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.

When I first learned of BumRushTheCharts.com (BRtC), I had reservations about the idea. In particular, I wondered if juicing the iTunes charts for an independent artist for one day would actually make any difference - and if it would actually hurt the independent movement.

Perhaps because of the community-centric excitement about the project, I decided to ignore my misgivings and participate. Naturally, I blogged about it. It took a comment from Daryl to make me think carefully about my reasons for paticipating. As a result, I have decided to withdraw my participation in BRtC and take an academic view of the effort, publishing my analysis both before and after March 22nd — zero day.

This is my “pre-analysis”.

The independent community has long complained about the music industry’s approach to signing, developing, and promoting — and its treatment of — bands. Many artists have also cried foul. Some, like the Barenaked Ladies, have done something about it.

Indeed, the music industry is very effective at using its strength to sign bands that will make money for them, and then create buzz and influence the charts to see that the money comes through. They have essentially owned mass distribution channels and apparently enjoy a significant amount of control on how radio stations program their music. To prove their influence, the major labels are managing to stay strong even as the marketplace becomes more agile and adaptive than the industry.

Technology is the differentiator. Besides the hotly debated DRM-related issues, online tools and democratized digital music has made it possible for the grassroots to organize. They have formed communities which have established distribution and promotional channels. Over time, these small communities have connected with other communities to create a strong and far reaching network of like-minded people. It’s the independent and democratized, or open-source, version of the music industry - a welcome change for many who have felt overwhelmed by having their tastes dictated to them.

BRtC is apparently hoping to be the first effort to to leverage the size of this open-source music community and harness its strength to catapult one of its own to the top of one, albeit high-visible, music chart. My sense about this is as follows:

• BRtC is going to be amazingly successful at unifying a community for a common cause. This will be a great moment for the grassroots to demonstrate its passion, connectedness and organization skills. It’s all about people.

• Selecting a single band for a community to prop up is analogous to the industry mass promoting the next big thing and using its influence to drive sales and chart success. This is one of the issues that got us here in the first place. I’d be interested to find out the percentages of those who love, don’t care much for, and outright dislike the song. It’s all about influence.

• The metric that is being used by BRtC is one that the record industry understands well. In this manner, BRtC is playing on the music industry’s turf. This may be because BRtC feels that this is the way to get noticed. It’s all about visibility.

• BRtC risks validating reliance on old-school music industry fundamentals by using the tools of the digital music era. This can be extremely harmful since the industry can then use this as further support in the argument for technology to protect old-school economic models of the industry. And, don’t think that the irony of the new technology won’t be lost on them. It’s all about new thinking and its relationship to old thinking.

I decided to get some industry views on BRtC. The first person I spoke with is Adam Smith of Nettwerk Management - for the Canadian perspective. Their roster includes the Barenaked Ladies and Avril Lavigne. Adam feels that BRtC may garner some short-lived media attention and may inspire some industry types to talk for a few minutes. He claims that the industry is far too fickle to be concerned and there will be no lasting impact.

Miles Copeland, who, among his many accomplishments, founded I.R.S. Records and managed The Police, and susequently Sting, believes that BRtC is sending a mixed message about its views on the majors and it will be of little, if any, consequence.

“The impression given is that the recording industry is the enemy yet you are encouraging them to stay involved in signing more music”, Mr. Copeland offers. “There are many reasons an act gets dropped and just as many of them have to do with the artist as with the label. If the independent music community is so powerful what do they care what the majors think anyway? Just get on with it and sell music and stop complaining about the majors and what they are and are not doing. The initiative you describe sounds just like a promotion for one artist and will be viewed as such, a marketing ploy nothing more. Means nothing to anybody. Getting one act to number one for a day does not mean another will happen the next day or the day after.”

BRtC continues to build strength in preparation for March 22, 2007. Will Black Lab’s “Mine Again” be on the iTunes charts that day? Stay tuned.