Over the course of the pandemic, CD Baby employees have found at least one clever way to combat so-called “Zoom fatigue”: Invite a llama to the video conference call.
Earlier this year, the Portland-based music distributor made the transition to full-time remote work — a move that nearly every office in the country has struggled to adapt to. While research suggests that remote workers see a boost in productivity, many social elements of the office don’t so easily translate to the digital world. After all, chatting with colleagues on Slack can’t quite match happy-hour banter.
But the artistry fueling the unconventional corporate life at CD Baby seems nearly pandemic-proof. Employees cite the company’s mission of helping artists and its creative culture as key reasons they love their jobs. “Fun,” “forward-thinking” and “fabulous” are a few of the keywords repeated in survey responses for The Oregonian/OregonLive’s Top Workplaces. Those sentiments have made CD Baby a fourth-consecutive winner for the competition, now in its ninth year. And despite the current upheaval in the music industry, the good vibes keep flowing.
Even as the company has rushed to grow its workforce this year by around 10%, due to an unexpected growth in quarantine music releases, employees have managed to stay closely engaged in novel ways.
Take the weekly series of “e-socials,” which show how a little silliness can go a long way in lifting everyone’s spirits. Earlier this year, a furry resident of Clover Brooke Farm in New York was the secret guest of honor at the company-wide hangout.
CD Baby's employees are almost all working from home. Tracy Maddux, CD Baby’s CEO, gave a tour of the Portland location on July 9, 2020.Randy L. Rasmussen/For The Oregonian/OregonLive
“You can imagine how wonderfully surprised everyone was when Prince Caspian and Andrea joined” the video chat, says Heather Boyce, executive assistant at CD Baby — Prince Caspian being the llama and Andrea his human caretaker. The e-social also happened to be an e-costume party. “Andrea had dressed up Prince Caspian in this adorable little cowboy hat with pigtails,” recalls Boyce, who did much of the legwork to arrange the virtual farm tour.
Despite attendance being optional, at least half of CD Baby’s 200 employees (184 are based in Portland, with the rest working in markets worldwide) routinely log on for the events. “We started them shortly after moving to remote work as a way to stay connected to each other — they’ve been so much fun,” says Boyce. “We’ve done game nights, ice breaker questions, trivia and even a virtual afterparty where we all voted on and watched a movie with the Netflix Party app.”
Beyond the e-socials, employees get work-from-home care packages, with freshly roasted coffee and a host of snacks.
But of course, a typical work day at CD Baby isn’t all virtual parties and free Cheetos. Survey respondents say they take pride in the mission of helping independent musicians make money from their work. It’s a mission that’s all the more timely since quarantine measures have shut down many artists’ primary revenue stream: concerts.
Traditionally, a recording artist would release an album and then go on tour to support it. (Full disclosure: This reporter once sold some not-so-good music on the old CDBaby.com store.)
Tracy Maddux, CD Baby’s CEO, outside the company's Portland location on July 9, 2020.Randy L. Rasmussen/For The Oregonian/OregonLive
“The objective of the release was to support the more lucrative means of supporting yourself — touring,” says Tracy Maddux, who joined CD Baby in 2010 and took the helm as chief executive in 2012. “With the pandemic, it’s gone from 60 miles an hour to 0 (for live musicians). Now local venues are struggling to survive and the nature of life has changed.”
As revenue from concerts disappeared overnight, artists turned to releasing new music, typically using a service such as CD Baby’s to upload their digital releases direct to streaming services like Spotify, Apple Music and more than 100 other platforms. Since the start of quarantine, artists at all levels have been releasing exponentially more new music, even spawning a very-2020 buzzword: “quarantine album.”
“When the pandemic hit, (CD Baby) went from growing to growing really, really fast,” says Maddux, who admits his team has had “trouble keeping up” with the number of new releases artists submit through their digital distribution services. Maddux had projected the company’s crop of new releases would grow by around 15% in March, but the pandemic has driven that to more than 50%, he says.
So far, the company’s only major casualty seems the most ironic: CD Baby no longer directly sells CDs. On March 31, CD Baby retired its online retail store, which founder Derek Sivers had launched in 1998 amid the dot-com craze. In the early days, Sivers helped pioneer e-commerce for many musicians. But in recent years, digital music distribution and a suite of monetization and promotional services have made up the vast majority of the company’s profits, not physical CD sales. Maddux declined to share revenue, though in prior years CD Baby has reported paying out more than $100 million in artists’ earnings, the vast majority generated online. After closing the store, CD Baby avoided layoffs by retraining its warehouse personnel to work in other divisions.
“We’re focused on what’s driving our business now — and they’re completely different business activities than we were engaged in 20 years ago,” Maddux says. “What have we learned? Being good at change is being good in times of crisis.” Virtual dates with llamas seem to help a little, too.
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