Month: July 2017

Warner Music Nashville Adds Rohan Kohli as Director of A&R

Warner Music
Jason Tate

Former AbsolutePunk staffer, Rohan Kohli, has been hired by Warner Music Nashville as director of A&R. MusicRow reports:

“Warner Music Group was built on artist relationships, and we here at Warner Music Nashville have created and fostered one of the most artist-friendly cultures in any label in the music business anywhere,” said WMN Chairman & CEO John Esposito. “In keeping with our family philosophy, Rohan has made a career of connecting with artists. Our A&R team is made up of individuals who, in addition to their artist-facing values, possess a wide and varied taste in music that reflect the breadth of our genre. Rohan’s well-rounded experience will bring us a fresh perspective on the kind of talent we aim to pursue. I’ve long considered artists and repertoire the foundation of any label, and with Rohan our foundation just got stronger.”

Congratulations Rohan!

Mark and Skye Hoppus Hold Auction

Mark Hoppus
Jason Tate

Mark and Skye Hoppus have posted up a bunch of stuff from their home at auction site Everything but the House:

With their home undergoing renovation, the Hoppus family is selling pieces that will no longer fit with the new design, including the semicircular tufted sofa that was the heartbeat of their living space. “We custom designed the couch with Trip based off of old drawings and photos from Hollywood homes, and it was so fun!” Skye recalls. “We wanted a piece that would be a nod to the past but with a modern flair. It really made the room come alive.”

Some Thoughts on Daring Fireball’s New Display Ads

Daring Fireball
Jason Tate

Last week I read John Gruber’s announcement of his new in-house advertising model on Daring Fireball. Unsurprisingly, I really like the way his mind works:

A maximum of 5 sponsors per month. Each sponsor will get 20 percent of all page views on DF (including the very popular Markdown Syntax Documentation and online Dingus pages). […] For sponsors, you get to be the only graphical ad on the page each time your ad is shown. […] Not only is there no tracking involved, there is not JavaScript involved. They’re just images, text, and HTML links.

In a lot of ways he’s going with a new system that’s not unlike what I first attempted when I launched Chorus. A smaller number of ads, sold at a higher price point. (And the ad unit is very similar to what we offer here: a graphic, link, text, and we don’t track users.) I had a few people ask me why I recently moved from this model to a slightly different self-serve advertising model that allows anyone to buy an ad on the site at a lower price. The answer’s pretty simple: the other model didn’t work for us, but yes, I think this will be very successful for Daring Fireball.

Based on the last stats I could find, this website does more pageviews a month than Daring Fireball; however, it’s two different audiences and two different sets of advertisers. A lot of the advertisements on this website are bands, record labels, producers, and clothing companies. While I’d love to have advertisers like Squarespace, Blue Apron, and other bigger companies see the value in reaching our audience, I don’t really see that happening unless I hire a dedicated person to run advertising and cultivate those relationships. Daring Fireball has a fantastic (and well-deserved) reputation, and a real cachet within the technology industry. It makes a lot of sense for some bigger tech companies to want to have their ads on 20% of Daring Fireball for the month. Whereas here, I think we’ve found the sweet spot in offering a quality ad unit that remains affordable to virtually any budget. And because of that, it’s way easier for me to run as a one person show.

Basically, I think what John Gruber is doing at Daring Fireball is fantastic and right in line with what more websites should be attempting. I think that an ad unit that respects the viewer is a better ad unit. I think our click-through rate and how many people I’ve seen talk about how they are more willing to check out a band, album, or service because of our specific kinds of ads, is proof of that.

I think that the first month or so of moving to a self-service ad model has convinced me that it’s correct move for Chorus right now as well. It’s working for us, it’s working for advertisers, and if you’d like to purchase an advertisement: you should check it out.

Portugal. The Man Talk With Billboard

Portugal. The Man
Jason Tate

Portugal. The Man talked with Billboard about their hit “Feel It Still:”

It comes down to the way our political parties work where it’s basically football teams. If you’re not on Team Trump, you’re on Team Hillary and it’s such a ridiculous way to look at politics and to look at the way we’re voting. I’ll talk shit all day long but at the end of the day I don’t want to vote for anybody. I don’t feel strongly for either one of those people. So many of my friends were for Bernie all the way and said, ‘If he doesn’t get it, I’m not voting.’ It’s a ridiculous process. The fact at all that Bernie had to run as a Democrat is kind of what the song is about.

Jay-Z Tops the Charts This Week

Jay Z
Jason Tate

Jay-Z has the number one album in the country this week:

According to Nielsen Music, in the week ending July 13, the set earned 262,000 equivalent album units — a larger-than-initially-expected sum, and the fourth-largest week of 2017 for any album. Of its total, 174,000 units were in traditional album sales.

4:44’s No. 1 arrival extends JAY-Z’s record as the solo artist with the most No. 1 albums in the 61-year history of the Billboard 200 chart. He distances himself farther ahead of the two acts with the second-most leaders among soloists: Bruce Springsteen and Barbra Streisand, who each have 11 chart-toppers. Among all acts, JAY-Z has the second-most leaders, behind only The Beatles, which have 19 No. 1s.