Jeeni Monthy Round-Up, September

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Jeeni Monthy Round-Up, September

Welcome to our new monthly blog update where we will discuss the latest news on topics such as streaming, music, performing, tech and all the other industries Jeeni aims to support.

Firstly, seeing as this is the beginning of the monthly round-ups we have broadened our news to cover the last few months. We wanted to begin by highlighting the long-awaited reopening of live music venues and the return of festivals to the UK! A Mast Journal on COVID-19 stated, “the COVID-19 outbreak has been framed primarily as an economic crisis, in which the music-based products and practices through which revenue is derived have been abruptly and, arguably, irreparably disrupted by a global public health emergency.” Many musicians struggled financially during this time, with many pleading to the public to help the industry. Thankfully by June 2021, the venues were able to reopen and festivals such as Reading, TRNSMT and Victorious were able to run once again. Members of Team Jeeni did an amazing job at Victorious, interviewing artists and showing our support to the industry and independent musicians.

A BBC article stated “Artists cannot truly operate without their fandoms. Fans can still congregate online while we wait for their return.” While everything was shut down artists had to change the way they communicated with their fans and find ways to gather in virtual spaces. Jeeni believes that even now when venues are open, artists and creatives will use online spaces more and more. Jeeni is a great platform for them to do this as it is more ethical than most of the larger corporations and Jeeni artists keep 100% of everything they earn.

The next topic we wanted to highlight was brought to our attention from an NME article: “Fewer than 800 UK musicians make a living solely from online streaming,” and also “A particular finding points to artists making a “sustainable living” from streaming alone, revealing that approximately 720 British artists are able to. Those 720 musicians fall into the 0.4 per cent category of those who are achieving more than one million UK streams.” It is clear it is already challenging for independent artists to make decent earnings from streaming but "Spotify’s New Marquee Promotion Feature Is Forcing Artists to Pay to Reach Fans They Already Have — As Much as $0.50 Per Click” says Digital Music News. The big players in streaming are continuing to rip off artists and their fans alike. The article goes on to state that “it would take artists anywhere from 100 to 167 streams (on Spotify) to break even on just one sponsored click. That means each person who clicks on a sponsored Marquee campaign would have to listen to a new album roughly 12 times for the artist to break even on that fan’s interest."

Thirdly, Twitch and the music industry clashed back in 2020 over licensing streamed music. Now a deal has been struck, but streamers are unhappy. Many streamers on the platform were hoping for a change but the deal remained virtually the same. "Only listen to safe music." All Jeeni royalty-free songs on the site are safe to use while streaming.

Fourthly, the New York Digital News site published a story surrounding TikTok and the platform’s new massive impact on music. Stating “TikTok is evolving into a very different kind of music streaming giant. TikTok creators who aren’t musical creators themselves are using music. Musicians get paid off the back of that, and it can become a healthy revenue stream. It helps break songs and artists, consumption goes up on the other platforms, more tickets are sold, a bigger live-streaming event can happen etc.”

Lastly, only just falling into the monthly round-up we wanted to highlight the release of the latest James Bond film No Time To Die. “One of the most famous pieces of film music of all time, this has featured in every single Bond film in some form or another since it played over the opening credits of Dr No back in 1962 is the John Barry & Orchestra, Monty Norman – James Bond Theme (1962)” Each film has a title song dedicated to it including the new track by Billie Eilish- No Time To Die. But the all-time Jeeni favourite has to be Paul McCartney's "Live And Let Die", which was written on the Wings Bus that Jeeni helped to rescue, and which goes back on the road next year. Watch this space for exclusive info on that one!

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10
Jun

The Death of Letitia

Jeeni has returned to Crowdcube to raise more funds for helping new talent. Jeeni founding director Mel Croucher says, “We’re ahead of our original schedule, but there’s still so much more to do. We need to scale our online platform globally now and build our mass artist showcases. Jeeni raised £100K in 6 days and we're working hard to get more investors on board. Then we can hit all our targets, and give our new artists the recognition they deserve.” If you want to see our pitch click HERE. Mel has been writing the best-loved column in top-selling tech magazines for over 30 years. Now he’s agreed to share his work with all our members. He’s a video games pioneer and musician, and to to find out more about Mel check out his Wikipedia page. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mel_Croucher. Here’s one of Mel’s latest! Black lives matter. Unless black lives feature in a videogame, in which case they don't matter a toss. I still remember the feeling of hope and despair when I played Daley Thompson's Decathlon for the first time. That was way back in the Olympic year of 1984, and it was a primitive sports simulation from Ocean software for a little home computer called the 48k Sinclair ZX Spectrum. Daley Thompson was an Olympic gold medal winner from Notting Hill. He had a fine body, and a great moustache, and according to his skin he was the son of his assassinated Nigerian dad. Anyway, I fired up the game and there on my glowing colour monitor was the pixilated figure of Daley, the great black athlete, running along a red cinder track. The thing was, the programmers had made him white. No, I couldn't believe it either. A huge crowd of spectators also appeared in the gameplay, and every one of them was as white as a Ku Klux Klan convention in a chalk pit. It's not as if no black characters ever appeared in videogames. Almost all the assassins, hoodlums, terrorists, monsters and mobsters were black, and their purpose was to be killed off willy nilly. Apart from Michael Jackson. He was the hero in a Sega videogame called Moonwalker and his role was to rescue kidnapped children and take them home. So there was nothing creepy about that, was there. Mind you, wee Michael was mostly as white in the game as he was in real life. For a real black and white issue from the early twenty-first century, I have revisited Ethnic Cleansing, developed by Resistance Records for PC desktop machines. That's the one where the white player gets sent off on a quest to murder blacks. It is equal opportunity racism, because you also score points for killing Latinos and Jews. And speaking of equal opportunities let's hear it for the computer character Letitia who appears in an update of Deus Ex, which is set in a cyberpunk future. Letitia lives on a rubbish dump, she is as horny as she is simple, and she speaks minstrel drivel in the sort of deep-South accent last heard in a Mel Brooks parody. You couldn't make it up. Except that's exactly what they did. And shame on you Mary DeMarle for writing it, Amanda Strawn for acting it, and Square Enix for publishing it. In the USA, over 70% of all African Americans play video games, but they make up less than 3% of game developers, which tells me quite a lot about the state of the play over there. This side of the pond, things are much better, where we have over 10% of people working in game development of a BAME demographic. That's a higher percentage than their number in the national working population, and way higher than in UK publishing, tv and music. This is good news, but it's where the good news ends. Last time I visited a major gaming studio in pre-lockdown, I did see several black faces. One was on security at street level, one was behind the reception desk, two were behind the counter in the canteen, and one was swilling out the bogs. The number of black and minority ethnic decision-makers in the UK computer gaming industry is shockingly low. As a result, race has lagged way behind gender and sexuality when it comes to stereotypes in gaming. Mainstream game designers tend not to question a norm, and they rarely rock the boat by refusing to carry out a questionable storyboard handed down to them by predominantly white hands from above. Most game designers I come across have less creative imagination than Rufus my Irish Setter, not to mention a much poorer sense of loyalty and the inability to lick their own genitalia. Video games have always followed movies in characterisation, and they are painfully stiff with stereotypes. Historically, lazy, myopic creatives have allocated blacks four roles - the violent black, the servile black, the sidekick black and the comedy black. I am removing sports games and music games from my list, since they exhibit no imagination whatsoever, but simply copy real people from the real world, unless you happen to be Daley Thompson or Michael Jackson, of course. The blame for all this lies squarely with the course leaders who purport to teach video game creation in universities and colleges. I have never met a creative course leader who is darker skinned than me, and I'm a sort of mottled puce. They may well instruct their students to bung in a character of the negro persuasion as if to fill some sort of racial minority quota, a bit like when those tv adverts suddenly started to feature blacks doing non-traditional things. Like working in building societies, and driving new cars. The change is coming through the independent video game creators, the so-called home-brew developers, and the change had begun in the UK way before the Black Lives Matter movement gathered such momentum. Creative change always comes from the mavericks and rarely from the corporates. As for the people who play the games, next time you come across a racial stereotype you know what to do. Take a knee. To the groin of the writer, programmer and publisher. The Death of Letitia, from Deus Ex: Human Revolution Click HERE to visit or return to jeeni.com

12
Mar

Would You Sell Your Song Catalogue?

Today, we hear another mega-star has sold their song catalogue. This time Neil Young has agreed a deal and sold 50% of the rights to his entire back catalogue. Hipgnosis Song Fund purchased 1,180 songs by the Canadian musician in a deal that is said to be worth an estimated $150 million (£110 million), according to the BBC. Neil Young - Photo: Getty The Young acquisition comes after the company acquired the rights to 100% of former Fleetwood Mac singer Lindsay Buckingham‘s back catalogue and 50% of his future work this week, as well as Jimmy Iovine’s worldwide producer royalties. “This is a deal that changes Hipgnosis forever,” Hipgnosis founder Merck Mercuriadis said of the Young deal. Hipgnosis are known for turning royalties into a steady income stream – with the firm making money every time one of its songs is played on the radio or featured in a film/TV show. Other recent acquisitions by Hipgnosis include catalogues by the likes of Blondie, L.A. Reid, RZA and The-Dream. The company also purchased a publishing portfolio from Kobalt in September. The sale included songs by Fleetwood Mac, 50 Cent, Beyoncé and many others. The Neil Young sale seems to be part of the growing trend of artists cashing in on their lifetimes work. Bob Dylan was reported in December 2020 as selling to Universal Music. According to the New York Times, the music icon has sold his back catalogue for an eye-watering $300 million (£225 million), giving Universal the ownership of over 600 songs spanning a period of almost six decades. Bob Dylan - Photo: Getty While the deal means that Universal now control one of the most celebrated back catalogues in history, Dylan is also listed as the principal songwriter on the vast majority of efforts – which means Universal does not have to share future revenues with any other songwriters. In the same month, Stevie Nicks agreed a deal with Primary Wave for $100million, giving them 80% of her back catalogue which includes her 70's hit 'Dreams' just as it is making a Billboard comeback after going viral in the TikTok video of skateboarder Nathan Apodaca drinking Ocean Spray juice. To make these kinds of figures, you have to have a catalogue which will give the buyer a payback, but with younger bands such as The Killers doing the same, is this the best way for songwriters, singers and bands to create certain income? With the poor payouts from the online streaming platforms, it makes good business sense, but only for those able to create enough desired material. For those new and emerging creative stars, companies like www.jeeni.com and Patreon have been created to redress the balance, so revenue generated goes to the creators, not the suits and pen-pushers, meaning artists of the future will possibly be able to afford to create back catalogues and continue to benefit from them.

05
Jun

As the Coronavirus Pandemic directly impacts Songwriters, Musicians and Artists - what can we do to help?

Reluctantly we cannot avoid a discussion about the impact of Coronavirus. Yesterday my son flew to Manilla in the Philippines where there is a state of emergency and where the community will be placed under quarantine for one month. At Jeeni HQ, key personnel have decided to self-isolate and social distance for the sake of our family, our loved ones and the business. It's all become very real, very fast. I have handpicked some relevant articles for our members, but it's a bit doom and gloom I am afraid. John Ochoa states: "By now, the detrimental effects of the global coronavirus pandemic on the music industry are loudly heard. Major festivals around the world are postponing or outright cancelling their 2020 editions. This month alone, Coachella and Stagecoach, Ultra Music Festival, SXSW, Lollapalooza Argentina, Treefort Music Fest, Brussels' Listen! Festival and several other major events were called off or postponed. The aftermath has impacted everything from music conferences and award shows—this year's Winter Music Conference, ASCAP Experience, Nickelodeon Kids' Choice Awards and BMI Latin Awards were all cancelled or postponed—while the amount of cancelled national and international tours continues to grow seemingly on the daily. As the coronavirus continues to spread, so too do its ramifications on the music industry. While industry experts and analysts are projecting that the live concert business could stand to lose billions, the financial fallout is virtually immeasurable at this point". http://bit.ly/2U1EH38 Norton and Denham conclude: "The coronavirus pandemic is scary for many who live on tight margins or don’t have the security of a steady paycheck. That includes independent musicians, venue owners, promoters, and others whose livelihood depends on a thriving and functioning arts and music scene". http://bit.ly/2IMuSAW The Digital Fix has started a discussion about how we can help? They say that: "We should buy physical CDs or downloads enabling artists to keep the money for themselves. and invite every band/artist to share their music with links to buy". http://bit.ly/3aW501o But is that enough, surely we can do more? What about lobbying the streaming services that pay artists peanuts. This could be the trigger to get them to offer some real help. Let's have some positive proposals from this community. Online collabouration instead of face to face rehearsals and jams? How to help our more vulnerable members get through if things get really tough? Over to you. Retro microphone on stage in restaurant. Blurred background

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