{"id":2458,"date":"2009-12-04T16:34:02","date_gmt":"2009-12-05T00:34:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/?p=2458"},"modified":"2009-12-04T16:34:02","modified_gmt":"2009-12-05T00:34:02","slug":"shakira-fitty","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/2009\/12\/04\/shakira-fitty\/","title":{"rendered":"Shakira & Fitty"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n
From: David Wallace
Subject: Re: SuBo<\/a><\/p>\n

i think the more interesting story is that Shakira only sold 89K first week.\u00c2\u00a0 ALL that hype – all the $$$ spent on marketing – the award show appearances – that TERRIBLE video – cover of Rolling Stone, etc. etc. – and it debuts at #15 with 89K sold.\u00c2\u00a0 What’s next week going to look like? \u00c2\u00a0<\/p>\n

Look at the Fifty Cent numbers – debuts with 160K (#5) – drops 60% second week to 65K (#20).\u00c2\u00a0 This guy has sold 16 Million records in THIS decade.\u00c2\u00a0 His last record debuted with 700K first week.\u00c2\u00a0 That was only two years ago.\u00c2\u00a0 He should have bet SuBo he would outsell her this week so that people would give a shit that he was releasing a record. <\/p><\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Give Susan Boyle credit.\u00c2\u00a0 She’s got fans.<\/p>\n

Do Shakira and Curtis\/Fifty Cent have any fans?<\/p>\n

We’ve seen a breakdown of the edifice throughout this soon to end decade.\u00c2\u00a0 Not only have CD sales declined, but the way of promoting those albums has too.<\/p>\n

People forget that when ‘N Sync sold two million records the first week out, MTV was still all powerful, still the tastemaker.\u00c2\u00a0 That’s just as important as Napster\/theft.\u00c2\u00a0 Everybody was focused on the music television station. Now?<\/p>\n

In 2000, most people were on dialup, if they were online at all.\u00c2\u00a0 There was no YouTube, no MySpace, Google was not a household word.\u00c2\u00a0 We were all positively old school.\u00c2\u00a0 In a hangover of the nineties.\u00c2\u00a0 When the market raged and there was money for all.\u00c2\u00a0 You spent willy-nilly, you felt like a winner, a world-beater.\u00c2\u00a0 Boy are those days through.<\/p>\n

The record business’ clients were MTV, radio and retail, in that order.\u00c2\u00a0 MTV isn’t even about music anymore, radio is a shadow of its former self and it’s hard to even find the album you want in a physical format.\u00c2\u00a0 The indie stores have died and the big boxes keep lowering their number of SKUs.<\/p>\n

Still, if you’re the Dave Matthews Band, you can move 424,000 copies of an album with no significant radio footprint the week it comes out.\u00c2\u00a0 Because Dave Matthews has fans.<\/p>\n

Does Fifty Cent have any real fans?<\/p>\n

He’s not a lovable guy.\u00c2\u00a0 And his tracks have dropped in quality.<\/p>\n

A fan buys the new album without hearing it first.<\/p>\n

A casual buyer waits to hear if there’s a hit.\u00c2\u00a0 THAT’S the paradigm that was established in the nineties.\u00c2\u00a0 It was about the track, not the act.\u00c2\u00a0 If you’ve got a hot cut, I’m interested.\u00c2\u00a0 If not, I’m not even paying attention, you’re not even on my radar screen.<\/p>\n

So today’s key is to fight for fans, not spins, not media clippings.<\/p>\n

Sure, spins still generate sales.\u00c2\u00a0 But usually only of the track itself, a low profit item.\u00c2\u00a0 And because the audience has scattered since the nineties, Top Forty, the true radio driver of significant sales, means less than ever before.\u00c2\u00a0 So, major labels play the old game to ever less success.\u00c2\u00a0 But even more fascinating is if there’s not a hit single, then the whole project is doomed.\u00c2\u00a0 How many Alicia Keys fans are there really?\u00c2\u00a0 Sure, we know who she is, Clive’s told us she’s his protege, but when her single doesn’t hit do you even risk putting out an album?<\/p>\n

Mariah Carey has faltered.<\/p>\n

Shakira…\u00c2\u00a0 David Wallace has it right.\u00c2\u00a0 She was everywhere.\u00c2\u00a0 And she’s not a hatable character.\u00c2\u00a0 But it turns out they only loved her singing about the veracity of hips.\u00c2\u00a0 She’s like Jennifer Aniston on "Friends".\u00c2\u00a0 Remove her from the sitcom and most people just don’t care.<\/p>\n

The tabloids still care.\u00c2\u00a0 But they’re not about acting.\u00c2\u00a0 They’re purely about fame.\u00c2\u00a0 And although Paris Hilton and the Kardashian sisters have made fame without talent pay, traditionally that’s got a short shelf life, and it’s a bad way to play in the music business.\u00c2\u00a0 The music business is all about down the line, catalog sales, endless sold out arenas.\u00c2\u00a0 The music business is all about tomorrow, not today.\u00c2\u00a0 It shouldn’t be what have I done for you lately, but REMEMBER WHAT I DID FOR YOU ALL THOSE YEARS AGO!<\/p>\n

All the classic rock acts are touring on this.\u00c2\u00a0 And there are a lot of them.<\/p>\n

But people with one hit can play a club.\u00c2\u00a0 And when the hit fades, they can barely work at all.<\/p>\n

So don’t bother hating Rihanna, Katy Perry, all those faces you see too much whose music seems irrelevant and evanescent.\u00c2\u00a0 They won’t be around for long.\u00c2\u00a0 Just like Miley and Jonas and…<\/p>\n

Taylor Swift?<\/p>\n

She’s selling something different.\u00c2\u00a0 It IS about the music.\u00c2\u00a0 You’ve got to start there.<\/p>\n

Then you have to bond your audience to you.\u00c2\u00a0 It doesn’t have to be everyone, just enough to make a living. And hopefully, the crowd is still growing.<\/p>\n

You see there’s no consensus anymore.\u00c2\u00a0 In anything.\u00c2\u00a0 Have we ever been more divided politically?\u00c2\u00a0 Have we ever had more niches of entertainment, that each individual could burrow deeper into to his heart’s delight, connecting with like-minded people and not worrying about the masses?<\/p>\n

The major label game, as played for the past two decades, is dying of its own accord.\u00c2\u00a0 It’s got nothing to do with theft.\u00c2\u00a0 It’s got to do with the splintering of the marketplace.\u00c2\u00a0 Now you’ve got to come up with something great, that’s lasting, and convince a hard core of fans that you’re real.\u00c2\u00a0 You need a steady stream of product to keep them engaged.\u00c2\u00a0 The megatour every three years is less important than just showing up on a regular basis, sans production, everywhere those interested live.<\/p>\n

Bottom line?<\/p>\n

This is good for music.<\/p>\n

Dave Matthews Band’s fans believe the new album is good.\u00c2\u00a0 Doesn’t matter what you think.<\/p>\n

U2 fans believe the new album sucks.\u00c2\u00a0 And since word can get out so easily today, it stalls in the marketplace.<\/p>\n

So, your music must be considered good.\u00c2\u00a0 By the target audience!\u00c2\u00a0 Then you need to focus on growing that audience by motivating those presently interested, not trying to convert blocks of people who don’t care by flogging them again and again in old media.<\/p>\n

Yes, old media is a huge fan of Shakira.\u00c2\u00a0 She’s cute, she’s sexy, she’s smart.<\/p>\n

But what does that have to do with music?<\/p>\n

To have a lasting music career, you’ve got to put the music first.<\/p>\n

<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

From: David WallaceSubject: Re: SuBo i think the more interesting story is that Shakira only sold 89K first week.\u00c2\u00a0 ALL that hype – all the $$$ spent on marketing – the award show appearances – that TERRIBLE video – cover of Rolling Stone, etc. etc. – and it debuts at #15 with 89K sold.\u00c2\u00a0 What’s […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2458","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-music-business"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p96vPs-DE","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2458","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2458"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2458\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2459,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2458\/revisions\/2459"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2458"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2458"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2458"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}