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leonalvarado 
Forum Senior Member 
Joined: March 03 2009 Location: USA Status: Offline Points: 177 |
 Posted: November 02 2011 at 11:56 |
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This is quite an interesting thread. There seem to be several comments directed towards unsigned-bands as being mediocre or so bad that no labels would sign them. I'll like to give my personal view on that very point. I won't disagree with the fact that recording music today is much more accessible than ever. This in turn, causes for a lot of people that perhaps shouldn't be recording music, to be recording music. The same goes for illustration, graphic design and photography. Just because the price of admission has gotten cheaper doesn't mean that the show is for everyone.
Having said all that, I have had some experiences with record labels on various levels (and even through different departments). The labels do provide with very useful resources like proper promotion (and hence better exposure), distribution and an overall respected image (most of the times). A good example of something labels are better than the bands they represent have to do with the quality of the packaging. Many artists who used to be with a major label but now release their own albums suffer from bad packaging. Bands that once had great record covers have now photographs that look as if they were taken with an old mobile phone. Or perhaps they use an illustration done with the best skills an eight-grader could muster. They are out there, I've seen many of them. Having a bad package doesn't constitute having bad music inside of it but, it does make it harder for people to perceive it in a positive manner, much less listening to the album itself. The bands that I'm talking about (I won't mention any names because I know most of these people personally), rely on their name recognition so they can still manage to sell some records here and there. But if you compare the look of the sleeves form the past with their current ones, you get the sense that something drastic has happened to their income so therefore they can't afford a real album cover (and you'll be right because without the money from a major label behind it, the artist is forced to pay for the cost of the artwork out of their own pockets). Another advantage of having a major label working with an artist is their ability to pair the artist with the right producer. Big name producers work with big labels and so on. But it is not all peachy regarding the dealings with a record label. First, you end up giving lots of creative control and then many costs associated with the project. Depending on the deal, you most likely end up owning nothing but a royalty fee from the recording which is a very small percentage from sales. The hotels, limos and arranged parties are all part of the persona that the label pushes upon you. They will give you a false sense of wealth based on their projected numbers. They may even give you a ridiculous advance on royalties that makes you feel like you have made it (but keep in mind that it is an advance which works more or less like a loan using the potential sales of your album as collateral). What if their projections are wrong and the album doesn't sell as much as they expected to? That's when things can go very bad very quickly. Before you know it, you are now indebted to the label without even the option to record somewhere else under your name (unless you square off the debt plus purchase the remainder inventory of unsold records plus the cost of warehousing them). Furthermore, the recording industry is much like many other high-exposure industries. For each signed act that makes it, there are thousands that fail. If you are planning to tour the album, then the record label and the management company make it their responsibility to put you in the best possible light. Your continued success is their continued success. After all, concerts make the bulk of the money for the artist which will keep them satisfied and away from trying to get a bigger percentage from record sales. Not all the dealings with major record labels are "satanic" though. If you are a well-stablished name that have already past the peak of your sales, the record label would usually be the one behind the re-mastering of your catalogue, special reissues, "best of", etc. They want to keep your music relevant so that they can sell more of it and that usually helps you with some extra income, keeping your name around and that sort of thing. But, if you are the little unknown man, none of the major label stuff will be much benefit to you. The label takes a gamble when signing a new act but , the act itself is the one that takes the greater gamble because the consequences of not making it could be demoralising at least and financially catastrophic at worst. So, unless your cup of tea is ultra-commercial music, a big label will not be doing you many favours. I know a few groups that had to disband because at the end of it, they couldn't even perform under their original name (due to the contract with the label). In short, they couldn't even have the opportunity to come up with a solution to make the money that they owed the label back. The financial situation is one of the reasons why many artists (and I do mean artists) are choosing to by-pass a major label. On top of that, there are many pending lawsuits going on as I write this, regarding the ownership of the intellectual property of the music itself. The labels claim that because they forked over the initial cost of the recordings, manufacturing and distribution, they should be entitled to profit on the product forever (they own most of the music out there). The artists are saying that after 35 years, a label has made more than enough on the music and therefore the copyrights should revert to them according to a provision in the United States copyright law. Of course, the labels are battling this one out. When your album is released through a record label, the gross receipt gets "chunked" into various payments from which a smaller portion belongs to you. Usually your take is between ten cents and two dollars per unit. When you self-release an album through something like CDBaby, you make anywhere between $8 and $12 bucks per unit depending on how you cost your record. That's a huge difference! Of course, self-promoting is not for the average folk. It takes lots of work and looking for inventive ways to spread the word, etc. Not an easy thing. So, regarding the quality of the music being released independently. Some of it is bad and some of it is brilliant. Most musicians would opt to go this way if it wouldn't being for the promotional benefits that labels offer. Does it have to be amateurish because it is not on a major label? I don't think so. I got into recording music through the back door, sorto of speak. I used to do album covers for labels such as Atlantic records. I also have done may touring materials for big-time promoters like Live Nation as well as directly through the bands themselves (Jethro Tull for example, and many more). So when I decided to make my own music, I already had the graphic background to handle the packaging and the ancillary materials (shirts, posters, advertisements, etc). Seeking the best bang for my money, I researched and came up with the necessary people that I wanted to help me complete my project. People like Ty Tabor (founding member and guitarrist for King's X), Bill Bruford (Yes, King Crimson, Genesis, Earthworks), John Goodsall (Brand X, Fire Merchants, Atomic Rooster), Billy Sherwood (Yes, CIRCA), Andy Walter (worked with Paul McCartney, Roxy Music) and Tony Cousins (worked with Genesis, Peter Gabriel). I also worked with Abbey Road Studios and Metropolis Mastering (both in the UK) as well as Alien Bean Studios (US). As a matter of fact , the least known person in my albums is me. But that doesn't mean that I didn't try to produce a substandard product. I tried to do the best I could using the limited resources that I had. I think overall I did pretty good and hopefully I'll get to keep on doing it. The biggest problem seems to be how to make yourself visible in today's sea of new music. I think the solution is in word-of-mouth. Just tell your friends whenever you hear a band you like that you never heard before. What can be the worst that can happen? More music you would like? For those who may be interested, here are some links to my stuff:
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Dean
Special Collaborator 
Retired Admin and Amateur Layabout Joined: May 13 2007 Location: Europe Status: Offline Points: 37575 |
Posted: February 16 2014 at 08:56 |
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Prompted by a recent Facebook status update by John Fortuna (jplanet) where he announced that Shadow Circus will cease to be a live band, I've bumped this Blog after a three year hiatus to reflect on some of my doomsayer predictions made in this thread and to (perhaps) rekindle this debate in light of some of the comments made by John on FB. It's not my intention to comment on anything John said on FB, that's for FB and that particular discussion is best conducted there where we can give him our full support and encouragement for whatever direction he decides SC should take. In the intervening period since the last chapter (Part 2 - There Goes My Everything) one of my predictions came painfully true for me - when the FBI closed down MegaUpload my entire back-catalogue of self-released albums disappeared from the internet without warning. (Waht? 11 pages in and you've only just twigged that this whole Blog is nothing more than a cheap plug for The Cacophony Of Light???). This was eventually rectified by uploading everything to MediaFire, and for the moment that is still available. Soon after that the DynDNS link to my CoL website broke, and I've neither had the will nor motivation to fix it. But this emphasises the point I was making on Part 2: nothing on the Internet is permanent. Whether that is at the whim of the service provider, the Feds or the artist themselves, the "consumer" cannot rely on something that was here yesterday being here today, or something that is here today will be here tomorrow... Tempora Mutantur. For me this was no great loss - The Cacophony of Light was a short-lived phony *band*, (the pun was there in the name for all to see), a momentary diversion, a table-top hobby; there was never any intention (or desire) to play live, or sell albums, or make money, or be famous for fifteen people; it was initially set up as a learning aid to teach me how to record and produce real music on a budget after trying (and failing) to secure a recording contract for a real band, and to that end it served its purpose: we recorded a real album with real musicians and people liked it; I am rightly proud of my small contribution because with my dabbling in the world of self-recording and self-releasing we managed to produce something to be proud of:  (my original artwork for the demo release of The Failing Light by Season's End). Not that the Cacophony of Light was ever a joke, it was an earnest endeavour, the music produced was real original music by any definition of the word, I just never took it seriously, never promoted it and never had any ambition for it other than to see if making music and producing albums was in anyway difficult or beyond my capabilities. If people happened to like it, all the better for making it, but that was always a secondary consideration. Anyways... that's all water under the proverbial bridge, making original music isn't difficult, recording albums is not difficult and with the advent of the Internet, making it available for all to hear is arse-numbingly simple. The hard part is all the nonsense I've been harping on about in this Blog (and in my earlier Live Prog Rock Is Dying Blog) - getting it noticed. Something else that has blossomed since I started this Blog four years ago is Bandcamp (and SoundCloud). I've posted at length in other threads about Bandcamp and never in a positive way, to the extent that some would believe that I see it as some kind of pariah of the music business. And here misunderstanding runs rife, with people seeing this as "a good thing": that Bandcamp is not part of the music business and this signals a sea-change for the artists and consumers alike, where "musical freedom" and "artistic control" rules and that in itself marks the end of everything that is bad about the industry. But I suspect (nay predict) that is so very wrong and even go as far as to say it is misguided In Prog Rock we have a niche product. The market for that product is small and very selective, casting the net wider to encompass a wider field of artists does not help the cause, it does not boost the recognition of those who would be a fish that swims in the pool of Prog Rock, it merely dilutes the waters (enough of the pond metaphors methinks). Contrary to popular belief, we are not living through a resurgence of this genre we love so much, the interest in the genre remains unchanged in recent years (as we can see by the web-traffic to the PA and the number of active users on the Forum); the number of Prog festivals is dropping, the attendance at Prog gigs is no better now than it was ten, fifteen years ago - these are not indicators for a resurgence in Prog Rock regardless of how many bands and artists tag themselves as "Progressive" on Bandcamp. What we have is market saturation, there is more product than people to buy it ... even if the product is free-issued we have reached the point where it is just as difficult to give something away as it is to sell it .... it is now physically impossible for any one person to listen to every so-called Prog album that is put out there. Now more than ever it is how well a album is promoted that determines its popularity, and that puts us back into the world of the PR guys of the record labels that we so despise, except now the artists themselves have to dirty their hands in the mire. Edited by Dean - February 16 2014 at 09:00 |
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Guldbamsen
Special Collaborator
Retired Admin Joined: January 22 2009 Location: Magic Theatre Status: Offline Points: 23098 |
Posted: February 16 2014 at 10:09 |
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Very nice post Dean
 Would you believe that this is the first time I've ever stumbled over this blog of yours? (Shame on me. I am looking forward to reading it back though) The issues you address are very poignant and furthermore highly important seen from the viewpoint of this site. Over the last couple of years PA has slowly moved towards being a listings site such as Discogs much credited to a certain few who believe every new and old bandcamp artists with the progressive tag are deserving of a spot on here. Roughly 1 percent of these artists ever receive reviews, and much of the time it's either from the result of the bands themselves doing the PR. And then most of the time it'll be the local fan based army doing the reviews: "5 Stars! A masterpiece of progressive rock - rivalling the earthshaking power of Foxtrot and Close to the Edge alike!"  I know I am diverting this subject into the area of PA, but for the time being I think it is a very real problem. I do however believe there is quality to be found out there, but the times I've come across brilliance in the deep and murky bandcamp jungle, it has been related to acts who's presence has been noted in other areas of the internet. Quality and that ever so elusive gift of having something to say - something interesting to say even - gets diluted in this jungle that never ends and in the end has a strange way of overshadowing the small glimpses of light that actually are there in need of our ears and hearts.
Edited by Guldbamsen - February 16 2014 at 10:21 |
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“The Guide says there is an art to flying or rather a knack. The knack lies in learning how to throw yourself at the ground and miss.”
- Douglas Adams |
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rogerthat
Prog Reviewer 
Joined: September 03 2006 Location: . Status: Offline Points: 9869 |
Posted: March 15 2014 at 09:35 |
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Hmmm...I just thought of posting here because I just completed a transaction to buy the digital download of a jazz quintet...through bandcamp, which you discussed here IIRC. How did I know it was worth checking out and paying up for (for me)? Because Popmatters had done a best of 2012 list (yeah, I am late
 ) where they included an album of this group. By combining with bandcamp, the label could directly sell me the digital download. Otherwise, I am forced to go for Itunes if digital is the only option, which I can't add to all the devices where I store or play my music and therefore don't like. I would of course prefer the CD but with overseas shipping costs, it's too much, especially if I can get a 320 kbps rip and am not an audiophile either. So I think bandcamp can have a role to play in facilitating e-commerce of music products IF there are good information aggregators and reviewers. Popmatters did a good job of their best of list by writing fairly informative descriptions for every album (including, of the artist in general) and also providing a youtube sample so that listeners could decide if the selection piqued them. I would not be able to buy this music otherwise (or find it very difficult) due to geographic constraints. These new internet tools can indeed allow listeners from across the world instead of just the location...if media too adapt appropriately. We'll ultimately need to go back to a bunch of websites that are held to be fairly reliable in alerting us to new good music (just as people once relied on magazine/newspaper reviews). There's no point in pretending all websites are sh*t and we have to do all the sifting ourselves, that's virtually impossible with the amount of music being made available.
Edited by rogerthat - March 15 2014 at 10:35 |
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progpositivity
Prog Reviewer
Joined: December 15 2007 Location: United States Status: Offline Points: 262 |
Posted: March 15 2014 at 13:31 |
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I don't want this to spiral into a "What is Prog" debate so I'm going to try to tread carefully here.
Progressive-ness has always been quite a bit of a 'sliding scale' and in the ear of the beholder.
But in general, in a world where big music labels served as gatekeepers to production, distribution, and promotion, and the ability to fit into one of a handful of pre-defined genre markets was important for visibility and radio promotion, there were business pressures forming a kind of normative box from which artists sometimes strayed far enough to be considered boldly creative in some manner or form. A certain type of music fan was delighted to discover these albums and bands whenever and however they managed to break their way into the distribution process. (Of course, during prog's glory days, it became a niche market of its own.) But in many respects, the bar for what many casual rock fans would consider artsy or semi-proggie was vastly different than it is today. Does Alan Parsons even seem proggie at all to anyone today? Electronic symphonic concept-based beautifully crafted, produced and mastered easy going pop-rock music seemed to stand out at the time as 'artsy'.
In other words, in a world where there seems to be a lot of pressure for most bands to fit into one of a few cookie-cutter molds, even modest deviations from that mold were more noticable.
Today's music scene is so very different. There is a plethora of opportunities for artists and hobbyists alike to create and distribute music independent of any such normative pressures. Production costs are low enought for people to almost release an album on a whim! There is so much sub-sub genre hybrid cross-pollination now that nothing is very shocking stylistically. The mere fact that something is unusual or different is no longer refreshing. It is to a large extent the normal state of affairs. Bands that would have been an exciting discovery for me in 1986 are rather 'ho hum' to me today because I am no longer sailing on a sea of conformity in search of precious coves of independence... Furthermore, today's young music listgeners have no recollection of those old days when creative or ambitious rock was unusual or 'progressive'.
To some extent, the democratization of the music business has integrated certain elements of 'prog' (to varying degrees) into increasingly muddied waters of varied sub-sub-sub genres. The most creative elements of progressive rock have been untethered from 'Prog' and are now free to thrive or to be neglected anywhere and everywhere in musical cyberspace. Prog still exists - of course - but in many respects as a descriptor referencing the classic Progrock of old and modern music specifically influenced by that era.
But today's rock music fans no longer need to think in terms of 'progressive' or not. There is no 'big brother' trying to squeeze the creative box smaller and smaller. The oppresive flood waters are not those of conformity. The challenge is now an impersonal tidal wave of unregulated production. Even when I'm not feeling overwhelmed by the flood of product, I still kind of feel like I am paddling a tiny boat across an intimidating ocean of variance - variance in style, variance in form, variance in how much effort is put into making the music, variance in level of talent playing instruments, variance in level of talent producing and mastering music.
And so new gatekeepers of music recommendation add value. They sift through mass quantities of music and make recommendations to overwhelmed listeners. They refer me to the bandcamps of the world. I don't just randomly wander around SoundCloud. Friends and websites and magazines send me to specific artists with music on SoundCloud.
It isn't really such a bad state of affairs. Just a very different one. One in which many artists are so free to be creative that they no longer even need to think in terms of 'prog' or 'not prog'... Hence the "decline" in Prog Festivals.
When Rush pleaded to convince themselves that 'all this machinery making modern music can still be open hearted - not so coldly charted it's really just a question of your honesty...", they were speaking of the conflict between commercial pressures and artistic integrity.
Today, we have no shortage of musical artists with the freedom and the willingness to proudly wear their open hearts on their proverbial sleeves. We just have an overabundance of product on the market.
Getting noticed isn't easy? Who said promoting your music would be easy? It wasn't easy in 1964, 1975, 1984 or 1994. It is actually comparatively easier in 2014 - but even if it isn't, I far prefer the overabundance of free choice to the oppression of limited options from days gone by.
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Positively the best Prog and Fusion 24/7!
http://www.progpositivity.com |
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Polymorphia
Forum Senior Member
Joined: November 06 2012 Location: here Status: Offline Points: 8856 |
Posted: March 15 2014 at 13:45 |
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Dean
Special Collaborator
Retired Admin and Amateur Layabout Joined: May 13 2007 Location: Europe Status: Offline Points: 37575 |
Posted: February 01 2015 at 10:51 |
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Part The Fourth - Every Day Another Hair Turns Grey.
[note: this post was originally penned as a response to Dave Francis's 'When will the album format disappear' thread, but I decided that it had moved far too off-topic to post there] The problem with [album sales today] is the pool contains more or less the same volume, as the surface area gets greater the depth gets shallower. As I have said before, the number of albums (and that includes a selection of random tracks) that people buy hasn't changed a great deal but the choice has increased so each one sells fewer than it would have done in the past. Compound this with the situation where you don't have to buy the whole album and the total earnings per album drops off considerably. Back in the day selling 20,000 copies would be thought of as a failure, today it is seen as roaring success. At present, I cannot see a way of combating this since it is a natural consequence of how music is made available through the internet. Supply has exceeded demand simply because more people can release their music into the world easier and more cheaply than ever before. We cannot apply the old business models because the game has changed and new models are required, the old strategies just don't work anymore. The challenge is not how to make money in this market, because that part of the business model hasn't changed at all, it is the same as it always was - produce something that appeals to the widest possible audience and market it extensively. The challenge is how to finance those niche albums that sell in low volumes, and this has to be tempered with the reality that most of those albums will never make a profit. That latter point is not something new or unique to the modern era either, it too has always been that way. The difference now is the low selling artist does not get his production costs paid for by a record label from the profits of their higher selling artists. Now the artist funds his own production and most can never recoup those costs. So at present, there are two clear winners in this - the music buying public who have a wealth of music to choose from, and the middle-men who cream off a fixed percentage of each sale. Neither of these has any incentive (or inclination) to change, especially the middle-men (i.e., soundcloud and bandcamp) who are in a win-win situation, it makes no difference to them whether one artist sells a million copies or a million artists sell one copy apiece, the net profit is the same. The same is true with selling one track from ten different albums or ten different tracks from one album - either way works for bandcamp just as it does for iTunes. This situation is as grim as it first appears. It's pretty dire if you intend to make a living out of making 3-track 80-minute albums, but at the risk of repeating myself, this is nothing new. What was not so long ago hailed as being a liberation of music and musicians alike has not heralded a golden age utopia, nor has it levelled the playing field or decreased the gap between unsigned amateur and the signed professional. Perhaps the solution lies in creating ad hoc cartels of like-minded artists who can pool their resources and thus lessen the individual financial burden. Something akin to the split-albums of yore where two different artists would share the manufacturing costs of a CD or vinyl, or the musician's collectives who would embark on joint-venture marketing and touring campaigns. [Remembering that the success of Charisma artists in the early 1970s was as much due to the Charisma bandwagon tours as it was to Stratton-Smith's advertising budget] Of course that ad hoc (or otherwise) cartel would operate like a record label, fulfilling many of the functions that a record label would have provided to a signed artist (which brings us full-circle to the OP of this Blog 11 pages hence), and there are many who still regard the "Record Label" and the music industry in general as being an unnecessary evil that we can do without.
Edited by Dean - February 01 2015 at 12:50 |
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Guldbamsen
Special Collaborator
Retired Admin Joined: January 22 2009 Location: Magic Theatre Status: Offline Points: 23098 |
Posted: February 01 2015 at 12:12 |
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I'm very impressed by the way you always seem to take a lot of the same stuff that I've been mulling over and turn into something clear and concise. It's uncanny really.
The manner in which you've presented this helps along my jumbled scatter-brain to comprehend what it's actually been brewing over the past year or two. Thank you Doctor Phil. I feel much better now. |
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“The Guide says there is an art to flying or rather a knack. The knack lies in learning how to throw yourself at the ground and miss.”
- Douglas Adams |
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progpositivity
Prog Reviewer
Joined: December 15 2007 Location: United States Status: Offline Points: 262 |
Posted: February 01 2015 at 17:58 |
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Hi Dean. I agree with much of what you have said. But I'm currently unconvinced that the same number of albums are purchased by consumers today as were purchased during the 1970's and 1980's. Objective measurements from the 'record industry' continue to report a downward trend in 'album sales'. (Not just a decline in sales of physical CD's and LP's but declines in the sales of entire complete albums regardless of the method of purchase.) If the thought is that independent releases sold by bands over the internet counterbalance the massive quantity of lost units of complete albums sold through traditional labels, I'm not sure how one would go about verifying such a claim. But I do feel that, given the fact that we have such a large ongoing quantified number of decreased album sales provided to us by the recording industry, the burden of proof should rest upon anyone who asserts that independent music sales are indeed vast enough to offset the difference. Here are a few of my thoughts on factors that (in my mind) are exerting downward pressure on demand for complete albums... Consumers who now pay $120 to $180 dollars per year for unlimited streaming services from providers like Spotify, Rhapsody, Rdio and others seem far less likely to continue spending as much money on album purchases. Some casual music fans have discovered that they are content with options from Spotify, Pandora and I-tunes radio which allow users to specify albums (but not specific tracks) or at least which create playlists based upon user's music preferences. Another factor pushing album sales downward is that (with some exceptions) almost every song from every 'album' is now available as a 'single'. It may seem odd to us prog-heads, but many of today's younger casual music consumers are not particularly invested in the concept of 'the album' at all. They 'pick and choose' only the tracks they want whenever they want them. Also, I cannot help but believe that the many "free" options for accessing and listening to music virtually 'on-demand' via Youtube, Soundcloud and other sites has reduced demand for album ownership. I'm not counting "Russian downloads" of music by major label artists for which users paid less than $1 for the complete album. The legality of purchasing music in this manner is probably something best dealt with in a different post. The labels and artists see little (if any) of the revenue from these 'sales'. That leads to another question... I've approached this discussion from the perspective of the number of album units sold today versus the number of album units sold during the 1970's and 1980's. If we expand the scope to consider inflation adjusted dollars of album sales, we may discover additional downward pressure on revenue from album sales. I've personally noticed that many of the albums 'sold' today are moving at discounted prices compared on an inflation adjusted basis to the albums I purchased in the 70's and 80's. But I'm not sure whether that is a trend across the board or not.
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Positively the best Prog and Fusion 24/7!
http://www.progpositivity.com |
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Dean
Special Collaborator
Retired Admin and Amateur Layabout Joined: May 13 2007 Location: Europe Status: Offline Points: 37575 |
Posted: February 01 2015 at 19:13 |
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That is undeniably true, and due to population growth that has seen the total number of possible consumers double since the 1970s, then the decline in sales is actually even worse (a fact compounded by the observation that these industry stats are often quoted in dollar sales not album numbers - the sticker-price of an album has not changed a great deal in 30 years so taking inflation into account then the average spend per consumer has dropped even more steeply). However. This is a Prog Blog in a Prog Lounge of a Prog Forum on a website dedicated to Prog Music (and I am conversing with a someone who calls themselves 'progpositivity'), so when I refer to 'people' here I am inferring 'people who buy Prog' - i.e., people like you and me. What the average joe is buying does not concern me in this Blog.
Essentially you cannot verify any sales figures regardless of who publishes them, you cannot even verify the figures published by the gnomes at Blandcamp. All I can go by is the number of albums I buy each year, and the number of albums that other people on this forum claim to have listened to each year, which seems to average somewhere between 10 and 30 albums but is probably much more than that for many folk here.
None of that concerns me here, sorry. I am only talking about self-release albums sold on band websites or through Blandcamp and Soundclod (I know that some of these are available via Spottyarse but the returns for the self-released artist are miniscule). There are other threads for discussions on streaming and whether the Album will die-out as a concept. (I don't stream or download btw, nor do I subscribe to the myth of the Cloud)
I commented on this at length in another thread some time ago. Adjusting for inflation a full-priced album is somewhere between one-half and one-third its equivalent 1970s price - albums are cheaper now than they have ever been, yet even die-hard Prog music buyers such as myself are not buying more albums per year as a result of that. I have also commented on the observation that with the discounts being offered on CD albums on Amazon they are physically cheaper than download for many albums.
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progpositivity
Prog Reviewer
Joined: December 15 2007 Location: United States Status: Offline Points: 262 |
Posted: February 01 2015 at 23:38 |
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<when I refer to 'people' here I am inferring 'people who buy Prog' - i.e., people like you and me. What the average joe is buying does not concern me in this Blog.>
OK - gotcha. I do think I can relate to some extent with what you are saying. Each prog-rock fan has only so many 'attentive listening hours' available per week. But there is now a plethora of self-released albums available to compete for that limited resource. The net effect often is that we (proggers) spread our attentive listening hours more thinly across multiple albums than we did back when our choices were more limited by the major labels, albums were more expensive (especially in inflation adjusted dollars), and we had to travel to a brick and mortar store to go get them. But I would like to quickly mention that back in the 1970's, there were quite a few 'average Joe' rock fans listening to and purchasing albums by proggie artists such as Yes, Genesis, Rush, ELP, Jethro Tull, and others. Also, in today's music retail environment, creative, innovative rock (or post-rock) artists still do break through to wider 'average Joe' audiences despite (and sometimes to some extend because of) the fundamental changes to music distribution. Bands which perform 'live' tend to recruit new fans who did not (or do not) consider themselves proggers and who would not tend tp hang out over here at Prog Archives. If they have a particularly dynamic show, word of mouth can help spread the message. Such is the life of an independent artist. So, in my opinion, although indie prog bands are smart to market directly toward listeners who self-identify with the prog rock genre designation... they would also be wise to continue considering cross-over opportunities to markets that don't necessarily identify themselves as 'prog rock' fans per se. Either way, however, there is certainly no denying the fact that getting noticed among a deluge of new releases can be a formidable challenge for independent artists from all genres.
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Positively the best Prog and Fusion 24/7!
http://www.progpositivity.com |
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Ozark Soundscape
Forum Senior Member
Joined: October 20 2014 Location: not here Status: Offline Points: 2360 |
Posted: February 02 2015 at 00:34 |
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My views on this are simple: the 'new way' may give voices to those undeserving, but it gives more talented people a voice, too. Back in the day, any band that wasn't hip and marketable had to be pretty lucky to get a record deal. Independent labels helped in the last couple decades of the 20th century, though, and I think the internet is just a natural extension. It has it's downsides, but the advantages are immeasurable. Finding a good artist may require more effort, but there a far more good artists getting found.
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Ozark Soundscape
Forum Senior Member
Joined: October 20 2014 Location: not here Status: Offline Points: 2360 |
Posted: February 02 2015 at 01:23 |
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The internet enables more musicians in the same way the printing press enabled more writers.
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Dean
Special Collaborator
Retired Admin and Amateur Layabout Joined: May 13 2007 Location: Europe Status: Offline Points: 37575 |
Posted: February 02 2015 at 03:01 |
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Yep, that's what I was driving at, we can only consume a limited amount of new music each week, part of this is due to the intensity at which Prog demands to be listened at - you cannot "skim-read" Progressive Rock.
Absolutely, and this also happens when one of our genre teams adds a new band to the PA database because there will be average joe fans of that band who did not (or does not) consider them to be a Progressive Rock band. As an extreme example, Swans, Radiohead, The Decemberists etc., all have wider fan-bases than just Prog fans, but this is also true of bands like iamthemorning and Seven Impale.
That is a very good point and that further emphasises the message inherent in this Blog - self-released artists have to either be more than just musicians or they need to get help with all the aspects of management and promotion that they are not good at themselves.
Yep, in the modern environment, it is not enough to just record an album and go "Ta Dah!". The world will not beat a path to your door.
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Dean
Special Collaborator
Retired Admin and Amateur Layabout Joined: May 13 2007 Location: Europe Status: Offline Points: 37575 |
Posted: February 02 2015 at 04:29 |
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Unfortunately, that is the view of five years ago perhaps (when this Blog was first started) but the situation has not blossomed into the idyllic artists' paradise that many predicted (or hoped) it would be. Nor has it levelled the playing field for the talented but un-hip and unmarketable artist. To recap (and update) what I posted in another of Dave Francis's threads:
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Ozark Soundscape
Forum Senior Member
Joined: October 20 2014 Location: not here Status: Offline Points: 2360 |
Posted: February 02 2015 at 08:58 |
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I'm not saying that that many more artists are getting payed significant money, I'm saying more are able to put their music out there for more people. Getting payed is a secondary goal. Getting your voice heard is the primary.
All I know is as a musician myself, I think I have a lot better chance amassing and audience, however large or small, through Bandcamp than I do getting a deal with a moderately large label. My music is, at least at the moment, much more artistically suited towards it. Edited by Ozark Soundscape - February 02 2015 at 08:59 |
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Dean
Special Collaborator
Retired Admin and Amateur Layabout Joined: May 13 2007 Location: Europe Status: Offline Points: 37575 |
Posted: February 02 2015 at 10:51 |
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My argument is you, they, we are not reaching more people. As like or not, we are reaching our friends and people who already knew us. Sure my music has been heard by people from every continent on the planet, but that does not add up to a lot of people (according to LastFM that's 276 people over the entire 6-year 51-album lifespan of the project, and okay, I don't personally know all of them, but compared to 19,000 listeners for the Prog Metal band I used to manage it's a spit in the ocean).
I'll be blunt here (thou' not to be snarky): How is that working out for you? Seriously and honestly. I can see from your FB page and YouTube viewing figures that it's not that great. How many of those are people who listened to your music here in Music and Musician's Exchange? |
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Ozark Soundscape
Forum Senior Member
Joined: October 20 2014 Location: not here Status: Offline Points: 2360 |
Posted: February 02 2015 at 11:19 |
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Doesn't matter. The more I work on it, the more I put it out there, the more that will come. But the main point is that someone is listening to it. While I'd like to be successful, not everyone on Bandcamp or what have you can make a career as a musician. The main advantage to the online music world is not that there are more people making careers as musicians, it's that there are more people with day jobs able to get heard. Back in the day it was a much more clear cut line. You had to get successful to be heard by anyone other than your friends and whoever happened to be in a club you were playing at. Now anyone can be heard by anyone over the world. Not a lot of people over the world, necessarily, but it's an improvement. It's at the very least better than how it was before.
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Ozark Soundscape
Forum Senior Member
Joined: October 20 2014 Location: not here Status: Offline Points: 2360 |
Posted: February 02 2015 at 11:23 |
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I've made several friends over the past year or two that live in different parts of the world that really like my music, some of whom I've made artistic collaborations with. Those would've never happened without the internet. They are few but they are invaluable.
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Epignosis
Special Collaborator
Honorary Collaborator Joined: December 30 2007 Location: Raeford, NC Status: Offline Points: 32476 |
Posted: February 02 2015 at 12:12 |
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Well hot damn, I've made more than average.
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Please Self-Release Me, Let Me Go
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leonalvarado wrote: