Posts Tagged: record labels

Flintsone Vitamins / Information — No Comments
22
Sep 08

My Open Letter to Record Labels

Dear Mr. Record Label Guy,

I have noticed that you have been scrambling since 2000 trying to figure out how the internet works, but the answer is right in front of your face. Instead of trying to put file sharers and bloggers in jail, you need to take advantage of what’s going on in cyberspace.

For those of you not familiar with the subscription model, this is the napster/limewire like service where you pay x-amount of dollars per month for unlimited access to mp3 files. Now throw streaming internet radio into the mix (i.e. pandora, last fm, etc.) and you have yet another outlet that is reaching millions of listeners daily. As everyone knows (except for you suits), first week record sales are no longer important nor do they measure the success of an artist (just ask Usher or Mariah). A new system needs to be put in place for artists. Album sales probably won’t exist anymore in the near future so you’re going to have to start thinking of how revenue can be made by cutting deals with different services while using albums as promotional tools (just ask Prince or Radiohead). I think it’s obvious that listeners don’t want to pay for music unless there is some sort of benefit/product that is being offered. So please, wake up and smell the hard drive (pause) and start putting some thought into these artist’s future instead of throwing a bunch of crap at the wall and seeing what sticks.

Sincerely,

Fresh

Information — No Comments
11
Aug 08

Five Reasons MP3 Blogs Could Be the Next Record Labels

1. They have the audience.
2. Fans already think of them as tastemakers.
3. They have lots of experiencing in judging new music.
4. They can submit songs to digital distribution networks such as IODA, The Orchard, IRIS, Tunecore and so on, just like anyone else can.
5. Or, by selling music directly from the blog, they can collect a higher percentage of revenue than would be available through iTunes and other outlets.

Read the rest of this interesting article over at Wired….

 

Information — No Comments
14
Jul 08

Vinyl Lives

By Ed Christman

NEW YORK (Billboard) – It may have seemed like a fad at first, but the resurgence of vinyl is now turning into a nice niche business for the major labels. With EMI’s announcement that it would reissue eight classic albums in the format, all four majors are now onboard the vinyl bandwagon.

EMI will release two Coldplay albums, four Radiohead titles and Steve Miller’s “Greatest Hits” on August 19. Universal Music Enterprises will release 20 albums on vinyl this month and an additional 20 at the end of August, while Warner Music Group will issue 24 to 30 albums from its catalog and 10 to 12 new releases from September through the end of the year, according to executives at those companies.

In the independent camp, RED labels will have several hundred vinyl titles by the end of the year, half of which are new releases, RED vice president of indie sales/marketing Doug Wiley said. One of RED’s labels, Metal Blade, is reissuing its classic Slayer catalog in deluxe versions, all on colored vinyl with hand-designed blood splatterings on it, Wiley said.

Indie retail started the party, but now some of the chains are carrying vinyl too. In addition to Fred Meyer and Borders, Best Buy has said publicly that it will experiment with carrying LPs.

EMI Music Catalog vice president of A&R and creative Jane Ventom said that the company has always been into vinyl, “but we are getting more into it.” She said the move is in response to consumer demand from the iPod generation, baby boomers and audiophiles.

“Music is becoming a social action again,” Ventom said. “The kids are now listening to music with their mates instead of on headphones.” She added that vinyl allows them to “hear music in its true form.”

“People are going back to reliving the way they used to listen to music and they realize that they missed the (album cover) artwork and what a pleasurable listening experience it is,” Ventom said.