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Record labels aren’t obsolete yet. In fact, they probably never will be. Products sell better with publicity and marketing behind them. That comes with money. Labels aggregate money in ways that individual bands can’t. One can’t download an album if one doesn’t know it exists. Bands usually don’t have the resources to buy ad space or solicit interviews. Labels theoretically do.
Imagine a world where labels don’t exist, and where bands only promote themselves via MySpace and YouTube. That would be catastrophic. Not only would there be a glut of information, it would be undifferentiated. Even with downloading, people won’t stop reading magazines and websites (well, maybe magazines, given the state of publishing) to learn about music. Information overload plus limited time makes filters necessary. Likewise, record labels are filters of taste, and sometimes quality.
If they don’t change business models, however, they’ll be obsolete in their current forms. This is obvious. The question is how labels should change. Answering this requires understanding the current models. Here’s the dominant one. Band or label finances making of album. Band signs rights to album over to label; label promotes album. Label makes its money from album sales. Unless band sells vast numbers of recordings, it makes its money from touring.
But one problem is derailing this whole model. People aren’t buying albums. (Well, they are, just fewer and fewer each year.) Note that the above model has only two income sources: album sales and touring. (For simplicity’s sake, let’s ignore radio and TV airplay, which are usually negligible in metal.) Labels own the former, and bands own the latter. Thus, labels ostensibly get the shaft because bands seem fine. People are still willing to buy overpriced tickets to see nostalgia acts. But if labels hurt, bands hurt. No album sales = no capital for making records and promoting them. Until bands are smart enough to figure how to promote themselves – which will probably never happen – bands and labels need each other.
Thus, they need to solve this “people not buying albums” problem. They’re not doing it very well. Admittedly, it’s a multi-front war. CD’s are too expensive. Albums generally suck (all filler, no killer). People have less money to spend in today’s economy. One solution making the rounds is the 360 deal. In such a deal, labels not only make money from album sales, they also take a cut of tour revenue. Maybe they’ll provide tour support in exchange. However, bands are going to let labels encroach only so far on their traditional revenue stream. And if a band is so desperate for a deal that it signs away its touring income, then it deserves the consequences.
I propose this solution: stop selling albums. Give them away. Or at least drop the prices way, way lower. The price that people want to pay for albums is irreversibly trending towards zero. Albums aren’t like cars, where higher prices connote quality. People are perfectly happy to listen to 192 kbps MP3’s on iPod headphones. In other words, they’re happy with crap. Crap should not cost much. CD’s should cost no more than $10. MP3 albums should cost no more than $5. Prices should be low enough to persuade people not to download illegally. As I’ve said before, illegal downloading has costs: time, effort, and occasionally the risk of prosecution. If Joe Downloader requires 15 minutes to find and illegally download an album, he might be willing to pay $3 to have it immediately and legally. A positive experience will lead to more purchases.
In 10 years, the price of CD’s will likely be moot. Increasingly, computers are being sold without CD drives (the MacBook Air, ultra-portable netbooks). As Internet and Bluetooth come to dominate information transfer, physical media will become obsolete. (The big exception, of course, is vinyl, which will never go away. But it’s too expensive and too niche to pay a label’s bills, unless that label is Nuclear War Now! or Southern Lord.) The first thing I do when I get a CD is rip it to my hard drive. I’m not even burning CD’s anymore. Of course, people still buy CD’s. Labels shouldn’t ditch CD’s entirely yet, so as to serve that market. But that market is shrinking, so labels should gradually phase out CD manufacturing.
Giving away albums may become inevitable. When digital media replace physical media, profit margins should stay in line with consumers’ sensibilities. Manufacturing and middlemen drive up the costs of CD’s. Those are gone with MP3’s. Sure, $8.99 for an MP3 album at Amazon is less than a $12.99 CD. But it’s still too much. $8.99 should get me a used CD, not a sonically inferior MP3 album that lacks artwork. Faced with an $8.99 MP3 album, Joe Downloader will likely take the extra 15 minutes to get it free illegally.
Giving away albums may not seem to solve the “people not buying albums” problem. The trick is to make them buy other stuff – preferably, stuff that’s not downloadable. T-shirts, for example. People will always buy t-shirts. If I ran a record label, I would make it into a merch operation. Treat the album as an ad. Give it away. Spread the word. Use it as a loss leader to get people in the door to check out other goods. Wal-Mart does this brilliantly (and evilly). Instead of paying for CD manufacturing, use that money to make shirts. Hire good graphic designers. Make shirts people actually want to buy. (People make good billboards. Also, bands generally design ugly t-shirts. Labels can do so much better.) Let bands sell those shirts on tour only if you get a cut.
Now, t-shirts may not be perfect economic replacements for CD’s; it’s easier to store 1000 CD’s than 1000 t-shirts. But people are much less willing now to pay $15 for a CD than a t-shirt. Additionally, CD’s are dead-end income sources. A CD need be bought only once. (Unless it’s on Roadrunner, where it inevitably gets reissued a year later with a dubious bonus track or repackaging.) People will buy multiple t-shirts for bands in the course of an album cycle. And t-shirts are more likely than CD’s to increase in value over time, on eBay, and so on.
In other words, record labels need to become brands. How often do you see people wear record label gear? Century Media should rebrand themselves as “CM” (like Calvin Klein’s “CK”). Kids should be walking around with zip-up hoodies with “CM” in huge gothic letters. Metal Blade should start a fashion line called “Blade.” (P. Diddy’s Sean John clothing line probably far eclipses his Bad Boy label in revenue.) Victory should drop its bulldog mascot, especially since they have nothing to do with hardcore now. Prosthetic should get an in-house graphic designer (like Orion Landau for Relapse), because their artwork usually looks like Photoshop exercises. Nuclear Blast should sponsor MMA fighters, with that nuclear logo across fighters’ asses. And Southern Lord needn’t change one bit – they’re practically at the stage where music is incidental to its physical artifact.
To recap, record labels should:
Ideas, comments, suggestions?
Very interesting. The “label marketing as a brand” thing is something I’ve already thought about. The importance of the band shirt is also now a big part in a band’s daily income to survive on the road. I remember reading that Job for a Cowboy sold 1 000 dollars of merch each night when the opened for Six Feet Under.
What’s also completly genius about this band is their name. Even if it’s a dumb name, it’s a great choice to catch people attention and market it to a specific group of teenagers like deathcore fans.
How many t-shirts does a guy need, really?
Ooooh careful with the bulldog comments Tony Brummel might leave a flaming pile of aiden cd’s on your doorstep.
Youll know its him because you will see the light reflecting of his bald glans of a head behind the neighbors bushes!
How can the music be a loss leader when its already trending toward being an inelastic (free) good? If you look at the slow demise of “music 2.0,” you’ll see that so-called “free” music does very little to generate new revenue streams, and certainly adds to the noise in the system. People can’t even find the albums they want thanks to platform proliferation (i.e. What’s imeem?, etc.)
It’s brutal out there, to be sure. The labels can’t simply give up, but like newspapers, they had institutional advantages (i.e. money, personnel) to establish themselves online and simply didn’t. It’s a crime of omission that’s become a crime of commission as labels frantically license music everywhere, only to bleed those new companies to death via ad-based revenue sharing.
I don’t now how things work so well in the metal world but I know that in hardcore shirts definitely increase in value on ebay. The prices people are willing to pay for an old Youth Of Today shirt with a Schism Records logo on it.
I also know that hardcore labels were pretty good about creating label merchandise usually with some good artists. Dave Quiggle doing shirts for SA Mob and other labels comes to mind. I remember when John Wylie was starting to push Eulogy Recordings he came to shows with a giant box of shirts with his label name on it and sold them for $5. That’ll get the name out.
On the subject of MP3 albums, I have never downloaded one so I was interested to hear that the quality is not that great. Is this generally the case with all downloaded (legal and paid for) Mp3s? Crappy quality for the “convenience” of downloading? That sucks, but I’m glad for the warning.
As CW mentioned up top, good luck fending off the Tony B barrage you may get if he finds this.
And t-shirts are more likely than CD’s to increase in value over time, on eBay, and so on.
Sororicide’s ‘The Entity’ begs to differ. People have spent several thousand on eBay… FOR A CD! Talk about disposable income…
This is slightly veering away from what you’re talking about but I’m bothered by the inflation in prices that I mentioned above. Some sort of system needs to be in place to give bands a cut of the profit collectors make when they sell and buy rare items. I’m sure the members of Sororicide are going ‘FUUUUCK! We practically gave those away!!’ right about now and it’s just not fair to them that someone else is making such a profit off their hard work.
Also, I don’t think I’m ever personally going to buy an mp3 album. As has been mentioned elsewhere, there’s something about hearing an album on your stereo or turntable with artwork and various booklets in hand that just can’t be recreated via legal or illegal mp3 downloads. I like cluttering up my shelves and I’m an incurable packrat. mp3s just aren’t physical enough and I don’t own a working iPod anyway so I’m stuck to listening to mp3s only on the computer (which has a harddrive which, as always, can go kaput).
Another thing, limited color vinyl. Hardcore labels loved thier colored vinyl.
Kids at shows would blow thier paychecks for colored vinyl and shirts just for the investment possibilties.
Then they’d turn those profits around and buy an original Chung King Can Suck It record.
onerodetoasabay – You are definitly right about CDs. Look at Temporary Residence or the defunct Tree Records. All of thier releases are “limited” and quite a few get jacked up on ebay. It’s always been my belief that labels create this limited collectibilty just to withhold a few copies and sell them on ebay for profits.
I don’t think Deathwish Gear has anything to do with the record label. It looks to be based in NY, for one thing, and no way would a label with such incredible graphic design sell such poor looking apparel… right? I think? I HOPE!?
Hororo – $1000 a night for JFAC??? That must have blown SFU’s merch sales out of the water.
evanz – That thought did cross my mind. But you’d be surprised. The guy from Nifelheim says he has over 1,000 Iron Maiden shirts.
CW – That thought did cross my mind.
blackmail – You’re right, something can’t be a loss leader if there’s no price to discount in the first place. But there’s certainly a cost to labels and bands to make albums, so to them, consumers driving album prices to zero probably feels like loss leading.
Maybe music 2.0 isn’t making money because it’s still working within purely music channels (your “platform proliferation”). All that licensing is perhaps just another version of traditional album royalties.
Rob – For MP3 albums, you’ll want to look at how they’re ripped – bitrate, and using which software. A lot of albums are sold at 192 kbps, which is crap. Amazon sells at 256 kbps , which is better, and for most people, probably indistinguishable from CD’s. Some places (particularly electronic music outlets, since they cater to club DJ’s) go with 320 kbps. I’ve even seen places offer lossless FLAC or WAV files, which are very cool but are huge and would be tough to store and download.
onerode – Sure, there are collectible CD’s out there, but I think eBay mania afflicts vinyl and t-shirts more. Re: the ridiculous price inflation you mentioned – that’s a tough one. In most cases, the band/label had no way of knowing that the market would deem their product a collectible. And, if demand is exceeding supply to such great lengths, it’s up to bands and labels to step in and get what’s theirs by doing reissues.
Andrew Aversion – The Deathwish label FAQ definitely establishes a commercial MMA aspect for the company. On the other hand, I’m not 100% sure of the connection, esp. given the things you’ve mentioned. I’ve shot the Gear folks an email and will see what they say.
Aversion, you’re right. I just e-mailed Cosmo with this info.
We, Deathwish the LABEL, do sponsor some MMA fighters and have made those fighters T-Shirts, but we are in no way affiliated with the Deathwish Gear company. And you’re right about the graphic design, haha, our shit would look WAY cooler!
-Nicole
Fixed – thanks, Andrew and Nicole, for the correction. Apologies for any confusion caused.
Even mainstream culture is cashing in on the whole graphics thing. Look at Affliction, Ed Hady and Metal Couture for example: they sell shirts for at least $75 each at Nordstrom and they totally copy the style of artists like Derek Hess, Ryan Patterson and Jacob Bannon, who typically don’t sell their shirts for more than $15. Nowadays I see kids who aren’t even into Metal looking like they just got out of a Converge show with the words ROCK N’ ROLL emblazoned across their chest. It’s very irritating that these people wouldn’t even take the time to research where these graphics came from or if they are original or not, it’s cool I guess as long as some very popular mainstream band like Five Finger Death Punch *shrugs* wears it. One entity with integrity starts it while a corporate outsider exploits it, milks it, then moves on to the next trend, leaving the originators high and dry.
As far as media formats go, I still continue to buy cd’s and vinyl regardless if they’re in style or not, I like the collector aspect of being a Metal fan. However, I’d rather support the artists by buying the cd’s and vinyl directly from them or their labels’ respective mail order services. I still remember collecting cassettes when I was younger and I still have a few of them in possesion after I could afford to buy cd’s. My most prized Metal cassette tape is a first pressing of Death Angel’s The Ultraviolence which I inherited from my older brother. I still collect cd’s and vinyl also for having a visual aspect of the album that I just purchased. Nothing beats the feeling of reading the album liner notes on the bus on the way home from the record store then putting it in your player. The reason why the big record companies are haemorraghing money is because they spend so much on promoting crappy artists. Look at Roadrunner for instance: Nickelback is a big moneymaker for them, considering that they used to have Obituary and Deicide. They invested a lot in Nickelback that they don’t mind the fact that Nickleback is terrible yet they are popular so the more credible bands that eventually left Roadrunner (like Suffocation for instance), are being left out without any financial support. This is more evident in bigger labels for pushing crap like Hinder on MTV and radio for the sole purpose of cashing in on a hit single and using too much money on useless marketing. Why spend a million dollars on a music video? Why spend a shitload of money on a private jet for a US tour? Who needs that shit? It’s a matter of checks and balances and better accounting practices, I suppose.
Cosmo, you’ve gotten a lot of useful comments on the same page as what you initially suggest here, I hope you won’t mind if I go a bit left of The Economist on this:
If we care about great HM then should we really care about keeping this industry afloat? Does it provide for great HM or is it coincidental to its goals? Professional minded bands once made the best HM 20 years ago but if you’ve noticed, the more professional a band gets the safer they play it and usually, the least interesting their future output becomes (besides as some sort of nostalgic artifact). I posit that HM becoming an industry is as much contributing to the fall of quality and most importantly the lack of vision, than changing trends about music distribution. Most vital HM right now I theorize is being made by bands and people who do not expect to make a living out of their stuff, they just feel compelled to make it. HM is an esoteric venture, it can (should?) no longer be about the pipe dream of ’signing to a label, making a million, never having to work another day’. That’s a rock n’ roll pipe-dream and it creates so much second, third, eighth rate bands with delusions of greatness that hurt anyone trying to do something vital in this genre of music. Let all the shit drown in shit, those that are in it for something greater than ‘a living’ should be the ones that we should support.
I suggest a more grassroots way of looking at it. Bands that are for real should have manned websites(not just ‘oh we have a new album out, buy it here’ updated once per 2 years placeholders), creative blogs, donation boxes, sell hand-crafted stuff, establish a significant communication with their listeners, not just treat them like distant buyers. People will support – not just throw money to but really support – great artists that are being human about their art. Mark Shelton from Manilla Road has said that if any of his fans ever are in Wichita, Kansas an need a place to crash they just can come right over to where he lives. He says that and he believes it and you better believe that if he ever needs a place to stay in Greece, there’s about 2,000 people that will be there to help. This isn’t an accident. Can you say it would be the same about random Century Media product metal band?
The death of the industry of HM will not be the end of HM itself. Quite the opposite. HM has already ‘died’ once, during 1992-1998 or so it was going nowhere and look at what happened during that time: black metal, romantic doom/death, arguably the last two significant progressions HM has seen in the last 15 years! And what killed it during that period in the first place: comodification and appropriation of death metal!
Things going shitty for HM is usually good for the artists that are making this sort of music for the right reasons. People misunderstanding us or not caring about us is good for what HM is about. ‘Making a living’ should no longer be a priority. If people can’t take it, they should go do some other sort of music. If people still want to make some sort of living, go tour your ass off, meet your fans, establish communication. Don’t let any label touch tour revenues, they don’t deserve it they didn’t sweat a single day for it.
I do agree that making the actual album and things surrounding it more beautiful and special would be a good thing, I don’t care about the industry, it would be a good thing because beautiful is nice. Not just t-shirts, bands need to be critical of the ‘album format’. Just because it’s established doesn’t mean it has to stay the same. For example, bring back the liner notes, explain the background of the songs and lyrics in a lush booklet, trace the history of the band with photographs, print photographs of the places which were significant for the band (garage, first live venue, THE MOUNTAINS if you’re from Norway, hah) be more human about it, put more effort into it. Show yourselves!
And yes, vinyl. If I had a record label it would be pressing limited vinyl. I’d only put out HM that is worth it and print it in small qualities and let pieces fall where they may. If the music were to I put out is not deemed good enough for the listener to go through the ritual of opening the gatefold, getting the vinyl out, cleaning it, putting it on the turntable, sitting without distraction and fully taking in an hour’s worth of music then I would deserve to go bankrupt. Labels shouldn’t print mediocre HM, we shouldn’t encourage them or try to find economical loopholes through which they can support that. How many great HM records come out each year? 5-6, 12-14 if you’re very lenient? That is not an industry. We shouldn’t treat it as one.
On topic, I agree with you 100,000% here:
People are perfectly happy to listen to 192 kbps MP3’s on iPod headphones. In other words, they’re happy with crap. Crap should not cost much. CD’s should cost no more than $10. MP3 albums should cost no more than $5. Prices should be low enough to persuade people not to download illegally. As I’ve said before, illegal downloading has costs: time, effort, and occasionally the risk of prosecution. If Joe Downloader requires 15 minutes to find and illegally download an album, he might be willing to pay $3 to have it immediately and legally. A positive experience will lead to more purchases.
As someone who downloads both legally and “illegally” (only when the items are very rare/out of print), I cannot fucking stress enough how many missed opportunities I see out there for bands and labels to make more money selling digitally.
I said pretty much the same thing the last time you posted something like this, but I mean, god damn, think how many hundreds of rare releases there are out there – and it’s a MASSIVE pain in the ass to try to find many of them even “illegally”, and then it’s a total crapshoot as to whether the bitrate will be good, whether you can find the artwork, etc. If I could go to eMusic, Amazon.com, or iTunes Plus right now and sort through the entire back catalogs of various labels for like $5 a pop or something, I would seriously drop $200+ immediately. No doubt about it.
I just can’t understand why more bands and labels are exploring those options to the fullest extent. Would it kill off illegal downloading? Hell no, but for the right price, a LOT of people would absolutely go the legal route instead of bothering to poke around on Google trying to find old shit for free.
And more labels need to sell digital copies of vinyl releases as well. Say what you will, but I simply WILL NOT buy vinyl anymore unless the label does what Deathwish is doing and includes a digital download ticket with the vinyl. I’ve bought more 7″ releases off of eMusic and iTunes in the last 3 months than I’ve bought physical 7″s all year.
Sales are sales, right? More people need to face that fact and make the material available in as many ways as possible. If making the shit openly available through these avenues would shift even 5% of illegal downloads over to digital sales, why the hell not go for it!?
“I just can’t understand why more bands and labels AREN’T exploring those options to the fullest extent…”
…that was supposed to say.
I totally agree with Aversion. I got into MP3s early and ripped all my CDs to MP3 starting around ‘97, so a lot of stuff is at 128 kbps!
I would love to be to just buy these albums again for a few bucks each, rather than to dig up/track down the CD and re-rip them!
I’m not convinced that the traditional role of the label is as necessary as you suggest. I may be atypical, but I find bands to listen to via these channels, in decreasing order of relevance:
- review sites (such as metalreviews.com)
- personal blogs (such as Invisible Oranges)
- years’ end lists (I search these out each year)
- linkages in systems such as lastFM
- radio
I don’t go to MySpace, I don’t read metal publications, I don’t watch music on TV. For me, the main thing the labels are doing is financing the recording of the albums in the first place. Of course, I may be an outlier here – or, maybe I’m just ahead of the curve the rest of the world will be forced to navigate?
So, if the band is accumulator of all remaining revenues, and the label’s primary role is up-front finance, why not convert their relationship to a purely financial one? The up-and-coming band needs (unsecured) money to record, without structured repayments, and they need to be able to default without personal liability. In return, the label gets an agreed share of the band’s total income (probably expressed as a step function decreasing over income brackets, and perhaps with a limited period.) The label’s role becomes the provision of finance, and their profitability will depend on their ability to identify good financial risks. And if bands have to get accountants before they get managers, that may not be a bad thing.
Full disclosure: I am not a metal head. I do listen to metal, but I am not part of the culture of metal, if that makes sense. If anything I come from the world of noiserock, but first and foremost from the world of DIY and the underground.
Having said that:
Literally, it is almost like I wrote this article, that is scary.
Kind of awesome as well.
I agree completely.
360 deals don’t have to be province of Coldplay and Peter Gabriel alone and it it scalable. It is the wave of the present for any label or entertainment group looking to make any money.
It’s something i’ve thought about a lot.
It’s all about tour support and promotion now, 2 things that, traditionally most microindie labels have never even done because of lack of funds.
That’s really too bad too, because this is an evolve or go extinct moment to be sure.
Let me expound, I played in this band Replicator for 8 years, we made records, we toured, we made t-shirts we did all the things that bands did. Something I began to notice was that in our last year of operation, more people seemed to know us and like us, yet our sales remained about the same, show attendence was way up though and we sold 3 or 4 times as many t-shirts.
This was due to the advent of file sharing as much as anything else. Had we known that was going to happen, instead of just assuming we would be ramming our heads into the concrete wall as we had the previous 3/4 of a decade, we could have prepared with more physical stuff to sell… and indeed gone further than just the IDEA of “online” singles and stuff like that.
With my current (and new) band Mount Vicious, we are trying to keep in mind all of the ideas presented in this article and the comments.
First of all, every song is written as if that is the only MV song you will ever hear. Why? Because it’s an itunes party shuffle world and peoples attention span is being whittled down to that of a gnat. To a certain degree people have said this means it is the death of an album.
In relation to the metal world, TORCHE does this absolutely brilliantly.
I wouldn’t say the album is dead entirely, although it does have some merit… what it really means is that the album will have to be a collection of singles to a certain degree.
Which actually prefaces the contemporary music underground, punk, heavy metal, indie rock, noiserock, experimental, etc.
Bands need to adapt to survive as well, but look at it this way:
Touring is expensive and the number one barrier for bands to tour is always money. Always!
(as an aside: There also is a serious problem with the signal to noise ratio, and most bands are hacky to mediocre and should not waste anymore of the world’s attention or oxygen by continuing on. Break up!)
Labels need to not just say: “We need you to tour”, they need to say:”Here is what we will do to HELP you tour!”
You can’t tell me Relapse and Hydrahead or even Kill Rock Stars isn’t a brand… because it is!
(please don’t get me started about Touch and Go, they lost their way awhile ago)
The brand needs bands to go out on tour, but instead of just saying that, there needs to be actual HELP involved.
That’s what the label of today needs to focus on. Distro is a lot easier now and cds are promotional tools, not a revenue model.
So, in conclusion, I think this is the only path to relevancy for labels and it is going to be something, unfortunately… most labels will be dragged late to the party with.
which is too bad.
-Conan Neutron
Mount Vicious
http://www.mountvicious.com
http://www.myspace.com/mountvicious
damn it.
I also forgot to mention, i listen to music EXCLUSIVELY digitally now.
I still buy cds, especially if is on an indie label and they actually make an effort to make a cool package, but when I listen it is on the computer (which I have going to a nice sound system) or the ipod.
-Conan Neutron
Not just t-shirts, posters too! I love buying band posters, and not enough bands print them.
bacon – I totally know what you mean. Recently the ghetto fabulous have been looking like deathcore fans. Re: Roadrunner – they are at a level now where “terrible” doesn’t matter. Only money does. I’m not sure their marketing is “useless.” It’s worked for Nickelback, etc. One feeds one’s cash cow.
Helm – Until bands figure out how to finance their records, labels are the ones to do it. Thus, things that help labels ultimately (or ideally) should help bands. Re: band formation and quality of records – that all shakes out in the market. Good and bad music will always exist in the same proportion.
Andrew Aversion – I think why bands/labels aren’t exploring aggressive pricing yet is because it seems so extreme. If everyone is selling MP3 albums at $9, which label wants to be the first to try the $5 price point, with of course lower profit margins?
Matt – The financial role you propose for labels seems to be that which they fulfill today. Your model is probably more sophisticated than today's royalty percentages, but otherwise everything seems similar. "Identifying good financial risks" is a vital part of A&R.;
Mount – Thanks for the thoughtful comments and anecdotal evidence.
magnumforce – Labels and bands do make posters now, but they don’t seem like good revenue generators to me. Currently they exist in 2 main kinds – the super-cheap 1 or 2 dollar version, and the deluxe, artistic John Dyer Baizley or Jacob Bannon kind. The former doesn’t generate much profit, especially since people don’t buy posters in large quantities. The latter is tough to store and transport (requires poster tubes, etc.).
I usually find that labels that print posters usually end up just giving them away in thier mailorders when people don’t buy them.
I think a lot of this comes down to customer service. If you treat people with respect, you’ll get it back. Send a note with your CD’s to say thanks. Keep in touch with your fan base. Ask THEM what they want. Give things away. Saying, “thanks we REALLY appreciate it” and making things more personable will go a long way.
“Imagine a world where labels don’t exist, and where bands only promote themselves via MySpace and YouTube. That would be catastrophic. Not only would there be a glut of information, it would be undifferentiated. Even with downloading, people won’t stop reading magazines and websites (well, maybe magazines, given the state of publishing) to learn about music. Information overload plus limited time makes filters necessary. Likewise, record labels are filters of taste, and sometimes quality.”
For sure. And to a large extent, I think that’s what’s happening, Cosmo. The DIY thing is GREAT for bands….but terrible for the fan or potential fan, because when too many bands are doing it, it starts to become anonymous. Look at messageboard spam–street teams–at the onset of the internet “revolution” for music, most labels thought this was a great way to sell music. It wasn’t. It actually created a backlash and a phony sense of grandeur–that the band was worth hearing because they somehow found that messageboard for advertisement.
The thing is, more bands are having to sell themselves, and as one person told me, “nobody wants to hear how great you think your band is. They want to hear it from someone else”. So messageboard spammers changed their tactic and we’ve all seen it–the guy with 1 post that’s raving about this “great new album”.
Phonies masking as sincere people ruined alot of what *could* have been good about internet marketing. Even spam for Viagra or whatever has something like a one in 100,000 messages sent success rate. If that’s a success, I don’t know what a failure would be.
Or regular bands going on messageboards saying “check out my band!”. I have news to those bands, no one is going to check out their band, because they said to. That sounds weird, it’s a “how do I get attention if no one has heard me?/ how do I get people to hear me if I don’t create attention?” vortex, but it’s safe to say that internet marketing was never quite as easy as most thought it would be.
And in fairness to the audiences, there’s just way too many of these bands doing it–amateuristic bands with half baked demos, etc. Few of those acts ever *really* put emphasis on the end listeners’ time, and that’s still where they’re going wrong.
Harmony Central has tons of these types–people that expect to be megastars overnight, because they can type on a messageboard and think that it should result in tons of sales or attention. If you notice, most people on messageboards are either in bands or have some sort of thing to sell. You generally don’t sell to those types of people. You can usually swing trades which is cool….but I think that most bands and musicians are finding that there’s more value in the *trading* community, than the *selling* community.
“People are still willing to buy overpriced tickets to see nostalgia acts.”
That’s another thing. It’s hard to compete with something like Pink Floyd’s “Dark Side of the Moon”, when it still sells 8 thousand copies a week. And it’s hard to compete with even indie labels or power indies, where they have their bread and butter acts amidst this downsizing. There’s no incentive for labels to sign a new band that sounds like PF circa that time, simply because the nostalgia circuit does so well.
Music used to be based on the newest bands, not the nostalgia circuit. But we’re finding that there’s a reason for those classic albums–that they’re just that damned good–and that in some capacity, the old artists and old albums and old obscure albums have leaked enough into the public’s consciousness to render new acts taking those sounds as redundant.
There was no internet in 1965—the best you had was a buddy’s recommendation or the radio, or maybe a recommendation to check out a new touring band that was coming through your local community centre, or a cool band you saw that opened up for a major act. And they didn’t typically want to promote an older band, they wanted something new, hip, fresh, exciting.
To some extent, the avenues for promotion have got wider, but they’ve also choked off alot of artists that otherwise thought that it was never a better time in the music industry, than with the digital revolution.
Most of us are finding out that the majors and the limited resources in which to have access to music did an inservice to the majority of bands, but did wonders for the bands out there working hard for their own destiny. Now, there’s tons of bands working extremely hard for their own destiny, but few rewards…..and few truly legitimate outlets in which to really have their promotional vehicles to have any prestige, whatsoever.
Think of it from the band’s view—online, you could theoretically stock your release at thousands of places, but now it’s up to bands and indies to judge which outlets are the best. To some extent, those outlets have become too easy, because of the risky proposition–it’s easy to get stocked, because those places know that it’s *not easy to sell*. And bands are having to do their own distro (paying for shipping, stocking, paperwork), and they’re finding out that it’s the *distribution* industry that’s in trouble right now.
“Until bands are smart enough to figure how to promote themselves – which will probably never happen – bands and labels need each other.”
I touched a bit on this in my above words–bands are often trying to be smart about it, but you’ll have as many people in the industry promising them the moon. You’d have to ask yourself how many artists invested in Burn Lounge, which was deemed a MLM scheme–or, the Amway of music–before it was shut down.
Alot of upstart companies are promising bands the moon, and they know that the bands don’t stand a chance. Although in the past, these places would have often been labels or smaller labels that would have released bands’ stuff, working on a “sign lots, see what sticks” philosophy (the majors have always lost money on 95 percent of their roster).
There are studios out there soliciting musicians, because times are tough, and they sort of build up the artist’s ego, when they know that they basically don’t have a hope in hell of getting signed to a major or even recouping their studio expenses.
And generally speaking, musicians aren’t great businesspeople. They will get flattered by anyone that thinks that they have potential, so then they’re more likely to be exploited by alot of the guys that got laid off from major labels, that are still working in the industry to some extent.
“CD’s are too expensive. Albums generally suck (all filler, no killer). People have less money to spend in today’s economy.”
I agree that people have less to spend, and that cd’s, in theory, are too expensive. But the problem is that, at the end of the day, engineering/ production/ mixing/ mastering costs alot, pressing costs alot (especially if you don’t press in bulk), shipping is a killer, and promo is, perhaps, the most underrated cog.
You can spend 50 grand on making an album, but probably 10 or more times that trying to promote it, trying to get it reviewed, noticed, into the public eye. It’s always been a high priced risk….advertising, as a whole, has never really been a largely effective thing for every brand, product, or band.
I’ve had advertising, as a label and band, at certain places, and the records haven’t sold well at all. Until one gets into the paid aspect of it, they’ll never know how ineffective advertising can really be. If it doesn’t sell, it doesn’t sell, you really can’t do anything about it. The Stooges and MC5 were financial liabilities to Elektra, and their records were quickly out of print not too long after it was shown that audiences just didn’t like them then. History has shown differently, but then, they were tax writeoffs and the label hated them.
“In such a deal, labels not only make money fro
m album sales, they also take a cut of tour revenue. Maybe they’ll provide tour support in exchange. However, bands are going to let labels encroach only so far on their traditional revenue stream. And if a band is so desperate for a deal that it signs away its touring income, then it deserves the consequences.”
Madonna did this with Live Nation. Labels are starting to try to go after live income in major artists’ cases, but to do so on an independent level, would sink bands in clubs that often rely on that merch money as gas money to get to the next town. I’ve heard of tour managers fudging sales units sold as lower on the road for tax purposes, but if this was enacted, they’d have to fudge it due to label purposes.
“I propose this solution: stop selling albums. Give them away. Or at least drop the prices way, way lower. The price that people want to pay for albums is irreversibly trending towards zero.”
That would be nice; however, we are all seeing the price to be paid for the art that comes out. When bands have less money as budgets have shrunk, their time in the studio to get things right to do another take, layer things, try different textures, etc….that all goes out the window.
New bands are suffering largely, because even indie labels are taking less of a risk than in past days. That leaves alot of bands with alot of promise to have to produce and record and develop their own albums, and most bands can’t do this successfully. They need a discerning ear, someone to push them to be better, someone to suggest that they can do a better take.
Without that, I think that most of us are seeing the hollow shell of the promised lands of the digital revolution fall flat, because it never compensated for the fact that most bands aren’t great at the technical end of making records. Not only that, but most bands aren’t businessmen. It leaves them to sell themselves, and let’s face it, a great manager, a great, cooperative label pulling for your best interests can get most artists and bands much further than they ever can.
“Manufacturing and middlemen drive up the costs of CD’s. Those are gone with MP3’s. Sure, $8.99 for an MP3 album at Amazon is less than a $12.99 CD. But it’s still too much. $8.99 should get me a used CD, not a sonically inferior MP3 album that lacks artwork.
One thing that you need to consider, is that ITunes, I think, takes upward of 20-30 percent. That’s comparable to physical distro, in which they typically mark it up 25 percent. You’d have to ask ITunes why they charge so much, because this cuts into the price that people can charge. And at ITunes, they have it structured so that you CANNOT charge less than 99 cents, even if you wanted to. So I must make it clear that ITunes has stepped up to be the greedy middleman here, and there’s not alot that bands can do. Though, at Nimbit, you can change the pricing, and they take a very, very low commission rate, so that you can pass that on to fans.
As i’ve mentioned before, this would be fine if MP3 sales were high enough to warrant a bulk rate–a discount, if you will. For most bands–even major bands–MP3’s are somewhat like a bigger cork in a very leaky boat. It will help stop the sinking of the boat, but not forever. If people file share at the rate that they are going at, they will put most of the business under.
I post on a production messageboard with alot of big name guys. Alot of people that were making a living off of it ten years ago are trying desperately to not have to find another career. Again, if paid MP3 sales came anywhere close to the mass theft of unpaid ones, it wouldn’t be happening.
The music business (rather, the entertainment business with movies, etc), currently, is the only business to have a product where you don’t *physically* have to steal it, just the intellectual property. I’d say that it’s held on pretty well despite the fact that if you gave people the option of paying for a product versus not paying for it–in any other economical structure, like maybe a fridge or stove or bed or something–those industries would simply cease to exist.
Right now, the music industry as a whole survives largely around tax writeoffs; surviving on what funds are available for releases, until the next year’s money that is returned in the form of what you lost. I would know this, because i’m not anywhere close to making profits off of my releases.
I’ve tried every method. Niche marketing doesn’t work, because you’re competing globally with an incredible amount of bands. Playing live doesn’t work, because as one club owner said to me, “gone are the days that bands could play a couple of nights in a row and make a living at it”. Even the most popular bands here can’t play more than every few months; they risk weakening their draw.
I talked to a guy in a reputable nationally respected act, and he says that he sells about 15 copies per year, online. He said “well, I just sort of came to expect that it was the new model”. If you’ve ever wondered why bands on MySpace have ten zillion friends, it’s because the personal approach doesn’t sell records. People may write on the comments board about “great tunes” or whatever, but those people don’t buy. I know, because I tried to put effort into keeping in touch with people and tried the personal approach, and like most bands, I thought, “hey, here’s a good way to stay in touch with people and network”, but it’s a terrible sales tool–for networking and trades, it’s good, but sales, forget about it.
And when I look at the local paper, every nightclub, every bar has some act on every night. For the casual fan, it’s hard to be excited, because everyone’s got a cd release, it seems, like every week.
I solely exist because I believe that i’m offering something different than what people are used to. It’s not the money, because nowadays there’s none to be had. And that sort of thing–falling between genres–has never sold well, as a whole. I’ve tried to keep prices low for people, and that doesn’t result in sales–the people that will buy will buy anyways, and the people that won’t, won’t be impressed enough at the prospect of sales where there’s a few dollars knocked off, or with bonus tracks or whatever.
I hate to sound like there’s nothing good about it….but this is the reality for most bands these days. Sales and the personal touch and niche marketing and bonus tracks and incentives and great reviews and critical acclaim just don’t get people to purchase. I’ve hit the top #30 at several campus radio stations, because i’ve promoed at tons of places…..but again, that hasn’t translated into sales and although I receive royalty cheques, they’re not much, and you don’t get much per play.
All of this stuff was meant to be a subsidy to augment sales….pending that there were eventually sales. I’m lucky to sell 10 copies online per year, and i’ve had pretty good distro and awareness of the releases. It’s a very, very tough time in this industry these days. And at points, I can understand it, because there’s simply too many mouths to feed…..everyone’s got a release.
One thing that i’m disappointed in is that great reviews don’t sell music. I can say that honestly. I thought they would, but no. All the hard work that many great people have done, and all the time that they’ve taken to write great words about what my stuff means to them, doesn’t sell. It’s a really, really sobering reality of the whole promotions industry, much as how I found out about my ads at the niche genre place…..it almost did nothing.
As a result, publications are paying writers and journalists less these days. They never made much before, but some publications have downsized their reviews sections and I surmise that it will be more difficult than ever to get a paid position for writing.
To a certain extent, the *promotions* industry is in very big trouble if bands pay for advertisements and promo and send their relea
ses out to people, and the audiences don’t buy because of it.
I forgot to mention Cosmo–i’m passionate about this, because I truly believe. I believe in the power of music. I know you do too. I know that the people that read here do, too. You’re one of the guys that really busts his ass to try to help out bands, and again, I thank you for your time and your efforts, and I know that a collective whole of many bands and artists say and think the same things.
Heh, okay, might as well make it three posts in a row (I should register to get the “edit” function…), but I really truly think that most people don’t know the true cost of making an album, from the recording end, to the mixing end, the mastering end, and then paying a producer that you trust (not cheap) to help you get more out of the album.
On top of that, quality studio equipment has never been cheap. There’s a mentality that people think that they can go on Audacity or Garageband and make something great. While I tend to err on the side of that it’s “what you do for the equipment, not the other way around” and “it’s in the ears”, there is simply a certain amount of money, even on a smaller level, that one needs to spend to have anything of quality.
Most bands that approach me now are absolutely new. And it’s like pulling teeth to get them to even throw a few hundred bucks my way to use my recording equipment and vintage amps, for some maintenance money or whatever. While I did some of that for free in the past, i’ve had to institute a “no more” approach…because bands either didn’t continue or never put it out or whatever. As Jack Endino says, “spec is for suckers”. The days of recording bands and doing things for cheap or free are done, because there’s no infrastructure for those bands to succeed, even on a local level. They’ll all be playing to 10 friends on a Tuesday night in a bar for their whole career.
I just truly, honestly, think that alot of bands and alot of casual fans and alot of average audiences are totally clueless as to what it takes to make a great sounding album, instead of some crappy, brickwall limited, Auto Tuned, Beat Detectived lifeless recording.
Again, I must urge everyone that values the old way of listening to and making records, to watch this:
http://philoctetes.org/Past_Programs/Deep_Listening_Why_Audio_Quality_Matters
People need better stereos, better headphones, better listening habits. They listen to shitty ripped MP3’s at like, 128 KPBS on earbud headphones (which can’t properly reproduce the rich sub 250 Hz low end so they hype the mids and highs like cheap food manufacturers push salt and sugar and high fructose on consumers), and then wonder why they’re not liking the music, or why it’s not transcendent. Well, of course it won’t be transcendent–if you cheap out on the experience and expect it to be the background soundtrack to you vacuuming or texting on your phone or whatever, you’ll get out of it what you put into it.
Okay, fourth post because there’s other great ideas brought up here:
“Let me expound, I played in this band Replicator for 8 years, we made records, we toured, we made t-shirts we did all the things that bands did. Something I began to notice was that in our last year of operation, more people seemed to know us and like us, yet our sales remained about the same, show attendence was way up though and we sold 3 or 4 times as many t-shirts.
This was due to the advent of file sharing as much as anything else. Had we known that was going to happen, instead of just assuming we would be ramming our heads into the concrete wall as we had the previous 3/4 of a decade, we could have prepared with more physical stuff to sell… and indeed gone further than just the IDEA of “online” singles and stuff like that.”
I relate to the frustration expressed in this post. To a certain extent, I see alot of music being sold as a brand, like Coke, Pepsi, Nike, whatever. Merch might be selling more, but more and more, the artists in question that the merch bears their name, they’re just becoming a brand. People aren’t actually listening to the music or buying it more, they’re just throwing on a Ramones t-shirt or CBGB’s shirt or whatever.
This relates back to the fact that I think that there’s a deep seated unconscious guilt about not listening to the actual music, that the band name has become something that you wear that you don’t actually have to be invested in to know lyrics or any sort of extensive backcatalogue other than a couple of songs. In other words, you don’t have to invest time or effort in wearing a shirt, but you have to continually spend your time disseminating an album to get what you perceive is of value. Plenty of times people have said, “there’s only one good song on that album”, and i’m like, “….did you actually listen to it?”. I have to wonder sometimes in what type of time that people spend in trying to dissect and enjoy art. Not all artists make albums that are apparent or easy to get on a first listen. Hell, it wasn’t until a week ago that I truly got the brilliance of the Jesus Lizard’s “Head/ Pure”, though I had the release for a long time.
Another thing about MP3’s is that if you make them too cheap, you undercut all your distro–all your stores, everything. When the majors originally sued Napster, they took all the heat, but they had to keep their distributors in mind, that were worried about sales and whatnot. Even when I sell my own albums at a price that’s cheaper than my distributors, I sometimes wonder, “is that a good thing? Then why even have distro?”. If I offer my releases 5 bucks cheaper because I can afford to because i’ve already made my markup….then why would anyone buy off my distributors, online?
At my dayjob, it’s like this. We sell only through retailers, so that anyone who comes into our store is going through them. If we sold to them directly, our retailers would get PISSED. And why not? We wouldn’t need their help, and they wouldn’t even bother to deal with us if we were giving their customers a better price than they provide with their mark up. Their mark up has to allow them to pay bills and survive. They simply can’t get prices that are equivalent to ours, because our resources and connections are better–we have a major warehouse branch that can ship us out our product that they need.
So as I mention, as a label, it’s easier said than done trying to make costs extremely cheap, because then you’re undercutting everyone. And most likely, undercutting yourself. If you make MP3’s too much cheaper than the actual release, then the whole infrastructure gives way.
In that sense, I wonder if ITunes isn’t doing the industry a favour by charging a set amount. If people were to lower their costs to 30 cents an MP3, ITunes may not be able to survive with all of their resources and advertisements that they pay for their name to keep their name in the public eye as the place to buy MP3’s from. Love it or leave it, they have a brand name cache that they’ve had to pay for, through advertisements and attempts to dominate the market share of the paid MP3 download market.
As i’ve stated, Nimbit allows you to pick your own price. But this is where, as a label, i’m really fucked–Nimbit submits to ITunes and Rhapsody and other places and they don’t take a big cut, but they also don’t have the sales power and brand power that ITunes does (ask yourself when the last time you bought off of Nimbit was, as opposed to ITunes…or if you’ve even heard of Nimbit). My downloads are available on ITunes, and there’s a mandatory charge of 99 cents. If I go drastically below that on the Nimbit player, why would anyone ever want to buy the songs off of ITunes?
Like I say, that’s easier said than done. Most people do their MP3 purchasing on ITunes, and they also have bigger expenses incurred in maintaining their market share–including continual advertising. And I imagine that their bandwidth must be insane in costs.
Hell, make it six!
I thought of something else.
The RIAA instituted a “Minimum Advertised Product” rule, in which you couldn’t go below a certain price. I thought for YEARS, “this is bullshit. What a bunch of scam artists”.
Here’s my new thinking. Loss leaders were never good for the record industry. Alot of stores that didn’t deal in the volume to be able to get those types of deals, got put under. It created a false sense of being able to offer something at a value that didn’t allow them to make money. For example, there is a reason why HMV charges 8 bucks for the hit cds, and then 25 for non-hit and obscure and non-new releases. Plenty of stores that I know of have nowhere NEAR that gap or discrepancy between the highest and lowest priced product.
Those loss leaders, let’s say both the stores and labels and artists made a minimal profit. That is fine if you’re selling 10 million copies, but it’s another case altogether if it’s a high priced flop. Look at all the new artists in the last ten years that had one album or single that did well with tons of hype. Like the Darkness. Atlantic promoted the heck out of that, and that was below 10 bucks at most stores, and you know what? They didn’t make much off of it, and by the time of the second album which didn’t do well, the band were dropped.
It’s only when you get mega stars like Elton John, Shania Twain, U2, The Stones, etc, having long careers that you can actually make sustained money off of loss leaders. This is what most don’t realize.
Ryan – Thanks for the plentiful, thoughtful commentary. I’m surprised that no one from larger labels yet has written in to say that I am friggin’ crazy.
A few responses to points you made:
1. It strikes me that the glut of bands on the market and the distress of the record industry is akin to the housing bubble today. The products and markets are different, of course, but perhaps there’s merit in just letting the chips fall where they may, thus weeding out the weak.
2. You paint a bleak picture, but I don’t think it’s 100% bleak. Good business is about giving people what they want, and making them pay for it. Right now the record industry isn’t giving people what they want – affordable, good music. Either it’s unaffordable or it’s crap, and thus people don’t see value in paying for either. These aren’t unsolvable problems.
3. The costs of making and distributing an album are indeed high. But it was just as high before, if not more, and labels got by on album sales. If CD’s have become poor investment vehicles, they should be abandoned. Thinking needs to be flexible and diverse. I’m sure that given the number of people scratching their heads over these problems, solutions will emerge.
4. I’m not convinced that playing live doesn’t work. That is how bands sell merch and establish personal connections with fans. Look at, to name a few – Converge, Opeth, Krisiun, Mastodon – these are bands that have toured their ass off and assured their longevity through that.
5. Your comparison of MP3’s to junk food is apt. It speaks to a larger commodification of culture and decreased attention span in the world as a whole.
6. Even if you charge less than a distro, people may still buy from the distro for any number of reasons: loyalty, larger selection of other releases, ease of purchase (customer already knows checkout process and already has account set up), etc. There have been times when, out of altruism, I’ve ordered directly from bands and regretted it b/c they’re flaky, while I know, say, The End or Willowtip would have sent out my order immediately.
7. The failure of The Darkness to make a commercial impact isn’t necessarily b/c lower CD prices don’t work. It could be because the music is bad, and people don’t want it. There may be correlation but I don’t see causation. Good music + mass appeal = staying power, to use your Pink Floyd example. And, yes, if something sounds like Pink Floyd, why not just go with the original?
To an extent, I have faith in the market to compensate for good music. Trend music goes away, as it should. In the underground, there’s a greater chance for market failure, whether it’s due to consumer lack of information or unstable infrastructure (smaller labels, etc.). But these are merely challenges to be solved.
“It strikes me that the glut of bands on the market and the distress of the record industry is akin to the housing bubble today. The products and markets are different, of course, but perhaps there’s merit in just letting the chips fall where they may, thus weeding out the weak.”
Yeah, I think that may need to happen. Right now, there's sort of a killing frost that's happening, just because there's way too many bands…..and although i'm not one to tell bands that they are not good and i'm happy that they're doing what they want–there are plenty that need to go, as I think that most of us could agree in theory, if not specific instances.
The problem nowadays is everyone thinks that they're a musician. Everyone's trying to make a go of it, and you generally don't sell to musicians! That stands to reason because they have bills to pay, they have expenses for pressing and whatnot.
In the past, people that wanted to be part of something musically–the A&R; guy, the record producer/ engineer, the bass player, the aspiring musician with no way to record or release albums, the drummer…you know, all people that were sort of behind the scenes….has given way to people who want to be the guitarist, the hero, the star. In alot of ways, it's sort of a Guitar Hero or American Idol mentality. People that want to "make it" with no clue how to do it.
I think that pool of available money in fans that would have bought in past eras, has now shrunk, and I know personally that when I make money off of music, I put it back into the music economy–buying someone else's releases, music gear, etc. Usually when I pick up my sales cheques from stores, i'm in the store, and spend it right back on someone else's release. I've personally been in bands with guys that don't particularly care to support the rest of the musical scene….and it's why i've had to leave those acts. They want someone else to make them famous, without actually supporting the rest of the musical community.
THAT attitude is sinking the grassroots, smaller scene community. Not totally, as there will always be some sort of support, but when there’s more “mouths to feed”, musically, that don’t quite support any musical scene, you get that money taken away from the pool of available funds to go around for everyone.
Around here, it has been ridiculously tough to find a band, and it’s why I have to do everything myself. It’s the only way I get things done. The pool of musicians has shrunk; but better yet, the pool of great musicians has shrunk, drastically. The good drummers are already in multiple bands, and a bass player is ridiculously hard to find, and they’re most likely in a few bands already, making committment issues a problem.
Some guys are great, personally, but they have no skills whatsoever; other guys are great, but they aren’t great people and they. Others have no dedication, whatsoever. It’s weird. I’ve got together with tons of people, and it’s not to say that i’m the world’s most perfect person, but my own stuff would have never got out, because i’d still be waiting for the right people.
“You paint a bleak picture, but I don’t think it’s 100% bleak. Good business is about giving people what they want, and making them pay for it. Right now the record industry isn’t giving people what they want – affordable, good music. Either it’s unaffordable or it’s crap, and thus people don’t see value in paying for either. These aren’t unsolvable problems.”
To a certain extent, I agree. Bands need to throw everything out there on the line, to make better releases. I’m not sure if they are doing it right now, though there are many great records.
The problem, Cosmo, becomes that as funds are dwindling, it will create one of two things: better core art because writing better songs never cost bands any more money than the creativity that it cost to come up with them; or decent songs without any real production or help to flesh the vision out. As with the Greg Calbi discussion that i’ve posted on here, a large portion of us that make records from the technical end are trying to determine how much of an emphasis on sound there is. Not just an overall sound, but specific sounds, tones, harmonics, production techniques, etc. Alot of this harmonic information gets lost in inferiorly ripped MP3’s (which is why I only offer mine in 320 KBPS), that is preventing people from enjoying the experience more.
Right now, it’s tough to say if bands are spending less time in the studio, and although great things can happen in a smaller window of time because of pressure to deliver, some bands don’t work well in being rushed in the studio. Speaking as a producer/ engineer, bands usually need more money and more time to do more takes and try different things and come up with things that they normally wouldn’t have.
If they don’t spend more time, the recordings suffer, the mixes suffer, and bands find out that a week or a month down the road, that they’re not 100 percent happy with what they did, because they didn’t have the opportunity to try different things.
That’s all time, therefore money, so perhaps we are getting the cheaper model of the music biz already. At some point, people cannot really complain if bands are cutting costs in the studio because the labels can’t afford as much. It’s all a downward spiral that feeds on itself. No recording will state “we spend _____ percent less than we would have _____ years ago”. You hear the end result and never know quite how much the current state of the industry is actually influencing the production on albums.
For example, I bloody HATE Auto Tune. Hate it. But it’s a technique that’s seeped into popular music, ironically just as file sharing happened, that is now accepted as a production technique that is desired, but ultimately, it’s used because singers aren’t good enough, and/ or they’re spending less time in the studio on vocals, because they can just “fix it in the mix”.
Right now, most of us in the industry are trying to determine whether it originally was a technique to compensate for poor vocals and poor vocalists, that ended up being a desired sound by people that didn’t know whether it was intentional or unintentional. Auto Tune has this weird rounding off sound that bugs me.
“The costs of making and distributing an album are indeed high. But it was just as high before, if not more, and labels got by on album sales. If CD’s have become poor investment vehicles, they should be abandoned. Thinking needs to be flexible and diverse. I’m sure that given the number of people scratching their heads over these problems, solutions will emerge.”
The crappy thing is that with inflation of the costs of making the recording, it’s never really got that cheap to make cd’s, Cosmo. In fact, it’s always gone up. Vintage gear–tape machines, a Neumann U47 mic, certain amps (to have in the studio in case bands need to use them) has gone through the roof. And cd’s only eventually get very cheap, unless you press in the thousands, but they still have to cover a large fraction of the production costs, as well as the promotional costs.
Promotional costs are unavoidable. As anyone in the industry knows, it’s not the recording that usually costs that much (even though it is expensive), it’s the promotions of the album that cost alot. Even indie labels have to spend lots of money on promos and shipping to newspapers, magazines, radio. That’s all technically free. It’s all free without any guarantee of possible sales. Advertisements are never cheap, and there’s never been a real true way to gauge sales from it. There’s also no proof that you’ll get reviewed at half of those places, or that you’ll even get a good review at all.
I say this because I know guys that have spend 500 grand on their
studio to have consoles and mics and tape machines and excellent sounding rooms, in which for bands to come in and make the best possible product. Tape machines are going extinct, for ProTools, and what we’re reacting to in current metal is the ProTools version of metal–drum triggers, brickwalled to shit to slam any dynamics out of it. I have to strongly, strongly advise that it’s the production methods that have made the albums easier and quicker to make, that have made them worse to listen to.
This is all a microcosm of the shrinking of the music industry. Bands need to make “professional” sounding records in less time, and unfortunately, we’re all finding out what happens when they go into smaller studios or ProTools operated ones.
Major studios have shut down because of their higher overhead. While some of this is just good old natured supply and demand, when records don’t sell, they put a whole sub-economy out of business as well. Alot of people think that they’re giving the finger to the man in an ivory tower. They didn’t prepare to put the guy out of business on a smaller level that’s trying to help bands make better records for the audience’s benefit, as well.
Alot of mid level engineers have been squeezed the most, and there’s absolutely no employment for new and aspiring engineers/ producers. Steve Albini has said, “when I say zero, I mean none. Zero demand whatsoever”.
“I’m not convinced that playing live doesn’t work. That is how bands sell merch and establish personal connections with fans. Look at, to name a few – Converge, Opeth, Krisiun, Mastodon – these are bands that have toured their ass off and assured their longevity through that.”
It works….if you’re an already established name. There’s no room for bands that just started up last month, last year. Opeth and Mastodon are a few albums into their career, and when you think of brand new bands to really, really make an impact sales wise, that’s where most people come up blank these days.
I’ve seen a real decline in the live scene over the last 15 years. It started in the alternative/ grunge era, in which club promoters found out that they could pay bands cheaply to play. There was no point to paying a fairly well established bar band that could draw pretty well 500 bucks, when they had bands that could draw well for 50 bucks.
Also, Battle of the Bands killed off alot of the average people that were there to see unknown talent. What would happen is that club owners wouldn’t pay bands in lieu of them being in the contest, and you’d have everyone’s friends showing up for their band, and then leaving right after, creating a real rift in the scene.
As a result, with established bands (save for a few that still do really well), audiences have been on the decline. Your average fan doesn’t care to hang out at a night club to hear unknown and new talent. Clubs have shut down across the nation. One here was sold here last year, another got sold and it’s trying to stay solvent with new ownership.
“Even if you charge less than a distro, people may still buy from the distro for any number of reasons: loyalty, larger selection of other releases, ease of purchase (customer already knows checkout process and already has account set up), etc. There have been times when, out of altruism, I’ve ordered directly from bands and regretted it b/c they’re flaky, while I know, say, The End or Willowtip would have sent out my order immediately.
All true. And unfortunately, some bands (and some places) give online ordering a bad name. I ship out in reinforced cardboard/ bubble mailers, right away.
“The failure of The Darkness to make a commercial impact isn’t necessarily b/c lower CD prices don’t work. It could be because the music is bad, and people don’t want it. There may be correlation but I don’t see causation.”
That is true. I brought the Darkness scenario into it, because the record label often throws tons of money into the promo machine that never gets recouped. That’s why I have to stress that 95 percent of the major’s roster has always lost money, it’s only the 5 percent that floats them.
Same thing with the Roadrunner analogy that someone mentioned here–they signed Nickelback to pay some “real” bills. Dare I say that without Nickelback on the label, they wouldn’t be able to deal with alot of smaller artists that lose them money.
Even on SST, I have to wonder how many bands that Black Flag, Husker Du, Sonic Youth and Dinosaur/ Dinosaur Jr. had floated the label with.
“To an extent, I have faith in the market to compensate for good music. Trend music goes away, as it should. In the underground, there’s a greater chance for market failure, whether it’s due to consumer lack of information or unstable infrastructure (smaller labels, etc.). But these are merely challenges to be solved.”
Unfortunately, specialty bands or bands that fall into no specific genre, have always had a much more difficult time with selling. Though I do think that any band nowadays is selling anywhere between 10-20 times less than pre file sharing days. It ultimately is very difficult to get anyone but the real hardcore, real music lovers, to buy music. Off the internet, I tend to sell to people in their 40’s, not young audiences. I think that those people remember the obscure bands like Hawkwind and Spacemen 3 and weird, obscure psych bands. Right now, I struggle to define the psychedelic thing in a modern context–definetely not a trend, though there are many bands doing it.
I don’t want to sound like a bummer, but i’ve been around doing things for quite some time, and most people won’t realize until they see the behind the scenes things, the behind the scenes numbers at a record label, or the recording/ production process. These are all things that i’ve seen, and I can weigh in on my thoughts in what actually happens. Believe me, I once had alot of the Utopian views that alot of people want to have about the industry or possibilities of it. And alot of those realities can’t be avoided, because you’ve got to cut costs in amidst this downsizing.
My main letdown is that the internet–and from everyone i’ve talked to (friends, friends in cult acts), there’s no type of sales numbers that are of any actual significance online. And that stands to reason, is that people have to wait for their music to be mailed out and they want it right away……but they also don’t really find that much cache in MP3’s, either. Because subliminally, like in the Greg Calbi discussion, people don’t like the experience and the sound of MP3’s….there’s something about it subliminally that doesn’t draw them in.
I had another thought, too:
Everyone had the same thought at the same time, “here’s a way to cut out the middleman and sell DIRECTLY to fans!”. When thousands, hundreds of thousands of bands started doing that, it started to cancel itself out, because unless you had a significant name for yourself before all that happened, you weren’t/ aren’t likely to have many sales online.
I think back to when I first opened my regular MySpace account in, I think, 2004. Alot of bands would add me, I thought it was pretty cool. Then the deluge began and it was never ending. I’d leave comments for bands and things like that…..no correspondence. Alot of bands shot themselves in the feet by having that technology to reach people, personally (as opposed to having to send physical mail), and they abused it. There was times where I was basically like, “hey, i’d like to purchase something” and either they didn’t get back to me, or they somehow diffused it.
Most of the requests that I get on MySpace today with my band account are bulk adds; I shut my “accepts bands” filter off because I got back to alot of bands and they never did. Even the non-band adds are sticker places or t-shirt places. Everyone’s got something to sell, and it’s diluted the pool of available money. As a band or fan or label, you really don’t know which way to turn.
Consider this: I got an add request from a guy that used to play in one of my favorite 90’s bands….somewhat lesser known, but they were on a major. So I messaged him and said, “wow, i’m a big fan of your old band, small world!” and some other kind words. No response!
People shot themselves in their own feet. I don’t know how they can dress that one up. Musicians were never really prepared to sell themselves without a label, and that’s something that I think that not enough people mention.
I ALWAYS try to get back to people and chat a bit and network–buy, sell, trade, etc. That all takes time and effort, though, and I don’t think that most want to put the time into it.
It’s very important to know that when you see a band on MySpace that gets plenty of plays per day or feedback, those aren’t actual sales. No band does extremely well off of it. I’m not sure if people see the stats and think that the bands are selling lots of releases or MP3’s, but from my experience–even with the personal touch–it’s not true, and from those that i’ve talked to even in more prominent bands, they’ve said basically the same thing. It’s awareness for the brand or band, but that’s about it.
Can I just say that this conversation is totally kick ass?
Something I say in interviews a lot, and far more likely to people in person… is that the best thing with the punk rock/diy movement is that it showed that “anybody can do this”.
So now the problem is, EVERYBODY IS!
The signal to noise ratio is almost insurmountable as the entire landscape is choked to death with mediocrity and bands that either do not know how, or are unwilling to do what it takes to reach that next step.
Having the ability to sell “directly to fans” doesn’t matter at all if there is nobody to buy it.
Trusted sources become more and more important, but we are starting to reach a tipping point for that even… there needs to be a tipping point of almost “movement” potential for a band to really achieve the kind of success that a great record and a little promo money could have got you even 10 or 20 years ago.
There needs to be a culling of the weak as far as bands go.
however, that won’t happen because it’s easier than ever for hobbyists, rank amateurs and well meaning folks with little discernible lasting talent to choke the entire world up with their hacky and disappointing wares.
This makes an already superjaded public, that is feeling a constant barrage of sensory overload, even more overwhelmed, which will make them want to do anything but take the plunge on something that isn’t already a gold standard in their mind.
not a “Sounds interesting”, not a “highly recommended” a SURE THING.
Consider the migration away from myspace to facebook. Part of this is due to the horrible design of myspace, and mostly due to the constant “trailer park of the web” style barrage of hacks douchebags and general lameness. Even “trusted sources” on there are buried amongst the noise.
However! Speaking personally, I always answer back potential friends and fans immediately because that is one of the few advantages a smart band can have.
I am flabbergasted by the same sort of story that is illustrated here:
I got an add request from a guy that used to play in one of my favorite 90’s bands….somewhat lesser known, but they were on a major. So I messaged him and said, “wow, i’m a big fan of your old band, small world!” and some other kind words. No response!
Foolish, absolutely foolish.
coming back to your earlier point Ryan, Everyone’s got something to sell, and it’s diluted the pool of available money. As a band or fan or label, you really don’t know which way to turn.
Yup, it’s absolutely true, even the best things around are surrounded by such huckstery desperate garbage that the first thing everybody asks is: “What is the catch?”
Going back to my early point, I feel this is one of the reasons there has been a mass migration towards facebook from myspace by people I know to be actual tastemakers and true fans of music and other forms of art.
People get sick of stuff being sold to them ALL THE TIME.
It’s human nature.
So what’s the solution?
Word of mouth still makes a difference, but you need to make an ask.
This is something I am trying to do for Mount Vicious, when people come up to me excitedly after the show glowing about how much they love the music, instead of asking them if they want to buy something, I thank them and ask them to tell some interested friends and spread the word, because personal connections are all the more important now than they ever were.
They usually end up buying something anyway, which is good! But the next time there are a couple of these people’s friends being brought in, and that is AWESOME.
I’m a musician who has played in the same market for about a decade now. One thing that I started doing somewhat recently is send PERSONALIZED text messages to all of my friends and aquaintences who I especially wanted to be at the show. Tastemakers, influential people and more than that… people that other people WANT TO BE AROUND.
It’s incredibly time consuming, and i’m just glad that my cell phone service allows unlimited messages, since I don’t have any way of doing that in an automated style, but it actually works!
It works because TXT messaging hasn’t yet been overrun by street teams and shameless market droids.
I’d consider this the modern equivalent of sending a personalized postcard.
I suppose what i’m trying to say, is that I feel that there is a massive pull back from the internet as a source of discovery for anything new, due to the incredible resurgence of advertising EVERYWHERE.
Speaking of which, what’s your myspace address Ryan? I want to add you.
-Conan Neutron
neutron-x.com
Mount Vicious
http://www.myspace.com/mountvicious
very good piece. if this is the way to go i guess that would mean that record companies are over. We should start calling them something else.
I just took the time to read what I missed in this commentspace. I wanted to say thank you to Ryan and everybody else that commented, it was a very interesting read.
“Can I just say that this conversation is totally kick ass?”
For sure!
“The signal to noise ratio is almost insurmountable as the entire landscape is choked to death with mediocrity and bands that either do not know how, or are unwilling to do what it takes to reach that next step.”
Yeah, totally. I’m not one to tell anyone that they’re not doing something good, after all, it is inherently great for musicians that they can do this sort of thing nowadays.
However, it’s still a nightmare for fans and audiences. Imagine a grocery store with aisles and aisles of homemade apple pie…..even the brands that sold their pie on “ma’s old homemade recipe” would get overlooked in the deluge of everything homemade.
And i’m just about as big a fan and proponent of the DIY thing as you’ll find; it’s just that we’re now in the reality of selling records in the year 2008, and it doesn’t bode well for bands. I’ve really put a priority on the personal touch, promo-ing (i’ve secured top 30 campus radio play and hit number one at one place), networking with the right people (Cosmo, for example), and it’s been more difficult than ever to actually sell recordings, and word of mouth is in serious, serious trouble nowadays.
It works for some bands and some acts–and i’m glad that it does– but it’s not enough across the board interest for a wide enough variety of bands for labels that take chances on other acts to really pay much of any bills. I am happy to get my material out there….but it does get to be troublesome to justify expenses with every coming year.
Cisco (distribution in Japan) went under last year. Some friends of mine were owed 10 grand when Cargo went under in Canada nearly 10 years ago, and recently, Pinnacle in the UK, and Fusion 3 here in Canada are all going under.
Here’s more about Fusion 3’s demise
Pinnacle’s demise
Timewarp’s demise
Neuton’s demise
That means that it will be much more difficult to find your favorite releases in stores, and labels won’t be paid, AND will have thousands of dollars of stock in various stores across the nation that they really have no easy or quick or cheap way to retrieve. I’ve had friends that were burnt in that whole process…small labels doing wonderful things for a small contingent of bands that otherwise wouldn’t have the support system.
As we get further into this, it looks as though everything’s gonna be DIY….right down to the distribution. Finding releases in stores will be harder than ever.
The crappy thing is that it’s not the dedicated music listener that has caused this–it’s a larger contingent of people not paying for things and not supporting them, in which the infrastructure for everyone collapses. And, you know, there’s lots of people that still value the old way of buying records–going out to the store, striking up a conversation with the store clerk, maybe seeing someone that you know there, etc.
As one person told me, “it’s not the record industry that’s in trouble….it’s the distribution industry”. Right now, there’s lots of indie labels that are trying to survive the insolvency of Fusion 3 and Pinnacle distribution….MAJOR distribution that pays major bills. Those places are run by music fans, people that take chances on your little acts. Without that, the industry is in deep, dire trouble. I don’t want to be a bummer, but the distribution industry is in a major, major crisis. You can’t compete with file sharing and bands giving away their material for free in the hopes that it will sell.
Having the ability to sell “directly to fans” doesn’t matter at all if there is nobody to buy it.
Trusted sources become more and more important, but we are starting to reach a tipping point for that even… there needs to be a tipping point of almost “movement” potential for a band to really achieve the kind of success that a great record and a little promo money could have got you even 10 or 20 years ago.
For sure. The days of an SST, Touch and Go, Dischord, SubPop….that’s all gone. Think of bands like Fugazi, Nirvana, Bad Religion, Mudhoney, Dinosaur Jr….they all had huge worldwide followings, AND they had DIY production. The difference between nowadays and then, is that those records cost alot of money to make….they used to cost between 5 grand and 20 grand, usually, for studio time. Even Jack Endino’s price for “Bleach” wouldn’t be possible anymore….because the infrastructure for favours. Those few thousands of dollars still provided a buffer zone in between indie bands that were actively trying hard to accomplish something and the hobbyists these days whose goals aren’t so clear.
Steve Albini used to do alot of work for free or cheap for bands. What he did elevated the production levels for indie bands then, like the Pixies stuff. Even Brian Paulson did this on an album like Slint’s “Spiderland” (AMAZING sounding even by today’s standards). Nowadays, you don’t have anyone doing that (Steve used to put tons of quality mics up, and put alot of effort into his studio rooms). Now you just have whatever buddy to make you an album for free, and those bands really can’t complain or demand more, because they’re not really paying the going rate, and most smaller engineers on spec (free work) either aren’t good, or they’re not able to offer anything of quality within that framework, anyways. The days of doing favours is over, because it doesn’t translate into sales, or as it used to be, notoriety.
There’s not that need to go the extra mile, as in even the case of engineers and studio guys that believed in the bands they were working with, and were certain that their goodwill and help would lead business back to them (Steve recorded the Didjits’ “Full Nelson Reilly” under the pseudonym “Reggie Stiggs”, and it was albums like those, over the course of a few years, that cemented him as a real go to guy for realistic, raw, live sound).
I think of Butch Vig’s work on something like Urge Overkill’s “Americruiser” and the quality of sound. You won’t see a new version of Butch or Smart Studios, just because the ProTools and cheap way of doing things doesn’t allow it. Digital–as much of a fan that I am–still can’t compete with a studio with a great tape machine. Smart Studios had great equipment and great rooms….same with Steve and Chicago Recording Company and Electrical Studios. But they used the old methods of making records; antiquated and too expensive in this day and age. Most bands wouldn’t be able to afford the tape reels to record on these days, let alone the guy to operate and align them correctly to get the most out of them.
“There needs to be a culling of the weak as far as bands go.
however, that won’t happen because it’s easier than ever for hobbyists, rank amateurs and well meaning folks with little discernible lasting talent to choke the entire world up with their hacky and disappointing wares.
This makes an already superjaded public, that is feeling a constant barrage of sensory overload, even more overwhelmed, which will make them want to do anything but take the plunge on something that isn’t already a gold standard in their mind.”
All very true. But I fear that the damage is done….once the equipment was available to make those albums cheaply, there’s no turning back, I think.
I remember when I got my first digital 8 track (it was more like a 6 track at optimum capacity) in 1999. Man, did that thing seem like a whole new world opened up! It was 2 grand-
-alot of money for 1999, and it used 250 MB Zip disks, which made you really have to think about content. You could really only get 43 minutes recording time between all tracks, so if you had 8 tracks going, you’d get just over a five minute song on each disk.
Back then, Zip disks were 35-40 bucks apiece. It still cost about 300-500 dollars for the physical medium to record on, for each album…depending on how long you wanted that album to be. Now, with endless amounts of hard drive space, there’s no price on quality of content. You can do an endless amount, and I don’t think that lends itself to self editing very much. Same thing with recording to reel to reel tape in studios….there’s only so much time that you have, so you have to make a stronger statement.
Back in 1999, I had to erase alot of stuff that was inferior that I did, simply because the disks were so damned expensive, and it made me have a sense of quality control. Now, i’m not sure if that exists in the digital age, as memory has got more frequent and more cheaper…..disposable, in other words.
Alot of digital technology has become worthless. The Roland VS840EX that I bought for 2 grand in 1999, you probably couldn’t give it away in this day and age of ProTools and stolen programs on Bit Torrent sites (this is a major problem, but a whole ‘nother argument). The zip disks are worthless too, because when we’re into GB, things that have a capacity of storage in the MB are absolutely worthless.
To compare this sort of dichotomy in how little things are of value these days, even used tape reels had value–Ampex, etc. Some bands actually really liked to make albums on used tape.
“Consider the migration away from myspace to facebook. Part of this is due to the horrible design of myspace, and mostly due to the constant “trailer park of the web” style barrage of hacks douchebags and general lameness. Even “trusted sources” on there are buried amongst the noise.”
Yeah, totally. I think it’s made people lazy, in truth. Even i’m guilty of that…..I could keep up with individual bands, but I don’t always. I think that lots of people are guilty of that, as well.
I don’t think that there’s anything at stake on MySpace. I don’t think that it should have been for free. Bands should have had to pay to register, and then got a portion of royalties based on plays. But right now, MySpace is getting filthy rich off of the content providers that they don’t pay even a dime to….whether that band has 10 thousand plays a day or ten, the pay is the same–none.
But of course, there is the pay to play mentality that they have, in that you can be on the front page for X amount of dollars, and they’ll obviously turn a blind eye to the amounts of people that you can add per day (under the current system for regular bands, I think that it’s 400 people a day). If you see a band with tens of thousands of friends, it’s not through manual adds…..they probably have automated adders and automatic friend accept automaters that do that.
However! Speaking personally, I always answer back potential friends and fans immediately because that is one of the few advantages a smart band can have.
I am flabbergasted by the same sort of story that is illustrated here:
I got an add request from a guy that used to play in one of my favorite 90’s bands….somewhat lesser known, but they were on a major. So I messaged him and said, “wow, i’m a big fan of your old band, small world!” and some other kind words. No response!
Foolish, absolutely foolish.
Yeah, it really made me think. I’d ask to buy things and maybe bands didn’t actually think that I was serious in the deluge of people saying “i’ll get around to buying your releases someday!”. As a band, it’s got harder to really wonder who’s out to just string you around, and who’s out because they’re sincere about it.
Right now, I think that to a certain extent, now that people have the milk, they don’t need to buy the cow. If they can contact their favorite bands–or bands in general–it’s put it on a realistic, equal level. Thinking about it, I dunno if music ever really much functioned on a realistic, equal level. Look at Sire with the Replacements in the 80’s….they put out two albums, “Tim” and “Pleased To Meet Me” that sold decently, but not extremely well. So they did “Don’t Tell A Soul”, and that was the point where you can tell that the band was under pressure to sound like every other act that people already knew about.
The ‘Mats were about as realistic as you got–fuckups, real characters, musicians that couldn’t play their instruments all that well, but damned if they didn’t have smarm and charm.
Husker Du, same thing. They never really sold that well, either. Redd Kross, when they jumped to a major in 1989 for “Third Eye”, they didn’t sell well, and places like Rough Trade and Twin Tone records were in trouble, because the majors were taking their big acts that were flagships for the indie labels…..but they ended up being disasters on the majors because they never found that wider audience.
Nirvana finally did and broke that whole thing that had up until then sold decently but not extremely well on the majors (Soundgarden “Louder Than Love”, Mother Love Bone, Screaming Trees) but had Nirvana not broken, the majors would have never invested in the grunge/ alternative thing.
As it stands, they got burnt on most times that they tried to promote real bands to real audiences. Jawbox’s two major label albums are among the absolute best albums that were little heard among those times. Same thing with Material Issue’s “Freak City Soundtrack”….whenever I put it on, everyone asks, “wow, who is this?”. It’s an absolutely brilliant album–everything rock n’ roll and pop and power pop should be. It remains a very sought after cult classic. But reality didn’t sell very well then; it’s selling even worse now that the promotional aspect and the distributional aspects are going down the toilet.
“People get sick of stuff being sold to them ALL THE TIME.”
That is very true, my friend.
“I’m a musician who has played in the same market for about a decade now. One thing that I started doing somewhat recently is send PERSONALIZED text messages to all of my friends and aquaintences who I especially wanted to be at the show. Tastemakers, influential people and more than that… people that other people WANT TO BE AROUND.
It’s incredibly time consuming, and i’m just glad that my cell phone service allows unlimited messages, since I don’t have any way of doing that in an automated style, but it actually works!
It works because TXT messaging hasn’t yet been overrun by street teams and shameless market droids.
I’d consider this the modern equivalent of sending a personalized postcard.
I suppose what i’m trying to say, is that I feel that there is a massive pull back from the internet as a source of discovery for anything new, due to the incredible resurgence of advertising EVERYWHERE.
The personal aspect is always the best way to work–but i've found that it's got more much more
difficult, as i've been in bands and doing the music thing for quite awhile now. There seems to be more and more, these days, an invisible wall that even personal contact, person to person, eye to eye, that doesn't translate into extra buzz or extra people at shows, that once worked. And it's a shame, because the more people that are out at a show, the more that everyone–audience members included–can network with people that they didn't even expect to be networking with: buying, selling, trading, becoming friends because they found out they liked the same bands, etc.
What i've found is that there's often a weird elitism with musicians, themselves. I think that this stands to reason that as the industry–even indies–have a more difficult
time selling, that there's more fighting to not drown, so you get more that are desperate for the life boats and the life preservers. Quality interactions at shows, i've found, have gone downhill. I could be wrong, but that's something that i've noticed that I just can't seem to shake nowadays.
Alot of things have got more segregated, too. Bands have to play to such narrowed down audiences now, that there's not that crossover appeal to other artists. This has been happening in the regular rock charts for awhile–you have your pop/ r&B; charts and modern rock and hard rock and everything else that's popular on only one radio format.
With touring bands, that becomes a nightmare, because it used to be that you'd get more diversity on bills and more people staying for other bands that they wouldn't otherwise stay for now. Whether this is a sign of our society getting more jaded, I don't know. Opening bands that audiences aren't familiar with have generally always had it pretty tough. I think it is much tougher, though. And really, it becomes that much more difficult for bands to sell, simply because they have to pander to the converted….I see that in the local hardcore and underground scene, it's people playing to only people that already like that genre.
Speaking of which, what’s your myspace address Ryan? I want to add you.
I try not to promote myself too much, but:
http://www.myspace.com/highwattelectrocutions