the glut
5 December 2004
Thinking of starting a label ? Want to put out lots of records this year, really make your mark ? Hey, maybe its YOU that's killing the scene, man. There's more music being created than at any time in human history.
There is a huge glut of labels and release on the market. Everybody seems to have their own label, sometimes several. Small stores cannot risk ordering very much stuff or they will get stuck with immoveable back stock. Small stores, as you might have noticed, are disappearing rapidly even from the big hip cities. Distributors cannot accept new labels because they can only sell so many records, and there is no reason to cut down on orders from established labels. They often get stuck with unsellable back stock.
As it is, any "hit" can't sell as much as a hit used to sell, because there are too
many other records to share the overall market with. And on top of that,
genre-ification has split the potential audience down even further. Back in the
day a hit like Strings of Life sold 100,000 copies. Back in the day DJs BOUGHT EVERY SINGLE
RECORD THAT CAME OUT EACH WEEK !!! My friend Kevin Cole said by 1990 he just couldn't buy everything. At this point you can't even listen to or know about everything coming out. Even the distributors don't hear it all. Isn't it ironic ? (and not in an alanis sort of way) The proliferation of
grass-roots DIY expression has led to a market where bigger connected
business and media savvy labels have the best chance to get their releases
paid and respected. This doesn't mean that the underground system is dead,
but it is certainly being challenged right now. Mid-sized labels with promotion
strategies and distribution relationships don't get shafted. Small labels with
even quality releases sometimes do. It is not remotely as constricted as pop
music. Here is my uncle Michael Sattinger, an Economics professor at the University of Albany :
to figure out what is going on so that we can continue to make MUSIC WITHOUT
COMPROMISES and release that music and receive the financial and artistic rewards that are
due to us. What has worked in the past may not necessarily work in the future. Blindly
following the methods of the past will result in frustration. You want the music to be HEARD
AND FELT by people, not get your records returned unsold from the distributor.
many other records to share the overall market with. And on top of that,
genre-ification has split the potential audience down even further. Back in the
day a hit like Strings of Life sold 100,000 copies. Back in the day DJs BOUGHT EVERY SINGLE
RECORD THAT CAME OUT EACH WEEK !!! My friend Kevin Cole said by 1990 he just couldn't buy everything. At this point you can't even listen to or know about everything coming out. Even the distributors don't hear it all. Isn't it ironic ? (and not in an alanis sort of way) The proliferation of
grass-roots DIY expression has led to a market where bigger connected
business and media savvy labels have the best chance to get their releases
paid and respected. This doesn't mean that the underground system is dead,
but it is certainly being challenged right now. Mid-sized labels with promotion
strategies and distribution relationships don't get shafted. Small labels with
even quality releases sometimes do. It is not remotely as constricted as pop
music. Here is my uncle Michael Sattinger, an Economics professor at the University of Albany :
It looks like a classic case of monopolistic competition. That is a mix between monopoly and perfectWhich is what I just said only with much fancier words. The point to all this business talk is
competition (or just plain competitive markets). The technology for music (and for publishing) seems to be
moving towards small scale entry. Monopolistic competition is a situation where each seller is unique and
has some price setting power (i.e., won't lose all customers if the seller raises the price a smidgeon). In
that sense it is like monopoly. But there is also free entry as in perfect competition, and the free entry
eventually pushes profits down to zero. (Free entry just means that it is easy to enter the industry--there are
no barriers and it doesn't take a large investment.) So even if the industry starts out with people making
profits, eventually they disappear. The other thing that is going on is that profits for "hits" are made when
a lot of people buy the same disk. But with so much being produced it is probably difficult to disseminate
information on all disks. So sales get diffused among more disks. There is probably some "informational
externality" going on whereby the addition of one more disk to the market makes it less likely that people
are going to know about an existing disk or whether it is good or not.
to figure out what is going on so that we can continue to make MUSIC WITHOUT
COMPROMISES and release that music and receive the financial and artistic rewards that are
due to us. What has worked in the past may not necessarily work in the future. Blindly
following the methods of the past will result in frustration. You want the music to be HEARD
AND FELT by people, not get your records returned unsold from the distributor.
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1 Carmen says...
Like im doing this research paper on legalizing pot.
Posted at 7:50 a.m. on April 24, 2009And i love the information that u have given me! Thank you!
2 Carmen says...
Like im doing this research paper on legalizing pot.
Posted at 4:56 p.m. on May 7, 2009And i love the information that u have given me! Thank you!