“The lobby of the Sony building in New York is 70-feet high and heavy with music business ambience – gold records, photographs and the ‘Sony Shop of New Technology’. Upstairs, the main reception is like the lounge of an exclusive club. Young people, dreaming of stardom, stand in wonder breathing in the atmosphere, looking at memorabilia – platinum CDs, photos of stars, framed press reports, Billboard charts. For an aspiring artist or manager, just to step into the building is a thrill. The impression is of a corporation dedicated to the success of its artists, almost altruistic in its understanding of their needs,” Simon Napier-Bell writes for The Observer Music Monthly.
MacDailyNews Note: Simon Napier-Bell has spent over 40 years in the music industry a producer, songwriter, and manager of The Yardbirds, John’s Children, Marc Bolan, Tyrannosaurus Rex, Japan, London, Wham!, Blue Mercedes, and many others.
Napier-Bell continues, “Yet it’s nothing but a flytrap. Artists go there dreaming of being signed. But out of every 10 signed nine will fail. A contract with a major record company was always a 90 per cent guarantee of failure. In the boardroom the talk was never of music, only of units sold. Artists were never the product; the product was discs – 10 cents’ worth of vinyl selling for $10 – 10,000 per cent profit – the highest mark-up in all of retail marketing. Artists were simply an ingredient, without even the basic rights of employees.”
“For 50 years the major labels have thought of themselves as guardians of the music industry; in fact they’ve been its bouncers. Getting into the club used to be highly desirable. Now it doesn’t matter any more,” Napier-Bell writes.
For artists and managers, this is the moment to take things into their own hands. Artists no longer need to be held for 10 years and they no longer need to sign away ownership of their recorded copyrights. These days, an artist working closely with his manager can ensure that everything is done in the artist’s best interest. Majors have never done that. And never will,” Napier-Bell writes.
Much, much more in the full article, which about the music industry and, although the company is never mentioned, obliquely about Apple here.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “Data Potato” for the heads up.]
careening instead of careering
I like the record industry. The way they get behind a marvelous talent like Britney Spears is awesome. I also like MTV. The way they drum up controversy with manufactured lesbian kisses between artists is super entertaining too. Great job! Another shout out goes to radio. When you put Britney or Fergie in heavy rotation that tells me “Hey, if ‘Fergalicious’ is on 3 times every hour, I should buy it.” What’s cool is I don’t have to waste time exploring other music when radio tells me what’s good. Thanks, radio! BTW the Zune has a radio.
Your potential. Our passion.™
According to the dictionary that ships with OS X, “careen” and “career” have roughly the same meaning. There might be something poetic about that….
Nothing new there, Indie labels in almost every case is just as bad as the Major labels when it goes to paying the artist. I seen and have copies of recording contracts that date back to 1975 from major labels and indie labels. They all have some common contract scam double talk in them designed to let them seal the artist blind.
Most people that only a handful of artist get any type of monetary credit for digital download sales. And no artist get’s any monetary credit for Music Subscripting services. Because the contracts are all based on sells of a physical product.
Evanescence, Paramore, U2, and a few other get royalty monetary credits for digital sales from stores like iTunes but only at a rate lower then the rate paid on physical media. Which makes no senses, until you findout that the artist under contract is paying for the manufacturing cost of that CD plus a health profit.
Is recording label contracts fair? Not even close. The Artist is charged for everything by the label and the label owns the artist’s work forever. Does the whole worldwide music industry (i.e. The Labels) need major government oversight and regulation? Perhaps, but, what should happen is the back catalogs of Music, Videos, and recorded performances that they own because of these contracts all need to be turned to the artists’ without stings. This should be forced by the WIPO and going forward music labels ownership of an artist’s work should be limited to a maximum of 36 months or 36 days if the artist pays the recording and production costs or if the production costs are recovered by the label from the artist in any way. If the label charges the artist a Packaging %, Promotion% or for anything then the artist is entitled to bill that cost back to the label at a rate not to exceed 300% but at not less then 150%. Artists should be entitled to a higher royalty rate for digital downloads as no costs are incurred by the labels, Artists should be entitled to a reoccurring royalty from subscription download services equal to twice that of a normal purchase download.
The Music Labels will be around forever even if they have no new releases as they’ll keep making money from the catalogs of recordings that they own. The only group in the world with enough clout to change it is the WIPO. But, as the music industry and movie industry are in deep control of the WIPO I see nothing changing anytime soon.
My proof reader in on vacation
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The music industry needs Bruce Dickenson to come out of retirement.
“Easy guys, I put my pants on just the like te rest of yous, one leg at a time. Except, once my pants are on, I make Gold records.”
Dickenson…” Babies, before we’re done here, ya’ll be wearing gold plated diapers!”
What?? Nothing about the ARTIFICIAL CONSTRUCT, MDN??
Careen was a term used by the 18th century British Navy. They would careen ships: haul them over on their sides to remove barnacles and such. Go to Nelson’s Dockyard in Antigua.
“One man’s crap is another man’s treasure.”
Maybe. But you sure as hell don’t want to invite one of them over for dinner.
Minor point but since someone took issue with me over my “crap” statement above, I would point out that the only band he mentions by name as being “his” is … Japan!?!
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” . . . is the fact that the majority of *pop* music today is absolute crap.”
And yet, Britney continues to pull in $700,000 A MONTH. Some things will never make sense to me.
@ Gregg Thurman – I can think of one other industry/company that can be as abusive to its employees if you get on the wrong side of it, and definitely disrespects its customers at least as badly as the music industry does – Microsoft.
@ falkirk – I’m also with the spirit of the article, but if time is money then I can tell you from personal experience that the cost of the media is a tiny fraction of all of the real expenses that are actually incurred in a professional recording project, not to mention the cost of managing a person or groups touring schedule which, if you want to sell music, online or in the store, you’ve got to have some kind of regular touring schedule.
Still the point is made that, given the number units that a record company used to be able to sell versus the amount actually charged per unit to the end user has always been very high. With vinyl recordings, and even more so when CD’s came out, this industry could have easily sold their wares for half the cost or less with CD’s and still made money for themselves and their artists hand-over-fist.
To SpellCheck et al.:
Let’s eschew obfuscation and espouse elucidation.
Careering:
verb [ intrans. ]
move swiftly and in an uncontrolled way in a specified direction : the car careered across the road and went through a hedge.
Highly recommended viewing for anyone who’s a musician is the following Interview of “the King of the Suft-Guitar” Dick Dale:
or the tinyurl version:
http://tinyurl.com/24zsr4
Mr. Dale gives absolutely PRICELESS advice on the music industry. This should be required viewing for everyone.
IRONICALLY, the MDM Magic word is: “music”!!!
— Hano
“Careering” is mostly used by the Brits, of whom Mr. Napier-Bell is one. It’s used correctly here as has been noted, but most Americans have never heard it used this way.
@ByeTakeCare
“I got a fever, and the prescription is more cowbell.” That’s what the music biz needs.
@Shen
No, you don’t.
The gov’t is not a business, despite what right-wing dipshits have tried to do. I work for the Treasury Dept, and we are treated decently, thanks mainly due to our powerful union. And we are more productive and efficient than the privatized fuckers that the republick party has foisted upon us.
The record industry should have always been more distinct from the music industry. The music industry is alive and well and always will be for artists that make sweet music. The riff and the raff will keep their day jobs. Record and CD publishers can no longer stand as a costly barrier between talented artists and their audience nor can they continue to foist mediocrity into our music collections. Soon, I hope, they will lose control of the airwaves, too.
I was pleasantly surprised that the writer of the headline knew the less common meaning of “careering” rather than leaning on the oft-misused “careening”. A couple of the commenters seem unaware of this difference.
Major record companies almost exclusively blame their falling CD sales on legal and illegal downloads. I think while this may be true to a certain extent, even if downloading did not exist, the CD market would have been headed down.
And it’s not solely because the music is bad. There’s some pretty good music out there.
No, the problem is that music is no longer the focus of today’s generations, no longer the touchstone, if you will, around which their lives revolve.
If you talk about the 60s and 70s, everything revolved around music. The politics, the protests, the social norms, the fashion, the spiritual pursuits – everything was done to a soundtrack.
Today, it would be difficult to find anyone who says his or her life revolves around what Justin Timberlake, Jay Z or even U2 sing or rap about.
Back in the 50s and 60s, people went out to see movies, sports and/or live music. That’s about all there was.
In the city, some people went to restaurants, where there was always a piano trio, and sometimes even a floor show.
Those days have gone.