What's The Trend?

Trends are everywhere, and the music industry is no exception. However, the Hip-Hop community tends to create and embrace their own trends in comparison to the rest of the industry. This year alone they have managed to create quite a few of them.

Self-Production: Fifteen years after the trend originally appeared it has come back again. The days are over where you are left to wonder who produced an album. The trend today is for emcees to produce their own album. It seems fitting that the artist who perhaps inspired this trend the most was Kanye West. In a time where labels envisioned Trackmasters, Timbaland, or Scott Storch to be the ‘it’ producers required to make a single take off, Kanye West was making award winning albums on his own. The labels took note – especially when they released they could potentially save thousands, if not millions, on paying third party producers. Today the one-man is in full effect with producers / artists such as K.R.I.T., Blu and J.Cole all set to release albums this year.

Female Vocal Appearances: Hip-Hop has always favored female hooks, particularly those by white females, but lately there has been more of them then ever before. One of the recent breakthroughs – Skylar Grey. Not only did she right the hook for Eminem’s award winning track “Love the Way You Lie” but in the past 8 month’s she’s also appeared on Diddy-Dirty Money’s “Coming Home”, Lupe Fiasco’s “Words I Never Said” and Dr. Dre’s “I Need a Doctor”, just to name a few. Katy Perry is on the opposite side of the spectrum. She began guest appearing on Timbaland’s “If We Ever Meet Again” and then recruited rappers Kanye West and Snoop Dogg for two different singles on her last album “Teenage Dream”. One of most addictive hooks of the past year – Hayley Williams on B.o.B’s “Airplanes”. Seriously – if you weren’t singing it along in your head, reading it on Facebook statuses or on twitter feeds – something is wrong.

Album Delays: The classic album delays. No genre of music knows this better than that of Hip-Hop. Die-hard enthusiasts are still waiting for the day when Dr. Dre’s long anticipated album “Detox” is finally released. For years Dr. Dre has promised that ‘Detox was coming’. Release date after release date have come and gone, presumed singles have been released, and yet “Detox” appears to be a far away fantasy. For others, such as Kanye West and Jay-Z, after some release dates have past, the album suddenly drops with a week’s notice. Since January listeners had been waiting for the artists’ collaboration “Watch the Throne”. After the March release date passed with no release the album suddenly had a release date announcement, one week prior to the release. Since there wasn’t release date anticipation, leakers were unable to get their hands on the music and thus the album was actually released without being leaked, perhaps part of their strategy the entire time.

All of these trends have lead to hip-hop flooding the charts again like it once did – a quick look at Billboard’s Hot 100 for the week of August 27,2011 and one can see that 10 of the top 25 chart positions are held either by hip-hop artist or feature a hip-hop artist. Quite a feat for a genre that at one point in time was considered to be a passing fade.

References:
One-Man Armies – The Return of The Emcee/Producer Extraordinaire
Viva La White Girl – 5 Voiced Every Rapper Wants on Their Hit
The Big Pushback – Rappers & Labels Strategically Delaying Albums
Billboard Hot 100

A Music Supervisor's Favorite Resource

Everyone knows that licensing music for movies and television shows can provide excellent returns – not only monetary but also in exposure. Music Supervisors are the most powerful individuals when it comes to this and use their own method of acquiring music that doesn’t involve calling individuals.

Music Supervisors frequent production music libraries because they can deliver any kind of music. No matter how obscure or otherwise difficult to obtain, one of more production libraries will have it. While they originally only contained background sound, production libraries today are much more than that. They discover groups, form record labels and forge alliances with clients in film and television. One of the greatest features of a production library, and a music supervisor’s favorite attribute, is that all the music they possess has been cleared. All the paperwork has already been done and it’s clear who the licensor is – so there is an unlikely chance that a problem with the license would appear. A music supervisor’s worst nightmare is finding out days before a project is to be released that there is a problem with a song that they were using for a scene and they can no longer use it. Using a production company minimizes greatly the chance that this would occur. Artists need to remember that to a music supervisor the quality of your music may matter less than the ability to achieve clearance. Paperwork and logistics can be a major roadblock. Production companies list meta-data standards to make sure that all the music in their catalogs meets certain requirements. Incorrect meta-data results in the legal department getting involved and using production libraries avoids such a mess.

Timing also comes into play when music supervisors decide to use production libraries. Many times a music supervisor will have a complex need to fill – a Latin-reggae tune in the style of a known artist but inexpensive – and will need it fast. For the most part production libraries have extensive catalogs – and if music supervisors use them often enough they can have some negotiation power over the price of a license.

So what does this mean for musicians? One thing is certain - instead of trying to get your music to a music supervisor, it might be wiser to get your music into a production library.

Reference:
What Music Supervisors Wish You Knew