A2IM: American Association of Independent Music

Posted in News by A2IM

The window to submit music for GRAMMY consideration opens July 1, 2013 but in order to submit your music for consideration you must (a) be a voting member of The Recording Academy or (b) you must be registered as a Media Company (typically a music label).

Media Company registration opens on June 14^th.  Media Company registration instructions can be found HERE. As of this year, The Recording Academy has instituted a Media Registration Fee of $120. Instructions on who and how to pay can be found HERE. Media companies then have two rounds to make entries:  July 1-24 for October 2012 – July 2013 releases and August 14-28 for August 2013 – September 2013 releases.

A2IM encourages our members to register with The Recording Academy as a Media Company or, if you qualify, to become a voting member, eligible to vote for the Grammy winners.  It’s only $100 a year to become a voting member of The Recording Academy.

We also suggest to our members that you encourage your artists (or any other eligible person that you know) to become a voting member of The Recording Academy.  The dues are $100 for 1 year and members not only get to submit music for GRAMMY consideration, get to vote for GRAMMY nominees and winners, but also get to take advantage of many valuable benefits and services.  To find out if you’re eligible to be a voting member of The Recording Academy and/or to join click HERE.

Over the last few years, independents (and especially A2IM members) have seen our number of nominations and GRAMMY Awards increase significantly.  Let’s keep growing!!!  Independents should  participate and get their artists to participate by registering as Media Companies, by submitting music entries for consideration, and by registering to become voting members of The Recording Academy we can create change! Any questions please let us know.

Posted in News, Press Releases by A2IM

Independent label Grammy successes continued with 36 wins at the 55^th Grammy Awards including Album of the Year and Best Album wins in 18 categories. Mumford & Sons’ win for Album of the Year (Glassnote) is the fifth consecutive trophy for indies in the category, following Robert Plant & Alison Krauss (Concord/Rounder), Taylor Swift (Big Machine), Arcade Fire (Merge), and Adele (who is signed to and marketed by Beggars/XL outside of the U.S.). Below is A2IM’s Grammy Press Release.

Mumford & Sons log 5th consecutive Album of the Year for Indies

2013 marked another strong night for independents at the Grammy Awards, taking 36 of 79 non-producer categories, including Album of the Year and Best Album wins in 18 categories. Mumford & Sons’ win for Album of the Year (Glassnote) is the fifth consecutive trophy for indies in the category, following Robert Plant & Alison Krauss (Concord/Rounder), Taylor Swift (Big Machine), Arcade Fire (Merge), and Adele (who is signed to and marketed by Beggars/XL outside of the U.S.).

Glassnote founder/owner Daniel Glass noted “I’m beyond thrilled and grateful to the band, the independent community that we’re so proudly a part of, to indie retail and the fans that have been a part of this effort.  What can I say about Mumford & Sons?  They’re a joy, a privilege to work with…I can’t even call it work.  And my Glassnote team, I can’t thank them enough for all they’ve done in helping build this tremendous achievement.  On behalf of all indies, I thank the Grammy voters for embracing great music and great artists…this is truly part of an independent movement and we’re only just beginning.”

Leading all independent labels, Concord Music Group artists took home eight Grammy Awards. Concord President Glen Barros couldn’t be more pleased sending this message, “I’m so happy that I want to give everyone Kisses On The Bottom…along with all our other Grammy winning and nominated albums.  I’m so grateful to work with such amazing artists and one of the best teams in the business.”

Said Naxos USA CEO Jim Selby (six non-producer awards): ”I would like to congratulate all of the artists, engineers, and producers who helped create these wonderful recordings. Their dedication, excellence and imagination allows all of us to enjoy this amazing music. All of these projects were created by vibrant independent classical labels, proving yet again how important the ‘indie’ labels and classical music are to each other.”

This year marked the third consecutive year that independent labels and artists led the industry with 50% of all nominations, earning 210 of 393 non-producer nominations.

Billboard’s Item is HERE. In addition prior to the Grammy’s Rich Bengloff was quoted in an AP news item on Huffington Post thanking The Recording Academy for its inclusiveness in the Grammy process.

Posted in News by A2IM

A2IM wishes all of our members the very best of luck at the Grammy Awards where Independent Music Labels have garnered over 50% of the nominations! Rich’s comments were highlighted in an AP item carried extensively, including the Huffington Post in which Rich noted “We believe in fairness, access and a level playing field……. We just like the fact that The Recording Academy is very inclusive and that they give independents the same access and treat them with the same respect as every other artist that’s out there.” Again the best to all Sunday night!

Posted in News by A2IM

Independent music labels and their artists continued to move forward in 2012, repeatedly proving the value we bring to the music industry and fans. As we look back, our 2012 State of the A2IM Indie Community highlights many promotional & financial success stories:

• As reported by Billboard, Independent market share of recorded music sales based upon label ownership rose to 32.57%, we thank our good friends at Billboard for their reporting perspective! By our computations we also note that digital album share has risen to over 39% of market, significantly underscoring that our Independent community sells a body of work, not just singles.
• The increased market share is not a surprise as Independents controlled the top slot on the charts for seven consecutive weeks at #1 on the Billboard 200 with Glassnote’s Mumford & Sons’ ‘Babel,’ Broken Bow’s Jason Aldean’s ‘Night Train,’ and Big Machine’s Taylor Swift’s ‘Red’ [October-November 2012].  During the Fall period diverse acts such as All Time Low- Hopeless, DJ Drama-eOne, Papa Roach- Eleven Seven, Deadmau5- Ultra, Lumineers- Dualtone, Grizzly Bear-Warp, The xx-Beggars/XL, Animal Collective- Domino, Cat Power-Beggars/Matador, Punk Goes Pop-Fearless, The Sword & All That Remains- Razor & Tie and the Nashville Soundtrack-Big Machine all made the Billboard Top 20.
• On the digital performance front, payouts to Independents by our SoundExchange advocates continue to soar! Pandora estimates that Independent music plays represent almost 40% of their steams and Sirius reports Independents are 30-35% of their programming. We thank our friends at Pandora for answering our requests by giving Independent labels an improved portal to submit music and other informational support during the past year, and thank Sirius for providing our diverse programming to their audiences.
• Independents are even seeing improved success at terrestrial radio and we thank Clear Channel for including Independents in their bi-annual programmer label presentations and look forward to increasing the Independent label community’s radio access and share of plays with Clear Channel and other radio groups in 2013.
• A2IM’s export funding initiatives came to fruition this year with the first government funded trade mission to Asia in September, and the MDCP funding grant. We thank the U.S. Department of Commerce ITA, U.S. SBA, NY State, Tennessee and our legislative champions like Congressman Jerry Nadler for making this happen. The Recording Academy support of our export funding initiatives was vital.
• We thank the Recording Academy for their support on many fronts. Critical recognition of Independents included the share of Independent Grammy nominations crossing the 50% level and our community’s 34 wins included major categories like Best New Artist, as well as many best album categories.  Our successes were across the board at many award shows; our members even swept all of the awards at the 11^th annual Americana Music Awards.
• A2IM held its first Libera Awards, where Independents honored fellow Independents, during Indie Week in NYC last June. The event was a sold-out success and received critical acclaim as A2IM members claimed their Libby’s and we honored Beggars’ Martin Mills with a Lifetime Achievement Award! Libera means freedom in Latin; Independents are free and not confined in the mainstream, not dependent, get it? The A2IM “Libby’s” celebrated that freedom and how our community is not limited by established, traditional, orthodox, or authoritarian attitudes, views, or dogmas and open to new ideas.
• Indie Week 2012 continued to grow, with over 500 executives and staff gathering in NYC to discuss issues and learn from each other. In 2012, the focus was on garnering greater publicity access, optimizing YouTube monetization practices, reflecting on digital case studies, and discussing Pan European licensing, among other topics. The schedule was packed with one-on-one networking meetings, panels and roundtables, which led to the fourth annual Indie Roadmap discussion and white paper. We thank our speakers who included Pandora’s Tim Westergren, Free Ride author Rob Levine and keynoter U.S. Intellectual Property Enforcement Coordinator Victoria Espinel.
• We geared up for the launch of the non-invasive Copyrights Alerts program, which aims to reduce unlicensed music acquisition and we thank our colleagues at the RIAA for our inclusion.
• A2IM continued to stay in touch with Washington D.C. to advocate our positions and file on issues ranging from International trade to Copyright regulations. Many of the filings were made at the request of U.S. Government Agencies who approached us for the Independent views. We also practiced advocacy on legislation like IRFA, which we oppose, and as a member of the World Independent Network (WIN) issued the Indie Manifesto.
• We continued to educate our members so they can make informed choices based on understanding all sides of an issue via the weekly Round-up newsletter, committees like DMET and the Licensing & Publishing white papers and meet-ups.  This included a joint event with our AIMP brothers and sisters and networking events around the country at local chapters and during conferences such as SXSW, CMJ, NARM, and Midem (2012 had our largest-ever presence at MIDEM ever (more than 300 members from 135 companies)

As your extra employee, with pride, your A2IM staff takes dozens of calls from its members every week and in this time of need and continued financial challenges it is the pleasure, no honor, of the A2IM staff to support and represent you all, the greatest privilege of our careers. Your A2IM elected board does the same, meeting monthly, annually setting our priorities on your behalf, always all hands on deck.

Independent music labels are diverse in label sizes with hands-on management, allowing for entrepreneurial speed and based upon genre and geographic diversity provide music with cultural diversity. We thank all of our supporters, especially our associate members who understand the Independent vitality, who increased our access for both marketing & promotion and monetization as we move forward! We thank our publicists at Shore Fire for the fabulous press coverage at all mediums that has increased the A2IM press profile to new heights. We thank you all for your continued financial support of A2IM’s mission, we know it is not easy and we appreciate it.

The A2IM Board and Staff

Posted in News, Special Offers by A2IM

Once again The Recording Academy will team with Billboard Magazine to provide a special opportunity to members. Billboard’s 55th GRAMMY Awards Voter Guide will be sent to all members and provide you the ability to add extra awareness for your nomination, as well as special rates if you’re an independent artist. Please contact Billboard at the numbers provided for more information.

Posted in News by A2IM

A2IM will be messaging our members’ 1st round nominees for official GRAMMY nomination to our full contact database but in order to include yours we need for you to: 

The first-round ballot of all artists, albums, and singles that have made the 1st round for consideration as a final nomination has been mailed to all voting members of The Recording Academy.  If your submission(s) has been selected for the first round GRAMMY nomination ballot, and you are a voting member of The Recording Academy, you will be able to locate your nomination on the paper ballot or by logging onto www.grammy365.org.

We are creating a list of our members’ nominees and circulating this list to our full contact list late this week. To have your 1st round nominees included in our messaging please send Sheryl Cohen a list of your 55th Annual GRAMMY 1st round nominations from the distributed first-round ballots.

We need you to send to us the following info filled out into the spreadsheet attached HERE (include info for all columns on the spreadsheet):

*Part (enter 1 for general field or enter 2 for all other fields):
*Field Number (29 in total, there no field numbers for general categories):
*Field Title (ie. General, Pop, Dance, Rock, etc.):
*Category Number (80 in total):
*Category Title (ie. Record of the Year, Best Alternative Music Album, etc.):
*Artist:
*Album / Song Title:
*Label Name:

PLEASE NOTE: WE CAN ONLY INCLUDE FIRST ROUND NOMINEES FOR PROJECTS OWNED OR CONTROLLED BY A2IM LABEL MEMBERS.

All relevant info is available on the official voting ballot distributed to all voting members of The Recording Academy.

If you have any questions on the above, please don’t hesitate to contact Sheryl Cohen at 212 999 6113 ext. 3.

IMPORTANT:  If the information is not submitted in the above format using the spreadsheet, your nominees will not be included in our members list that we’ll be distributing to our contacts.  We’ll be sending our comprehensive list in a quick turnaround to get into the hands of as many Recording Academy voters as possible.

If you are a voting member please hold your ballots and tell your friends to hold theirs until we send out our list so you can support and vote for your fellow A2IM members.

Good luck and remember, VOTE INDEPENDENT!