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Cheap Trick is a band that had it’s heyday back in the late 70′s and 80′s, but it has found a way to stay relavant in todays world despite monumental changes in the music business. While other older bands have been very slow to adopt the new digital marketplaces like iTunes, Cheap Trick has gone all in on new media marketing.

In this CNBC video, the band talks about how they dropped their record label and are doing all marketing and distribution themselves these days. They clearly recognize most of their money is made from touring and merchandise, not record sales. “Why do you give some of your music away?” asks the reporter with surprise. “It’s great promotion!” answers Cheap Trick.

An older band like Cheap Trick has virtually no chance for traditional radio play or prime locations at retail. The band knows their best chance to keep doing what they love and keep getting paid is to take full control over their own situation. They have also been very savvy in creating work for movies, video games and even Stephen Colbert’s theme music. Not only do they know how to market to their core audience, but embracing these new venues can open them up to new customers as well.

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What good does this do anybody? Now I can’t hear the new song, watch the new video and get excited about telling my friends and buying it. Now I’m just angry because the music industry is yet again messing with me, the consumer. If Universal Music was smart, they would release this video in a high quality format and encourage music fans to put it on their blogs and embed it into their social network profiles. Further, Universal Music should have an affiliate program wherein if I place one of these videos on my blog and someone clicks through and buys a single or an album I get a small payment.

To the music industry I say, please read a book for me. It’s called the Cluetrain Manifesto. After that please take a look at The Long Tail. And by the way, dear reader, if you have not yet read these books, I highly suggest you do.

As you would expect, unless you are Warners which I guess just doesn’t know or doesn’t care, there has been a huge outcry and many videos produced in protest. Maybe I missed it, but contiually alienating and pissing off your customers is something I didn’t get in any of my college business classes. YouTube has indicated in the past that it would like to do deals with major content providors to clear up these copyright issues, but the old media dons hold out for unreasonable demands.

It continues to shock me how the music industry contiues to self mutilate itself trying to enforce it’s antiquated business model. They killed Napster and thought they had won, but it was never about Napster. It’s so much bigger than that. For better or for worse it’s a new connected world order. The old rules don’t apply. Obama just got elected President; greed is out. Again I quote Princess Leia from Star Wars addressing Governor Tarkin. “The more you tighten your grip, Tarkin, the more star systems will slip through your fingers.”

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All of this is being spurred on by EMI and Universal. EMI already sells DRM-free tracks through iTunes and is now expanding to other services. Universal, on the other hand, is beginning to experiment with DRM-free music but has spurned iTunes. The major problem these new services will face, however, is that none of them will work as seamlessly with the iPod as iTunes will. That pure ease of use should give Apple the overall advantage, so long as the iPod remains the dominant digital music player.

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It’s fine and all, but do we really need another greatest hits album? And why not the entire catalog? Zeppelin, along with some other prominent classic rock bands, have been mysteriously absent from the new digital music world. It makes no sense to me as the classic acts have to be finding it harder and harder to get relevant radio play these days. Sure, there are some classic rock stations still around, but 90% of that audience has already purchased everything they’re likely to buy already. These bands need to introduce their music to a whole new generation, a generation that lives online. The number one traditional music seller in the US is now Wall Mart. How many Led Zeppelin albums do you think you’ll find at Wall Mart today? The best chance classic bands have to sell new music in online. So where are they?

Another classic band also not found online is AC/DC. They recently announced something equally as puzzling, an exclusive deal with Verizon to sell their music digitally. In bypassing iTunes, they reject the number three overall music seller in the country. Verizon isn’t even the number one cell phone provider. I’m sure they signed a better deal with Verizon than they would have gotten from iTunes, but only because Verizon is desperate to show some flash in the face of the iPhone. Is anyone really going to sign up for Verizon so they can buy some AC/DC?

I hate to see legendary bands cut themselves off at the feet and miss the chance to pass on a great tradition of classic music onto another generation. If they screw around too much and wait to long, however, no one may care by the time they figure it out.

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The fact is the Internet is actually a fantastic enabler of contact with a whole new range of people you might never have known before. There is a group of Orange County podcasters I meetup with every month, in person, that I would have never known without technology and the Internet. Every year, I see hundreds more at the Podcast Expo. Hundreds of bloggers, those guys who never go outside, get together at PodCamp many times a year all over the country. This is just in the technical sphere which I reside in. Via meetup.com, thousands of other groups have formed and meet online and in person for a wide range of reasons. Elton John has now become, the Madman Across the Water.

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