I want you to take a look at the following three numbers: 115,000, 250,000 and 110.
What’s so great about them? Well according to the Chicago Tribune they paint a dreadful picture for this game we call the music business.
About 115,000 albums came out last year.
Only 110 sold 250,000 copies or more.
Sure you have to account for the amount of no name junk that drops between bigger releases. In addition, the article doesn’t specify if these numbers account for digital copies from iTunes and other similar e-music stores. Regardless, there’s no way you can positively spin these figures as far less than one percent of records sold went hood platinum. Adding further perspective the article goes on to state that “a mere 1,500 topped 10,000 sales, and fewer than 6,000 cracked the 1,000 barrier — further evidence that sales of recorded music are not the way of the future for artists. ”
It’s evident that suits and artists alike aren’t making bread off albums sold at retail. If anything, there’s no better time than now to hand out 360 deals as diminishing profit margins are the today’s paradigm. So what will the music industry look like from here on out?
I don’t have a crystal ball. However, it appears the current business model for albums is leaning towards ad based promotions alongside products and services. Moreover, try before you buy LPs with commercial breaks online have developed in an attempt to hook audiences.
Music has been used alongside promos for years. Just look at Smirnoff, Doublemint Gum, NBA Live and AT&T if you don’t believe me. Some of the aforementioned campaigns give away the songs featured in the advertisements. Hell you can hear albums for free on sites like Imeem and Myspace with ads between the tracks. They’re not ideal listening experiences as your jam session will get a brief interruption by Doritos every now and then. But all things considered, you’ll get to hear the album in its entirety, some LPS get good traffic and the label gets a cut. Yet, that cut is pretty insignificant and is barely worth the time and money it takes to keep it available to users.
It doesn’t take Miss Cleo-like clairvoyance to see that bricks and mortar road is a dead end. Nevertheless record companies can’t catch a fair one online either. So what’s next for the likes of Universal, Sony BMG, Warner and EMI? It makes me wonder how long they can run on fumes as Steve Jobs and co. cruise by with a full tank.
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I’ve said this before and I’ll say it again, in ten years time they inject not only music but other messages into your system via nano liquid technology.
So basically you pour yourself a cold glass of water from the tap, the water itself will contain nano bubbles and each nano will be a sphere of data for example a new album by a new artist.
The album will play constantly in your head, so you go and seek out other products by the said artist.
The label will get paid by the water utility providers, depending on how much water is consumed.
Ain’t nothing move but the money.
That is one helluva a theory Paw.
paw STFU…i wont be able to sleep tonight after reading things like this.
All these rappers “working” on they CD and UPS aint even hiring no more!
Product placement is already such an ingrained part of Hip-Hop, I wouldn’t be surprised if Ronald McDonald executive produces a major artists album in the near future.
McDonalds Presents Prodigy – Return Of the Big Mac?
@Petey, as scary as it sounds, it’s true and it’s coming, it based around a substance called lithium quorinium, which was used by the CIA during the 1960s in mind control and manipulation exercises. They eventually called off the project because the subjects who they tested the substance on went on to develop brain tumours.
However, over the years they’ve harnessed the technique and combined it with nano liquid technology, like a pin drop worth of liquid can contain 75 minutes of audio messages or 15 minutes of visual messages.
Imagine them encapsulating reams of data into this stuff, diluting your tap water with it and gradually they drip feeding you with it. You won’t even know that it’s happening that’s the scary part.
Don’t even get me started on blackjacks and ultra violet technology, that’s even more mind blowing.
Like you know your ipod screen and utilities, imagine being able to conjure that up in thin air, with a click of a finger, sort of like Minority Report, but for real, because all hard drives, will be atmosphere based, they are known as ghost drives. All information is in the air, you just got to know how to grab it, that will be the motto.
Right now they’re working on it, they call it Moblin Technology, that’s how they will feed you music, movies and so forth.
That’s why it’s important that you look after your CDs, vinyl, DVD’s, Blu-Ray discs and most importantly your books and comics. In time it will be a formatless society, the corporates will reap their revenue via nano liquid technology.
lmao
@Paw It’s not surprising to hear about the shady stuff that the US Government does behind the scenes.
Makes me wonder if I should start covering my windows with aluminum foil.
lol @ the only google result for “lithium quorinium” being this post
why in the fuck do any of you listen to Paw once he goes past 2 lines lol?
Don’t forget that the internet has given us access to many more musicians, so people have a much wider range to choose from now, which means all artists sell less records.
It’s a trade off.
Go out and tour and please your fans the hard way if you wanna make money.
My fuckin’ head hurts!!
artist, well punk/rock/indie ones have been making money for years off of shows and merch. the only reason to sign with a major used to be promo, and distro. now you can distro stuff your self. and promo your self also. will start seeing a lot more indie type labels pop up with younger heads running ‘em who know how to work the new hustle
Nothing but KARMA going on here
@ Ronstar and xg4sx
I agree on both posts. It’s a new day in the music biz but you still gotta have showmanship to build a fanbase. Artists (especially new ones) don’t really see those album sale dollars anyway.
LMFAO paw jacked the shit out of this thread.
no homo.
Paw – Are you the 40 year old white dude that lives down the block from me that drives the 4×4 Trooper with the bumper sticker that reads, “I’ll keep my guns n shit, you can keep your CHANGE”?
Cause he’s a crack pot, too.
Paw is a retard
Damn. Dudes going in on Paw…
I keep telling yall, you need to have a stunt reader for BP’s posts. lol
Paw won….tis all
i was gonna say….paw is stuntin on yall.
paw for staff writer!!!!!
@CIPH$ you won’t find it on the search engine, if you want a more effective result then go on Google and type in: Project MKULTRA CIA.
Nano Liquid Technology has pretty much been perfected by the global conglomorates and industry oligopolies.
Why do you think there is a such a fiasco right now about the release of the torture papers pertaining to the interrogation of Binyan Mohammed over at Gitmo. One of the technqiues they used was to spike his food and drinking water with L.Q. molecules.
They used him and others as guinea pigs, you seen that dude, he look like a Metallica fan to you? He is now, because they infiltrated his nervous system with L.Q. that’s how they programme you. You mark my words, I bet that dude also gets a craving for McDonalds, like a smoker fiends for nicotine, he’s just got to have it.
Gradually, they’ll change you from the inside, and that is how it’s going down.
Be prepared, tje next major war, will be fought within the battlefields of your mind, the invasion has already begun.
You think it’s any suprise that record sales, dvd sales, book sales and so forth are declining? They did it on purpose, basically to break down the infrastructure and cripple it, so that a select handful can then control it via Nano Liquid.
They making deals already, like food industry giants, water utility companies, record companies, printed press publishers etc etc, how they will execute their strategy and programme the consumer.
So you’ll be like oh I wanna eat this, oh I wanna drink that, oh I wanna listen to this piece of music, oh I wanna watch that, wanna read that, I wanna wear those pair of particular pair of sneakers.
You won’t even know it, but they’ll be making your consumer based decisions for you, so that you buy their products.
It’s powder, liquid and gas based, up in the atmosphere, they control it via sonar and electro static transmission. Our iphones, LCD TVs, laptops, video games consoles, PCs, DVD and Blu-Ray players and so forth all act as beacons, so that they can then channel data orbs and information globes that we consume via our drinking water and foodstuff.
When Dr Sidney Gottlieb approved the exploration of this technology back in the 1950s, little did he know that he was opening up a pandora’s box of pure Bedlam.
fuckin A!
My head hurts after trying to read that.