Get Rich Quick Schemes

I’m constantly bombarded with e-mails from entrepreneurs promoting their new business ideas. They’re almost always a newfangled label.

It’s no longer about the label. It’s about the talent.

Used to be you needed money. To navigate the waters of distribution and marketing. But although those can now help, they’re an ever-decreasing part of the pie. Oh, you need distribution, and something that qualifies as marketing, but it doesn’t require big bucks, and oftentimes no bucks at all. So I can’t understand why all these wannabe businessmen are creating new models/edifices that no artist needs to utilize/inhabit.

The hardest thing to do in this business is to find talent. Which is why the major labels have to a great degree stopped doing this. The same way the movie studios have been remaking TV shows and putting out endless sequels. There’s a desire to eliminate risk. So, in music, you have a handful of behind the scenes producers/beatmakers and it’s only the faces that change. They only have to be pretty, for anybody can sing with the new technology/auto-tune. The Neptunes, Scott Storch, Timbaland…it’s all about BEHIND THE SCENES today. Cranking out the formula.

As for non-hip-hop music. Well, where’s the marketing avenue? Too tough to market and sell, the majors have given up on breaking ground. If you’ve got a record that sounds nothing like what’s on the radio, believe me, the major doesn’t want it.

So, you wannabe majors… What are you bringing to the party? You’ve got no power at radio. And certainly not at retail. One Tower bankruptcy would wipe out your entire equity.

No, the focus has to be completely the opposite in the new world. It’s got to start with the TALENT, find someone great and then navigate the waters alongside them. Don’t create a model and wait for the talent to come to you. Hell, if your act is good, doors will open like crazy. Hell, isn’t that how Coran Capshaw built the Dave Matthews Band?

And if the DMB started out now, it wouldn’t have a major label. Hell, videos financed by RCA helped the DMB, but now MTV doesn’t air any videos. And, you can get paid at the iTunes Music Store and so much of your revenue comes from touring.

There’s going to be a new distribution model on the Net. One within which more people will have more music at a lower price. But the company landscape will be positively cottage industry. Oh, there will be aggregators in the future, but they will be more akin to the aforementioned Coran Capshaw and other managers like Irving Azoff than major label execs. It’s not about an adversarial relationship, it’s about having someone on your TEAM!

By: bob | 2006/08/23 | Music Business | Trackback | Comments [RSS 2.0]

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RWBlues

Comment by RWBlues | 2006/08/31 at 05:58:27

EXACTLY! The old days of getting signed and all the myths associated with that are DEAD and GONE. Yet I am amazed at how many musicians still have this silly idea that they need some kind of corporate “Daddy” to do all the work and wipe their ass for them… Labels don’t look for talented people they look for people who “fit the suit”. That’s a reference to an old Brady Bunch TV episode where the son Greg got scooped up by this record producer to be the new Johnny Bravo. He was a mediocre singer but all they were concerned about was the fact that his body would fit perfectly into this expensive stage outfit they had made in advance. He got the gig cause he fit the suit not because he had any talent.

Record companies have been cramming different faces into the same suit for decades. But now the public is totally disinterested in most of their hype. They can find new music and get it cheap and easy without the direction of labels, stores or any other corporate gatekeeper.

It’s like the wild west out on the net. If you’re willing to do some research and learn new skills you can stake your claim and set up your own piece of the music world and do exactly what all musicians want. TO MAKE THE BEST MUSIC THEY CAN. Not try to fit some dumbass marketing strategy.

My act setup our own production company. Invested a little money into a protools setup with a G4 and gathered a team of talented people to do various jobs such as mix and mastering, website design, graphics etc.
We researched the crowd we wanted to reach and released our debut CD on Aug 1st. We developed an easy to navigate website and set it up to do CC transactions through Paypal. But the real advantage was we learned to use some php software to make our own downloads direct from the site including a full Album download with the CD graphics. We get the sale. The money is there instantly. There’s no mailing, no product to restock just a very small transaction fee to Paypal and we get the rest.
As of Aug. 31 we’ve sold several hundred CD copies(Both online and at Live Shows) BUT we’ve sold as many Downloads direct as well. The ad and marketing are just now getting up and running so with perseverance we expect to sell several thousand CD’s across the coming year AND as many or MORE downloads.
On a major label the idea of moving only a few thousand units would make them run screaming into the night and find you back on the grill flipping burgers. But as an indie artist who gets ALL the money 5000 copies sold @ $15 a disc is $75,000! THAT is a comfortable return on a product that only cost a $1.35 to manufacture but add 5000 downloads of the Full CD @ $9 and you get $45,000 for doing absolutely NOTHING but uploading the zip file one time. For a lean mean indie machine that’s the beginnings of building a long term career.
The old model is dead and good riddance. Now the talented folks who are willing to learn and work hard but don’t “fit the suit” can make an impact on the world with great, heartfelt, and inspired music without some bean counter telling them “it won’t fit our market strategy” IT’S about making MUSIC THAT TOUCHES YOU… and isn’t that what it was supposed to be about all along?

Rusty Wright
Pass It On
http://www.rustywrightblues.com

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RWBlues

Comment by RWBlues | 2006/08/31 at 05:58:27

EXACTLY! The old days of getting signed and all the myths associated with that are DEAD and GONE. Yet I am amazed at how many musicians still have this silly idea that they need some kind of corporate “Daddy” to do all the work and wipe their ass for them… Labels don’t look for talented people they look for people who “fit the suit”. That’s a reference to an old Brady Bunch TV episode where the son Greg got scooped up by this record producer to be the new Johnny Bravo. He was a mediocre singer but all they were concerned about was the fact that his body would fit perfectly into this expensive stage outfit they had made in advance. He got the gig cause he fit the suit not because he had any talent.

Record companies have been cramming different faces into the same suit for decades. But now the public is totally disinterested in most of their hype. They can find new music and get it cheap and easy without the direction of labels, stores or any other corporate gatekeeper.

It’s like the wild west out on the net. If you’re willing to do some research and learn new skills you can stake your claim and set up your own piece of the music world and do exactly what all musicians want. TO MAKE THE BEST MUSIC THEY CAN. Not try to fit some dumbass marketing strategy.

My act setup our own production company. Invested a little money into a protools setup with a G4 and gathered a team of talented people to do various jobs such as mix and mastering, website design, graphics etc.
We researched the crowd we wanted to reach and released our debut CD on Aug 1st. We developed an easy to navigate website and set it up to do CC transactions through Paypal. But the real advantage was we learned to use some php software to make our own downloads direct from the site including a full Album download with the CD graphics. We get the sale. The money is there instantly. There’s no mailing, no product to restock just a very small transaction fee to Paypal and we get the rest.
As of Aug. 31 we’ve sold several hundred CD copies(Both online and at Live Shows) BUT we’ve sold as many Downloads direct as well. The ad and marketing are just now getting up and running so with perseverance we expect to sell several thousand CD’s across the coming year AND as many or MORE downloads.
On a major label the idea of moving only a few thousand units would make them run screaming into the night and find you back on the grill flipping burgers. But as an indie artist who gets ALL the money 5000 copies sold @ $15 a disc is $75,000! THAT is a comfortable return on a product that only cost a $1.35 to manufacture but add 5000 downloads of the Full CD @ $9 and you get $45,000 for doing absolutely NOTHING but uploading the zip file one time. For a lean mean indie machine that’s the beginnings of building a long term career.
The old model is dead and good riddance. Now the talented folks who are willing to learn and work hard but don’t “fit the suit” can make an impact on the world with great, heartfelt, and inspired music without some bean counter telling them “it won’t fit our market strategy” IT’S about making MUSIC THAT TOUCHES YOU… and isn’t that what it was supposed to be about all along?

Rusty Wright
Pass It On
http://www.rustywrightblues.com