Posts by robbery
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a slightly more sobering less hyped article on the radiohead experiment.
Don't miss lessons Radiohead, Trent Reznor offeron Trent Reznor's recording and release of honesty box album for artist saul williams
A record company can afford to make bad bets once in a while, said Chris Castle, a music industry insider who has worked as a vice president for both Sony Music and A&M Records. Musicians, even successful ones like Reznor, probably can't.
on the work that a label actually does for an artist.
Does that mean, gasp, that record labels aren't entirely evil? Well, maybe. Charges of musician exploitation and plain old bad taste aside, they certainly have a purpose. The music business is primarily about promotion, Castle said. You build name recognition through all sorts of methods: radio play, getting write-ups in music magazines, making sure a CD is prominently promoted in record stores. That takes money. Castle offered this example.
"Finding music at record stores has always been tough," Castle said. "If you go into a store knowing what you want, or you're a music aficionado, it's easy. For the superficial buyer it's harder. Those are the people that are going to be influenced by displays at end caps of aisles or the stuff that's featured at listening posts. You don't get that spot because you're a nice person. All that stuff is paid for."and its impact on an artist
Then there is all the heavy lifting to worry about. In the telephone conversation I had with Reznor, he sounded like a guy who had been working too hard. He said he poured 18 months of his life into helping make NiggyTardust. Not only did he put up his own money, he produced the album, performed on it, oversaw all of the business tasks right down to the writing of the text on Williams' Web site.
Artists who sign with a label don't perform these chores. Executives packing MBAs and years of business expertise do. Is that a good thing? Not necessarily, but that division of labor helps.
"I'm spending a lot more time being the business guy than the musician and I really don't like doing that," Reznor said. He found the role of record executive more difficult than he had expected.
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With all due respect to musicians, I put it to you that more kiwi's are negatively affected by this Supermarket duopoly than music piracy.
good thing its not a competition between supermarkets and piracy then.
personally I liked the big fresh chain and did notice and resent them being bought out and changed,
that said there is sizable difference in the management and presentation of the different markets, new world is very different from pack n save, but this is reasonably off thread I suppose.
My thinking is if a company has enough money to buy up half of all supermarkets in a country then they have too much money. -
The sooner I can download lasagne to my iPod the better, I say.
interesting details on produce there.I didn't know it was so marfia.
are there really only 2 chains? fresh choice, woolworth, pack n save, count down, new world, 4 square, super value, some obviously owned by the same people.the sooner they get a viable secure business model for you to download lasagna the better. otherwise the producers will go out of business and stop making it.
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about acts that had never recouped and hence not been paid a cent
yeah and you being one of those guys that makes records and knows the costs and losses understand why some of em don't get any money, and the plus side for those people is they don't have to fork out for it either. they don't lose money on the process. now its moved more towards the 'well if you want to make a recording its going to cost you the artist personally', you're the bank, not some label
Part of the cross purposes we've been talking over too. a lot of your reference points and experiences have been where the major label was treated like a bank, they loaned the artist start up cash, essentially loan sharks.
a lot of artists don't work like that (salmonella dub for one who pay for all their own recordings which puts them in a much better negotiating position). Of course you're going to get much darker tails when recounting dealings with loan sharks. no one's happy coming from that position.Most of the artists I'm talking about come from different position, self funded etc. those people are getting hurt much worse than if some label was flicking up the cash for their art.
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I wonder what percentage of acts never saw a cent from the labels system.
I think you misunderstand me on this point, i'm not pro label,
I'm saying laxed attitude to piracy based on resentment of the old system is clouding the issue.
all levels are hurt by it, and I'm seeing it in indie artists who don't make back anything, where as they would have covered their costs, it now costs them, and that's unsustainable, as I'm seeing with many, although there is always the 'one' artists who bobs up it is not the trend, one bobs up, many bob down, that's the trend.Failing majors is just the tip of the building, the whole thing is unstable.
Easy lesson there.
yeah, I get the math, you don't have to tell me that coming from one indie to another, but the point is its exception and rule.
radiohead and your one guy are the exceptions used to sell a false belief in forward motion. there may well be a forward motion waiting in the wings but it isn't here yet. -
reasonably extensive actually as I have several joint venture deals, am consulting on recording contracts in 4 countries and I talk to people all over the world in the recording industry daily..does that count?
sure does,
I consult with artists on a daily basis, extensively discuss how their making their projects break even and how they're making things work for themselves, I work with and for musicians every day at the coal face and get extensive insider views of how many cds, downloads etc actually get sold, and how much money is coming in and going where,
its literally hundreds of musicians a year, and you know I'm a nosey bugger so I ask lots of questions,
that aside from my own personal experience etc,does that count?
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But as I said Rob, this is going around in circles...I'm happy to leave it.
come on mate, page 30 is just over the next hill.
chat when you feel like it though, as you may have noticed I took some real world time at the end of last week,
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Paul McGuinness..no I'm talking about industry response..commentators, music industry forums and the like. It was fairly dismissive to my eyes.
I saw lots of people saying don't like it but I can see where he's coming from. I did see people being dismissive but they were from the why pay for music people, not really informed people as such. As someone involved in the meat and potatoes of music making and experience with distribution I hope you give me credit for my insider knowledge and the right to disagree. You're opinion is always valid but I have found it hard to see how you've arrived at some of your conclusions,
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One NZ musician I know
only one?
I can point you to hundreds that would have broken even who haven't in the current climate reputedly healthy or not. -
because vastly more music is being made
not necessarily a good thing, as I'm sure you're well aware. some really really bad stuff clogging the circuits that should never have got out of someones head let alone their bedroom and into the wider world.
That said the concept of label as gatekeeper authority was shown to be flawed cos the gate is only as good as the keeper and many gate keepers had taste in their arse,