ninetynineroses

[ninetynineroses]

[7] My Biggest Concerns in the Music Industry

(Everything here is my strictly my opinion)

CDs going extinct: Yes, we live in a generation where vinyls and cassettes are back in style. But if you actually stop to think about it, Spotify, Soundcloud, Apple Music,etc. Are all dominating the market right now. Most current/newer models of cars no longer support CD players. So more or less now, if you want to listen to music in your car it’s via bluetooth or aux cord. Yes there are still places across the world where they still sell the physical CD copy of an album. But most people find it inconvenient to buy money on a physical CD that you have to carry around in order to play music, when you could get a $5 Spotify Premium membership and listen to thousands of songs at the reach of your own fingertips. Not only that, these memberships are way more affordable and you get more out of it. I personally collect CDs and depending on how long the record has been out, type of verison it is (Deluxe, Ultimate,etc. Cost more compared to the standard version on an album) who’s selling it like the store, and if it’s a Western or Eastern CD the price may vary. For example if I want to buy Justin Bieber’s 2012 album, “Believe” it’s $10 USD on Amazon but if I go to like FYE for example it may be $5 USD. Not only that you need to take care of the physical CD, and you need to buy a CD player if you already have one. (Of course gaming consoles like Xbox will let you play your CDs, and same thing with DVD players and computers if they have a Disc tray). If you want to buy a BTS CD for example the same thing applies like the Justin Bieber CD expect, it may be harder to find the version you want, you may have to pay more since it’s being exported and printed from S.Korea while Western CDs are printed in America. If you are a CD collector like myself you need to buy something in which you can safely store your CDs, there are plenty of CD shelves online. The only issue is that when you fill up all of the slots you need to buy another one. I have a good size one, and it can be stacked with others.

Social media’s influence on the music industry: Especially in the K-POP world, social media’s influence has to do with a lot. (Ex. WayV’s Lucas situation) The things people say on the internet can make or break one’s career. I feel like not everyone understands how powerful they are. Also part of it has to do with cancel culture which in itself is very toxic, especially with Gen Z..I will admit some of the things that my generation (Gen Z) is cancelling should be stuff that should be brought to bigger attention, others I feel like is just stupid. With this cancel culture, there’s no way you can have a clean slate anymore. Also social media plays a big role in award show voting. There’s several award shows that I can just name on the top of my head that use social media as a form of voting. For example let’s say you want Taylor Swift to win “Artist of the Year'' the award show may make up a hashtag like, #VoteTaylorSwift and the award shows would use that to tally up the votes, compared to a website (yes there are still a lot of award shows that still use websites as a form of voting).

Radio stations,talk shows,etc. Take advantage of fandoms: A big one when I bring this up is BTS. No doubt about it, ARMY are protective of the members solely because they (ARMY) has seen BTS being taken advantage of. When I made the post about the GRAMMYs I explained why the 2021 GRAMMYs took advantage of BTS and their massive following which lead the show to have a massive amount of fans tuning in. But BTS aren’t just the only ones who get taken advantage of due to their following, countless artists have.There are alot of media shows out there where a celebrity was on and you could tell the questions that were being asked (or sometimes jokes) obviously made the celebrity uncomfortable. Not only that, you could tell the (i see this most in TV talk shows) host doesn’t know anything or hasn’t listened to the album in which the celebrity is coming onto their show to promote. If I was a talk show host / personality I would be educated before I interview someone or have someone come onto my show. It’s pretty obvious that I have HUGE respect for people who take the time to educate themselves before having an interview with the artist.

Record / Management Companies taking advantage of the artist: In both the East and West, this is something that I feel like both sides of the world share. Of course there are good companies that take good care of their artists. But those who abuse / take advantage of their artists honestly ruin it for the good ones. If you’re an outsider looking in (meaning you don’t study fan culture, or aren’t in a fandom,etc.) you may think everyone in the music industry is bad, since those stories get a lot of media traction. A big example to that is the Scooter Braun v. Taylor Swift drama that has led to Swift re-releasing her first six albums. Another example that didn’t get that much media coverage was One Direction, Fifth Harmony, and Little Mix v. Simon Cowell (I could do a whole post explaining each group individually). He (Cowell) formed these groups from the X Factor franchise, One Direction and Little Mix from the UK’s version and Fifth Harmony from the American. Little Mix took a stab at Cowell with their song, “Not a pop song.” Fifth Harmony, there was a lot of favoritism between Camela Cabello and the rest of the girls, since Cowell really wanted to put his full attention on her compared to everyone else. Hints to why she’s the one who’s really popular compared to the other girls. One Direction, when the group went on their “18th month hiatus” Louis Tomlinson released an album with Syco (Simon’s Record Label) and on July 11th, 2020 he left the record label. I do remember this day clearly, it felt like a big victory for everyone. A Lot of artists and fans were praising him for leaving. As of Nov. 15th 2021, everyone except for Niall isn’t under Simon. Niall is still sticking around due to his high position in Cowell’s agent’s golf company, Modest! Golf.

The music industry gets so saturated to where it’s not authentic anymore: I see this happening to K-POP more than anything. There’s SO many groups debuting with all of these big companies, it’s going to get to a point where this industry can’t handle so many people at once. There can only be two thrones, one for the king and other for the queen. Not 40 kings and one throne.

[ninetynineroses]

[5] BTS & The Grammys (10/28)

As everyone probably knows, BTS has huge international success. The group is basically a face for Seoul and South Korea. With all of this success, the group has been at the Grammy’s multiple times. 2019 to perform with Lil Nas X and in 2021 where they performed their massively successful English single, “Dynamite” and they were nominated for “Best Pop Duo/Group Performance”. But they sadly didn’t win.

Now for 2022, the group has a chance of being nominated AGAIN. Let me explain. For the Grammys, record labels submit songs to Grammys to see if they can get into the nomination list. The first-round voting happens then the winners of those are nominated. This process takes months beforehand. They don’t just wake up and choose stuff, no. Big Hit has submitted the group in the category of,” Best Pop Duo/Group” with their song “Butter”. If we are talking about the song’s exposure and chart data compared to the other songs running, hands down Butter would win. But as of right now I do not know how the Grammys are voting / what they’re considering. We don’t know if they are looking at numbers (Like did it hit No.1 on the Billboard Charts, if so for how long, radio play, etc.) or just by their own personal opinions.

As someone who has been studying the music industry for years, it would be nice for them to tell the public how they’re considering stuff and what apparently “deserves” a Grammy. 

My opinion of last year’s (2021) Grammys. I was very disappointed. Because BTS’ category was a big deal since BTS is the first K-pop group to be nominated for a Grammy not only, I had a feeling that even the Grammys knew that their category would be one of the most-watched ones. Instead of putting the category in the main show, they put it in the pre-show. You can look on Twitter for those who don’t believe me, before BTS’ category was announced there were thousands of viewers, after their category the view count dropped significantly. Not only that, they put BTS’ performance at the WAY end. Just so that they could have that many viewers watching. That year’s show have 56.1 million viewers, and it came third in the most-watched live award show. I really do believe, that’s because of BTS’ performance. If they let them perform as the openers or in the middle of the show, I personally feel like they wouldn’t have that many viewers who stuck around. Because keep in mind, the show was roughly around 2-3 hours long. Not only that last year’s Grammys was of the most controversial ones. Since so many artists like Zayn and The Weeknd spoke out against the award show due to how corrupt it really is. The Weeknd tweeted, “The Grammys remain corrupt. You owe me, my fans, and the industry transparency..” Zayn (former One Direction member) basically explained that unless you give the Grammys some sort of money or gifts, everything will be strictly on favoritism. Both artists have stated that they don’t want their music to be even considered in the award shows. Since then, the Grammys has gotten under fire and in a way changing their voting ways to making more  “equal” and “accepting”.

[ninetynineroses]

[4] 5sos cutting ties with Interscope Records (Updates) 10/21/21

Since I last covered this story in February at the start of this big event. There has been a lot of progress since then. 

Before we start, for those who haven't been all caught up. Interscope Records is a record label that holds some of the biggest names in the music industry such as Blackpink, Olivia Rodrigo, Billie Ellish, and Selena Gomez just to name a few. 5 seconds of summer (also known as 5sos) joined the company in 2019, hoping to expand their audience. To cut it short it was a big mess. (I covered the whole situation in my first post.) As a result they cut ties with both Interscope Records and their management company Modest!. Which the band has been a part of for a while. As a fan of the group for going on seven years, the news was shocking to me. Not only that, I was extremely happy and excited because the band can finally get the freedom they deserved.

On October 7/8th, it was announced that 5sos had joined BMG Records. Which is a record label that holds One Direction's Louis Tomlinson. The company is an international company. So they have offices all around the globe. And it has been announced that BMG will be the company that will hold the group's upcoming 5th album that hasn't been determined when it will come out. (Fans online have theorized it'll come out next year. Some say the group's 10th anniversary; December 3rd. Which falls on a Friday this year.)

The group hasn't not really done much since the global pandemic. Other than teasing that they're working on the fifth album online. Luke and Ashton's solo albums. Finally, performing for the first time in person since the start of the pandemic at the Global Citizen Live Event at the Greek Theatre in Los Angeles which took place last month.

[ninetynineroses]

[3] Basics of Kpop

[This is in a way as an intro for my K-Pop Saga on here]

Kpop is a genre that we all know and love has been around since the 1990s. However, there was music from Korean artists way before the ’90s of course. (I’m putting that out there, for those who may think differently). Some artists were popular for their time, but sadly none was big to where it was revolutionary; like artists BTS and Blackpink. The Kim Sisters were a trio who were from South Korea, and they gained some popularity from Americans, their prime was in the ’50s and ’60s. They were the first to do so actually, I’d also like to note that they were a Jazz act, not really a pop group.

The K-POP genre has of course evolved to what it is now, with world-class stars like BTS and Blackpink to just name a few. Those groups really hit the American market to where they’ve basically opened the doors for more K-POP acts and other acts from the east (Asia) to be big in the west (North America and the United Kingdom). 

If you wish to get into K-POP it may be a bit imitating since there’s so much to be learned especially if you’re like me who grew up listening and following acts from the west, the cultural differences are the big thing. Some things that celebrities who are big in the west do aren’t a big deal. In the east, however,  if a celebrity from the east does something, it’s a BIG deal to where it may affect the rest of a celebrity's career. The whole purpose of this post is to hopefully get those who wish to follow K-POP but don’t know where to start, feel comfortable and less imitated.

For starters, I’d like to say that we are gonna go over some stuff that I will talk deeper about in future posts. So in order to do that, I’ll talk about some topics very briefly. Also, I wanted to make this post so that whenever I talk about news or events that are happening in the K-POP community in the future, people who may not know the basic things wouldn’t get lost or confused. I am going to try and explain everything in VERY simple and easy terms.

For starters I’ll be talking about very simple terms and words, the definitions will be short and sweet. Those with a star (*) next to the word are stuff that will be discussed more in-depth in future posts. :) 

Idol: Word for celebrity or star. (Ex. Kpop Idol)

Staff: Those who work for the music company. (Ex. Managers, Touring Staff, Security,etc.)

*Lightsticks: A lightstick (stick with a light); unique to each fandom, battery operated. Used to show support towards the idol(s); used in concerts. The newer models have Bluetooth that links up to the mix where the staff can control the color of the lights and flashing patterns.

*Black Ocean: When the whole crowd turns off their light stick, showing disapproval of the show or idol(s).

*Fansites / Cafes: Usually a fan-ran (meaning that fans would run these, usually a team is managing it depending on how big the following is, due to how time-consuming it may be) online account that updates other fellow fans the schedule (if it’s released publicly by the company) of their favorite idols. May hold events in support of the idol, such as listening parties, giveaways, etc. Depending on how big and reliable the fansite is, the company may trust these accounts to help with marketing and other things. Also sharing and promoting things. 

Side note: There are sometimes where fansites do more than the actual company in terms of promotion.

*Fansigns: (Of course with the events of the world right now, these are mainly held online). An opportunity to talk and interact with the idols themselves. Some fans may give the idols gifts.

*Bias: Your personal favorite member of a group.

*Bias Wrecker: Second favorite member of a group

*Ult / Ultimate Bias: Favourite person out of the whole K-POP industry.

MCs: When groups go on TV shows in promotion for a certain era or album. MCs are usually the host of the shows. Some shows like Music Core will have idols from different groups to be a host for a limited time, usually, the MCs are both male and female.

*Susueangs: The term means, “Private Life Fans” in Korean. They have no boundaries for an idol’s personal space.

*Blacklisted: You do something such action that results in you getting banned from being attending concerts, fan signs, etc. For life and depending on the company, they may publicly display the list.

Netcitizen: People on the internet

*Comeback: Another word for an album release.

Now we are going to be discussing the fan culture a little bit. I will make a post that goes more deeply on it. But to cut it short and sweet, due to the cultural differences of the east and west. There is a fantasy that plays out where the idols need to act single in order to appear to the fans that they have an option in dating them, that’s why there is such uproar after a dating scandal has been “exposed”. Also, the company may put out a statement denying the scandal. Not only that, these idols are usually adored by younger people, if not children. So of course, they need to have a good reputation. Anything that may ruin the stuff I have quickly touched on or more may result in severe black lash by fans or by netcitizens online. Of course, people who really support someone, (in my opinion) should be happy for their idols finding someone who makes them happy.

Finally we are going to be talking about how popular K-POP has become. The first real single that blew up in America that was by a Korean idol was Gangnam Style by PSY, it was a BIG stable for 2010s - 2012. Almost everyone was doing the iconic dance moves to it. But years later here comes a small band, that you may know… they're called BTS. The group really opened the doors for Korean acts to be popular in America. With the massive success of the group over the past 8 years. They are arguably one of the best groups of our time and not only that, they opened up a HUGE business that people doubted whether it was possible or not to make it in the American market. Many award shows in the west such as MTV's VMA (video music awards) has put a whole nomination category solely for K-POP singers and groups, due to the massive success of BTS.

[ninetynineroses]

[2] Feb. 13th 2021: Taylor Swift re-recording of Love Story // Fearless Taylor's Verison; thoughts

The time has finally come for the re-recording of Love Story to come out. If you don't know Taylor Swift's 2008 hit Love Story was released on the behalf of Taylor herself 13 or so years later. And she announced that her second studio album Fearless would be re-releasing on April 9th.

I'm not the biggest Taylor Swift fan, I do however really enjoy her 1989 and Reputation albums very much. But I have heard bits and pieces about the drama between her and her old record label, Big Machine Records.

Here is what I know (I do not know the full story), Scooter Braun who manages artists like Justin Bieber and Arianna Grande. I believe he managed her for many years. Which me being a Justin Bieber fan since 2012 I didn't know he was connected with her. But she recorded her first six albums (Fearless to Reputation) under Big Machine Records, Taylor left the label in 2018 and signed with Universal Music group (Which has artists like One Direction Jay-Z, Prince, and Lady Gaga just to name a few). Then started to release albums like Lover, Fork and Evermore under that label. Since her departure Scooter now had the rights over it.

Taylor was obviously not happy about that, she puts out a lengthy Tumblr post (The link is up top). To take a step back, this was around the American Music Awards in 2019 when she was awarded, "Artist of the Decade". The segment I'm going to quote is taking about how Scooter told her to not preform her older songs durning her performance when she was litteraly awarded such a big achievement (if that's the word, link to the performance is up top).

“Guys—it’s been announced recently that the American Music Awards will be honoring me with the Artist of the Decade Award at this year’s ceremony,” ... “I’ve been planning to perform a medley of my hits throughout the decade on the show. Scott Borchetta and Scooter Braun have now said that I’m not allowed to perform my old songs on television because they claim that would be rerecording my music before I’m allowed to next year.”

As someone who has seen mangeners / mangements basically taking advantage of their cleints all too well is obviously sad, but this is something that is on a whole other level. As someone who was born between 2000 and 2008, her old songs are very nastolgic and that could be why she wanted to play those songs durning such a special night. For fans who have been there since the start. But the fact that the higher ups are not letting her do it becuase of the whole re-recordings is once again sad.

She goes on to say,  “The message being sent to me is very clear. Basically, be a good little girl and shut up. Or you’ll be punished. This is WRONG. Neither of these men had a hand in the writing of those songs. They did nothing to create the relationship I have with my fans. So this is where I’m asking for your help.”

This is a prime example of how corrupt the music industry really is. All of the mangers / thier teams just want to make a profit out of thier clients and disregard that thier clients are doing music becuase it's a passion, not a profit.

Taylor isn't the first nor the last artist who is a puppet in the industry and needs to be all hush and quiet. Example: 5 Seconds of Summer, band member Michael Clifford was under hot water as soon as CALM came out (I will not be discussing this topic further, becuase it may trigger some people) and thier mangement Modest! told them to be quiet, and the band basically went agaisnt their wishes and spoke out about the topic and threw Modest! basically under the bus for not letting them speak out about it. Louis Tomlinson and Syco Records is an another example (I will be doing a blog about it in the near future).

One thing I will always be mad about is Haylor, Harry Styles and Taylor Swift that's a PR stunt. (I will be explaining what is a PR stunt in another blog) Regardless if they loved each other or not you could tell they where put together becuase of marketing purposes. Durning thier time as a PR stunt (late 2012 - early 2013) Taylor was trying to break into the pop scene becuase she was known as a country artist. So I guess someone decided to put Taylor with someone who was apart of the biggest pop boybands of the early 2010's and beginning to reach their peak durning this time, Harry Styles from One Direction.

When they where a thing I was young and I didn't understand these marketing strategies so I bit into it. But now as I got older looking back now it was stunt to promote their albums. Here was the two dead give aways in my own personal opinion, Taylor Swift's first "pop" album is Red and that came out October 22nd 2012. One Direction released their sophomore album Take Me Home on November 9th 2012. 18 day inbetween each other. If the albums where months apart, then maybe yea it'll be believable. The second thing that was a dead give away in my eyes was how basically after the hype that comes when an album releases (first week sales, charts, a little bit of promos, etc.) the two separated. Again if they lasted until like middle of 2013 it would've been more believable then sperated straight after all of the hype.

Now we talk about the re-recordings, in Nov. 2020 she could finally start re-recording her first six albums (Fearless-Reputation). Of course she can't re-record and re-releass them in a span of a year. But the fact that this door is slowly opening to her is amazing. She finally has the control that SHE wanted for the past decade. I will never stop saying this, artist should have 100% control of what they do, music should be a creative playground not a tycoon or a way for big companies who are already weathly and have so much power to begin with to have more power.

What she's doing with re-releasing Love Story yesterday, Feb. 12th was the right step to take. I also saw people on Tik Tok mentioning this and this is amazing, if you take a look at the new Fearless cover. There's no name of any kind, it's just her. And if you look at the credits and look for the record label (I believe it is) it says, "Taylor Swift". You may say to yourself, "Isn't that the whole point in these Taylor Verisons?" Yes, but it also shows that she's doing all of the re-recordings for her fans not because of profit.

[ninetynineroses]

[1] Feb. 9th 2021: 5SOS cutting ties with Interscope Records.

If you are apart of the 5sosfam you probably have heard the news that 5sos has cut their ties with their record company Interscope Records.

5sos has been with the label since I believe 2019 and here we are in 2021. I personality do think this decision was for the better career wise. Let's talk about the first single that came out of the CALM era, Easier.

It was the first single 5sos has released under Interscope. And the promotion for it was proably the best from the whole era. Why? Becuase they sent random fans who have bought merch in the past a poster that promoted Easier and basically announced it that way. Then when Teeth, and CALM came out, little to no promo happened. Fans of 5SOS knew about it but everyone else didn't.

The whole purpose of a record label like Interscope is to distribute the music into the public and try and reach an audience that hasn't heard of that singer /band. I'm very sorry to say, but Interscope failed that. 5SOS are a band that is pretty big (with the help of Youngblood), but not as big as some other artists. But they do need that promo to help them.

Youngblood did good sale wise. It recently hit 1 billion streams on Spotify. They have that potential of being more successful then they are now, but again they need a better label inorder for that to happen.

In March 2020, before the album got released. The album was mailed to fan's houses. In Feb. 2020 they announced their tour for that year "No Shame Tour" (which would later be postponed due to the global pandemic), CALM the band's fourth album, and a single that would be on the new album, No Shame. How most ticket venders work, you would buy a ticket to the tour and then you would get a free copy of the album. Two days before album release, people noticed the album showing up to thier mail boxes. Many confused, alot of fans talked about it on platforms like Tik Tok and twitter.

Turns out those copies that was released out early, weren't counted towards the album release sales for Billboard. Over 10K copies weren't counted. Which would've made the album hit No.1 in America, but instead it hit No.2

I do see Interscope being the one to blame for this error. Becuase of those distribution. I bet 5sos tried to contact them asking them to try and save the count. Either Interscope did it but Billboard didn't want to or Interscope didn't want to. In the past artists had this same type of issue, and got it resolved. But that wasn't in 5sos' case. If they where with a diffrent label I do have a feeling that if this issue were to occur 5sos would've gotten those numbers back.

[ninetynineroses]

Hello,

If you stumble upon this..why hello! This is my blog where I talk about all sorts of things. (Mostly about the music industry). I really do enjoy talking about it so why won't I make it into a blog where everyone can share their ideas!

When I do talk about these topic, I am not affiated or connected to anyone who I am going to be discussing. Most of these will be about what is going on online and saying my opinion on the topic.

Please respect the opinions and please take them with a grain of salt.

- Thank you! 💜 x

About Me:

• Following the music industry for almost 10 years

• 5sos fan since Dec. 15th 2014

• Directioner ever since I could remember

• Halsey stan since July 2016

• OT9 (meaning I support both 5sos and One Direction)

• For 5sos I am in Michael's lane (since day 1)

• For One Direction if we are talking about OT5 I'm in Zayn's lane (since day 1) if we are talking about OT4, I'm in Niall's lane.

• Kpop fan