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Moby Says Techie Fans = Fewer Sales
jalefkowit writes: "Launch is reporting that Moby explains the recent slide in sales for his newest album, "18", by describing what he calls the 'Pearl Jam Effect': bands and artists with more tech-savvy fans sell fewer albums than those with less tech-savvy fans, as the techies will disproportionately get their copies of the album from friends with CD burners or P2P services rather than from record stores. What do you think, are we putting our favorite bands in a bind?"
"I'm not saying this is a good or a bad thing," he added. "I'm not writing this to voice my opinions. My concern is the way that the industry looks at the success of a musician or of a record that sells or doesn't sell. Popular artists traditionally sold a lot of records. In the future that might not be the case."
---- Moby from launch
I think the album is very good, and I'm glad I bought it.
A much better solution is to download mp3s and oggs without guilt, and give money directly to artists via fairtunes.org.
"18", the new album, just isn't as good IMHO, and I'm sure that's the reason why it's selling less, and not due any music copying going on.
Amusingly, Moby used to be an MP3 advocate, even appearing in an advert for the Apple iPod.
So i am a techie fan of moby and i did get a copy of this from my friend.
BUT, I usually only do this to see what the album is like before i buy it, because MP3's dont really get all of the musical information (because im a techie i know this).
This album really sucks and i knew it before i bought it. That this the reason i didnt buy 18!!
I actually did buy the new album, and it does suck compared to his previous offerings (esp. Play, which was a pretty good). The first track is decent, but the rest sound completely uninspired (IMHO). I've told all of my friends not to buy it.
Help save the critically endangered Blue Iguana
Of course, their 2000 tour featured about 20k fans a show, and each show sold out in about an hour, but who needs reality, when we can just spout unsupportable heresay?
Launch magazine is simply reporting on a blog entry from Moby dating back to winter 2002. This blog entry was picked up by Details magazine (where I read it) this spring and discussed here and there since then.
Album sales for Pearl Jam has been hurt (they only sell 1 or 2 million for each record compared to 4 or 5 million) since they refused to play the game and shake their asses on MTV. The tech savvy PJ fans who tape and trade their music (online and off), spark the interest of nascent PJ fans. The more exposure, the more people have an interest in PJ music.
I disagree with Moby that tech-savvy fans are the reason album sales are down. Napster and the ilk are responsible for album sales decline for those people who are marginal purchasers of the music. Why spend $17 on a CD when you're not sure if you like the music or not? It's a better gamble to spend the time on a P2P network and get it that way.
VOTE NADER 2004
Moby seems to forget one very important piece of information... Pearl Jam, has for years allowed their fans to bring recording devices into concerts, have often released foreign import albums in this country and have gone out of their way to be an enlightened band. I have all of PJ's albums, some of which I've purchased two or three times. Moby, on the other hand, suffers from little-bald-guy-on-stage-with-a-guitar, "record in my bathroom" laptop-sample-using-techno-rock. To be more accurate, he should have called it the "Moby Effect". If you want to hear any good electronic music, listen to someone like Nine Inch Nails.
My $.02 which is more than I have spent on Moby albums in the last few years...
FLR
no, you're a moron
go to moby.com, look up his journal and read entry 6/16/2002 titled LA- record sales
here it is:
Record Sales
6/16/2002 - LA
difficult sort of update, sort of.
about record sales. and charts. and etc.
i've written about this before, but i thought i'd address it again, especially in light of the fact that i have a new-ish record in stores.
a while ago i wrote about the 'pearl jam effect'. i described the 'pearl jam effect' as being a phenomenon wherein bands who have very technically savvy fans will see their records do poorly in the charts, whereas bands/artists who have less technically savvy fans will see their records do quite well in the charts. this is owing to the fact that bands/artists with technically savvy fans will have a lot of fans who will end up downloading music or burning cd's, whereas less tech-savvy fans will generally end up buying their cd's. looking at the 3 week sales history of weezers new record, for example, has proven to me that this 'pearl jam effect' is strongly influencing the album charts in the states (and elsewhere, although not so much with weezer cos they seem to only sell a lot of records in north america). weezer sold a lot of records in their first week of release, but since then their sales have dropped off considerably. even though they have radio hits. even though they have a very loyal fan-base. even though they've made a record that their fans really like. even though there's good press coverage on the band and their new cd. etc. i would be very interested to know not how many cd's weezer have sold, but how many copies of their record are actually in existence.
i have a feeling that there might be almost twice as many copies of their new record in existence (in the form of mp3's or burned cd's) as have actually been sold.
i'm not saying that this is a good or a bad thing. i'm not writing this to voice my opinions. my concern is more for the way that the industry looks at the success of a musician or of a record that sells or doesn't sell. popular artists traditionally sold a lot of records. in the future that might not be the case. in fact even now that might not be the case. pink outsells weezer in the states not so much because she's more popular, but because her fans are more likely to buy, as opposed to burn, her cd's.
i don't mean this as a criticism of pink, i'm just using her as an example. just look at the american top 20 and you'll see what i'm talking about. most of the records in the american top 20 are by bands whose fans are, for the most part, more inclined to buy a cd as opposed to burn or download it.
again, i'm not editorializing. i'm just pointing out a strange phenomenon and wondering at what effect it will have on the future of music. this whole issue of burning and downloading is too big and too complicated for me to really voice my opinion on it (not to mention the fact that having an opinioin on burning and downloading is kind of like having an opinion on the weather. meaning that having an opinion about the weather isn't really going to change anything.)
ok, that's it.
good night.
moby
No the real reason (well for me anyways) is that, although a big fan of his previous album, this latest one stinks. I didn't mind the single that has been released (we are all made of stars), but a friend of mine bought it and was severely disappointed. I borrowed it for a couple of days, and I'm quite glad I didn't purchase it, I wont be wasting my bandwidth downloading it either.
If you produce an album, that by your previous standards, is trash... dont blame P2P networks.
Glenn
The Smrt way to trade CFDs on the ASX
Here's Moby's original journal entry that started it all.
it's not going to stop until you wise up, no it's not going to stop. so just give up.
Man, I don't care if I get modded down for redundancy (posted similarly in another thread higher up) or flamebait, but every album between Ten and Binaural is fantastic, with those two book ends being better than average! I can't believe a post saying "xxxx sucks" got modded up to 5 insightful. Vs.-Vitalogy-No Code-Yield is perhaps the best (and most diverse) 4 album series from ANY group of the 90's. And that's not even considering Merkin Ball, which was between Vitalogy and No Code.
To me, the parent (and others posting to this article) sounds like FUD who's maybe heard the aforementioned albums a time or two, if at all, with very narrow and simple tastes in music. And FUD (or"xyz sucks"-type flames) should not be modded up to 5 (nor 3 for that matter).
Chris
How did this get modded +5 Insightful?
1) Fair Use. Sharing is not Fair Use - never has been. Consult a lawyer if you need convincing, or read up on it.
2) You do have rights over the physical media but not the contents. You claim you don't have rights over the media because you are prevented from using the contents as you wish! Why distinguish between media and contents if you don't see a difference.
3) Fair use DOES cover making a personal backup copy. So if your media fails you have still got the music.
Its been pretty difficult as a recovering CD buying junkie for several years. For almost 2 years I haven't bought a major label CD b/c of all of their latest non-sense. Moby is on a label that is not owned by one of the big (and problem causing) labels.
Boycott Major label CDs.
I quote the poet Eminem,
"And Moby, you can get stomped by Obie
You 36 year old bald headed say blow me
You don't know me, you're too old
Let it go its over, nobody listens to techno!"