Real Indie Music only! Advise to Recording Labels

Real Indie Music only (recorded, released and owned by the artist). The Power of the internet gives the recording labels a Black eye every day, as they shove their crap in the faces of the public and then think that the we’re too stupid to understand what is going on. Major, Minor and all the way down to mom & pop Records, don’t help artist to make a living. All they are looking for is to make as much money off of the Artists’ work as they can and John Kennedy’s own words proves it.

“Record companies have to get a return, and the people in between need big investments. One of the unfortunate things with the way the music market has gone is that companies spent all this money but only took a return on one stream, the recorded stream. And now the 360 degree model, which is a necessity of the current market, means that artists will have to share all these streams to get the investment. But that’s always a healthy choice – they can do it, or not do it.”

Well what Mr. Kennedy is telling us, is the labels not only want all the money the artist would make from selling their recorded music, they also want all the money when an Artist does a live performance and from the sales of merchandise i.e. Concert T’s.

The recording industry is the only industry were they own the copyright on the sound recording of an artist. But, then charge the cost to make the recording, all the promotion, packaging, manufacturing cost and all the administration cost back to the artist (It breaks down generally like this: 9% to 15% on 100% of sales for the Producer (whom is employed and paid by the label a salary), 6% to 10% on 100% of sales for the Recording engineer (whom is paid a salary by the studio, the studios are typically owned by the labels using a holding companies), 6% to 10% on 100% of sales for the mastering engineer, 3% to 5% on 100% of sales per writer per song (most of whom the artist never worked with or even say (the artist that writes their own songs are even charged this royalty that they never see as their label typically also owns the publishing company that published their work), 15% to 20% on 100% sells for packaging, 25% on 100% of sells for promotion, 30% on 100% of sells for rights and royalty administration fees, the artist by contract will be listed as 20% to 35% on 60% to 80% of sales. Then comes the payback schedule (studio cost recovery charge, Music Video Production recovery charge, contract advance loan repayment charge, advance payment loan interest (normally at a 22% to 35% rate), then there in the royalty statement double deduction for everything. In the end the artist always owes the label money). In the end everyone gets paid but, the artist. Now, the labels want a sizable chunk of all live performance money and of the artists’ merchandizing sales too. And they’re saying if you don’t like it too bad.

One of my favorite quotes is this one:

“I never made enough money from my records to be able to buy anything. I made everyone else really wealthy and I never saw a dime … so that’s life. That’s why I took off eight years. I made millions of dollars for the songwriters, the record company and everyone else who had a piece of me… and the artist has to rent – it’s a sin.” – Alannah Myles.

The music the record labels are shoveling out these days is tripe trash. We hate it the first time we hear it but, they cram their crap into everything and over time it’s not that we hate it any less we just become accustomed to hearing it but, we still don’t go out and buy it.

If the music industry want to survive I’ll give them some pointers:

1. move all digital downloaded music to a lossless format and make the format s standard. (i.e. FLAC or Applelossless (We don’t care but, pick one for the industry make it a worldwide standard and stick to it and insist on the music being delivered to the customer in that format. The MP3 manufactures will support it and welcome it with open arms.))

2. we want DRM – Free ONLY. Subscription Music is a waste of everyone’s time. It’s over and done with and it failed let it go and start working on business that works.

3. we want really good artists, that make really good music. The Labels’ producers and engineers need to stop dictating & manipulating what the artist does on the recordings and just record what the artist is producing and stop attempting to make the artist fit into the suite you want them to wear it doesn’t work.

4. we want the artist to get fair and reasonable contracts from the labels, because fair and reasonable contracts attract better artists and better artist mean better music. And here’s a news flash for the labels if you’re selling Music by good artists we’ll buy them. (i.e. The label is getting ownership of the artists recorded work, therefore the label needs to pay for that recording fairly and stop stealing the artists’ work, they need to pay for the promotion and they needed to pay all the costs, plus they need to pay the artist a fair royalty rate on 100% of all the recorded works that the labels sell and not just 80% of it of less).

5. Invest honest money in A&R and stop just trying to crank out the same formula music with just different artists names. We’re tired of the Britney, JayZ, …. formulas. It just doesn’t work. The labels need to stop trying to make celebrities and focus on the business of music from a wide variety of artists and styles.

6. The labels destroyed their physical retail channel a few years back and now they are trying to do it to their digital channel too. I have one word and a statement on the subject. STOP! Treat all the retailers fairly and equally, let the customers pick the retailer they want to use. The product that all the retailers are selling must be the same and it must be of the highest quality (see #1). The customer in the end is going to make the choice no matter what the labels do to try and change it. The labels need to make the call establish a solid strong online channel or let free P2P replace them. At this point the choice is still theirs to make.

7. The labels have tremendous value in their back catalogs or recordings and Music Videos. But, most of it will never see the light of day again. I’m an old fart myself and I have 3.5 to 5 thousand major label CD’s and records and 5 to 8 thousand minor label CDs and records and another 8 to 9 thousand indie CDs and tapes. I can digital encode all the CDs, tapes and records, which I’m slowly doing into a lossless format or I could and can afford to just buy them in digital format. I would spend the money to do that were possible but, 256kbs MP3’s sound like crap on my stereo and even on my iPod. Like I said, I’m and old fart, and the on-line retailers don’t sell much if any of the music I’m looking for in digital format, iTunes comes the closes and it’s the easiest to search and even browse.

8. Like most music fans my music collect spans worldwide and my CDs are releases from all over the world it’s time that the labels removed the artificial copyright barriers that they created when they were attempting to stop, control and earn extra profits from the importation of CD’s. Today is a global economy and if the labels stick to the regionalization that they themselves created it will slowly choke them them on the internet because the internet has no artificial borders and no limits on who trades what with whom. Move into the modern economy of die.

EMI’s Guy Hands has the right plan and I’m glad to see the IPFI chief John Kennedy understands it. As he said, “So what Guy Hands is doing is absolutely right in pruning, and you need that expertise.”

Guy Hands plans to prune the expense of the IPFI and RIAA membership fee vacuums right out of EMI’s wallet. Once EMI does it the other major labels will follow suit. With UMG being the last to holdout. John Kennedy and Mitch Bainwol should be checking out the want ads now, as their big money (million + dollar) jobs at the IPFI and RIAA are going to an end. Tell UMG to turn off the lights when they leave.

Let the pruning commence! I love to see over paid executive, who know their asses are headed to the chopping block, start talking all kinds of trash. They know the end is near and the gravy train is running dry so, they start telling everyone off. Like the unwashed, stealing, lying, cheating customers who paid for their big house and fancy car, plus countless kilos of cocaine and hookers. The Customers are so heartless and ungreatfull.

So, it looks like I’ll be ripping my music collection for some time to come. The music buyers need to telegraph there dislike for the labels and their trade associations’ whining. How you say, well it’s called supporting the indie artists year, which by luck happens to be 2008. Take the pledge that in 2008 you will only purchase and listen to music from independent recording artists.