Berklee’s Music Business Journal talks Miley, Money, and Method

Since 2005, the Music Business/Management department at Berklee College of Music has published the Music Business Journal (MBJ), a collection of informative articles pertaining to various aspects of the modern world of music business. The journal is written, edited and run entirely by Berklee students. The most recent issue features topics that range from the latest celebrity stories to the most current and consequential affairs in entertainment law.

Included is the article “When Good Girls Go Bad,” by Corliss Lee, about the widely known, now infamous Miley Cyrus scandal that shocked the country on August 25, 2013 at the MTV Video Music Awards. Upon first glance, it is almost irritating to see yet another publication giving attention to this star’s raunchy behavior and indifferent attitude. However, Lee takes a unique position that neither condemns nor defends Cyrus, but objectively analyses what took place. Lee’s research shows us that this display of obscenity was just one part of a much larger plan to regain attention and re-boost Cyrus’s career.

Lee comments, “The [Video Music] Awards, in short, seem to have been a perfect launching pad for a media blitz.” There is nothing that has proved to be more truthful concerning this controversy; following the performance, Miley Cyrus’s song “Wrecking Ball” topped the Billboard Hot 100 for two consecutive weeks. At the end of it all, despite losing large masses of pre-teen fans (really, their parents) and the respect of many others, the ultimate goal of gaining publicity for her new album “Bangerz” was met.

MBJ author Christian Florez talks entertainment law in his article “Artists and Publishers in a Bind,” concerning a recent court case between ASCAP, the Performing Rights Organization (PRO) and the leading Internet Radio station Pandora. The US District Court judge ruled in favor of Pandora, on the grounds that ASCAP was legally obligated to provide Pandora its entire catalog per written contract. The issue at hand was that many of ASCAP’s members wanted to withhold their work from being streamed in hopes of negotiating better terms with the Internet radio station.

The consequences fall right into the laps of the musicians and publishers, as they now have no control over the terms for streaming their own music. This will undoubtedly cause strife between PRO’s and many of their members, potentially causing publishers and composers to pull their works from the PRO catalog in order to regain control of the licensing terms for their music. This is most likely going to happen with artists and publishers whose music is in the mainstream category because they have more to gain by doing so, whereas small-time or amateur artists without a huge backing won’t necessarily feel the difference either way.

Athena Butler offers a look into the pros and cons of distributing free music to the general public. “The Cost of Free” delves into the slow decline of recorded music concerning its current and future impact on artists and the music industry as a whole. Butler concedes that the idea of giving away music is a great way to attract listeners and gain notoriety. She argues, however, that doing so inadvertently downplays the worth of recorded music. The excitement and popularity of owning an actual record so noticeable in the mid 1900’s is no longer a reality; with the digital world we live in, it’s not even a necessity.

Butler concludes, “The whiplash of free…may well be the complete erosion of recorded music as a commodity.” It is an interesting thought to digest, and one that is quite unique to our modern world of rapid technological advancement. Here’s hoping to the survival of recorded music as we know it! 

If all this talk of business and music sparks an interest, Berklee’s Music Business Journal is jam-packed with intelligent, informative discussions on such topics. It’s a free, reliable resource to stay informed on what goes on in today’s ever-changing music industry. The most recent issue can be found online at thembj.org and is available for download along with previous issues. Happy reading!