[Date Prev][Date Next][Thread Prev][Thread Next][Date Index][Thread Index]

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............
------------------------------------------------------------------------

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.

------------------------------------------------------------------------

Some very provocative thoughts there, I think. 

Cheers,

John