Slashdot Mirror
A Music Industry Case Study
spmkk writes "The NY Daily News has an uplifting look at the fate of a (hypothetical) 4-piece band "making it big" in today's RIAA-driven music industry. The condensed version: A band that sells 500,000 records for $8,490,000 gross ends up (after a few iterations of the new math) with $161,909 in their pocket. Split four ways, that's a whopping $40,477.25 each for a record that probably took close to a year to produce. And this is for a record that goes gold (as per the article, only 128 of some 30,000 records released in 2002 were so privileged). And I bet you wanted to be a rock star when you were a kid..."
To the problem with music, an insightful insider's look on this exact same subject with more analysis and perhaps less solid figures.
It is written by Steve Albini, who produced (besides a few bands you maybe might have heard of) a little no-name act called Nirvana. Everyone should read it. Of course, most people have, which is why i predict it will be linked at least three more times somewhere in this story discussion.
Disclaimer, I don't really understand the pop industry so this is probably obvious, but...
Why is the negotiating position of these bands so weak that they end up with such a shitty deal?
No, I haven't read the story yet :)
:)
I came across this the other week, it's a long but very good read. I honestly don't know how true it is, but I read it all anyway
It's the story of a guy who's mixing a band for a big label, and his trials and tribulations.
The Daily Adventures of Mixerman.
--- There isn't any problem that can't be solved by a small, low yield nuclear device, is there??
1) Radio monopolies. As has previously been discussed on /., this means that few bands ever get play time on the radio. In fact, radio today pretty much sucks unless you really like "Top 40" music. Now, there's a reason that Top 40 music used to be Top 40 -- it was popular (and usually fairly good) music. But that's not really the case anymore.
2) Paying artists. The Music Industry can whine all it wants about "artists getting money" this and "artists getting money that" but the truth of the matter is, Item No. 1 makes the music industry so competitive that, after all the marketing is finished, they can't really afford to give any money back to the artists. Artists in today's music industry are somewhat like the sweatshop girls who make Abercrombie and Fitch cargo pants (or Nike shoes, or you name it): they produce a product sold for an extreme premium but are poorly paid. Incidentally, the premium goes not directly into the pockets of the responsible corporation, but instead into marketing and promotion -- but only of the artists which the record company likes.
I firmly believe that we're about to experience a paradigm shift in entertainment delivery. The era of free music -- as it was in the 16, 17, and 1800s -- will once more be upon us. Recorded music will be free, and niche internet radio/community music sites will be responsible for the creation of new hits and pop sensatia (remember Michelle Branch? MP3.com, not the radio, was instrumental in her stardom). Artists will instead earn their money as they did 100 years ago: in concert. Ticket prices will skyrocket (and fans will pay), and probably move to an auction-dominated system -- which will equilibrize ticket prices. Some artists might be forced to get day jobs. But art, music, etc., they will all move onward...
Statistically speaking, there's a 99.998% chance that my IQ is higher than yours. Get over it.
You guys are ignorant. The same thing happens in the live music industry. Only a tiny miniscule ammount of people make money touring. And there are probably only a handful of people in the world (mostly actors, not musicians btw) who get paid to appear on magazines.
I am a professional musician who recently put out a record on a major label. I did a west coast tour last month where every show was sold out. Wanna know how much money I made?
$80 a day. And that's with the shows selling out.
The live music industry is the same as the record industry. They've worked it out so that the musicians get nothing.
A major record label has a lot of resources that a musician needs to "make it big". They have the capital that is needed to produce albums.
Each album can cost hundreds of thousands of dollars to record. Each music video also costs tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars. Radio stations must be paid off to get a band's singles in the rotation. And the album has to be manufactured, which costs money as well. Then the album must be distributed, which costs money and requires a business relationship that labels have and most musicians do not.
There are dozens of bands in every city around the world that want to make it, but only a handful of major labels. This is why bands get the short end of the stick.
there should be a few bars that get live music
In the United States, the option of seeing a live musical performance in an establishment that serves more alcoholic beverages than food is available only to those people who have lived outside a womb for at least 662,774,400 seconds. Virtually no high school student qualifies, and neither do more than half of all undergraduate college students.
What do you recommend for those people who aren't 21 yet?
And how much do those live bands have to pay their songwriters?
Will I retire or break 10K?
I had an idea a while back for a sort of 'aggregated patronage' for new
music: create a nonprofit org that runs a 'community' website. Interested
'patrons' would pay a small fee (say $5/month) to be a member. Bands upload
their MP3's for free, and members get to download, comment on, and rate the
songs. At the end of every month, the band that had the highest rated song
would be given the month's kitty: i.e. all the membership fees for that
month, minus a small amount for hosting costs, so the whole thing is
self-sufficient. With only a little over 1000 members at $5 a head, such a
site would be giving out a $5000 cash prize to a band every month, and I can
tell you as someone who's been there that this is usually more than even a
really decent local band would otherwise make every month. Of course this
also helps those artists like the techno types who don't get concert sales
because they don't really play out 'live'.
Of course, bands/musicians would love such a thing, why not upload your
stuff and get it in the running - you'll get exposure and feedback in any
case and you may just make some nice cash. The question is whether or not
you could get enough 'patrons' interested. There are some incentives tho -
like only members can download the music that's been put up there. Also,
while the critiques and ratings could be open to the nonpaying public, you
would of course have to be a member to actually write reviews and rate the
music. This might appeal immensely to all those armchair music critics out
there. Another source of members would of course be those bands who have
entered telling all their friends to sign up so they can vote them up. While
there's some potential for abuse there, it would be nice if every band had
around the same number of supporters signing up, meaning the kitty gets
bigger but the ultimate winner for the month is actually decided by a large
number (hopefully) of 'undecided' members, i.e. those who have signed up to
listen to and patronize new music rather than to support a particular band.
Another incentive could be to mandate that the winner release the winning
song under some sort of 'open-source' music license in exchange for the
cash. This would be an incentive insofar as the Slashdot types (myself
included) would like the idea of supporting the increase in the overall
supply of 'free' music, while also helping out those bands that are
open-minded enough to consider releasing their tunes that way.
Of course, if there is interest on the 'patron' side, and enough people sign
up, the kitty could eventually get large enough to be split into seperate
'genre' prizes, which makes more sense: Your underground hiphop head may
want to listen to, rate and award the latest dope offerings without having
much interest in doing the same for the latest country-rock ditties. Ditto
for death-metal heads vs. bubblegum pop, etc. Having a general 'all takers'
kitty only makes sense in the beginning when there's fewer patrons and thus
less patronage to go around. Of course, since the site software would be OSS
(GPL'd, ideally), there would be no reason that those who aren't happy with
the way the group votes couldn't start their own site, targeted to people
who are closer to their own musical tastes.
I put out a record on a major label recently. Just finished a sold out tour of the west coast a week or two ago.
I have these thoughts:
1. The article is totally accurate.
2. Anybody who thinks successful musicians make it back in touring or merchandise is A COMPLETE IGNORANT IDIOT. Once you get close to going gold this might be true, but as the article pointed out, this happens to 138 of 30,0000 records.
3. My sold out tour of the west coast was the first profitable tour in almost a decade of touring. I made $80 a day once the profits were tabulated.
4. Merchandise sales are not major sources of revenue, but they help stem the bleeding. Less then half of that $80/day was from merchandise.
5. One word: EXPENSES. It's not just the money you get. It's also the money you pay out. And touring is expensive. Don't be one of those assholes who says "ah but the bands make it back from tours and merchandise"
6. A shitty sys-admin can do $30-40k a year.
7. A top notch musician who has practiced most of their life and given countless sacrifices for their job and has gone gold will do about the same.
8. A top notch musician who hasn't gone gold will be broke.
9. A shitty musician will be in debt.
10. Mama don't let your baby's grow up to be musicinas.
I think that any band that signs up for a recording contract is committing suicide. How come so many bands won't think outside of the limited, furmula-based, corrupt BOX of expensive studio time, expensive post production, expensive MTV videos, expensive kickbacks to radio stations, expensive lame coreography, on-stage fireworks, etc. etc?
Compared to publishing your own books, quality recording, mastering and pressing 1,000 CDs or so to start is extremely cheap. Literally chicken feed. We've been enabled by computer tech which should have put the big studios out of business by now. Distribution is widely available compared to what the struggling self-publishing author faces in the book industry.
Maybe it is simply a question of aesthetics, but I'd rather listen to a straight-on live/studio without stupid 'major label' sound effects and extreme overdub overlayed. A good band can make good money selling their CDs at concerts, websites and through the many distributors. Musicians must think outside the box and drop the MTV videos and fake-sounding, expensive post production.
Out of the box means a band sells a high-quality recording of them performing their music. No record company is needed for something so simple. Courtney Love finally got free from her record contract, didn't she?
"Only in their dreams can men truly be free 'twas always thus, and always thus will be."
--Tom Schulman
A lot of people don't like anything that gets radio play, because that's the crap that people listen to. I think a lot of people don't like anything that's on the radio, because then they get to act like experts, and play along like they understand the something about music other people don't. For the most part, most people don't have an inner genius that conveys more information about high quality music then the rest of the general public. I stopped listening to the 5 years ago, and I have about 20 CD's that I can happily listen to for extended periods of time. I'm not big into music, but I laugh at the pretensious people who act like they know more about music then the general public, because they've decided they know more.... *grin*
Kirby
They actually got paid $1.2 million. If they could find a cheaper way to operate (get rid of the manager, produce the record themselves, not spend $200K on studio time, pay their lawyer a flat fee instead of a percentage, etc.) they could keep the $1.2 million. Their lawyer should also have negotiated that the royalty was on the retail gross, rather than any sort of net. The royalty should reflect the popularity of the music directly, and not any machinations of the production process.
And if I wasn't hungry, I'd show you how the newspaper managed to double-count for some of the money, and lose some elsewhere, but it'd take a spreadsheet.
Bottom line, rock stars are dumb for thinking they're only making $40K on a gold record.
On the other side of the coin.. how many artists actually do a lot of commercials?? I am sure there is a rather large majority who do not get the lucrative sponorship deals.
In the 21st century, no successful business model will be constructed based on the sale of recorded music for any price -- without the widespread implementation of DRM technologies which will surely be rejected by the body politic. If DRM isn't rejected, well then, it's a whole new ball game...
Statistically speaking, there's a 99.998% chance that my IQ is higher than yours. Get over it.
Writing royalties: the 15% deal doesn't include writing royalties. If you are a musician then you probably know that the big money comes from royalties (radio play, selling rights for advertising, etc.). That is why copyrights are important to artists. In this hypothetical deal I doubt the band would sign away their ownership; if they did then they are probably idiots. There are plenty of previous examples to learn this lesson from (Bruce Springsteen, the Beatles). In a few cases it is worthwhile - to get a song recorded by Celine Dion the writer must give up 50% of the royalties, but there is almost a guarantee of sales, so it can be a winning concession. Just ask Dan Hill, writer of "sometimes when we touch"
"The record company keeps the packaging and "free goods" funds. After collecting a $9.99 wholesale price, it also reaps an additional $829,900." The article gives the impression that the record company is keeping all this money, but it is going to pay for manufacturing, distribution, advertising, rent and salaries, all the same costs a computer company has, or a software company, or a fast-food company. If a group of musicians wants to take on all these responsibilites and release their product themselves, they can do it, and many have, successfully. (Barenaked Ladies - who moved on to working with a major record company)
Live Performances: for an up and coming band, performing is simply advertising, so touring is not a typically big a money-maker, but if well managed then it can bring in some money. The bigger the band is then the more likely they are making money performing.
The Benefits of Being Self-Employed: If these hypothetical guys are smart then they have an accountant writing off everything under the sun as an expense and they aren't paying much tax.
I've already read a huge number of replies ranting about the greedy music industry. While I agree that there are plenty of creeps and dick-wads involved, that goes for the musicians too, and as I mentioned we are talking about a business, which exists to make money. Yes, they have made and do make bad business decisions, but all areas of business do. Anyways, calling the companies greedy for charging too much for music is really calling the kettle black. They are not witholding air, water or food. It is just pop music, and insisting that you have some sort of basic human right to those recordings regardless of any investment made by anyone else, that is greedy. You don't need it; you want it.
RTFM; please, I beg you.
http://www.templetons.com/brad/copymyths.html
The "fair use" exemption to (U.S.) copyright law was created to allow things such as commentary, parody, news reporting, research and education about copyrighted works without the permission of the author. That's important so that copyright law doesn't block your freedom to express your own works -- only the ability to express other people's. Intent, and damage to the commercial value of the work are important considerations. Are you reproducing an article from the New York Times because you needed to in order to criticise the quality of the New York Times, or because you couldn't find time to write your own story, or didn't want your readers to have to register at the New York Times web site? The first is probably fair use, the others probably aren't.
Fair use is usually a short excerpt and almost always attributed. (One should not use more of the work than is necessary to make the commentary.) It should not harm the commercial value of the work -- in the sense of people no longer needing to buy it (which is another reason why reproduction of the entire work is a problem.)
Note that most inclusion of text in Usenet followups is for commentary and reply, and it doesn't damage the commercial value of the original posting (if it has any) and as such it is fair use. Fair use isn't an exact doctrine, either. The court decides if the right to comment overrides the copyright on an individual basis in each case. There have been cases that go beyond the bounds of what I say above, but in general they don't apply to the typical net misclaim of fair use.
The "fair use" concept varies from country to country, and has different names (such as "fair dealing" in Canada) and other limitations outside the USA.
Things like "deal memos" are sketchy though...
The band gets seen by a A&R rep, the rep talks to them, has a meeting without lawyers present, since "it's not a contract meeting, just a get to know you meeting", then gets them to sign a deal memo that says they intend to sign a contract with the label. It's legally binding, though the A&R rep implies that it's an informal thing.
At this point the band can't sign with anyone else, so they are almost guaranteed to get a bad contract - they have no leverage anymore.
And, yes, they could probably get out of the deal memo, since it's a sketchy business practice - but the label can keep it in the courts for quite awhile, and they have lawyers on salary, while the band has to be paying a lawyer hourly, and probably doesn't have much money since they aren't signed...
I am one of the original operators/founders for a free music site on the web in 1994. The second largest music archive of the time (next to IUMA). And a technological trend setter with the use of incredible MP2 (yes two) technology. My view of the current state of the music industry is this: Bands/Artists who continue to rely on industry to make money and not MUSIC will always get fucked and deserve to be fucked. They place their value in their relationship with the record companies and the RC's assests and not their fans. It's common business sense to make your CUSTOMER happy (fans), focus on your product(MUSIC, PERFORMING) and your relationship with your customers (FANS). SO WHY would a band give away control of their most important assests for PENNIES? Because they are stupid and they are greedy. Which is funny since in return for their greed they get the opposite of what they lust for. It's not very different than a small software company selling out completely to investors who steer the company first into disaster and then recover large amounts of money at the expense of the original upstart. The alternative is CLEAR. Why bands don't see this i really don't know and no longer care. The alternative is to PLAY fucking music. PLAY ALOT. PLAY in front of crowds. That's how a band gets paid. That's how a band develops a "customer" base. Don't waste ALL of your time and effort copywriting songs that suck.. MAKE MORE SONGS. LOTS OF SONGS. And play them. Make copies of your music. Let people listen to them and use them and make copies of them. This will widen your customer base. This will open more opportunity to PLAY more and make more music. THEN and ONLY then will people MAYBE be willing to pay for your Music. The REAL drive of buying art is the support of the expression in the hopes that the expression will continue to grow. Two examples of bands that have made this incredibly SIMPLE process work are the Grateful Dead and PHISH. Not to mention hundreds of DJ's and electronic acts who are driven by their love of PLAYING and PERFORMING music. If a band or artist does not love music and performing enough to do it everyday they will be pushed out of the market by ones that are. Just like in ANY business. Bands should look at performing and making music as their job. Not something they do as part of their Music career and inbetween being famous and broke. I'm not as big fan of those bands i mentioned. I do like them but it is funny how their lifestyles and business plans resemble eachother. Do you think bands that tour 325 days out of the year make money? Fucking A right they do. And if they love doing it they are fucking lucky individuals. As for the RIAA, why sit around and whine at them? Why should they give away all their assests? Why should they let people steal their money? They won't. And people won't stop stealing it. The whole fight is a stupid waste of time for people who want to make music. Placing SO much emphasis on the RIAA is admitting they hold some supreme power over artists and art in general. And if you think that is the case then you don't understand anything about real music or art.
Secondly, it's a matter of how you like to enjoy music. Yesterday I got to talk to the amazing, self-made Cody ChesnuTT for a little while, then see him play his soul/pop/rock/etc. from a distance of 10 feet. He asked people what they wanted to hear, and really made a connection with the audience. Amazing. But I'd have little interest in seeing him play in a basketball stadium with an array of security/lighting technicians/so forth, all around him. I wouldn't hold it against him, it's just not as interesting.
U2 is a bad example, unless you're from Ireland and saw them in the clubs before they became an international band.
Slashdot: providing anti-social weirdos a soapbox, since 1997.
Blaming this on piracy is a joke, but blaming the complete suckage of music these days on this isn't. If artists are only getting $40,000 a year by releasing an album a year, they have to release an album a year. Yuck.
All circuits busy.
The Steve Albini article is of course, spot on. The fact that it is almost 10 years old is remarkable, and it's a shame that things haven't changed much since then. The flagship punkrock fanzine Maximum Rock 'N' Roll devoted an entire issue to this topic back in 1994, in a groundbreaking (at the time) issue entitled, "Major Labels: Some of your friends are already this fucked", and it should be required reading for anyone who wants to resist the corporatization of music.
I was in the music biz for many years. The most money does not come from artist royalties (discussed in the posting) but from merchandising, songwriting royalties, etc. Some artists also make money from live performances; for some it's just a loss leader. Remember, it's the music business, not the record business.
Heather Meeker, software lawyer
No, the problem is that the success of the music industry is based on everyone believing it in its success.
Its obvious, but everyone buys the albums everyone else buys, so only ~128 bands get to make *good* money, and only a few of them get to make a *lot* of money. So the profits of the recording companies and their superstars comes at the expense of everyone else in the industry making a *living*.
Of course, it isn't the fault of the recording industry that we're all so damn stupid.
So you want us to reward artists for making bad decisions. That money is how much an artist makes for an album that goes GOLD, piracy or no piracy.
But then, I'm not cashing a fat IT paycheck, either.
The music business is is undeniably a horrible uber-competitive backstabbing industry. Why? Because a) playing music is fun b) people will pay some amount of money to hear music. What results is a bunch of people going to increasingly ridiculous lengths in order to make it in the music industry. A lucky few will make generous amounts of money, while the rest will scramble to survive.
Such is the case in any industry where the work is a lot of fun, and I say this as a warning because the same thing can easily happen to computer programmers. Why? Because programming is a fun and rewarding job, and as soon as the general public figures this out you will have a situation where a) a lucky few get to be paid as programmers b) a lot of programming work gets done for free by the many trying to "make it" in the business. "Oh, but programming is hard", you say. So is being a top-flight musician, and there are plenty of those who have to hump day jobs because there just aren't enough paying positions to support them at what they would like(and are highly qualified) to do.
So while you sit there posting to slashdot, saying "oh well, they can make their money through concerts and selling t-shirts", just remember, the same thing could happen to you one day. Hope you're good at self-promotion. Or that enough people never figure out that programming is fun in a similar way that music is fun. I wouldn't bet on the latter. It doesn't take a genius to coorelate the fact that people already produce a ton of code for free to the speculation that they could get programmers to do their bidding at very generous rates.
No, Thursday's out. How about never - is never good for you?
Ok, but, here's the deal:
Is it, or is it not, possible for a band to secure some capital from an outside source, and use that to leverage a better contract with the record label. Or, do musical acts with some of the own money end up having to sign the same one-sided deal as everyone else, which amounts to taking a loan from the record company.
It's not all that expensive to produce a digital master of, say, a four piece rock band. Lots of people do this routinely without all that much money invested. If you can do some of the preproduction work yourself in a home studio, all you really have left is post and distribution. You still can't really do this on consumer formats, so you still need 30-50 grand for your "home" (more likely college, church, etc.) studio.
What you want from the record company is their nationwide/international marketing. So if you had your own way of producing your creative work, and could put a bit of cash on the table to prime the pump, you should be able to negotiate quite a deal with a record label.
Now, if there were some way for an artist to gauge his market accurately, then it would be possible to self-produce with some certainty.
I've seen it work with high-school and college band/orchestra/choir recordings. If you know your market will support 2500 CD's (and if you can pre-sell them, even better!), you know your budget up front. For $50 grand, you can build out a quiet room, lease a 24 track console, some mikes, and even pay an artist for a nice cover...
The actual disk, with your artwork silkscreened on the face, your 4-color insert, shrinkwrapped jewel case should be under $2.00 a piece, at that volume.
If you can THEN go to the A&R folks with "here's what we did on our own, what'll you give us to take it to the next level?"
instead of...
"like dood, we wanna be rock stars, can we trade our souls for that?"
The trouble is that nobody thinks to take their own risks, they don't have their own money to put down, they don't want to work that hard, etc.
But it can be done. Schools and churches do it all the time. So instead of borrowing a couple of million against your soul, consider borrowing a few thou after making a harsh, realistic assessment of what you can actually sell. If you are making enough at the door of your concerts (you ARE playing 300 nights a year, right? Making some bartenders and bar managers rich where you're the house band, right?) you can pay for the costs of producing a damned CD out of your pocket.
I mean, geez, isn't your keyboard player a geek who already has the ability to churn out a timecoded multitrack master? Why hasn't one of the clubs you play in offered to help you make a cd to help promote the (already-popular) house band? Where do the "millions of bucks" come into play, again?
The problem is that the companies take their profits first before costs are taken out.
That's known as industry standard practice, and it's common practice in the movie business also. But there's no point in bitching about it - if you don't like those terms, negotiate better ones, or don't sign the contract. As monolithic as the movie/music businesses are, you CAN make a living outside the system if you choose to. If you choose to work inside the system, then you live with this kind of shit if you're new, and hope to get enough leverage at some point to get a better contract. Remember, there's no law against accepting a contract that's not in your best interests.
Just a word of advice: You ever hear that no film ever makes money? It's true - everything possible is written off against a film, so there's literally no net (money after expenses and fees) left. That's why if you're smart, you always ask for a cut of gross (total profits before expenses), or cash upfront. NEVER ACCEPT A CUT OF NET! 50% of nothing is still NOTHING. Of course, if you're trying to get people to invest in your film, what are you selling? Why, a cut of the net, of course!
The music/movie businesses aren't like everybody else accounting and contract-wise. They've been playing with money for a very, very, very long time. To them, Enron and Worldcom were run by a bunch of amateurs...
But of course, that's the point. If they didn't take their profits when they do, then many, many more acts would be profitable... but the recording companies wouldn't make quite as much money, and (heaven forbid) would actually have to take on some amount of risk along with the band.
As things stand, the recording companies structure deals so that they always make a profit, no matter what. To the recording companies, an "unprofitable" band is one that they do not have to pay any money. See the small problem here?
"Great men are not always wise: neither do the aged understand judgement." Job 32:9
This article admirably illustrates the difficulty of making money from record sales, but it fails to mention that making money from record sales is not the point of making records. At least not for musicians. For musicians the point of making records is to get Exposure. Working musicians make their money by performing, and exposure translates into gigs. With an album on the charts, the Grungenuts, or whatever the hypothetical band was called, should expect to rake in some respectable bucks playing large venues. That's what making records really buys musicians.
It can also be that when something is played on the radio, it's saturated, and what you may like the first or second time, after hearing it on high rotation (and not just on your personal radio, but everywhere you go)for a few weeks, you're heartily sick of it.
Same for movie or TV previews and promos -- after seeing the same scenes a dozen times a day the idea of actually watching the whole thing is abhorrent. Though year later if you catch the rerun without fanfare, you may enjoy it.
Parts of the new business model: you pay for a CD, with pictures, lyrics, things like that. You can make copies for yourself and for friends. You can also share on the web. You can't resell for money.
You can sell concerts, since there's a big bouncer at the door who will rough you up if you don't pay. Some acts will let you tape or make videos. Again, same informal distribution. Big acts will put out great videos with directors which people will buy. Beginning acts, or anarchists, let people tape. Best cred you can get with fans. Better publicity than if you had, well, a publicist.
It's up to musicians to figure out what will get people to pay premium prices. Maybe the opera, or other long-form music, will come back. The three-minute jukebox hit parade payola machine is probably dying. Good riddance.
All music shared on the web is tracked for numbers of unique downloads. You pay an extra $5 (say) a month for copyright network sharing. collected at the ISP, and the artists get most of that. Why not? The label goes to no expense whatever. Keeping track of the popular downloads, and cataloguing all music ever recorded, can be done by a google appliance. SuperNapster.
With half the population of the world listening and sharing every week, that's a heck of a lot of money. Split it up as you see fit. Add in concert money, and, yes, CD, SuperCD, DVD Audio sales, and there's probably more money in the business than ever.
Well, I guess you're going to have elitist in any field. But by definition, that would have to be a small number... and of the hordes of albums released in a given year, how many make it on the radio? Yeah, elitist.
Was schlepping around with my parents, listening to the radio, and much to my surprise, Slayer is played. I point out that same song would have NEVER been played when it was released (nevermind the fact my parents would be listening to Slayer, even if just sub-conciously). Is Slayer less cool now than then (or maybe cooler)? Hardly. It goes both ways.
Longing for the day when they play Therion on the radio so I can be cool and mainstream. Or maybe I just fail to care. But it would make it easier if a band with over a ten year history got played once, instead of it being my own newest discovery ("Oh wow. Like they've been around for how long, and I've never heard of them."). Maybe if I listen to Britany Spears for another ten years.
The radio still sucks.
If Pantera is charging $500 a pop for tickets, they need to re-evaluate where their money is going.
There are dozens of punk rock and smaller alternative bands that tour every year, with or without a big budget. Greedy whores like Bikini Kill won't leave home without a guaranteed $10k payout, but bands like Armchair Martians or Scared of Chaka will roll out for a few hundred bucks TOTAL. Sometimes things get fucked up and they have to play to a small crowd and get paid with beer and food, but that goes with the territory.
In the final analysis, bands don't really need enormous touring busses, 5 star hotels and new guitars for every show. They don't need their promoter taking 10% of their cut. If you cut down your overhead and subscribe to the DIY philosophy, you can make it on your own without a major label rolling out a magic carpet for you.
Remember, most bands you know and love probably started out in someone's basement or garage, and probably borrowed the minivan on the weekend to go to shows. Then again, bands these days are basically born from corporate labels and aren't as homegrown as they used to be.
All this tuff is really nice and interesting. but i think to vaguely remember that artists do gain some pretty penny from airing their tunes too. I think this is also a good way to earn money for them. but excuse me if i digress. Recently my wife bought a CD reader by SONY. A Discman. It sported a nice, big, flashy write on it : "Also MP3 reader". Nice. Recently she bought the last Massive Attack album, nice music. Guess what? You put the disc on the reader and...silence! The reader made by SONY, is not able to read a CD protected with the same protection system invented by SONY. Funny stuff eh? My legit CD reader, is not able to read a legit store bought CD. Can u see a pattern here? For me this alone spells DOOM for the RIIA and all of his friends. THATS the real issue with the music today. If they do not solve this s**t with copy protection systems, some really bad 455 mojo is going to happen to them. If they do not get their acts together, soon there will be no more "record industry". My 2, off topic cents. P.S: Bye the way, the link to Albino's writing is really good. P.P.S: I phoned to a SONY representtative in my area talking to him about the reader/CD issue. He said he was aware of the story and that now SONY is looking into this. Many CD's do have this problem. He said that i was authorized to bring back the CD and eventually give his name if the store refused to take it back. He also suggested to me to (!) rip the CD, recording it in real-time with a recording software and encoding it in MP3. I found this really showing where this market is going. Down the toilet. KazaaLite for ever! Peace out.