Modern music

[A String]

Ok you two. Let's put this to rest.

[BillWelcome Home Studios]

"And are you really so blind to believe that the industry plays NO part in radio anymore? "

 

The tail wags the dog.

 

Selling, Part One.

 

1965. You want to sell you record. The driver for sales is to get the record played on the radio. But you are a new, unknown band. The promo department of your label can't spend big cash to promote you in all the markets. So how is it done?

 

Well, we all know stories of how a song breaks in a smaller station in a major market, the other stations in that area pick it up, and pretty soon the whole country is playing the song.

 

So your label sends your recording out to their reps in all the major markets, and they schlep it from station to station talking to music and/or program directors, trying to get the song added to each stations playlist. With luck, in a couple of markets a couple of stations agree to play the record. With luck, the record gets response from the audience, and it climbs up the charts and the other stations add it to their playlists.

 

Flash forward to 2005. Now ClearChannel and CBS/Infinity own most of the major stations in the major markets. The decision of what gets played nationally on the main stations in the major markets is in the hands of just a few people. The promo department of your label no longer has a couple of thousand shots at getting the record on a playlist. They have just a few people to talk to. And anyone can tell you that the odds of your record hitting the airwaves has been crushed. If you have limited your potential purchasers from thousands to a couple, you have limited your ability to promote the product successfully. Everyone knows that a bigger audience is better.

 

 

"Look at what the industry is doing to live concerts. For years they let the artists have the major share of the profits, which the artist used to live on, but now they want a cut of even that! Since they are not making as much on CDs, they now want to cut into live concert profits. "

 

Again, you are way off base. It is the corporations who own the radio stations... specifically ClearChannel... who are doing this. SFX bought the majority of the sheds in the country. ClearChannel bought SFX, and started using their muscle to try to control the concert industry. They went around the country and bought up many of the local concert promotors. Then they started doing things like...'well, if you don't agree to play for US instead of the concert competition, we won't play your record on any of our stations in the market...'. They also did things like, one summer, pay Tom Petty and Dave Mathews more money than they could make playing stadiums to tour ClearChannel sheds instead. They've also tried to claim a patent on certain recording technology that has existed for years. They've also managed somehow to get a cut of live recordings made in their venues. They've been under the microscope and the subject of various news investigations for ten years now. I think that a fear of a government anti-trust action caused them to 'spin off' the concert division into a company called 'Live Nation'. They also bought several theaters including the Pantages in Toronto (where Phantom played for years and years) and they bought the rights to a few hundred top grossing plays. They really do want to control the world, and they do it in order to sell more advertising.

 

I'm not up on their latest tricks, I don't care anymore because the musicians are typically like you... clueless. Why should I do the research and digging up information, when you don't really want to know?

[Griffinator]

Ok you two. Let's put this to rest.

 

It'd be a reasonably good discussion if certain parties weren't quite as shrill with their end of the argument.

 

Yes, the record industry has a long and bloody past of using people up and spitting them out. Yes, there is a huge wake of artists who got screwed by labels having no clue what sort of contracts they were being offered.

 

If you take a hard look at the history of the industry, you'll see this phenomenon has progressively dissipated over the course of decades, as musicians got smarter and refused to accept the terms offered.

 

The problem for the majors now is, they still believe they can just manufacture talent and bypass the whole negotiation process. So there is less effort invested in recruiting new talent and more effort invested in copycatting the "sound" of a new band with lots of clone bands done cheaply with know-nothing teenagers who can barely play their instruments, but were perfectly happy to sign away all their rights because they pretty much weren't going to get anywhere any other way, because they either sucked at their instrument, or didn't know how to play an instrument before the label recruited them. "Hey, you wanna be a rock star?" holds a lot more weight with some kid that doesn't even play guitar than it does with someone who has been honing their craft for years, and probably has done a fair bit of research on contracts....

 

Not only that, but the really good songwriters are less and less willing to accept label terms, and we see the labels going to cost-effective measures there as well, only picking up songs by people willing to sell them away with no permanent attachments.

 

So, in their desperate effort to regain the control they once had over both artist and songwriter, the labels have diluted the quality of their product to a point where few over the age of 16 give a shit about it enough to buy a CD.

 

Yes, Napster and the whole file-sharing thing (that has only gotten stronger in the face of heavy-handed RIAA tactics) helped undo the labels.

 

But I still say it was the labels themselves that undid the industry by not only failing to adapt to new technology (much the same way as they did with every other user-friendly recording technology, starting with home reel-to-reel and continuing on through 8-track, compact cassette, and recordable CD), but also by failing to understand the smarter musician, and be willing to adjust their talent recruitment strategies from casting the widest net possible to focusing on acts that demonstrate the total package (talent, songwriting, image, and stage presence) and signing only those which are worth the investment.

 

How's that for straddling the fence?

[webe123]

"And are you really so blind to believe that the industry plays NO part in radio anymore? "

 

The tail wags the dog.

 

Selling, Part One.

 

1965. You want to sell you record. The driver for sales is to get the record played on the radio. But you are a new, unknown band. The promo department of your label can't spend big cash to promote you in all the markets. So how is it done?

 

Well, we all know stories of how a song breaks in a smaller station in a major market, the other stations in that area pick it up, and pretty soon the whole country is playing the song.

 

So your label sends your recording out to their reps in all the major markets, and they schlep it from station to station talking to music and/or program directors, trying to get the song added to each stations playlist. With luck, in a couple of markets a couple of stations agree to play the record. With luck, the record gets response from the audience, and it climbs up the charts and the other stations add it to their playlists.

 

Flash forward to 2005. Now ClearChannel and CBS/Infinity own most of the major stations in the major markets. The decision of what gets played nationally on the main stations in the major markets is in the hands of just a few people. The promo department of your label no longer has a couple of thousand shots at getting the record on a playlist. They have just a few people to talk to. And anyone can tell you that the odds of your record hitting the airwaves has been crushed. If you have limited your potential purchasers from thousands to a couple, you have limited your ability to promote the product successfully. Everyone knows that a bigger audience is better.

 

I NEVER said that advertising was NOT a player in all of this, but that the music industry still has some control of their artists. How GOOD those artists are is a matter of opinion. I think the best they have now days are absolute crap. It seems indie recording companies have a better shot at making good music and getting better artists than the majors do now.

 

But the POINT is, that just because the record companies and the way they did business way back in 1965 is gone, does not mean something new cannot start up. The way of the VHS tape went away and something called DVD replaced it. The way of CDs has virtually went away and mp3s replaced it.

 

I am sorry, but I don't think your moaning about the industry falling apart and the way records were played way back when means there is nothing new on the horizon.

 

The indie labels have never been able to gain a decent foothold in recording, because the majors had it so tied up. Maybe the Majors falling apart is not the worst thing that could happen...especially since they DID IT TO THEMSELVES!

 

Again, you are way off base. It is the corporations who own the radio stations... specifically ClearChannel... who are doing this. SFX bought the majority of the sheds in the country. ClearChannel bought SFX, and started using their muscle to try to control the concert industry. They went around the country and bought up many of the local concert promotors. Then they started doing things like...'well, if you don't agree to play for US instead of the concert competition, we won't play your record on any of our stations in the market...'. They also did things like, one summer, pay Tom Petty and Dave Mathews more money than they could make playing stadiums to tour ClearChannel sheds instead. They've also tried to claim a patent on certain recording technology that has existed for years. They've also managed somehow to get a cut of live recordings made in their venues. They've been under the microscope and the subject of various news investigations for ten years now. I think that a fear of a government anti-trust action caused them to 'spin off' the concert division into a company called 'Live Nation'. They also bought several theaters including the Pantages in Toronto (where Phantom played for years and years) and they bought the rights to a few hundred top grossing plays. They really do want to control the world, and they do it in order to sell more advertising.

 

Bill, you seem to be HELL BENT on trying to paint the music industry and the advertising agencies as two totally separate entities, where one at least gave you a chance and the other one does not. But I don't buy that at all!

 

The music industry has been just as guilty as the advertising agencies you somehow seem to separate in your mind in exploiting the artist. PERIOD! Again, "Meet the new boss same as the old boss". Not much difference between the two.

 

I'm not up on their latest tricks, I don't care anymore because the musicians are typically like you... clueless. Why should I do the research and digging up information, when you don't really want to know?

 

Listen ,I have had just about enough of you putting me down because of what I believe. If you don't agree fine. But don't act like an ass about it!

[Griffinator]

Webe - you're the only one acting like an ass here.

 

I'd really prefer this thread not be locked, because there is some good discussion outside of your super-shrill tone.

 

I agree with your basic premise, but the way you're presenting, it's coming off like a flame attack moreso than the words of someone who has actually been there.

[Eric Iverson]

I don't know about other venues, but here in NY we get some college stations and others that don't seem to be controlled by mass media, where they are more creative in their programming.

One of them in particular plays a lot of indie rock music by bands I'd never heard of - not that I am the world's best source on indie rock, LOL! And there are jazz and new age programs also. The classical music station sometimes plays CDs by obscure modern composers.

 

My point is, there ARE still venues to get under the radar music heard on the radio - although they are doubtless deluged with CDs and music over the Internet!

 

One positive thing we can do is to support creative artists we do like by buying their CDs and going to hear them play, when feasible. That's the only way they will be able to survive, unless of course, they do the unthinkable and get a DAY JOB... LOL!

[p90jr]

Licensing songs to TV, movies and commercials is the new major label deal.

[Gifthorse]

Licensing songs to TV, movies and commercials is the new major label deal.

 

Yup, my friends who are in the business all say that.