A debate is raging on TechCrunch over the keynote at the Grammy Northwest Music Tech Summit by Topspin Media's Ian Rogers. TechCrunch readers are aggressively rebutting both the effectiveness of Rogers' new music marketing model and the very existence of a musical middle class.

As I wrote on TechCrunch and have written previously, I can assure doubters that a musical middle class does exist and is growing. I work with some of these artists every day at our booking agency  Skyline Music and blog about how it works here on Hypebot.

Some of this new musical middle class comes from above (major label refugees) and some from below (new artists). These artists have always existed as (sometimes regional) touring bands. But their numbers are growing because the net and media diversification have created opportunities for bands to find, hold on to and monetize fans in ways other than just on stage. Their stage is now global and on demand.

Companies like Ian’s Topspin, Echo, ReverbNation, Nimbit and others help artists accomplish this more easily and effectively. Thank-you Ian (and others). You will prove these doubters wrong; or more precisely, you will empower the artists that prove them wrong.

• It won’t work for every artist. Most new small businesses fail.
• It takes time and hard work. Every business does.
• It won’t make them rich. Most small businesses don’t make their owners rich.

But being a member of the musical middle class beats the alternative: putting your art//career/life/future in someone else’s hands. - Bruce Houghton

• "The physics of the media space have changed and you shouldn’t expect the winners or even the definition of winning to stay constant."
• "As Chuck D said at MIDEM last year, 'There is nothing wrong with the music business, there is a problem with the CD business.”
• "The only perspectives that matter, that of the artist and the fan."
• "Artists - do a 360 deal with yourself"
• "In conversations going forward, let's talk about profitability for artists.

Sometimes I write these Cliff Note versions of speeches so you don't have to wade throught the whole presentation. This time I wrote it hoping that you'll find it interesting enough to click here and read the rest.

HYPEBOT FEATURES:

• Ian Rogers On The New Music Business Equation
• Is Music A Good Investment? Whyte vs. Resnikoff
• Zune Cuts Prices, Taps Common For Ad
• K-OS Gives Fans Unreleased Album To Mix
• The Evolution Of Tribal Curiosity

MORE NEWS:

• Sony's digital gamble: Gracenote. (Fortune)
• There's a subscriber revolt at Sirius XM over new combined rates. (ars) The company's stock fell 20 20 cents pershare at one point yesterday
• Mark Shapiro, the CEO of the Six Flags amusement parks has been named to the Live Nation Board Of Directors. (press release pdf)
• French record labels are suing four US companies that offer P2P applications including BitTorrent's Vuze, Limewire, Morpheus and Shareaza's SourceForge. (TorrentFreak)
• Tennessee has passed an RIAA backed filtering bill aimed at college P2P activity. The Electronic Frontier Foundation vows to fight the measure. (RIAA, EFF)
• Nokia's Comes With Music store in Italy is offering 4 million tracks including many from local artists. Italian artists capture 54% of the country's sales annually. (press release)
• Essay: Why I Hate iTunes. (WNYC Soundcheck)
• Nielson enters the radio ratings business. (FMQB)
• GruvMe: the digital service brings together music, video, games and TV. (press release)

In this guest post Kyle Bylin was inspired by the work of Anthropologist Elman Service and Seth Godin's video "Curious". (video after the jump below)

Yesterday on Hypebot, Bruce raised the question, “What fans should artists listen and pay attention to?”  My answer is: all of them, but there's a big difference between listening and truly caring.  Be approachable, start doing something, and answer those emails.  If you are leading a tribe of followers, you have to pay attention to all of them, but the key is to empower the curious.

There are many types of followers, but it's the curious fans that count.  Not because there are a lot of them, but because they are the ones who talk to the fans that are stuck.  They're stuck on your last album, stuck on what everyone else is listing to, and stuck somewhere in the mid-1990's.  Whereas the curious fans are trying to find out when the album is going to be out and when your going on tour next.  The curious fans are the mavens who are driven by the desire to discover and champion new music.

The Evolution of Tribal Curiosity

Anthropologist Elman Service defined four classifications of the stages of social evolution: hunter-gatherer, tribe, chiefdom, and state.  It is my belief that these four categories also provide insight into The Evolution of Tribal Curiosity in music fans and the power of influence they acquire over time.

1. Hunter-gatherer: Fans who are generally egalitarian or characterized by their belief in the equality of all bands.  They relentlessly search for music in all territories and don't discriminate against anything.  Up to almost 80% of their music is obtained by gathering, but they have very little social influence.

2. Tribe: Communities of fans in which there are some limited instances of social rank and prestige.  For instance, some of the members become more established opinion leaders, and emphasis is placed on who was first to discover a new artist.  They gave a broader reach then the hunter-gather.

3. Chiefdom: Stratified tribal societies with...

established opinion leaders or chiefs.  Think about music blogs (pitchfork, stereogum & brookynvegan), where new artists are brought forward by a single source, and echoed down through different ranks and layers.  Embraced by certain tribes, but not by all.  Their reach differentiates, but wider spread.

4. State: Civilizations, with complex social hierarchies and organized, institutional governments. Examples:  MySpace, Billboard Charts, Rolling Stone, and Top Radio.  High rates of discrimination of what makes “good music.”  They are influencing and reaching the masses far and wide.

In a world where people now have way more choices and far less time, the obvious thing happens, people start ignoring you.  But, no artist should ignore any fans, because they are more connected than ever.  You have to be constantly empowering curiosity and amplifying faith of your followers, because that is the only way you will rise above the the ranks and gain their acceptance.

HYPEBOT FEATURES

• Hip Hop Business News From ProHipHop
• The Evolution Of Tribal Curiosity
• A Look At Amazon's 70,000 New Artist Stores
• Kayne West Uses imeem To "Leak" New Mixes
• IODA Partners With BounDEE for Japan

MORE NEWS

• CEO Jerry Yang is exiting Yahoo! leaving the future of the troubled internet giant further in doubt. (ars) Sorry, but what took him so long?
• Jeff Straughn has been promoted to Senior Vice President, Strategic Marketing, Island Def Jam Music Group. (press release) Congrats!
• Best Buy to host G 'n R "Chinese Democracy" listening parties on several major markets. (DMW) (yawn...)
• Jason Bentley is taking over the morning and music director slots LA's trendsetting KCRW
• How is Universal boosting its digital music revenues? (cNet)
• WMG stock hit a new low of $2.40 yesterday. (Google Finance) It was up slightly to $2.59 in early morning trading today.
• Common continues his effort to make (my player of choice) Zune hip. (AP)
• Sprout , a platform for developing and managing engagement marketing campaigns has integrated Google Analytics Tracking for Adobe Flash technology into its solution built with the open source Flex framework.
• Desi Hits!, an entertainment and lifestyle hub for South Asian culture, today announced a partnership with Warner Music Group to give the music company’s artists entree to Desi and Bollywood fans.
• Dada Entertainment, a provider of digital and mobile entertainment services, announced a charity drive to raise money for Yéle Haiti, the organization founded by Wyclef Jean. The initiative which runs for a week will see a portion of every new Dada.net subscription donated to support Yéle Haiti and their plan to repair schools. (press release)

It almost sounds like EMI has been listening to Seth Godin, Gerd Leonhard and Ian Rogers or maybe reading Hypebot. The artist to fan relationship is taking center stage as the label group looks beyond music sales to find new ways to turn a profit.

EMI.com is being retooled as a hub for fans and to gather information. “What you’ll see is less of a focus on sales of individual tracks or the conceptual equivalent of little round shiny disks, and more about helping artists learn things about their fan group that they can’t directly see ... ," new EMI digital president Douglas Merrill said in a recent Billboard interview. "The value of a label going forward is to be the platform to connect artists and fans and teach each more about the other.” 

Licensing and sponsorship revenues will also contribute. According to the UK's Guardian,  EMI has hired Rafael McDonnell as VP of brand partnerships, licensing and synchronization for the UK and Ireland. (see the press release of annoucement after the jump below) The former Coke executive helped launched the now shuttered MyCokeMusic.com.  A North American counterpart has not yet been named.

Press Release:

EMI Music has appointed Rafael McDonnell to the new role of vice president - brand partnerships, licensing and synchronization for the UK and Ireland. Reporting to Cynthia Sexton, EMI Music’s Los Angeles-based executive vice president of global brand partnerships, licensing and synchronization, McDonnell will be responsible for creating partnerships with major brands and agencies in the UK and driving revenues from the growing areas of music licensing and synchronization. He takes up his new role on 8 December.

McDonnell has spent the last three years as founder and managing director of RED Entertainment Marketing, a marketing consultancy specializing in music and entertainment, working with brands such as Coca-Cola. Prior to establishing RED, he held a variety of senior marketing positions within some of the biggest consumer brand organizations including Pepsico, where he was marketing manager for Walkers Crisps, and Coca-Cola where he was head of marketing activation and strategic marketing alliances. While at Coca-Cola, in 2004 he established and ran Mycokemusic.com, one of Europe's first major legal music download services.

Cynthia Sexton said: “At EMI Music we are focused on delivering the most compelling products to consumers and business partners and the most powerful services to our artists. Rafael’s background, experience and love of music make him the ideal person to lead our UK team managing brand partnerships, licensing and synchronization business and I’m very pleased he’s joining us.”

Rafael McDonnell said: “As music consumption continues to grow around the world and more and more brands and other commercial partners want to work with music, EMI’s fantastic roster of artists and catalog make it ideally placed to serve this growing demand. It’s an exciting time for the music industry and I’m looking forward to joining the great team at EMI Music.”

HYPEBOT FEATURES

• VERIZON Grabs Beyonce AS US O.T.A. Push Intensifies
• Universal Music Having Strong 2008
• Vinyl Collective Cooperative Label: Fun New Model
• Xmas Tears: Circuit City, Best Buy, Stocks & More
• The Rhianna Challenge

MORE NEWS

• Mobile music and content provider Thumbplay lays off 25% of its staff.  (SA Insider) How quickly they tumble. Just back in March the company hot $18 million in funding.
• Former FCC Chairman Reed Hunt is on the Obama transition team on trade and economic issues. (ars)
• Online indie retailer Insound is is expanding its offering that pairs a vinyl album with an instant download saying it has caused a spike in vinyl sales. Next up the addition of a t-shirt and other add-ons. (Billboard)
• Sound familiar? In Namibia priacy is hurting CD sales. (allAfrica)
• Humor (kind of): The RIAA Bans Telling Friends About Songs (The Onion)
• You'll find useful and interesting info applicable to the music industry on Wired Editor Chris Anderson's Long Tail blog in the run up to the July release of his new book Free.
• Playcharts.com is a music video site featuring five “ready to go” playlists each containing the top 100 songs in pop - rock - r&b - hiphop & dance fron sources like Billboard. It's another great example of the web's content mashup capabilities.

HYPEBOT FEATURES:

• WMG's CEO says he'll only do 360 deals from now on. Is that what the investment in Front Line/Ticketmaster was really all about?
• How The Net Is Changing The Live Music Business
• Hip Hop Business News From ProHipHop
• Jeff Kwatinetz Leaves The Firm. Is Anything Left?
• Part 3: Primal Branding & Music
• Wil.i.am's Barack Obama "It's A New Day" Vid
• Hypebot's Music Industry Week In Review

MORE NEWS:

• SanDisk has cut 450 people or 15% of its staff a cost-saving mood (Register)  Expect many more such cuts from all corners of the music and tech sectors before the end of the year ans the economy continues to struggle.
• One source says Sony will join the DRM free iTunes Plus store soon. (9-5 Mac)
• Georgia Tech launches a center for music technology. (press release)
• The few Fall Out Boy release will take full advantage of an iPhone app that adds artwork, liner notes and interactive features to album downloads.(Red Orbit, Billboard)
• Dell will not launch a music player prior to the holiday shopping season as has previously been reported. (Reuters) But don't take that to mean that Dell is not still trying to figure out the best way to get back into music.
• Sirius and XM station merger is set for November 12th. (Wired)
• The major music services are considering lossless downloads, but not any time soon. (TechFlash)
• A new study claims to show major flaws in the Long Tail theory. (The Register)
• iLike has released a new broader API developer platform. (Duke Listens)

• Questlove: Oh Happy Day [On Barack Obama's Election]
• ProHipHop returns to Hypebot with a look back at recent high points in hip hop business news.
• The Barack Obama Show pre-empted all competing entertainment with the strong support of the Hip Hop Nation from folks at street level to the biggest stars.  Much merch was sold and many a tear was shed.
• The release of NOW That's What I Call Music! 29 signals the beginning of the Christmas Shopping Season!!!
• As 50 Cent launches a new reality show and prepares to release a new album and related directorial debut, he also continues to upgrade his brand by funding a community garden redesign.
• Next on Fiddy's agenda: Natural Resources

• In case you haven't noticed, Radio One's shares are tanking.
• Decon Records recently launched DCN360, an agency designed to connect brands with their artists.
• The suicide of Shakir Stewart was an unexpected and disturbing loss for urban music after he had so recently replaced Jay-Z at Def Jam.
• Soulja Boy continues to hammer away at his sophomore effort with his own special form of dance and singles research.
• Recent unique endorsements include Ice T and Coco for DynaPep! and Yo-Yo Whitaker for SLIM Shots.
• Q-Tip and The Cool Kids have embarked on the 2K Sports' 4th Annual Bounce Tour.
• XXL features Hip-Hop's Class of '09 on their current cover.
• ProHipHop and MystJazz PR have joined forces to relaunch Hip Hop Press as one component of Hip Hop PR Wire.

From ProHipHop

Part 3 of a 3 part interview for Hypebot by guest blogger Kyle Bylin. Read Part 1 and Part 2.

Patrick Hanlon is the founder and CEO of Thinktopia and author of the hardcover and audio book Primal Branding: Create Zealots for Your Brand, Your Company, and Your Future.

Q: Within the Hypebot community, there is a vast array of personalities who inhabit the messy environment of the music industry.  Are there any lessons learned or valuable insights that stuck with you over the years you'd like to share?

Hanlon: What we call Primal Branding is really a rallying cry against doing anything by rote. Yes, we have a “system” which could become rote in its own way—but at its core, we are about gaining a deep-skin understanding of how we respond as individuals and as a society to certain inputs in our lives. The primal code is really a constellation of parts that—when put together—seem to satisfy us in intangible yet very important ways. So many people try to create their own success by imitating the success of others. They got a hit song by playing a three-chord progression, so I better learn that progression too. They got a hit by using a drum machine and samples, so I will too. That’s just mimicry and imitation. Sure, some people will make hits. But the big changes—the ones that knock us off our feet, are when someone creates a sound that’s totally fresh, new—something that electrifies.

Q: There seems to be a very special and intimate connection that exists between artists and their followers that don't seem to exist on a brand or product level.  How or why is that?

Hanlon: Sure, screaming fans at Shea Stadium. Sound is one of our senses wired to special places in our brain. Certain songs connect us back to places and times that is very sensorial. Smell is another sense that connects to times and places. The smell of diesel fumes (don’t ask why) takes me back to Europe. There’s probably a whole teenage hormonal thing, too, because music is tied to youth culture. Successful music groups really fire on all cylinders.

There’s that stage where people really love the music. (In our terms the music would be iconic: a music hook is an icon.) And then suddenly there’s this crush of popular appeal—that’s when some fans whine that the group has suddenly gone pop or mainstream. But that’s really the period when the other pieces of primal code become filled in. If you’re in the band, that’s when you hit success—at least at (hopefully) the popular or financial level. Music is extremely visceral, because it is tied into so many other emotions and time frames.

But to say that this is not true for other products is just not the case. Certainly, we don’t have people smashed against fence wire waiting for the new Starbucks drink. But people have traveled long distances to purchase certain automobiles, beer and blue jeans, the same way people follow John Mayer, Justin Timberlake and Nas. A few weeks ago I was in Soho in New York City, and there were people lined up around the block waiting to buy iPhones. A few blocks away, they were standing in another line waiting for concert tickets. Fans are fanatics. Try to take away a 15-year-old’s iPod. You’ll lose your hand.

Q: The Leader plays a pivotal role in making their Primal Brand come alive for their followers.  What are some great examples of leaders you've seen in the music industry?

Hanlon: Barry Gordy at Motown, Clarence Avant at Motown, The Fifth Beatle, Bono,  Michael Stipe,John Lennon, David Geffen.

• Purchase a discounted copy of the audio book Primal Branding: Create Zealots for Your Brand, Your Company, and Your Future