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Worthy
15 July 2009 02:55:38
In the few short years that Anabatic Records has been in business, Worthy has built a label that is respected by punters and industry folk far and wide. The artists and tracks he releases on his label, all fit in with the sound and style he has created, and his ability to do this is what makes Anabatic special.
Worthy has a quirky and bouncy sound that is always good on the dancefloor and it’s hard to pick out what exactly makes a Worthy track, Worthy…. Evan the man him self didn’t realise he had his own sound going on. ‘It just happened naturally, I was never trying to make a unique sound, its just what’s come out of me and I didn’t even know it until people started telling me “Hey, you have this sound” and I’m like “What are you talking about? I think everything sounds really different” and they’re like “No no, it has this sound to it”… [He says laughing] The latest release on Anabatic is an Ep from Deepchild titled Stripjoint Mathematics. This is Deepchild’s first release on Anabatic, and Worthy’s Back Room Remix of the title track climbed its way to number 19 on the beatport charts. ‘The feedback has been really good. We’ve been getting lots of interesting comments… people love the name of the track, the vocals and style of it. Good feedback, really good feedback.’ Worthy says that besides this release, Deepchild is definitely someone to keep your eye on. ‘Deepchild is killing it for me at the moment. I’ve also been listening to a lot of James Talk stuff lately and the Dirtybird boys always do it for me. Also Emerson Todd, he is going to do really well’. The Concumbia release on Anabatic has also been doing well and it’s a track Worthy wrote with Yankee Zulu. Both artists have remixed each other many times, they have written tracks together in the studio and now they are trying something new. ‘The last couple of tracks we did were in the studio together when I’ve been over in Belfast with him. Usually when I’m doing a European tour I try and get away i n between the gigs and just chill out over there and make music with him. But were actually in the process of trying to put a track together now by sending parts back and forth on the internet. I’ve never really tried to do that before so it’s a little bit different. We work on different platforms so its not easy, he works in Qbase and I work in Ableton.’ A lot of producers these days will talk about their studios full of hardware, synths and other toys but Worthy says he has a ‘Slightly simple set up.' He continues ‘I use Reason as my base and then use Ableton to tweak out some of the sounds more, really I just use Reason as a sampler for the most part and that’s my favourite thing to use, the equipment in that program. I don’t have any really crazy hardware, just software, and I find different sounds to just sample off ‘. With a busy year of releases ahead, it seems that Anabatic is only going to continue to rise and establish itself as a label. New artists are coming into play, and if his previous selections are anything to go by, these are defiantly releases to watch out for. ‘I have an Ep on Anabatic and that’s going to be a two track Ep, but I still haven’t finished the 2nd track yet. After that I have another Ep in November on Anabatic, and that’s something I did with this guy DWL when I was up in Belfast. He’s a friend of Yankee Zulu’s who I met and we did two tracks together. In between those two releases, I have a producer Edu K who’s also going to have a two track Ep. I’m probably going to do a remix on one of those as well and It’s a pretty crazy track, with all these nutty Brazilian drums and big bass sounds, so I’m looking forward to it.’ For most of us on this planet, music is a very special part of our life. No matter what kind of music you like, throughout your existence music has saved you, made you cry, made you laugh or made you want to throw out some serious shapes. It can often be hard trying to put what it means to you into words, for Worthy, its something that gets him through the day. ‘Its always excited me. When I had a day job I would just sit there at work, dreaming about getting out of that 9 to 5 job and getting to go home and work in the studio at night and make another track, or just play music. When I was working I would be listening to music all day long, its one of the things that always gets me through tough points in my life and with happy points its there as well… I don’t know, I just love it! It’s a love affair really, well sometimes it pisses me off but most of the time I love it! I don’t have anything as intense as music in my life, definitely not. I use to sk8board but I haven’t done that in years, just music these days. Music has just consumed me.’ Film clips have gone hand in hand with releasing music for many moons now, but in the world of dance music, it is not something you see too often. However Worthy made a film clip for his track Work The Walls that was released roughly a year and a half ago. He explains why it’s not something he’s chosen to do often and what it was like to work on.
‘It was a joint effort with people. There was the stylist Vanessa Salazar and a few directors. We all just sat down around a table and kind of threw ideas around and came up with this crazy, whacky idea, all of us together. I had control over where I wanted certain things to happen, but the directors where showing me what to do. They had great ideas as the video shows. I have no certain plans at the moment to do another one. There was just something about doing a video for Work The Walls that felt right. The next time I get a song that feels right ill try and do another video. I’ve been thinking I would probably do animation, instead of a full on production. It’s an amazing experience but its pretty gruelling, it takes a couple of months to put together and do.’
The next beat relief we’ll get from Worthy comes in the form of a remix he has done for Style Of Eye’s track Air Race. This will drop on Dirtybird Records while Worthy is touring in Australia and as he embarks on his journey down under, he leaves us with a travelling tip. ‘Never leave home without your toothbrush and your sunglasses… have to have sunglasses definitely, for 3 in the morning’. Worthy Plays @ Lost Baggage this Saturday night - The Bourbon - Kings Cross - Sydney Casey van Reyk 
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08.02.10 Australian Recordings Post First Gain Since 2003...
Perhaps this is just a numbers game, but Australian record sales actually managed to improve in 2009. According to figures shared by the Australian Recording Industry Association (ARIA), wholesale recording revenues gained 4.8 percent last year. That represents the first improvement since 2003, and offers a glimmer of hope for another troubled market.
But was 2008 a bottom? Both a-la-carte and digital album sales remain high-growth, and digital as a category gained 46 percent to $79.2 million Australian ($68.4 million US) last year. More hopeful projections - for Australia and other countries - call for digital to eventually reverse broader declines. Of course, the majors would like nothing better, though a healthy bit of caution is being applied.
And, like other countries, the Australian recording business is stumping for ISP-level monitoring and enforcement. "We remain hopeful that the ISPs will work with us to address this pressing problem and help the growth of the legitimate market, something that will, of course, also be to their benefit," said ARIA chairman and president Ed St. John.
04.02.10 The Grammy Bounceback: It's Bigger Than TV...
The Grammy Awards staged a nice recovery this year, reaching audience levels not felt since 2004. That represents a serious bump from last year, and more importantly, another step away from a bottom-scraping 2006.
The recent telecast scored an audience of 26.6 million, up 35 percent from 2009. In 2006, that total was 15.1 million, an audience eclipsed by American Idol.
A number of factors probably contributed to the recent upswing, including a collection of younger winners. But the Recording Academy also triggered a number of online initiatives to coincide with the showcase. That includes everything from an iPhone app to a Twitter account to a YouTube channel, a serious shift that makes year-to-year comparisons more difficult.
Indeed, many of these categories hardly existed in previous years. The online stats for 2010, according to the Recording Academy:
*125,760 Facebook fans.
*48,776 Twitter followers, and a top-trending topic for more than four days.
*1.5 million combined views on YouTube for 'We're All Fans' videos.
*2.1 million combined views on grammy.com for various "We're All Fans" videos.
27.01.10 The iPad: 'What This Device Does Is Extraordinary'...
What is 'way better than a laptop,' and 'way better than a smartphone'? The answer, according to Steve Jobs and Apple, is the iPad, a sleek, touch-sensitive tablet that is 'a dream to type on'. Jobs unveiled the iPad midday Wednesday in San Francisco in his customary jeans and black turtleneck, and the crowd lapped it up. "It's the best browsing experience you've ever had, it's unbelievably great," Jobs continued.
Just like the iPhone, users can flip the iPad up, down, or sideways, and buyers will be sure to impress their friends. Indeed, this thing looks like a giant iPhone in some ways, and buttons are sparse. Underneath, the iPad employs the iPhone OS, and that means that apps translate.
Beyond email, photos, ebooks, Google maps, YouTube, an address book, a calendar, and apps, Jobs also displayed music-related functionality. That essentially boils down to iTunes, and the audio and video content that comes with it.
The presence of the complete iTunes application opens more possibilities for iTunes LP, a more comprehensive, album-like format. Whether that stirs a broader album renaissance remains unclear, though the first chapters are just being written on the next-gen bundle.
What else? The iPad also has built-in WiFi, a 3G mobile option, and ten hours of battery life. And the price? At 'just' $499 to start, Apple could shift a lot of units, and Wall Street is expecting sales of between 4 and 5 million in the first year alone. Other models are more expensive, depending on storage and 3G capabilities. The highest-storage, 3G-capable model is $829.
26.01.10 Spotify Who? Vodafone Boasts 450,000 Mobile Music Subscribers...
Spotify has 250,000 premium subscribers, potentially the start of a meaningful monetization. But Vodafone is now boasting 450,000 subscribers at Midem, a number that is growing fast. The tally covers a few different offerings across a number of European countries, including one that delivers a 10-pack of MP3s for €5 per month. Another offers unlimited access to the broader Vodafone collection, though access is understandably more limited.
Actually, the Vodafone catalog has 'just' 2 million songs, though the company projects an expansion to 6 million this year. In 2009, the mobile giant finalized DRM-free licenses with all four majors, a move that paved the way for the current subscriber gains.
The growth arc looks positive. In December of last year, Vodafone added an additional 100,000 subs, and smartphone growth could boost things further. "We expect to see continued growth in our music service subscriptions driven by the increase in smartphone use, with their worry-free data tariffs and great value add-ons such as music bundles," explained Lee Epting, Director of Content at Vodafone Internet Services.
25.01.10 Midem 2010: If You Could Just Monetize This, That Would Be Great...
Midem suffered another substantial attendance drop this year, the result of both macroeconomic and industry-specific pressures. The nasty combo slashed crowds by nearly 13 percent from 2008, and roughly 23 percent from 2007 alone. Floors were still full-bodied over the weekend, and some sessions were over-crowded. But the streets of Cannes were a bit more navigable, hotel lobbies less packed, and the entire affair less lavish.
And, plenty of companies trimmed their troops, the biggest example coming from Universal Music Group. An executive or two from the publishing group surfaced, though the recording unit was absent. Others just sent less people, cooled the expense accounts of those who attended, or simply shortened the length of the trip.
Understandably, a major focus of Midem has been monetization. That introduced a number of 'conference cliches' and platitudes, including tired jabs against major labels, consumers, legislators, and entrepreneurs. But more constructively, Midem integrated executives from other industries, many of whom are grappling with similar challenges. Some are making it, others are not, though the idea was to get the music industry to stop breathing its own fumes.
Great idea, though the takeaways were mixed. Kodak CMO Jeffrey Hayzlett offered plenty of turnaround gusto and cowboy irreverence, though the reality is that Kodak is seriously struggling in a post-film world. Getty Images CEO Jonathan Klein outlined success strategies in the easily-pirated images environment, and digital guru Gerd Leonhard offered lucrative examples from virtual worlds and book publishing.
Other examples flowed. YouTube executive Patrick Walker announced that more than one billion videos - per week - are now being monetized by the video giant. On the music side, Daniel Ek of Spotify announced a paid subscriber total of 250,000, though American label executives remain unconvinced. Elsewhere, Shazam pointed to 300,000 paid downloads per day, according to a Music Ally report.
But the broader question is whether a serious and substantial recording and music industry can exist in the 2000s. One perspective is that attempts to monetize the recording - at least in the wild B2C context - are mostly impossible. The reason is that music and media assets are now abundant and infinitely replicated, a complete shift from the relatively high scarcity of the 90s. Indeed, over the past ten years, most attempts to create scarcity in the digital context have faltered.
That is a difficult interpretation for anyone whose fate is tied to the recording. But this business is bigger than the recording, and attendees talked of more controlled channels like B2B licensing, merchandising, touring, publishing, and gaming. Dialing back decades, Midem was built as a music licensing exchange, and the trade floor remains a musical UN today. But even that component is facing disruption, thanks to a global licensing marketplace that is increasingly moving online.
In the meantime, this is an industry still searching for solutions, breakthroughs and viable business models. Right now, Midem is the forum for that discussion, a traditionally huge, over-the-top event. But this is an industry that may need to shrink before it can grow again, and Midem may need to shift accordingly.
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