It’s become less about what’s actually in the grooves than whether you can market it, and if so, what is the plan?<\/p>\n
No major label is going to release a Wild Man Fischer album today.\u00c2\u00a0 Music used to be art.\u00c2\u00a0 The act made it, THEN you figured out how to sell it.\u00c2\u00a0 You were a curator, buying stuff for your museum.\u00c2\u00a0 Wait a minute, this applied to both the purveyor AND the customer.\u00c2\u00a0 For a long time I didn’t want anything in my collection that reflected badly on me.\u00c2\u00a0 And when you went to the office of the major label employee he didn’t speak about his company’s stars, but that one act that really touched him, that made that unique record.<\/p>\n
Now a great record sells forever, no matter how long it takes to catch on (can you say "Nick Drake"?)\u00c2\u00a0 But if you need to make your money up front, if you need serious cash flow, then you’ve got to have the big time marketing plan, you’ve got to make as many people aware of your product as possible.\u00c2\u00a0 So you can get all those sales THE VERY FIRST WEEK!\u00c2\u00a0 Oh, some acts build.\u00c2\u00a0 Mostly newbies.\u00c2\u00a0 Whereas those with a previous history, a fan base, their records come out and then slide down down down the chart.\u00c2\u00a0 Front load all that marketing.\u00c2\u00a0 There is no sales arc.\u00c2\u00a0 Radio will probably only play one single, if that, stations would rather spin the well-researched cut for the better part of a year as opposed to testing a new cut, even by an established artist!<\/p>\n
So what we have here is a game.\u00c2\u00a0 Find the obvious and then make it obvious.\u00c2\u00a0 Is this the music and music business we fell in love with?\u00c2\u00a0 Didn’t we decry the obvious?\u00c2\u00a0 How have we gotten so far off the beaten path?<\/p>\n
Music has an advantage over movies.\u00c2\u00a0 You can make it cheaper, and more quickly.\u00c2\u00a0 Then how come it takes as long to make and market a record as a flick?\u00c2\u00a0 Think about it, you’re spending all that money for tracks that will be heard on an iPod and even though music doesn’t have a plot, it’s got longevity, you can listen to it again and again, you sell most of it in a week.\u00c2\u00a0 Why not use new technology to change the paradigm?\u00c2\u00a0 Why not wake up and realize it’s a changed world?<\/p>\n
A label might want a standard contract with an act providing for up to five albums.\u00c2\u00a0 But this doesn’t square with the consumer’s listening habits.\u00c2\u00a0 The consumer wants a steady stream of great tracks.\u00c2\u00a0 First and foremost, STEADY!\u00c2\u00a0 If you’re not constantly releasing new good stuff, your audience moves on to something else.\u00c2\u00a0 And unlike in the seventies, there’s BOATLOADS of other stuff.\u00c2\u00a0 Don’t put out an album for three years today and most people have FORGOTTEN YOU!\u00c2\u00a0 Second, the album is irrelevant to most listeners.\u00c2\u00a0 They focus on good as opposed to quantity.\u00c2\u00a0 Oh, if you want to put out a concept album sixty minutes long, good luck (but I’m laughing inside anyway, isn’t that positively SIXTIES?)\u00c2\u00a0 But you’re bucking the system.\u00c2\u00a0 No one can digest today’s overlong albums, never mind be motivated to buy them.\u00c2\u00a0 In the old days we could afford very little and records had two sides and were under forty minutes.\u00c2\u00a0 Now, everything is essentially free, and there’s ENDLESS MUSIC!<\/p>\n
No, the future isn’t going to be album release events.\u00c2\u00a0 Hell, if this was the case, Tower would still be in business, people would be lining up Monday at midnight to get the new product.\u00c2\u00a0 Now, people graze and when they get stuff they like, they keep it.\u00c2\u00a0 You’ve got to feed the grazers.\u00c2\u00a0 You need more product.<\/p>\n
Rather than polish that album to a turd, you need to go into your basement studio and cut a track and put it up on the Web the next day.\u00c2\u00a0 The public wants the immediacy, like in blogs.\u00c2\u00a0 They don’t wait two days to report the news, and you shouldn’t have to wait a year between inspiration and release.\u00c2\u00a0 Get inspired, cut something, put it out.\u00c2\u00a0 If it’s good, your fan base will spread the word.\u00c2\u00a0 If it’s not, cut again.\u00c2\u00a0 Forget the big studio with the high-priced help.\u00c2\u00a0 Those days are through.\u00c2\u00a0 That’s like saying we should bring back film and color separators.\u00c2\u00a0 So many of the creative arts have gone down and dirty, now it’s music’s turn.<\/p>\n
Neil Young’s "Ohio" came out a week after Kent State.\u00c2\u00a0 Back when there was no Internet, never mind Pro Tools.\u00c2\u00a0 Why can’t Rage Against The Machine put out a single coinciding with the House vote on Iraq?\u00c2\u00a0 Where are the political singles coincident with the 2008 election\/political debate?\u00c2\u00a0 Oh, the artists are afraid of offending their listeners.\u00c2\u00a0 But now the paradigm is reversed, you don’t HAVE that many listeners, not that many people are PAYING ATTENTION!\u00c2\u00a0 Honesty and integrity keep people attached to you, your identity is king, that’s what you’re selling.\u00c2\u00a0 Paris Hilton can’t sell a record because people hate her.\u00c2\u00a0 The media loves her, people hate her.\u00c2\u00a0 People love Wilco, not MOST people, but enough people to keep Wilco in business.\u00c2\u00a0 Who do you want to be, as a musical performer, Paris Hilton or Wilco?<\/p>\n
The laser printer eliminated the print shop.\u00c2\u00a0 The Net allows you to eliminate physical retail\/distribution.\u00c2\u00a0 You don’t have to get a middleman to buy your record, you can go STRAIGHT TO THE PUBLIC!\u00c2\u00a0 And the costs involved are so low, you don’t have to sell a lot.\u00c2\u00a0 And you can experiment.<\/p>\n
The experimentation in today’s world is dead.\u00c2\u00a0 Everyone’s playing to that one big drop date.\u00c2\u00a0 The stars of the future will be much more fluid, putting out innovative stuff on a regular basis.\u00c2\u00a0 They’ll be worried about satiating their fan base, not their handlers.\u00c2\u00a0 Then again, handlers don’t have fans.\u00c2\u00a0 The artists get it, the big labels don’t.\u00c2\u00a0 And the big labels are fighting change.\u00c2\u00a0 But change is here.\u00c2\u00a0 Just look at the declining SoundScan numbers for evidence.\u00c2\u00a0 Music will not be sold as a one hour compilation for ten plus bucks for long.\u00c2\u00a0 Either fight the change or embrace it.\u00c2\u00a0 Either spend yourself into oblivion or put out cheaper, more vital material on a regular basis.<\/p>\n
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It’s become less about what’s actually in the grooves than whether you can market it, and if so, what is the plan? No major label is going to release a Wild Man Fischer album today.\u00c2\u00a0 Music used to be art.\u00c2\u00a0 The act made it, THEN you figured out how to sell it.\u00c2\u00a0 You were a […]<\/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-789","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-music-business"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p96vPs-cJ","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/789","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=789"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/789\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=789"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=789"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=789"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}