2013 Music Matters [AU Review] : Digital & Music Matters Conference Day 3 - The Ritz Carlton Millenia @ Singapore

Words by Larry Heath. Photos by Johnny Au.It was our final day of the conference and it was a jam packed one so let's get this coverage rolling... Kicking things off early in the day, we spotted our friends from Eat Your Kimchi filming a segment for HP with K-Pop stars SPICA. Stay tuned for photos from SPICA's performance and our exclusive interview with Eat Your Kimchi! Moving on...


In one of the many panels of the day, pictured here is moderator Stephen White (CEO, Gracenote) with Simon Wheeler of Beggars Group, Prashant Bahadur of The Orchard, Bill Wilson of NARM, Bernie Cho of DFSB Kollective and Raoul Chatterjee of 7digital. This discussion was in regards to metadata, which ensures revenue streams work successfully for artists. It was certainly one of the day's drier panels, but a fascinating one. An earlier panel on Sync deals, alongside a talk by Eric Sheinkop of Music Dealers, regarding the process of sync deals; the pairing of brands and music, was an enlightening one. We sat down with Eric and you'll be able to read that interview soon to learn more!


Pictured above is UK artist Little Boots performing her latest single for the conference crowd, and LIVE onto the Music Matters website. We only got the one track out of her, and we would certainly have loved to see more. She had so many gadgets set up that we didn't even get to see her use! Here's hoping she's brought back to Australia soon for such an opportunity. Unfortunately she told us there's nothing on the cards at this stage...


Australia's music export office, Sounds Australia, has a fantastic director in Millie Millgate. She's pictured here being introduced by Jasper from Branded (the company who put on Music Matters), as she explains a bit of what Sounds Australia do for the Australian music market, and what brings them to Singapore - promoting Australian talent and exploring new export opportunities for the whole Asian market.


Pictured here is the full Australian panel with Millie Millgate on the far left as moderator, accompanied by Scot Morris of APRA/AMCOS, Nick O'Byrne of AIR and BIGSOUND, Brett Murrihy of Artist Voice and Vijay Nair of Only Much Louder, who worked with Sounds Australia on the Aussie BBQ tour of India last November, that I was proud to be a part of. It was a fascinating look into the great things Sounds Australia are doing for our market, and explored what we need to do for the region to continue growth in Asian export.


Vice President of ASCAP and author of the book Murphy's Law of Songwriting, Ralph Murphy dissected the last 12 months of pop and country number ones in the USA and analysed what was unique to this group of popular tracks. He talked about the importance of tempo, the word "you", the concept of love and repetition, all of which were features of the vast majority of the hits. He pointed out that Gotye's #1, however, was quite the anomaly in many ways, though left it to us to work out why.


The first ever MIDEM panel outside of Cannes featured the heads of some of digital music's most successful companies to discuss the future of Digital Music in Asia. For some regions, it's clear that digital music is the obvious way of the future, and for others it's a more difficult path. But with digital streaming and sales being the economic model for the industry moving forward, the clear message was that they're on the right path. Members included Jeff Hughes from Omnifone, Chris Lin from KKBOX, Gary Chen from Top10.cn, Darren Tsui from mSPOT and more.


Melbourne's own Dub FX performs in the foyer while we ate a snack, had a coffee and awaited for a couple of bands to soundcheck on the main stage...


...the first band of which were Canada's Faber Driver who performed their "energetic pop rock" predominantly acoustically and impressed the crowd.


We learnt about Asia's #1 Music Market, Japan, from Ken Ohtake, President of Sony Music Publishing (Japan) and Vice Chairman of the Music Publishers Association of Japan. We were treated to a lot of fun facts about their predominantly insular music economy, which features 87% in sales. But even at 13%, the international market still equates to almost $500 million in sales, so there are plenty of export opportunities there - though it's clear their priority now is trying to export their own acts.


Live Nation Korea tells the incredible success story of K-Pop megastars BIGBANG, through their 2012 world tour, which lasted 10 months and saw they perform in front of hundreds of thousands of fans in massive stadium and dome concerts over four continents. They left us with the question - who would they be touring next? And we wanted to know: when will BIGBANG tour Australia!!

Closing out the conference were YouTube sensations Boyce Avenue who performed a few of their most popular songs, alongside a cover of "Teenage Dream" by Katy Perry. With their easy listening tunes and brotherly charm, it's no wonder these guys have made it so popular with their YouTube audience. Though as they approach ONE BILLION YouTube views, you have to give them a lot of credit for making it all work so well for them. You can learn more about the three brothers in our interview with them coming up on the AU soon.

With the final day of the conference behind us, tonight it's the last night of the Music Matters LIVE event at Clarke Quay, with the K-Pop showcase being the highlight of the main stage performances. Given today is a public holiday, and the main stage being open to the general public, we're expecting nothing short of mania! Stay tuned to our Twitter feed for live coverage from the event. Or watch it yourself HERE.

Featured Panelist : Bernie Cho (DFSB Kollective)