An Artist's View of the Modern Music Biz 210
An anonymous reader writes "A member of the band OK Go wrote an interesting open letter giving an artist's perspective on the current state of the music business and how labels finance producing, distributing, and marketing music and music videos. A very insightful perspective of 'both sides': the argument that music and music videos are meant to be heard and, in the case of the latter, seen by a wide audience; and the argument that the money needs to come from somewhere. Unfortunately, the letter doesn't address the perspective outsiders have of outlandish salaries in the music labels, but it is interesting nonetheless." Their new video is not bad either.
Other artist's insight (Score:5, Informative)
David Byrne (of Talking Heads fame) did a fantastic article for Wired [wired.com] a few years ago about this. He discusses (with details!) how the music industry works, some of the "models" of releasing music, and the economics/incentives to each one. Great read.
On a semi-related note, it's also worth looking at Steve Albini's now classic essay "The Problem With Music [mercenary.com]", which showcases how horrible the modern music industry is to musicians. It was written before the whole "digital revolution", but it helps remind me why I don't feel sympathy for suits in the music business.
And Another From 2000 (Score:5, Informative)
A Better Perspective from a Real Pro (Score:2, Informative)
This article barely tells anything. You want a real close up perspective? read this : http://www.negativland.com/albini.html [negativland.com]
It's a tell all by Steve Albini, producer of Nirvanas last album and member of Big Black and Rapeman .
When you read this , you will see why I hate the industry soooooo much and am dedicated to its death.
So read this and get out your p2p and help kill the industry to make the world safe for music and musicians.
Re:"the money needs to come from somwhere" (Score:3, Informative)
just a minor point: public libraries aren't free. they're a shared cost institution, getting their funding from numerous taxpayer sources.
http://nces.ed.gov/FastFacts/display.asp?id=42 [ed.gov]
Question:
From what sources are state libraries funded?
Response:
Revenue
Sources of state library agency revenue are the federal government, state governments, and other sources, such as local, regional, or multi-jurisdictional sources. State library agencies may also receive income from private sources, such as foundations, corporations, friends of libraries groups, and individuals. State library agencies may also generate revenue through fees for service or fines. Revenue may be designated for aid to libraries, for the current and recurrent costs necessary for the provision of services by the state library agencies, or other purposes.
* State library agencies reported a total revenue of $1.1 billion in fiscal year 2005. The states provided state library agencies with $895 million in revenue, $158 million came from federal sources, and $30 million came from other sources.1
* Of the financial assistance to libraries provided by state library agencies in fiscal year 2005, some 56 percent ($409 million) was targeted to individual public libraries.
Re:Wow, Why Didn't I Think of That?!? (Score:4, Informative)
What can labels & conglomerates provide that can't be provided by other already-existing companies or persons?
Studio time isn't necessarily done by the labels; there's tons of independent and in-home studios out there. Ditto on mixing.
Marketing? There's tons of marketing agencies.
Advertising? See above.
Pressing CDs? Although the technology will likely be obsolete in the next 20 years, all the labels do is make the order and pay for it. I don't doubt an artist with sufficient money could make the order themselves.
Music videos? Look at the work, say, Monty Oum does by himself on his free time. Imagine what a single man employed in that field (or a small company) could do.
In short, there's nothing labels do that artist couldn't contract out themselves. Labels will collapse under their own weight soon enough, I'm sure.
Re:Wow, Why Didn't I Think of That?!? (Score:5, Informative)
As someone mentioned above, the alternative is to "grow organically" which really means grow very very slowly. In many cases, these bands have grown slowly. They have had regular jobs to pay for their equipment. They play tiny gigs at small bars in their home town, and they've probably worked really hard doing, essentially, two jobs, for a long time to get to the point of being recognized by a label. They have barely enough money to buy guitars and a car to get to the next gig, much less move their recording and promotion to the level that a label can offer.
Re:Um, what was that argument again? (Score:3, Informative)
It was the six months producing the album that the track behind the video was taken from that cost all the money.
Basically all that money went to the label and their minions, it just had to be loaned to the band first to leave them in debt to the label. Steve Albini explained this process much better than I ever could [negativland.com].
Re:"the money needs to come from somwhere" (Score:4, Informative)
Your example is obviously flawed - libraries do not cost each person $1000 a month in taxes, besides the fact that it would be pretty difficult to eat $1000 worth of sweets in a month (by yourself), meaning the value proposition is so low that no one would take up that offer.
It's not really necessary and I doubt anyone will even read my post, but I've always wanted to do a slashdot style back-of-the-envelope calculation... so here goes.
Let's assume the previous post was correct, and libraries cost $1.1 billion a year. To keep it simple I'll use state taxes only, which is listed as $895 million. Wikipedia says total state tax revenue (in 2007) was $749,785,186,000 ($750 billion). So, 0.001% of state tax revenue was spent on libraries. Very likely there are local/city taxes that could be significant, but the previous poster showed that states provide the largest source of library funding.
In 2005, at $38,206 per capita the average state tax rate was 9.8% (source [taxfoundation.org]). So, about $3,750 in taxes was paid per person, on average, to the state(s) where they did business (these numbers include taxes from states besides those the person resides in, such as sales tax on out-of-state purchases, but doesn't include federal taxes). 0.001% of that is 4 cents, and that's for the whole year... 0.3 cents/month.
Let's assume my math and the figures I used are bad, and it's actually significantly higher. Say, one hundred times higher... $4 a year is still a heck of a good deal for everything that libraries provide to those who use them, and if you never ever use the library, you can write off the expense (pun intended), considering how small it is, as part of "buying civilization" as the well-known slashdot sig goes, just like you probably don't directly use a lot of the other things state, local, and federal taxes pay for (and you don't get to pick and choose what your money goes toward).
Your sweets example is obviously different, because sweets can't be almost endlessly re-used like books and DVDs from the library can (I suppose you could try with sweets, but...) That's why, of course, such a pre-payment scheme as you suggest wouldn't work for food (although all-you-can-eat buffets are an interesting thing to consider), but why the original point stands... you are pre-paying for the library, but it's a minuscule amount that more or less equals nothing, especially when compared to the value it potentially provides to you.
Not really a solution- live is a ripoff too. (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Should Have Grown Organically (Score:2, Informative)
Ironically, as a musician or band, you won't get a major label offer until you are successful enough to attract the attention of a label. That means you're making enough money that they could make money off of you. So at that point, why sign? If you're not that successful yet, no one will offer you a deal anyhow, so it's not even a problem for you.
Wrong.
Your choices in summary: 1. sign and get slightly better promotion for a huge reduction in your personal profit 2. don't sign, get the promotion your music warrants on its own and keep all your own profits
If you're all that good, you're gonna make way more money at #2. If you're terrible and somehow you get a big advance because of #1, believe me, the label will find a way to claw that money back from you.
Spoken from the perspective of someone who just "knows" that's the way things work - or rather, the way he thinks they should work.
The problem is that real world doesn't work that way. The way the real world works is this:
1. You perform, for almost no money (or, in the case of pay-to-play venues, for less money than it costs you to promote the gig and buy the tickets you couldn't find friends to purchase from the allotment the management of the place portioned out to you - and, if you don't sell all of them, you won't get a second opportunity to play that venue), as often as you can, while you work a dead-end, stop-loss job that, nonetheless, you have to schedule your rehearsals, performances, and promotional activities around.
2. You scrape together enough money to record your band at a low-budget studio, without enough time to complete your overdubs, because you can't afford to pay for the extra time. So the end-product is less than satisfactory - sometimes a whole lot less than satisfactory - but at least you have something to sell at your gigs, and send copies of to college radio stations and independent record labels.
3. You spend a lot of effort on your MyFace page, embedding your recordings (which eats into your market for CDs, which you try to sell at your performances, but more often can't, because the economy sucks, and, oh yeah, your audience can get the MP3s for free, anyway).
4. Eventually, you manage to attract an offer from an independent record company, which will give you the budget to make a decent album recording, and just enough promotion to go with it that you may just get a modest, college-radio hit out of it.
5. Then the major labels become interested enough to offer to buy your contract from the independent label, put you into what amounts to debt slavery to finance your next album and accompanying video(s), and (most importantly) pay Clear Channel the bribe money - excuse me, I meant "research fees" - that somehow, magically, gets your first major-label single actually played on commercial radio.
6. If you're really lucky, your song is a hit. At that point, you finally have a chance to beat the record company system - but only if you have already have a second single to promote (and not at all, if you're foolish enough to spend that income, rather than re-invest it by accepting a smaller advance for your second major-label album).
7. Rinse and repeat, until your contract is up, at which point, you finally have a chance to renegotiate the terms to something more in your favor. Just don't fail to continue to release hit records along the way, because it only takes one stiff - especially if it comes near the end of your contract, when you're getting creatively exhausted from the pressure and the touring - to put the record company in the driver's seat when it comes to negotiations. (This is what happened to Prince - and it's why he started insisting on being referred to as "the artist", because that's the way your record contract will refer to YOU - in the period when he appeared on SNL with the word "slave" written on his cheek in magic marker. And note th