Turn the Taps Off
Okay, some linkage; this IM interview with a music publicist has some interesting food-for-thought in terms of publishing-perhaps? Or is it apples and oranges? Excerpts below:
“VivSavage1984: ok, so what about pitchfork? do they really have the power to make/break a band?
MusicPublicityBigWig: depends
MusicPublicityBigWig: their power is sort of the opposite of the major labels, stay with me here
MusicPublicityBigWig: they can propel a band from selling like 3000 to 30,000 or whatever, they can start that whole process
MusicPublicityBigWig: and yes they can impede a travis morrison or whoever they give a zero, but he doesn’t sell any goddamn records anyway
MusicPublicityBigWig: but if you’re on a level of some of my bigger clients and they slam you, it has no effect.
MusicPublicityBigWig: no effect on anyone who already sells half a million or more…
MusicPublicityBigWig: see the major labels specialize in taking people who can sell 200,000+ on their own to selling 500,000 or 1 million
MusicPublicityBigWig: but they don’t have any apparatus for taking an artist from 0 to 30,000
MusicPublicityBigWig: they have no effect
MusicPublicityBigWig: at that level
MusicPublicityBigWig: these days though the indie labels are behaving just like mini-majors though
MusicPublicityBigWig: but thats another topic entirely”
***
VivSavage1984: ok, well what about these so-called “music blogs”? do you or your clients even care about them?
MusicPublicityBigWig: well theyre the flavor of the moment
MusicPublicityBigWig: but they’ll get strip-mined and co-opted just like everything else that was the way to instant sales for 15 minutes
MusicPublicityBigWig: college radio, late night TV, street team marketing
MusicPublicityBigWig: film syncs and soundtracks, TV ads
MusicPublicityBigWig: theres always something
***
VivSavage1984: ha! ok, so let’s turn to the sexy, sexy world of digital music: how bad do these mp3/album leaks hurt? how crazy is the lockdown going to get? i got an indie album with like three stickers and a watermark this week, and i thought, “really?”
MusicPublicityBigWig: its retarded
MusicPublicityBigWig: i heard this quote the other day
MusicPublicityBigWig: some label kid at a meeting said the mistake the music biz is making
MusicPublicityBigWig: is like the bottled water companies trying to turn everyone’s taps off
***
MusicPublicityBigWig: whenever a civilian, like a relative or non-business friend asks me
MusicPublicityBigWig: “oh the music business is in trouble, are you OK?”
MusicPublicityBigWig: i say
MusicPublicityBigWig: “the CD-selling business is in trouble. im not in that business”
That’s beautiful, especially the last bit.