Home » General Discussions » Heated Discussions and Debates » Death to the Record Industry
| Re: Death to the Record Industry [message #296275 is a reply to message #295794] |
Sun, 11 November 2007 19:08   |
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Dave Mason
Messages: 2357
Registered: April 2004
Location: Shropshire, England
Karma:
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General (2 Stars) |
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If you ask me, given the current situation, I think Radiohead made the smartest move any artist has ever made in the industry.
On a record label, an artist gets around 4 pence for every CD that's sold at about £11.99.
What radiohead did is they built up their fan base to a huge extent and released their latest album as an online download where fans could pay whatever they thought the album was worth.
60% of the people who downloaded the album did it for free without paying a penny, the other 40% paid an average of $6 (£4) for the album.
Still, on a record label, selling 2 million CDs at $6 a pop would earn the band maybe $50/60k at most. But as they sold the album as an online download only they got all the money and earned themselves a nice 2m x $6. 12 million dollars. Not a bad move at all.
This is where I think the industry is going.
There's no future in CDs. Record labels and shops just charge way over what the public/the fans think that the music is worth. The Radiohead thing proves that people think an album is now only worth an average of $6. Soon I think there won't be any need for record deals whatsoever. Especially with the MySpace generation. If the band does the work, has a good selection of songs, and builds up their fanbase I see no need in the future for record labels at all.
The way our band is doing it at at the moment is pretty much the same. We treat the band as a business and work our asses off gigging up and down the country slowly building up a fan base. If we were to put out an album of our current best material at about £4/5 a bob and say about 4,000 pre-ordered it and got it the first week, we'd get into the top 20 without the help of a record label.
Personally, I think it's going to get to the point where most if not all record labels are going to die out. Apart from maybe Sony, EMI and some others.
By the way, I always pay for albums these days. I might download a few tracks of an album first, or listen on youtube etc. to see if it's worth my money, but I always buy the real thing if I like what I hear. I think it's not just the record industy that is to blame for declining music sales (although it is mostly their fault),I think it's the public's also.
www.myspace.com/midas
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