BBC article.

A means of reviving album sales?

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I'm All Ears.

Quote:

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Chris Cooke, editor of music industry newsletter CMU, predicted that the major labels would "resist it hugely".

"It is a gamble," he said. "Once you've slashed the price of an album you can't really go back. It's a big risk and the record companies will resist it. But he's not alone, outside the record companies, in saying perhaps that is the future."

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No reason some brave indie label can't test the water.

If they get as rich as Croesus they can tell the majors they are all wrong.

The music industry has never eschewed red-in-tooth-and-claw capitalism!

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Dynamite with a laser beam...

I'm not convinced.

Even if it was 1 penny to buy the legitimate album download you'd still have the extra step of having pay via paypal, or to sign into some account that you previously set up etc...

Whereas kids who get their music 'free' from a pirate hub don't have that extra step, just locate, click download, done.

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Actually, a full album would require a visit to a torrent site. Downloading the torrent file than proceeding with the download of the album via an API.

The proposed model would be easier.

I wonder how Apple / iTunes shareholders would feel about it though.

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I'm All Ears.

I find it both shocking and hillarious that whoever wrote that article thinks that tours and live perfomormances make lots of money for the artist. While it may be true that big artists like Madonna and U2 can sell £150 tickets at big venues, those artists aren't the ones suffering like the new ones who have yet to grow a global following.

Also, wouldn't this scheme devalue music even more than the download culture has done so far? To make the numbers work you need to double the number of people buying music per half of the price you take off.

It's an unrealistic stupid idea which won't work, IMO.

Finally (Esther), am I the only one who's shocked and appalled that Susan Boyle's was the #1 selling album (according to their statistics)? If that's what 'music' is for the populace then they can have it for free. Mediocre covers of once great pieces of music doesn't really ring my bell; I'd prefer to listen to the originals.

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www.allyle.co.uk

Quote Aliweasel:

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Finally (Esther), am I the only one who's shocked and appalled that Susan Boyle's was the #1 selling album (according to their statistics)? If that's what 'music' is for the populace then they can have it for free. Mediocre covers of once great pieces of music doesn't really ring my bell; I'd prefer to listen to the originals.

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Susan Boyle being 'number 1' only tells you about the demographic of people who are still prepared to pay for music (physical product).

It tells you nothing about general taste.
For that, you'd need to ask what people are LISTENING to (as opposed to paid for). I suspect you'd get very different results from a chart like that. In fact you'd find that there's still a great appetite for all sorts of music, and very good stuff too, it's just not being 'purchased'.

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That's a tricky one. I can't see it working myself.

As mentioned in the article, once the prices are down, you can't really bump them back up again. GlynB's point about paying being an 'extra step' is a good one, and the first thing that came to my mind.

I may be wrong, but I get the feeling that paying for downloads does not cross a lot of people's minds, so even if it was only £1 per album, they would not associate it with their situation. My guess is that a lot don't see anything wrong with illegal downloading, and are not aware of the issues involved.

Also, perhaps, a price of £1 could change the arguments of illegal downloaders who are aware of the issues - "It's just a pound, it won't make a difference to anyone so there's no point in paying it"

I can't help feeling that education is the only way forward, combined with pressure on ISPs as is often mentioned here.
Either that or a completely dragonian regime of sticking people in prison / hefty fines for possessing any illegal downloads!

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Bill Withers while Tom Waits, and Stan Getz

Guys. It's Rob Dickins. Nice chap - but he's always made slightly "at odds" statements.

I'd completely and utterly ignore that article - it carries no weight.

Quote narcoman:

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Guys. It's Rob Dickins. Nice chap - but he's always made slightly "at odds" statements.

I'd completely and utterly ignore that article - it carries no weight.

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Totally... and there's no 'one stop - fixes all - solution' anyway ..
A broad set of strategies.

Quote GlynB:

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[
For that, you'd need to ask what people are LISTENING to (as opposed to paid for). I suspect you'd get very different results from a chart like that. In fact you'd find that there's still a great appetite for all sorts of music, and very good stuff too, it's just not being 'purchased'.

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Bang on. The p2ps have made the charts totally irrelevant. I don't think any kind of price point makes a damn difference to those who insist on getting their music for free - chances are, they'll always be with us, and in the end you may as well as ignore them.

Otherwise, it's getting to those who may be beginning to be aware that 'free' music may not be such a good idea that we should be starting to do. Some kind of voluntary collective licensing (check the EFF) might work, so that people can download what they want, when they want, from wherever - but it will mean the govt forcing the p2ps, the rightsholders, the ISPs, and collection societies into the same room and forcing some kind of deal. Got to be better than the legal slapstick the digital economy act requires - which will cost rightsholders a fortune to actually use and won't do anything except annoy everyone.

... including 4chan group Anonymous, who have crashed the Ministry of Sound, their lawyers, almost crashed the BPI, in the past month, and took Gene Simmons out yesterday, all of them either trying to enforce copyright or in Simmons' case, saying 'take their cars. take their houses' which may be in the right vein but isn't going to win hearts and minds.

It isn't the price that's the problem, it's the principle. We have to persuade people that buying music is what they 'should' do, in the same way people now normally tell their friends not to drunk drive, and we don't fire up a fag in a pub, anymore. It is possible, but it's going to be a hard road. Telling them all they're a bunch of thieves simply isn't going to work.

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http://anotherfineday.bandcamp.com/ http://anotherfineday.co.uk http://apollomusic.co.uk

Quote GlynB:

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Quote Aliweasel:

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Finally (Esther), am I the only one who's shocked and appalled that Susan Boyle's was the #1 selling album (according to their statistics)? If that's what 'music' is for the populace then they can have it for free. Mediocre covers of once great pieces of music doesn't really ring my bell; I'd prefer to listen to the originals.

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Susan Boyle being 'number 1' only tells you about the demographic of people who are still prepared to pay for music (physical product).

It tells you nothing about general taste.
For that, you'd need to ask what people are LISTENING to (as opposed to paid for). I suspect you'd get very different results from a chart like that. In fact you'd find that there's still a great appetite for all sorts of music, and very good stuff too, it's just not being 'purchased'.

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Totally spot on!! The paying demographics are very clear: roughly they are the 40+ who fork out money, either for practical reasons (crap with computers), age (slightly more moral/wiser), or 'richer' (real disposable income).

SO... you would think that if you had enough money to set up a music business (record company etc.) you would focus on quality music perhaps from yet-unreleased 40-50 yrs musicians with the chops and quality, maybe making public for the first time those great tracks written when 20 and since then: the best of the best of the best...

Imagine [1]: the first CD from a seasoned 50 years old 'boy' would be the very best of his music, distilled out of 30+ years of 'research'. Imagine [2] the standard of the music, then performed by super-experienced similarly age musos... hmmm.
Maybe this guy would have 'only' a couple of stunning albums in him, but that would be enough, wouldn't it?

OK, the music probably would lose some of its edge and vibrancy typical of the teens years, but aren't the 40+ the new 20?

Seriously, am I talking out of my sphincter here?

Or perennial self-delusion?

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www.bugiolacchi.com
Songwriter/guitarist

Quote GlynB:

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Whereas kids who get their music 'free' from a pirate hub don't have that extra step, just locate, click download, done.

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Not.

Quote bugiolacchi:

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'only' a couple of stunning albums in him, but that would be enough, wouldn't it?

OK, the music probably would lose some of its edge and vibrancy typical of the teens years, but aren't the 40+ the new 20?

Seriously, am I talking out of my sphincter here?

Or perennial self-delusion?

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No - you're bang on. There is a thriving scene outside of the "youth" market - it's already there. You won't find it on TV though !!

Quote bugiolacchi:

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aren't the 40+ the new 20?

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Yes...

Like 20 is the new 10

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Website / Music Lab Machines / Blog

Let's all remember that we are talking about the album here. Sales of albums are down compared to singles.

I think some money is better than no money.

Steve Hill is on to something. It will have to be an indy movement. There is no reason the price can't be bumped back up after a few years. Heck, add some digital artwork, competitions for access to the band etc - things you can't get from an illegal download. Make it personal again.

Narco, glad you are making dollar. And really happy you don't seem to have let it go to your head. But there's cats on nothing at the moment trying to break into what is a fuhkin mess of a business... Its all a little bit like those shyster bankers.

Damn. Do you really think Hands will be getting his back from Citigroup? Doubt it. He's done well to keep it alive this long... but I digress...



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I'm All Ears.

Its certainly an interesting subject - personally I don't see the £1 idea as a working formula, but it does bring up the whole idea of what would convince the younger age-range to purchase an album (and shy away from torrent sites).

Within the gaming industry there seems to be a drive towards free-to-play releases, where the public can download games for free, but add additional charges for extras. Potentially this could work for music - restricting the music to 128kbit quality for those that just want to simply digest the tracks, but giving something more to those that want it.

In my mind, I think music really needs to take a step forward and be more social (yes, yes, following the likes of facebook). What I mean is that labels need to give the listeners something to interact with - if you look at youtube everyone wants to try their best to 'be famous', so... get the public involved with your song! If a band released stems of their tracks (on album purchases), and then had a social network microsite with competitions or league tables to encourage listeners to remix their songs I think it would sell like hotcakes. Furthermore, to discourage piracy, you could have serial numbers on the purchase, that would validate them on the microsite. Sure people will still pirate it (like most games), but I think giving users a chance to enter something would drive sales. In my view, most 'young' listeners want to have a go at being a producer, so give them that chance in a marketed way, make them feel like their the 5th member of a band.

Going to write a blog post about this in more detail at some point - I'm sure lots will disagree with the above, but the music industry really needs to be on par with the internet.

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Lawrence Eldridge - Obscuresounds

Games and music are not comparable. The same models won't work.

Quote narcoman:

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Games and music are not comparable. The same models won't work.

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True, not directly comparable, but I still think you can drive sales through more interaction with the audience.

Radiohead released stems as a separate charge, and Phoenix also increased their fanbase through releasing multitracks of their songs. People want to be 'rock stars' - if the model was implemented properly I think it could work.

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Lawrence Eldridge - Obscuresounds

Flip - it's not mass media. Maybe 1% of us give a damn about getting hold of stems to see if we could do better than - er - professionals.

And once we've got hold of them we'll find it's time consuming. 3 minutes to listen to a track, 24 hours maybe to play about remixing it. How many are you going to buy on that basis?

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Dynamite with a laser beam...

Definately agree on the mass-market side of things - but then again, regarding piracy (which so many record companies complain about)... what age-ranges use torrent sites? 13-32?

Quoting from another article (http://www.spamdailynews.com/publish/MPAA_releases_new_piracy_loss_data.sh tml, 2006 - would be interesting to do a more modern study), apparently "The average film copyright violator is male, between the ages of 16-24 and lives in an urban area.". This figure can probably relate to music in much the same way.

Psychologically speaking, something needs to happen to entice them away... so rather than going on the offensive (lawsuits), or backing away (lowering prices), why not give them something to get involved with? Maybe not stems, but something... a marketing gimmick.

The above are just free-floating thoughts by the way... practically, it would be tough.

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Lawrence Eldridge - Obscuresounds

I think it's a good idea although I don't know what the exact price point is.

I used to use torrent sites to download TV programs. I know it's no better than music and all the same principals apply but nonetheless I did. I don't anymore because I got decent cable in the end and now get all the main shows I like only a few weeks behind the US.

When I was pinching TV I found that if something was available on iTunes (typically around £2) I'd prefer to use a legal iTunes download before hitting any Torrent sites because it was easier, faster, of better quality and more ethically sound.

So I think there is a price/accessibility sweet spot. If you price it right, make it fast and easy to get and most importantly, shove it under the kids noses tightly integrated into their existing social networks somehow, then they'll cough up and not bother straying into the murky waters of Torrent sites.

That said. I'm not convinced that the kids are stealing music with Torrent sites. Has anybody here actually used a bit torrent client? None of the 10 yo I know have enough experience or patience to set one up.

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Original artwork and unique devices inspired by vintage technology http://www.thisisobsolete.com

Getting the government involved tends to be a bad idea. Big corporations vote with their wallets so you end up with politicians who pander to their interests. i.e. the money would go into their pockets not that of the struggling musician. Only signed musicians would benefit at all and there are fewer and fewer of those.

In any case, the issue is at least partly spurious. A significant portion of those illegal downloaders would not be buying records anyway because they're skint. Some of them will later buy legal copies when they have money.

To some extent illegal downloading is filling a role that radio once filled. At least here in the US, commercial radio does not play significant amounts of new music. When I was young radio did play new music, even if it was only on specialized shows late at night.

So getting heard is new musicians other big problem.

How might one overcome this? A simple way would be charge to play. Set up a server that allows you to play a song a limited number of times for free (once or twice say) and then charges, say a penny or two per play up to a small "fully paid up" limit. You could organize it so that songs could be played offline and the play counts would be synched up when the user logged back on.

If musicians set this up as a co-op so that the bulk of the money went to them rather than the service provider, the charges could be kept low enough to attract consumers while allowing the entering musician to make some money.

For those interested, following the same conversation with some others on facebook I created a poll on my Facebook Page...

http://bit.ly/1poundPoll


For what it's worth (very little I'm sure!)

<rant>Although I would buy more impulse buy's at £1 there's the worry as mentioned already that you can't or at least it is very difficult to increase the price if it doesn't work, also it can have the consequence of just cheapening the music even more so than it already has been!

as for downloaders having one less step than those who buy ie they don't have to purchase anything, or for that matter they don't have to register any details. I have to say I agree and so the average buyer gets nearly no advantage from purchasing legit (at least online anyway)

Something more radical has to be done it needs to be just as easy or easier to purchase and own music as it is to download illegally and there has to be other advantages such as accessing your music from anywhere with a cloud based service (not having to worry about ever loosing your music) and other included extra material, whatever that may be.. this of course could be restricted to buyers only, by only allowinf access to the additional material via your cloud based service which would do all the checks to see that your a legitamite customer. This needs to happen with little effort from the customers part.

This combined with a complete overhaul of pricing to encourage people away from downloading illegally MIGHT stand a chance of changing some peoples mind's. Also labels need to give up on holding out for release dates they should be putting this stuff out straight away in my opinion it just encourages downloads when someone can't get something legitatmatly!</rant>

I'm not sure that selling albums for a pound would make much long term difference to album sales.

There's two things going on as far as i can see it.

When people talk about "albums" what they have in their mind's eye is a beautiful work of art, from the soul, crafted and sculpted and worthy of a place on a bookshelf next to a copy of Alice through the Looking Glass or A Portrait of the Artist or whatever other work of literary genius takes your fancy. Music filling a room which has works of beauty hanging on the walls perhaps by the likes of Van Gogh or Dali, or once again some other giant of the pictorial art field.

So we think of Dark Side or the Moon or quadrophenia or Aerial or Physical Graffiti, Sandinista, The Raven, Aliens ate my Buick, Heroes, Black Holes and Revelations, Pet Sounds, Sargeant Pepper or whatever other piece of genius floats your musical boat.

We think of a piece of work that you can sit between a pair of speakers and escape for an hour...

The other thing that's going on is all the 'other' music. The music that incresingly surrounds us all the time. From the TV, on video games, adverts etc. The kind of music that fills every conceivable space and every piece of natural silence.

I think that what's killing music is not downloading or piracy, but music itself! There's just too damned much of it! It's a noise that's jammed down our throats every time we do anything. And so i think that incresingly people will search for an escape from music, and that music has ceased to become an escape in itself. Music is now part of that 'mad other world' that "albums" used to transport us away from.

Experts proudly announce that there has never been so much music, never been so many outlets for music and far from suffering from the shrivelling record industy, sync, is booming. In fact it's doing so well that artists who used to make "albums" are banging down the doors of the libraries so that they can get into the ever growing market for sync.

Well this is all fine and we can't stand in the way of progress, but selling an "album" is a bit like opening a tanning shop on the Australian Gold Coast. How can you sell sunshine when there's sunshine everywhere you look!?

There were a number of complaints levelled at Radio 4 recently about the number of times the motife was played during the 'History of the world through a hundred objects' series. Ok you could say that this is crazy old WI ladies and stuffy old Colonels who jst don't like music. But i thnk it goes deeper than that. It's the fact that for a lot of people Radio 4 is a little place of sobriety and relative silence where listeners can go and not be bombarded with an assault of 'music' and actually it's not just crusty oldies listening, it's all types of people who just want a bloody rest. Somewhere to give your ears a rest from this constant bloody noise!

I think that a lot of people are sick to death of music, they just can't take anymore music.

So, if you want to get to a place where people will go and buy records, proper records that have some content and message and some cultural value and significance, the type of quality that the UK record industry used to be famous for...?

Stop slapping music onto everything in sight like magnolia paint and perhaps then it might get it's rarity and value back.

Quote ow:

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I think that a lot of people are sick to death of music, they just can't take anymore music.

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Really good point.

Maintaining a brand of exclusivity (hard in todays digital market) is crucial to making a brand WORTH something. I've taken this gamble - no cutting prices, not "bargain basement" approach..... so far it seems to be working but then again I reside in the boutique niches.

+1 a very good point indeed.

It wasn't that long ago when major artists would rarely if ever licence their music for adverts. They, and their publishers, were happy to leave that market to the media composers.

I know it's not the only reason, but it all seemed to change when Levi's started 'that' campaign. More than anything else, it let the genie out of the bottle.

And it wasn't that much later when we heard that every track on Moby's second album had been licensed, often for multiple uses, before the album had been released.

But it's the ubiquitousness of music that ultimately devalues it for the customers. As said before, it's impossible to avoid, and when it's everywhere around us, it's a big hurdle to get people passionate about it enough to want to buy it.

People genuinely interested in and passionate about music will always buy. But we were always the minority, the majority who bought the odd popular album for a little background music don't need it any more. They get all they need elsewhere, and perfectly legally through internet radio and the like without the hassle of illegal downloads.

£1 albums won't bring them back into the market, but real fans would pay a lot more, we've been doing it for decades.

Andy

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When the going gets weird, the Weird turn Pro.

all reducing a large budget album price to £1 will do is prevent small bands with small followings who were making a tiny sum from their fanbase, into a band who can only make a tiny amount from the same fans.

i mean, they aren't gonna be able to sell their album for a fiver anymore are they?

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Apple Certified Technician. One half of http://www.turnbacktospring.com

Maybe a time based pricing structure. New albums are £1 but gradually increase to maybe £5 as they become catalogue rather than current

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Original artwork and unique devices inspired by vintage technology http://www.thisisobsolete.com

As Zenguitar says, price isn't the issue. I saw a tv ad for one of the big supermarket chains recently and they are selling CDs for three quid. That's cheaper than a little bag of coffee beans or a pack of ham. Three quid isn't a lot of money.

In fact i would say that price puts a product in the "turn it over and see if it's real" department. It's almost too cheap. Like if you go into a bookshop and they have paperbacks for three quid you probably wouldn't buy one because you know they've knocked them down because they can't get rid of them.

I don't really understand why people buy music anymore. I love my music, but i haven't bought a record in ages and never downloaded an illegal one or got a paid download either. I have this laptop running through the stereo and i just go to youtube. There's enough music there to keep me going and i get a video thrown in too. Or there's the free ones on the sunday papers. God we have a whole drawer full of those.

Quote ow:

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I think that what's killing music is not downloading or piracy, but music itself! There's just too damned much of it! It's a noise that's jammed down our throats every time we do anything.

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A very good point, Ow, and one I'd not really considered before.

I fall into one of the categories you describe - I prefer to have the peaceful haven of Radio 4 on now. As you suggest, this may well be a (subconscious) move to get away from the constant bombardment of music everywhere. I'd not thought of it like that before.

Not just on the wireless and TV, etc., but you can't buy a new pair of jaunty pants or get your hair cut or go for a beer without some bloody soundtrack blasting away in the background. It's ubiquitous and makes for a very noise polluted world.

Silence is golden, eh?

Not just that though but when it IS so ubiquitous and is available for free everywhere (albeit indirectly), it does devalue 'real' music that might be worth listening to.

I suggest that SOS start a new campaign - "Bring back muzak"...

When all people can hear is cheezy crap out there when they're out shopping, etc., they will PAY anything to listen to some proper music!!!

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Website / Music Lab Machines / Blog

"Free" is the price at which people aren't bothered about paying. I like the concept of paying a pound but hell, kids are downloading music for nothing.

At the end of the day the cost of recording release quality music has come down by a massive amount in the last 15 years. Where it might have cost me £400 - £500 per day to record at a top notch studio to 2 inch tape with a half decent engineer 10 years ago, now I can spend 10 days of recording money and have a set up that I can use time and again to achieve similar results. Results I can tweak indefinitely until it sounds exactly how I want it.

All of that piss poor X Factor crap will carry on being produced in ridiculously priced studios with the designer label gear. Increasingly I am seeing real, innovative, groundbreaking and interesting artists' albums give only the band, or a member of the band a production credit with possible extra mixing and mastering taking place at established studios.

I don't see why the act of writing, recording and making available your music should have any intrinsic monetary value nowadays. So many people want to do it and are now able to do it that the perceived value has plummeted. I'm not saying that's a good thing. Bloody hell, it ain't. However, from a purely business perspective, an artist's recorded material is now a business card and the product is gigs and merchandise.

It doesn't matter so much to X Factor, Radio One playlist artists, local radio station playlist artists (I use the word artist loosely here). They will be able to sell the dross they create to the girls and boys having water-cooler conversations up and down the land. It does matter to all of the independent bands who will never be played in these scenarios. You guys, give your music away for free, create a buzz, sell t-shirts, possibly some vinyl. That's all you've got. Don't expect to buy a house off the profits though eh?

Here's an exercise for you. Name all of the bands trying to do something new and groundbreaking that have emerged in the last 5 years who you think would be able to pay a mortgage on a £150K family house. Then look at how many bands are out there trying to do the same thing. Bloody depressing, but it's reality.

Do it for the love of it. Keep working hard because you know nothing else. Accept poverty.

Or sell out and join an even bigger queue.

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"Don't you fuckin dare dampen or gate any of my drums; I'll tune them"

Quote Peter Morley:

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"Free" is the price at which people aren't bothered about paying. I like the concept of paying a pound but hell, kids are downloading music for nothing.

At the end of the day the cost of recording release quality music has come down by a massive amount in the last 15 years. Where it might have cost me £400 - £500 per day to record at a top notch studio to 2 inch tape with a half decent engineer 10 years ago, now I can spend 10 days of recording money and have a set up that I can use time and again to achieve similar results. Results I can tweak indefinitely until it sounds exactly how I want it.

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Except that you can't - as all the half assed crap on Myspace now shows us.... ... similar results my big fat butt. I get literally hundreds of CDs a month sent to my company. A LOT of it is from small acts "doing it themselves". Wanna know the main reason they don't get pushed forwards for the many sync deals I do? Cuz they sound like trash - some good songs, yup - but movie, game and TV producers have a moderately discerning ear! Recording STILL counts...... I do, however, concede that it is much more difficult to justify large budget recordings.

Quote Peter Morley:

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All of that piss poor X Factor crap will carry on being produced in ridiculously priced studios with the designer label gear. Increasingly I am seeing real, innovative, groundbreaking and interesting artists' albums give only the band, or a member of the band a production credit with possible extra mixing and mastering taking place at established studios.

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As annoying as X factor may be to many - the democratization of music has had a worse effect. See above.

Quote Peter Morley:

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Here's an exercise for you. Name all of the bands trying to do something new and groundbreaking that have emerged in the last 5 years who you think would be able to pay a mortgage on a £150K family house. Then look at how many bands are out there trying to do the same thing. Bloody depressing, but it's reality.

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Look outside of the charts!! I can name you plenty of acts you've never heard of who have done precisely that. Go look at the charts - where you find the weeks fastest selling records - then go and ask for the monetary figures for someone like Grinderman (yes I know - hardly unknown but the point still stands) over a year.... The definition of success may have changed (a huge gulf between big and medium in fact) but there are plenty of acts turning art into a very good living.... you just won't find them populating the mainstream.

On the subject of mySpade; I think it was just the first place that gave all those bands on all those street corners somewhere to (virtually) play. I'm sure that for most of the people there, it's just somewhere that their friends and family can go to hear their latest piece of pottery. It was handy and free.

More established artists or breaking artists went there because that's wehere the kids (their market) were hanging around, which gave it a good amount of spamming potential.

But what it did, it's biggest impact imo, was get people into the habit of clicking >>> listening - and that's now the way.

It killed the CD as a format really. I never thought it was a particularly attractive format as a product in the first place tbh, not for the presentation of art. Sounds good, looks horrible.

A bit like putting a nasty brushed aluminium frame round a nice Constable landscape or something, doesn't work... You need a nice old wooden frame.

Quote narcoman:

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Except that you can't - as all the half assed crap on Myspace now shows us.... ... similar results my big fat butt. I get literally hundreds of CDs a month sent to my company. A LOT of it is from small acts "doing it themselves". Wanna know the main reason they don't get pushed forwards for the many sync deals I do? Cuz they sound like trash - some good songs, yup - but movie, game and TV producers have a moderately discerning ear! Recording STILL counts...... I do, however, concede that it is much more difficult to justify large budget recordings.

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yep - I'm just about to spend something like £20k on new hardware and software - a lot of money, in bedroom land, and probably still a significant amount even for Narco. My current set up just can't cope anymore with the steadily increasing demands I put on it, and I'm putting those demands on because the standards for recorded music, even in 'production music', just get higher and higher. A laptop on the kitchen table and a cheap mic won't, as much as many might persuade you, do the job. When the basic standard for mock-ups involves LASS and Hollywood strings, not a basic 2 detuned sawtooths patch on a cheap softsynth, you'd better make sure your sounds are up to it, never mind your talent.

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http://anotherfineday.bandcamp.com/ http://anotherfineday.co.uk http://apollomusic.co.uk

People these days are multi-tasking life stylers! We watch YouTube while playing solitaire and chatting on facebook etc. We pay our utilities electricty, gas, mortgage, internet and that last one is for our entertainment. There is no coveting the purchase of an album these days and there is no time devoted to just listening to it without doing something else at the same time.

Maybe rather than trying to sell albums for a pound we should abandon that format and sell what sells best. Sell singles and EP's. You can have more EP launches as they are quicker to produce and you can leave off the filler tracks that make the album format seems like such poor value.

Quote Octopussy:

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People these days are multi-tasking life stylers! We watch YouTube while playing solitaire and chatting on facebook etc. We pay our utilities electricty, gas, mortgage, internet and that last one is for our entertainment. There is no coveting the purchase of an album these days and there is no time devoted to just listening to it without doing something else at the same time.

Maybe rather than trying to sell albums for a pound we should abandon that format and sell what sells best. Sell singles and EP's. You can have more EP launches as they are quicker to produce and you can leave off the filler tracks that make the album format seems like such poor value.

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I think that lumping everyone together as 'People' and assuming everyone's attention span is the same a a gnat, is a bit disingenuous.

I agree that the CD does not lend itself to the single format, and downloads filled a vacuum left by the singles market's demise. I can (barely) remember the days of my youth when the singles chart ruled, and everyone bought 7in vinyl. I don't think we were any more single minded then, we listened at a whim, and then watched cartoons, or read marvel comics and had as short an attention span as a typical 10's teenager only later in life discovering the joy of albums (and novels, and films, etc).

As someone pointed out above, there is a market for 40-something + consumers and artists - and demographically, that market is growing faster than the teen market, AND they are the ones with the little remaining disposable income left, so it does seem odd that the mainstream media and the traditional recording industry is still so romanced by the youth market that they completely fail to really make any money from.

Imagine going on Dragon's Den:

"We have this idea to make this stuff called music, and sell it. Our target market is teenagers"

"Have you researched your market?"

"Yes, extensively. None of them will buy our stuff, because it appears that the bloke up the road gives it away free"

"Have you thought about marketing it to adults? The ones with money?"

"Yes, but that's an uncool demographic, and they don't like it when we repackage what is basically the same product year-in year-out, they have this notion that quality counts, so it leaves us with less money for coke, so we'd rather still try and sell our stuff to teenagers"

"Who don't buy it anyway... Next?"

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New album 'Fantasy Bridge' available now!
Making of Fantasy Bridge Diary

Well - indeed you are right. The focus of the commercial industry is no longer "selling albums". But additionally I'm not a follower of the oft held rule that most albums are full of "filler"... In pop land I guess it becomes more obvious - if the record isn't catching all the way through then I guess you could call it filler.....

However, many moons ago we used to listen to music and "get into" the vibe of the whole record..... Still do in scenes outside of pop. Filler? Doesn't exist for me - either you like the music or you don't, but some tunes take longer than others to hit home. Many times I've read reviews of albums with comments by the reviewer of "full of filler"...... More often than not I've found that the reviewer is just looking for ear candy..... DSOTM is a great example - in modern terms an album containing ONLY filler. Filler does not exist.

Yes Narcoman, maybe you are right on the tendency of reviewers to be 'attracted' by the song with the most obviously catchy melody than a more convoluted (and probably better) one. But still, in the 80s-90s when I was in the 'business' there was a real pressure on coming up the the 9th and 10ts song to 'finish' the pop album. This was not helped by the fact that the new CD format did not feature a break, i.e. A and B side. So, unless you had an hour to dedicate to the new CD (well, if you had paid £14 you probably would have made the effort..) the last 3-4 songs did hardly ever get played (forget about the 'shuffle' mode on CD players...). The point, some of the 'last' songs were, well, just fillers (or at least the weakest songs).

Anyhow, I just dropped in to highlight a further spin on the issue as from today's The Guardian. A few musos are battling it out on the forum there too...
enjoy...

£1 CD-The Guardian

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www.bugiolacchi.com
Songwriter/guitarist

Even if he's right, and a £1 album was a low enough price point to generate impulse buys, (it's not much more than the price of a chocolate bar) where is the consumer going to be when they make this impulse buy? The record shops are gone, woolworths are gone, WHSmith don't stock CD's anymore and the supermarkets might have the top 10 or top 20 plus perhaps a bargain bucket..

The infrastructure isn't there to facilitate these impulse buys.

Quote bugiolacchi:

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the last 3-4 songs did hardly ever get played (forget about the 'shuffle' mode on CD players...). The point, some of the 'last' songs were, well, just fillers (or at least the weakest songs).

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I'm sure you are right, but to me it's just counter-intuitive, and in fact the albums that have stayed with me for the longest, those that have become my 'all-time faves' that I just go on listening to and am likely to do so forever, are those that save the STRONGEST song for the end. It's just so much more satisfying to get to the end of an album and think it's so good that you want to listen all over again.

But, most of this stuff is definitely not 'pop' and outside of the pop world, there is still a willingness to invest the time in listening, and as narco said: getting 'into it'

--------------------
New album 'Fantasy Bridge' available now!
Making of Fantasy Bridge Diary