The music business today is monopolized (80% +/-) by huge recording companies such as Time/Warner, Polydor, etc. These companies are for profit and so understandably make decisions based on "the bottom line" ; profit. The current way they accomplish this is to find a young- read 'naive' - artist who will sell their talents for say $50,000.00. In return they agree to tour for a year and cut an album. Seems like a great deal to some of us 'starving artists'. I have had 2 such offers. The result is usually after tour expenses are deducted, the lavish expenses egotistical young artist spent are deducted leaving them in broke resulting in the need to sign another contract. If they were popular, and say sold a million copies of their
CD and tapes, the record company is millions of dollars ahead, and
has the artist hungry for another bone.
This is a worse case
scenario of course, but the
bottom line for record
companies is profit. They
aren't artists; they're
bu$ine$$ people. Until
the 1990's artists had
little choice. A record
deal meant popularity
and a chance at the
"big time"; and every-
body knows opportunity
only knocks once, right?
The other aspect to the
record company strategy
is to build one
artist or group into
super stardom. This
My favorite music dude................... results in guaranteed
profits for further tours and recording sales. The result is
( since only X amount of dollars are spent on music each year )
that some few artists become rich superstars while the tens of thousands of the rest of us have to work at real
jobs and play in between times.Well Goliath, get ready for David...
The Computer Revolution
In the early1990's we were living in the Pacific Northwest, and there was a thing called the "Indie"
music scene. Mr. Bill (Gates) and friends had gotten the computers to the point where we could
actually do things the Macs did, and folks were producing CD quality music at home on 486 PC's.
Distribution on the internet was growing, and we started realizing;
"hey, we can do this ourselves;
we don't need a $250,000.00
recording to cut a great CD." This grass roots movement
grew until
by the mid '90's Indie record companies had
taken over 20% of the business away from the "big 6"
recording monopolies. That's what we're all about. We
don't have to give the 90% to rich
non-musicians because
we keep it! We don't have to go on grueling tours because
we can
schedule our own. We don't have to sell wholesale
to retail outlets because we market direct.
The result is that the cream will rise to the top; not the artist
that let's him/herself be prostituted by
the record company.
I love many artists who have gone that road, and I don't
New Music company forming; Join US!
judge them, but we
are blessed because of this window
of time to produce our music and be in control of our
lives...
AND profits!
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