2010 Three-Month Market Share<\/a><\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\nAnd why did Sony essentially equal perennial market share winner Universal?\u00c2\u00a0 Can you say Sade and Susan Boyle?\u00c2\u00a0 Which sold 990,000 albums and 553,000 respectively?<\/p>\n
And why is Jimmy Iovine’s IGA second in label new release market share?\u00c2\u00a0 Can you say Lady GaGa? Placing at number 3, with 553,000 and number 10, with 334,000?<\/p>\n
Ain’t that an interesting spread.\u00c2\u00a0 Number one, Lady Antebelleum’s album, sold 1.2 million more than GaGa’s "Fame Monster", number ten.<\/p>\n
In other words, now, more than ever, the major label game is about hits.<\/p>\n
They don’t want your single.\u00c2\u00a0 And by this I don’t mean track, rather I’m employing a baseball metaphor. You can argue they want home runs, but I’d say the major label game is really about grand slams.<\/p>\n
I can’t fault them for this, they’re businesses.\u00c2\u00a0 But what if you’re an act, do you belong in this game?<\/p>\n
If you think you can sell tonnage, if you make radio and TV-friendly music, take your chances.\u00c2\u00a0 If you’re looking to build to a solid touring base, despite lip-service, the major can’t be bothered.\u00c2\u00a0 EMI is fighting for its life, actually, it’s already dead, they’re just arguing in court over potential fraud in the inducement by Citibank.\u00c2\u00a0 Do you really want to put your developing act on EMI?<\/p>\n
Or even Sony.\u00c2\u00a0 Sure, Susan Boyle and Sade rain down cash, but the company just wants new winners of the same stature.\u00c2\u00a0 So maybe they’ll start you, but they might finish you too.\u00c2\u00a0 As in jumping ship to something that shows major traction, leaving you to languish in signed to the label hell.<\/p>\n
And usually, you’re signed to a 360 deal, so even if you’re working on the road, you’re working for the label.\u00c2\u00a0 Which is doing exactly what for you?<\/p>\n
It’s interesting to question whether these sales numbers evidence Long Tail backlash.\u00c2\u00a0 Whether it’s about winners more than small sales for the truly obscure.\u00c2\u00a0 But looking at the spread between the number one and ten albums on the chart shows that it’s about very few winners!<\/p>\n
The majors created their game.\u00c2\u00a0 Blame MTV, the concomitant resurgence of Top Forty radio, media manipulation by Clive Davis and Tommy Mottola.\u00c2\u00a0 They’ve been so busy swinging for the fences, that’s all they know how to do.<\/p>\n
Hell, they’ve fired all the little people who help you build slowly.<\/p>\n
Sure, Kings Of Leon broke through, but how many other acts have been nurtured from obscurity to mainstream success?\u00c2\u00a0 You need immediate action, and at least gold at the end of the sales curve in order to continue to get attention.\u00c2\u00a0 So if you’re performing anything but mainstream music, if your act and music need time to develop, run from the major label system.<\/p>\n
You’ve got to be willing to slog it out until you get lucky.\u00c2\u00a0 The major labels try to force luckiness.\u00c2\u00a0 But the hype and the fakery end up turning people off.\u00c2\u00a0 GaGa is so big, she’s got nowhere to go but down.\u00c2\u00a0 And there’s not another GaGa stealing attention.\u00c2\u00a0 It’s kind of like the Tiger Woods crisis, it festers forever in the public consciousness, because no one that big is willing to do something that stupid.\u00c2\u00a0 GaGa should be toning it down, reducing expectations in order to achieve longevity, instead we’ve got press stories about a billion video views…\u00c2\u00a0 Shit, anything that ubiquitous is headed for overload and ultimate obscurity.\u00c2\u00a0 Hell, ask my buddy Peter Frampton, he went for the gold after his big hit album, played to the masses with "I’m In You" and the "Sgt. Pepper" film, and still has regained neither his credibility nor sales.\u00c2\u00a0 Who to blame? Management!\u00c2\u00a0 Which steered him wrong.<\/p>\n
How’s the major gonna steer you?<\/p>\n
Are they even interested in you?<\/p>\n
Are they going to be around long enough to see you through five albums?\u00c2\u00a0 Or, if the name remains, will the employees sustain?<\/p>\n
Interesting times.<\/p>\n
<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
But I thought EMI was history, on the brink of extinction, how could Terra Firma’s company almost equal the Warner Music Group in new release market share, only half a percentage point separating the two? HitsDailyDouble has an exhaustive market share report: Q1 MARKETSHARE REPORT:SME, EMI PLAY CATCH UP You may have to register first, […]<\/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-2764","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-music-business"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p96vPs-IA","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2764","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=2764"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2764\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2766,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2764\/revisions\/2766"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2764"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2764"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2764"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}