November 2, 2011

The Journey To Get Songwriters Their Money

By Jeff Price

I started on the TuneCore journey about six years ago, and we were able to change the global music industry.  We now get to change it for songwriters.

I co-ran a label called spinART Records for a little over 17 years.  I got to release bands like The Pixies, Apples In Stereo, Echo & The Bunnymen, Clem Snide, The Eels, The Technical Jed, The Fastbacks, Bis, and many others, some of which you may have heard of, others not, but they all mattered to me.  I loved what I did.

Music was my passion. The artists I listened to helped define and inspire me. In 1990, the year I graduated college, I was invited by my high school friend Joel to help release a compilation CD called “One Last Kiss.” I took him up on the offer and got to go on a two decade ride of working with, and for, the coolest people on the planet.

Along the way I met two gentlemen, Gene and Bob.  It was 1996, they had an idea that had never been done before; they wanted to create a music store on the Internet where people could buy music as downloads from a website they called eMusic.  This pre-dated the original Napster by three years and iTunes by almost six.  There were no iPods, iPhones, iPads or smartphones. Creative labs had a portable 20 meg MP3 player.  Walmart was still the number one music retail outlet, and the only way artists could be one of the 50 titles on their shelf was by being signed to a major record label.  I began working with eMusic…..

continue reading here: http://blog.tunecore.com/2011/11/the-journey-to-get-songwriters-their-money.html