IS THIS GOING TO BE ON SALE SOON?
People used to make records,
As in a record of an event
The event of people
Playing music in a room.
But now it's all about cross marketing
It's about sunglasses and shoes,
Or guns and drugs.
You choose.
-Ani Difranco
Since I have been working in the music retail business for well over 1 1/2 now, I have learned that the word SALE is nothing but a joke. I think this subject that not many consumers even think about! Hell I didn't before I got the job. Here is how this works. Let's say you walk in your favorite cd store and see the brand new CD from BUTTWIPES MD entiled MY MOM DOESN'T SMOKE CRACK ANYMORE!! for $12.99! Now if they paid say $11.46 for each of those 30 disks that came in. Think about the profit margin. Not much is it! So the difference has be made up somewhere, right? Usually the older cd's well be a higher price. Now to touch on how the larger company's do it... very large bulk. They want you to go in there so they can sell you something that has been marked up 300%. The difference is made up there.
The only true sales are 25% off. Usually these are CD's that are out of print and can't be returned for credit.
Now that have a very general look at what a "sale" really means, we move on to the main topic. So the BUTTWIPES MD'S disk is out. Your CD store paid $11.46 right, right so my question is simple. Where does that $11.46 go? Well thats not so simple afterall. The distrobution company gets a cut. Pressing the CDs themselves costs about $2.00, and that is a very liberal estimate. Depending on the number of discs that are run production costs can be under a dollar. The band will see little or none of that $11.46! Most of your run of the mill heavy radio and music channel rotation bands negotiate contracts that give them around $1.25 a CD. Now that doesn't seem like a lot until you factor in the number of discs these talentless assholes are selling. Your debut disc goes platinum, they aren't exactly hurting for cash. It's the smaller bands making those lower margins on more conservative sales numbers who have to tour constantly just to earn a living. Any full time musician will tell you that playing gigs is where the real money comes from.
The band's cut of dough is chipped away at by promotion and advertising, studio costs, legal fees (blood sucking lawyers) and tour expenses. Once again tours are where the band has ist best chance of seeing any real money. It's not until they are established enough to demand a royality check! The labels (not you small guys) but the large ones are the only people to see most of the cash. These large record companies could set the market so much lower. There is no reason why every record store could sell CD's for $11.99. With everyone making money!
Let's face it they were shaking in there boots when downloading music from the internet became the thing to do. Once again the big boys had to flex those muscles and show who controls the industry! So once that mess was cleared up, one company raised there prices! YEAH!! WAY TO GO GUYS THANKS!!! It sucks!! The labels have started another PRICE WAR, which has driven many an independent music retailer out of business over the years.Think back to the early 90's when the first time these big label price wars began. CD's everywhere were $9.99 or $11.99 at the most! God what a great time... WRONG! I lost one of my favorite record stores in Cincinatti over price wars. That sucked.
So what can we do about this? Easy... support your smaller labels and mainly, support the underground. The web is great thing for music. Also do not forget the "snail mail". I was in the underground for years until something happened in my personal life that rather messed me, but I am back! When I was in the underground I didn't buy CDs in a store. Why? It's simple 2 CDs or for the price of $15.99 disk! No matter what style of music there is an a band that is looking to promote itself in the underground! When you go to shows and see little flyers around advertising there cd for $6.00 if your interested send them your money!! This is how I am into bands like, INTERNAL BLEEDING, DYING FETUS, FLEHGRING, DEADEN, LIVIDITY, CORPSE VOMIT, HEMDALE, FERMENTO, NILE all before some of them got signed! The list is to long to list all of them but see my point!
Some artists are saavy enough to start their own label and cut out the middlemen. Ani Difranco's Righteous Babe Records allows her to see around $4.00 a disc. Not that she is really concerned with the money, like all artists who care enough to strike out on their own away from industry tethers she didn't want any of her artistic freedoms compromised by signing to a label that worries about whether or not their artists are marketable to the widest possible audience.
If you need a blueprint of non-corporate do-it-yourself recording, look no farther than DC's Dischord. Started in 1980 by Ian MacKaye's Teen Idles to put out their first 7", Dischord is now releasing CD's for $10 postage paid. Fugazi tours endlessly, charging only $6 to get into their shows. Anyone whos been to a show recently realizes that you're lucky to see some piece of shit local bands for a six dollar cover. The point is, if Dischord can make it without the greed that drives corporate music, why don't more independent labels break away from the mainstream and give those corporate fucks some underground competition. Support the underground, or someday all we'll have to listen to is the homogenized drivel that passes for 'art' on TRL everyday. Let's face it, thats everyone's worst nightmare.
Stay True.
-AC (MB gets in his two cents here and there)