Tenacious D is an American comedy rock duo consisting of Jack Black and Kyle Gass. They write their own songs which showcase Black's vocal delivery and Gass' guitar playing. Their debut album was released in 2001 through Epic Records and achieved platinum status. While the duo performs primarily, their album and live shows feature backing bands including members of Foo Fighters and Phish. They have also released a film and television show. The music industry faces many challenges like piracy, changing revenue models, and the death of albums, but some companies are trying new strategies like instant song releases and music-based apps and games to engage fans.

1. By Jenny, Laura and Ed.

2. BASIC INFO.
• Members: Jack Black and Kyle Gass
• Origin: Los Angeles, California, United States
• Formed in 1994
• Labels: Epic/SME records, Columbia/SME records
• Associated Acts: The Kyle Glass Band, Foo Fighters, Train Wreck, Bad Religion

3. PRODUCTION
Do they write their own songs?
Yes. Tenacious D's music showcases Black's theatrical vocal delivery and Gass' acoustic
guitar playing abilities. Critics have described their fusion of vulgar absurdist comedy with
rock music as „mock rock‟. Their songs discuss the duo‟s purported musical and sexual
prowess, as well as their friendship in a style that music critics have compared with the
storyteller-style of rock opera.
Labels:
In May 2000 Tenacious D signed to Epic Records and in 2001 they released their debut album
„Tenacious D‟. Although the critical reaction varied, by November 2005, the album had
achieved platinum status in the United States.
While Tenacious D usually appears as a duo, the album was backed by a full band, consisting
of Dave Grohl on drums and guitar, keyboardist Page McConnell of Phish, guitarist Warren
Fitzgerald of The Vandals, and bassist Steven Shane McDonald of Redd. SYNERGY.
Manager: Managed by SAM- Silva Artist Management.

4. What studios do they use?
The recording session for the album began with a two-day session at Neil Diamond‟s ArcAngel
studio in Los Angeles where initial drum tracks were recorded. They were able to use the
studio because Diamond had just appeared with Black in the film Saving Silverman, in which
Black plays a Neil Diamond cover singer. "Diamond claims it was the Liberty Records studio,"
King says. "It's a really old place.”
Genre?
Comedy rock, heavy metal, hard rock, acoustic rock

5. CONSUMPTION AND EXCHANGE
Selling History:
Studio Albums:
Singles:

6. Where can you buy the music?
• Itunes.
• CD‟S.
• Amazon.
• Through the Tenacious D website.
Target Audience
• People interested by the „Rock‟ genre .
• People who are interested in comedic music.
• Young Adults and middle aged men who still relish in the Rock era.

7. SYNERGY
• Black and Gass also recorded a demo tape called Tenacious Demo in the early-to-mid
1990s and distributed it to various record companies until HBO offered them a TV show.
• Cross, with Mr. Show writer Bob Odenkirk, continued his involvement with Tenacious D by
producing three half-hour shows based on the band.
• After the series aired, the band continued to perform live and at a show at the Viper Room
in Los Angeles, they met Dave Grohl, who remarked that he was impressed with their
performance. This led to their cameo in the Foo Fighters „Learn To Fly‟ music video. The
popularity of Tenacious D further increased as they began to open for high profile acts,
including Beck, Pearl Jam and Foo Fighters.
• Merchandise includes: T-Shirts, hoodies, sticker buttons packs, tapestries, signed CD‟s,
posters, lighters, keyrings, hats, beer huggies, bags, mugs, skateboards, dream catchers
• They feature on Guitar Hero 3, The Legends Of Rock- as themselves

8. How has the band been advertised?
„This might be one of the greatest album advertising I‟ve ever seen. This hilarious seven
minute video shows how Kyle Gass and Jack Black got back together to deliver the greatest
album of all time, The Rize of The Fenix. “That‟s not opinion, that‟s a fact” says hottie Extra
reporter Maria Menounos. As you‟ll see, getting a Tenacious D reunion comes with a price,
including killing Val Kilmer, but isn‟t that worth it for some new D? More cameos include Josh
Groban, Dave Grohl, Jimmy Kimmel, and Tim Robbins.‟
http://www.youtube.com/wa
tch?feature=player_embed
ded&v=nai7w1frB1E

9. Appearances?
Numerous chat shows including; Jonathon Ross, Saturday Night Live, Jimmy Kimmel Live,
Tenacious D: The Complete Masterworks (documentary on themselves)
Music Festivals in the UK: Reading 2008, Download in 2012, Bonnaroo 2010
Festivals come with lots of advertising for the band, merch will also be sold at festivals.

10. CONVERGENCE
• Tenacious D have a film called „Tenacious D The Pick of Destiny‟, this is distributed by
New Line Cinema.
• Featured on Guitar Hero 3
• TV Show on HBO Tenacious D: The Greatest Band on Earth – Ran in 1997, 1999, 2000

11. RESEARCH TASK 4- ISSUES FACING THE MUSIC
INDUSTRY

12. ISSUES FACING THE MUSIC INDUSTRY
1. THE DEATH OF THE ALBUM - Individual track downloads are killing the album market and the revenue that it once
created. Can the album be saved? Should artists release in 1 to 3 track clusters?
2. MUSIC TAXES - Is "taxing" music at the device and/or ISP level the answer? Or are these taxes unfair and further
erode consumer trust?
3. MUSIC AS A SERVICE - We used to call music "product". Did the pendulum swing to far in that direction? Or is
music a service - subscriptions, "Comes With Music", optional ISP licensing?
4. MOBILE - Will more and more music be bought an enjoyed via mobile devices? How does that effect the music?
5. NEW REVENUE SOURCES - From YouTube to imeem and We7 to Nokia, revenue is being generated everywhere.
Who will be sending big checks to labels in 5 years and how will that revenue be distributed?
6. NO ONE BUSINESS MODEL - It used to be that record labels made money selling records and bands made money
live. Is the future more varied: NIN, Radiohead, 360 deals, and partnerships with brands?
7. 1000 TRUE FANS - Whether you need a thousand, 10,000 or even 100,000 true fans, how do you find, service and
monetize a fan base?
8. THE RISE OF THE MUSICAL MIDDLE CLASS - Do fractured media and short attention spans mean the superstar
is dead? What new companies will rise to service and profit from a growing middle class of musicians with fewer
fans but longer careers?
9. THE DEMOCRATIZATION OF MUSIC DISCOVERY - Once DJ's told us what to like. Now our friends do or we
discover it ourselves and share the news. How does that change how music is marketed?
10. THE POWER OF LIVE - Is performing more important than ever? You can't copy it and it's a great place to build
community and sell stuff. Or is that a music 1.0 notion and Twitter the new barstool?

13. HOW ARE SME DEALING WITH PIRACY?
• Universal and Sony Music plan 'instant pop' to beat piracy
• Ten years after piracy first began to ravage the music industry, Britain‟s two biggest record
labels will finally try to play their part in stopping it, by making new singles available for sale on
the day they first hit the airwaves.
• Universal and Sony Music – home to Take That and Matt Cardle, respectively – hope the effort
will encourage the impatient X Factor generation to buy songs they can listen to immediately
rather than copying from radio broadcasts online.
• Songs used to receive up to six weeks radio airplay before they were released for sale – a
practice known as "setting up" a record. But the success of selling the winner's single
immediately after the X Factor final has made record bosses think again.
• Sony, which will start the "on air, on sale" policy simultaneously with Universal next month,
agreed that the old approach was no longer relevant in an age where, according to a
spokesman for the music major, "people want instant gratification".
• Cardle, who signed to Sony via an agreement with Simon Cowell, sold 439,000 copies of When
we Collide when it made the Christmas number one, the track having gone on sale just as the X
Factor final ended on television.

14. • Industry insiders believe instant sales will make it easier for records to climb the charts as
excitement about a new song builds, developing a trend first seen when download sales
joined the mainstream.
• Piracy remains a crippling problem for the British music business, where the overall
market fell by nearly 6% in 2010 and album sales slumped 7%, despite the success
surrounding Robbie Williams's rejoining Take That and Simon Cowell's television-fuelled
hits factory.
• Although pirating songs from the radio is as old as tape recorders, the record companies
believe the move will show ministers that they are playing their part in fighting copyright
theft.
• Universal and Sony have both notified Ed Vaizey, the minister for culture and the creative
industries, of their plans.
• Sony Music Entertainment, said contrary to predictions, the digital revolution has saved,
not killed off, music.

15. SONY MUSIC ENTERTAINMENT IS LAUNCHING A NEW GAME
APP THAT IT SAYS WILL PROVIDE A NEW REVENUE STREAM
FOR THE MUSIC INDUSTRY.
• The major label has signed a six month exclusive deal with games studio 8linQ, to license its artists‟ tracks
to “Say What?!”, a lyrics-based game where users match lyrics from real songs to a speeding conveyor belt
of cryptic icons.
• Say What?! will include music from an array of Sony artists such Calvin Harris, Kasabian and The Nolans.
The game launches on 10 August.
• Songs in the game are chart-eligible when downloaded, meaning Say What?! could be used to help launch
new artists or relaunch formerly popular bands.
• The game will also provide the music industry with data about how often users play tracks, including what
time of day is the most popular to play the game with certain songs.
• Kate Szolnokia, of Sony Music Entertainment‟s synchronisation licensing for film and games division, says:
“It‟s not only a great game and something our artists are really keen to be involved in, but it‟s a revolutionary
new business model for us and a great way to reach out to the ever increasing gaming audience on mobile
phones.”
• The UK music industry has struggled in the wake of the digital age, with revenue declining 4.8% year on
year to £3.8bn in 2010.
• Despite the drop in CD sales and spending on live events, digital revenues were up almost 20% year on
year to £316.5m in the period.

16. MORRIS ON THE CHANGING
INDUSTRY
• Morris enjoyed soaring profits with the compact disc in the 1980s
only to struggle over the last decade as Internet piracy
decimated the big record labels.
• Now Morris says the profits are returning and the thrill is back.
“The industry is transitioning itself into something that will be
very valuable, unless we screw it up,”
• What‟s more, the cost of distributing digital music is lower than
CDs or vinyl albums. “It‟s a better business,” Morris says. “The
margins are higher.”
• The numbers support him. Industry analyst Alice Enders expects
annual music sales in the U.S. to hover at around $5.5 billion
over the next three years as declining physical sales are
replaced by the digital variety.

17. NEW TECHNOLOGIES
• Sony – with EMI, Universal and Warner breathing down its neck – is launching its cloud-
based streaming service, called "Music Unlimited powered by Qriocity" with two
subscription plans: "basic" and "premium". Basic subscribers are charged £3.99 a month
for a personalised, ad-free radio station, similar to Last.fm, and "unlimited forward
skipping" of songs. Its premium version – at £9.99 a month, matching Spotify‟s premium
offers unlimited, ad-free access to more than 6m songs.
• There's no download option – users' playlists and preferences are based in the cloud –
meaning customers can stream songs from their computer to their emporium of shiny
Sony hardware (Bravia TVs, PS3s and the like – which already can stream music). You
can also sync your new digital catalogue with already-purchased music from iTunes.
• Initially sold as Sony's "direct challenge" to Apple's dominance with iTunes, executives
have been quick to distance Music Unlimited from that theorem. "We realised that if we
were playing catch up with the same (iTunes) model, it would be difficult to appeal to
users," said Kazuo Hirai, Sony's executive vice president and head of the company's
networked products and services division. "But over time, it needs to stand on its own," he
added.

18. • Here's what Rob Lewis, executive chairman of Omnifone - which developed the service
for Sony said-
• "It is much, much larger than Spotify. Sony's service will be pre-loaded onto HUNDREDS
OF MILLIONS of devices every year, and automatically available to SIXTY MILLION
existing Sony Network platform users. Only TEN MILLION Spotify accounts or so have
been created to date, and less than a million subscribers. There is a huge untapped
market out there.”
• "It is not just on the PC. Sony's service gives you direct access from your remote control
or games controller onto BRAVIA TVs, Blu-ray players, PS3, delivering music into the
home, and critically, the living room."

20. • We7 launches free music streaming with Sony
• The tracks will be streamed to users, with revenue for the label coming from "short"
adverts that play before each track begins.
• Unlike the rest of We7's catalogue, Sony's tracks won't be available for download. The
service has deals with a number of independent labels that allows tracks to be
downloaded with a similar advert at the beginning, with DRM deleting the song from
users' PCs after a month.
• "We are in the business of embracing a multitude of new ways our music can reach
audiences. Our deal with We7 is an important step forward in offering fans greater
flexibility in how they consume music," says Ged Doherty, chairman of Sony BMG in the
UK and Ireland.