I think the advertising tagline of the New Music Seminar, held last week in NYC, should have been changed from “The Revolution Starts Here” to “Welcome to the War Zone”. That seems to better capture the mood at the parts of the conference I attended— battered, beleaguered, angry and afraid. Very afraid.
And for good reason. During one presentation, NMS’s organizers Tom Silverman and Eric Garland from BigChampagne laid out the real numbers that music makers and marketers are up against, and as most of us in the industry already knew, it wasn’t pretty. These numbers have since been flying around the internet, as a rather fitting post-script to an event that was supposed to celebrate new music. If this is the revolution, I think we’re losing:
Albums that sold at least one copy in 2009: 98,000
Albums selling less than 1,000 units in their first year of release: 92,601
Albums selling more than 10,000 units in 2009: 1,319
Albums selling more than 5,000 units in 2009: 2.058
Albums selling more than 250,000 units in 2009: 85
As these numbers have circulated, I’ve seen several comments questioning their accuracy– wondering for instance if they include worldwide sales. It doesn’t matter. Anyone who is hoping that international numbers will significantly change the picture is dreaming– the record business in Europe is in a free fall and Latin America just posted similarly dismal results. We can’t kid ourselves. The fact is that no one working in the industry on a daily basis would dispute these numbers. There is simply far too much music chasing an ever-dwindling audience.
Rather than making excuses or trying to find a silver lining in the storm clouds, our best response to the crisis is a crash course in survival skills. Of course, there are obvious external forces that are causing much of the industry’s pain– most notably the fact that every kid around the world over 10 years old has figured out how to take our product for free. Certainly, there’s a need for a concerted effort across the industry to combat piracy of all kinds. But you and I, working on our own, aren’t going to solve that one. Given the daunting situation staring us in the face, let’s focus on what really matters: saving ourselves.
How do we rise above the masses of people spending money, putting out music, and seeing little or no results? Here are three fundamental tips:
1. Be Strategic.
Most people making albums have put more thought into the artwork and the credits than they’ve put into what they’re actually going to do with the music. Incredibly, that is as true at a major label level as it is with self-funded indie efforts. Projects are green-lit, recording studios booked, producers engaged without anyone having given serious consideration to basic marketing questions like:
Who is this act’s audience?
How does that audience listen to music?
What kinds of records are they willing to purchase?
How do you reach that audience in order to market to them?
Which of those marketing methods are feasible, given your budget?
If it needs the support of radio, does the record have a clear radio single?
If you need to sell the CDs at shows, does the act have opportunities to tour?
Given the results of similar acts, how many records can you reasonably expect to sell?
How much then can you afford to spend on making and marketing the record?
If you are a hip-hop or a dance-pop act, your audience is entirely single-driven, even at a superstar level. Consequently, until you have a hit single there is no reason to make an album. If you make jazz records, all indications are that the audience responds only to artists who have established a level of credibility through touring and playing with well-known musicians. If you haven’t done that yet, then don’t make a record. For a country artist, there are very few ways to reach a sizeable audience without radio airplay. If your budget is tight, then better to record one single and use the rest of the money to promote it than to record ten songs that no one will ever hear. For a singer-songwriter with only a small local following, selling 500 CDs might seem like victory, rather than defeat. And indeed it can be, providing you can make the whole product for under a few thousand dollars. The key here is to have a plan.
2. Be Realistic.
The reason that most artists, record label executives, and producers approach their recording projects without the requisite strategy is that the process of planning requires a reality-check. As Simon Cowell would happily point out, most artists could benefit more from a look in the mirror, an honest self-appraisal and perhaps some frank feedback from family and friends than years of lessons and words of encouragement.
In pop music, artists have to look like stars, have endless stamina, possess a drive and work-ethic that go well beyond obsessive, and rely on a charm that wins over anyone who meets them. If that’s not you, then don’t waste what could be a successful career as a producer or songwriter churning out ill-fated solo albums. If you’re a rock band that can’t play live, then making records is an exercise in futility. Hip-hop acts need some kind of street-level following. If you’re not generating a response on that basic level, then it’s time to go back to the drawing board. A DJ/producer who makes records that differ drastically from what he or she plays at a club is bound to disappoint the audience.
Don’t fool yourself. Don’t rationalize and don’t look for miracles. If you can’t hear your music objectively or see yourself clearly, then you’re not ready to make a record.
3. Be Frugal.
Most major record companies spend both too much and too little–blowing money on travel expenses, dozens of misguided mixes, over-cutting and endless experimenting with changes in direction, only to suddenly pull back when the marketing, promotion, and tour support bills come in.
While the scale of spending differs drastically on an indie level, the same kinds of mistakes show up again and again. Artists operating on a shoestring cut an album where a single would have sufficed, or an album when an EP would have been more effective, or put 15 songs on a record rather than 9 or 10, as if the sheer number of songs would be a selling point. They spend money on vague, abstract artwork for their album cover that presents no visual image to communicate their identity to an audience. They hire an independent radio promoter to work a song to radio without a budget sufficient to break the song in any meaningful way.
While it’s not going to make anyone a fortune, to sell less than 5,000 records, or even less than 1,000 is not necessarily a bad thing. One thousand CDs at $15 a piece still makes $15,000. If it cost $5000 to make and promote the record, then it was a profitable venture– putting you ahead of 90% of the major label releases each year. The problem occurs when you’ve spent $17,000 to make the record, and you haven’t even begun to market it. When you’re operating in a sales environment as difficult as the one we face at the moment, you must be able to record at minimal expense, get the most value for your dollar, and put your money where it can generate results. This is a market the leaves no room for error, and even less for extravagance.
I’m continually amazed at the number of beginning artists, with no following at even a local level, no obvious radio single, and not even a clear artistic direction, proudly announce to me that they’re “working on their record”. Former multi-million selling acts like Matchbox 20 struggle to sell records in the current market, and yet here is a new act with less than a hundred people in their fanbase making an album. Why?
The answer is: because it’s too easy. The ease of home-recording, the universal availability of digital distribution, and the rise of the DIY ethos have removed many of the barriers to music-making, and that’s a good thing. But by doing so, it’s caused many artists to feel that recording their own record is some kind of rite of passage that must be fulfilled at the earliest possible date.
Athletes often talk about having “a respect for the game”. That just means that no matter how talented or gifted a sports star might be, he or she still has to appreciate the difficulty of what’s being undertaken, whether it’s hitting a 90 mile an hour fastball or pedaling a bicycle up a mountain, and must be prepared to do the hard work necessary to be victorious.
The scary numbers that many of us have been looking at for nearly five years now indicate that artists, producers and record labels need a little more “respect for the game”. It’s not difficult to make an album. But to make even one song that a significant number of people genuinely care about enough to purchase is a monumental undertaking. Before you go marching into a war zone, have a plan, be realistic, and consider the costs. Let the revolution start there.
