Courtney Love my have done some math but it adds up to an empty argument. She conveniently leaves out the fact that most records, major and otherwise, sell virtually nothing and leave the label holding the bag on costs. So they structure the contracts to get the bulk of the revenue so they cover the cost the money losing releases. This objective reality, it's just how the business (has) to work. Really there are few viable alternative music business models.
As an indie musician this is frustrating. I've actually produced a pretty good record. It's available as a free download on my site:
Like many musicians I'm driven by love, if I could figure out how to make money with it that would be swell; as it is I just want people to listen:)
I would guess similar tensions must exist in the tech/VC space where a few hits got to cover the costs of the losers for the VCs. I would expect a similar disproportion in the way the individual deals would appear weighted in favor of VC against the companies they invest in. Im not familiar with how the investments are structured though.
Doesn't that just make it more absurd? If I were the record company I'd be slapping down $500,000 recording costs.
If you can record an album yourself and afford to give it away free, it would seem to suggest that it's possible to do it cheaper than half a million dollars (though what do I know, you could be a .com millionaire...).
They are slapping down recording costs, and they definitely less than in the nineties. However the marketing costs remain very high.
I'm a full time music producer and have my own studio. That cut some of my out of pocket costs but the true cost of my album (it's eight songs) is probably $30-40k which I experience as opportunity cost (i.e. I'm not working on paying projects) and I stretched it over a couple of years. It's not a rational use of resource for me by any measure, I'm just obsessed.
The cost of production can categorized in different ways; time, money, talent, effort. At a certain point one seems to reach a limit that can't be breached. Music is organized information, it takes a lot of fighting against entropy just to make it competent, never mind good. It's like some kind of law of information entropy dynamics!
Seriously, if you compare any commercial release against the ocean of self produced music (like you find on MySpace)the amature stuff is not listenable and the commercial releases are, and they cost a lot.
I have to agree. Any other industry would be testing the waters and weeding out garbage more thoroughly instead of paying the insane costs for every band and then not paying any of them.
The thing is... The musicians allow this. They sign the contracts, even with these articles all over the internet. They knowingly step into this.
I think it's as sleezy as the next guy does, but until the musicians stop agreeing to it so freaking readily, there's not much the rest of us can do for them.
As an indie musician this is frustrating. I've actually produced a pretty good record. It's available as a free download on my site:
http://sunshinefortheblind.com
Like many musicians I'm driven by love, if I could figure out how to make money with it that would be swell; as it is I just want people to listen:)
I would guess similar tensions must exist in the tech/VC space where a few hits got to cover the costs of the losers for the VCs. I would expect a similar disproportion in the way the individual deals would appear weighted in favor of VC against the companies they invest in. Im not familiar with how the investments are structured though.