Bum Rush the Charts Today! Speak out against Big Media

iTunes Rock Charts

US: 11
Canada: 10
Netherlands: 2
Germany: 12
Sweden: 7
Portugal: 31
UK: 71
Australia: 35
Austria: 35
Denmark: 40
Finland: 42
Ireland: 54
Italy: 30
New Zealand: 56
Norway: 23
Switzerland: 42

Overall Top 100 Songs Chart

Netherlands: 15
Norway: 55
Canada: 53
US: 99
Germany:98
Sweden: 98

Black Lab was the ONLY UNSIGNED BAND.

Just getting on the charts is a pretty big deal.

Did the media take notice? Washington Post, BBC, San Jose Mercury, Billboard, Spin, CBC, Businessweek and more all were reporting the story.

Zed is dead on with his assesment. This is a big deal for the labels. Especially if it's getting air time on the news.

Look at what happened with Gnarles Barkley. He was a Myspace phenomina. The act wasn't signed. Danger Mouse and Cee Lo were but not their joint project. None of the label execs thought he could make any sales or get heard because he wasn't with 'them.' Some even laughed at the notion of Gnarles Barkley, but the laugh was on them. Myspace WTF is that is what the execs all said. They aren't saying that now. Trust me.

Gnarles Barkley without major label support has now earned 1,266,122 units of albums sold in the US alone the world figure all in is probably about 3-4 million albums. His single Crazy has been downloaded and bought from online stores 1,916,436 times and if you counted all his singles sales from the album he raked in 2,180,708 units sold for his online singles sales. He has sold about 4- 4.5 million singles/albums in the US alone without any major label support for about the first 80% of St. Elsewere. So a worldwide estimate of 4 million albums sold at 13 dollars =$52,000,000 + 2.1 mill for singles in the US + probably another 4 mill for foriegn singles sales =$58,820,000 that won't be shared with the major labels. (mostly, they still have to pay off their distribution deals, but the label ain't making big scratch on it like they do with other bands) That album was a big deal and a wakeup call to most of the big labels and they did see it as that in the end.

What Zed is trying to do to help this band and fight the power does have a substancial impact on the major labels, and does help diversify the music that is being released. It's important for the future of music.

Gnarles Barkley without major label support

Few points. Firstly, Gnarls Barkley isn't a he. Secondly, they received massive support from the BBC in the UK, and by the time the single Crazy was released for download only, it was already huge.

"Crazy", their first single, gained some of its popularity due to its use on primetime BBC Radio 1 DJ Zane Lowe's television advert, and it was also made Record of the Week by Ken Bruce of BBC Radio 2, Scott Mills and Jo Whiley of BBC Radio 1 as well as being made 'Weekend Anthem' by DJ Spoony and Sara Cox (also of Radio 1).They came together in 2003 when Cee-Lo was on tour and Danger Mouse happened to be the DJ. They became Gnarls Barkley. They were signed to Downtown Records by Josh Deutsch, after the song was presented to him by Danger Mouse's manager. It was released as a single on April 3, 2006, preceded by its release as digital download and 12" Vinyl record single in March 2006. On 2 April 2006, it became the first ever UK number one single based on download sales alone.

Source.

This is before they had even made their US television debut. Also, to say this was done without major label support, is again, completely false. They are signed to Downtown Records.

Downtown Records LLC is a record label and publishing company based in the United States. Downtown was founded in January 2006 by Josh Deutsch, former Senior Vice President of A&R at Virgin Records. Music on the Downtown label is distributed by Warner Music's Alternative Distribution Alliance and through North America in a joint venture with Atlantic Records.

Source.

Their song also kicked ass. So, I'm afraid to say, I don't see very much similarity at all.

The album was going to sell with or without a record deal and that is my point. And that is why what Zed is trying to do to help out with this unsigned band is so important. Cause the tides are changing and things like this help bring distribution to the masses without label help. The labels wanted in for the money, and did get in clumsely, but even without them the album would have sold straight through the internet in a way that was devestating to the labels understanding of current marketing. Their envolvement was really damage control and a way to corner this way of marketing too. They're still lost and confused though.

Gnarles-project between DM and Cee Lo. You do know that Cee Lo and Danger Mouse had been working on the collaboration since 2003, and not even in europe but in atlanta I think. The album had been completed and developing a huge fan base for three years before the labels even got wind (one of my central points). Internet fanbase developed rapidly cause it was a kick ass collabo. And people are smart enough to know what they like . Friends over at UK got it signed so that it could be distributed (only for that reason). The label hymned and hawed over it, gave it the smallest of chances. It ended up being a huge sucess. But they were already too late to reap the big money. The guys over at the US heard about it, but since they didn't believe in it nobody did anything. Josh over at downtown grabbed the opportunity just before it was too late, and secured distribution from maybe atlantic. Still not on the good side of the deal for the label. Album does great in the US. The rest is history. Notice that the internet part came first. But it's always more complicated than this.

Yeah I know he is with Downtown Records. I said major labels. I talked to those guys back in december or january last year when they were setting it all up (part of my job)before the imprint was official. Nothing major about them. They do have the potential to be the vangaurd imprint of atlantic if josh keeps doing things right, but right now they aren't. hell go check out their roster. My boss has a bigger roster and she's not a label or even trying to be.

The album/project had already been completed on it's own, funded by danger mouse and his friends. Then, Gnarles got a crappy little deal on Warner UK. They didn't believe in the act. The majors at the labels laughed at the notion. They said I've never heard of this guy and neither has any of the other execs or people we hang out with. Wheres the buzz. Their research came from his internet fanbase,(wonder how he got that fanbase without a labels support yet,better yet I wonder how people had even heard of their stuff, trust me it was on the internet before it even got a chance on radio,and plenty of fans had copies of half the album before the labels even knew it existed) it was a form of word on the street that they weren't familiar with, and people there (at warner UK) poo pooed the act. DM had just barely gotten out of deep trouble with EMI shortly before that. Execs didn't want to get involved. People who were friends over at warner UK basically helped get things rolling for them on that part. Warner Music Group doesn't feed them much (then) except under it's imprint Atlantic. They feed Warner UK even less. The SR A&R guy there and his wife Vp of A&R are not big players in the industry anymore. (they used to be) The husband James more so but not Rose. And they are the top A&R brass there. I talk to them about once a month mainly to check in on their family, hows life in london etc,usually on behalf of my boss. were not that tight... although i do have their phone number memerized off the top of my head. 011-44-207-...-.... etc. So I have a good idea at whats going on behind the scenes there. I even knew about Gnarles Barkley through my friends before Warner did. Not all is what it seems with the record industry and they got plenty of embarrasing things to hide including how little cashflow there really is right now. Gnarls Barkley wasn't supported by majors. he (cee lo and danger mouse) made his sucess the old fashioned way developing a fanbase over the internet.

Josh (owner/founder of downtown) was a big guy back at Virgin and has a lot of respect from other people, but his label was all his own doing and most of what goes on under it. he funds everything, he just goes, like even indies have to frequently, to the majors for distribution. All the back office work is the burden of his little label. Especially since jason (his old boss, whome I actually like) was/is laying off so many people at Virgin/Capitol then and right now, Josh was smart and got out of the major label game, to be more secure and less at the mercy of his old bosses and their idealogue. he recieves support from Atlantic (major) in the form of distribution. They didn't have anything to do with helping out budget wise or getting the guy off the ground hence my 80% of the work and glory goes to downtown with Gnarls and even more so to the origional team that completed the project before the labels even knew who he was. So does the money too BTW. They did pay their lawyers a whole lot to make sure of that. Which was where I was going with that statement. Josh has positioned his company so that it is sitting on the front of the next record industry wave. Go back and re-read what my post said. Part of what makes his little label sucessful and ahead of that wave postioned for the next new thing is because half the people over at downtown all 12 of em are under 32 years old. Most are in their mid 20s, and they knew what the people were saying and that the internet was the place to look for new acts not through A&R scouts.

Josh goes through Warner I think for distribution. Not sure maybe it was Atlantic. I could always call him and find out if i cared enough.

Distribution. Thats really the only way that the majors helped the album. If you don't think Myspace made Gnarls then go ask somebody. Europe might have heard about it before america and you did. But he was all over the internet (not just myspace) before even that. thats when he got the small deal which turned out to be a big sucess, and lead to bigger things. He was the last straw that finally got labels to pay friggen attention to the internet for doing more for the record industry than ripping off the execs with Itunes and napster, rhapsody or whatever. The american distribution deal wasn't even concidered yet when he was signed to WanerUK and took less than a week to bang out. Labels can do this when they see money being generated that they haven't gotten in on yet. Why do you think it debut'ed so well in europe? because before anybody had even heard of him including the labels. his name was alive and well on The Internet Mainly myspace for america. People were big fans of Gnarls several months beofe the labels even knew about him or what was going on. The album was number one when it debut and that fanbase was not built up on label support. The labels jumped on after it was too late to be in the good part of the deals and make money on that project. They only got distribution. They get paid too, but I've already admitted that, just not nearly as much as they would have because they still don't understand the internet.

Anyways i digress. Gnarls barkley was brought up because he (fine, the act comprised of DM and Cee Lo) was one very significant piece of the foundation that is being developed to break free of the 4 majors strangle hold on the industry. The album is concidered an internet phenomina, and wouldn't have existed in it's current form,which was not it's first, on a label if it weren't for internet fans. What this latest movement is, is just one more significant thing that will get the label exec. chairs. and COO, CFO's and CEO's attentions to improve and modernize their game.

SO I don't think my origional statement was completly false. Go over their budgets for the project, for the marketing. All that. The labels weren't involved very deeply at all. They were being requested everywhere before they were even with Downtown. Who came out in early 2006. A little late to have signed and developed an act that had world wide aclaim before the label was even envisioned.

Doesn't take a record label to do a TV debut. Just know some guy like PJ Bloom who is in charge of TV music supervision.