[atlantaprog] Re: Cheapness

>Technology has made music far cheaper and easier to record and produce.

I agree completely.

>If The Joe Blow Experience can record and produce their own album
>for a few grand with no label support, then what excuse do the labels have 
>for
>blowing hundreds of millions of dollars recording and promoting the swill 
>that
>they're mostly pumping out these days?

Why is it swill?  I don't like Nsync, but they busted their asses to get to 
where they are.  They were put together by a management team, not a record 
company, and toured extensively before getting a major label deal.  Sure, 
their music wasn't written by them, but they are more of an act than a band. 
  People like to watch them dance.  So what?  Just because they are doing 
something TOTALLY different doesn't make them swill (I can't dance like they 
do).

And if you want to talk about real bands, what about P.O.D.  I don't like 
their music at all, but a lot of people do...and NOT just because it was on 
the radio.  They toured for SEVEN YEARS before they had a hit on the radio.  
During those seven years, they built up a large loyal following and ended up 
on the radio.  They didn't end up on the radio and then build up a 
following.  My point here is that we probably aren't going to like much of 
what's on the radio these days (for supposedly open minded people, prog fans 
certainly seem to be closed minded about any new pop music), but I think 
it's unfair for us to keep putting it down just because it isn't what we 
like.  A lot of people DO like it - just like we like the music that we 
like.

>Step one: Sign artists who will develop loyal followings and be successful 
>over the long haul instead of *flash in the pan" image whores.  Step two:  
>Spend *less money* on recording, promotion, cocaine etc. and pass some of  
>that savings on to the customer.  Step three: Legitimize music on the 
>internet with cheap pay downloads and targeted free downloads.

I agree with Step three.  This has already started.  You can download songs 
for around $1 these days and it's all legal.  I think it's a good plan.

As for Step One, how can anyone know what artists will develop a large loyal 
following?  Believe it or not, one of the things that record labels look for 
in a band that they sign (we're not talking boy groups or Britney Spears 
here) is a large following.  The problem is that even if you have 5,000 
loyal fans, that's just a drop in the bucket when you start talking about 
worldwide distribution - and how many of us have 5,000 loyal fans?  I'd say 
Karma Lingo may have the largest fan base of any of us and I'd be surprised 
if their mailing list had anywhere near 5,000 people - even as casual fans 
who rarely saw a show and never picked up a CD (no offense Matt, we aren't 
even close to 1,000 with Cobweb Strange).

As for Step two, I don't think that the record label pays for as much of the 
cocaine these days as they did in the 80s.  Yes, an independent band can 
record and release their own album, let's say for around $2,000.  They can 
also promote it in specialty magazines like Progression Magazine, etc.  So 
let's say they spend another $2,000 to run 15 ads at an average of about 
$133 each.  I can tell you from experience that running 15 ads and spending 
a total of around $4,000 recording, producing and advertising your CD 
doesn't create enough sales to generate much of a profit.  Plus, with this 
level of investment, I'm not even happy with the product that we've 
released.  We have released several CDs over the last few years and I've 
heard a lot of the CDs released by many of the other bands on this list.  
Some of them sound ok, but a lot of them (including ours) don't sound that 
great.  None of them just blow me away with their production.

By spending more money in a professional studio and hiring a really good 
producer, the albums sound a lot better.  Now you need more money to come in 
just to break even.  If you want your CD to be available worldwide, or even 
just nationwide, you need to press a lot more than 1,000 copies, so you have 
more cost there.  Sure, we could all create our own album covers, but as far 
as I know, Roger Dean wasn't a musician, so you would never have had any of 
those awesome Yes album covers if you didn't hire an artist.  That's more 
money spent.

At this point, we're just talking about the costs to break even, not for the 
artist to make any profit.  It may be argued that the artist will profit 
from the radio play that the album gets.  Well, I can tell you that you're 
talking about a lot of money to get radio play.  Of course it isn't direct, 
but it is indirectly a pay for play situation.  If you want people to buy 
the album, you have to promote it.  Porcupine Tree's latest CD is really 
great (in my opinion).  It was released on a major label.  They couldn't 
even get the stores to carry it.  A friend of mine is the south eastern 
distributor for WEA and he was telling me that no one would carry the album 
because they weren't familiar with the band.  We're talking about stores 
like Best Buy and Media Play here!  So this guy had to spend months just 
convincing the stores to carry the CD.  This guy gets paid to do his job and 
that money has to come from somewhere.

My point here is that, yes, you can release an album for a very small amount 
of money, but other than a few hundred copies, it sits in your basement in 
the dark.  I don't know about anyone else around here, but I personally 
would like for people to hear the music that we have written and recorded - 
and for people to hear about you, it takes more promotion than 6 people can 
do for $4,000.

...by the way, Cobweb Strange has several mediocre albums available for 
sale, all very reasonably priced!  So if you would like to support 
non-swill, independent music, please visit our website at 
www.cobwebstrange.com and just let me know which albums you would like to 
buy!  Mention this email and get ALL 3 of our full length studio albums for 
the amazingly low, low introductory price of just $25 (this price even 
includes shipping).  You say you don't want to invest such a large sum of 
money in potentially crappy sounding, independently produced products, but 
still feel the need to support the cause?  Well pick up a copy of our 
"Seamless Selections" CD and hear over an hour of music from each of our 
three albums ( 9 songs, 3 from each album)!  With deals like these, how can 
you possibly resist!?!?

-Wade

www.cobwebstrange.com

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