Outdustry is a Beijing based music industry consultancy, specialising in: China music market entry, Record label services, Studio production services, Market intelligence.
More information here.
格外音乐是一家基于北京的音乐产业公司。我们主要负责西方独立音乐. 在中国的一些事务，包括音乐厂牌和产品的服务，收集音乐市场资讯，提供音乐产业相关咨询业务。我们的主要客户包括贝阁唱片, Sterling Sound等。 本站为英文网站，可以关注我们的中文微博.。
Feeds:
“Based on data from more than 275k mobile apps using its tools, Flurry estimates that in January, there were 222m active iOS and Android smartphones and tablets in the US, and 221m in China – but that by the end of this month, there’ll be 246m in China and 230m in the US.” - Music Ally
Sweet sounds coming out of Shanghai. Nicely done Reggie R3.
Last month saw a whirlwind three day visit from our clients Sterling Sound in which Outdustry arranged a hectic meeting schedule with the creme de la creme of the Chinese record production business.
L to R : Murat Aktar (Sterling Sound President), Tom Coyne (Sterling Sound Senior Mastering Engineer - Adele, Beyonce, Justin Bieber, PSY, Jay Z etc etc), Zhang Yadong (Dong Music), Ed Peto (Outdustry)
After three years of working with Sterling Sound we have taken the legendary New York mastering company from a standing start in China to being the dominant mastering service in the region, working with almost all major record producers, studios and labels. This visit was a good chance to catch up with some longstanding clients as well as break some new ground.
L to R : Zack Xiahou (Producer), Chen Tong (Producer), Tom, Murat, Ed
We are often asked about production quality in China: Do record makers really care about premium mastering when the resulting audio file is compressed down to a fraction of it’s size and listened to through a tiny mobile phone speaker or similar, as is so often the case in China.
google.cn/music as of this morning: “Google music search service has been turned off. Please log in and download saved playlists before October 19th”
Google China have just announced (Chinese) the closing down of their pioneering music search service in China. Opening it’s doors in early 2009, the service partnered with Top100 to offer a free and legal music search service for full track downloading and streaming, complete with licenses from the four majors and dozens of domestic labels - a move totally unprecedented elsewhere in the world.
flyer by been
颜峻的私人客厅巡游刚刚结束，近三个月里，他在不同的私人空间一共顺利地完成了九场演出，参于过的人应该深有体会。在场的观众较容易全心的观看，更自然的静心聆听，更是少了在公共场所的嘈杂且避开了烟酒等社交工具所带来的浓浓气味，或许猜这就是客厅巡演的初衷。
Veteran sound artist Yan Jun has just finished a three-month-long tour of living rooms in Beijing, altogether encompassing nine unique performances, each leaving a deep impression on the people who participated. No noisy distractions of public spaces, no bar, no loud socializing… the audience of each private performance was allowed to simply listen and meditate in a closed domestic space. This was the goal of the tour.
A few months ago, as part of their Maximum Exposure edition (Sept 26th 2009), Billboard magazine sat down with Outdustry’s Ed Peto to find out 5 good ways to build a bit of presence for your artist in China. Here, printed in full, is the resulting piece by Jonathan Landreth.
Rampant piracy and a lack of transparency have long complicated efforts by record labels to do business in China. Still, for those willing to be flexible and patient, the Middle Kingdom could still prove to be a useful laboratory for new business models.
Relative to it’s potential, China’s music market remains microscopic. Recorded music sales totalled just $82 million in 2008, up 8% from a year earlier, according to IFPI data. But digital sales, which accounted for 62% of total music sales, provide a glimmer of hope, having surged 45% last year to $50.4 million.
Ed Peto, founder of the music business consultancy Outdustry in Beijing, believes artists must adopt a 360 degree approach to China. The man on the ground for the Beggars Group of labels, Peto works to tap a network of promoters, critics, DJs and Web entrepreneurs to position acts aiming to connect with Chinese music fans. Asked to identify the best means to promote music in China, Peto cautions that no single platform would suffice, given the China market’s fast pace: “The menu could change at any minute,” he says.
Outdustry’s in-house net-label MicroMu is proud to present a special performance from it’s first international signing, Fink…..
As the first acoustic act on legendary electronic label Ninja Tune, Fink has carved a unique path as a singer-songwriter. With a background in downtempo beat production and top level remix work, his brand of acoustic music is distinctly modern while remaining deeply intimate as a live show; a formula which has seen him share the stage with the likes of Zero 7 and Massive Attack and earned him rave reviews around the world:
“Mean moody and magnificent. One of the most original singer-songwriters around.” - Clash
“…say hello to your new soundtrack.” - NME
“Surprises when you least expect it. Sort of Revolution refuses to succumb to the obvious.” - Mojo
Fink will be performing solo-acoustic for two small shows in Beijing (MAO Live on Nov 5th) and Shanghai (Yuyintang on Nov 6th), followed by a mainstage appearance at Clockenflap Festival in Hong Kong (Nov 8th).
Acoustic legend Wan Xiaoli will be supporting Fink in Beijing. Shanghai support to be announced…
Tickets 50RMB in advance, 60RMB on the door
贝格集团登陆中国 BEGGARS GROUP LAUNCH BEGGARS CHINA
贝格集团继续扩大其全球网络，如今与其在中国的独家代表Outdustry(格外音乐)合作，并推出了一个中文（www.beigecn.com）网站.
Continuing to broaden their worldwide network, the Beggars Group are working with Outdustry as their exclusive representatives in Beijing and are also launching a dedicated website for Mandarin speakers (www.beggarschina.com).
实物唱片发行将在未来的几个月里由中国当地的京文唱片和台湾的HI-NOTE唱片发行。完整的歌曲目录可以通过音乐移动数字服务公司wa3.cn进行网上查询、认购. 此外，AlT风格的摇滚乐队“British sea power”是这种合作关系的第一个受益者，他们已准备在香港，台湾等地演出，并将于今年10月来北京参加摩登天空音乐节。
Chris Anderson has just published his latest book “Free : The Future Of A Radical Price”. In it the Wired Magazine Editor and bestselling author of The Long Tail discusses the economic peculiarities of a world in which goods, services and media are increasingly being made available for what feels like free: How has this happened, and what does it mean going forwards for us both as consumers and producers?
As a market where digital content has largely been free from the get-go, China is an obvious case study along with other developing nations such as Brazil. Chris has therefore devoted a chapter to these markets, looking at how people are dealing with such realities.
I met Chris for breakfast during one of his research visits to China towards the end of 2007 and, amongst other things, outlined the basic concept of MicroMu (不插店) to him a good 8 months before we actually got round to trying the idea out. A year and a half later (and a year into the MicroMu project) and our copy of Free arrives through the post, complete with a whole page devoted to MicroMu as an example of an experimental free music model:
“The moment you put a fee on accessing music in China is the moment you cut off 90% of your audience,” says Peto. “[Paying for*] Music is a luxury for the middle class in China, a flippant expenditure. This model works against that. We simply use free music and media as a way of saying that ‘everyone is welcome’, building a dialogue, building a community, becoming the trusted brand of the grassroots music movement in China. To do this though, we have to become all things to all men: record label, online community, live events producers, merchandise sellers, tv production company.”
*Just to clarify: It is the idea of paying for music and not the idea of music itself that is a luxury for the middle class. The words “paying for” were not included in the original text.
The pressure is on to deliver! Many thanks for the mention Chris and good luck with the book launch.
Happy Birthday MicroMu
It seems like it has been a hell of a lot longer, but our little concept record label MicroMu (known in Chinese as 不插店, or ‘Buchadian’), turns 1 year old today. You can feel paternal pride radiating throughout Outdustry HQ as we package up a one year compilation album of b-sides and rarities to celebrate:
MicroMu is our attempt at a sustainable record label model in an environment where people, by and large, aren’t used to paying for music. The solution? Give music (and lots of other things) away for free, build a loyal community around it all, and then support this (largely) through a partnership with a brand who shares your audience. Or, as we say in our label intro:
MicroMu is an experimental, sponsor-driven, free-to-user record label model designed to discover new talent, create original music and reward artists in seemingly impossible conditions.
As the Chief Economist for PRS for Music and one of the few actual economists in the music business Will Page has a reputation for providing clarity, both on the state we’re in as an industry as well as the direction we should be heading. PRS for Music is one of the largest collecting societies in the world, representing some 60,000 songwriter, composer and music publisher members, collecting and paying royalties to them whenever their music is played, performed or reproduced.
Will and I actually first met over a beer at a music venue I was booking at the Edinburgh Festival in 2005, when he was working as a music journalist for Straight No Chaser. We have both taken somewhat drastic turns in our careers since then and, by happy coincidence, Will stumbled across this very blog and decided to get in touch to reminisce. We have been chatting ever since about his work, particularly with regard to it’s relevance to China.
Will Page
His latest report The Long Tail Of P2P, co-authored with Big Champagne’s Eric Garland, was presented to much fanfare at this year’s Great Escape Festival in rainy Brighton, UK, an event I was lucky enough to be invited to attend (Thanks Jon McIldowie and UKTI). Will has kindly agreed to me running a few questions by him on the subject:
Last weekend I attended SPOT Festival 2009 in rainy/sunny Aarhus, Denmark. The organisers kindly flew me in, along with a number of other international music industry types, to soak up some outstanding up-and-coming Danish artists as well as generally spew forth about our respective markets.
As far as Danish bands go, I particularly enjoyed Oh Land’s orchestral experimentation on the opening evening, as well as Kiss Kiss Kiss’ danceable indie-pop on the P3 stage, with the Danish crown (in my ill-informed opinion) going to one of the best live acts I have seen in a while, Who Made Who, who rocked a packed out mega-barn of revellers on the Saturday night.
I also have to make an honourable mention of Norwegian artist Rockettothesky who’s esoteric take on song-writing - including a track about ‘horny ghosts’ - stayed with me for some time after the show, to the point where I bought her album Medea off eMusic as soon as I got home. Good stuff.
As far as me ‘spewing forth’:
Video made by (and courtesy of) SPOT Festival
Thanks very much to everyone at SPOT, particularly Martin Røen Hansen and Henrik Friis, for a fantastic weekend.
As Music Editor at mega portal Sina and man responsible for highly regarded Dystopia blog, Pilos Chan is a keen observer of the Chinese music scene and one of the most respected music writers and critics in China. In this guest post he offers insight into the rise and ‘crash’ of international live music in China. Photo Credits: Sina
I was at the “Techno Papa” Juan Atkins’ show the other night, talking with top Hip-Hop critic Badbrain about this year’s live music market. We both felt that there’s nothing to say but “sigh”.
Back in 2007, however, this market was full of hope.
Crowds at Beijing Pop Festival ‘07
In 2005, I started to work for a magazine that covers western pop music. I had a lot of regret for leaving there in the end of 2007 because, as I predicted, that was the year live western pop music “took off” in China. Everything that happened before was just laying the groundwork, and pathetic jokes like the Suede in Beijing show happened too, but since that year I started to feel that there’s something going on in this market.
Suede’s Brett Anderson plays Beijing Pop Festival ‘07
The strongest evidence is the blooming of music festivals. 2007’s Beijing Pop Festival staged the best international lineup ever in China: Nine Inch Nails, New York Dolls, Brett Anderson, Public Enemy, and the drummer of Ramones. In the same year, Yeah Yeah Yeahs headlined Modern Sky Festival and Faithless appeared in Yue Festival.
Outdustry clients Sterling Sound have just mastered a couple of cracking Beijing indie albums. Hedgehog went so far as to say that they “could die happy” after hearing the results:
So, it seems that Google China has finally decided to make some noise (translated story) about their free MP3 search service. When this went into beta almost a year ago we were predicting that it would be game-changing news, but somehow it has remained under the radar. At their press conference today, however, Google China announced that all four major labels are on board, as well as all the major publishers and some 140+ indie labels, through their partner in the project, Top100. This amounts to some 1.1 million songs being given away for free. Surely this equals headlines?
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