Across America, Starting with the Boxing Champion

Chapter 487 Artists and Capitalists

"Hey, Link, you are so awesome. First you were the world boxing champion, the pop king of the music industry, and now you are the Berlin Best Actor. You are so versatile."

"Link, you seem to be able to do everything to the extreme. It's amazing."

"It's really amazing. He can even be a scumbag to the extreme."

Hahaha~

At the Staples Center, at the Grammy Awards ceremony, Katy Perry, Miley Cyrus, Lady Gaga, and Kesha Chan appeared and started joking when they saw him.

Link shrugged helplessly. Compared to last year and the year before last, he had made a lot of corrections on the issue of men and women during this period. Apart from the original few female companions, there were no other women. At least that was the case in Europe and the United States.

But even if he wanted to correct himself, he was still regarded as a scumbag, which made it hard for him to tell the difference.

"Hey everyone, I haven't seen you for a long time. Are you sure you want to tease me like this? Be careful I call you scumbags too."

Link smiled softly and glanced from Katy Perry and Lady Gaga to Kesha and the others. Among these women, except for the slightly younger Miley Cyrus, each has a rich relationship history.

Last year, Lady Gaga publicly admitted in an interview program that she had played sports involving more than three people.

Katy Perry had a flash marriage with Russell Brand, the British comedian and host of the 2009 MTV Video Music Awards, the year before. They announced their divorce in December last year and then started dating Italian male model Baptiste. They broke up after less than a month of dating.

Keisha is also a well-known big player in the industry.

Compared to them, Link felt quite pure.

"Okay, I'll let you go first, Link. You came just in time. We have serious matters to discuss with you."

ladyGaga asked him to sit down and talk about their serious matters.

The questions several of them asked were related to Spotify.

Now that Spotify has entered North America, many musicians have uploaded songs to the platform for distribution.

Including Link and several other singers, Spotify has also purchased the rights to play tens of millions of songs through copyright acquisition. Currently, the Spotify platform has more than 30 million tracks, which is no less than the Amazon Music Store and iTunes Music Mall.

Different from the two companies, Spotify currently provides free music. Many songs require money to listen to on other platforms, but you can listen to them for free on Spotify, including new songs by popular singers. It advocates small profits but quick turnover.

Spotify provides free and paid services. Free users will be inserted certain ads when using Spotify's services, while paid users have no ads and have better sound quality for $9.99 per month.

Free users cannot switch songs at will on the mobile phone, nor can they play them offline, but paid users can.

Spotify mainly makes money through traffic and advertising, as well as some paying users.

After the singer uploads the song to the Spotify platform, he will receive part of the royalties.

Every time a song is played, the song copyright holder can get a share of about US$0.008.

Assuming that all copyrights of a song are in the name of the singer, the singer will receive the entire $0.008. However, in fact, except for independent singers, most song copyrights are owned by record companies.

In this regard, the income of singers will become less.

This is also the reason why Katy Perry and others are reluctant to put their songs on the Spotify platform.

But the record company has a positive attitude towards this matter, because in addition to Link Music, the other five major record companies also have a lot of shares in Spotify.

According to this form, record companies can not only get a share of song royalties, but also a share of Spotify's profits.

This situation also leads to conflicts between record companies and their singers.

For powerful singers such as Lady Gaga and Katy Perry, when the company lists their songs on the Spotify platform, it will discuss with them and upload them after they agree.

For musicians who do not have much copyright, it is inevitable that their songs will be streamed through streaming channels. For example, Kesha, the copyright of her songs is in the hands of the company.

LadyGaga and several others came to discuss with him and asked him whether it was worthwhile to use free channels for new songs.

Link didn't say whether it was cost-effective, but just told them that now is the Internet age, and it is a trend for songs to be released through streaming channels.

In 2009, the total revenue of the music market was 14 billion, and streaming media was only 600 million. This year, the total revenue of the music market was 16.4 billion U.S. dollars, and global digital music sales were 4.8 billion U.S. dollars, accounting for 30% of total sales, an increase of nearly 8% from 2009. times.

In the past, many musicians rejected online streaming music, believing that digital music was killing music. However, judging from the current situation, streaming media is also saving the music market, with iTunes, Spotify, online streaming, radio and other platforms playing a significant role.

“Will putting our songs on a free platform make our music cheaper?”

Katy Perry asked.

Several other people also nodded. Musicians are all artists, and songs are works of art. No one wants the works of art they create to become cheap.

Link smiled softly and said that doing so would indeed make the song cheap, but it was inevitable.

With the explosion of information in the Internet age, entertainment methods that can replace music are increasing, such as movies, music, online games, novels, news, etc. In the past, watching movies and listening to music was a luxury consumption that ordinary people could not afford. Now, through mobile phones and computers, it can be consumed anytime, anywhere. Just consume it.

In addition, things are rare and valuable. In the past, communication was underdeveloped and you could not hear a new song for several months. But now there are tens of millions of songs on the Internet. There are too many songs, which inevitably leads to the cheapness of songs. Not only Songs, movies, games, novels, etc. are also becoming cheaper.

If you still regard music as a work of art at this time and are unwilling to lower your profile, you risk being eliminated.

"Link, listen to what you said. You are becoming more and more like a capitalist. When you think about problems, you think from the perspective of capital, not from the perspective of a singer."

Carrie Underwood pointed at him and joked, bumping into Taylor Swift next to her.

Link shook his head, glanced at Taylor and said: "The main function of music is to entertain the public. The more people hear it, the more valuable it is. Before the Internet, it was difficult for the songs of local singers to spread around the world. Our fans are also limited to Europe and the United States, and the same goes for movies. In the past, only relatively wealthy people were willing to spend money to buy albums and watch movies. With free platforms, poor people can also enjoy wonderful popular music. Is this considered a breakthrough? Equality of human rights?

"."

Hearing what he said, no one could refute that he said free music was too noble, but those who wanted to make money through music seemed a bit vulgar. Only Taylor wrinkled his nose and dismissed his statement, "If you listen to free songs, musicians will not be able to realize their own value, nor will they get the respect they deserve. They will lose the passion and motivation for creation, and it will also lead to music The quality of the work has seriously declined. This trend is already happening on the Internet. There are more and more bad songs. Do you think this will be better?”

"Tyler is right!"

Everyone nodded and stood on Taylor's side.

Link smiled softly, "Not necessarily. To give you a number, Spotify currently has 32 million registered users around the world. After my new album was released on Spotify, in just one month, about 22 million users have listened to all the songs in my album. Songs, including 4 million paying users, and the royalty income on the free platform has now reached 25% of the revenue from physical records. In the future, this number will become larger and larger, and the profits will not be less. "

"That's because you are a shareholder of Spotify, and others don't enjoy as many special treatments."

Katy Perry said.

“No, the allocation of promotion resources on the Spotify platform mainly depends on the quality of the songs and is allocated based on big data. Singers with higher quality songs will receive more promotion resources.

I think it’s good for competitive singers, like you, to use Spotify as a promotion channel. If they can absorb most of the promotion resources, the profit will not be less than selling physical records. If you are interested, you can try it with a few songs. Give it a try. "

Link suggested.

Katy Perry and others nodded.

In fact, Link really wanted to persuade them to join Link Music. Link Music is the major shareholder of Spotify. After joining Link Music, they will receive corresponding shares.

For example, Mars and Lana Del Rey hold more than 1% of the shares of Link Music, with a market value of more than 10 million, while Wiz Khalifa holds less than 1%, and will gradually increase in the future. Even if they don’t become singers in the future, they can still get it every year. to a large amount of royalties and company profits.

With shares in Link Music, singers can not only get a share of royalties from Spotify, but also a share of Spotify's profits, killing two birds with one stone.

But if he solicited people in public, he would be regarded as a capitalist, thinking that he wanted to exploit them. Link decided to slow down and leave these matters to his agents.

—

After chatting for a while, the Grammy Awards ceremony began.

Several new singers who debuted last year were invited to perform on stage, including Ariana Grande and Charlie Puth. Ariana Grande sang her original new song "Put Your Hearts Up", and Charlie Puth collaborated with Selena. Sing "Wedon\'ttalkanymore".

Seeing Selena writhing around on the stage in a **** dress and mature makeup, Link wanted to laugh. He felt like she had grown up, but not too big. She still looked like she was stealing clothes from adults. That is the sense of sight.

Looking back, he noticed Taylor glanced at him. He put away his smile and asked, "When will the new album be released?"

"Why are you asking?"

Taylor looked at the performance at the front desk and asked gently moving the corners of his lips.

"You will be busy releasing your album and won't have time to take care of your children at home. During that time, I can temporarily take care of Alexander and Cynthia."

Link said.

"No, based on your past performance, I don't think you can take care of them."

Taylor said calmly.

"In the past? I didn't take them to do anything dangerous. Well, even if they did, I would make corrections and make sure they eat and play happily, like happy little angels. How about that?"

Link asked softly.

Taylor didn't answer him and continued to watch the performance on the stage.

After the opening performance, Neil Burton, the chairman of the awards ceremony, took the stage to recall Whitney Houston. He said that when Whitney Houston debuted at the age of 19, she had an afro, a beautiful face, and a beautiful voice. .

There was a sigh at the scene.

After the memorial service, various awards began to be awarded on the stage.

The Grammy Awards have undergone major changes this year, with the number of awards reduced from 109 last year to 78.

The previous Best Pop, Best R&B, and Best Country Vocal Performance are no longer divided into categories and are unified into the Best Pop Vocal Album of the Year. As for the gender of the singer, there is no longer a distinction between male and female singers, leaving only one Best Pop Vocalist. prize.

Fewer prizes have also led to more competition.

That night, Adele became the biggest winner at this year's Grammy Awards, winning 5 out of 6 awards and winning several of the most valuable awards, including Production of the Year, Album of the Year, Song of the Year, Best Pop Vocalist, and Best Short MV.

The Foo Fighters were nominated 4 out of 6, and won the four most important rock awards for their new album "Walk", including Best Metal Performance, Best Heavy Metal Performance, Best Rock Song, and Best Rock Album.

Kanye West won 2 out of 7 nominations, winning Best Rap Album and Best Rap Song.

Taylor won Best Children's Music Album.

Bruno Mars won 1 out of 6 nominations for Best Pop Vocal Album.

The famous American folk singer Justin Vernon became the biggest dark horse at this year's Grammy, winning two awards for Best Newcomer and Best Alternative Music Album.

Link announced in advance that he would not accept the award, so he only attended as an award presenter.

Overall, this year's Grammy Awards had some surprises, but it was generally good.

Without Link's participation, Taylor and Fruity didn't release official albums last year. Lady Gaga and Beyoncé's new albums received only mediocre response, which also led to Adele's success this year, and her new album does have this strength.

After the Grammy Awards, Taylor and her two children also moved from Nashville to Los Angeles. Link arranged a special plane to pick them up in person, and even stayed in Taylor's new mansion to play with the children for two days.

By mid-February, "Buried Alive" was about to be released in North America. The boxing match was not far away, and he had to get busy again.

(End of chapter)