1,108,000 copies sold?<\/p>\n
THAT’S PISS POOR!<\/p>\n
Okay kids.\u00c2\u00a0 Stop that knee-jerk reaction.\u00c2\u00a0 Be able to hold two opposing thoughts in your head.\u00c2\u00a0 That’s the mark of an educated person.<\/p>\n
Yes, by conventional SoundScan standards a tick over a million copies in a week is a significant sum.<\/p>\n
But is there anybody in the U.S. who did not know GaGa had a new album out?\u00c2\u00a0 Was there a problem finding a place to buy it?<\/p>\n
What we’ve learned here is most people just don’t care.\u00c2\u00a0 They don’t want GaGa at any price.<\/p>\n
Welcome to the modern world.<\/p>\n
We’ve been hearing from major labels for a decade that the problem is theft.\u00c2\u00a0 But that’s not the true issue, more accurately it’s diversity, choice.\u00c2\u00a0 We no longer have to pay attention to what you want us to.\u00c2\u00a0 You can pour on the hype, you can tell us to care, but most of just don’t.<\/p>\n
You can’t argue about the price.\u00c2\u00a0 "Born This Way" was available at Amazon for 99 cents.\u00c2\u00a0 And then, just in case you didn’t catch it the first time around, they repeated the promotion a couple of days later.\u00c2\u00a0 Only 400,000 odd people took Amazon up on this offer.\u00c2\u00a0 Meaning for many, they just don’t want to hear GaGa AT ANY PRICE!<\/p>\n
It’s not about the quality of the record.\u00c2\u00a0 If it had been better, it wouldn’t have sold significantly more.<\/p>\n
It’s not about set-up.\u00c2\u00a0 How many singles were there?\u00c2\u00a0 GaGa was all over TV, giving quotes to media outlets ad infinitum.<\/p>\n
But it fell on deaf ears.<\/p>\n
There was a hard core of people who wanted the new album.\u00c2\u00a0 And then she hit a brick wall.\u00c2\u00a0 After that, NO MAS!<\/p>\n
Mainstream media just can’t fathom this.\u00c2\u00a0 That the mainstream is dead.\u00c2\u00a0 That we’ve all scattered off into our own little niches.\u00c2\u00a0 Fox keeps touting how many people watched the "American Idol" finale, but I can’t even remember the winner’s name.<\/p>\n
It wasn’t about the winner.\u00c2\u00a0 It wasn’t about music.<\/p>\n
And the hipsters can’t fathom this either.\u00c2\u00a0 For decades the sport of insiders has been to put down the taste of the outsiders, the unhip.\u00c2\u00a0 There’s been a sieve through which music had to pass, to the point where we had an anointed few.\u00c2\u00a0 For a couple of decades it was those tracks that made it on to the MTV playlist.\u00c2\u00a0 They were the winners, everybody else was a loser.\u00c2\u00a0 Now there is no major league.\u00c2\u00a0 There are no winners.\u00c2\u00a0 Just a bunch of sideshows.<\/p>\n
In other words, the only people who cared about Lady GaGa’s music were her little monsters.\u00c2\u00a0 THAT’S IT!<\/p>\n
If you’re an act satiate your core.\u00c2\u00a0 That’s all there is.\u00c2\u00a0 GaGa has proven that you can prostitute yourself all over TV, come up with outrageous quotes, and most people shrug their shoulders, they could care less.<\/p>\n
Like I said, this is not about theft.\u00c2\u00a0 Hell, you’re lucky if someone steals your music, that means THEY CARE!\u00c2\u00a0 And if they really truly care, maybe they’ll come to the gig and buy some merch.<\/p>\n
But don’t ask me to care.<\/p>\n
Don’t ask the person next door to care.<\/p>\n
We’ve got little time, we’ve got so many choices.\u00c2\u00a0 We’ve got our own interests.\u00c2\u00a0 Even if you gain our attention, that does not mean your interests will comport with mine.\u00c2\u00a0 Beat me over the head with the story of that basketball player, I’m watching ski racing.\u00c2\u00a0 And others are fans of B.A.S.E. jumping and still others are out skateboarding.<\/p>\n
This leaves us with a Tower of Babel society.\u00c2\u00a0 Which is what brings us to festivals.\u00c2\u00a0 Where it’s less about individual acts than being there, amongst our peers.\u00c2\u00a0 That’s the hook, we’re all in it together, not the music!<\/p>\n
This is SO different from the last century.<\/p>\n
And just like we’re never going back to a three network TV universe, we’re not going back to a few musical superstars and a bunch of losers.\u00c2\u00a0 Now we’ve got a ton of journeymen.\u00c2\u00a0 The business at large is huge, but no act within it is very big.<\/p>\n
Oh, the mainstream media tells us Lady GaGa is a superstar.\u00c2\u00a0 But she’s not, not by the standards of yore.\u00c2\u00a0 How many people actually went to her show?\u00c2\u00a0 How many people have purchased her music?\u00c2\u00a0 If she were a network TV show, they’d cancel her.\u00c2\u00a0 And network TV shows have a fraction of the audience they once had.\u00c2\u00a0 Three networks used to have 90% of the audience.\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0 Now four and a half networks have less than 30%.\u00c2\u00a0 The rest is made up of endless cable channels, endless niches.\u00c2\u00a0 Many of them quite profitable, in some cases more profitable than the networks, because costs are watched and a premium is charged for their audience.<\/p>\n
In other words, maybe you can’t afford to spend so much making your album.\u00c2\u00a0 And if you’ve got hard core fans you can get a lot of money from them.\u00c2\u00a0 That’s the game.\u00c2\u00a0 Getting a hundred bucks from one fan, who buys music, tickets and merch and even joins the fan club, as opposed to trying to beat people into buying an album they don’t want to hear for ten bucks.<\/p>\n
It’s a brand new era.<\/p>\n
The old one is done.<\/p>\n
Set yourself on fire.\u00c2\u00a0 Everybody will know who you are for a day.<\/p>\n
But you won’t have fans.<\/p>\n
And now it’s all about fans.\u00c2\u00a0 And a fan base takes time to build, it must be nurtured, you must give back, you must treat your fans right, from delivering more music to fair ticket prices to access to…<\/p>\n
It’s easier than ever to get started.<\/p>\n
But more difficult than ever to succeed.<\/p>\n
But don’t let that discourage you.<\/p>\n
Human nature is to look for something new.<\/p>\n
We’re always kicking the tires.\u00c2\u00a0 We’re listening to the recommendations of like-minded friends.\u00c2\u00a0 If you gain a fan base, you’ve got a chance some of those fans will grow your audience.\u00c2\u00a0 But your audience won’t go instantly nuclear based on ANY mainstream exposure.<\/p>\n
Those days are history.<\/p>\n
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