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Re: Music Industry woes
I found this very interesting thought on another list I'm on.
I find myself in agreement with the guy's ideas, how about you?
The relevance of this to the Who is that the Who have no current
recording deal with a major label. Read on, please, it may make us think
about the stupidity of the music biz............
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Re: Eminem to rescue music industry?
----- Original Message -----
> > CANNES, France (Reuters) - Can badboy rapper Eminem (news - web
> > sites) succeed where Mariah Carey spectacularly failed last year --
> > score a hit record to revive the down-and-out music industry?
>
> Do we want to start this thread or not? It's a hot button for me...
>
> The problem with the music business is that it is "hit-centric", not
> consumer-centric. In other words, they don't ask questions like,
> "Who is buying music and how can we appeal to these consumers?"
> Instead, they ask, "Who on our roster might have a big hit this
> year?"
>
> The music business is the only industry I can think of that
> allocates the vast, vast majority of its marketing thrust toward its
> lightest consumers. The Maria Carey and Eminem record buyers aren't
> buying 20, 50, 100 or more cd's a year. Indeed, I believe you would
> find a directly inverse corrolation between the amount of money
> spent by an artist's average consumer on music each year, as opposed
> to the artist's chart position.
>
> In other words, record companies are trimming their rosters, cutting
> artists that can't sell a zillion units and focusing on the acts
> that might have mega-hits. Which means that each year they grab a
> lower and lower share of the music dollar spent by the industry's
> heaviest consumers, because the artists they cut are the artists
> patronized by the bigger spenders.
>
> The Internet isn't stealing their business. Their cutting it off
> themselves, by their own actions. Consider a guy like me. I buy,
> say, 100-150 cd's a year. Here's a partial list of "must-buy"
> artists for me, and then consider that not a one of them is signed
> to a major (some have their own record companies, like Prince and
> Ani; some aren't even signed, like Jill and the BoDeans):
>
> Prince
> Todd Rundgren
> Ani DiFranco
> Silos
> BoDeans
> Jill Sobule
> King Crimson
> Aimee Mann
> Marshall Crenshaw
> Allman Brothers
>
> And all those power pop bands we're always raving about here. As I
> have said in a previous post, I only own one of the top-100 selling
> albums of 2001-- and that is U2, which I bought in 2000. By my
> count I bought (or, to be fair, received as gifts) 91 cd's in 1991
> (taking the count is hard because 2001 was the year I added my
> wife's cd's to my data base, so I have to remember which ones are
> just listed as '01 purchases because I added hers this year).
> Figure a (low) average of $15 a piece (low because there are
> multiple-disc titles in there), and toss in the "subscription"
> services I buy (Todd, Prince) and you get a good $1500 I spent on
> music, in a down year (money was tight).
>
> Oh yes. I also trade bootlegs like nobody's business.
>
> I'm guessing that $1500 puts me in the top 20% of record buyers.
> Actually, it probably puts me in the top 1%. And what % of my
> record buying dollar did the major labels see? I don't know, but
> maybe a third, tops. Probably less (And much of what they got is
> because a lot of the back catalog I bought remains controlled by
> them.) Ten years ago, they probably had 80% of my music dollar, if
> not more. But then, 10 years ago all those artists above (except
> Ani, God bless her) had deals.
>
> Even the movie business, which probably closest resembles the record
> business, targets heavy customers. People who go to see Star Wars
> or Pearl Harbor or whatever other blockbuster tend to see a lot of
> movies. While both industries have in common the trait that "hit"
> and "quality" overlap only by chance, at least the movie business
> manages to sell hits to its heavy customers-- it is meeting the
> needs of the people who spend in the category. Of course "hit" is
> seldom equated with "quality" in any consumer business; McDonald's
> sells more meals than all the 5-star restaraunts in the world
> combined. And also of course, McDonald's targets heavy consumers of
> quick service restaraunts; they aren't working all year to develop
> the magic sandwich (or the Eminem hit) that people who never go into
> fast food joints will come in for.
>
> Now you look at the things the Big Recording Industry is doing--
> like shutting down Napster and moving to copy-protected discs (say
> goodbye to your mix tapes). Because once again, the record industry
> in its infinite wisdom has decided that it is those pesky CONSUMERS
> OF MUSIC who are the ENEMY! Truly comical and unbelievable. It is
> as if, when McDonald's has a bad year, they say, "OK, that's it-- NO
> MORE TAKE-OUT!"
>
> No, McDonald's would be far more likely to add drive-through windows
> to their restaraunts, because that is what their heavy customers
> want. They'd get into the take-out business.
>
> But record execs are oblivious to the wants of their heavy
> customers. They are too busy blaming us for their own failures, and
> punishing us, to actually pay attention to what we are doing.
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Some very provocative thoughts there, I think.
Cheers,
John