bornenormous

I'd first recommend asking yourself why you want to be recognized by a label. What's your goal? What type of artist do you hope to be?

For many artists, labels are very much the right choice. They offer money, marketing, promotion, and other services that artists - especially giant artists - really need.

But for a lot of smaller artists, it's mostly a holdover dream from a different era of the music business. Make no mistake: signing to a label has its pros and cons.

If you do believe that labels are the route you want to go, then here's my advice: focus on your music. Put in your 10,000 hours. Practice. Be fucking awesome. Make the best damn music anyone has ever heard.

After that, hone your image, build your fanbase, get some attention the old fashioned way, and weasel your way into some meetings.

Never stop working your ass off.

My absolute favorite band to work with was The Flaming Lips. No other band on our roster at WBR had the same love for their fans, and probably no band had a more passionate fanbase.

We did a pop-up store and MySpace Secret Show (I kid you not) at the Montalban Theater in LA. We busted our asses getting that thing set up, not to mention running a kickass livestream of the show. I was completely exhausted. Then Wayne comes up to me, gives me a big ol' hug, and proceeded to spend the next four hours or so signing stuff for every single fan. I mean that, every single fan. They actually kicked us out of the theater, and Wayne moved the autograph line out on the street.

Of course, some of my other band stories would probably give you a not-so-positive opinion of them. It just depends on the band.

Not in a blaze of glory. Not in a phoenix from the ashes kind of way.

The music industry is in a state of transformation. The Davids are coming to take on the Goliaths, and in many ways they are winning. Sometimes the Davids are becoming Goliaths.

Heres' the most important thing: there has never been a better time to be a music fan. I for one am looking forward to a better industry.

There are a lot of ways to achieve that, with or without a label.

First: piracy will never disappear. Second: piracy is not the problem.

I tend to side with Jay Frank on this one: your band doesn't have a piracy problem, you have a demand problem.

Now to try to get your other questions:

1. Streaming happened. Spotify and Youtube are killing piracy. I believe that's a good thing.

2. Napster. It was a disaster and everybody knew it. They will never admit it, but that was the biggest blunder in the history of digital media, regardless of art form.

3. Neil Young was pretty famous for wanting ridiculous Flash websites. No offense to Neil, he's fucking awesome.

4. Gray.