Geeklawyer had a fascinating, and very drubnk, conversation with a Swedish roady in a pub last night (no, really, these things happen to Geeklawyer). It turns out that the dubious cliche that the music industry is destroying itself through greed stupidity and shortsightedness may not be all that dubious.
He drove for Cult of Luna, a Swedish metal band. Like most successful modern bands these guys had built up a cult following through doing great Metal (if you’re into that sort of thing) and building a relationship with their fans. Of course they dont make significant money off of records because so much is being downloaded instead of bought; rather, they make their money through merchandising at gigs: the CoL t-shirts and hats etc. Now, with music sales dwindling, the labels want a slice of the merchandise pie. The band resent this greatly since the label plays no part on creating its reputations.
But, says Geeklawyer, “They spend fuckloads developing the band, doing publicity, marketing (yada yada)? They must deserve a reward for their risk, right?
A: “No, they spend jack shit. They pay for the cost of producing the album and that’s all. The Band pays for the marketing the publicity the promo videos, everything; the label recommends people for this stuff, but the band pays for it.”
“The only reason bands go with labels is because of flattery and because no sane bank would lend a bunch of kids the huge money needed to make an album.”
The killer though is that this label, astonishingly, forbade the band selling their CDs at their own gigs; they could sell t-shirts mugs caps and other paraphernalia but not the actual, erm, music. This was a source of huge dismay and caused much displeasure to fans who simply couldn’t understand why they couldn’t get the latest exciting release at the gig they shelled out money to attend. They blamed the band.
It turns out that the label were only interested in getting accredited sales through recognised outlets. Why? Because these would be collated into sales for the music charts and the label were only really concerned with the benefit to their reputation of getting a band high up in those charts. Pathetic. Needless to say the band and label parted ways.
The broader point is that this is, apparently, far from isolated behaviour among labels and the other dinosaurs of the music business. A lot of people in various media businesses, not just music, simply dont get the realities of modern connected life. It was certainly that roady’s view that as a result of this backwardness the old record companies, promoters and labels are doomed in the long run: he was no digital free-culture activist either but industry insider.
The band themselves have now created their own label an are busily using social media to promote themselves.
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