Can rock and roll be crowdsourced or should you look inside your own head?

Since reading about the announcement of a new ad agency called Victors and Spoils last week, I’ve been obsessing over the idea of crowdsourcing, which Wikipedia defines as:

the act of taking tasks traditionally performed by an employee or contractor, and outsourcing it to a group (crowd) of people or community in the form of an open call.

Crowdsourcing is how VS plans to change the ad agency model, moving from one in which all ideas come from in-house teams and the occasional freelancer to one in which ideas are crowdsourced, meaning VS puts out a call for ideas over the Internet, and then sifts through the voluntarily submitted responses. VS hopes that this approach will lead to better ideas. I have my doubts, but here’s a question: can rock and roll be crowdsourced? In other words, is a band or an individual better off writing their own material or sourcing it from others?

To find the answer, all we have to look at is bands that write their own material, such as The Beatles or the Rolling Stones vs. bands that don’t, such as the Monkees or the Backstreet Boys. We can also look at individuals, such as Bob Dylan, one of rock’s most prolific songwriters, vs. Michael Jackson, also prolific, but not above asking others to write material for him. In my opinion, it’s no contest. Artists that write their own deliver far better quality and far more moments of sublime genius than those who do not, or who rely on a combination of their own gifts and their ability to attract ideas from others. Why would this be? I have to think about this. What do you think the reason is? Comments are welcome!

 

Can creativity be crowdsourced?

I’ve been thinking a lot about why the announcement of a new ad agency called Victors and Spoils got under my skin so much, and the simple truth is I don’t know.

Regardless, what of this idea called crowdsourcing, which is how VS plans to develop ad campaigns for its clients? Crowdsourcing is defined by Wikipedia as:

the act of taking tasks traditionally performed by an employee or contractor, and outsourcing it to a group (crowd) of people or community in the form of an open call.

Personally, I think crowdsourcing is a fabulous way to gather as many ideas as possible in the shortest amount of time, but there are major caveats:

1) Crowdsourcing will only work if you can attract strong efforts from talented people. VS, because of its ties to Crispin Porter + Bogusky, will absolutely be able to gather lots of great ideas for every call it puts out. Creative folk from near and far will voluntarily subject themselves to great agony, as they wrack their brains to submit an idea that might win them favor with the glory that is Crispin.

2) Crowdsourcing will fail over time, unless there is a clear evidence that the public good is somehow benefitting. For example, crowdsourcing for open source software is sustainable because the end product is shared by all. Another example might be tech support bulleten boards, which essentially crowdsource fixes for annoying, usually minor problems. VS, on the other hand, seeks to crowdsource for individual gain (theirs, their clients’s and their winning contributors) and over time, as people realize that not only are they highly unlikely to submit the winning idea, their compensation is a pittance (guessing here, but I doubt I’m wrong) compared to the “spoils” enjoyed by VS as its clients. As a result, participation in VS’s efforts will drop in quantity and quality, as talented people try less often and put forth less effort when they do try.

So, to answer the headline of this post, I would say Yes (if you can attract ideas from talented people) in the short term and No in the long. In my opinion, the best ad agency model for coming up with really killer ideas remains the independent agency, small or large, staffed by talented people who know how to work together as a team and who have personal networks that can be tapped when the amount of work exceeds the internal teams’ ability to do it.

What the hell does all this have to do with music? Answer tomorrow!

A hard day's night.

 

On Tuesday evening of last week, I headed over to Hyde Street Studios for an evening session with vocalist RodDamnit and engineer Jaime Durr. To steel myself for the night, I had taken it easy all day and thought I’d be able to really put in some solid work without paying too dear a price in terms of my health (even mildly intense work, really of any kind, can lead to headaches, increased dizziness, tiresome fatigue and more).

What a fool am I.

By the end of the evening -- not very late in rock and roll terms, trust me – I was feeling the telltale signs that I might have overdone it. The next morning, as I headed off to my HBOT therapy I was sure I had overdone it. And for the rest of that day, most of Thursday and even part of Friday, I felt as though I were right on the precipice of Bad Day Gulch. I am thankful I never fell in. But life on that particular edge is awful. My mood sinks, my spirits flag, my hopes of being fully well once again some far off day get taken down a notch.

At least the tracks came out good. Everyone was patient with me, Rod sang his ass off and even the technology cooperated (we had no Pro Tools hiccups). And so the work continues. I will finish this album if it’s the last thing I do.

V&S responds. And, hey, I deserve it!

Victors and Spoils has posted my comments (thank you, guys), and Evan Fry, the CD of V&S, has responded. He writes:

Thanks for your comments Jeff. It’s lively and awesome and we love your passion and typing skills. Yes, we have a plan. But not so sure that we owe anyone an explanation. Please just be patient. Or ignore us crazy loonies here as we try to do something that will satisfy all and shape perhaps a way for everyone to be happy (who knows, it’s possible and who knows, we might have a plan). Oh and we’ll respond to your email inquiring about working with us sometime very soon. Thanks buddy.

Super condescending and mean spirited, not to mention lacking in punctuation (yes, Evan should know about comma usage), but I dished it out, so I'll take the hit. Besides, what the hell am I gonna do about it? Yup, nothin'. Unless I get onto Oprah someday and can talk about how I, a Writer, was called a mere typist. Oh, the pain.

Oh, and about my email to these "loonies", it's true, I saw their site, got excited and fired off a note. Then I read more and wrote them another note saying I no longer wanted to have anything to do with them. That Evan... clever bastard for leaving this detail out!

A new advertising agency is born! (warning: off topic, mostly)

Today, I read about a new ad agency called Victor & Spoils. To me, they are the lowest of the low in an industry capable of deep lowness.

In short, V&S claims to be "the world’s first creative (ad) agency built on crowdsourcing principles". Translation:

Rather than hire people and pay them a wage, V&S will offer a chance to some lucky few to donate their ideas to V&S's clients (even to V&S itself). If V&S decides a donated idea is good, they will pay for it, but the amount is solely at their discretion.

In other words, their client could be Coke and you could contribute the new tag line, and for your efforts be paid a penny and you would have no legal recourse to seek more. Worse, when they "buy" your idea, they own it, totally. They can change it however they wish and they are protected from ever having to pay you a dime more. Don't believe me? Here's the V&S contract.

One of the legal terms used in V&S's contract is "work for hire". I'm familiar with this because I use it myself, as does everyone else in the music biz. Record companies LOVE WFH because it means they can hire a guitar player to come in and play on a song and even if he contributes the riff that makes the song, they owe him nothing more than his fee. It's fair, to be honest, if not exactly cool. V&S, on the other hand, goes WFH one better: under the guise of "crowdsourcing" they will source 1000 guitar players and be under no obligation to pay any of them, and if they do end up having to pay because some lone axman delivered the goods, the fee can be as little as a penny (maybe less, I need to read the US contract, but I can't bring myself to).

Am I overreacting? I don't think so, but if someone out there can put a positive spin on V&S, I would like to hear it.

Oh, and icing on the cake: they moderate comments! Unbelievable.