Drake and Jay Z Write Rules for Music Moguls

Drake and Jay Z are among the most successful musicians year after year. Between them, they earned $92 million in 2016 while making the list of Forbes highest-paid musicians, adding to the nearly $97 million they pulled down in 2015, and $93 million in 2014. Drake’s 2016 album Views was a gigantic commercial success (which is saying something in the era of the single), and he gets the most streams of any artist on Spotify. Recently both made the news for two different reasons: on March 6, Jay Z launched a venture capital firm, Arrive, to invest in startups. On March 18, Drake released a 22-song playlist, More Life, that promptly broke two Spotify streaming records and one Apple Music streaming record. Drake and Jay Z demonstrate how the new music moguls are defining success for the recording industry. On the one hand, Drake illustrates why artists need to hustle their songs constantly in an on-demand economy. And Jay Z understands why musicians — even the elite — need to build personal brands that transcend music.

Drake: Hustle Your Music

Drake knows that making music inaccessible doesn’t work in the on-demand economy. You can’t expect fans to buy your albums to find hidden gems of songs that reward patient listening the way Led Zeppelin used to do in the glory years of album oriented rock. As Brian Solis once noted, attention is a currency to earn and spend. And attention, while difficult to earn, is easily spent. Keeping anyone’s attention is increasingly difficult at a time when Americans own four devices on average and toggle their way through a sea of websites, apps, games, and other distractions that compete for our time. So Drake distributes music liberally, dropping multiple songs like attention bombs as he did with More Life, Views in 2016, and If You’re Reading This It’s Too Late in 2015 (along with a short film for good measure). He doesn’t expect his fans to wait for a new album to hear his new songs — he maintains a constant hum of activity through his music, supported by a strong social media presence.

As Dan Rys of Billboard noted, “Unlike superstars for whom every move is an event, Drake keeps his activity at a constant simmer, peaking at ­strategic moments.” As a result, he is one of the few artists in the Forbes list who made the bulk of his money in 2016 from music sales.

Even Beyoncé, whose every album is an event, keeps our attention by releasing a barrage of videos to support her albums. Artists need to feed a content stream to keep their names visible. As music pundit and consultant Cortney Harding once told me, “Albums take a very long time to make, and artists can’t remain silent in between album releases, especially when everyone else is releasing a steady stream of content on YouTube. If you want to release an album a year from now, you need to release a song a month and content between songs rather than remain quiet and expect fans to wait for the big release day.”

For Drake, every day is release day.

Jay Z: All Business, Man

Jay Z has always known his brand is bigger than music. Even as his star was ascending as a rapper in the 1990s, he was creating business ventures. In 1996, Jay Z cofounded of Roc-A-Fella Records, and then a few years later cofounded Rocawear clothing line. He Jay Z operates businesses such as his entertainment company Roc Nation and Armand de Brignac champagne (which he acquired in 2014). As he put it, “I’m not a business man, I’m a business, man.” (Ironically the one venture that he’s apparently not mastered is streaming. His Tidal streaming service has famously struggled.)

In 2016, he released no new music, and he didn’t tour. And yet he earned $53.5 million as he cashed in on his many business ventures. His latest, Arrive, will invest in early-stage startups and provide support ranging from marketing to business development. Part of Roc Nation, Arrive will apply Roc Nation’s entertainment management experience to support entrepreneurs (and that experience is considerable, as Roc Nation works with the likes of J. Cole and Rihanna.) Arrive will apparently not restrict itself to entertainment startups.

Jay Z has also proven to be an innovative business operator with his music. For instance, in 2013, he signed an intriguing deal with Samsung to distribute one million copies of his Jay Z’s Magna Carta Holy Grail album through a special app exclusively on Samsung phones before the album went on sale publicly. Samsung reportedly paid $5 for every album, meaning Magna Carta Holy Grail sold $5 million before a consumer purchased a single copy.

As I noted in my ebook The New Music Moguls, the successful moguls who regularly make the Forbes list of highest-paid musicians build their audience through recorded music, but make their real money elsewhere, whether from touring, endorsing products, or investing in businesses. Dr. Dre may have earned his reputation as a rapper, but he earned his biggest payday, $620 million, through his stake in Beats Electronics. Diddy is worth hundreds of millions of dollars because of his branding deals with Cirac vodka and Aquahydrate. The list of celebrities as business brands goes on and on: Katy Perry (who has cobranded music with H&M), Luke Bryan (who endorses Miller Lite), Rihanna (who has her own footwear line with Puma), and Taylor Swift (who earned $170 million in 2016 through touring and via deals with Keds, Diet Coke, and Apple). Oh, and Drake hedged his bets through branding relationships with Apple, Nike, and Sprint. They all realize that recorded music is a launching pad, not an end unto itself.

The days of consumers rushing out to buy recorded music are over. We’re streaming songs, discovering music through ads, apps like Snapchat, and many other platforms that didn’t exist before digital. But music no longer engages our hearts. Music captures a fraction of our attention at best. The new music moguls grab our attention through their music and turn attention into money through their personal brands.

Why Sprint and Tidal Are Hustling Music Together

Tidal needs a financial partner. Sprint needs new customers. The two businesses just took a step toward addressing each other’s needs. Sprint has announced a 33-percent stake in Tidal, which will “give Sprint’s 45 million retail customers unlimited access to exclusive artist content not available anywhere else,” according to a press release. In other words, the relationship promises to deliver content from Tidal artists only to Sprint’s current and new customers. Sprint’s chief executive officer, Marcelo Claure, will also join Tidal’s board of directors.

The Sprint/Tidal partnership is another example of artists and brands joining forces to distribute content. The premise of these co-brands is simple: artists provide content that the brands can hustle to acquire and retain customers or to generate awareness for a brand and its products or services. The brands give the artists a distribution platform for their music. (When a business uses an artist’s song in an advertisement, a similar principal applies: the business uses the artist’s music as a hook to get the attention of consumers, and the artist gets exposure). The Sprint/Tidal relationship contains two important elements:

  • Exclusivity: Sprint will rely on Tidal to provide content available only to Sprint customers. That content could potentially assume a variety of forms, including the release of exclusive songs, concerts, video, and experiences involving augmented reality and mixed reality.
  • Commitment: as noted in the press release, the relationship will “include the establishment of a dedicated marketing fund specifically for artists. The fund will allow artists the flexibility to create and share their work with and for their fans.” According to Billboard, the fund will consist of $75 million annually.

Jay Z, the major owner and founder of Tidal, has a well-established track record for forming distribution deals with brands. He created the template for the Sprint/Tidal deal in 2014 when he and Samsung agreed to distribute one million copies of his Magna Carta Holy Grail album through a special app exclusively on Samsung phones before the album went on sale publicly. Samsung reportedly paid $5 for every album, meaning Magna Carta Holy Grail sold $5 million before a consumer purchased a single copy. Samsung became a music distributor overnight (a model that Samsung later repeated with Rihanna).

Jay Z rebooted Tidal amid considerable fanfare after buying the company in 2015 with the promise of high-quality streaming content from an artist-owned business. (At the time, Sprint was exploring but did not commit to a relationship with Tidal.) But Tidal’s journey since then has been problematic, with the company losing millions and suffering some high-profile PR problems. Tidal said it enjoyed an increase in users after Beyoncé launched Lemonade exclusively on the streaming service before making the album widely available, and, overall, Tidal claims more than three million subscribers — but the company has been accused of inflating its numbers.

Meanwhile, Sprint is looking for leverage in its war with AT&T, T-Mobile, and Verizon to acquire and retain wireless customers. Verizon Wireless leads the pack, with nearly 144 million U.S. subscribers, while Sprint ranks a distant fourth, with 60.2 million subscribers. T-Mobile, with 71.5 million subscribers, claims that the carrier stole nearly a million subscribers from its rivals in the third quarter of 2016, including 300,000 from Sprint.

For Sprint, one answer to fighting back is to provide exclusive content and customer experiences. For years, telecom carriers have tried to out-do each other by offering so many combinations of services and billing options that the industry has become a bewildering experience for consumers. There are only so many ways a telecommunications carrier can continue to offer service packages. Providing interesting content and customer experiences is a way to differentiate, which is why Sprint recently signed a relationship with Niantic to offer branded Pokemon GO experiences.

Sprint has been offering music content for quite some time. In 2005, Sprint launched the Sprint Music Store, a partnership with labels such as EMI and Sony BMG Music Entertainment to sell songs. Sprint learned early on how to hustle music to acquire customers, for instance giving away five free songs to customers at launch. In 2007, Sprint was the official wireless sponsor of the MTV Music Awards. Sprint was more than a sponsor, though — it distributed content, offering a free live simulcast to Sprint Power Vision customers. In 2011, Sprint launched Sprint Music Plus, a free app for Android users to organize their music libraries and purchase songs and ringtones.

Sprint’s efforts to date have largely centered on song downloading. With the Tidal relationship, Sprint has updated its music distribution model for the age of song streaming. And for all its operational problems, Tidal possesses a brand name and the backing of not only Jay Z but also founding artists such as Beyoncé, J. Cole, Nicki Minaj, and Rihanna. (J. Cole recently released a surprise documentary, Eyez, on Tidal).

The Tidal deal gives Sprint a wellspring of music content that will target younger consumers with the powerful lure of new music — so long as Tidal continues to develop fresh artists, which is why I am especially intrigued by Sprint and Tidal earmarking funds to market artists. The fund could be a boon especially for developing emerging artists who need the money far more than Rihanna does.

Here is a golden opportunity for Sprint to develop its image as a forward thinking lifestyle brand of the future by developing up-and-coming artists, as many other brands have done so through an association with music. For instance, Converse operates the Rubber Tracks recording studio to give emerging artists free studio time. Coca-Cola has given exposure to new artists around the world through initiatives such as “52 Songs of Happiness.” Potentially, Sprint could offer its customers a first-look at emerging artists on Tidal, thus providing its customers a sense of hipness that comes with being the first in the know.

The proof of the pudding will be how well Tidal helps Sprint acquire and retain customers, which is a measurable number. If Tidal helps Sprint create momentum, Sprint’s shareholders will sing a happy song. If not, Sprint will inherit a bit more than 99 problems. Stay tuned.

Snapchat and Ed Sheeran: 21st Century Radio

The phrase “music distribution” sounds boring. And yet music distribution is where brands inside and outside music can learn about innovation, as Ed Sheeran and Snapchat have demonstrated.

A new Snapchat lens makes you appear as though you’re wearing a pair of blue sunglasses while listening to a clip of one of Sheeran’s new singles, “Shape of You.” Lenses are one of Snapchat’s addicting features. They allow you to transform your face into, say, a zombie, or adorn your appearance with cute little stickers. The latest lens, while simple in appearance, adds the sonic touch of Sheeran’s song. This is a brilliant piece of marketing that gave Sheeran exposure for the single before it was released January 6 — and an example of how artists need to hustle their content.

Anyone can publish music now, thanks to platforms such as Bandcamp, Reverbnation, or Soundcloud, or social media platforms such as Global 14. The proliferation of music discovery platforms is good for creators and listeners. But publishing your music on Soundcloud isn’t the same as reaching an audience. Few artists succeed by simply being found. Here is where distribution comes into play.

The days of relying on record labels and radio to expose your music to the record listening public are long gone. Nowadays, an indie artist such as AM getting his music played in a Victoria’s Secret ad is a major distribution coup, and OK Go collaborates with brands on content creation and distribution. A brand can act as a content amplifier as well or better as radio can. And an AM, who appeals to a more narrowly defined audience of aficionados, needs a brand to break through to a larger audience. AM also licenses his songs for television and movies, which act as media platforms for his music.

But distribution has become even more sophisticated than getting your music played in an ad or piped into a hotel lobby. These days artists are collaborating with apps, games, and devices to find a lane for their songs. In 2013, Jay Z and launched an innovative deal with Samsung to distribute one million copies of his Magna Carta Holy Grail album through a special app exclusively on Samsung phones before the album went on sale publicly. In 2016, Rihanna and Samsung repeated the model for her album Anti.

Jay Z, Rihanna, and Ed Sheeran are all big-time artists, but they also understand the reality that the music industry has a short-term memory. You can’t rest off the laurels of your last hit. You have to hustle your music widely, then keep it in the public eye through heavy touring, merchandising, and relationships with brands. Ed Sheeran has not released a single since 2015, which is an eternity. Even Ed Sheeran can’t drop new songs and expect anyone to listen. He has to work at finding his audience, and Snapchat is an excellent music distribution channel for millennials. The app has reinvented itself from a messaging app into content storytelling platform for users and brands, ranging from the NFL to musicians — and not just Ed Sheeran. In 2015, musician Goldroom shared an EP of four songs on Snapchat, with each song clip forming a larger story.

The Ed Sheeran example is instructive to anyone who creates content, whether you’re a musician, podcaster, or blogger:

  • Find the right platform for your audience. Snapchat is perfect for Sheeran’s millennial-friendly music. It’s like Snapchat is the radio station with the right format. An app like Musical.ly, on the other hand, is ideal for younger digital natives.
  • Be ubiquitous. Snapchat has 60 million total installs. It’s on every millennial mobile phone across the United States. In effect, his song transforms each mobile device into an Ed Sheeran streaming device. Covering his bases, Sheeran also released a snippet of his song on Instagram, but not to the level he did through Snapchat.
  • Be natural. Embedding the song into a Snapchat lens works because playing with lenses is a natural Snapchat behavior. So the song does not feel intrusive.

Apps are where music distribution will explode. As I blogged recently, I believe that soon artists will debut new songs on Uber — another ubiquitous platform with the data tracking capability to deliver a well defined audience to a musician. I believe the same will happen with wearables. Wearables, especially used for exercise, are perfect especially because music is a natural companion to exercise. Wearables are already headed in this direction. The lesson is clear: if you want to find an audience, hustle your content to places where your audience lives. Snapchat and Ed Sheeran get it.

Rihanna and Samsung Create an “Anti” Moment

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Rihanna’s Anti went platinum in 15 hours. But before you think, “albums are back!” bear in mind a big caveat: Samsung bought one million copies of the album and gave them away. For Rihanna and Samsung, Anti going platinum is not about record sales — it’s about creating a moment that earns attention for two giant brands at a time when attention is currency, as Brian Solis has noted. There are many more moments to come, as prepares to launch her Anti World Tour, where the real money will be made.

What $25 Million Will Buy a Brand

A platinum album is certified by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) as selling at least one million copies — a difficult feat to achieve in the digital age. Only three albums released in 2015 went platinum: Adele’s 25; Drake’s If You’re Reading This, It’s Too Late; and Justin Bieber’s Purpose. Adele, Drake, and Justin Bieber all earned their sales the traditional way: by releasing and promoting music for consumers to buy, stream, and download (with the exception of 25).

But Rihanna rolls differently. In 2015, she signed a $25 million deal with Samsung, through which Samsung sponsors her album and tour, and Rihanna promotes Samsung’s Galaxy line of products. As part of their relationship, Rihanna and Samsung have been creating digital content together including video, website, and social media posts. Oh, and Samsung agreed to buy 1 million copies of Anti.

Samsung, in turn, gave away 1 million free download codes to its customers. Each of those downloads came with a 60-day free trial to Tidal, the high-end streaming service that counts Rihanna as one of its owners. The entire album was available on Tidal before any other streaming service could have access to it.

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Meet the New Music Moguls

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How do the world’s highest-paid musicians make their money? Not by making music.

As shown in the Forbes list of the world’s highest paid musicians of 2015, elite stars cash in from touring, forming endorsement deals with brands, and by launching their own business ventures. Consumers just don’t buy enough recorded music anymore to support the performers we say we love.

The annual Forbes list, created by Zack O’Malley Greenburg, is a snapshot of the music industry and as such offers some clues about those who create music and those of us who listen to it. My analysis of the list uncovers a number of trends, such as the influence of baby boomer and millennial-era consumers and the dearth of women superstars in country music. I’ll explore those topics in future posts in my series on the world’s biggest musical moneymakers. Today’s post focuses on how successful stars have become moguls, extending their reach beyond music into businesses such as spirits, food, and clothing.

An Industry Snapshot Continue reading

Hey, Beyoncé: Let’s Call a Fraud a Fraud

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Photo source: Wikipedia. This file was derived from: I Am… Tour 11.jpg

Beyoncé has been busted again. Nineteen months after being criticized for lip-syncing during the presidential inauguration, she was caught lip-syncing at a recent concert in Paris (and doing so badly). Look, I understand why Beyonce or any artist lip-syncs in concert. Beyoncé has a $450 million brand to protect. These days, an artist’s every move is watched and recorded, and God help the unfortunate soul whose musical flaws are isolated and mocked for digital eternity. But, let’s also realize this: each time Beyoncé lip syncs, she commits a fraud and damages the authenticity of her precious brand. It is time for artists to start being human. Otherwise, holograms will take their jobs.

The promise of a live event — the reason we’re willing to fork over $300 to see Beyoncé and Jay Z perform together — is that each show is a unique experience. Together, the performer and the audience create a dynamic unique to that concert. The bond forged between the artist and the audience, however illusory and fleeting, feels real at the time. And the live nature of the performance is essential to forming that bond — the inflection in an artist’s voice, the personality she injects into a song through her live interpretation, and the interplay between her vocals, the music, and audience all help convince us to pay a premium price for a show instead of streaming her music on Spotify for a whole lot less money. For instance, during her ArtRave tour, Lady Gaga has turned her anthem “Born This Way” into a more intimate moment of audience interaction by delivering a slower, more soulful version instead of simply duplicating the hit you hear on Born This Way. (Lady Gaga, who has spoken out against lip-syncing, also invites a fan to join her onstage during the song.)

Lip-syncing undercuts the live experience. Instead of singing, the artist becomes a professional dancer or gymnast, carefully orchestrating her every movement with a pre-recorded track — an experience, however impressive, that you can watch for free on YouTube. Moreover, the experience is inauthentic. You really are not hearing Beyoncé sing when she lip-syncs. You are not hearing the Red Hot Chili Peppers play music when their instruments are unplugged during a Super Bowl performance. What you get is a musician aping the songs you can stream for free (and, ironically, doing just what the artist wants to avoid — making a glaring mistake — when the artist accidentally falls out of sync with the backing track, as happened with Beyoncé during the Paris concert).

In essence, lip-syncers make their personal brands inauthentic. And inauthentic brands eventually alienate their audience. We live at a time when customers can use social media to challenge and confront brands that fail to deliver on what they say they will deliver. As journalist James Surowiecki wrote in The New Yorker recently, “[B]rands have never been more fragile. The reason is simple: consumers are supremely well informed and far more likely to investigate the real value of products than to rely on logos.” Marketing expert Scott Monty, an executive vice president at SHIFT Communications, argues that authenticity is essential for brands to succeed in an era when customers can easily smell out a fake. “Authenticity is the quality of being genuine, and ultimately of being trusted,” he wrote recently.

Like savvy, well-informed customers, fans are exposing the fakes with their smart phones and YouTube videos. Beyoncé is far from the only faker. She joins a hall of shame that includes artists as diverse as Luciano Pavarotti to Shakira. Fans don’t like the fakery. And who can blame them? At a minimum, performers owe concertgoers truth in advertising. Don’t advertise a live show if you use prerecorded tracks. Let your fans know what they are buying.

If you cannot be authentic, be honest.

Apple Pays Dearly for U2’s “Free” Music

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Photo credit: Marcio Jose Sanchez, AP

Let’s get something straight: U2 did not give away its new album, Songs of Innocence. To be sure, if you have iTunes, on September 9 you received a free copy (without asking for it) of Songs of Innocence. But Apple paid U2 an undisclosed amount to distribute copies of U2’s album to as many as 500 million iTunes subscribers — a deal announced on September 9 as part of Apple’s roll-out of the iPhone 6 and Apple Watch. Now, let’s do some math: in 2013, Samsung paid Jay Z $5 million to distribute 1 million copies of Magna Carta Holy Grail. Consider the lucrative sum U2 must be scoring ($30 million according to one estimate). And ponder, if you will, the $100 million marketing campaign the band is getting courtesy of Apple. These old rockers from Ireland have found a way to make a killing off a dying art form.

The distribution deal has created some backlash for both Apple and U2. For instance, music blogger Bob Lefsetz wondered why U2 would choose iTunes as its distribution platform, when more popular (e.g., YouTube) and hip (e.g., Spotify) distribution platforms are available. “They’d have been better off releasing it on YouTube, that’s where the digital generation goes for music,” he wrote. “iTunes is a backwater. It may be the number one sales outlet, but it’s not the number one music platform, not even close.” Plus, the approach of a forced distribution of content on to 500 million iTunes accounts is being viewed by many as obtrusive.

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Photo credit: Peter Neill

On the other hand, what is a rock group supposed to do in order to make money off its music in the digital age? Album sales have reached an all-time low. Getting noticed for your art is harder than ever at a time when music is just background noise for our digital games, advertisements, and movies. Musicians are not making money off streaming services, and YouTube is hardly a sure bet to monetize music. No wonder Kiss frontman Gene Simmons recently declared that “rock is finally dead.”

Yes, dropping content into our iTunes account without our permission is a controversial move. But the approach is fresh and new, and the old ways are not working anymore in the music industry. The relationship with Apple has given U2 two precious assets: money and attention. By participating in the most important and high-profile day in Tim Cook’s history as Apple’s CEO, U2 has turned an album launch into a global event. Tell me: who else can do that? The $100 million marketing campaign will keep the album in the public eye in the run-up to Universal’s official release of Songs of Innocence October 13 — and, more importantly, will serve as advance notice for the inevitable tour.

And you can be sure a tour is coming. Because that’s why albums still matter: as a launching pad for other revenue streams, such as tours and merchandising deals. U2’s last tour raked in $736 million from 2009-2011. U2 just primed the pump for what comes next.

Update, 22 September 2014: since I wrote this post, the backlash against Apple and U2 that I mentioned has intensified, obviously. As Adweek reported, social media sentiment dropped for U2 by 41 percent in the wake of the deal. My take: years from now, the U2/Apple (and similar Jay Z/Samsung album drop from 2013) will be viewed as flawed but necessary experiments in monetizing music, and others will improve upon those approaches.

Can Wu-Tang Clan Save the Record Album with “Once Upon a Time in Shaolin”?

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When I first heard that trailblazing rap collective Wu-Tang Clan intends to release just one copy of its new album, Once Upon a Time in Shaolin, I stopped what I was doing and had to learn more. And therein lies the point of  Wu-Tang Clan’s strategy: create intrigue for a fading art form, the record album.

The album has become practically an anachronism in the era of digital disposable content. Listening to an album all the way through requires focused attention. But consumers like to stream our music in small morsels while we’re shopping, exercising, gaming, and generally doing anything but focusing our attention on music. It’s no wonder that album sales continue to decline, decreasing by 8.4 percent in 2013, including a downturn for digital albums.

Enter Wu-Tang Clan, which made one of the most influential rap albums of all time, Enter the Wu-Tang (36 Chambers), in 1993 (long before album sales started their decline).

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The strategy behind Enter the Wu-Tang — the group’s first album — was as inventive as its sound. The group wanted Enter the Wu-Tang to be a launching pad for the careers of its individual members (not just Wu-Tang Clan, per se) and the approach worked: Method Man, RZA, Raekwon, Continue reading

How the Grammys Help Fans Create Visual Stories

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The 56th Annual Grammy Awards sparked laughter, controversy, eye rolling, and a lot of conversation in our living rooms, pressrooms, and social media worlds. Beyoncé’s risqué performance raised eyebrows, and Lorde’s dance moves caused some serious head scratching. Pharrell’s gigantic Smokey the Bear hat generated instant parodies and its own Twitter account. And Kacey Musgraves officially arrived. But what you see onstage is only part of the experience. Thanks to a live stream available on the Grammy website, Grammy viewers can go backstage with the stars and watch them as they exit the stage, prepare for their official Grammy portraits, and glow for the media in the press room. I used my laptop to become a backstage voyeur and content creator by snapping screen shots of the stars and posting my visual stories across my social spaces. This is the new world of entertainment: empowering everyday fans to create content. Here are a few highlights:

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I captured a brief moment when Willie Nelson, Kris Kristofferson, and Merle Haggard lingered for a pre-show interview. The Grammy Awards show really begins hours before the telecast, when performers and presenters arrive to rehearse. Moreover several entertainers and industry figures receive awards during a separate ceremony before prime time. Nelson, Kristofferson, and Haggard reminded me of three giant figures from Mount Rushmore. I used a black-and-white filter to accentuate that impression.

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5 Customer Experience Lessons from Rolling Stone’s 50 Greatest Live Acts Now

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If you want to improve your customer experience, read the recently published Rolling Stone overview of the 50 greatest live acts now. The best live acts do something all brands aspire to do: create an experience that make their fans want to come back for more. It’s a simple formula for building brand love — and yet many companies struggle to master the art of the customer experience. According to the annual Temkin Experience Ratings, only 37 percent of companies received “good” or “excellent” scores for their customer experience. Here’s what 50 great live acts (rated by musicians, critics, and industry executives) can teach brands about treating their customers right:

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1. Don’t Rest on Your Laurels

Number 1 on the list of greatest live acts now is a 63-year old legend who could coast on his reputation and still make this list. Yet, Bruce Springsteen plays with the urgency  of an unknown act trying to prove himself.  He continues to give everything he has onstage (in Finland, he played for 4 hours and 16 minutes, his longest show ever). He abandons his set list to play requests from the audience, which keeps his band from falling into a  rut. He commands the stage. After all these years, he’s not simply “doing well for an older rocker” — he’s setting the standard for excellence, period. Another well-established act, Radiohead, “refuse to rest on nostalgia,” in the words of Rolling Stone, with the band members challenging themselves to bring fresh material with each tour. But Bruce Springsteen is the one artist who exemplifies all five lessons on this list.

2. Create Audience Intimacy

The artists, critics, and industry types who selected the Top 50 laud Jay Z for making “personal connection with the audience at every show.” Similarly, U2 “have this ability to create intimacy” even in large arenas, according to Continue reading