Chamillionaire Is Succumbed By Adam Lambert Army At Grammy Social Media Event

The panel discussion with Adam Lambert, Chamillionaire took place today (Friday, February 11th) at the Conga Room at L.A. Live.

Chamillionaire: “You spill your guts in this music, and someone comes along and demeans it in 140 characters.” Sometimes you have to step away from it. It can desensitize you.

Other highlights from the discussion via On the Meaning of Adam Lambert

Pandora, the internet personalized radio service, announced plans to go public and raise $100 million in an initial public offering. That was the real news from the event. Now numbering 80 million listeners, Pandora’s audience is has grown large enough to let the company think about how it can impact an artist’s career, said Westergren. In other words, we ain’t seen nothin’ yet.

Social media is changing the music industry by putting artists directly in touch with fans. Chamillionaire noted that when you’re an artist, “you become public property. If your fans feel vested in what you do, that’s a good thing. You can’t be mad at that. The future is going to be direct to consumer. No one in a suit and tie is going to stand in front of me telling me what to do.”

The economic impact on the music industry has been disastrous to date, with large losses of revenue to illegal downloading. Internet radio could change that. Artists collect royalties from internet play, unlike with broadcast radio. (OK, everyone, run to Pandora and create your Adam Lambert/Chamillionaire station.)

Interacting directly with the audience requires a balancing act. “I’m entertaining an audience. It’s for them. So their opinion and satisfaction is most important,” said Adam. “But part of the reason I’m an artist is that I’m the one making decisions about what I’m going to put out there.” Westergren observed, “The artists who survive are the ones who are really authentic.”

Twitter gives Adam “a sense of control, which I like.” But it comes with a warning label: don’t tweet under the influence. Chamillionaire shared his experience when he tweeted praise of the Black Eyed Peas performance at the Super Bowl and was blasted by his Twitter followers. But, he is unfazed: “I like to be authentic with my feelings.”

Social media provide artists with insight into how fans are reacting to their creative choices. “I lurk to see what people are saying,” said Adam. He said he has used suggestions from fans on Twitter, but wouldn’t specify. “I’m not going to tell you my secrets!” he said, to laughter. “The informative aspect is the best part of Twitter.”

Adam noted (yay!) that social media connects fans with one another.

Foursquare enables people to tag a geographic location, with the aim of getting people to visit favorite restaurants, concerts and other gathering places. This raised immediate flags about privacy and stalkers. Not sure we’ll find too many celebrities on Foursquare, although Adam said he would check it out. (OK, do NOT race to Foursquare so you can stan Adam…)

Pandora’s Music Genome Project is an algorithm to find new music that a listener would like based on their favorite artists. As listeners get older, they are less likely to discover new bands (yeah, life happens), so a service like Pandora might help people stay engaged with current music. I decided to test this. I created a Pandora station with Robyn, Adam Lambert, Goldfrapp and a few others, and Pandora came up with Anna Nalick, who I do like. So far so good. But I already have a very effective channel to get me to listen to music again: Adam’s tweets.

“At a concert, everyone’s got a camera and video,” Ethan Beard marveled. “That’s really powerful.” John Norris concurred, saying “I’m in favor of anything that gets people to be more aggressive in their discovery of music.” Asked how artists feel about the unrelenting recording, Adam expressed ambivalence. “It puts more pressure on the artist,” he said. And he also had more of a spiritual concern that with all the recording technology, audiences are cheating themselves of experiencing the moment. “There’s something to be said for putting your phone in your pocket and just watching.”

Mobile is the most important way people are going to be consuming social media. And I’m sorry Blackberry, but you just don’t cut it as a social media interface. By the time Adam embarks on his next tour, I’m going to have to upgrade to an iPhone.

From the blizzard of real-time tweets during the event, it appears that 99% of the viewers were Adam’s fans, as were the throngs that waited outside. Chamillionaire’s has 700K+ twitter followers. Where were they? On the bright side, Chamillionaire just gained a pocketful of Adam’s fans. He was insightful and charming, and the inner geek in me melted when he talked about analytics. He coined a great new word, “Twota” = daily quota of tweets, which I’m sure I exceed all the time.

Photo links from the event:
Wire Image

Urban Music Songwriters Offer Insight To Making Hit Records At ASCAP 'I Create Music' Expo

via Digital Music News

Thaddis "Kuk" Harrell, co-author of recent smashes "Umbrella" and "Single Ladies (Put a Ring On It)," was quite candid on the matter. Harrell told stories of painting houses to pay the bills, and only experiencing serious success more recently within his broader career.

Harrell has been active since the early 90s, and overnight success has never taken so many moons. "That's a long time, but I can look at a lot of people that have known me for years, and they always say the same thing: 'you never gave up, you kept going'," Harrell relayed. "But I was realistic that there were other things that I had to do. If that meant painting a house, I'd go paint that house."

Others told stories that shed light on a lifestyle that is anything but creative bliss. "A song a day keeps the IRS away," said Jane't Sewell-Ulepic, a co-writer behind the recent smash, "Empire State of Mind."

Still, some common themes emerged, including the importance of tapping into powerful emotions that listeners can relate to. Paul Williams, chairman of ASCAP and a well-known songwriter, joked that an artist emerging from a romantic break-up is "like a cornucopia" of creativity, while C. Tricky Stewart noted that great songs often carry an "emotion that strikes a chord with a lot of people."

Suddenly, everyday conversations can become the material for a great ditty. "Hit conversations lead to hit songs," Stewart continued. Tricky is a frequent collaborator with both Harrell and the Dream, an urban hit-making combination.

via Billboard.biz

(Tricky) Stewart said that when working with a recording artist, pre-conceived notions can be the death of creativity. When writing "Single Ladies (Put A Ring On It)," he was inspired by the relationship between Jay-Z and Beyonce before they were married. "I mean, it's Beyonce," he laughed. "Put a ring on it."

Common Disscusses & Jams With Colbie Caillat & Zac Brown

As part of the BMI’s “How I Wrote That Song” disscussion (and a little jamming) series that takes place around the Grammys, Common, Colbie Caillat, Nas, Salaam Remi, Sebastian Krys and Zac Brown where on hand as guest panelists. The event took place Saturday January, 30 at the House of Blues on Sunset Hollywood, CA.

Photos from the event:
Corbis Images

(video courtesy of Hard Knock TV, musicismybfvids & adjayscent)

Krayzie Bone & Flesh N Bone On A Music Production Panel At 2010 NAMM Show

Krayzie Bone & Flesh N Bone from Bone Thugs N Harmony at the 2010 NAMM Show In Anaheim, CA on the Steinberg/Yamaha panel along with in-house producers DJ DreGhost and Dave "Rainman" Banta talking about how the new album Uni5 was recorded with Cubase recording software.

and below the guys are strolling around the cavernous halls of the Anaheim Convention Center meeting fans and checking out the latest music products at the 2010 NAMM Show over this past weekend.



(video courtesy of LPproducer & dharkknightimaging)

Related:
Bone Thugs N Harmony NYC Listening Session Album Preview

Watch: Nas And Damian Marley At National Geographic Event Panel In DC

Watch live streaming video from distantrelatives at livestream.com

Damian Marley & Nas - 'Distant Relatives' thru Universal in-stores March 16, 2010.

Related:
Nas And Damian Marley Scheduled To Appear At National Geographic Event

Snoop Mentors During Global Entrepreneurship Week

As reported by Vivek Wadhwa at Tech Crunch.

You are probably asking yourself, what the heck does the controversial and highly successful rapper have to do with entrepreneurship? Snoop has graciously agreed to serve on a Nov. 16 mentoring panel that features high-powered entrepreneurs handing out sage advice on how they launched and grew their businesses and brands. No doubt, Snoop has built one of the most durable brands in the notoriously volatile world of hip-hop. In fact, I’d wager that Snoop could give some solid lessons to some of the top decision makers and brand masters on a global basis. The panel is but one of a huge slate of events arranged by the Kauffman Foundation for Global Entrepreneurship Week.

Those events span the globe, running in 85 countries and hundreds of venues all with a singular goal—to spur innovative thinkers to do innovative things. The emphasis of many of the events, not surprisingly, is technology. The events are designed to teach, inspire, and foster collaboration among entrepreneurs (many of whom may not even know they are entrepreneurs yet). Aside from getting some sage advice from the original Snoop, the week is also chock full of opportunities for entrepreneurs of every type.

Read more of the article here:
Tech Crunch - Snoop Dogg, Entrepreneurship and Rajasthan

About the mentoring panel:

Mentoring Madness offers aspiring entrepreneurs a change to get advice that makes a difference. This year’s panel of experts includes rapper Snoop Dogg, Blake Mycoskie, Chief Shoe Giver of TOMS Shoes; Barry Sternlicht, Chairman and CEO of Starwood Capital; and, Stephen P. Hanson, founder and president of B.R. Guest Restaurants.

The panel will offer advice to a group of university students gathered at the New York Stock Exchange November 16, which will be available for Webcast during Global Entrepreneurship Week events around the world.

The event will also feature three finalists from Movers & Changers, a nationwide business plan competition run by mtvU and NYSE Euronext to uncover creative capitalists who will do create a profitable and sustainable venture that also provides something positive for a community, the country, or the world. These finalists will give their business pitches to the panel, with the top idea awarded $25,000 in startup funds.

To participate in the event, Partners can host their own mentoring event by inviting successful entrepreneurs from their local community to talk with students and incorporate the NYSE Euronext feed of Mentoring Madness.
(source)

Sean Paul Producer Jeremy Harding Part Of Producers Conference In Toronto, Canada

The Toronto Producers Conference is this Saturday November 7th at 1pm.

Jeremy Harding has become an icon in the Kingston music scene, having worked with several of Jamaica’s biggest names like Beenie Man and Sean Paul. He burst onto the scene when he crafted the unforgettable "Who Am I" mega hit for Beenie Man. He went on to steer Sean Paul into becoming one of the biggest artists on the pop scene as both manager and producer. His latest bold move was to construct the state-of-the-art, world-class 2 Hard Recording studio in Kingston Jamaica. This studio was featured on the cover of Mix Magazine just a few months ago. He will present his approach to writing, recording and producing to our up and coming producers.

When:
November 7th, 2009 from 1pm to 5pm

Where:
Trebas Institute (2nd Floor)
2340 Dumas Street West
416-966-3066

Tickets are $25.00.

More info about The Toronto Music Producers Conference here:
Producers Conference

Jeremy Harding's Discography

Top Recording Engineers Explain Why Music Sounds Awful

At the recent AES trade show in New York City, top recording engineers and producers got together for a industry panel discussion about various aspects concerning them in today's current music recordings. Auto-Tune, Audio Compression, new recording technology, record company pressure for hits, were some of the topics discussed.

As reported by Steve Guttenberg at CNET

The panelists were all prominent record producers and engineers: Tony Brown (Elvis Presley, Emmy Lou Harris); Jimmy Douglass (Jay-Z, the Rolling Stones); Dave Hewitt (Simon and Garfunkel, U2); Ryan Hewitt (Avett Brothers, Red Hot Chili Peppers); George Massenburg (Linda Ronstadt, Lyle Lovett); Ann Mincieli (Alicia Keys, Whitney Houston); and Russ Titelman (Stevie Winwood, Eric Clapton). These people know from where they speak!

It seems like the main problem comes from record company pressure to make perfect recordings. Vocalists' off-pitch and out-of-time singing is tweaked with Auto-Tune; music-making is largely technology-based. That is, technology has replaced musical talent, and singers like Britney Spears were cited many times as to where it's all headed. Not so musically talented, her music has to be patched together in the studio. There's not a lot of there there.

Jimmy Douglass talked about the overuse of dynamic range compression, admitting that since most music is listened to over crappy computer speakers or cheap earbuds, compression is required to make it sound acceptable. Sad, but true.

For better musicians, technology can inhibit spontaneity. For George Massenburg, "It's all about authenticity," his goal in the studio is to simply capture a moment. And when recording engineers do that, the emotional power of the music has some chance of connecting with the listener.

Read the whole article here:
CNET: Top recording engineers explain why music sounds awful