Reflecting on BumRushTheCharts.com
It’s a little more than a month since Bum Rush the Charts (BRtC) was the talk of new media and the post-event results were published (The results are in!). This must mean I’m a week late to do my post-BRtC anaysis (see pre-analysis at An academic look at BumRushTheCharts.com).
The BRtC tagline reads:
On March 22nd, 2007 we are going to strike fear into the hearts of the music industry and make an independent music artist #1 on iTunes.
This sounds like a measurable mission statement. The question becomes, did BRtC achieve its goal? I don’t believe it’s as simple as that. If you dig deeper into the site, BRtC had many goals that spawned as the movement took shape. So, I’m going to park the mission statement for a few minutes to look at the the effort more holistically.
CHARTING THE SONG
To achieve any semblance of success, BRtC needed to put Black Lab’s song Mine Again on the iTunes Rock charts. Given the mainstays (e.g. Queen, U2, Nickelback…), this is a tough category to crack particularly since, and I’m guessing here, the charting algorithms must have some sort of half-life calculation that ensures “lifers” carry more weight than the “flash-in-the-pan” artists.
And chart they did. Mine Again had impressive peaks around the globe. Small markets such as The Netherlands were particularly kind, pushing the track to #2. Some of the largest markets including the U.S., Canada, the U.K. and Australia put BlackLab in the #11, #10, #71 and #35 positions, respectively. If that’s not impressive enough, consider that Mine Again charted in the overall top 100 in several markets including The Netherlands (#15) and Canada (#33), and squeaked in to the Swedish (#98) and U.S. (#99) overall top 100.
BRtC reports “Just getting onto the charts is pretty huge.” I agree. BRtC did more than just crack the charts and that’s worth noting.
Their post continues with “Note that there are record companies out there that can’t do what we did on the 24th.” I wonder how many record companies have actually tried or even considered to flood iTunes.
RECOGNITION BY THE MEDIA
BRtC reports that it received coverage in the Washington Post, BBC, San Jose Mercury, Billboard, Spin, CBC, Businessweek and others. I find it odd (and I know that I am guilty of this as well) that social-media-types still consider recognition by external parties such as mainstream media a significant measure of success. Old habits die hard, I suppose. For all of their apparent attention, BRtC went largely unnoticed. Keep reading.
BENEFICIARIES
Along the way, Black Lab decided to donate a portion of the revenue from BRtC to a college music scholarship fund. Another win and may have helped to attract some of the media attention I just mentioned.
MISSION ACCOMPLISHED?
Armed with the background information, let’s revisit the original mission statement.
“strike fear into the hearts of the music industry” — I checked in with a few people in the music industry including Miles Copeland (former manager of The Police) and Adam Smith (manager of Barenaked Ladies). Neither had heard of BRtC prior to my contacting them. During my follow-up, I learned that the music industry never even noticed BRtC, partly because iTunes is not yet considered a measure of success in the industry. Mostly, though, a single band making a chart appearance for “a few hours” doesn’t present any particular risk to the economics or balance of the music industry. You see, half-life, even quarter-life, staying power carries more weight than a freight train rushing by.
It was viewed as ironic that BRtC used proven and trusted music industry methods to exert influence to chart a song/artist (right down to predetermining the single for the community), particularly since BRtC was trying to demonstrate that the independent music scene can compete by breaking industry norms.
“make an independent music artist #1 on iTunes“ — So close, yet so far. Still, #2 in The Netherlands and #11 in the U.S. is nothing to laugh at.
In the end, it was the inability of the grassroots community to convert the momentum and keep Mine Again in the charts for a measure of time that made it unworthy of concern by the industry.
TAKING STOCK
What about the community spirit? The funds raised for music programs? These are by-products of the mission. Some would argue that they are PR gimmicks used to sell a good story. Rightly or wrongly, they are a good story. Anytime people get together in a productive and positive way and manage to spread the love is a good thing. It makes you wonder if the goals should be turned around to bum rush the education system.
Ideas take a while to evolve and become permanent. Consider the music industry. It took thirty years to build a strong reproducible model that resulted in huge multi-national companies with multi-million (and billion) dollar annual revenues. Specialties such as A&R, marketing, distribution, etc… didn’t just appear overnight. They were developed over time and they had to start somewhere.
BRtC is a somewhere. It was the first large-scale (read international) effort to harness the passion and concern of the grassroots and independent music communities and they managed to walk away with some trophies.
HOW TO MAKE A DIFFERENCE
Relationships gain strength and permanency when they’re taken care of on a daily basis. That is, you’ll find that your partner is happier when they are acknowledged daily, not just on Valentines Day. Likewise, the best way to support the independent music community is to always seek out independent artists you like and actually buy and promote their music. If you “quietly” do this everyday, people will take notice.
May 2nd, 2007 at 1:34 am
Great post Mark- and I have nothing to add because you were very balanced and objective about the whole thing.
What I was looking for out of this? Perhaps an “artist of the month” format to BRtC.
Still waiting…
May 2nd, 2007 at 1:40 am
Interesting series of posts, here is my semi-cohesive two cents for your entertainment value:
I’m of the belief that artificially inflating the charts (or anything else, for that matter) does nothing to help a cause but only to hurt it. I still have not heard Black Lab and now I really don’t want to if I can help it just based on this “Bum Rush”. (Notes: 1. Sorry Black Lab if you should read this but I don’t like the band name either; 2. Couldn’t anyone think of a better name than “Bum Rush”?).
The sales of music are artificially inflated already in that there is no level playing field between major lables and indie labels/artists. Big label marketing, promotion, A&R departments has seen to that. But all of that aside, the actual tastes of millions can change the industry in an instant (think Nirvana), not the presence of the name of a band on a list.
Ultimately that is what a band needs to do, prove themselves. At this point the ball is really in Black Lab’s court. Do they rest on their laurels of having made it to top 100 on these charts or follow this up with something to qualify them to the uninitiated? As it is, the real problem for them stems the fact that they achieved “success” for a day but that doesn’t translate into a career, that translates into next to nothing, as your post reveals by the answers from Mr. Copeland and Mr. Smith.
Whatever the case, Black Lab had their 15 minutes, now we will need to “Bum Rush” the authors of the social media history books to see that this incident gets included so they can remain a footnote in the annals of the internet.
[P.S. The quote "Note that there are record companies out there that can’t do what we did on the 24th." I severely question this. I don't know what the actual sales were however I have seen bands get pre-orders of CDs in the thousands, been at CD stores on a Monday night at midnight when the Tuesday releases are finally being sold and the crowd in a single store is in the hundreds (I think the first time I saw this was Metallica), noted first week sales of CDs in the hundreds of thousands. I have a hard time equating the fact that the band made it into these charts for one day as a victory over what is viewed incorrectly as traditional record companies - these so-called traditional record companies are hardly that, they adapt, that's why iTunes exists in the first place.]
May 2nd, 2007 at 1:52 am
I should also note: iTunes/Apple is shady to begin with. Their free song giveaways are not truly free, you still get an invoice, it’s just priced at “Free”. Tell me they aren’t counting these as songs that are “sold” when reporting numbers to the public and Wall Street.
They could just as easily count “sales” of those free downloads into their charts which would most likely topple the numbers that Black Lab achieved and cripple any further attempt to logjam their charts. (I will now take credit for coining the term “Logjamming The Charts” or any variation thereof.)
May 2nd, 2007 at 9:59 am
My podcast did help promote this event (website bannerand playing the promo), that said did the event ‘really’ make a difference? The song appeared then quickly dropped off of the charts, the major labels and their artists are still on top.
I think you summed it up best “the best way to support the independent music community is to always seek out independent artists you like and actually buy and promote their music. If you “quietly” do this everyday, people will take notice”
By spreading the word about the indie artists you listen to to your friend, family, co-workers and neighbors will prove to be a more effective way to gain the ear of all those listeners.
In the end good music, whether its from a major, minor or the artist themselves, is what people want and what they will support.
May 3rd, 2007 at 11:36 pm
I found the whole thing sort of silly. The idea, well I guess it was well intentioned, but it reminded me of cities declaring themselves nuclear free zones in the 980s, it is well intentioned but irrelevant. (I know, odd analogy).
What will really make a difference is when an indie band do really get to the top of the charts. Without some inflated, artificial method. This whole thing seemed to me to be just like ‘astroturfing’ that companies do. (For a discussion of this issue see thunderbird six’s interview with Cory Doctorow, ok, shameless plug off….)
Bands CAN survive as indies. NOFX are a great examle.
My little brother is in the music biz (another t6 epiosde from last year featured him, umm ok that was another shameless plug). His view is can be summed up like this ‘when did that happen?’
OK, now I am rambling… out
May 4th, 2007 at 1:34 am
In reflecting I think what the heart of the matter to me is: Am I going to like something just because I’m told I’m supposed to? Do I need to limply attempt to topple the recording industry? Sure, they have put a lot of crap out but that isn’t to say that there isn’t a lot of great stuff put out by major labels as well (they hide it well under the guise of subsidiary labels).
NOFX is a great example, by the way. I’ve seen their Fat Wreck music at a major retail chain that is huge and has a red bullseye for a logo. They operate independent and they do it well.