Jerk-pandering cologne adopts a similar ethic when it comes to paying its ad campaign’s participants, film at 11: “To introduce a leather-scented deodorant called Axe Instinct, Axe sought out about 20 street musicians and college bands in several cities, using Craigslist, MySpace and other Web sites. In exchange for an estimated $1,000, Axe asked the musicians to put up ‘Axe Instinct’ signs, offer free deodorant samples when they play and, a few times a day, sing a ditty ‘Look Good in Leather’ that Axe is using in its commercials. The musicians’ stints started in September and run through the end of the year.” Wait… only a thousand dollars? Some of the targeted street musicians play Penn Station, and probably have at least as many people pass them by in a typical 15-minute rush hour spam! Is it selling out if you grossly undervalue your worth? (I hope that Cody ChestnuTT, whose song is being used in the ad, at least made more bank than that…) [NYT] MORE »
POSTS FROM "it's the economy?" CATEGORY
it's the economy?
Even The Buskers Are Going Corporate These Days
it's the economy?
Dear Jennifer Lopez: Why Don’t You Just Take All Your Money And Go Away Somewhere Fancy, And Leave Us Alone?
Jennifer Lopez’s second attempt of 2009 at making people remember that she still considers herself a recording artist from time to time will be a Tricky/The-Dream collaboration called “Louboutins,” which she’ll perform at the American Music Awards next month. Because hey, what better way to entice your potential audience in a time where unemployment in the U.S. is officially hovering around the 10% mark (the real numbers are even less pretty) than to sing an ode to expensive shoes? It’s like Sex And The City never got canceled! $25 cosmos for everyone, you guys! MORE »
it's the economy?
The Insane Clown Posse Are Laughing All The Way To The Bank
The Detroit Free Press takes a look at the entrepreneurship of the Insane Clown Posse, the Motor City duo who head up an empire that brings in—please take a second to finish whatever beverage you’re drinking—upwards of $10 million a year. They have the Gathering, of course, as well as tie-in DVDs and action figures and T-shirts and a forthcoming sequel to their 2001 film Big Money Hustlas. The combination of capitalist force and music-business longevity has even garnered them something that’s more priceless—respect! MORE »
it's the economy?
Riders 2009: Where Have All The Demands For Brown M&Ms Gone?
The UK pop-gossip newsletter Popbitch did a survey of artists’ tour riders for its latest edition, and it found something sort of sad: The demands of bands were kind of boring! “Even Lady GaGa… is entirely happy with whatever brand of water she’s given,” the Popbitches lament, a trend that would seem to go hand-in-hand with the increasingly stripped-down riders that have been posted to the unsealed-documents site The Smoking Gun lately. So what were the highlights of Popbitch’s findings? Here’s a hint (and a sign of how sorta-dull things are in the backstage world): Expect to find lots of pureed chickpeas. MORE »
it's the economy?
From the depths of our technical difficulties (well, mostly my inability to find a decent wi-fi connection) comes Today’s Press Release Title That Makes You Wonder Just How Bad The Summer Concert Season Has Been: “Live Nation Named Top Five Most Visited Music Site by Nielsen.” With all that discounting, it’s not even top two? Oh dear. [Reuters] MORE »
it's the economy?
In case you were planning on celebrating the 40th anniversary of Woodstock (or, uh, the 10th anniversary of Woodstock ‘99) in New York’s Prospect Park this August, you may want to alter your calendar: Promoter Michael Lang has nixed plans for the show, thanks to the one-two punch of no money and no sponsors. (The concert was going to cost—hold on to your hats—between $8 million and $10 million.) Anyway, something tells me that the world’s supply of overheated Boomer nostalgia won’t exactly be drained by this cancellation, y’know? [RS] MORE »
it's the economy?
Oh, this doesn’t sound very good: “RealNetworks, the majority owner of the Rhapsody online-music service, said credit-card rejections lowered subscribers in the second quarter. … Rhapsody subscriptions fell to 750,000 at the end of the period from 800,000 in the prior quarter, trimming music sales 8 percent.” Related: A recent poll of credit-card users in which 14% of respondents reported that their limits were lowered, while 33% had their credit ceilings raised. [Seattle Times via Fark] MORE »
it's the economy?
Mick Jagger May Not Be Dancing In The Streets For The World’s Rich People Anymore
The Times Of London takes note of another potential casualty of the credit crunch: Super-exclusive rock shows for the world’s Richie Riches, which brought the bands that played them a nice piece of coin and which brought the world’s oligarchs and robber barons more ways for their workers to despise them. In the past, these shows would provide musicians with cash and gossip pages with at least one item’s worth of material; but now, as one pop manager complained to the paper, “an important income stream has basically dried up. Now that record companies can’t support artists on tour any more, this is very bad news for my acts.” (Given the number of times the words “the,” “Rolling,” and “Stones” were used in this lengthy look back, I wonder if we now know the real reason behind Keith Richards’ Louis Vuitton shilling?) What’s weird, though, is that for most of the piece, everything’s fine and dandy and gold-plated–the aforementioned quote from the disgruntled manager doesn’t turn up until the end of the piece, transforming a slightly stale “lol rich people” trend piece into a long, somewhat belated obituary for rock’s gilded age. Five notes on that nearly bygone era after the jump. MORE »
the new model
Quincy Jones Hoping To Plug “Vibe” Back In
Shorty after yesterday’s announcement that the hip-hop/R & B magazine Vibe had folded, Adrienne Samuels Gibbs at EbonyJet.com rang up the magazine’s founder, Quincy Jones. And he already had a plan: “I’m trying to buy my magazine back now,” Jones told Gibbs. “They just messed my magazine all up, but I’m gonna get it back. You better believe it, I’m’a take it online because print and all that stuff is over.” MORE »
it's the economy?
Abba Museum Runs Out Of Money, Money, Money
An Abba museum set for the Stockholm harbor–one where visitors could dance on stage with Abba holograms, ooh and ahh at replicas of the band’s dressing rooms, and engage in the always-crucial act of performing Abba karaoke–has been put on permanent hold, thanks to a real-estate dispute over the building where the museum was supposed to reside. The exhibit will probably turn into a traveling one, since the couple who conceived of the museum in the first place sold their rights to the Swedish pop titans’ likenesses to a Swedish event promoter. But it won’t be the same! MORE »
