| StoreTags: music industry, album
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I'm reposting this from the IDM list - Thor from Highpoint Lowlife talking about the current state of the music industry. There are no real surprises in here, but it has me thinking a lot about this music and what comes next for electronic music in general and Emulsion in particular.
From: thorsten AT NOSPAM highpointlowlife.com
Date: January 8, 2007 6:45:21 AM CST
Subject: Re: [idm] CD sales and the music industry
To: idm AT NOSPAM hyperreal.org
>wow, this is nice. To bad this cd is only available from overseas(I live in the US). To >much money. I would buy this if I could purchase from a US distributor. Very >surprised with this.
Which part are you surprised about? That its only available in the UK, or the exchange rate?
I wish i could help you out and say you can get it somewhere - but basically no you can't - 2007 is year the arse falls out of the music industry. No-one is interested in buying music anymore, and especially not electronic music. An electronic label to a distributor is a joke - They'd never sell more than 5 copies of yer release, so they wont even consider you.
That quote from Norman Records that Alan posted is a good indication of it, but basically sales of CDs stopped dead about 6 months ago. (i think a strong influence in why Smallfish records also closed)
Electronic music has been unfashionable for a good few years now, and i think its going to be one of the first hit areas which will feel the effects the worse. Its only at the top end of the popular music spectrum, that mainstream people are still buying CDs. Even people like us, who still buy CDs - i bet at most you can afford maybe 5 CDs a month (being optimistic here), and yet, theres like maybe somewhere between 50-100 decent electronic releases a week! So yeah, even if you bought 5 cds, thats still at least 195 that you didnt. Who supports those labels and artist?
At the beginning of 2006 i was getting quite confident about Highpoint Lowlife, we were doing pretty well in sales, and getting good press and reviews. Somewhere during the summer tho - sales just completely stopped, and every month since then we've been getting lots of returns from record stores which has just continued since then.
Our reviews and press have kept picking up since then, but sales are just gone. zilch.
i have one more release planned for Highpoint Lowlife, but beyond that, who knows what will happen, its just not feasible to run a label the same was it has been done - i.e. relying on CD sales. I have so much debt from the label, that i need to start paying that back.
What is interesting to compare though - what i think will happen, is that niche releases and handmade efforts are what will continue.
To compare economics of normal releases -
In the past, doing a run of 1000 CDs, which has been pretty standard - total cost for producing that runs to about £1500, including mastering, replication and promotion. If you only sell about 200 of them (and thats if you're doing really well!), and you only get abour £3 per disc (from your distributor), then you've covered £600. You've sent out about 100 promos, so that means your bedroom now has an additional 700 CD sitting around which will never sell, oh and you're also about £900 out! excellent fun.
Now, compare that to the limited run of 100 DVD-Rs we did recently -
That whole project cost about £200 for materials, the blank DVD-Rs, the cases, tracing paper for the artwork and the photocopying. They sold out pretty much straight away, on average for maybe £4 (£5 direct sales, but i sold a lot to Norman records for £3), and thats £400 in sales, so around £200 profit within a month! It just seems crazy, why didnt i start that years ago??!! 
I just saw this article this morning link
It's a pretty accurate predictions article for the music industry in 2007, and ties in very much which what i've been seeing.
Digital download sales are going okay, but they're very much a novelty i think, and used more by people with a conscience rather than normal consumers. They certainly dont make up for the hit in lost CD sales.
hope that doesnt sound all too gloomy gus! Big changes afoot, and in the end I don't think the music fan or the musicians will suffer, but we're in the middle of a massive watershed, and things will be radically changed in even a few years time..
thor
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01/08/07
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jdg
i think because of the massive amount of ppl in the talent pool, there will be come genres where the fan base is just one or two ppl.
hey, i make tedcore
01/08/07
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Roshi
Wow, I'd listen to that (considering that's my name).
Momus has noted that instead of being famous for fifteen minutes, we'll be famous for 15 people (hence my website name: link ).
edited: Jan 08 2007
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Artsigreg
Yeahs your point depresses me , but it's true.
maybe its a good thing...muscians didnt always make millions of dallars!!!!
Now if the decline could hit the sport arena where atheletes make way way
to much money, its lame.
real art = 0 dallars- 50 cent...rich as fuk.
messed up world but its our world.
It was the best of blogs....it was the worst of blogs....
01/08/07
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Roshi
I just want to do what I love. I don't expect anyone else to like it/buy it/sell it.
I would like to just give my music away, but then again, I think there is still somewhat of a stigma for free releases. So I kinda think there is some worth with selling your release (but at a much lower price, maybe $2 or $3 for the album).
01/08/07
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jdg
maybe cuz fiddy was shot 9times... .. thats what makes him special
edited: Jan 08 2007
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Artsigreg
ummmm no , a canidate for prison perhaps but not deserving
at all. Brian Wilsons and Lennons to 50 cent, wtf.
01/08/07
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VC
do it, i can hit you up with some blazin' beetz
01/08/07
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minisystem
it seems harder and harder to get people to part with their cash for music they like. but as jdg said, there's so much more music out there now - does oversupply/competition decrease the value of the product like in regular free market economics? the music industry (both corporate and indie) is expecting the public to pay the same price (or more) for music when there is already a huge amount already out there. if a good song is worth a dollar to someone, then is it worth only $0.50 when there are twice as many good songs available? with so many netlabels releasing (imo) great music for free i can see why a music consumer would be less inclined to pay for music.
its sad to see fewer and fewer electronic/idm labels stop pressing vinyl though and it always seemed to me that a lot of the smaller labels used their CD sales to subsidize their vinyl releases.
01/08/07
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utofbu
I produce hip hop. fiddy hasnt been shot all that much
edited: Jan 08 2007
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Zanf
roshi said: "I would like to just give my music away, but then again, I think there is still somewhat of a stigma for free releases."
deltasleep said: "Wow I haven't heard an electronic record I liked from an artist I was unfamiliar with in almost a decade. The whole class of music has been in the doldrums for the better part of 5 years now"
I did write out this big long post and then deleted it because I wasnt happy with it.
The 2 quotes above say a lot for me. One sees a stigma attached to 'free' releases and yet the blog is about that people are not buying CD's much anymore and the second is saying that electronic music has been in a decline for a decade, if not longer.
Ask yourself how much value do you attach to music where you knew it was made with computers as opposed to music made on acoustic instruments or analogue synths?
edited: Jan 08 2007
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Zanf
minisystem said: "but as jdg said, there's so much more music out there now - does oversupply/competition decrease the value of the product like in regular free market economics?"
Or is it that everyone is still seeing things in terms of the old business/distribution model?
01/08/07
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Roshi
I do see a couple trends that are disturbing for artists. Mostly because I don't know how to deal with them.
One is the extreme faddishness of the internet community. I think that a lot of the people who are hyped right now via blogs and such won't make it to the next album, because people will be "over" their sound.
The second related to that is instant feedback and how it shapes the artist. I do respect em411 feedback on my stuff (mostly because I've gotten to know lots and lots of you guys), but my feeling is that artists are starting to shape their whole albums based on feedback from a nebulous community. I guess I don't trust huge crowds of people telling me what to do. I feel it makes your work more immediate, but it also makes your work more throwaway, too.
01/08/07
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Zanf
Thats a totally valid point. Its almost like Neil Stephensons book, 'Interface', where the president reacts instantly to market data feedback pumped directly into his brain - No longer is it a case of people going off to a 'shack in the woods' or 6 months on hte laboratory and then emerging with soemthing THEY are completely happy with.
Its like everything is being diluted before its even had a chance to distill.
01/08/07
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room
yes - but we can't listen to aphex or trance forever
the new music must adapt
and produce a distro model that suits the consumer and excites the consumer
underground distro techniques will evolve that challenge the faceless interface of iTunes and myspace
i think access into unique web-sites where you can pick your tunes and interact with them - e.g., determine whether an ambient or a beat based version of the track is playing will be the future.... consumers want to be able to control and influence the output and individualise it.....
this is the future
01/08/07
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Roshi
Very prescient and interesting thoughts, room.
I guess the thought of it just kind of scares me...I feel in some sense you are ceding partial responsibility/ownership of your work by presenting it in such a manner. Though I guess mashups have shown that some people (I am not convinced all people) like to be able to change/combine your work with other artist's stuff.
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