Dec 19, 2021·edited Dec 19, 2021Liked by James Hennessy
Re: the link in the round-up about the inability to get a vinyl record pressed.
This seems to raise real questions about the value of a major label record contract to an artist. The initial appeal of signing to a major label during the "golden age" (roughly 1955 - 1995) of the record industry was some combination of:
- Getting paid an advance up-front to cover recording costs.
- Marketing you as an artist.
- Distribution of physical records.
Over time the costs of recording professional sounding music has become smaller and smaller to the point where someone who knows what they are doing could record an entire album in their living room and have it sound pretty good. This largely negates the need for an advance from a label to cover studio time, or other recording costs.
Similarly the tools for marketing have become easier to access for artists directly. Most artists who make the jump to any kind of international success have already built up a significant following on social media before a label gets involved. Someone like Lil Nas X comes to mind, he's signed to a major label now but by the time Columbia got involved the guy had already done most of the "zero to one" work himself on twitter.
This leaves just the physical distribution as an advantage of being on a major. Anyone can record something and spend a few bucks getting it on Spotify but pressing up a large quantity of vinyl records is still really hard to do. Physical sales numbers are tiny compared to streaming but given the fatter margins in physical records compared to streaming they can still represent a major income stream for any artist. Galaxie 500's Damon Kurkowski (who wrote the newsletter) also made this point in a great Pitchfork article a few years ago[1] that "Pressing 1,000 singles in 1988 gave us the earning potential of more than 13 million streams in 2012."
If you're now being told that you can't get a record pressed because there are still 3 billion Adele albums to be done before you, you'd have to start wondering why you're splitting your already anemic streaming royalties with a major label. What is the advantage to the artists?
Re: the link in the round-up about the inability to get a vinyl record pressed.
This seems to raise real questions about the value of a major label record contract to an artist. The initial appeal of signing to a major label during the "golden age" (roughly 1955 - 1995) of the record industry was some combination of:
- Getting paid an advance up-front to cover recording costs.
- Marketing you as an artist.
- Distribution of physical records.
Over time the costs of recording professional sounding music has become smaller and smaller to the point where someone who knows what they are doing could record an entire album in their living room and have it sound pretty good. This largely negates the need for an advance from a label to cover studio time, or other recording costs.
Similarly the tools for marketing have become easier to access for artists directly. Most artists who make the jump to any kind of international success have already built up a significant following on social media before a label gets involved. Someone like Lil Nas X comes to mind, he's signed to a major label now but by the time Columbia got involved the guy had already done most of the "zero to one" work himself on twitter.
This leaves just the physical distribution as an advantage of being on a major. Anyone can record something and spend a few bucks getting it on Spotify but pressing up a large quantity of vinyl records is still really hard to do. Physical sales numbers are tiny compared to streaming but given the fatter margins in physical records compared to streaming they can still represent a major income stream for any artist. Galaxie 500's Damon Kurkowski (who wrote the newsletter) also made this point in a great Pitchfork article a few years ago[1] that "Pressing 1,000 singles in 1988 gave us the earning potential of more than 13 million streams in 2012."
If you're now being told that you can't get a record pressed because there are still 3 billion Adele albums to be done before you, you'd have to start wondering why you're splitting your already anemic streaming royalties with a major label. What is the advantage to the artists?
Of all people, American jazz critic Ted Goia seems to have the most clear headed vision of where the music industry is going when these types of questions are asked: https://tedgioia.substack.com/p/12-predictions-for-the-future-of
[1] - https://pitchfork.com/features/article/8993-the-cloud/ (I'll leave the inflation between 2012 and 2021 for someone else to calculate, but I imagine the point still stands.)