VAULT-ING AMBITIONS Making Archives Work Harder and Smarter COVERFEATURE

05 Tools Feature.fm 06–07 Campaigns Cinematic Orchestra, Alan Walker/ TikTok, Michael Bublé, Beatie Wolfe 08–12 Behind The Campaign- Barbora Poláková JANUARY 23 2019 sandboxMUSIC MARKETING FOR THE DIGITAL ERA ISSUE 220 VAULT-ING AMBITIONS making archives work harder and smarter COVERFEATURE The past, the saying goes, is a different country: they do things making archives work differently there. But never has the past been more important for an harder and smarter artist’s present and future in this age of digital ubiquity. In the analogue era, archives were things only the biggest names in music could afford to run and maintain, but even then they were often a shambles. Now new acts are being encouraged to archive as they go along rather than having to dive into unorganised boxes in a panic when an anniversary comes around. We speak to marketers and the new generation of archivists about why these vaults are culturally and commercially valuable and how archiving should be done on a rolling basis as a down payment on future marketing. n archive, much like your appendix, is problem is that the digital age has led the kind of thing you don’t really notice to people getting incredibly blasé about Auntil you have a problem with it. In the archiving. Digital content is easy to music industry, for example, many people search and it is plentiful. So why should won’t even consider the importance of you worry too much about how to store having a well-organised archive until your it? But, as anyone who has dropped a album reissue campaign has been delayed hard drive or lost a phone will attest, our while you try to locate the Key 103 session digital files are often a lot more chaotically track of your hit single that the bass player vulnerable than people realise. insists contains their best ever work. “Does the digital age make archiving That might be a glib way to look at it but easy? No,” says Mullen with a knowing sandbox has heard of reissue campaigns laugh. “If you look at an archive from the being delayed and even cancelled because 1960s or the 1970s, it is neat. It has got of problems in locating key material. We quarter-inch tape, this nice file bin with have also heard plenty of horror stories of paper and objects and things. You can see expensive, unreleased video footage sitting it and feel it and touch it. forlornly on unmarked hard drives where Now you look at archives of people no one can find it. from the 2000s and 2010s and it is hard “We are so used to thinking drives; it is mis-mangled boxes. It is not that everything is available all as clean. Organisation is one thing when the time that we don’t think you have got a formula of assets that VAULT-ING of it,” says Tom Mullen, whose role people are used to. It is another when it as VP, marketing catalogue, for Atlantic could be a GarageBand file, a Pro-Tools Records has propelled him to the file, a Logic file or any number of picture frontlines of the archiving wars. “But this file types. Where are they and how are AMBITIONS kind of thing is really important.” they organised? Is the metadata on it?” As Mullen suggests, a large part of the What’s more, the fact that in 2019 1 | sandbox | ISSUE 220 | 23.01.2019 COVERFEATURE artists are constantly releasing new material – be it music, videos, pictures or something else – makes archiving even more important: if you are releasing constantly, then you need to be archiving constantly. Or risk the consequences. Learning from the old hands Despite the odd horror story, Mullen says that the music business is starting to wise up about archiving. It is an important part of his job, of course, but he says that Atlantic is not the only label making a significant effort to improve its archiving, while there also exist archivists who specialise in music. Neil Young’s archives are famously meticulously organised, Egypt Station – that then became an with the artist opening up an archival integral part of the artwork for his 2018 subscription site in December 2018, while album of the same name. “When it comes Paul McCartney’s MPL group created its to archiving, our ethos is that digital own digital archive a decade ago, as Steve assets are as important as anything else,” Ithell, MPL’s senior manager of production Ithell adds. “During campaigns over recent and digital, explains to sandbox. years, numerous assets have been created with the artist, the manager and the “This [McCartney’s archive] has grown digitally that still help tell the story of label,” he says, outlining what he sees as through the years to the present day, Paul’s career, so these are archived with his first rules of archiving. “Everybody is where over a million separate artefacts as much care and attention as a physical running around: the radio team has got can be found via keyword,” he says. object. Having such an extensive archive the artist early; the person that does the “This resource has become invaluable for allows us to put together legacy releases scheduling and touring have got things; putting together archive projects, such as filled with the minutiae fans love so much the artist and the manager have got the Grammy-winning Paul McCartney and has become the first port of call for stuff before they got signed. You need to Archive Collection . But this wealth of countless new projects too.” ”New bands need to archive – have conversations with them and then content is not just employed for legacy 1,000%,” he says, with the zeal of the for them to understand – either to do it items. At any given point MPL’s production Archive as you go convert. “What happens when that band [archive] on their own or to be able to send and digital department can be working gets big? Where is your first flyer? When you assets as things go along. It is a lot of on 100+ separate projects. Having Paul’s That’s all well and good, you might say. was the first time that you recorded that communication.” history so readily available informs a vast But few artists will even come anywhere song? All these things are worth so much. Some of his job, Mullen adds, involves number of current campaigns.” near the stature and lasting impact of You need to document yourself.” “backlogging” – going through the assets As an example of this, Ithell mentions Neil Young and Paul McCartney. So why Indeed, convincing artists, managers of current Atlantic acts – but he also has MPL’s archive department finding a should they even bother? You can almost and other members of his label teams of the same kind of conversations with newly previously unseen painting – a companion hear the air crackle when sandbox puts the need to start archiving is a key part signed acts. “I am treating them, like, if piece to McCartney’s 1988 painting this idea to Tom Mullen. of Mullen’s job. “It is a communication you are an urban artist, you will be a Missy 2 | sandbox | ISSUE 220 | 23.01.2019 COVERFEATURE are utilising that content to there needs to be a level of education say, ‘You went on this journey about how things are archived and how with us, thank you so much.’ they can be safe.” They supposedly have more Labels should also consider establishing than a full year’s worth of a central depository for archive content content to go through.” around their artists and make sure their staff are happy using it. This ensures that Store wars: knowing archive material is saved somewhere where to keep things considerably safer than an employee’s old phone but also protects against archive There is, of course, no magic material being lost in staff changes, Elliott,” he says. “Or if it is a rock act, you wand that bands can wave to make their something that happens more often than will be Matchbox 20 and you will be on archives impeccable because every artist the music industry would like to admit. this label for 20 years. Here are the things is different. That makes hard and fast we are going to do.” rules around archiving difficult to come by. Obsolete to the beat: That may sound like a rather lofty aim. And yet there are certain principles that futureproofing your past But Mullen says artists should be thinking artists, labels and managers can stick to of their archive as something they can use in order to make archiving easier. Labels and managers should also be on a year from now, rather than something Perhaps the most important of these your rarely used data. their guard against the constant menace that might come in useful when the band is to update your archive constantly – as “People need to change that mentality of obsolescence. On the one hand, this is in the autumn of their career. in every day, rather than every week – that if you are using the cloud to store means ensuring they have master copies “I am saying to these artists, ‘Next year, while your archive should be tagged and things it isn’t safe and someone can steal of any material recorded for third-party when it is the anniversary of you playing arranged correctly. There are also practical them,” says Mullen. “Keeping things in a platforms, such as Spotify Sessions, to Red Rocks and [you remember] that photo considerations in the day-to-day of hard drive on a desk can be the worst way defend against the possibility of that you took from your photographer of the digital storage: using back-up servers, for of storing them.

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