{"id":2444170,"date":"2019-05-14T13:21:32","date_gmt":"2019-05-14T19:21:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rollingstone.com\/?p=835087"},"modified":"2019-05-14T13:21:32","modified_gmt":"2019-05-14T19:21:32","slug":"how-record-labels-are-selling-old-music-for-lots-of-new-money","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/music-news\/how-record-labels-are-selling-old-music-for-lots-of-new-money\/","title":{"rendered":"How Record Labels Are Selling Old Music for (Lots of) New Money"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Ask someone in the music industry<\/a> how to sell a new single, and you\u2019ll get rambling answers that go on for days \u2014 but ask them how to sell a single that was released 25 years ago, from an artist who\u2019s only ever put out one five-track LP and since faded deep into obscurity, and you\u2019ll get far fewer ideas. Thanks to the discovery-led nature of music streaming<\/a>, however, older music is, for the first time, ripe with new opportunities. Record companies just have to be nimble enough to find them.<\/p>\n

Tim Fraser-Harding oversees such out-of-the-ordinary initiatives as Warner Music\u2019s president of global catalog of recorded music, where he\u2019s helped shape new marketing strategies for legacy artists like Led Zeppelin and Fleetwood Mac<\/a>. Fraser-Harding spoke with Rolling Stone<\/em> about the trials and rewards of reviving old hits.<\/p>\n

How do you view your role relative to the music industry at large?<\/strong>
I\u2019ve been in the music industry for 30 years and it\u2019s a really fascinating time to be in catalog right now, because you have to figure out the balance. Streaming continues to build and build, which is helping our overall business grow \u2014 but you have heritage acts who are strong in physical sales. In addition, you\u2019ve got such a broad range of consumers: hardcore fans who\u2019ve always supported particular acts, and people who\u2019ve just discovered them.<\/p>\n

I think the catalog team has also got a very distinct job from the rest of Warner because so many of our key artists are no longer with us or have split up, moved on or are simply not interested or available. A lot of the time we\u2019re figuring out ways to create a marketing buzz without the artist. We have to have other people talk on their behalf or share exciting new pieces of them that aren\u2019t just rehashing the same things people have seen time and time again. Sometimes, it\u2019s a question of how we make something out of nothing.<\/p>\n

How has catalog changed over the years? It\u2019s no longer just straightforwardly selling box sets on anniversaries.
<\/strong>We now have to ensure we\u2019re devoting our marketing and product development time evenly: We have to maximize the repertoire most amenable to streaming, which tends to have a younger audience, but also know that our heritage acts may have had 40 years of making music and are continuing to push the dials. Take Fleetwood Mac. They\u2019re one of the fastest-growing streaming artists, but still selling physical on the road. They\u2019re appealing to a more diverse audience than they ever have done, in terms of age. They\u2019ve figured out how to educate a younger demographic and continue engaging their older consumers.<\/p>\n

The younger demographic poses a better opportunity in terms of revenue, right?
<\/strong>What we\u2019ve effectively got is a streaming environment where you can have a younger person fixated on whatever today\u2019s hot track is and needing to listen to that 30 times a day \u2014 but their parents might have \u201cHotel California\u201d as their favorite song of all time, yet only need to listen to it three or four times a year to get the same sort of fix. We know that younger demographic is out there, so we have to get them to access all our music.<\/p>\n

Warner\u2019s back catalog is immense. How do you tailor your strategy for different genres or types of music?<\/strong>
It\u2019s common sense for us to play to our strengths and support our major artists who we know are going to be listened to, day in and day out. But at the same time there are other artists from the 1990s or 2000s who may not have ever had, let\u2019s say, an iconic career \u2014 but might\u2019ve had two or three enormous tracks that still stream very strongly. It\u2019s important we\u2019re focusing on those tracks and getting them noticed on streaming services, figuring out where<\/em> to remind consumers about those songs again. We end up with a track strategy and an artist strategy, depending on the breadth and strength of that catalog.<\/p>\n

How do you translate physical marketing to digital marketing?
<\/strong>We\u2019re moving with the market, but we also have to keep one foot ahead of the market. We have to make sure we\u2019re staffing up the right way \u2014 hiring people who understand creative marketing and today\u2019s consumer, and how to engage people in different ways than before. If we\u2019re making a vinyl box set, it doesn\u2019t mean just moving that music onto streaming is going to work. We\u2019ve got to think about how the consumer will react, we\u2019ve got to be smart about how we sequence our products. The Led Zeppelin playlist generator<\/a> we made this year was a recent success.<\/p>\n

That include working on faster schedules than before, I imagine.
<\/strong>We have to react very quickly to events now. Tracks can suddenly pop up in a movie trailer or globally successful advertisement, or be linked to something culturally relevant. It\u2019s our job to be able to amplify that noise and then be able to educate about it. For instance, if there\u2019s a Ramones track in an ad going viral and getting millions of YouTube views, it\u2019s important to then work with that brand to figure out how to communicate to their consumers what music they are listening to. So much of what we do is track-based now. It can apply to some of our biggest heritage acts \u2014 or to an artist who\u2019s only had one hit.<\/p>\n

There was a time last year when we discovered the Spinners\u2019 \u201cRubberband Man\u201d in Avengers: Infinity War<\/em> on a Sunday night, and by Monday lunchtime, we had a brand new playlist of that artist ready to go. We were then able to work with the movie company and get them to promote the artist\u2019s name. It was a fairly obscure artist and song. We would not have been able to do that in the purely physical age. In this day and age, so much more is happening. Moments can last for a much shorter period than they would\u2019ve done before, and if you don\u2019t react quickly, you\u2019ve missed it and you\u2019ve got to move on.<\/p>\n