Legitimate Alternative

last night, i didn’t have practice with mercy, and i didn’t watch the game either! i heard of our terrible loss today from a friend. Canes have to win 3 in a row now to grab the Stanley Cup. i think that’s right. ok, i hate to do this. but i’m doing it because i’m sure you won’t take the time to read the article. so here’s the part that really stuck out to me: “If you’re providing free entertainment, which is obviously what the music business is doing, then you have to figure out some way to sell advertising to the people who are paying attention to your free music. But nobody seems to have any idea how that might be done. Or you can provide stuff that’s free, and use the free stuff to promote something else of more value that people, you hope, will buy — now called the ‘legitimate alternative.’ (Putting video on the CD is one of those ideas — though, of course, you can file-share video too.) Or sell the CD at a level that makes it cheap enough to compete with free (free, after all, has its own costs for the consumer).”

did you understand all that? it costs money to make music. i don’t understand why no one understands that. Another quote: “Accordingly, costs will have to shrink. Spending a few million to launch an act will shortly be a thing of the past. (The formal catalyst of the beginning of the end of big development costs may be the Wall Street Journal’s story a few months ago that precisely accounted for the $2.2 million launch costs of a singer named Carly Hennessy, who went on to sell 378 CDs.)”

the big labels take huge gambles on releasing a new artist. in the example above, they spent so much money, but only sold 378 CDs? If my math is correct, that would place the actual cost per CD to be: $5,820.11. would you pay that much for a CD? duh, no one would. so they even the costs out between all the artists they publish for. some will not sell enough, some sell more than enough to make up for the ones who didn’t sell. some sell millions and they help to overcome some of the cost of these that don’t sell. but for some people, they think music should be free. the artists already have money so there’s no reason to purchase their CDs. i personally know 2 friends who are artists. and i’m not sure if i would be a third or not, i’ll let you figure that out. any, these two friends, Mercy and pretzelboy (check website to the left in the links) record and perform and do things, but have no means of quitting their day job. how do you think artists get money? it’s just given to them for the hell of it? i recently paid $35 dollars for a single CD. a friend asked me to make a copy of it for him. i refused. i go to record stores and buy $20 dollars worth of CDs from the dollar bin. i come away with a bag full of music, and i’m still helping to promote the artist. each word is a link here (durnit i ran outta links 😉 )