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Record labels dig their own grave, and the shovel is called TikTok

tedgioia.substack.com

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Re: Record labels dig their own grave, and the shovel is called TikTok

#51

Post by scarface74 »

qgin wrote: post #43
scarface74 wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A popular “musician” is just a front person for an entire organization of producers, videographers, lawyers, promoters, that can get you into venues, choreographers etc. It still takes a lot to produce a hit and the money is still made from concerts https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2011/07/11/137705590/the-...

I can imagine a lot more stories like the one of Billie Eilish and Finneas producing her first album at home... > This is no humblebrag bedroom studio that turns out to have been professionally outfitted. It’s just a regular bedroom, with a bed against one wall, where Eilish sat to record her vocals, facing a desk and bookshelves and O’Connell’s modest production setup: Apple Logic Pro X, a Universal Audio Apollo 8 i…

Producing the music is the easy part. It’s everything else I mentioned.

Re: Record labels dig their own grave, and the shovel is called TikTok

#52

Post by ushakov »

hammyhavoc wrote: post #50
ushakov wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

the model won’t disappear any time soon do you think people really care about TikTok artists? one example i’m familiar with are the Island Boys they’ve got their 15 minutes of fame, but no more than that TikTok audience is practically trained to receive a new dose of serotonin on every swipe and if they’re seeing the same person again, that ain’t gonna do it

Obviously you underestimate the ability of teen demographics to become obsessive and form a long-term fandom. See K-pop.

K-pop industry is literally a star factory

K-pop, like pop is only popular because it’s forcefully shoved down your throat by marketeers who’s goal is to recoup the investments for the hit factory

obsessive teens is merely the result of marketing efforts

this is what happens when capitalism takes over culture

Re: Record labels dig their own grave, and the shovel is called TikTok

#53

Post by notyourwork »

majormajor wrote: post #35

Interestingly, labels playing games about releasing albums is an old trick for various old reasons too. https://www.theguardian.com/music/musicblog/2010/apr/15/arti... https://www.buzzfeed.com/azafar/what-happens-when-your-favor... for a couple old references A change in negotiation power seems like a good evolution of the industry for anyone but record industry execs. But this "record industry is committing suicide"…

Its only dragging on because record labels have some of these mega mainstream artists by the balls. As contracts die, as we see more independents rise to the top mainstream record labels will die. It's just going to be slow like cable companies. Inevitable but undoubtedly.

Re: Record labels dig their own grave, and the shovel is called TikTok

#54

Post by paulpauper »

These tiktok people should just do youtube math videos and do podcasts in the style of lex fridman. I am not joking...there is so much ad rev from those niches. Insanely high CPM + product placement for VPNs. 3 blue 1 brown videos get as many view as even pop culture/mainstream stuff.

Re: Record labels dig their own grave, and the shovel is called TikTok

#55

Post by s5300 »

qgin wrote: post #43
scarface74 wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A popular “musician” is just a front person for an entire organization of producers, videographers, lawyers, promoters, that can get you into venues, choreographers etc. It still takes a lot to produce a hit and the money is still made from concerts https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2011/07/11/137705590/the-...

I can imagine a lot more stories like the one of Billie Eilish and Finneas producing her first album at home... > This is no humblebrag bedroom studio that turns out to have been professionally outfitted. It’s just a regular bedroom, with a bed against one wall, where Eilish sat to record her vocals, facing a desk and bookshelves and O’Connell’s modest production setup: Apple Logic Pro X, a Universal Audio Apollo 8 i…

You completely forgot to mention her parents.

They eclipse whatever she was doing in her “regular bedroom”

Re: Record labels dig their own grave, and the shovel is called TikTok

#56

Post by jay_kyburz »

chasil wrote: post #29
AlbertCory wrote: post #14

When I read this, I was trying to map "record labels" and "music" onto "big 5 publishers" and "books." The Big 5 are not quite there yet, but you can almost feel it gestating in the minds of those executives: "publish your book yourself, and if it's a hit, then we'll reprint it and do your next one." In the other article by Ted Gioia (the talk with Rick Beato), Ted said, back in the old days, half the people in the r…

In the age of internet virality, who would accept an offer from a promoter that demands >80% of your profit? Unless you are acting for reasons of charity, the answer is no.

In the indie video game world, you can work on your game for a few years, then once its done, tested and polished, a publisher will want 30% for doing a few months of organizing the release. They value their time at perhaps 1000 times more valuable that your own. Its outrageous.

Re: Record labels dig their own grave, and the shovel is called TikTok

#57

Post by throwaway_1928 »

notyourwork wrote: post #53
majormajor wrote: post #35

Interestingly, labels playing games about releasing albums is an old trick for various old reasons too. https://www.theguardian.com/music/musicblog/2010/apr/15/arti... https://www.buzzfeed.com/azafar/what-happens-when-your-favor... for a couple old references A change in negotiation power seems like a good evolution of the industry for anyone but record industry execs. But this "record industry is committing suicide"…

Its only dragging on because record labels have some of these mega mainstream artists by the balls. As contracts die, as we see more independents rise to the top mainstream record labels will die. It's just going to be slow like cable companies. Inevitable but undoubtedly.

If artists negotiated like Drake, record labels would face a bleak future.

https://musically.com/2020/07/20/steve-stoute-if-drake-goes-...

Re: Record labels dig their own grave, and the shovel is called TikTok

#59

Post by kromem »

majormajor wrote: post #35

Interestingly, labels playing games about releasing albums is an old trick for various old reasons too. https://www.theguardian.com/music/musicblog/2010/apr/15/arti... https://www.buzzfeed.com/azafar/what-happens-when-your-favor... for a couple old references A change in negotiation power seems like a good evolution of the industry for anyone but record industry execs. But this "record industry is committing suicide"…

It's not committing suicide - it's just fighting over the rights to the tide pool where the water receded entirely unaware of the tsunami barreling towards them.

When the software world can convincingly create new songs that sound like the hit songs people like, but sufficiently different to dodge copyright law, then it's game over.

We don't blink an eye at efforts to do things like complete one of Beethoven's symphonies. But that is going to be increased treading a thin line when it's something like create a new album by pseudo-David Bowie. And arguably over that line when it's extending the hit debut album of a living artist who just isn't recapturing that magic.

A wall of disruptive change is barreling towards the creative industry (as well as many other industries), and yet most are blissfully unaware, fighting over marginal changes to their status quo - maybe looking at demonstrations of what can be done today saying "that's neat, but it doesn't replace me" without properly looking at how quickly the other is improving.

Copyrights are about to become worthless, and so the fight over their management is going to be a short lived victory no matter who wins.

Re: Record labels dig their own grave, and the shovel is called TikTok

#60

Post by bsder »

mr_toad wrote: post #3

I don’t get why artists even use record labels anymore. Is there something that Facebook/YouTube/iTunes etc doesn’t provide?

Money.

It's neat that your song went viral on TikTok, but that didn't get you any dosh.

So, your band just went mega-viral and you need to do a tour. How do you get Ticketmaster to call you back so you can book venues bigger than 100 people?

"I just want to release songs" is great. Just release songs. Easy.

Ah, but I see you want to release songs and actually not starve while doing so. That's a completely different problem.

So, what are you willing to trade for that?

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