Tumble, coil & fumble

Having worked in the entertainment industry for the better (or worse) part of my life, this decade changed just about everything at the core.

If you had told any executive in 2001 that one artist, without label-backing and ad agency behind them would be able to gather a following of over 1 Million people, a padded room and a straight-jacket might have been the response.

But exactly this is what happened.

As most of you know I’ve been working with Noush Skaugen for several years now since 2006.

What she achieved there so far is unprecedented in music history. Never before has one artist without label backing or major funding be able to gain over 1 Million followers in less than one year, on any medium.

This was only possible because we’re all now fairly deeply connected through services like Twitter and Facebook.

The Internet didn’t kill the music industry, it brought it to the people and the people to it. We’re together in this boat now, rock the mast and don’t piss the deck!

We now can do amazing things with a lot less money than even 5 years ago. Sure, some blogs say arbitrary sums like the $10K for an iTunes iLounge made up (can’t generalize and the launch ones were much lower) are outrageous. — I just ask: Do you like to get paid for your work? Yes? Well here’s a thought, so do we… the people who create the artwork, the animations, the experience packaging.

Yes nowadays you can get web sites and ‘art’ for a few hundred bucks, sure. And I can also rip up a $100 dollar note and stick both parts on a dog turd and have damaged my brand less. Good work costs good money, that’ll never change, so get over it.

Compared to the costs we used to have in the beginning of this decade even those $10K to get an experience driven product out to an audience this size would have caused wet pants of biblical proportions then.

I for one am very excited towards this new decade and what kind of evolutionary leaps it’ll bring and possibly participating in a few of them :)

So here’s to us nutcases who are crazy enough to make the impossible happen!

Cheers to 2010!