Wow

Also tough is that the other people involved in the production also need to be paid - engineers, etc.

Streaming audio pays next to nothing for the music they play - but they are squeezed as they also receive little ad revenue in comparison to the number of plays.

Jaron Lanier's book 'You Are Not A Gadget' challenges the whole "web 2.0/streaming/end of record companies/music is free" argument pretty effectively.

As an open source kinda guy, I've lately noticed that the new model of music making/recording/performing isn't working out the way I thought it would. We are not, as far as I can tell, seeing loads of musicians able to make decent livings operating as indies.

I really, really, really disliked the old record industry and was rooting for a brave new world. I'm still waiting.

s.

Funny how there is no mention of self-sponsored downloads, i.e. legal paid downloads via a musician run site ala Dave Douglas's Greenleaf music. Based on the fact that a self pressed generates the highest percentage of revenue for the artist I would imagine that an artist run/sponsored download service would also generate a higher percentage of revenue from downloads.

And BTW the "brave new world" is already here (bit-torrents, file hosting sites, newsgroups, etc.) but the music industry is still holding onto to their outdated and money losing business model.

I agree with Jazzfan. If I was an artist that is what I would be doing, but there is a huge problem....getting that initial audience who knows who you are and wants your music.

I just read Andy Williams autobiography...all right, when the laguhing subsides I'll continue.....

It is a very telling and revealing account of his life and the struggles of trying to make it as a solo act. This is even when boy singers were very popular to record labels with the likes of Sinatra, Martin, Bennett and that whole group. The ratty hotels, sorry clubs with owners who did not pay and trying to just find a club that would give you a chance, moving from city to city as money would dictate.

Probably not much has changed in that regard, but the need to be heard and "discovered" is critical to making it in the music business and now with the internet and Youtube the market is covered 10 times, overloaded with music, most of it very bad. An artist must find a way to drive through all the garbage and get someone, anyone just to listen to you.

I would think one must start on a regional basis and just "club" that area to death in hopes that enough find "your music" interesting enough to want to own. But, once that happens the business model Jazzfan describes can work with self-burned and labeled cds made in yor home studio and with downloads and CDs available off your webpage. Now if you sell a CD for $10 you can keep $9, as it proably should be.

The initial problem is still the same whether it is 1955 or 2010...getting heard, recognized, and a demand created for your art. The hard part of that is just the same as it was for Andy Williams...it is not genre specific.

Andy Williams was quite successful and it took a while, but the beginning of his career was filled with times when he was broke and wondering where his next gig was coming from. What I find most interesting is that he was in his career so much more popular in Europe that here in the U.S. ( and he was very popular here with his own TV show for years) and his last two albums, Greatest Love Classics (lyrics set to well loved classical music) and Close Enough for love, both very well recorded and greatly received in Europe, but less so here. The ironic thing he figured out was that the same people who did not necessarily buy his CDs any more would drive all the way to Branson, MO at much greater expense to attend a live show.

I am glad he figured out the new business model. And I am just as glad that he and the likes of Tony Bennett keep thrilling their audiences for well past 50 decades.

If a group just wants to do "their music" in hopes it catches on, that might be a rougher road to work, but it still can. Product differentiation is the same for the music business as it is in consumer products. I am not sure we need another brand of paper towels or toilet paper. Make yourself fresh, new, with great musicianship, and well recorded (this part for me would be the key to product differentiation...reduce the amount of compression and limiting) and someone just might make it doing what they love to do.

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Here's an interesting link laying out what an artist makes by selling music in various formats and forums-

http://flowingdata.com/2010/06/04/how-little-musicians-earn-online/

and here's an interesting link showing just how misleading the link you supplied is-

http://freshspectrum.com/2010/06/04/crit...nline%E2%80%9D/

Although to be fair it looks to me like their case is mostly against the size of the circles, that said the data relating to sales/profit for artists from these sites is pretty well known.
Unfortunately I think labels/record artists are locked in the past when there was just radio and a limited amount of excellent stations that most listened to.

In response to how little musicians make from online sales, in a way the internet has invigorated sales for some that have managed to get high visibility from some tv/radio programme but possibly without committed interest from a label.
Case in point is Gimell Records and The Tallis Scholars, who I think also offer a few hi rez surround sound downloads.
http://gimell.com/

Also we have Linn Records that has done wonders for some artists and their software is used by Gimell (I think).
So this may not be mainstream, but it looks to be possible that the internet with traditional CDs can provide a stable revenue for those that may need it the most.

Cheers
Orb

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Back when I was part of running an in-house label, CD sales at our concert outstripped all other forms of sales combined, usually by a factor of 10 or more.

So true. In our remote burg the local middle school has the only auditorium/theater in the county. The local arts council does a good job of getting top notch acts from all vocal and acoustical music disciplines to stop over on their way to more lucrative venues. For 10 years I helped set up the site for the concerts. One of the most important requests from the artists were the placement of the sales tables. They would not relax until we had everything set up to their liking.

Jim,

Thanks for the info on Andy Williams autobiography. I ordered a used copy from Amazon marketplace along with 3 used CDs and 1 new but very discounted CD.

I find that I am quite willing to buy a used CD that is of marginal interest at Amazon used prices. At normal new CD prices, I'm increasingly reluctant to buy much.

MP3 downloads are great for buying a "one hit wonder" song.

As a consumer, I am quite clear about how I want to buy and how much I'm willing to pay.

Bill

While that is certainly nothing to shout about, there is at least one aspect to this that falls in an artist's favor. It is that smaller / more esoteric artists are now able to find an audience and self-publish, whereas this was difficult to impossible before the advent of an online community.

http://www.negativland.com/albini.html

I also buy alot of used cds, except the new Jeff Beck's E&C and Mary Chapin Carpenter's The Age of Miracles were new. There are some great bargains to be had being frugal.

You will find Andy's book very revealing as he holds nothing back and tells some things I am surprised he released. I find his honesty refreshing, his music enjoyable, and glad he is happy later in life.

I do wish he had gotten better engineering support as the use of the Aphex Aural Exciter I find detracted from the quality of his voice and recordings he has done over the years. I wish Al Schmitt had been his engineer. Andy is quite a bit older. I find the engineering quality of Frank Sinatra's and Tony Bennett's recordings more to my taste, just a great voices presented cleanly.

Tony Bennett has actually made a cd with K.D. Lang: A Wonderful World, which is not bad at all

Try the Art of Excellence from TB. A great disc.

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http://www.negativland.com/albini.html

Thanks very much for posting this link, ncdrawl. You can find some thoughts of my own on CD pricing at http://www.stereophile.com/asweseeit/578/ .

John Atkinson
Editor, Stereophile

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The problem is that very few of the tens of thousands of CDs released every year sell as many as 300,000. Most classical CDs sell less than 3000.

Are you suggesting that any of the big five media companies would spend 100K or more to produce a classical album with the expectation of only (3000 X $6.50 wholesale) $19,500.00 in return?

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The problem is that very few of the tens of thousands of CDs released every year sell as many as 300,000. Most classical CDs sell less than 3000.

Are you suggesting that any of the big five media companies would spend 100K or more to produce a classical album with the expectation of only (3000 X $6.50 wholesale) $19,500.00 in return?

Yes, that was the case until the turn of the century, because a small proportion of classical releases would either sell in such large numbers in their first year on-sale or would become steady sellers over a long period of time that their profit would outweigh the losses on all the other recordings. The problem for the companies was that they just couldn't predict which would be the money-making recordings. However, there was so much money sloshing around at the major labels that as long as some releases more than earned back their investment, no-one was bothered too much.

That model started to break at the end of the 1990s and is almost completely broken now. Which is why you see so many classical releases recorded live or on the orchestra's own label, where the costs can be set against general operating expense. Or you have Naxos, where the label pays very little to lease the master.

My info on classical sales, BTW, came from one of the USA's major distributors when we were negotiating for them to buy the Schwann Guides from Stereophile in 1997. And 3000 was the average, meaning that many classical releases, I was told, sell less than 1000 units in their first year - worldwide!
John Atkinson
Editor, Stereophile

Absolutely fascinating. Many thanks for your in depth reply.

If I may...

A little Googling indicates very few Classical gold records (500K).

Could you indicate your understanding of "large numbers" sales for classical titles?

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Absolutely fascinating. Many thanks for your in depth reply.

You're welcome, rgibran.

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Could you indicate your understanding of "large numbers" sales for classical titles?

>100k, which I believe is how many copies have been sold of the 1963 recording of the Allegri Misere with David Willcocks conducting and a young Roy Goodman as the featured boy treble.

John Atkinson
Editor, Stereophile
(also once a boy treble, who made his performing debut in Messiah 50 years ago)

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That model started to break at the end of the 1990s and is almost completely broken now.

I've read (I can't remember where) that the Three Tenors album and Yo-Yo Ma's cross-over albums of that late 1990's era also helped break the model. It set the bar so high and led to the whole cross-over genre thing. Record companies classified these mega-hits and wanna-be-mega-hits as real classical releases, which were subsequently pushed to the side.

Have you heard any truth to that hypothesis?

I haven't heard anything along those lines, but I wouldn't be surprised to find out that it had some validity.

Another factor is that it get harder and harder in the US to find classical CDs for sale. I buy almost everything from Amazon these days. I was brought up short in London last month when I went, as always to Foyle's bookshop on the Charing Cross Road, and encountered large classical and jazz CD sections, with deep catalog of the kind you haven't been able to find at a mainstream store in NY for years.

John Atkinson
Editor, Stereophile