First in a series of occasional columns about the music industry.
Understandably, this gives big music companies the screaming heebie-jeebies. Until now the only interaction labels had with cell phones was in the hugely profitable ringtone business. At two to three dollars apiece, ringtones will produce half a billion dollars in sales in the U.S. alone this year, according to BMI–double the 2004 figure. Thomas Hesse, president of global digital business for Sony BMG Music Entertainment, recently told Business 2.0 that “we’ve generated as much revenue from ringtones as from all other digital music combined.”
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Clap Your Hands Say Yeah initially caught on mostly because of a rave review that appeared on Pitchfork in late June. The reviewer, Brian Howe, noted that the band had managed to present itself “without any sort of press campaign or other built-in mythology . . . without a PR agency or a label.” Of course, as soon as Pitchfork published that, it became the band’s “built-in mythology.” CYHSY is arguably the first rock band whose record became a significant success without the benefit of either a tour or the label system as we know it.
