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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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01/09/07
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cbit
jdg said: "what are ppl trading in for quality.. it seems to be convience at this point.."
yes convenience. it needs to be downloadable and put on ipod-able and free ideally. that _is_ way more convenient than dealing with physical cds.
01/09/07
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jdg
what if your ipod3-player had 300gb and all downloads where uncompressed audio, 16/44.1 or even 24/96?
if this was invisable.. would ppl notice the quality increase?
even tho it seems this increase in quality doesn't cost soemthing.. it would cost on the backup with server space and bandwiff, etc....
so, what can we do?
does the content/meaning of the song change because its 128k mp3?
does your favorite Yates poem mean something different if the text is a bit blurry?
i dunno.
my feet are swollen.
01/09/07
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room
macdonalds and coca cola
so much of it is eaten because it is accessible
it is the convenience people want in this world - yes that is true
the challenge is to make something that puts the breaks on.... that gets people to stop and reflect a bit.....
btw jdg - "dong worry" is something i tend not to do ;)
01/09/07
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astroid
people from new york will always be able to tell the difference between a safeway bagel and a real bagel.
01/09/07
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jdg
how many ppl do you need to get to "stop"?
just one? or 1000?
does that matter?
01/09/07
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jdg
WTF is up with teh bagel?!?!?
01/09/07
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jdg
also, did u know, its most likely that the same bagel company that makes local bagels also supplies bagels to safeway?
the magic of the wholesale bakery world.. even stuff with different brand names is often made locally.
FAXT
01/09/07
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astroid
bro if you don't know i can't tell you.
link
01/09/07
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astroid
the thing that always strikes me about "fast food" is how fucking expensive it is. except for in n out:D:D:D:D:D
01/09/07
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jdg
IN AND OUT bURGEr
01/09/07
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chri5
I agree with 'what i think will happen, is that niche releases and handmade efforts are what will continue.'
The rest seems a little grim.
01/09/07
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chri5
As for quality, yeah I prefer to own CD's with their nice covers & 44.1 kHz etc. But I love .mp3s (as long as they're decent, not 128k bollocks).
Room - I'm not certain people will go for 32bit and the like, it's just too a niche a market IMO. The only time you'd spot the difference is in perfect listening conditions with some serious hi-fi system. People mistake lame VBR 192-224K mp3s as a wavs in blind tests.
I hope the small indie labels survive these testing times, competing with the slsk, oink and torrent bandits can't be easy.
edited: Jan 09 2007
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5l4
musicians buy more music, and are generally more interested in music, than non musicians.
that isn't really a positive or a negative statement. just an interesting one, in regards to the music saturation thing.
also, don't buy spray glitter. it doesn't work, especially if you are trying to secretly cover someone in glitter over a period of time.
01/09/07
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astroid
electronic music is generally a morass of created needs.
01/09/07
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nagrom
oscar said: "I've seen quite a few ideas for postsingularity music (I'm leaning towards animal skins stretched over gourds and that sort of thing), some more or less compelling, including micropayments, subscription-based music distribution (radio people love that one)... but if this hi-tech stuff lives out the century, I'd guess that collectives with 1+n members will be "producing" most of the music, and the idea of remixing and mashing up will have become so pervasive that people cease to think in terms of remixes and mashups at all (we're practically there now), provided the rule of law does not turn into government by and for the lawyers (which it practically already has).
I got like two hours' sleep last night, so don't mind me."
postsingularity?
wow.
wooooooow.
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