The Top Five Boneheaded Music Industry Moves Of 2008
In a business where, for the last decade or so, every move made by a major record label or established artist is almost guaranteed to be a dumb one, it's hard to pick a mere five as the créme de la créme of stupidity. Anyone who disagrees with my choices, please write in and add your own! But here, for dumb or dumber, were my five shining moments of pure idiocy:
5. TRAMPS LIKE BRUCE. Did Bruce Springsteen invest his record royalties with Bernie Madoff? Did he forget that his kids are rapidly approaching college age? Because I can't think of any other reason why The Boss would sell a new greatest hits CD exclusively through Wal-Mart, which hasn't exactly been the champion of employees' rights over the last few decades. Not only that, Bruce is basically telling the few remaining brick-and-mortar record stores just what he thinks of them. This move is so un-Springsteen-like that I'm almost tempted to believe that nobody's told him about it yet.
4. BEST BUY, WORST SELL. Guns N' Roses decided to release their (his?) centuries-in-the-making magnum opus Chinese Democracy exclusively through non-record store Best Buy. The only problem is that Best Buy forgot to actually, you know, promote the album. So despite oodles of press coverage about the album's release, not to mention the fact that G n' R are still incredibly popular, Chinese Democracy failed to hit #1 on the charts and nosedived out of the Top 30 faster than you could say "Buckethead."
3. GOOD TIMES FOR LAWYERS, BAD TIMES FOR BEATLES FANS. The entire Beatles catalog was remastered two years or so ago. Want to hear it? Then you'd better get a job with EMI and somehow get access to the vault where the tapes are stored. Endless horn-locking by both the Beatles and their record label means that we won't get sonic upgrades on the 20-year-old CDs currently on the market anytime soon. They can't even figure out how to agree to get their albums on iTunes, for crying out loud. By the time the upgrades are finally released, it'll be time for another upgrade. In the meantime, the CD buying audience continues to shrink and the original Fab Fans get another year older. Oh well, there's always the brilliant "deluxe edition" bootlegs mentioned in the New York Times last week. And hey, they're free! It's a nice way to give the figurative finger to the powers that be at EMI and in the Beatles camp, and hear some great music besides.
2. YOU DON'T NEED A WEATHERMAN TO KNOW YOU'RE GETTING RIPPED OFF. One of my favorite albums of the year was Bob Dylan's latest from-the-vaults compendium, Tell Tale Signs: Rare & Unreleased 1989-2006. The standard version contains 2 CDs with 27 tracks and a nicely annotated booklet, with a list price of $22.99. The deluxe version contains an extra CD with 12 more previously unreleased tracks, plus a book featuring photos of all his 7-inch single picture sleeves (apparently from a fan's personal collection). And it retails for ... $169.99?! Listen, Dylan's earned the right to do whatever he wants, but for an extra $147 he'd better be personally delivering that puppy to my door, along with a 2 liter bottle of Diet Coke. I burned a copy of disc 3 from someone who was dumb enough to buy it. The picture sleeves, I can live without.
AND THE MOST BONEHEADED MUSIC INDUSTRY MOVE OF 2008....
1. In 1983, the list price of most vinyl LPs was $8.98. Along came compact discs, which cost nearly twice that. The technology needed to make CDs, we were told, is very expensive, but the sound is so much better than vinyl that you'll agree it's worth the extra bucks.
25 years later, as CD sales continue to tank and the dollars from digital downloads fail to take up the slack, LP sales suddenly make a dramatic comeback, posting their highest numbers in nearly two decades. It's still a tiny fraction of overall music sales. But the fact that it's the only physical music format showing an uptick, and the fact that the LP buying audience is skewing younger, still encourages retailers, especially indie music stores.
As usual, the record labels, quick to do nothing in the face of possible success, keep their prices astronomically high -- a typical LP now costs about $20-25. Not out of line for the audiophiles who were vinyl's primary demographic in the '90s. But ridiculously high for the kids who want to get a vinyl copy of the new Radiohead or a classic Led Zep album. The technology needed to press LPs, we're told, is very expensive, but the sound of a 180 gram virgin vinyl LP is so much better than a CD or MP3 that you'll agree it's worth the extra bucks.
And so it goes.
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i know a lot of people are very nostalgic about all this. all the bonehead moves involve has-beens. i listen a lot and know very little. but i have learned from various music biz high colonics that they usually involve has-been artists and their woes. very few of these analyses confine themselves to CURRENTLY CHARTING POP, ROCK, and URBAN releases. the fact is, by the time everybody's done shoplifting, downloading, caging promos, winning contests, streamripping, borrowing, and even- god forbid- PURCHASING music- what revenue is in doesn't very well define the total audience. everybody wants it to be about the music- yet everybody panics when the revenue thins out. what's really in question in the end is the rockstar culture of excess, huge money, armies of "industry" types getting fat, trashed hotels, marketing, etc. there will always be oceans of accessible tunes for every taste more and more cheaply. i respect that there is some real pain and unfairness in the upheaval- but i can't honestly say that the old rock LP market was some kind of golden age for music choices.
Britney Spears' "Circus" CD went platinum saturday (jan 2).
I've mentioned this before in other posts, but here goes again... how different would music be today if Elvis Presley had been had been able to make a living selling a couple thousand MP3s from his Myspace page? What if the Beatles stayed in Liverpool and sold CD-Rs of their shows on their website? The "rockstar culture" is an enormous part of what pop music is all about, and by becoming a larger pop culture phenomenon, it can literally change the world. Now, musicians are settling for being able to pay their rent. And that's great, but something huge has been lost along the way.
As far a downloading CD's (which I haven't done personally, mainly because I don't know how, lol) I feel bad for new artists who have not made a lot of money. I feel a little bad for established artists except people who are multi-mulit millionaires or billionaires like Paul McCartney (even though he's the man, he can do without making even more millions). I have no sympathy for the record companies because they shouldn't create such bad music and expect people to pay a lot of money for it. I'm sure most people who download probably do it for music in the top 40 which for the most part lacks creativity and diversity, but I'm a huge music fan though so even some of the most popular songs I still like even if I don't think the "artists" who records it has much talent.
Yes. I agree.
I will download a SONG from an artist who does not impress me enough that I would ever pay $20 for the album - but happens to have that one song that is a piece of ear candy.
I have spent thousands and thousands of dollars on music and I continue to support any band or artist who is expressing themselves in the truest, most honest way possible - but it doesn't hurt to buy the CD used - and at half price.
I am convinced (and probably many others think this way too) that the modern music industry is ran by people who hate music. All they want is to make as much money as possible. Why else would they continually market such mediocre "artists" and music rather than people with actual talent. It's like they purposely want music to fail. Sure they are losing money but I guess they are still making enough to satisfy their greed. Maybe because music is good for the soul, as some say, and they'd rather people spend money on prescription drugs to calm the nerves instead of listening to the radio which is free.
Also what's up with only selling your CD at a certain store. Maybe I haven't always paid attention but was this a common practice until recently, I mean I know they've tried to get rid of as many music stores as possible and now the few that are left are competing to see who can hog someones CD and say "sold exclusively at 'such and such' ".
The interesting thing here is how the industry got so wrapped up in controlling everything that they lost control. I'm sure that some of you remember the cassette tape, and how the music industry cried foul when blank, recordable cassettes became available to the average consumer. It came as no surprise to me when the Napster business happened and the industry missed the boat yet again.
But you know what? Just like Joesphus, I'm hopeful for a continued transformation resulting from the industry's continued blindness. Granted, this transformation will mean that superstardom as we know it will likely fade (boo-hoo), but it will also mean that artists who might never have been heard via mainstream media can now make their voices heard online.
I think we are seeing the growth of a revolution that will lead away from the mass-marketed music that still dominates the market. Where this revolution will lead is anyone's guess: in my view, the one certainty in all of this is that a huge opportunity exists to create a new (possibly fairer?) model out of the ashes of the old one.
I think it's more likely that Chinese Democracy tanked because it wasn't very good. It sold to all the people it was going to sell to but in the end, there are only so many fans of hair metal left
Continued:
When the production and engineering side of making records was a priesthood there was a reason for major record labels. But the whole culture of making records---top 40, music as a cultural force---all of that is out the window. While not every aspiring artist has what it takes to make a viable music recording, increasingly the "means of production" are in the musician's hands.
You speak of "The Top Five Boneheaded Music Industry Moves Of 2008" when the reality is that "The Music Industry" is self destructing because it is no longer necessary. When a long-term major-league artist like Chrissy Hynde essentially issues a "vanity press" CD [and comes up with one of the best records of the year] the uselessness of "The Majors" comes into sharp focus.
I was a recording engineer for a decade, back in the nineties. It was mostly classical music, there's 20 cd's out there with my name on them. A Mackie board, some tall stands, a handful of Neumanns, a couple of DAT machines and a smidgen of knowledge of acoustics was all you needed. Back then a CD recorder was high-end esoterica, now it's a built-in feature on every computer---a feature rejected by younger folks who prefer I-Pods and other music players that can hold libraries of music on a pocket-sized format. DATs---that threat to the long-term stability of major record labels---have become yet another dinosaur technology and flash memory recorders are now ubiquitous. And Axl Rose spent 15 years monkeying with post-production on Pro-Tools before finally issuing "Chinese Democracy," probably at-home in his PJs. Right now the majors only serve as a distribution and promotion service, they're no longer in the business of producing music.
continued. . .
These were all great moves, in that they hastened the end of the bloated majors. They're already irrelevant in finding and promoting new, good music, and soon they'll have lost all of their big marketing bucks so they won't even be able to pretend anymore.
In the meantime, my band www.myspac
Dont forget the other boneheaded move that is similar to The Beatles and Bruce issues this year:
AC/DC releases a track pack for Rock Band that should be a HUGE seller. Except that they release it exclusively to Wal-Mart, and its $40, about twice what it would be if they released the songs in-game.
People like me would buy this in a heartbeat if it wasnt for the price and the location.
I've already got all the songs that I want on my iPod, so I have no aim to dabble in any of these.
Does Bruce even still have control over the songs released on this album, or have the rights been sold to fund something else, or have they reverted to the control of the record company at the end of some contract?
How 'bout it, Bruce? Care to clarify?
Radio stations play the same songs over and over, so how do we even hear the new music that doesn't fit the format? Download. I'll buy an album if it seems really good or even if I haven't heard it if it's by an artist that is consistently good. Also, downloading is sometimes the only way to get rare tracks and remixes that you just can't find at the record store--at least not without buying an entire cd.
napster also did another wonderful thing for me: it allowed me to sample artists - usually international artists - that i'd never heard of before. i downloaded music from france, the netherlands, israel - you name it. and uh - guess what i did then? yup - went out and tracked down the CD version usually found at Borders.
when the recording industry stomped its foot like a three year old snot nosed kid used to having its way - and eliminated napster...
with LPs making a return, i would certainly give it a shot - but NOT at $20 a pop. looks like the record industry still has its head up its.....we
That mirrors my experience. After a ten year hiatus on buying CD's (tired of buying crappyb albums whose only listenable songs were the one or two on the radio), Napster opened me back up to music and CD purchasing again.
After a dozen or so purchases of music I'd have never heard without Napster, the RIAA shut it down. I haven't bought another CD since.
That's really kind of my experience, too, but second-hand thru my then teenaged kids who were exposed to lots of neat music via peer to peer sites & regional live music scene. Also, the independent music store clerks who did same...now we find new music by listening to online radio station and listening to NPR interviews with musicians, as the independent music store which used to deal with a handful of major record label distibutors now has trouble juggling so many small independent labels & individual artists.
i have over 2000 vinyl LPs with a collection that started pre-Beatles but blossomed right along with the music industry. in late 60s/early 70s i frequented an indie record store that sold promotional LPS for $1.92 or $3.33, depending on how good they thought the promo press was. they also sold "legit" LPS for regular price. back then you could take a chance on an album cover and the selection of musicians listed on the back - for $1.92 it was a way to safely sample a new and/or unknown artist. i "discovered" many new talents this way - some who later went on to rock the music world or to at least have a their time with it. this in turn pushed me into continuing to buy certain artists at list price. later the record industry stepped in and stopped the resale of promos, and i lost a valuable outlet to learn of new/upcoming artists - and hence, my album buying days began to wane.
enter napster in the 90s. for me, it was a revelation. i'd been out of the music scene pretty much since i didn't much are for CD formats, though i did buy a player and the occasional CD. when napster arrived my love for recorded music returned and i began to download artists i'd not played for years. this in turn - you guessed it - sent me out to the record store to purchase MORE CDs.
(continued in next post....)
I worked in the music industry years ago and I remember talking with the owner of a very popular indie record label. I was complaining about the prices of CDs then (this was in the mid 80's). He said "No, in fact they are too cheap. They should be 20 bucks" I wonder what he thinks now.
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