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Joined: Tue September 24, 2013 5:56 pm Posts: 46873 Location: In the oatmeal aisle wearing a Shellac shirt
There are a couple important pieces to this discussion that I don't believe either of those articles mention (I just skimmed the Slate one though):
1. The single format was the primary format for years, basically until The Beatles and Beach Boys released Rubbersoul, Revolver, and Pet Sounds. And while the album as an artistic statement may be dying in the pop segment, the popular music industry has largely shifted towards a model where the only money to be made is coming from touring, merch, and 360 deal crap like Bieber cologne and Gaga tampons. All of which require touring to promote. And it's really tough to tour without at least 10-15 songs you can perform. And so even if the album sales continue to die in the pop format, pop stars will likely continue producing albums so they can more efficiently promote their wares.
2. That "99% of revenues comes from 1% of artists" is highly suspect. Catalog/legacy sales still account for a HUGE portion of record labels' income. I don't know the current figures, but I'd wager that Michael Jackson / Peter Gabriel / etc are still bringing in a sizable portion of music revenues, while the Biebers and Minajes bring in a lot more from their 360 deals.
Mostly I agree with KD that this narrative has been spun at least once a year since the iPod became the primary listening device.
2. That "99% of revenues comes from 1% of artists" is highly suspect. Catalog/legacy sales still account for a HUGE portion of record labels' income. I don't know the current figures, but I'd wager that Michael Jackson / Peter Gabriel / etc are still bringing in a sizable portion of music revenues, while the Biebers and Minajes bring in a lot more from their 360 deals.
Peter Gabriel? Maybe. But I'd contend that those artists are still 1%-ers. When you talk about the number of artists keeping the industry afloat vs. the number of artists out there that currently generating product for a moderately engaged audience, 1% seems like a generous figure.
Joined: Tue September 24, 2013 5:56 pm Posts: 46873 Location: In the oatmeal aisle wearing a Shellac shirt
Kevin Davis wrote:
tragabigzanda wrote:
2. That "99% of revenues comes from 1% of artists" is highly suspect. Catalog/legacy sales still account for a HUGE portion of record labels' income. I don't know the current figures, but I'd wager that Michael Jackson / Peter Gabriel / etc are still bringing in a sizable portion of music revenues, while the Biebers and Minajes bring in a lot more from their 360 deals.
Peter Gabriel? Maybe. But I'd contend that those artists are still 1%-ers. When you talk about the number of artists keeping the industry afloat vs. the number of artists out there that currently generating product for a moderately engaged audience, 1% seems like a generous figure.
Here's a piece I did several years back on catalog profits. One of my primary sources was a friend and Executive at Sony Legacy, and while I can't recall the numbers he threw around, he made it clear (and it's discussed in the article) that new songs by new artists are basically loss leaders, and that real music revenues come from the back catalog:
Joined: Tue September 24, 2013 5:56 pm Posts: 46873 Location: In the oatmeal aisle wearing a Shellac shirt
From the article:
Quote:
“Has Adele turned a profit in eighteen months?” asks the same industry executive. “That’s an extremely high bar, because of all of the marketing and recording costs expended by her label.”
He goes on to say that while catalog and frontline deals are structured in very similar ways, the marketing costs for established artists are much lower, and the return-on-investment from a catalog deal is therefore often much higher, although this is certainly due in part to a frontline label’s initial investment in the early stages of an artist’s career.
I mean, I guess it makes sense when you think about it. First, it's not surprising that a sales-based model would skew in favor of artists who cater to fans who are used to consuming music according to that model. Second, it's probably easy to look at Adele and Taylor Swift's sales figures and not take into account the advertising dollars that go into getting cardboard cash-register displays of their CD's at every Walgreen's across America. Conversely, nobody's ad department had to spend a dime for Amazon's warehouse to run out of Prince, Bowie, Petty, and BB King CD's at various points over the last three years.
That said, the idea that a small number of artists -- compared to the total number of artists out there operating in some professional capacity, all of whom contribute to the landscape in some way -- generate a large percentage of total industry revenue does not seem suspect to me, and is probably truer now than ever as "middle class" artists (who previously could depend on at least a big MTV video and a crappy album that people would buy accordingly) are now operating in lower-tier arenas.
Joined: Tue September 24, 2013 5:56 pm Posts: 46873 Location: In the oatmeal aisle wearing a Shellac shirt
Kevin Davis wrote:
That said, the idea that a small number of artists -- compared to the total number of artists out there operating in some professional capacity, all of whom contribute to the landscape in some way -- generate a large percentage of total industry revenue does not seem suspect to me, and is probably truer now than ever as "middle class" artists (who previously could depend on at least a big MTV video and a crappy album that people would buy accordingly) are now operating in lower-tier arenas.
Yeah, I agree with this at face value. But the distinction I am trying to make, mostly as a response to the Billboard and Slate articles, is that the lion's share of the revenues drawn from recordings by the "small number of artists" is largely coming from back-catalog stuff. New artists don't generate much revenues from their music, and just like the 90s, that debut album is still likely an entirely recoupable expense by the label.
Albums aren't going anywhere anytime soon, even if the singles are what's driving the downloads and Billboard charts.
I love the story of Threatin, the metal band with thousands of fake fans on social media, currently playing shows where only two or three people show up
Turns out they went as far as creating fake record label and booking agency websites
The album, which has been inspired by Bryan’s work on the Sky Atlantic/Netflix television series Babylon Berlin - a German period drama based on the books by Volker Kutscher set in the 1920s, takes the musical stylings from that era and puts a new twist on well loved Roxy Music and Bryan Ferry tracks including ‘While My Heart is Still Beating’, ‘Sign of the Times’, ‘Bitter Sweet’ and ‘Dance Away’. The record breathes new life into songs that fans have been enjoying for over 20 years. Whereas Ferry’s previous album in this genre The Jazz Age consisted of instrumentals, Bitter-Sweet includes 8 vocal tracks.
Across the record Ferry embraces ragtime, blues, and jazz, and whilst they evoke nostalgia, hearing beloved songs in a fresh and exciting way gives the record an edge of modernity; jazz in the 1920s was the soundtrack of popular culture - itself a modern invention and it’s almost as if we’re hearing it for the first time.
Joined: Wed January 02, 2013 11:15 pm Posts: 20765 Location: the bathroom
Aphex Twin is one of those super rare artists where I can absolutely fall in love with a song on an album, and immediately turn the album off during the very next track.
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