My My, am I the popular one here!
OK, lets get it on then!
I am a second gen musician. I have owned a home project studio close to 20 years now. I have worked along side former staff producers at Motown and been involved in marketing some of my own stuff since 1995.
Nice to see a fellow insider/outsider.
Also, are those staff producers under Motown itself, or its publishing arm (if they even have one)? Motown hasn't had direct staff producers in years..........
Anyway, lets get to it.....
There is nothing they are doing that an artist can not do for them self or outsource and likely do better.
There is evidence to support your statement (cool kids, still independent to this day), but there is also evidence to support my statement (carmin, who jumped ship) that as soon as a Major comes calling for an independent artist, most jump ship over to the Majors to get more recognition for their project. So I'll call a draw on this one.
U got to be kidding me to come on a forum like this and say people here dont know about the music industry
Again, if they never worked for a MAJOR record label/Major Media company, I believe that, as offensive as some of these/you guys might take it, that statement is based on the calculated assessment that most have never seen how it works behind the scenes, and only get there information from news sites/opinion blogs slanted in the favor of their views (hence al the links coming from "tech sites", nice try
) ...........
vs. actually being in the field and pushing records and breaking artists and making deals and discussing contracts and selling services as a producer or writer or actually being an artist themselves with major success. So yeah, I'll stick by that statement. And, I'll say it again, most guys in here have NEVER worked for a label as far as I know, other then Green Goblin.
Because of that, most of the responders in this thread can only argue from ONE perspective. So most of my words will go over your heads because you can't see the ripple effects of this "revolution music industry" has since your not in this industry to begin with.
I however, have seen what it has done from FIRST HAND EXPERIENCE. Both the good AND bad sides of it.
Its NOT all good guys, their are people in the creative fields hurting (I LIVE IN LA, I SEE AND TALK TO THESE GUYS EVERYDAY, SO I THINK I HAVE A BIT MORE PERSPECTIVE THEN YOU GUYS HAVE ABOUT THIS) because internet bootlegging (which was kept under control when it was only physical cd's being sold) on a MASSIVE scale has hurt the publishing AND sales and JOBS of creative industries over the past DECADE!!
You guys like numbers? LOOK UP THAT STATISTIC!!!
Anyway.......
Proof? Easy.
CDBaby ... They only pay $40 million + EACH year to unsigned artists.
I think (no troll) that that is more than ample proof the model can (and actually does) work. Sure, it's not Sony, BMI money, but it does pay the bills for some independent musicians.
Another thing. As long as there are hipsters, there will be an idiotically high demand for Indie Tracks (good and bad).
[Apologies for the link - post count is too anemic]
prnewswire c-0-m_news-releases_cd-baby-surpasses-200-million-in-royalties-paid-to-independent-musicians-133867178
LOL, thats a CD baby marketing stunt.
200,000 artist splitting up 40 mil a year comes to about 200 dollars PER ARTIST!!
Lets assume that 1000 of those artist make up about 90% of the money being made, thats about 36k per artist........
Now, lets take ONE major music company's profit margins, say, universal music....
From just their Itunes sales alone, they brought in close to 2 billion sales, THROUGH ITUNES ALONE....
Universal has roughly about 200 artist on their roster, which, divided up, would give each artist OVER atleast 2 to 3 million in profit (I shaved off alot of that profit for universals take of that pie, but without universals take, the figure come to about 10 mill PER ARTIST!)
That money made by universal goes back into signing other talented artist WITH DEMAND and reinvested to bring you guys even more entertainment.
CDbaby does NOT reinvest the money made into discovering and developing other artist.
So its main concern is mostly profit, regardless of who it helps distributes.
Now, if I'm an independent artist and I have the choice of selling my music by myself or having an established company do it for me, which one, based on the numbers above, would you think I would choose?
BTW, remember that is from Itunes ALONE.....I haven't even factored in the profit from traditional CD sales, nor other digital outlets like Amazon or its publishing departments.
So yeah, you were saying
There are 3 major labels now when I started there were 7
Umm, yeah dude, because profits disappeared AFTER naspter and pirate bay and megauplaod started distributing paid content for FREE. Its in industry based on selling content, what do you think was gonna happen?
What would happen if CPA companies started not paying their affiliates for leads?
What happens if all leads become FREE?
Same concept, different industry!
And its not about your opinion on how the music sounds, some people love things other people can't stand, that has been true since the test of time. So you can't use that argument.
Listen revenue sharing is nothing new I am sure Kim could have done that. Who pays for this inefficiency so far? The consumer and the artists. Now that margins are tight and money is drying up fingers are pointed at megaupload etc. Give me a break all that needs to happen is to trim the fat off your business and create a QUALITY product people are willing to purchase at a fair price and they will. No one will be out of any money it will just be redistributed more fairly. I wish someone could start addressing the real issues and get some REAL MARKETERS involved in music again because that is what it needs.
There you go again with that quality product BS. Look, what I like may not be what you like, and visa versa. But as long as I buy and support that artist with my time, money, and attention in someway shape of form, it will live on regardless of what you think.
This has NOTHING to do with the quality of music. Again, when you give a product that once had a price tag on it away for FREE (which is what Megaupload was doing KNOWINGLY as per the email messages they sent to there buddies), it will kill ANY business.
Your ISP doesn't give you free internet, does it? Unless your in startbucks or the library, you have to pay for that shit. Thats how ISP's DESPITE having libraries and starbucks giving away internet for a limited number of hours in the day stay in business. Common Sense, right?
97% of the guys signed to a major end up none recouped: This means that the morons at major labels never even make back the money they advance to 97% of the "artist" they sign
not every investment made in business becomes a success. Thats common business sense.
Also, did you forget to mention that the top 5% of artist who the record industry profits off (and who successfully recoup their advance) makes up for those who do not pull in a profit?
Which therefore is REINVESTED (there is that word again) into newer artists to give them a shot at making more money for themselves AND the company in order to start the process all over again?
You forgot that one, huh?
1. Stop PD from taking money to play only major label releases
Even IF they do that (and they have), it will still end up being the run the same way its run today, or yesterday, or in motowns "heyday", without the blatant payola.
Also,Have you tried being a Radio PD? Try having every unknown artist in town pitching to get himself to get on radio just because "I have talent, so therefore you should put me on." They get hundreds of requests like this every week, so eventually, some sort of barrier would have to be put into place. Otherwise, if you appease one, you would have to appease them all, as everyone who does music (most anyway) think they are the next Justin B.
plus, lets not forget that music is NOT radios primary business. All you have to do is follow the money to find this out. Radio dosen't give a FUCK what music it plays. What it does care about, however, is those advertisers who want to have that popular rhianna song playing right before you display their commercial. Because advertisers pay the bills, so radio has to listen to what they say. Otherwise, radio would go out of business.
You should know that...........
2. Stop A&R from serving as managers + publishers and just swapping their personal projects with an A&R from another label
This is one thing I can agree with you on, as that still goes on today.
3. Stop using autotune in every f'n song. You can not break new artists that sound like the last 10
Again, YOUR OPINON.
4. Go find some real writers who can cover diverse topics and styles and or find multi talented ARTISTS and not autotuned models and reality show has beens.
Again, YOUR OPINON!
I know some professional writers who have hits out NOW with top 10 artists you can't get away from if you turn on your local pop station radio who would LOVE to write from the heart and put out your so called "REAL MUSIC".
The problem? Demand. Unless a mass shift in demand takes place (and by demand I mean artist who music people are actually paying for), its not gonna happen.
And again, each demographic has a different demand. So you can't just have a "one size fits all" answer to this.
I will say that the success of Adele is turning that tide however.........
Small artists make their money with tours, not with CDs. And to get albums to the people - how many people do you need for it? Truckdriver? Factory worker? Salespeople? Cashier? Today an automated shop is enough. After setup and maintenance, no people involved for the actual purchase. At that point, artists could get money again for selling albums. If there's a platform for it. I don't know for sure, but if I were an old MI dinosaur, this would be a reason to do everything I can to stop it.
Read what I wrote above for a better understanding of how the system works.
Also, you still need constant promotion and marketing, and again guys, NOT JUST INTERNET PROMOTION either. I've explain why in other posts, so I won't go into it here.
Lord there are a MILLION things they have been doing wrong for the last 30 years at major labels and I don't see how anyone can defend them as a musician or a business man of any sorts. Just the fact that Kim was able to run a site for 7 years before it was taken down speaks volumes to how Pathetic and out of touch they really are at this point.
The fact that kim didn't give a PENNY....
NOT......
ONE....
PENNY....
of revenue that he's earned from using other peoples content to drive traffic and memberships to his site speaks volumes about his character.
I don't care about what he SAID he was going to do, I care about his actions over the past 7 years.
Dude had the site for years without even ONCE (atleast to my knowledge) trying to contact the content creators to discuss payouts. So yeah, based on that, I don't think his intentions are as pure as you guys want to believe.
When he starts making an effort WITHOUT GOVT. INTERVENTION to give back some of that money he's made over the years to artist, designers, writers, movie studios, and the like, then we can talk about what a swell guy he is.
Until then, I'm not buying it.
