Note to corporate music: OK Go is not going to go away

The New Rock-Star Paradigm

Succeeding in the music business isn't just about selling albums anymore. The lead singer of OK Go on how to make it without a record label (treadmill videos help).

By DAMIAN KULASH JR.
Wall Street Journal
DECEMBER 17, 2010

My rock band has leapt across treadmills, camouflaged ourselves in wallpaper, performed with the Notre Dame marching band, danced with a dozen trained dogs, made an animation with 2,300 pieces of toast, crammed a day-long continuous shot into 4½ minutes and built the first ever Rube Goldberg machine—at least that we know of—to operate in time to music. We are known for our music videos, which we make with the same passion and perseverance we do our songs. Our videos have combined views in excess of 120 million on YouTube alone, with countless millions more from television and repostings all over the Internet.

For most people, the obvious question is: Has this helped sell records? The quick answer is yes. We've sold more than 600,000 records over the last decade. But the more relevant answer is that doesn't really matter. A half a million records is nothing to shake a stick at, but it's the online statistics that set the tone of our business and, ultimately, the size of our income.

We once relied on investment and support from a major label. Now we make a comparable living raising money directly from fans and through licensing and sponsorship. Our bank accounts don't rival Lady Gaga's, but we've got more creative freedom than we did as small fish in her pond.

(More here. LP note: See OK Go's unbelievable Rube Goldberg video of their song "This To Shall Pass" in full screen here, in small screen — if you have a slow computer or internet connection like me — here. And from NPR:)

OK Go's Kulash Rewrites Rock-Star Rules

Talk of the Nation
Jan. 4, 2011

The Chicago band OK Go has forged a nontraditional path in music: It's dropped its major label, embraced the Internet, signed up corporate sponsors and launched YouTube sensations such as the video for "This Too Shall Pass," which features a massive Rube Goldberg machine.

"Major labels were sort of the only conduit to the public for musicians before," OK Go lead singer and guitarist Damian Kulash tells NPR's Neal Conan. "You had to play the game their way or not play it at all. That's just not the case anymore."

OK Go spent nine years on a major label, EMI, and Kulash says "it was basically a pretty good relationship, as those things go." But the band didn't make the money EMI needed from it, even though OK Go was "technically in the black." Kulash says the record industry used to work on a 5 percent success ratio.

"They bet on 20 bands and hope that one of them is wildly successful," and then that band's profits will pay for the remaining failures, Kulash says. So unless a band makes enough to support 19 flops, "then that's not really a success to them."

(Continued here.)