If SUB POP was a person it would be looking at 30 by now.
I read a post on The New Sleekness about the Publishing Industry that reminded me of the story of Sub Pop, as I know it.
In the early 80s, Bruce Pavitt was a college student who really loved music. He also needed college credits. Searching for a way marry the two, he took action and created a ‘zine dedicated to American independent music. Thus was born “Subterranean Pop”, a Washington State journal of all things musical, regional, and awesome. Readers of the ‘zine knew that what they read in the pages would introduce them to music they wouldn’t have found otherwise and that they would likely enjoy. There were 9 issues of the ‘zine produced. By the time Pavitt joined local music newspaper ‘The Rocket’ in 1986 with his column ‘Sub Pop U.S.A.’, he was well-versed in the world that he loved and was gaining street cred with other musicphiles.
In 1986, that love turned into their first record, the legendary Sub Pop 100 LP. Soon after, Green River choose Sub Pop as their label to release their first album. Enter John Poneman with some money, enter Soundgarden, enter years of struggle, enter Nirvana in 1988 with “Love Buzz” and you can probably remember or find the rest of the story yourself. By 1992, a ‘zine from Olympia, Washington written by a music-lover who wanted college credit for something he liked doing had become a cultural phenomnon that entered the word ‘grunge’ into our lexicon and convinced people that dirty flannel shirts were worth $70 for a few years. There was also, and continues to be, a lot of great music found and distributed by this company.
What are the lessons that can be learned from the story of SUB POP?
1. Building a Meaningful Brand Matters
SUB POP built a regional reputation over the course of a decade as a distinctive voice with clear expertise in American Music. Around the world, people who saw the SUB POP label knew that it meant quality, awesome music, and something different from anything else you would find on a shelf. It meant Seattle, guitars, and beautiful noise. It was the opposite of a do-everything clearing house. The name became short hand for their fans, and other music lovers, for what matters in music.
2. Loving what you do Matters
No matter what you may say about them, one thing that cannot be denied is that Bruce Pavitt and John Poneman loved music. They loved it so much they bet their futures on it in the late 80s. This passion helped drive them to their later success.
3. Margins matter
In a way, Pavitt and Poneman were risk-averse in a very special sense. They only produced what they could pay for. They made album runs based on what they could sell. They had thin margins, thinner warehouses, and (using the cache they had built up over a few years), were able to translate this into more capital, to create more sales, in order to grow a new market organically. In a sense, this is just smart business. In another, it’s a model that MBAs should read up about if they want to understand an entertainment industry context for JIT inventory.
4. Expertise Matters
We have 24 hours in a day. Of those, we spend 4-8 asleep. We work another 6-12 hours. So, that only leaves 4-14 hours/day that people can devote to finding new things, learning new things, and figuring out what they want. Brands are a form of shorthand for people with busy lives. Good brands are something reliable that people can depend on. In the latter part of the 20th century, people who loved music knew that they could rely on SUB POP to present them with the best rock talent they could find in the Northwest. In fact, through their changes, buyouts and more, it’s still one of the things that SUB POP does well.
As an outsider to publishing, watching ebooks emerge, wondering if book stores are going to be around, I think I have a sense of what could happen. And I think that companies like SUB POP have the lessons that matter to what’s coming next. There are still lessons to be learned from how they helped build the Seattle music scene into what we remember and what it is today.
On this last point, I’m still working on a comprehensive presentation about it, and hope to have it finished before the apocolypse.
And as always, I’m glad to hear differing opinions on why I’m so utterly wrong.