheaper independent music available to choose from.

Yours truly

Julian Angel
www.soundsofaction.com

Instrumental music vs. lyrics – in film

I’m not going to discuss whether it is harder to write vocalized music or instrumentals but with this question one thing becomes obvious:

When music is used in film or television, instrumentals have to fit – better yet: create – a certain mood. So instrumental film music’s job is to enhance the visual perception.

“Real” songs with lyrics, though, mainly deliver a (yes, lyrical) message whereas the musical mood rather only touches the basics leaving the main job of describing the scene or situation to the words.

Sometimes in case of bad luck lyrics can even get in the way of the music, particularly when the music has a fitting mood but the lyrical message contradicts the picture. That’s when supervisors either pick the instrumental version or choose an entirely new instrumental track.

Yours truly

Julian Angel
www.soundsofaction.com

Overused music in film and television

I’m not much of a person who loves to rant, but sometimes it bores me to hear the same old songs used in film, but mainly in television, over and over. Whenever some self-proclaimed sex goddess walks in to a talk show music supervisors in charge are pretty likely to underscore her entry with James Brown’s “Sex Machine”, Tom Jones’ “Sex Bomb”, Mousse T.’s “Horny” or maybe Aguilera’s “Dirty”. Analogically Yello always get their shot with their superhit “The Race” in tv features about cars and speed. The same applies to Steppenwolf’s “Born To Be Wild” whenever a biker crosses the badlands on his steel horse.

I don’t want to show any disrespect to the artists, songwriters and producers here, however, I think the music supervisors involved could use a different approach occasionally:

Instead of picking a piece of music simply by its title or appropriate lyrical message, music supervisors could dig deeper and pick the music by its feel. There are countless grooves with a truly sexual or erotic feel while their lyrics (if any) do not really openly touch the topic. There is no shortage of fast and aggressive music to be used in racing scenes either. Finally, think of ZZ Top’s “Tush”, a song that never mentions bikes, motors, pipes or wheels but is plainly a biker song.

So go for the feel…

Yours truly

Julian Angel
www.soundsofaction.com
Music licensing for action scenes

One great music score on “24″

I just woke up the other night along to a re-run of the tv series “24″ and got impressed by the way music was used in the scene I just happened to witness.

The scene was a typical elevator-stairway-chase with one person moving in an elevator and another person running up or down the stairs trying to catch up. The music used during the entire action was one and the same piece of a fast “wobbling” sequence, however, every time the camera switched from stairway to elevator the music had been run through a high-cut filter in order to seperate both scenes and to indicate their actual character (i.e. the boxy, muffled sound within the elevator). That was like making two songs out of one. Great idea!

Yours truly

Julian Angel
www.soundsofaction.com
Music Licensing For Action Scenes