Entrepreneurs: Justin Gray and MDIIO+

Story by Perry Stern | Wednesday September 23rd, 2020

With a personal catalogue of more than 1,500 songs, working with he likes of John Legend and Mariah Carey, and success placing songs in films (The Lego Ninjago Movie, Oz The Great and Powerful) and TV programs (including Hawaii Five-O and Hannah Montana), veteran songwriter Justin Gray recognized the need for a safer, more accessible and efficient way to organize the data for each song. Three years ago, Words + Music interviewed Gray about the launch of MDIIO (rhymes with video), as “an easier way for our songwriter community to collaborate, network, pitch and monetize music.”

Lockdown Heating Up
“What I’ve noticed [during the lockdown] is that disciplined songwriters are very active, and we want to give them the opportunities to place that music. Television production has started up again. We’re going to see a massive resurgence in licensing coming up, probably by the fourth quarter of 2020, and for sure in 2021. Now is the time when you want to get your music into the path of opportunity.”

The service was a pragmatic response to a problem that Gray recognized wasn’t his alone. One day it occurred to him that a song he’d worked on, an international hit, “should be paying by now.” After checking in with SOCAN he discovered that, “a former manager of mine inadvertently applied the wrong songs to the wrong Justin Gray,” he says. “We discovered that 70 songs, during the tenure with this manager, had been misappropriated to the wrong Justin Gray. If someone spells Gray ‘G. R. E. Y.,’ If someone pitches the wrong IPI number [an international identification number assigned to songwriters and publishers to uniquely identify them as rights holders], or if you called a song ‘Happy Days,’ but  spelled it ‘Happy Daze,’ with a ‘Z’… There are so many different variables that can cause a songwriter not to be paid.”

Since its launch, Gray says the evolution of MDIIO has been “significant.” He explains that MDIIO was “initially intended to be a centralized repository where songwriters can store their music, they can share their music, they can pitch their songs and they can track all of that activity, allowing users to add their own metadata to their music. We’ve taken that and we’ve expanded it. We’re now in the process of releasing, hopefully later this year, something called MDIIO+.

“The idea is, so many emerging songwriters want to get into film and TV music placement. They want to try and generate revenue from their passion. We know that [a major] barrier to entry for a lot of emerging songwriters is relationships. They don’t know who to speak to. They don’t have access to opportunities. They don’t have somebody who can create and generate revenue for them. So, we’re creating this portal that allows anyone to upload their song and allow them to get that music licensed. That goes for publishers, too.” Gray points out that only four to six percent of most publishers’ catalogues get licensed. The new service will give the other 95 percent a fighting chance. MDIIO+ will be an AI-driven music search portal that allows for licensing, where anyone can participate.

MDIIO is already engaged with 1,500 music supervisors, and more than 10 major film production and TV studios, as regular users of the service. For MDIIO+, Gray says he’s currently “in the middle of negotiating six different blanket licensing deals with six major television producers and networks. Each one of those has their own unique set of song requirements. Just watch, literally, any show on television and listen to how much music is there. Every single one of those needs to be licensed.

MDIIO and SOCAN
MDIIO and SOCAN have joined forces by integrating a Works Registration API (application programming interface) into the system. “We know that one of SOCAN’s biggest problems is ‘dirty’ metadata, the inaccurate registration of song, the wrong percentages of song,” says Gray. “We’re endeavouring to clean that data up before it hits SOCAN. If you’re registering your music to SOCAN through MDIIO using the works registration API, we know that that information is going to be locked in correctly and accurately. It means you’re going to get paid faster, you’re going to get paid more accurately, and there’s going to be less copyright dispute.”

“We represent the writers for licensing, we don’t publish them, they can have publishers,” says Gray. “We don’t claim ownership at all over any of their music. We own nothing. We are literally just connecting dots through our portal, but in order to do that we have to be able to approve licensing. When a member puts their music up onto MDIIO+, they’re authorizing us to facilitate licenses. The licenses that we’re going to do primarily are blanket licenses. What that means is, there’s really no negotiation.”

With over 90 points of metadata available for registering, MDIIO and MDIIO+ “want to consolidate as much information as possible associated to every song,” says Gray. “When that song gets shared or downloaded or pitched, all that metadata comes down with it. Contact information, lyrics [if you choose], all the search metadata tags, the beats-per-minute, sounds like ‘Gimme Shelter’ – whatever. It’s a tremendous tool.”

Photo by Luc Robitaille (FM Le Sieur), LePetitRusse (Alexandra Stréliski), LePigeon (Michel Corriveau)

Three SOCAN members honoured at the 2020 Gémeaux Awards

Story by Élise Jetté | Thursday September 24th, 2020

Three SOCAN members were honoured during the Soirée des artisans et du documentaire (Creators and Documentary Gala) of the 35th Gémeaux Awards on Sept. 17, 2020. Alexandra Stréliski, Michel Corriveau, and FM Le Sieur each (virtually) walked away with one of the 63 trophies that were awarded live on Facebook. And even though each of them was comfortably at home, this virtual accolade was welcomed with sincere joy, in the current context where music and television activities have almost ground to a halt.

“This was my 13th nomination. I was starting to think I’m some kind of Québécois Spielberg! I never won,” says Michel Corriveau with a laugh, after receiving the Best Original Music for a TV Series, with Les pays d’en haut.

“Right from the first season, I knew it would be quite a challenge,” says Corriveau, before adding that he’d never seen a single episode of the original version of Les pays d’en haut. “I was just a tad too young at the time. Someone told me they wanted something that would be like a ‘Québécois Western.’ I worked with guitars a lot, but not always in a classic way. I also banged on them, among other things. Then I used the lap steel as a violin, for more dramatic scenes. The directing is there to carry the vision of the writers and I, with the music, become the subtext.”

Also widely lauded was Alexandra Stréliski’s work for the not-to-be-missed series Faire œuvre utile, a project led by journalist Émilie Perreault, for which the musician won the Best Original Score for a Documentary award.

“Once art is out of the artist, it doesn’t belong to them anymore. Using art to do good in the world is something that speaks to me a lot,” says Stréliski. Faire œuvre utile takes us on a journey where, during each episode, we discover the precious link between an artist and an art consumer whose life was changed by that artist. “It seems ironic, but the trophy I won for the musical theme was the episode where I was featured to talk about my work. I swear, I didn’t compose that theme by looking in the mirror,” she giggles.

As for FM Le Sieur, he won his trophy for the Musical Theme, All Categories, with the TV series Ruptures. “The world of lawyers is very rational,” says the composer. “Mélissa Dséormeaux-Poulin, who plays the main character, has a very emotional side, and she plays it really well. I really like the duality between the power struggles, the shenanigans, and her emotional side, when she goes home and lets it re-surface.”

Carte Blanche

All three composers are very aware of the incredible liberty they were granted while working on their respective projects. “I found it important, initially, to stay close to the director so that I could find my sound palette,” says Le Sieur. “Now, after five seasons, I’m more confident of where I’m going, but that link with the crew is precious, because when you work on American series, for example, you’ll never meet the director.”

Various elements of the screenplay influence the tone of the music that will end up in each episode. For Les pays d’en haut, Season Five involved an epidemic. “It becomes one more interesting playground. Something dangerous. I’m not re-inventing the wheel, but I try to do my best. When you have a complex story, music becomes one of the beacons. I’m like the Google Maps of the storyline,” says Corriveau with amusement.

Stréliski is also very familiar with screen composing. “It’s totally different than what I do on my albums, because even when you have carte blanche, you must work within certain limits. I really love that. In this case, I had to make sure the music worked just as well in a joyous context as in a more dramatic, so I had to cover a lot of ground,” she explains.

Music: The Extra Character

Although everything we see on TV is articulated around screenplays and powerful images, music is always there to set the tone. “The challenge is to constantly tread the line between what you notice and what you don’t notice,” says Le Sieur. “There might be a scene without any dialogue, and suddenly, what we can’t see is illustrated with music. A character gazing into the void can be interpreted as a bunch of different things – and their opposites. Meaning often comes when the character’s emotions become clearer, whether they’re crying out of joy or sadness. We add something that’s not on-screen.”

“Original music is important,” says Corriveau, “because that’s what activates emotions. I heard somewhere that, contrary to what we see as images, music is wave-based, and therefore it’s more like it touches you. It’s the only element in screen productions that has a direct, physical contact with the person watching.”

He, too, believes that a character’s state of mind, or train of thought, without saying a single word, can be expressed through music. “We wield a lot f power with an original score,” he says with a laugh.

“Not all projects need a musical accent,” says Stréliski. “But a narrative that’s difficult to express through words can easily be channelled that way. It can reinforce the intention of the film or TV production. Music is there to make things clearer. It’s almost like adding a character, sometimes. It’s like salt on a steak – and I love cooking.”

Admittedly very happy to have been honoured by this trophy, she says she doesn’t depend on them, and finds them “a little awkward” in the current situation. “I was off to the loo when I won my JUNO on YouTube,” she laughs. “This is not the time to win trophies, even though they’re always great to receive. We can’t emphasize the glamorous side of it; plus we can’t meet in person. Here’s to going back to normal soon.”

You can watch the Creators and Documentary Gala of the 35th Gémeaux awards online on TOU.TV and at Radio-Canada.ca/gemeaux.

Photo by Jean-François LeBlanc

Decision-Makers: Sylvie Courtemanche

Story by Claude Côté | Tuesday September 22nd, 2020

The executive director of the Francouvertes is restless, as the preliminary stages of the 24th edition are about to resume. She’s the very picture of a determined woman.

In 2005, Sylvie Courtemanche took a risk when she decided to revive, on her own, the competition for young musicians that was launched in 1995 by Faites de la musique and took place at Zest, in Montréal’s east end, before throwing in the towel after its eighth edition in 2003.

“Before that, I used to work with people like Steve Faulkner, the old guard; I wasn’t at all involved with emerging talent. Yet, I financed the first edition with my wages as a publicist,” she says.

Les Francouvertes receives between 150 and 250 applications, and a thorough selection process determines the 21 finalists. The recent abundance of talent gives the impression that Francouvertes might be living through a golden age. “There were just as many applicants 20 years ago, but we didn’t hear about them as much because the internet wasn’t as prevalent as it is today,” says Courtemanche.

The competition takes place over 11 nights, where each act has 30 minutes to play their material and impress a jury of seven industry members, and the audience as well. Of course, COVID-19 threw a major monkey wrench into this year’s preliminary rounds. Already, 12 contestants have appeared, and things will resume between Sept. 28 and 30. Right after the Francos and Pop Montréal. It’s now that kind of year.

“When this crisis began, I wore my rose-coloured glasses and I was very optimistic,” says Courtemanche. “We’d come up with about 70 different scenarios of how things would resume. We ended up writing to the artists very quickly because we didn’t want to cancel. We were looking for solutions.”

With those makeshift dates, things are overlapping. “What we’re doing is epic,” says Courtemanche. “It’s going to be quite a feat if we come out of next year’s 25th edition alive. Normally, this time of year is when we’re recruiting for next year’s edition, planning in general, and renewing our sponsorships. We have a lot of small sponsors who give us a small grant here and there, but our main sponsor, the presenting partner, is Sirius XM. If they pull out, we die.”

Sylvie CourtemancheBut Francouvertes has many more partners, including SOCAN, who present the Paroles & Musique Award, as well as the “J’aime mes ex” series, which features past contestants as the evenings’ opening acts. This year, we decided to pre-tape them to limit the number of scene changes. People will also be able to see the preliminary rounds, thanks to pay streaming (which still loses money, according to Courtemanche). The first 160 people to pay $10 will be allowed to join in with the 80 people admitted to Lion d’Or, and vote.

The music ecosystem has changed in 20 years. “More labels come to our shows,” says Courtemanche. “We used to see them only at the semi-finals, but now they come right from the start of the preliminaries.” And there’s greater visibility. “It’s rare that artists who apply to Francouvertes are not already somewhat on the circuit and have some stage experience, generally by playing venues such as L’Escogriffe in Montréal and Pantoum in Québec City,” she says. “Sometimes it’s a crapshoot. We don’t do auditions. They come to us, but there are lots of other contests; Granby, Ma première Place des Arts… And then there’s that rare bird who comes out of nowhere; Damien Robitaille, who won the 2005 edition, is a great example. We raid other festivals to find out which artists aren’t signed yet, and we invited them to apply to ours.”

A few words on illustrious participants?

Loco Locass (2000): “Everyone thought Les Cowboys fringants would win that year, but those [Loco Locass] guys blew us away, notably by adding Charles Imbault on trumpet. Their dynamics, and the surprises they had for us onstage, put them a notch above the Cowboys, in my opinion. And let’s not forget, rap wasn’t as prevalent, back then, which made them stand out even more. That final night was crazy.”

Les sœurs Boulay (2012): “You could hear a pin drop at Lion d’Or, and at Club Soda in the final, too. Even the industry types in the back of the room were all ears. Their project of working together was born during Francouvertes. It was a bit of a pickle, because Mélanie Boulay had also applied as a solo act.”

Les Hay Babies (2013): “They got to the preliminary stage and didn’t even know they were part of a contest. They had never heard of Francouvertes. Their manager had applied on their behalf without telling them!”

“I’m a bit of a mom,” says Courtemanche. “Calm? Me? I’m the opposite! But I’ve calmed down over the years. I’m always a little nervous at the beginning of each night. I still love what I do, even though every year I ask myself if it’s my last year. But there’s always something that hooks me back in: new ideas for social media, a new rule; that’s where I feel I’m best at what I do. Then, it’s all about surrounding myself with younger collaborators who see more shows than me,” says the happy fifty-something.

Any guess as to who will succeed Original Gros Bonnet, last year’s winners? “The nicest thing contestants can tell me is that they don’t care about not winning, because they’ve met people and made contacts and happy with their experience,” says Courtemanche. “It goes beyond the contest aspect of it all. Tons of bands have become friends just from sharing a stage at Francouvertes.”