May 7, 2010 The music industry is financially healthy. I will pay you to prove me wrong…
As part of my job, since 2006, I have processed and saved almost every statistic related to the music industry; many of them I now post in MTT Stats (I am a few months behind). Moreover I talk to a ton of people around the industry, and I ask just as many questions pertaining to the business side of this industry.
Since I am pressed for time these days, here’s a financial incentive to do my work for me: The first person to definitively prove, with a verifiable fact, the statement I make in the next paragraph, I will PayPal you $100. This offer will never expire.
Globally, over the last 365 days, for all genres combined, for all artists that started performing live in the 60s, 70s, 80s, 90, and 00s, cumulatively, there is more revenue being generated from live performances, combined with selling stuff (merch, music, apps, advertising slots, streams, licensing, publishing, etc.), than any other year in the history of the world. Moreover the graph of this number is sloping up and not down.
If we could prove or disprove the paragraph above, what would it tell us? It tells me that the big picture looks far better than the cynics would have you believe, and on the negative side…it tells me I am mistaken.
Read this quote from ASCAP (May 6th, 2010 via Hypebot)
“ASCAP reported that in 2009 collections rose to $995 million for its 380,000 members paying out more than $863 million. That’s up from $819 million in 2008 and $741 in 2007. Foreign revenue grew to nearly $302 million.”
“Music is performed more often, in more places, in more ways by more businesses than ever before. That expanded music use, combined with dramatic ASCAP Membership growth, market share increases and effective strategic management have led to stunning revenue and distribution growth for 2009,” said ASCAP CEO John LoFrumento. “Looking to 2010 and beyond, our challenge is to obtain fair rates for the increasingly valuable public performance right over Internet and wireless devices.”
Yes, for every positive news story, there is a negative news release that’s put out by the recorded music industry. If you focus on the sale of recorded music, the sky may be falling a bit (and that’s overstated); if you focus on the big picture, the music industry is more financially sound than ever, and the size of the pie is growing…not shrinking.
Reader Comments (43)
I'd be interested to know how much of ASCAP's increased revenue might be due to more aggressive collecting rather than expanded use of music, particularly live music, in venues. It would be interesting to see where the increases have come from.
I think most of us agree that there is more music than ever. And if you include everything that runs through Apple (e.g., hardware, music-making applications, games) and all the videos uploaded on YouTube, etc., you are going to see a lot of music-related consumption. I think in time every mobile device will come with the technology to allow everyone to do something musical. In other words, every mobile device will factor into the music economy because every mobile device will be a music player, a music mixer, an instrument, a game player, etc.
But most of the money generated from these music tools will not result in a living wage for most musicians.
It's similar to publishing. There is a vast amount of content online. More than ever. And more than most of us can possibly consume. But that doesn't mean most people are making money from that content. They are likely to have traditional jobs that continue to pay their bills which allow them to upload all of the content they create for free.
It's the economics of abundance in music which I think will change things. When music is everywhere and is free or relatively cheap, then you can use your money to pay for your health insurance, your housing, your food, your college bills, etc. You've got to factor in one's total cost of living. If other expenses rise and music costs less, people will spend where they must spend.
Let me elaborate even further on my vision for the future. Music popularity will flood the world with music. Everyone will be creating it. Everyone will be uploading it. Everyone will be looking for places to play, which means that venue operators won't have to pay them much, if at all.
In addition, there will be a multitude of other entertainment options for consumers to spend their money on. So what money they continue to spend on entertainment will not necessarily go to music.
There may be some money to be made in filtering out the glut of music, but that won't benefit most music creators.
So when you talk about the music industry being financially healthy, for whom? And for how long? I have to believe that competition at all levels, and from all sectors, will keep music income in check. If consumers' paychecks aren't growing, I don't see where the money will come from to grow the music industry.
Suzanne. I have to run out (to a paid live music event). I will revisit this weekend. Your pitch above is the same thing we hear everywhere. "will not result in a living wage for most musicians." dot, dot, dot. dot. Please reread my paragraph above. You don't even come close (in my mind) to invalidating what I stated. Not even sure that you tried? I thought it was obvious that the "revenue" mentioned was going to artists and rightsholders.
As far as royalties go, did you read this in Billboard today?
http://www.billboard.biz/bbbiz/content_display/industry/e3i0b2233969ec82f2cb7e1f62db878797b
@Suzanne
Awesome points, a really good supplement to the original article. There's a lot to think about there, thank you.
No, I didn't try to answer your question. If anything, I was saying that depending on how you measured the music industry, you could definitely argue that it is booming. If, for example, you treat Apple and everything it does, and YouTube and everything it does, as part of the music industry then yes, as they grow, music-related income gets bigger. We will get to a point where there will be no difference between a cellphone and a music receiver/player/creation device so it can be legitimately argued that they are all part of the greater music industry.
As for the PROs (e.g., ASCAP, BMI, SESAC) it will be interesting to see how that all sorts itself out. The anti-copyright folks seem to argue against their existence because the PROs limit how and where music can be played for free.
The really big question is not whether the music industry is growing, or whether anyone can make a living in music, but whether or not each of us can make enough doing anything to adequately cover our bills. If everyone made enough money doing something to cover life's necessities, and still had enough free time to do some music on the side, then earning a living at music wouldn't be much of an issue. As long as your financial needs are covered and you're not doing a day job that you hate, then your music doesn't necessarily have to be a profitable venture.
Let's look at Nashville. A lot of music-related venues have been hit. Musicians have lost equipment. They have lost homes. At this point, it probably makes no sense to try to separate out the music parts of the loss with the overall losses in the lives of those who live there. Music is fundamental to that city, but the priority will be in cleaning up the damage.
Similarly when fuel prices go up, it hits touring musicians very hard. And it also hits their fans who maybe can't afford to come to the shows. So finding a way to lower energy costs helps music.
If we can find a way to pay for schools, then we can perhaps save some of the music programs that are being cut.
Looking at the macro picture, music is so tied into our lives in so many ways that whatever we can do to improve the financial standing of everyone in whatever ways, it will filter down to musicians.
For example, if you want me to spend more on music, find a way to lower my health insurance bill, which is my single biggest monthly expense. Find ways to increase my discretionary spending and some of it will go into music-related purchases.
I won't try to disprove your assertion (surprise?), because I'm sure you've done your homework - plus, I've seen some of the stats and I know the trends.
But we all know that there are lies, damn lies etc.
The big question isn't how much money is coming in, but where is it going?
I'd much rather see statistics that only included new artists - that emerged, say, within the last five years. How much revenue are they generating? How many of them are there and what are their earning tiers? What are the trends in this area?
There are two issues we have to keep in mind when discussing the situation on the music market: catalog items and heritage acts. Both are significant drivers of music revenue. This is great for the artists involved, but has profound implications for the future. As long as the music of the past is making up the difference, as it were, we're living on borrowed time. Eventually, the heritage acts will stop touring and people will have their fill of the oldies - do we have a steady supply of equal-calibre artists? I have my doubts and artist development spending is down.
Ultimately, it boils down to how much people will spend on music and what music will they spend it on.
I'd also like to add a quick comment on what Suzanne is saying. The issue isn't so much the continued abundance of music: I see no problem with that, but with maintaing a certain social aspect associated with popular music thus far.
While some people have little love for superstars, it seems to me fairly obvious that they serve an important role. Music works best when it is shared (in the awareness sense) - when we all know the same songs and artists. The majority of music that is and will be made will lack this wide social context. As long as shows like American Idol are around we will have some new artists that have universal recognizeability, but as a fan of music, I'd rather that the stars of tomorrow come from other sources.
That aside, there will always be people making music for their own enjoyment - we just cannot expect them to take over the role of the professionals. Those are completely different ball-games.
Even the smallest level bands are proving that statement to be true. Everyone knows to increase profits you must either increase revenue or decrease expenses...or both. Bands today are doing exactly that. Instead of getting t-shirts pressed by a company, bands are spending $50-$100 on a one time screen and printing their own shirts. Cutting the cost per shirt down from over $6 in a batch of 100 to less than $3, depending on what kind of deal you can get on shirts.
Now bands can feel financially at ease with throwing in a free EP with the purchase of a t-shirt for $12. Packaging is one key to success at the merch table and a lot of bands are taking advantage it. They're selling a sticker, album, t-shirt or hat for $15 instead of a normal price of at least $20. They’re keeping customers happy by increasing the value of their product while cutting expenses. That’s a beautiful thing!
Sorry for the long drawn out explanation of merch table technique but there is a point! Bands are now using their records as incentives to buying their merchandise. Bands used to use other revenue stream to help promote record sales. That's a huge shift of momentum! To put it in other words; Bands used to tour to support a record, now bands release records to support a tour.
Put that idea on a massive scale ranging from bands playing grange halls and friend’s basements to House of Blues and Madison Square Garden and the effect is dramatic.
Every year there are more bands playing and producing music than ever in history. If a band is producing music they're generating some sort of income from live shows or merch sales and in the grand scheme of things even that contributes to the pie. Times that by the amount of bands doing the exact same thing and you can see that group is a huge piece of the pie, and, in theory the pie is always expanding.
I'll take the bait. Global recorded music sales were $39B in 2000 according to IFPI. Last year, they were $17B, a drop of $22B. If worldwide live music box office sales peaked last year at $4.4B, let's assume they were half of that in 2000. If ASCAP performance royalties peaked at $1B, where are the other $18B of incremental revenue coming from to make up for the decline in recorded music sales? We know it's not music publishing. Are you suggesting the industry now sells an additional $18B of tee shirts? No way.
I think you owe me $100. There is no way the entire music Industy of recorded music, music publishing, and live music and merch are anywhere near their peak.
A few thoughts...
David, you certainly have the right approach. It would seem to me that the massive fall in CD sales is the main deficit here, and the answer to Bruce's question lies in finding numbers which fill that hole - or not. The one thing you didn't consider is live performance revenue, which almost certainly has gone up... but I'm not sure by how much. Also there are digital downloads, which in no way make up for lost CD revenue, but do make a significant dent.
I'm just not a numbers person.
Regarding what Suzanne says, I agree that the issue of who gets this money is important, and that we all would like to see musicians making a living. However, I don't think Bruce was being so optimistic as to argue that all musicians can now make a living wage. The entertainment industry will always be a very wide pyramid when it comes to income distribution. But it would be nice to know how our industry Gini coefficient has shifted...
@ David. $18B is a big number to make up for sure. You may be correct. However, I chose the words in my paragraph to equal something that can't, and probably never will be, measured.
Since the year 2000, the WORLD has gained almost a billion people, 100 million blogs and websites, 100 million films and short videos, millions of minutes of television programming, millions of square feet of public performance space, hundreds of thousands of artists, millions of songs - and it all comes on top of what already existed. Expansion is cumulative.
I read the same reports you do. What can be counted has undoubtedly plummeted. What has grown, and continues to grow, are things that matter (to my statement) that will never be easily counted. There's no way that you or I can prove that on a country by country, city by city, town by town, neighborhood by neighborhood basis, that 6.79 billion people are not spending that $2.65 per person, per year that you say is missing.
Just look at the country of Brazil for example (190 million people). What can be counted? Not much. Yet Brazil has an incredibly vibrant and growing music ecosystem. We would have to pick apart and debate every country on earth, by revenue source, to prove me wrong.
The only reason I wrote this post was to attempt to pull people off the relentless press that drums on about that which can be measured. The constant bombardment of the negative messages (absorbed by parents and then parroted to their children) are pealing kids away from the industry.
That brings me to the "living wage" argument that Suzanne makes. I will turn the table the same way. How does anyone know that on a country by country, city by city, town by town, neighborhood by neighborhood basis, that cumulatively, that there are not more people making a living wage from music now than there were last year or ten years ago? It's impossible to measure.
Is my post misleading or fact-bending? Perhaps. However it's no more misleading than the measurable end-of-the-world statistics that repeatedly appear in the popular press.
I know this for sure: great songs are still being made; people are still making money; people are still getting rich; and nobody knows for sure the extent of it (period).
The measurable music world peaked a long time ago. The immeasurable music world has a long way to go.
Thanks for your comments. I will PayPal you the $100 if you think I am breaking the rules here.
The discussion of t-shirts fascinates me. That's not the music business, but the fashion and merchandise business. People have been in it for decades. And if we want to learn about direct-to-fan marketing, all we have to do is start with what has been learned in the very well-established direct marketing industry.
I've been thinking a lot about bundling music with something else. And I am wondering if in the end you still shut out the music. Let's say you create a great t-shirt design, either by one of the band members or by someone you contract to create it. How do you assign value to it? Should the talented designer ultimately get paid the bulk of the revenue because the design itself is so good and the music is incidental?
When I look at OK Go, I think, "They are better at making videos than they are at making music. Maybe that's their real business."
Here's where I am trying to work everything out in my mind. I'm interested in cross-media projects. Let's team up the best storytellers, musicians, designers, videographers, etc. to create projects. But I'm afraid that the musicians will have trouble claiming a share of the project because what they create is, by definition, harder to sell if we have to bundle it with merchandise or a video or a book to sell it.
Maybe the musicians who will survive are the ones who can do everything themselves (design, video, theater, writing) and therefore can keep whatever they generate in from any source. Pure musicians will end up doing it more for art/pleasure than for income.
You have a point, Suzanne. Your business ultimately is what you get paid to do - if a musician gets most of her income from selling T-shirts, it would be fair to say that they are in the fashion business, rather than the music business.
Bruce, the problem with innumerabilia (probably not a word - don't feel like looking it up - assume it means things you can't put a number to) is that we cannot use them to make any realistic economic assumptions.
Ultimately, if we are to make any sensible propositions, we have to use the best knowledge available. To this extent we're all playing on the same side - no matter how much we disagree. If your interest is maintaining the young person's desire to enter the industry, the best you can do is offer them a realistic assesment of what is possible to achieve and how. This is all the more important these days, when the end result will largely depend on their own entrepreneurial savvy. We owe it to ourselves - as people who profess to offer answers such prospective artists seek - to give them the down'n'dirty. Only when someone is aware of the problems that need to be overcome will they be able to plan for the obstacles.
To that extent, why not turn away from that which we don't know and focus on that which we do know?
We owe it to ourselves - as people who profess to offer answers such prospective artists seek - to give them the down'n'dirty. Only when someone is aware of the problems that need to be overcome will they be able to plan for the obstacles.
That's my point of view, too. Whenever anyone says these are the glory days of music, I try to paint a more realistic picture. While it is cheaper and easier to do some things these days, that encourages more people to try, which makes other things harder to do these days.
I also like to look at the overall economic picture. When people tell musicians to get into the t-shirt making business, I ask them to look at potential income from all sources, not only those tied to music. Is making t-shirts the most cost-effective use of your time? I understand start-up businesses, so I know that sometimes in the beginning, you will lose money. If you have done some financial projections and you think that by making t-shirts now you'll be better off five years down the road, then it might make sense. On the other hand, there might be a second job/profession you could do which makes you enough money to self-fund your music and ultimately that might make more sense.
Faza, you are making my point. That which we think we do know, is not that much. From my perspective, it's an incredibly incomplete picture.
That which we think we do know, is not that much. From my perspective, it's an incredibly incomplete picture.
I've been trying to look ahead myself. Based on the trends I've seen, both at live shows and online, I'm projecting the continued democratization of music creation. I anticipate that everyone will make music, to some degree or another.
I think the income from music will continue to go down for most musicians (even if the overall music business income increases). We're going to have a lot of people creating for very small fan bases, often just their family, friends, co-workers, and neighbors. Everyone will have fun and it will be a great way to promote community, but I don't see a lot of musicians being to pull together enough paying fans to quit their dayjobs.
The other dynamic I see is that people will be able to perhaps put out one thing that gets a lot of attention, but that won't necessarily result in a career. A lot of popular user-generated YouTube hits are done by people you have never heard of before and probably aren't likely to hear of again. You don't necessarily care about who created the video. You like it and you pass it along, and then you find something else you like and pass along. It's like being a one-hit wonder in music, only more so.
We've become a culture of brief moments. We can consume a ever evolving stream of content without necessarily latching on to any creators. Those few musicians who are able to command our attention for 10, 20, 30 years (the time it might taken them to truly reap the rewards of building fan relationships) are going to need special skills to stay relevant to us as our personal lives change.
Making and selling tee-shirts for your band does not put you in "the fashion business," anymore than having a website for your band puts you in the technology business. How about the acting business? I went and saw a show last night - guess what... the band members didn't just stand there and calmly play their instruments and sing! They moved around energetically... there was some mild head-banging at times... guitars were swung in rhythm to the music...why all this ACTING? Didn't they know that they're in the music business and not in the theatre business????
"I think the income from music will continue to go down for most musicians (even if the overall music business income increases). We're going to have a lot of people creating for very small fan bases, often just their family, friends, co-workers, and neighbors. Everyone will have fun and it will be a great way to promote community, but I don't see a lot of musicians being to pull together enough paying fans to quit their dayjobs."
Its already like this, and its only going to get worse.
Too much of something can't be good from a business point of view. Its all about offer and demand.
Bruce, permit me to respond with a Confucian quote:
- Confucian Analects, Book II, Chap. VII
If our knowledge is limited, we should seek to expand it and if we have untested hypotheses, we should seek to test them to the fullest extent possible. Our lack of knowledge can work two ways - the situation can be better than we suspect (which I'm guessing you're trying to suggest) or it can be worse than we suppose (a point of view that has been ascribed to me - not without reason). Both scenarios are plausible, to the extent that we can offer a rationale why we expect this to be the case. It's also helpful to define the scope of our predictions - are we focusing solely on the quantity of music produced? The turnaround of high-profile artists? The number of people earning a living wage (as has already been mentioned)?
The reason I go for the pessimistic view is that things can only get better if I'm wrong. Furthermore, there isn't really much data at the moment that can warrant a great deal of optimism (although the recent numbers for the UK are better than anyone could have hoped). Lastly, if things are already peachy, why try and change them for the better? I personally think there's a lot of scope for improvement.
Justin, I think you are missing the point. The issue isn't what you do, but what you primarily get paid to do.
It used to be that merchandising was a supplementary income stream for musicians - the majority of their revenues came from selling recordings and live performance tickets (mostly recordings, though). They were being paid to play music.
The suggestion that musicians should now make their money from selling merchandise - live performance notwithstanding - is turning the music business on its head. Ally the idea with giving away recordings for free and you have music acting as advertising for the T-shirts. All of a sudden you're not in the music business anymore.
T-shirts and acting.
The reason I say you are in the fashion business if you are making most of your income from t-shirts is that you have to create a design people want to wear and you have to factor in how many t-shirts they already have and whether they want more. You start looking at styles and sizes. So you are starting to think like a person who makes money selling stuff to wear.
As for the acting business, why yes I think musicians who put together engaging live shows are venturing into the acting business. And as live shows become even more important, acting will be more important. I've begun to wonder if musicians should start thinking about putting together concept productions, turning their shows into mini-musicals because there seems to be a niche for these things at the moment. I am beginning to think that if you need to bundle your music with something additional, bundling it with a stage show or a video or a movie may become the norm, which requires musicians to think in terms of visuals and storylines, over and above just writing music.
I've begun to explore transmedia because I think the concept of music as a standalone production/product may not be the direction the music business is headed.
"The suggestion that musicians should now make their money from selling merchandise - live performance notwithstanding - is turning the music business on its head."
Seriously? Because that shit was OLD NEWS to Peter Grant....and he died in 1983.
Maybe you just need to catch up?
Yeah, Suzanne and Krysztof, there is nothing new about making non-musical merchandise a significant aspect of a musician's career.
But even if people are diverting more of their attention to it, it still isn't degrading their identities as musicians.
"Justin, I think you are missing the point. The issue isn't what you do, but what you primarily get paid to do."
I completely disagree with this statement, because musicians who make money from their tee-shirts are NOT "getting paid to make tee-shirts." The simple reason is because that t-shirt (generally) has little value to the people who buy it, save for the musical identification it has! Few people would buy a cool looking shirt that said "Modest Mouse," if Modest Mouse didn't happen to be a band that made music.
Taking your views of the t-shirt-business conundrum to the extreme, musicians should simply stop making music and just make t-shirts because that's what people buy, right? They don't buy my music, but they buy my shirts, ergo they value my clothing line but not my audio recordings, right? No! Of course not. Fans buy merchandise because they like the artist. They like the music, they like the performance, they like the visuals, they like the brand, they like the whole damn artistic presentation. And thats why its ok to make t-shirts.
And as we Justins pointed out, there is absolutely nothing new about creating an artistic image that goes far beyond your recorded audio, and selling that.
The simple reason is because that t-shirt (generally) has little value to the people who buy it, save for the musical identification it has!
By that same thinking, there's no particular reason the music needs to be linked to band created merchandise. Why not find the best merchandise of any kind and then cut a promotional deal, where the band lends its name to the product? It's corporate branding and often makes more sense than having the band sell its own t-shirts.
Taking your views of the t-shirt-business conundrum to the extreme, musicians should simply stop making music and just make t-shirts because that's what people buy, right? They don't buy my music, but they buy my shirts, ergo they value my clothing line but not my audio recordings, right?
Actually that is exactly what I see happening. At some point people will begin to associate the music with just a marketing vehicle to sell something else. The music isn't really what is selling. OK Go strikes me as the prime example. People like their videos, but that doesn't translate into big demand for their music. In my mind they are better video makers than musicians.
And as for using the band to generate interest in the t-shirts, that's celebrity marketing. It works just as well for non-musicians. Like them and then buy their merch.
Everything that bands are being told to do to make money are the same things other celebrities are also doing to make money. When we remove the ability to sell the music as music, then we are, whether we like it or not, saying that the music can't be sold unless it is packaged with something people will actually buy. It's not much of a leap to say that what they actually buy is the important part. The music itself is just the advertising.
There's a difference between these two scenarios:
1. You sell the music and as a bonus you throw in a free t-shirt.
2. You sell the t-shirt and as a bonus you throw in free music.
We are seeing more of a shift to scenario number two. And what is happening is that we are saying that the music is really just a promotional device and what people will buy are t-shirts. So the music gets reduced to a way to sell t-shirts, rather than using t-shirts as a way to sell music.
I'd like to see us find better ways to sell the music itself so that there is a direct link between creating music and paying for music. Live shows are one way although (since the number of venues hasn't expanded as much as the number of musicians) it's become more competitive for many bands to get gigs where they get more than just a small piece of the evening's ticket sales.
Suzanne, you are saying that music is becoming merely a promotional tool for other sellable merchandise. I disagree with the notion that the music is "promotional" or "advertising" for other products, even if it may appear that way in the transaction.
This is about consumer demand. What do people want more, Tee-shirts or Music? You are saying that current trends indicate that people are more interested in the the merch and less in the music. I think this is illusory. Its not as if, in the absence of the music, a similar number of consumers would be similarly interested in purchasing these merchandise items (assuming they had been made aware of them). The motivation of the buyers remains music oriented, and I don't see that changing, even as their spending habits shift.
people aren't excited by merchandise in the way that they're excited by music. Do you really see that changing?
You are partially right to argue that they may be less excited by audio recordings as they are by other media - video in particular. But the bright red line here is not between recorded audio and everything else, it is between MEDIA and merchandise. So I grant you this; musicians need to be increasingly media savy and have a sexy portfolio of multimedia offerings that provide context to their overall artistic identity. But again, thats nothing new.
OK GO is an example of this. I don't really like their music, but yeah, I like their videos. So sure, they're better at making videos than music. So what? Thats their chosen path, and they get to keep playing guitar, touring, and releasing albums. Look at the Flaming Lips - Wayne Coyne spent a decade making a sci-fi movie in his backyard, all the while cranking out albums, because he just thought it would be cool. That, and all the other non-musical extraveganza stuff that they produce doesn't degrade their music or their artistic identity - quite the opposite, in fact.
Fans are always going to care about the artistic identity more than the merchandise. Just because something (merchandise) generates a higher profit margin does not mean that that is what people actually want from you.
Lastly, I want to respond to your point: "By that same thinking, there's no particular reason the music needs to be linked to band created merchandise. Why not find the best merchandise of any kind and then cut a promotional deal, where the band lends its name to the product?"
I immediately thought of Metalocalypse, the animated Comedy Central show. The creator wrote a bunch of funny death metal songs that are featured in it. The show was a minor hit, and they released an album of the songs. It sold. The creators then formed an actual metal band and toured behind it. Who's artistic identity is being trod upon by soulless advertising here? Nobody's. This was a great multimedia idea, in which a TV show was temporarily overshadowed by the popularity of the music it featured.
The fact is, its not just about T-shirts. Its about deepening the context of your music by giving fans as much quality content as possible, regardless of format.
Are we really supposed to be concerned that musicians will have to dabble in other forms of art?
Its not as if, in the absence of the music, a similar number of consumers would be similarly interested in purchasing these merchandise items (assuming they had been made aware of them).
What I anticipate happening is that if the fans don't like the t-shirt design and can get the music for free, they don't buy the t-shirt. If it is mostly about the music and if the merchandise itself isn't interesting, why buy it? You've already gotten what you really want for free.
On the other hand, if the merchandise is great and the music is lousy, you might still buy the merchandise.
OK GO is an example of this. I don't really like their music, but yeah, I like their videos. So sure, they're better at making videos than music. So what?
The video didn't appear to help sell their last album. So maybe they need to find ways to sell their services as video makers rather than as musicians. They can still play music, but it might not generate much money for them.
"What I anticipate happening is that if the fans don't like the t-shirt design and can get the music for free, they don't buy the t-shirt. If it is mostly about the music and if the merchandise itself isn't interesting, why buy it? You've already gotten what you really want for free."
This is a good argument for why artists should focus on making quality merchandise!
"On the other hand, if the merchandise is great and the music is lousy, you might still buy the merchandise."
Really? I don't anticipate people browsing through the online stores of bands they don't like to look for branded merchandise that they can purchase. They'll start by going to the bands the actually like. And if the bands they like don't have merchandise they want to buy, they aren't going to start looking to buy things from bands they don't like. They'll just go to the Gap.
I guess I just don't see fans buying merchandise from all the bands they listen to because the fans will end up with more stuff than they can use. If most bands depend primarily on selling merchandise to make a living, then only those who are exceptional at selling merchandise will likely do well. You'll need the music, the social marketing skills, the merchandise, the great show, etc., to make the sales. It will get back to my point that the music alone won't be enough because that part is the free part.
And that's what I keep saying. Making music is something you do because it is creative, but it's hard to make a living at it. You'll likely do something else for income. And selling t-shirts may not be the most lucrative thing you can do. You may find that a totally unrelated job is the best way to fund your music. Why kill yourself trying to find something to sell along with your music? Just play your music, and then find the best way to make a living. They don't need to be related, and probably won't be related.
Unless they do it because they have fantasies of being rock stars, people get into music to create music. Selling t-shirts and other merchandise isn't creating music.
So if you have to do something besides creating music to make a living, then at least weigh the time and effort of doing merch against the time and effort doing some sort of lucrative day job.
Just get a T-shirt designer who can at least handle BG vocs and it's all good (and hey if they have decent time might be taught some guitar riffs, too).
Seriously, why all the commotion about musicians violating some sort of rule by selling shirts (or anything else - hell J.Garcia even had ties!)...
Merch has long been a STAPLE REVENUE SOURCE for artists, along with touring, and that trend is/becomes more pronounced, SO WHAT?
And, Suzanne, you may be missing a key point: if an artist can be self-sustaining through ancillary product sales it doesn't mean THEY have to spend much time on that at all - with a properly structured TEAM, they can be free to create music - and that is FAR different than the restrictions of a day job.
And, Suzanne, you may be missing a key point: if an artist can be self-sustaining through ancillary product sales it doesn't mean THEY have to spend much time on that at all - with a properly structured TEAM, they can be free to create music - and that is FAR different than the restrictions of a day job.
Sure, if you create the right celebrity brand, you can become the next Oprah. I totally understand the concept. But I think if you are aiming for this, you need to educate yourself in what it means to become a branded celebrity. There's more to it than music. To support a team, you need to gross some very serious money. That means treating your company like a start-up and how you will gross maybe $1 million in a few years. That's why I am suggesting you think of yourself as a fashion business and learn what you need to know about it.
Here's a good model if you want to get serious about merch.
Johnny CupCakes / Story
For each section of his story, make sure you hit the "next" button.
Making merchandise isn't making music. That sounds logical, but its not really true. Look, music is more than audio recordings. Maybe you think that the only thing people should need to hear an artist's message is a quiet room and a good sound system. Well I'm sorry, but as a listener myself, I think thats becoming outdated, and I'm very happy to see such an uninspired and minimalist approach to music be forgotten by a younger generation that prizes innovation and variety over formalism.
T-shirts aren't music. Ok, so what else "isn't music" according to this viewpoint? What else is just a waste of time, which would have been better spent making invisible audio recordings?
Radiohead's "Meeting People is Easy" - NOT MUSIC, waste of time.
NIN's "Year Zero" campaign and story - NOT MUSIC, waste of time.
Andy Warhol's Work with the Velvet Underground - NOT MUSIC, waste of time.
David Bowie's Ziggy Stardust and Other characters - NOT MUSIC, waste of time.
Tom Waits appearing in Movies - NOT MUSIC, waste of time
T-Pain's Iphone App - NOT MUSIC, waste of time
Coheed and Cambria releasing a Comic Book - NOT MUSIC, waste of time
Artists are artists. If they want to keep themselves tightly confined in the box of having to be audio composers/lyricists/performers, then they are more than welcome to. But I would ask that they stop advising others to constrain their own creativity.
Justin, I see something similar: a blurring of boundaries. What people will create will be multimedia, transmedia, etc.
The new artists will be the ones who can think three dimensionally or who can team up with a variety of creatives who decide to pool resources. But in that case, they need to agree that even if one member of the group has the strongest talents, they all share equally.
What I am saying about the music is that by openly saying that recorded music can't be sold as a standalone anymore, we have decided THAT part of the creative process isn't a money generator. If you want to prove that the music IS the engine that drives the entire business, you'd probably need to run identical promotions, with and without the music to see how each does. Then you might be able to make a case that nothing happens without the music and the musicians need their proper share, even if what is selling are the stories written by others and the merchandise designed by others.
All I am trying to highlight is the fact that when everyone says you can't sell music unless it is part of a package, then you are saying that music is no longer a standalone product. Think about that and then plan accordingly. Maybe from now on you need to compose music that can be bundled with other things and you will write music that most lends itself to that. Maybe your next music product should be built around a story that can be turned into a video, a musical, a game, collectibles. Perhaps musicians should be thinking about composing rock operas instead of hit singles. Bring back the concept album and musical theater.
Right now the people talking the most about transmedia are the film and game people. Music isn't at that point yet. People are still talking about songs and, at best, doing corporation promotions and clothing lines.
"Let's recap..."
Bruce may well owe David Pakman a hundred bucks - and he did offer it if D.P. felt so entitled - but your signoff clearly demonstrates not only your exceedingly poor taste, but identifies you, perhaps not as a moron, but certainly as a coward.
Two points with regards to merchandise:
1. The percentage of people who buy T-shirts, for example, is a fraction of the total music fanbase - just 11% according to Music Matters' Global Music Study published at Midem this year. Surely that's enough indication that music and merchandise are somewhat related, but yet fundamentally different markets (the percentages are similar for all forms of merchandise).
2. It's a fallacy to think that just because merchandise can be sold by musicians, there's a fundamental link between music and merchandise. What matters is celebrity, not musicianship. If we recall Amanda Palmer's Twitter coup - the T-shirt that earned her $11,000 had nothing to do with her music. Anyone with sufficient celebrity status could've done the same thing, even if the only thing they were famous for was being famous. The fact that Palmer's claim to fame is by way of her music is parochial.
The logical inference is that if your aim is selling merch, you don't need music - you need a tribe. There are other ways - often cheaper and more effective - to build a tribe than being a musician. I'd even hazard a guess that Amanda Palmer is now more iconic by way of her web entrepreneurship (and as a symbol of the anti-label movement) than she is as a musician. I, for one, would never have heard of her were it not for the frequent citations of that aspect of her career. I've still to hear any of her music.
@Suzanne if you think music popularity will flood the market and you think that people won't spend as much money, you should look at Chris Anderson's Long Tail theory and re-evaluate. Also if your having trouble paying your health insurance, housing, college bills, etc., you should do the following: Leave fye, go home, and pay your damn bills!
Bruce your right. The RIAA likes to throw around the idea that the music business is suffering, but in reality this is the time to be a musician. Now, you can record your own music, make your own merch, create mailing lists, communicate with fans, and make money that does not need to be recouped by a big label. The recording Industry will always be around... Its to big to just "go away" but at the same time musicians should take advantage of making and exploiting their music while the recording industry reworks their business model.
Sorry Krysztof, but Amanda Palmer is liked because of her music, not her web-entrepeneurship. The Dresden Dolls were a great band and had great appeal to the goth-lite niche. Amanda Palmer just did a good job of keeping people tuned in. There was nothing "parochial" about the relationship between her recorded catalog and her relationship with fans.
If you're arguing that any fame or acclaim that musicians happen to achieve through means that does not specifically include the recording and performing of songs has no value for their overall artistic statement, I think you're just being grumpy.
Yes, of course, celebrity sells more merchandise than musicianship. A street busking musician, no matter how talented, will sell less non-musical products than a Kim Kardashian (does she sell things?). But what kind of twisted logic is it to say that if music makes someone famous, that fame is automatically divorced from their musical identity? Thats ridiculous. You may as well argue that its "selling out" or some other outdated notion.
In college I had a Jimi Hendrix poster. Believe it or not, it actually made me think of his music when I looked at it. Crazy, I know.
The long tail theory doesn't say that people in the long tail will make enough to live on. All it says is that in the aggregate, there will be enough purchasers to make it worthwhile for a store like Amazon or a movie distributor like Netflix to carry lots of obscure titles. If anything, the longer the tail, the less each person in the tail will make.
I'm going to steal that "turd in a punchbowl" quip.
@ DG. Thanks. We are coming up on 5,000 comments on MTT. There's a first for everything I guess. You can't do this for long without thick skin. I deleted his/her comment. Coward is the word for sure.
Think about it Sue, the music industry is just like that of sports, teaching, and any kind of business. Not everyone is going to make it. At the same time, it only takes one person, lets call him or her the "right person" to hear the music. Think of the long tail as more listeners who can access your music. The "right person" may not have heard you if your music was more obscure and there was no long tail. Your music would pick up dust on a shelf if it even got that far. It makes material easier to find, thus improving your chances. In life there are winners and losers and I believe endless shelf space and a place for music to be found can only improve those chances.
Hi Sue Lainson. About your $100 challenge -- How healthy is the music industry? On the surface -- very. But the water is so deep we can't see the really creative artists down below drowning in a sea of similarity. Like everything these days, the system doesn't take any chances. It trades off big money for heart and soul. It threatens creativity and our competitive advantage as a nation. My proof? Where is the Pink Floyd of today? I have a way to fix this but it will cost you.
^^The Mars Volta and/or Tool, your pick.