Sandbox

MUSIC MARKETING FOR THE DIGITAL ERA Issue 10 | 20 May 2010

Is Twitter a fail for music? INSIDE…

This report is registered to: joacotroniks joaquin.fernandez@warnermusic.com Joaquin Fernandez

CAMPAIGNS
PAGE 3:
The latest projects from the digital
Is Twitter so over right now? marketing arena >>
John Mayer thinks so. The
US artist has been one of its CAMPAIGN FOCUS
highest profile users, with PAGE 4:
Warp Records, Flying Lotus >>
nearly 3.3 million followers,
but he recently told a INTERVIEW
conference that “I think it’s PAGE 6:
pretty much done... as a form Kissy Black, MD Colligent >>
of communication, I think it’s HOW TO
over”. PAGE 7:
CRM Best Practice>>
Mayer’s comments bucked the
widespread assumption within TOOLS
the music industry that Twitter is PAGE 8:
now an essential marketing and Music Glue >>
communications channel for artists.
CHARTS
Yet there are other reasons for
PAGE 9:
unease, including research indicating
This weeks digital engagement charts>>
that Twitter may not have the direct
relationship to music sales that many WIDE ANGLE
artists and labels were hoping for. PAGE 10:
Game For a Laugh >>

continued…
“Twitter is now part of the music landscape, but only part of it...”
On the surface, all is well. In April,
Twitter announced its first official
numbers. The service has more than
105 million registered users, and is still
signing up 300,000 new people a day.
60% of those registered accounts are
now outside the US, fuelled by strong
recent growth in India and Spanish-
speaking countries.
Britney Spears will soon become the
first music artist – and possibly the first
anything – to reach the milestone of
five million followers on Twitter. There
are success stories lower down the
industry food chain too, such as the
million-plus followings for independent
artists Zoe Keating and Noush
Skaugen.
Mayer counts as one of those success
stories too, yet he’s ditched the
service. His last tweet was on 27 April:
a link to a post on his One Forty Plus
Tumblr blog which expanded on his
conference comments.
“Call me crazy, but I don’t think it’s
the healthiest thing in the world to
read scads of mentions/@replies and
effectively open the floodgate of other
Issue 10 | 20 May 2010 | Page 2
people’s approval/disapproval,” he Top 20 Artists on Twitter
wrote, contrasting Twitter with Tumblr:
“The future of social networking if your 1. Britney Spears – 4.89m followers
image of the future features intelligent 2. Lady Gaga – 4.02m
discourse”.
3. John Mayer – 3.27m
His comments on replies and 4. Taylor Swift – 3.20m
disapproval harked back to the
5. Coldplay – 2.76m
reasons Nine Inch Nails’ Trent Reznor
deleted his Twitter account in July 6. Mariah Carey – 2.72m
2009, having complained about the
abuse he was getting from non-fans on
7. Diddy – 2.58m
the service. 8. 50 Cent – 2.56m
9. Justin Bieber – 2.50m
Lily Allen also quit the service in
October last year, telling one journalist 10. Katy Perry – 2.37m
“We’ve ended up in this world of unreal
11. Justin Timberlake – 2.20m
communications and I don’t want that.
I want real life back.” It’s worth noting 12. Ashlee Simpson Wentz – 2.18m
that both Reznor and Allen have since 13. Soulja Boy Tell ‘Em – 2.17m
resumed tweeting, although for now
Mayer is sticking to Tumblr. 14. Lily Allen – 2.14m
15. Miley Cyrus – 2.11m
Artists decide whether to tweet or
not, of course. But more worrying for 16. Pete Wentz – 2.02m
music marketers is recent research
17. Sara Bareilles – 1.86m
digging into Twitter’s effectiveness
and influence. Exhibit one: a study by 18. MC Hammer – 1.85m
the Max Planck Institute for Software 19. John Legend – 1.84m
Systems in Germany, published earlier
this month. It found that influence on
20. Selena Gomez – 1.84m

continued…
Twitter isn’t necessarily related to how
many followers you have. A million
followers doesn’t mean you have clout.
Exhibit two: Figures revealed by
music marketing firm Topspin at the
recent 140 Character Conference.
The company said that the average
tweet from an artist with a link
generates a visit rate of 4.8%, and then
a conversion rate of 2.8% for actual
sales. For every 100,000 followers an
artist has, 134 will buy something due
to reading a tweet. Steve Greenberg
from S-Curve Records, who was on a
panel at the conference, summed it up
thus: “Twitter, in some ways, may be
too casual a form of communication
to lead to a purchase directly at that
moment.”
Exhibit three: a report from analytics
firm StatCounter showing that
Facebook accounts for 48% of social
media traffic to websites, followed by
StumbleUpon’s 25%. Twitter generates
just 10%. The implication is that
time spent maintaining a Facebook
presence may be more effective than
spending it on Twitter.
There are reasons for optimism too,
not least Twitter’s latest features. The
company’s @anywhere initiative will
make it easier for website owners
to build Twitter into their sites, for
example letting fans log in with their
Twitter IDs, or follow an artist from a
widget on their site or blog.
@anywhere’s thunder may have been
stolen by Facebook’s more-recently
announced Open Graph, which has
some similarities. But it still has plenty
of potential for artists and labels. As
on another level does Twitter’s long-
anticipated advertising strategy,
Promoted Tweets. It will let brands and
marketers pay to have certain tweets
promoted to a wider audience on
Twitter’s network.
As more labels use both @anywhere
and Promoted Tweets, those that have
success will likely find their way into
the Twitter Media Hub, a new section
of the Twitter website offering case
studies of effective Twitter marketing.
Twitter is now part of the music
landscape, but only part of it. As
former eMusic boss (and now VC)
David Pakman recently blogged: “The
music business today is blogs, Twitter
tweets, Facebook links, the Hype
Machine, TheSixtyOne, Rockwood
Music Hall, Pandora and Foursquare.”
Issue 10 | 20 May 2010 | Page 3
The last word should be left to artists
– and not just Mayer. Many don’t see
Twitter as marketing, but just as a new
way to communicate with their friends,
with each other and with their fans.
Topspin’s stats won’t have put them
off, and neither will they worry about
how influential they are, or how many
followers they have.
Zoe Keating put it best in a recent
interview: “I don’t like to get wrapped
up in the numbers and stuff. I like
to be me and to do things naturally
and organically. Ultimately, I’m not a
marketer, I’m a musician.”
Facebook facing privacy backlash
When Facebook announced its new Open Graph initiative last month,
it was hailed as the logical next step for social networking: extending
people’s social relationships out to other websites, so they could interact
with their friends there.
However, in the weeks since, Facebook has faced mounting criticism of
its plans on privacy grounds, with users and internet experts claiming
that the company has been less than transparent on what data it plans to
share with external sites. There have also been complaints that it hasn’t
explained clearly to users how to edit their privacy settings.
Facebook is now revamping those settings in an effort to respond to the
criticism. Music marketers will be following the debate with interest. If
lots of users are put off sharing their data with external websites, it could
affect their plans to use the Open Graph in artist sites.

CAMPAIGNS:
The latest projects from the digital marketing arena
Virtual Snoop
A couple of years ago, some
music marketers were still
getting excited about virtual
world Second Life, and
spending big sums on creating
branded islands for artists or
labels – which more often than
not became white elephants.
The industry has a more realistic view of
the benefits of virtual worlds nowadays.
However, virtual items are another story:
they are sold not just within virtual worlds,
but also on social networks including
Facebook. And they’re big business too.
The latest artist to try to cash in is Snoop
Dogg, who has signed a licensing deal
with virtual goods firm PlaySpan, and
virtual branding agency Virtual Greats.
PlaySpan will be creating and selling a
range of Dogg-branded items across
dozens of world and networks, including
hats, sunglasses, musical instruments and
swimwear.
The campaign kicks off in virtual world
IMVU, with prices starting at $2 per item. In
a way, it’s no different to previous launches
in the heyday of virtual worlds. The Beastie
Boys famously put their name to virtual
merchandise in There.com, one of the
first (but now defunct) virtual worlds. But
Snoop’s new deal shows that there’s life in
virtual business models yet.
Issue 10 | 20 May 2010 | Page 4
Augmented Gorillaz
The latest element in the multimedia
campaign around Plastic Beach, the latest
album from Gorillaz, is an augmented
reality iPhone app. The band are working
with UK mobile operator O2 and Vital
distribution on the app, which lets fans
snap special AR codes to see animations
and characters from the Gorillaz world.
There’s also a news-feed, ticket details and
Page turner a GPS map that lets fans track the Murdoc character across the
Who said online music world. AR codes will be printed in media including NME and The
videos had to be a Sun.
sit-back experience? National anthems
Mercury Music YouTube and Vevo partnered
Group launched an this month to livestream a gig
interactive video this by The National in New York,
month for new artist
Tiffany Page, although
free of charge to fans around
the world. The concert was
shown on YouTube with Vevo
the technology branding, and was directed
involved meant it Foursquare freebie
by famous rockumentary
had to be hosted on team D.A. Pennebaker and We’ve been waiting for gig
her website rather Chris Hegedus. American venues to tap into social
than YouTube. The Express was also on board location service Foursquare,
video lets fans control as a sponsor. It’s interesting and now The Roxy on LA’s
because it’s a sign of YouTube Sunset Boulevard has become
Page’s movements
by dragging their and Vevo’s ambitions in the live one of the first. It’s running a
mouse left, right,
space, following the former’s promotion tied in with artist
webcast of a U2 gig last year. Sara Haze. Anyone checking-
up and down while in at the venue via Foursquare
the song plays – a can then show their device at
the merchandise booth to get
simple device, but
a free Sara CD of their choice.
an effective one. The
So far, nearly 500 unique
obligatory social visitors have checked in at
aspect lets them share
the venue, although some of
the link with friends those would have been before
on Facebook too. the promo kicked off.

Campaign Focus:
Flying Lotus ‘Cosmogramma’
Last year Warp Records
began planning a box set to
celebrate its 20th birthday.
Part of the process was
setting up Warp20.net,
a website where a large
portion of the back
catalogue was available to
stream, the idea being that
fans could visit to discuss
and vote upon which
tracks should make the
final comp. In the mix were
tracks by LA beatsmith
Flying Lotus, for whom a
lot of the comments made
note of how ‘visual’ or
rather hallucinogenic his
music is.
Fast forward to now and Warp are in
the midst of marketing his new album
with a campaign that’s suitably visual.
Flying Lotus has dubbed the album his
‘Space Opera’ and as product manager
Steven Hill describes ‘Warp had to
create a way of taking people into this
world’.
Issue 10 | 20 May 2010 | Page 5
“Warp had to create a way of taking people into this world.”
The doorway was developed on
the official website which takes the
form of an augmented reality web
app. It enables users to interact with
the album’s cover art by waving
their hands and faces in front of the
webcam. The effect is one of being
able to ‘touch’ and meld the wavy lines
and planets that make up the image.
As they do so a sound palette from
the album is triggered, making Flying
Lotus’ music malleable. If taking people
into this sonic world was the objective,
then this really isn’t a bad effort. It’s
quite plausible that after spending
some time immersed in app, users
could be tempted to buy the album as
a route further into the cosmos.
details of a 24 hour radio broadcast to order the physical product via the site
Following a similar line of thought, the be broadcast on the site which created and instantly download a high quality
website features two games ‘Attack’ a focal point within the time line. The Mp3 version to tide them over until the
and ‘Destroy’, both of which are arcade package arrived. Both the CD and vinyl
shoot ‘em ups set in space in vein
show broadcast on April 20th was
come with artwork bizarrely provided
used as a global release party for the
of the Atari classic Asteroids. Each album and featured prominent Djs by ex Dallas star Leigh Mccloskey,
version features a soundtrack provided from the LA scene including Flying famous for his role as Lucy Ewing’s
by Flying Lotus and once again
Lotus playing some of his new material husband Mitch. The inner sleeves are
provides an opportunity for fans to live for the first time. Video footage covered with a language created by
absorb music from the release whilst
from the day has since been uploaded Leigh that resembles hieroglyphics,
playing. to the site to provide further lasting which is intended for use in an as yet
The overall result is three quite potent content. undisclosed plan to create a game
virals which have been seeded to blogs based on decoding the language.
Any fans making it to the point of Watch this space for a follow up on
and promoted via Warp’s own busy purchase were offered the chance to
homepage. This was partnered with how it all unfolds.

Interview:
Kissy Black – MD, Colligent
“The resulting sales were almost twice the projected figure”
These ideas have already proved
successful, leading Colligent to count four
majors and Disney amongst its US client
list. Now, with plans to promote the service
internationally with price points across the
spectrum, it’s certainly a service to keep
an eye on. We spoke to US MD Kissy Black
about the ways in which Colligent has been
getting creative with its metrics.
“Colligent isn’t something you put in your
lips, it comes from the words collectively
and intelligent”, explains Black. All the
The same basic questions company’s data is mined from social
face anyone trying to network profiles, which currently total 210
sell music: Who is the million.
audience? Where can “The great thing about this information is
they be found? And that it’s self identified, which means that
which products would it’s either accurate or at least how people
they be interested in want to be seen and marketed to,” she
buying? Like most says. Equally importantly, generally no
metrics companies US money or incentives are offered for views
expressed on social network profiles, as
based startup Colligent Black explains.
goes some way to
answering them, but “We’ve found that people use
what makes this service entertainment products to express their
unique is that the data own identity. So they upload tracks to their
Facebook, add videos to their YouTube
delivered can come channel and tweet links that communicate
paired with suggested who they are”.
strategies for its use.
A recent campaign thought up by Colligent
for a Bob Dylan box-set gives a good
example of how rewarding such genuine
sentiment can be. They started by mining
MySpace for usernames that had answered
‘Bob Dylan’ in their profiles’ ‘Who I’d like to
meet’ box. Next a marketing campaign was
launched within MySpace targeted at this
narrow but very relevant audience, with
the result being an 8% buy rate.
As Black admits, MySpace isn’t necessarily
the best avenue for direct marketing these
days, but another recent campaign has
played better to the site’s strengths by its
monitoring profile players.
“We tracked the artist’s player to identify
where the listeners were coming from,
then when the tour started we began
to make contact and say, ‘the band are
playing soon in your local area and we
have an autographed poster waiting for
you there to say thanks for your interest.
Come collect it from the band personally at
the show’,” she says.
As Kissy explains, the great thing about
this is the viral factor it encouraged. “We
noticed that the fans who RSVP’d to the
meet-and-greets always brought lots of
friends with them to witness it. Then, we
would see them go home and upload
Issue 10 | 20 May 2010 | Page 6
pictures to their social profiles and talk
about it afterwards. We’ve consistently
seen increased gate figures using this
method”.
Most interesting of all, Colligent compares
search results for different brands and
bands, creating Venn diagrams to show
where the demographics overlap. It’s this
kind of ‘affinity’ data that could prove
valuable to the music industry, especially
for bands looking for brands to partner
with (as many are nowadays).
“Our crawlers enable us to match
demographics of bands and brands very
easily,” says Black. “Soon we’ll be launching
a dashboard product that’ll allow anyone
to do this in real time, which means that
bands looking for sponsorship will be able
to prove how many fans they share with a
product”.
Colligent has also used this type of
insight to inform media planning for their
clients. One instance involved an artist
with a demographic that was found to be
largely Hispanic and particularly keen on
certain TV shows. Their label used this
information to book the relevant ad space.
The resulting sales were almost twice the
projected figure, indicating that Colligent
can also inform effective traditional
marketing strategies.

How To:
CRM Best Practice
Whilst social media is forcing
marketers to think outside of
traditional marketing funnels,
the principles of CRM remain
the same in terms of providing
relevant and timely information
to your customers, but there
have been changes in how
the information is delivered
and the type of message. The
personification of your brand
and how it ‘speaks’ to fans is
now key in securing long-term
relationships. Here, we take a look
at the basics for best practice that
give any CRM campaign solid
right foundations.
Permission
The golden rule is get permission. If
customers haven’t chosen to receive
your marketing messages or agreed to
a privacy policy then it can mean game
over. Due to data protection laws that vary
between countries but generally support
permission marketing, CRM service
providers are encouraged to block or even
delete mailing lists that cannot prove the
contacts have opted in.
In addition to the standard opt-in, where
a fan checks a box to say they’re willing
to receive marketing, there is also double
opt-in. This is where they check a box and
later receive an email requesting that they
confirm their desire to join the list. The
advantage of a double opt-in is that you
are absolutely sure the fan has joined by
choice, which also has the added benefit of
confirming that their attention and interest
is genuine.
Segmentation
Segmentation is one of the key ways
to turn the knowledge about fans into
something useful for your campaigns and
strategies. Monitor click through and open
rates to find out how many of your fans are
active and read every mail. The aim is to
develop a sense of, who are core fans likely
to become superfans. You can then mail
to each segment with appropriate offers.
EMI’s strategy follows this route until
finally the label identifies the superfans
who might become advocates on behalf of
artists.
A great way to monitor CTR’s with any
CRM system is to create Bit.ly links as the
service provides free metrics on all of it’s
URLS.
Timing
It’s not enough just to send release
information – that’s the old-fashioned
music business that only reached out to
fans when there was a physical product to
sell. Now you have to plan media to keep
the CRM rolling with updates between
releases.
For super-fans, the best way to develop
and maintain a relationship is to keep a
consistent level of communication. Keane
Issue 10 | 20 May 2010 | Page 7
for instance has a weekly newsletter, Reccomended Services
which can be updated on the road, and
encourages fans to send in their own Email on Acid: Terrible name, but excellent
videos, tour photos and so on. service for checking how emails will
appear across different platforms.
Quick TIps
- Decide upon and maintain a consistent
tone
- Plan mailouts & their content in advance
- Have a regular (but not intrusive)
schedule
- Be aware of time zones and when your
database are most active
- Subject line: urgent, concise, honest, clear
- Personalise it. For instance by fan’s
location
- Brevity: we don’t read for long on web /
mobile
Mailchimp: The most advanced off the
- Summarise content at the top
shelf CRM system available, providing
- Include buy links / call-to-action automated segmentation and metrics
streets ahead of the competition.
- Include samples such as links to Mp3’s &
videos
- Images should be clickable
- Always amend future mails based on data
- Have a clear unsubscribe link
- Include Twitter & Facebook links
- Always proof read & send test emails
- Be familiar with words that trigger spam
filters
- Don’t depend on images (sometimes they
might not appear depending on the end
users setup)

Tools:
Music Glue
We’ve written a lot in
Sandbox about how artists
can make money by
connecting with their fans
directly online. Selling music
and merchandise direct to
fans, often through dedicated
D2C portals, has benefits
including lower distribution
fees, customisable widgets
to embed on your social
network profiles, and flexible
pricing options to keep it
affordable.
Music Glue is a service that develops
this model further, with a heavy focus
on collecting fans’ data and using it to
plan and promote gigs and tours. The
company’s basic model involves artists
giving away a track download for free, in
exchange for a fan’s email address. Music
Glue also gets data on their location from
their IP address – their town at least –
which can then be used by the artist to
build their fan database for later email
marketing.
The company’s philosophy revolves
around its belief that traditional digital
distribution is flawed, because it benefits
distributors and retailers most, with less
revenue and fan data flowing back to the
artist than there should be.
Music Glue also points out that once a
song is released digitally and finds its
Issue 10 | 20 May 2010 | Page 8
“Currently, a Music Glue account and all its services are free”
way onto P2P networks, no data can be
collected from people downloading it
illegally. Music Glue lets artists take control
of this too, seeding their tracks on P2P
networks with a wrapper around them
containing data capture, to try to get the
details of those fans too.
Music Glue also offers customisable
MySpace and web widgets, which direct
fans to an artist-branding landing page to
enter their details and get the free MP3
download. Meanwhile, its P2P wrapper
restricts song usage until people cough up
their email address, with these restrictions
able to be a play limit or an expiration date.
The company also has more traditional
distribution elements, if artists want to
use them. For example, they can charge
fans for content, with artists setting the at the recent Great Escape conference for example, like Reverbnation’s social
price and Music Glue taking a 35% cut in Brighton, the company talked about network crawlers do. For a company
of the revenues. This seems quite high how some artists have built such targeted based around the collation of fan data, the
compared to the average cut for other mailing lists, they are able to book venues extent to which this data can currently
services of around 20%, which suggests themselves in particular towns or cities, be analysed is disappointing. Another
that Music Glue isn’t positioning itself as knowing that they will sell them out. current limitation is the lack of Facebook
a music e-commerce service. It’s better integration, although this will surely be
thought of as a tool to help artists promote Besides the fan database, Music Glue
gives you basic distribution metrics on the addressed in future updates to the Music
themselves online, with an option to make Glue service.
money from that music on a small scale countries where your music is most active.
when appropriate. However, there are limitations to this Currently, a Music Glue account and all its
element of the service, certainly compared services are free, which goes some way to
On the live side, it’s a different story. A to dedicated analytics services. There is no explaining the limited options available.
different widget offers fans details of way to drill down further into the data to All in all, despite its shortcomings, it’s a
an artist’s live schedule, and integrates see distribution within particular countries, handy service that can be used either
with the increasing number of venues for example. to facilitate a standalone strategy for
and promoters who have Music Glue collecting fan data or integrated into a
accounts. That means artists can sell We’d also love to see more demographic
data gathered from email addresses – larger promotional campaign.
tickets via Music Glue’s technology. Indeed,

Music charts:
6th May - 20th May
We’ve introduced We7 into
the mix this week which
makes for some interesting
comparison next to iTunes
UK. There are a few factors
to cause differences, such
as the frequency and
positioning of buy links to
each and each sites editorial.
Alexandra Burke’s entry
into the iTunes chart can
be easily put down to the
single being pushed from
the home page for the last
three weeks. A little research
into Edward Maya finds that
neither service have given the
artist preferential treatment,
but one small difference
adds up. The video has over
40million Youtube views and
features only an iTunes link
as opposed to both on the
official site. As we reported
last week, Rihanna’s ‘Rude
Boy’ was streamed 732,014
times on MySpace, but the
video watched 4,282,376
times on YouTube showing
the sites emerging power as a
discovery platform.
Issue 10 | 20 May 2010 Page 9
Hype Machine Big Champagne Cumulative top 10
1 Sleigh Bells 1 Drake ‘Over’
20th May
2 The National
2 Justin Beiber ‘Baby’
3 Rihanna ‘Rude Boy’
3 M.I.A 4 Lil Wayne ‘Single’
4 The Chemical Brothers 5 Ludacris ‘My Chick Bad’
5 The Dead Weather
Elbo.ws
1 Wolf Parade ‘What Did My Lover’
MySpace 2 Wolf Parade ‘Ghost Pressure’
1 Deaf Havana 3 Sleigh Bells ‘Tell ‘Em’
2 Foals 4 The National ‘Bloodbuzz Ohio’
3 The National
5 School of Seven... ‘Babelonia ’
4 The xx Last.fm 1 Rihanna - ‘Rude Boy’
5 Mumford & Sons 1 Lady GaGa ‘Bad Romance’
2 Justin Beiber - ‘Baby’
2 Lady GaGa ‘Poker Face’
Yahoo! Buzz Chart 3 Ke$ha ‘Tik Tok’ 3 Usher - ‘OMG’
1 Justin Beiber
4 MGMT ‘Kids’
4 Lady Gaga - ‘Bad Romance’
5 The xx ‘Crystalised’
2 Taylor Bieber
iLike 5 Jason Derulo - ‘Ridin’ Solo’
3 Katy Perry
4 Lena Horne
1 Eminem ‘Not Afraid’
6 Drake - ‘Over’
2 Lady Gaga ‘Alejandro’
5 Lady Gaga 3 Ke$ha ‘Your Love Is My...’ 7 Sleigh Bells - ‘Tell ‘Em’
4 Rihanna ‘Rude Boy’
iTunes UK 5 Lady Gaga ‘Bad Romance’ 8 Roll Deep - ‘Good Times’
9 Train - ‘Hey Soul Sister’
1 Roll Deep We7
2 Jason Derulo 1 Jason Derulo ‘Ridin’ Solo’ 10 Ke$ha - ‘Tik Tok’
2 B. o. B. ‘Nothin On You’
3 Usher
3 Usher ‘OMG’ These charts are compiled by monitoring the published
4 Edward Maya & Kimberly Wyatt
4 Plan B ‘She Said’
daily user behaviour of all users of these different
5 Alexandra Burke
5 Ellie Goulding ‘Starry Eyed ’
music environments. We’re not tracking sales, but
instead monitoring consumer engagement with
music in other ways. The results are then aggregated
on a weekly basis to provide the charts you see here.
Charts: Million Media, Music Ally

Wide Angle:
Game for a laugh?
Console games publisher Activision
Blizzard has done very well from its
Guitar Hero music games over the
years, but in 2009, the franchise’s
latest incarnation – Guitar Hero 5 -
gave it an artist-related headache.
It was all about the avatars. Specifically the
playable avatar of Nirvana frontman Kurt
Cobain, who gamers soon discovered wasn’t
locked to just being used for his own band’s
songs. Cue a viral YouTube video of the virtual
Kurt miming along to Bon Jovi’s Living On A
Prayer, which raised the hackles – to say the
least – of Cobain’s widow Courtney Love, and
the surviving band members.
Meanwhile, No Doubt were equally
unimpressed with their avatars being
unlockable for any song in another Activision
music game, Band Hero. Here, the offence
was caused by the sight of a virtual Gwen
Stefani miming to the Rolling Stones’ Honky
Tonk Women – or as the subsequent lawsuit
described it: “an unauthorized performance
by the Gwen Stefani avatar in a male voice
boasting about having sex with prostitutes”.
Both controversies were a reminder that
licensing an artist’s image rights to a console
game without getting a detailed agreement on
how they’d be used was a mistake on the part
of their management. The kudos of appearing
within a multi-million selling music game was
soon dispelled when you realised mischievous
players could pair you with an array of
unsuitable songs as well as your own.
Have lessons been learned? Rather than beef
up its contractual agreements, Activision
has taken the opposite path, and ditched all
playable celebrity characters for the upcoming
Guitar Hero 6. Kiss’ Gene Simmons will be in
the game in an as-yet unspecified narrator role,
but there won’t be unlockable characters of
the kind that created so much controversy last
year.
That’s not to say that avatars and gaming
aren’t still a potentially lucrative area for
artists. Witness Snoop Dogg experimenting
with branded virtual items – an area also
recently explored by Britney Spears and Justin
Timberlake. Or check out the Rock Band
Network, which lets artists and labels sell their
own tracks in that game’s store, complete with
(if they have the budget) footage of their own
animated selves leaping about.
Issue 10 | 20 May 2010 | Page 10
Top Tweets:
What artists are Twittering about this fortnight
chamillionaire Currently having the dopest yokoono Send the moonlight to a friend.
conversation ever at the ITUNES office in
questlove Plants VS Zombies check: board
New York.
6-3 (even MORE addictive than angry birds)!
PeterBjornJohn Today its the international
katyperry Ahh... I love a good midnight
asthma day and also the Star Wars day. Must
manicure! Better than shit faced @ the clubs
be Darth Vaders worst day of the year... zzz
showing ur cooch. #californiagurls here
iamwill What’s happening in america is the keepin it real...
collapse of the middle class. its not hard to go
ladysov right....finally going to sleep. Dream
from poor to rich. But Its impossible poor to
will probs either be about slot machines or
wealth
ice cream vans as per usual.
Dolly_Parton I was the first woman to burn
RiversCuomo If metal bands could spell:
my bra, it took the fire department four days
Lead Zeppelin, Motley Crew, Queen’s Reich,
to put it out.
Deaf Leopard, Deaftones, Crocus, Striper,
PaulaAbdul Supposedly it’s impossible to Limp Biscuit, Corn . . .
sneeze with your eyes open. ???? Anyone
SouljaBoy Umma hot boy I need a hot girl
ever tried? LOL!
siamusic the xtina shit in a bottle quote was
llcoolj Success is a ladder you cannot climb
a compliment! to her,and her loyal fans!
with your hands in your pockets
taylorswift13 I’ve been eating Cheerios like
justinbieber wait...no more heated toilet
it’s my job lately.
seats??? NOOOOOOO!!!!! hahaha
MCHammer He Did it Again !!! Woke Us Up !!
Pink my poor bailey.he has 2 wear 1 of those
Were Still Here !!! #ThankGod!!! Have A Great
silly plastic cones on his head. he keeps
Weekend !!!
running into stuff and the other dogs are
laughing at him. iamlittleboots Some days I just find myself
wishing it was 1997 and I was a member of
imogenheap I am now experiencing my first
the band All Saints.
standstill traffic jam. On the M11. Considering
ordering pizza delivery. Thankfully 3 day old lilyroseallen I’m not pregnant. FYI
apple in boot.
 Issue 10 | 20 May 2010 | Page 11

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