Sometime in the nineties it became about the track, not the act.\u00c2\u00a0 THAT’S what’s killing the labels, not the purchase of single hits at the iTunes Music Store.<\/p>\n
After "Rubber Soul" we WANTED the album.\u00c2\u00a0 We believed artists were making a statement, that we needed to hear to be clued into society.\u00c2\u00a0 We didn’t even GIVE A SHIT about the single.\u00c2\u00a0 Oftentimes the best track was something that was not obvious or catchy at all.\u00c2\u00a0 Can you say "Can’t Find My Way Home"?\u00c2\u00a0 Never mind "Tales Of Brave Ulysses" or "Whipping Post".\u00c2\u00a0 And to see one of our heroes perform their music live was such a desire that we lined up to buy tickets when it was still dark out and shows used to sell out with one ad, if not only a radio announcement.<\/p>\n
But those days are through.<\/p>\n
The paradigm changed.<\/p>\n
You see the labels figured out if you HAD a hit on an album, you could get airplay of said track, whether it be on the dying AM band or the nascent FM band or ultimately MTV, and this drove casual buyers, the uninitiated, to the record store.\u00c2\u00a0 At first this extra revenue was gravy.\u00c2\u00a0 No one felt that "Rumours" was made for a market.\u00c2\u00a0 But as Top Forty resuscitated on FM in the eighties, as the kids of the baby boomers came of age, everything flip-flopped in the music business.\u00c2\u00a0 In control of the business ropes, executives started dictating to artists.\u00c2\u00a0 And what they wanted most was hits.\u00c2\u00a0 And those that didn’t deliver…they were either dropped or their albums were deep-sixed.\u00c2\u00a0 You either played ball or you were history, taught a lesson like George Michael.\u00c2\u00a0 The label was all powerful, do what it says or you’ll be working a day job.<\/p>\n
It is this ethos that single-handedly caused today’s burgeoning indie label scene.\u00c2\u00a0 After all, artistry is about being independent, speaking your mind, not kowtowing to a suit.\u00c2\u00a0 Despite Clive Davis’ protestations that he’s the man, that he knows best, and the press eating it up, he don’t know shit.\u00c2\u00a0 The public is all wise.\u00c2\u00a0 And it feels it’s been sold a bill of goods.\u00c2\u00a0 Acts refined to fit the system as opposed to artists exploring their muse.<\/p>\n
Yes.\u00c2\u00a0 To be on MTV you had to be good-looking.<\/p>\n
And to get on the radio you had to have hooks, that did well in callout research.<\/p>\n
Didn’t matter what you looked like in the late sixties and early seventies.\u00c2\u00a0 And everybody was too stoned to research, it was all about vibes.<\/p>\n
But now the aforementioned Mr. Davis, and Charles Koppelman and Tommy Mottola, ruled, and they dictated that artists must fit the formula, or ELSE!<\/p>\n
You needed one track.\u00c2\u00a0 That would be supported by a tour-de-force video.\u00c2\u00a0 And the whole enterprise would be launched by the gratis efforts of the media, who need SOMETHING to sell.<\/p>\n
It’s just that the foregoing left the public out.\u00c2\u00a0 And as soon as they saw an exit strategy, they took it.\u00c2\u00a0 Via the Net.\u00c2\u00a0 Whether it be P2P, IM, e-mail or even MySpace.\u00c2\u00a0 It was a way to stick it to the man.\u00c2\u00a0 Which is what the music was in the original heyday decades back, if you think about it.<\/p>\n
Forget the teeming masses, the unwashed.\u00c2\u00a0 They don’t get the fire started.\u00c2\u00a0 Rather it’s a hard core of addicted fans.\u00c2\u00a0 Who build a Fleetwood Mac.\u00c2\u00a0 An Eric Clapton.\u00c2\u00a0 An Allman Brothers Band.\u00c2\u00a0 The labels cut these people out, they went for the casual buyer first, and turned away the CORE!\u00c2\u00a0 And, in the process, cut out the heart of their business.<\/p>\n
But things are changing.\u00c2\u00a0 In order to survive in the twenty first century, you’ve got to flip back to the old paradigm.\u00c2\u00a0 You first and foremost have to sell the act.\u00c2\u00a0 And you have to start with the music.\u00c2\u00a0 How you look, what you have to say in interviews, what you WEAR is secondary!<\/p>\n
Yes, people care what others wear.\u00c2\u00a0 But that’s MINOR in comparison to what people say in their art.\u00c2\u00a0 In OTHER WORDS, you can sell records via image, but how many?<\/p>\n
The key is to create an act people can believe in.\u00c2\u00a0 And then the dirty little secret, which the raping and pillaging RIAA companies don’t want to admit, or are possibly too ignorant to know, is that these same people will buy EVERYTHING the act puts out!<\/p>\n
Oh, there’s a singles business.\u00c2\u00a0 It’s not insignificant.\u00c2\u00a0 But it’s DWARFED by a business wherein people are fans of ACTS not TRACKS!<\/p>\n
The album, as a set number of tracks released every few years, is dead.\u00c2\u00a0 Please, know this is true.\u00c2\u00a0 Just like the 33 killed the 45 and CDs contained almost twice as much music as 33s.\u00c2\u00a0 The medium DOES affect the message.\u00c2\u00a0 Songs themselves might not be longer, but you can release as many as you want WHENEVER you want.\u00c2\u00a0 And, if you have believers, they’ll take everything you can offer.\u00c2\u00a0 As long as it’s not too expensive.<\/p>\n
Mm…\u00c2\u00a0 But isn’t recording and breaking records expensive?<\/p>\n
Well, recording has gotten MUCH cheaper.\u00c2\u00a0 Sure, you can’t do in a small room what you can in a big one, but if the old way was so successful, why are studios dropping like flies?<\/p>\n
And breaking records…\u00c2\u00a0 Today’s methodology is so scattershot and so inefficient as to be laughable.\u00c2\u00a0 In the future you must target a small audience and then let THEM do the work, FOR FREE!<\/p>\n
Of course what you’re purveying must be good.\u00c2\u00a0 People don’t spread the word on shit.\u00c2\u00a0 At least not on more than the occasional train-wreck.<\/p>\n
But should all this music be FREE?<\/p>\n
OF COURSE NOT!<\/p>\n
But the price of acquisition must be very low.<\/p>\n
Think of it this way.\u00c2\u00a0 If you like ONE track, you should be able to acquire more, to check out the artist, VERY CHEAPLY!\u00c2\u00a0 The public believes that only the hit is any good, so why should people risk the same price, 99 cents, for an album track?\u00c2\u00a0 Shit, album tracks haven’t counted in excess of a DECADE!\u00c2\u00a0 But, if it cost you nothing additional for the album track, and you liked the original, wouldn’t you want MORE?<\/p>\n
That’s the Internet distribution paradigm.\u00c2\u00a0 You’ve got to throw in more than the cost of a single track every month for access to ALL music.\u00c2\u00a0 So, having taken ONE track, you’ll take MORE!\u00c2\u00a0 And, if the acts are credible, you won’t only graze for the hits, you’ll go deep, discovering more and more artists.\u00c2\u00a0 Which is why Internet distribution is a BOON to the recording industry.\u00c2\u00a0 People can check out stuff cheaply and will ultimately own more music and be fans of more acts and spend money on touring, merchandise and other ancillary products.\u00c2\u00a0 Because, as stated previously, if you believe in somebody, you want EVERYTHING they purvey!<\/p>\n
Make it easy.\u00c2\u00a0 Don’t lock up the wares.\u00c2\u00a0 Let people browse.\u00c2\u00a0 Let them take.<\/p>\n
Artists will have full-bodied careers once again.\u00c2\u00a0 The fact that they won’t release ten tracks on a disc every other year?\u00c2\u00a0 IRRELEVANT!\u00c2\u00a0 They’ll be making music constantly, which fans will want to own.\u00c2\u00a0 It’s a panacea.\u00c2\u00a0 If you think about it.\u00c2\u00a0 But it appears no one controlling the rights does.\u00c2\u00a0 Then again, these are the same high school losers who were envious of drug-addicted rock stars who could get laid whenever they wanted.\u00c2\u00a0 Pissed about it, they exerted control, and killed the goose that laid the golden egg.<\/p>\n
It starts with believable artistry.\u00c2\u00a0 Forget that and you’re fucked.<\/p>\n
<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Sometime in the nineties it became about the track, not the act.\u00c2\u00a0 THAT’S what’s killing the labels, not the purchase of single hits at the iTunes Music Store. After "Rubber Soul" we WANTED the album.\u00c2\u00a0 We believed artists were making a statement, that we needed to hear to be clued into society.\u00c2\u00a0 We didn’t even […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","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-317","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-music-business"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p96vPs-57","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/317","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\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=317"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/317\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=317"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=317"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=317"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}