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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?"
It's just not that good frankly. Moby really needs to consider moving back to electronica, his past two cd's have just been sad remberances of the kind of music moby used to put out. . .
Well, everyone says that, but in the end gets a bootleg instead. Me? I only buy albums i truely enjoy, based on band loyalty. Even if i have it readily available for free, its good to support the artists you like.
When Napster was at its peak, I was part of the majority of users who downloaded to sample. However, the RIAA gave Napster, and the whole idea of free music over the Internet more publicity than it would ever have gotten on its own. As a direct consequence, a lot of freeloaders started using MP3s. This is why we've gotten to the point where less people buy CDs because they download MP3s. The music industry got what they deserved. IMHO, this trend is only going to get worse, and no one will be able to stop it. Services like Gnutella and Freenet are unregulatable and unstoppable and will give the freeloaders the opportunity to continue in their ways. I can only see this leading to a revolution in the way that music is made: recorded music will ultimately be free and used as a form of publicity to draw people to what will be keeping musicians in business: live performances.
I feel that having a large following of tech fans is a plus, because a larger amount of them understand things such as value and capitalism. Reading slashdot user comments shows people always telling us to support artists that we like by buying their stuff. Look at Mandrakesoft. They say they're out of money, put up a donate link, and bam, cash flow. Why? Because their product has more value than $0 to many people who use it.
It is the non tech people who hurt sales; they see $0 vs $19 and don't consider things like quality, bandwidth, time, and value as measures of money. A lot of my non-tech friends used to buy CDs, but now don't understand why the money needs to change hands.
It is those people who will download with no intention of buying, not tech savy economically conscious slashdotters. (In most cases at least)
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It's OK to be social, just don't tell anyone about it.
that explains why i don't have it. I don't have a pirated copy either, because i like moby enough *not* to steal from him. Seems probable to me that a lot of techies are in much lower paying jobs than they were a year or two ago, and perhaps are having trouble adjusting to a budget. I know in my case, I just don't have ability to buy every cd i want -- wish it were otherwise.
Aside from that, geeks have more entertainment options grappling for their limited resources, like new computer gear, and video games... If you went and shelled out 60 clams for Neverwinter Nights this weekend, it may be tougher to justify the already hard-to-swallow 18 bucks for a CD, even if you like the artist.
just my 2 cents.
It seems to me that, as usual, both sides have good points here. Consumers demand the right to try before they buy with music and other entertainment products. The entertainment industry sees that as being a way to avoid buying at all because today's technology allows people to easily make copies of the product. One of the things industry needs to do is figure out how to track popularity via something other than album sales.
A big problem is that the artists are caught in the middle on this one. They want wide exposure, which can come through bootlegged copies of their works being available on the 'Net. However, they also want to be able to make money with their works, which doesn't happen anytime someone decides to grab an MP3 file and burn it onto a CD.
It seems to me that one way around this problem is to allow artists a larger percentage of the revenues accrued via their concert appearances. The problem with that is the recording industry is notorious for using accounting rules that allow charging almost all of an artist's expense against the gate receipts of that artist's concerts, leaving little or nothing for the artist to put in his/her pocket at the end of the tour.
Somehow we must devise incentives for organizations such as the RIAA to stop opposing the advance of technology. Also, accounting rules need to be changed so that artists see a larger proportion of the income from concert tours, etc. What the incentives are I don't know. We need to come up with something soon or Ernest Hollings and friends will force us to continue to live in the past via legislation that will also have the side-effect of outlawing Linux and the Open Source movement.
Just my $.02,
Ron
Cleverly Disguised As A Responsible Adult. Fight Crime --- Shoot Back! Linux - World Domination thru superior software
With the death of the 45 single, an artist can have a hit single that gets a tremendous amount of airplay. However, airplay (i.e. popularity) will not always translate into CD sales.
If you look at the Billboard singles chart (Hot 100), success there does not equate to CD sales since labels for the most part do not sell singles anymore and the singles chart is mostly based upon airplay stats.
I think the point is that these days you can get a bootleg that is a digital copy of the CD (or in some cases its gone through mp3, so slightly degraded, but still pretty damn good), so there isn't the loss of quality that there was in the "old days" when you were getting a 10th generation cassette copy.
Still, Moby should stop his whining. He sells plenty of copies. He gets plenty of money. As someone said above, the music industry is on crack. Their formulaic britney-sync-boys crap make plenty of money for them and their "artists" (i won't buy a britney spears CD, and i'm surely not going to waste my bandwidth downloading her crap either). The laws now limits accessibility by making it prohibitively expensive for internet radio stations to play non-mainstream music. Artists that haven't yet made it to the Top 40 can't get the exposure needed to make a CD sell. Surely no one will a CD of music they've never heard. So if I can't hear the "starving artists", they won't get my money and they're continue to starve.
So tell me again, who is stealing money from the artists?
blog
He thinks that sales of his and other band's CDs are lower because people are d/ling mp3s instead of buying them. He thinks the recording industry doesn't properly account for that when it "decides" how popular an artist is. (They're probably too busy suing people to worry about it.)
I'm not sure why 20 bazillion posts need to be made about how you think the CD sucks. I think that ground has been covered just a tad.
And another quore from Moby about this issue:
"What do you think about Napster and CD burning?
Moby: On one hand the thought of people in the music business losing their jobs makes me sad. I have a lot of friends who work in record stores and at record companies, and I know that they're nervous these days. So I hope that some way is found to protect their jobs. But I do hope that as the music business becomes less profitable that the people who are in music only to make money will be forced out. People who love money more than music shouldn't be involved in the music business, in my opinion."
From a random interview i found.
This Space Intentionally Left Blank
Weezer have far more 'geek' fans than wannabe-populist Moby, or even the fine Pearl Jam (whose audience was mostly psuedo-intellectual depressed teens).
Weezer have continued to have great success, and Maladroit has sold more than the green album. All this despite a -very- easy to obtain high quality rip coming out weeks in advance! Weezer aren't anti file-sharing either, so it's all good.
Moby can go stick his head in a grinder. I actually like Moby and what he stands for, I even like his music.. but really, his music is pretty damn dull. It's no surprise people wouldn't buy it.
mogorific carpentry experiments
The Pearl Jam effect is not what Moby says it is.
Moby says Weezer is also suffering from the "Pearl Jam Effect." "Weezer sold a lot of records in their first week of release, but since then their sales have dropped off considerably, even thought they have radio hits..."
What happened to Weezer (and Moby) is that the audience changed. They have a group of core fans who went out and bought their album as soon as it came out. But their sound, though solid, no longer bit the general audience as hard. Pearl Jam is a perfect example of this. It's not that their music is overshared, it's that no one in the larger audience cares, they've moved on to something else (not neccesarily something better).
I can't believe this FUD came from Moby. I can't believe he had this thought and then sat down at his computer and then typed his thought out and then sent his thought to his website. File sharing isn't hurting the record industry any more than MTV and the radio have.
Moby claims that he has "very technically savvy fans" and that everyone else who manages to sell records does not. That's such a silly argument, it's hard to believe he said it. Does he have numbers to show that his audience consists solely of super-intelligent computer geeks? Or that only computer geeks participate in file sharing or CD burning?
Poor Moby, you're album is at 35. Last week it was at 15! Sorry, buddy, I've heard it and this album isn't "Play", it's just another silly Moby album. The people that are dedicated Moby fans are going to run out and buy it immediately. Word of mouth is going to say, "It's not all that good, unless you're a big Moby fan", and then sales drop as people who aren't as into you (e.g. me) stay home in droves.
Saying that his fans are more savy is rediculous. Stealing music isn't technically difficult. You need only a computer and internet access (can you say "College Student"?). One person with ripping software gets the MP3s on the web and the rest is just the personal choice effect. I would bet that the most shared music is also the most sold music. Moby's music isn't getting shared more than Eminem's. That's the bottom line.
Sweat
It breaks my pluginses, my precious!
There are a couple of reasons that I don't purchase many CDs anymore. And yes, MP3s have had a great impact on this... along with my growing out of obsessing over music. 1) They're no longer $12. The last time I was at the mall, new CDs were $20. That's just plain ridiculous. I understand that there's inflation and that advertising costs are rising, but brand new DVDs start at $20. Now, let's think about this for a minute. A product that gives me ONLY music and is limited to 74 minutes (even though most lately are 40-50 minutes) for the same price as a product that gives me up 3 hours of entertainment and includes, but is not limited to, music.. it also has ... a story, special effects, and cost a hell of a lot more to make than its counterpart.
2) I can't try CDs before I buy them, nor can I return them. I have a real hard time shelling out $20 for something that has a nice shiny wrapper and one catchy song on the radio. I can go to Blockbuster and rent a DVD for $4. Why can't I try CDs out anywhere? Why can't I return them if I don't like them?
Currently, if I do purchase CDs, I purchase them used, and I've already downloaded the entire CD and decided whether or not it's worth my $8. Perhaps I am a cheap bastard, but I've been burned on more than one occasion by a shitty band with one good tune.
If the RIAA wants my business back, they need to look at the other forms of entertainment out there that are the same price. *HINT* Reduce the price to $10 and allow me to return it if it sucks. Then I'd be more likely to spend my hard-earned cash on your precious silver disc.
So hmmm, Wilco breaks into the billboard chart at number 13 thanks to mp3 trading on the web,
and Moby is "barely floating".
Good! First off, Moby may know a thing or two about making music, but what exactly does he know about Economics, and specifically those that are related to album sales? Ah! He doesn't have any qualifications. Thats fine, I am not a slave to "pieces of paper" that say Harvard or Yale, what is his evidence?
1) he's not doing so hot.
2) Weezer's not doing so hot.
3) Pink is beating the PANTS off them both.
Hmmm, could it be that PINK spend mad money on songwriter (Specifically the lady from 4 Non Blondes) Linda Perry
Hunh, maybe she's just getting more air play and has better quality songs?
okay, okay, fine. WEll, what about Wilco, who's album has been available for ages on the web, I would think they have a techie fan base?
And didn't wide spread MP3 availability simply help them out?
So let us re-phrase the Pearl Jam Effect- when your new album sucks in comparison to your previous albums and you don't sell because you don't deserve it?
In the future, I would want to not be isolated from my friends in the Space Station.
I am now spending MORE on music than before. Why?? Here is why (Moby
- MusicMatch appears to pay royalties for music played. I don't know this for sure, and don't really care, but they did mention that they cannot play the same artist more than X times an hour.
- I'm buying more CDs. When I hear a tune I like, I can click and put the CD on my wish list. I start to notice trends around artists, and go out and buy their CDs. Before, I would only buy CDs I had heard, and since I don't listen to radio much, my purchasing has gone way down in the 10 years.
So...Moby and all the other non-techies that don't 'get it', pay attention to why you are really losing fans.You have to be trusted by the people you lie to
I rarely read replies, it's my opinion and if you thought about your opinion a little more, I'm OK with that.
This album really sucks and i knew it before i bought it. That this the reason i didnt buy 18!!
Amen. I liked a few songs from Moby's previous album, so I bought "18" on the day it came out. I think it sucks balls. I will happily sell it for cheap to anyone who wants to pay for the postage (I'm in Canada).
I think that Perl Jam and Moby don't sell many albums because they suck. That's pretty simple. That whole article is Moby, up on his high horse, trying to explain why his latest effort is crap.
Blame it on the fans. Sure. Whatever.
Just for the record, I have every Weezer CD too. Even that crappy Pinkerton one.
Whether I but the CD or not, isnt the band already paid? Isn't that the problem that bands are having? The RIAA is getting all the money.
If you're not a Liberal in your 20's, then you have no heart.If you're still a Liberal in your 30's you have no brain.
I'm replying to this because I want to voice a similar sentiment, and speak to Moby's invocation of "The Pearl Jam Effect" The reason everyone and their brother bought "Play" and Pearl Jam's "Ten" is that they were the right kind of album at the right time. "Play" came along just as everyone wanted to hear what this whole electronica thing was about, and, thus, sold well. "Ten" also sold well because people wanted to hear good old fashioned rock-n-roll after 80's new wave became old wave.
Subsequent albums by Pearl Jam (and here, Mr. Moby, is what the real "Pearl Jam Effect" is) were exactly the same as "Ten", except not so good. They sold poorly because the public's taste had changed, the music did not change in the same way, and nobody wanted to hear Eddie Vedder's political vitriol.
What "18" has shown us is that Moby is likely interested in only making albums that are almost like "Play" but not quite as good. Thus, our study of history teaches us that we are seeing the beginnings of another "The Pearl Jam Effect", and that no future Moby album will be good, or relevant.
Before you start railing against me because I bash Pearl Jam and Moby, note this; this whole reply is purely my opinion. I think that both "Ten" and "Play" are two of the more influential and well-crafted albums of my day. I own both, and I still listen to both. I've heard "18" and all I thought was "ho-hum". That is the exact same thing I thought after I purchased Pearl Jam's "vs.", which is one of the albums that taught me to make damn sure I like it before I drop my hard-earned cash on it.
While the unemployment rate of the US population in general is a mere 6%, among techies, unemployment plus underemployment is somewhere between 25% and 35%. Techies are not that big a portion of the whole population. With no disposable cash, of course they won't spend where it can be avoided. Of course there will be many who steal music even if well employed, but many others won't.
now we need to go OSS in diesel cars
I heard a bunch of songs on Play though P2P. This sold me on the album - I got sowered by music by hearing the same stuff over and over on the radio. Side note: I love hearing other stations calling themselves alternative, you're still Top 40, just a different 40. Napster was great, I bought 3 or 4 albums because of getting stuff from there. Play was one I bought, I had heard of Moby, to be homnest wasn't sure who he was. Downloaded Porcelain and a couple other tunes and I bought the album.
Now I don't consider myself the average downloader, I don't know if I am. Maybe nobody else pays for downloads. Idunno, and I don't think Moby does either.
One possible explanation for 18's lack of success ironically is Play's success. It became Moby's measuring stick. Play was groundbreaking, a bunch of songs that were great. A singular event. A lot of folks bought his next album (18) with expectations of the same groundbreaking record. From what I hear, it's good, not the same. So people bought heavy numbers initially, then word of mouth hit him. Moby may not think of this, or may not want to admit this, but it is a plausible explanation.
I remember Public Enemy and Apocalypse '91: The Enemy Strikes Black, their 4th album. Their 2nd album (It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back) redefined rap. Their 3rd (Fear of a Black Planet) was even better. Apocalypse was well above average for the time, but not up to the standards of the previous too. Instead of being revelled for consistently having above average albums, they were reviled for having substandard (their own high standard). Took years to recover.
What I don't understand is why Moby and every other major music artist is focused on album sales.
I realize this is "easy money" when compared to actually going out and *playing* thier music, but I would gladly pay to see Moby live. Yet thier tour this summer involves all of 8 stops, getting no closer to Omaha than Chicago and Denver!
How did musicians earn a living before recording albums? Playing it to audiences! Technology gives and technology takes away.
So now artists need to go back to the old model to make money. Boo hoo. I have to work to get paid too.
Perhaps what you're trying to say is this: some albums get hyped into the mainstream on such a level that they become "bandwagon" events. You probably bought the albums in question more for their image than for the music itself. And once the hype machine moved on to the next victim, you were probably there for that as well. Still listen to that Hootie and the Blowfish album?
Nonetheless, I believe Moby has a legitimate point. How many records do you think the Grateful Dead could have sold if there weren't so many tapes out there? I know many a "casual" fan who like to feel important just because they own a few Grateful Dead bootlegs. They don't, however, own a single album.
Times haven't changed that much, only the technology, quality, ease of use, and availability.
Pearl Jam released Binaural in 2000 and then 72 live albums in 2000-2001. Now if you mean, "haven't released a new album that I'm interested in", that's something else.
I am not Herbert.
>I've told all of my friends not to buy it.
;-).
Same here.
I *do* buy CD's I've heard and know I'll enjoy listening to (end to end, not for some stupid single).
Moby's "Play" was one of those must-buy CD's... it had a nice groove start to end, while "18" has *one* good track.
Now, perhaps "18" will bring Moby some new fans. Or maybe he just wanted to experiment (good for him)... but I just don't like the new album. It's far too melow and slow.
PS -- It's *completely* unfair to label "techies" as CD copy fiends. It seems the last time I checked, the #1 CD on cddb.com was Eminem... that's *hardly* music for the "techie crowd" (I'll resist the opening to label the Eminem crowd
I thought it was the other way around: the public wanted another Ten, but got "Not for You" and the aforementioned politics. When it comes to a platinum album, most fans don't want a radically different sequel. This is a band we're talking about, not Picasso.
I don't think tech-savvy persons are more *or* less likely
to pirate music. I think the two traits are orthogonal.
Personally, I don't pirate music, but I also don't buy
this guy's stuff, because it's entirely out of genre for
me.
I almost never listen to 20th century music, except for the
occasional Yankovic or Shickele, or a little polyphonic
(non-monodic) a capella stuff, or stuff other people select
and play when I happen to be present. Mostly given the
choice I listen to baroque (especially late baroque), and
sometimes a little romantic (in the traditional sense;
Chopin or whatnot), or _occasionally_ some of the better
classical (I'm not into Mozart; Dvorak is pretty cool
though). I tire of monody (one lead melody part with
support from parts written around it) quickly and have a
marked preference for real polyphony (interwoven separate
but equal parts designed to go together) or fugue. So
as you can imagine I have no motivation to pirate anything
produced by Perl Jam.
Now, I'm not suggesting that tech savvy people are
unlikely to listen to modern music. What I am going
to suggest is that tech-savvy users have very specific
ideas about what music they like and will pay for, and
are less likely to buy an album just because it is
produced by a popular group, even a group that has
formerly produced albums they like. Part of what
makes a geek geeky is that he gets adamant about
small things other people don't seem to care about.
A geek will refuse to pay for something he does not
want, on principle, even if it's considered fashionable
outside of geek circles. (Unless it's a technical
gizmo he can mess with and reprogram, in which case
some geeks will crawl naked over a field of glass
caltrops to buy it, but nevermind; music does not
fit that category.) But I don't think geeks exhibit
a marked tendency to pirate, or not to pirate, any
more than the rest of the population at large.
Now, people who listen to baroque are probably less
likely to pirate music illegally than people who listen
to modern music, but that's a different matter. (Think
in terms of, lesse, 2002 less seventy is 1932... The
artist would have to be, err, 180 years old or so. Yes,
the performances are copyrighted, but the lack of composer
royalties drives the prices down a LOT. Plus, the
ecconomy of scale is quite significant for some of it.
Bach for example probably sells more albums every year
than this Moby guy has sold in his life (though perhaps
not more _dollars_ worth of albums).)
Cut that out, or I will ship you to Norilsk in a box.
Then how do you explain Emineim's recent sales? His album was being bootlegged before it was even released. By your logic the number one selling album should be Richard Simmons Sweating to the Oldies.
From a recent Wired article: That was the masterstroke in marketing Play - the licensing of all 18 of its tracks, from the technofied down-home blues "Honey" to the muted rock anthem "South Side," for use in advertisements, TV programs, and movies. Moby offers a soft-focus view of how this all happened. "That was just, like, taking advantage of an opportunity," he says. "There was no strategy involved. They called us up and said, 'Can we use your song in this commercial?'"
Moby's managers, Marci Weber and Barry Taylor, offer a decidedly different account. Even before the release of Play, with its record-setting run of commercially licensed songs, Weber says the strategy was core to the Organization. In 1996, for instance, they received reports that Moby's atmospheric "God Moving Over the Face of the Waters," which sustained the climactic scene in Michael Mann's Heat, had made an enormous impression on the film-music community. So during that year's Slamdance film festival, Weber and Taylor "invited every music supervisor in Hollywood" to a party to increase their client's visibility. "We put on this free show, big dinner, all that."
You didn't sell because:
a) your machine wasn't working as hard. and...
From the same article: There's no getting around it: 18 sounds, almost track for track, like Play. It even has the sampled gospel vocals - though in place of the earlier disc's rusticated "Ooh, Lawdys," 18 features more urbane, sexy-sounding shout-outs to the Almighty. Moby insists the echoes are essentially coincidence. "I want to make a good record," he says. "And if it means it has songs similar to things on Play, fine."
b) people already bought your album the first time.
Actually, "purchased" might be too strong a word. I think I might have used some GeoCities GeoPlus points that got turned into gift e-certificates to order the CD via Amazon (or similar).
Personally, I believe he's reached "terminal saturation" -- that is to say that's we've all had enough of him. Guy Pierce is suffering from the same thing (actors must hate it when three movies come out at once). Britters is pretty close too. That Pepsi/soccer ad combined with the photo of her smoking has probably pushed her over the edge. Then add the PS2 game...
Moby is feel'n the burn because 18 sucked. Tons of people ran out to buy 18 because Play was great... hence the great initial sales. However, after most people placed 18 in their CD player and realized that 18 was not as good as Play (it was like a bizzaro rehashed version of Play), the word got out, and sales slowed down.
Go to any record store which sells used CDs... you can find a million and one copies of 18 used. Used CD stores are a -great- way to tell if a new album is good or bad. If a lot of people are buying it, and keeping it... it is probably good. Yet, if a lot of people are buying it and selling it back for 4 or 5 bucks, it probably sucks.
I think the numbers speak for themselfs. I'm obviously not the only one that ran out to buy 18 and was let down.
"Things are more moderner than before- bigger, and yet smaller- it's computers-- San Dimas High School football RULES!"
The reasons that vinyl sounds difference IS technical, the difference is in the charactaristic transfer function.
I believe there are boxes that can be bought to convert the tranfer function of a CD to make it sound like an album.
I think the RIAA equalization curve for vinyl also plays into it too, as it boosts the bass below 120Hz by several dB.
I think the phrase "selling out" is a bit overused in music criticism. There's nothing wrong with trying to market your sound to get a larger audience. I mean, hell, the Beatles did it better than anyone else.
But Moby has sold out. His liner notes are filled with diatribes against eating meat, polluting, human rights abuses etc. etc. and yet he peddles his songs to huge corporate advertising campaigns and idiotic TV shows. Moby doesn't drink and hates cars, yet his songs help sell cars and hard liquor. While I think it's unfair to criticize people with strong beliefs for slight hypocracy (it's far more noble to have somewhat compromised beliefs than to have no beliefs at all) Moby has gone a bit too far in his attempts to be a ubiquitous cute little media icon.
Besides, DJ Shadow is far far far better.
... and "Everything is Wrong" was better than "Play"
In Capitalist America, bank robs you!
Moby is hardly complaining in the way the RIAA and similiar groups have been belly-aching, and this stance is nothing new (I read an article by Moby in Spin about 6 months ago that had the same message, before "18" came out.)
Moby's not calling for an end to sharing/copying. He's just making the point that fluff-pop listeners tend to either be impulse shoppers or they lack the tech-savy to make their own digital copies.
Maybe he's making excuses for a marginal album, but I think this "THINKER" has a point.
Actually I'm just kidding, I still kinda like Moby. I do miss my monkyradio and somafm due to the stupidness of CARP.
Bleh!
Maybe tech-savvy fans buy less stuff because it requires intelligence to become tech-savvy, and a side effect of being intelligent is that you acquire discriminating taste and become selective about purchasing stuff, rather than rushing out like a brainwashed lemming every time you see something shiny to buy.
The average well-trained fanboy who instinctively buys everything that happens to have the right logo that he's been brainwashed to respond to, whether or not it's crap, can't really be considered "intelligent".
You see? You see? Your stupid minds! Stupid! Stupid!