Dear classmates,

I was fortunate enough to find a very interesting article out of RollingStone.com on a musician who I’ve been listening to for almost 10 years now, first having listened to him in the 9th grade. Most people know him as Skrillex, but I’ve always known him as Sonny Moore, the lead singer of a metalcore band called From First to Last. I got the chance to meet Sonny Moore after watching him sing his lungs out on stage in a small venue in Syracuse, NY. He was inconspicuously standing outside the bathroom with his head down, eyes glued to his Gameboy. To this day I still have his autograph, which was signed as Sonny Moore. Currently, he is one of the most recognized EDM (electronic dance music) performers in the world. Talk about a metamorphosis.

The article focuses on the release of “Skrillex’s” first full-length album, and the innovative and unexpected approach to its release. At first, the album was disguised as a Skrillex-branded smart phone application that was an asteroid-type video game (as you can see from my first paragraph, he still loves video games). The application apparently had an unexplained countdown on it, and when the countdown came to “0,” each track was pushed to the person’s phone every 30 minutes until the entire album was released. In the article, Skrillex explains that he will "probably make less money doing it this way, but it's more about the fans." (Rolling Stone, 2014)

If I were hired to provide the Warner Bros. Music Group with ways to enhance the consumer’s retail experience, I would have to suggest bringing some kind of strategy into brick and mortar retail establishments that allows consumers to actually leave with either a digital copy of an album, or a physical record/CD. I know that personally, finding new music, downloading it, and then uploading it onto my iPad is actually quite time-consuming. This has stopped me from doing it more often, unfortunately. If consumers had the ability to drop off their electronic device with a sales representative, shop around in-store, and then pick up their iPod or iPad after the device has been updated with their album of choice, it would cause them to have a much more enjoyable shopping experience. My idea for this was born after thinking of the musical-instrument store I manage. We sell guitars, drums, band and orchestral instruments, and everything you could imagine in regards to pro audio and recording. One service we offer is the restringing of guitars. Customers love to come in to drop off their guitar for a re-string, and with the intentions of leaving, most customers end up staying in order to browse, or better yet, actually buy more gear. With this in mind I couldn’t help but think how convenient and profitable it would be to have a similar service in brick and mortar music stores. People buy physical copies of music electronically, so why not reverse that

concept by letting people buy digital copies of music in a physical retail store? Also, people wouldn’t be so “in the dark” on the newest album releases due to the in your face marketing and advertising that a brick and mortar retail store has to offer, thus allowing the opportunity to create more revenue.

Reference –Rolling Stone. (2014, March12). How Skrillex took over the globe: Inside Rolling Stone’s new issue. (online article). Rolling Stone Magazine. Retrieved on March 12, 2014 from http://www.rollingstone.com/music/news/how-skrillex-took-over-the-globe-inside-rolling-stones-new-issue-20140312

Sincerely,

Joe Morningstar