[sudo-discuss] Sudo kids hit pop record with the writers group

Mon Jun 17 07:19:40 PDT 2013

Sorry. Meant to mention they had several kids and adult artists on a CD
too... It also came with a book. Cool story.

Alcides Gutierrez
http://e64.us
On Jun 17, 2013 7:17 AM, "Alcides Gutierrez" <alcides888 at gmail.com> wrote:

> The makers of Pachas Pajamas are from Oakland I think. They had a
> kickstarter to fund a music video.
>
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qwoWkFQqXs0
>
> Alcides Gutierrez
> http://e64.us
> On Jun 17, 2013 7:05 AM, "Romy Ilano" <romy at snowyla.com> wrote:
>
>> Wouldn't it be cute if the writers group could write a hit album with
>> Sudo kids radio like all the top 40 pop factories do with their
>> manufactured stars? It's Sudo room additive music engineering !!!
>>
>> ---
>>
>> Romy Ilano
>> Founder of Snowyla
>> http://www.snowyla.com
>> romy at snowyla.com
>>
>> Begin forwarded message:
>>
>> *From:* Romy Ilano <romy.ilano at gmail.com>
>> *Date:* June 16, 2013, 3:00:32 PDT
>> *To:* Romy Ilano <romy at snowyla.com>
>> *Subject:* *How Much Does It Cost To Make A Hit Song? : Planet Money :
>> NPR*
>>
>>
>> http://www.npr.org/blogs/money/2011/07/05/137530847/how-much-does-it-cost-to-make-a-hit-song
>>
>> How Much Does It Cost To Make A Hit Song?
>>  [image: Rihanna]
>>
>>  Courtesy Universal
>>
>> Getting a song on the pop charts takes big money.
>>
>> Def Jam started paying for Rihanna<http://www.npr.org/artists/15757248/rihanna>'s
>> recent single, "Man Down," more than a year ago. In March of 2010, the
>> label held a writing camp in L.A. to create the songs for Rihanna's album,
>> *Loud*.
>>
>> At a writing camp, a record label hires the best music writers in the
>> country and drops them into the nicest recording studios in town for about
>> two weeks. It's a temporary version of the old music-industry hit
>> factories, where writers and producers cranked out pop songs.
>>
>> "It's like an all-star game," says Ray Daniels, who was at the writing
>> camp for Rihanna.
>>
>> Daniels manages a songwriting team of two brothers, Timothy and Theron
>> Thomas, who work under the name Rock City. "You got all the best people,
>> you're gonna make the best records," he says.
>>   [image: The Cost of Rihanna's Man Down]
>>
>> Notes These are rough estimates based on interviews with industry
>> insiders. The figures have not been confirmed by Rihanna’s label, Def Jam.
>>
>>  Here's who shows up at a writing camp: songwriters with no music, and
>> producers toting music tracks with no words.
>>
>> The Thomas brothers knew producer Shama "Sham" Joseph, but they had never
>> heard his Caribbean-flavored track that became "Man Down."
>>
>> According to Daniels, the brothers listened to the track and said, "Let's
>> give Rihanna a one-drop! Like, a response to 'I shot the sheriff!"
>>
>> They wrote the lyrics to "Man Down" in about 12 minutes, Daniels says.
>>
>> To get that twelve minutes of inspiration from a top songwriting team is
>> expensive — even before you take into account the fee for the songwriters.
>>
>> At a typical writing camp, the label might rent out 10 studios, at a
>> total cost of about $25,000 a day, Daniels says.
>>
>> The writing camp for Rihanna's album "had to cost at least 200 grand,"
>> Daniels says. "It was at least forty guys out there. I was shocked at how
>> much money they were spending! But, guess what? They got the whole album
>> out of that one camp."
>>
>> A writing camp is like a reality show, where top chefs who have never met
>> are forced to cook together. At the end, Rihanna shows up like the
>> celebrity judge and picks her favorites.
>>
>> Her new album has 11 songs on it. So figure that the writing camp cost
>> about $18,000 per song.
>>
>> The songwriter and the producer each got a fee for their services. Rock
>> City got $15,000 for Man Down, and the producer got around $20,000,
>> according to Daniels.
>>
>> That's about $53,000.00 spent on the song so far— before Rihanna even
>> steps into the studio with her vocal producer.
>>
>> The vocal producer's job is to make sure Rihanna sings the song right.
>>
>> Makeba Riddick didn't produce Rihanna's vocals on "Man Down," but she's
>> one of the industry's top producers, and has worked with the singer on many
>> songs, including the two number one hits in 2010: "Rude Boy" and "Love the
>> Way You Lie."
>>
>> When Riddick works with a singer, she'll say, "I need you to belt this
>> out, I need you to scream this, as if you're on one end of the block and
>> you're trying to talk to somebody three blocks away."
>>
>> Or maybe: "Sing with your lips a little more closed, a little more pursed
>> together, so we can get that low, melancholy sound."
>>
>> Not only that, the vocal producer has to deal with the artist's rider.
>> The rider is whatever the artist needs to get them in the mood to get into
>> the booth and sing.
>>
>> "They'll have strobe lights, incense burning, doves flying around the
>> studio," she says. (Yes, Riddick has had doves circling her head while
>> she's working.)
>>
>> Rihanna is "very focused" Riddick says. So no doves.
>>
>> Riddick's fee starts at $10,000 to $15,000 per song, she says.
>>
>> The last step is mixing and mastering the song, which costs another
>> $10,000 to $15,000, according to Daniels.
>>
>> *So, our rough tally to create one pop song comes to:*
>>
>> The cost of the writing camp, plus fees for the songwriter, producer,
>> vocal producer and the mix comes to $78,000.
>>
>> *But it's not a hit until everybody hears it.* How much does that cost?
>>
>> About $1 million, according to Daniels, Riddick and other industry
>> insiders.
>>
>> "The reason it costs so much," Daniels says, "is because I need
>> everything to click at once. You want them to turn on the radio and hear
>> Rihanna, turn on BET and see Rihanna, walk down the street and see a poster
>> of Rihanna, look on Billboard, the iTunes chart, I want you to see Rihanna
>> first. All of that costs."
>>
>> That's what a hit song is: It's everywhere you look. To get it there, the
>> label pays.
>>
>> Every song is different. Some songs have a momentum all their own, some
>> songs just break out out of the blue. But the record industry depends on
>> hits for sales. Having hits is the business plan. The majority of songs
>> that are hits — that chart high, that sell big, that blast out of cars in
>> the summertime— cost a million bucks to get them heard and played and
>> bought.
>>
>> Daniels breaks down the expenses roughly into thirds: a third for
>> marketing, a third to fly the artist everywhere, and a third for radio.
>>
>> "Marketing and radio are totally different," he says. "Marketing is
>> street teams, commercials and ads."
>>
>> Radio is?
>>
>> "Radio you're talking about . . ." he pauses. "Treating the radio guys
>> nice."
>>
>> 'Treating the radio guys nice' is a very fuzzy cost. It can mean taking
>> the program directors of major market stations to nice dinners. It can mean
>> flying your artist in to do a free show at a station in order to generate
>> more spots on a radio playlist.
>>
>> Former program director Paul Porter, who co-founded the media watchdog
>> group Industry Ears, says it's not that record labels pay outright for a
>> song. They pay to establish relationships so that when they are pushing a
>> record, they will come first.
>>
>> Porter says shortly after he started working as a programmer for BET
>> about 10 years ago, he received $40,000.00 in hundred-dollar bills in a
>> Fed-Ex envelope.
>>
>> Current program directors told me this isn't happening anymore. They say
>> their playlists are made through market research on what their listeners
>> want to hear.
>>
>> In any case, to return to our approximate tally: After $78,000 to make
>> the song, and another $1 million to roll it out, Rihanna's "Man Down" gets
>> added to radio playlists across the country, gets a banner ad on iTunes ...
>> and may still not be a hit.
>>
>> As it happens, "Man Down" has not sold that well, and radio play has been
>> minimal.
>>
>> But Def Jam makes up the shortfall by releasing other singles. And only
>> then— if the label recoups what it spent on the album — will Rihanna
>> herself get paid.
>>
>>
>> ---
>>
>> Romy Ilano
>> Founder of Snowyla
>> http://www.snowyla.com
>> romy at snowyla.com
>>
>>
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>>
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