{"id":3630,"date":"2010-12-10T08:05:00","date_gmt":"2010-12-10T16:05:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/?p=3630"},"modified":"2010-12-10T08:07:45","modified_gmt":"2010-12-10T16:07:45","slug":"wayne-rossos-rick-rubinsony-music-screed","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/2010\/12\/10\/wayne-rossos-rick-rubinsony-music-screed\/","title":{"rendered":"Wayne Rosso’s Rick Rubin\/Sony Music Screed"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Rob Stringer, Rick Rubin and the Real Story at Columbia <\/a><\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Can’t say I read every word, not that I disagree with Wayne’s main point, that this was a bad deal and one could see from the past that this arrangement would be a failure.\u00c2\u00a0 But what is truly stunning to me is the anemic sales in the chart.<\/p>\n

The Gossip, after all that hype, all that ink, the labeling of Beth Ditto as a fashion icon, only sold 35,812 records?\u00c2\u00a0 Publicity doesn’t seem to sell records anymore.<\/p>\n

Jakob Dylan’s album flew under the radar, but a major label can’t survive on sales of 126,168, not when they pay Rubin, Stringer and Barnett the big bucks.\u00c2\u00a0 One can ask why the executives weren’t incentivized, low salaries against results, but that’s not record business style.\u00c2\u00a0 In the entertainment business, the executives hold the public companies hostage, demand exorbitant salaries, whereas in Silicon Valley you’ve got to prove your mettle.<\/p>\n

As for Pete Yorn, sales of 56,431…\u00c2\u00a0 I’d say never has an act gotten so much ink and sold so few records, except this has been a record biz paradigm forever, as if by getting stories everywhere, you can get people to like the music.<\/p>\n

The Avett Brothers sold 252,936 albums and most people have no idea who they are!\u00c2\u00a0 This is the future! They’ve got hard core fans and earn loyalty on the road.\u00c2\u00a0 Sure, the band hasn’t broken through to stardom, but they’ve got a base, this is a good story, if not a phenomenal Rick Rubin breakthrough.<\/p>\n

Whether you like Brandi Carlile or not, I’ve been worked on her forever and I’ve got to say 119,101 sales is a drop in the bucket.<\/p>\n

And Ours only sold 13,168 albums!<\/p>\n

The record business needs to be retooled, for today’s reality.<\/p>\n

It’s a singles business.\u00c2\u00a0 If you’re spending heavily to make an album, do it for art, because the odds of making money are low.<\/p>\n

Acts have to get small advances, record cheaply and marketing and promotion budgets must be scaled down accordingly.\u00c2\u00a0 It just doesn’t pay to spend for sales like this.<\/p>\n

Used to be you could grow acts to superstardom quickly, via TV and radio.\u00c2\u00a0 Did you read that article where colleges are getting rid of their radio stations because no one is listening? <\/p>\n

\n
Waning Support for College Radio Sets Off a Debate<\/a><\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Susan Boyle can sell.\u00c2\u00a0 "X-Factor" too.\u00c2\u00a0 The majors are tooled up for this game.\u00c2\u00a0 They shouldn’t sign these work\/charity cases.<\/p>\n

They don’t seem able to do both.\u00c2\u00a0 Sony wants to overpay Doug Morris to try for more hits?\u00c2\u00a0 Close it down. Or just have a small team license event records like "Glee".\u00c2\u00a0 The problem isn’t the executives so much as the model.<\/p>\n

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

Rob Stringer, Rick Rubin and the Real Story at Columbia Can’t say I read every word, not that I disagree with Wayne’s main point, that this was a bad deal and one could see from the past that this arrangement would be a failure.\u00c2\u00a0 But what is truly stunning to me is the anemic sales […]<\/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-3630","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-music-business"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p96vPs-Wy","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3630","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=3630"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3630\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3634,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3630\/revisions\/3634"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3630"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3630"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3630"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}