The 360 Record Deal

These are some great resources and articles on the infamous 360 Record Deal and in comparison, a breakdown of developmental record deals.

360 RECORD DETAILS & BREAKDOWN

THE 360 RECORD DEAL BLOG

THE DEVELOPMENTAL/DEAL RECORD DEAL

Anyone who is an emerging artist or up and coming indie record label should read this. I myself was doing regional tours, DJing on stage for 2 summers with a pop/hip-hop group, that had a 360 record deal. There is also the developmental/demo record deal which honestly is something I will probally push more to younger artists. I know even though this group I was with thought their 360 deal sounded like a bad thing and they were getting ripped off they actually would've made a ton of money if they did their homework and stuck with it. In the long run they were dropped from the label.

What a nightmare for someone like me who is serious about music and comes to work 100%. There was so much lazyness in this groups camp. Everything for shows was done in procrastination, like soundchecks, appearence, and even taking the stage. I am usually one not to judge but after getting to know our main lead singer, who the group was named after, I can't believe I was even involved with this group. The lead singer was the biggest pre-madonna I have ever worked with. I will say he was a great guitar player but his singing abilities were not up to par and on occaision would try to rap on stage...this just shows you the magic of Pro Tools(his album was produced by Neil Pogue who was the engineer for Outkast's grammy award winning The Love Blow/Speakerboxxx). I remember once doing a rock style cover of "Today Was A Good Day" By Ice Cube and he forgot the lyrics and started doing some weird guitar solo over it. Once, Simple Plan and The Last Goodnight were opening for us and his guitar went out on the first song and he walked off stage. He left the drummer and I up there, so we put on a big show for the crowd doing a drum & scratching solo and of course he got mad that we stole the show(Here is the video of this performance). We never had a stable drummer, and the hypeman was shy and afraid to put himself out there. I remember once we were playing at SXSW in Austin,TX and had a great slot to show our stuff. Our lead singer was making a mountain out of a molehill because he couldn't get a new outfit to wear and it effected the whole show. Luckily on this trip I got to be great friends with the new drummer at the time, Lorin Christopher and we started a camp within the camp. We decided we would just go along for the ride to try to get our names out there and it ended up working. Luckily we both left to pursue other projects. I realized the path this group was on and since I was contracted to the band and not signed onto the label I got out at the right time before they threw me under the bus with their horrible decision making.

Honestly I think the group got lucky and now would be considered a one hit wonder...its funny because they still push that single and its 3 years old. If you look at all their mistakes and attitudes it all goes back to them thinking they were getting ripped off, horrible A&Rs, and lack of authoritave management...I believe this group was hungry to make it in the music world but as soon as a label started doing stuff for them they got lazy...check these articles they are very interesting even if you are just a music junkie.