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The truth that haunts the Ramones: 'They sold more T-shirts than records'

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Re: The truth that haunts the Ramones: 'They sold more T-shirts than records'

#191

Post by Triphibian »

georgeecollins wrote: post #171
abap_rocky wrote: post #87

I was reading an interview with the band "Agriculture" recently and they had a really interesting take on this. From this interview https://www.treblezine.com/agriculture-interview-quiet-viole... : "DM: We exist as a band because we sell t-shirts. Our job is that we sell t-shirts and the way we promote those t-shirts is by playing music. If we were talking strictly economically, that’s just a fact. LL: Weirdly, it’s…

I think all this talk of entertainment economics is missing the point of the article. Yes, today bands more money from tshirts then recordings. However, in the 70s and 80s they typically made a lot of money from LPs and CDs. In the time of the Ramones, that was how bands made money. The point is that punk rock was culturally very influential but never very musically popular. God Save the Queen was a hit record but th…

The argument has been made that punk finally broke in '91 with Nirvana and then Green Day and myriad other pop punk bands selling records. And there's also a case for the bands, especially of the '77 era New York scene breaking, but doing it by playing less textbook punk-sounding music (Blondie, Talking Heads, etc).

I do think The Ramones were robbed in way. If radio at the time wasn't ready for them, classic rock radio now should be. Most of them play The Clash already.If Blitzkrieg Bop is too weird or raw, "Rock 'n Roll Radio" is polished enough that it would fit right in.

Re: The truth that haunts the Ramones: 'They sold more T-shirts than records'

#192

Post by socalgal2 »

ageitgey wrote: post #90
abap_rocky wrote: post #87

I was reading an interview with the band "Agriculture" recently and they had a really interesting take on this. From this interview https://www.treblezine.com/agriculture-interview-quiet-viole... : "DM: We exist as a band because we sell t-shirts. Our job is that we sell t-shirts and the way we promote those t-shirts is by playing music. If we were talking strictly economically, that’s just a fact. LL: Weirdly, it’s…

It's very smart of them to recognize that. The world is full of these weird business cases where people aren't aware of the actual product, like how Starbucks US morphed from a coffee shop into an iced dessert drinks company that also incidentally sells hot coffee. Edit: Other fun examples - In the mid-2000s, Porsche was an incredibly successful hedge fund that also sold cars who tried to acquire VW using a short squ…

> Most US airlines are profitable frequently flier points companies that also operate airplanes to justify the program.

Freakonomics Radio had a series about airlines. They claimed this was not true and that frequently flier points only accounted for 5% of profits.

https://freakonomics.com/podcast-tag/freakonomics-radio-take...

WSJ said it was true:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mTTW8RDJUEE

I don't know who to believe.

Re: The truth that haunts the Ramones: 'They sold more T-shirts than records'

#193

Post by luxuryballs »

well you can’t pirate a t-shirt or hear it on the radio or cover it at a local show, and it’s super easy to make a new t-shirt design compared to an album, maybe I’m overthinking this but it doesn’t seem like a surprising metric, especially for a punk band

Re: The truth that haunts the Ramones: 'They sold more T-shirts than records'

#194

Post by andai »

matthewkayin wrote: post #131
ageitgey wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's very smart of them to recognize that. The world is full of these weird business cases where people aren't aware of the actual product, like how Starbucks US morphed from a coffee shop into an iced dessert drinks company that also incidentally sells hot coffee. Edit: Other fun examples - In the mid-2000s, Porsche was an incredibly successful hedge fund that also sold cars who tried to acquire VW using a short squ…

I don't know if the Starbucks example is quite the same as the band example. If anything, their focus on iced desserts shows that they know exactly what their audience wants and is paying for. When I think about the band shirts, I think about this time an indie game dev youtuber did a full breakdown of their different revenue streams. They were a "full time indie gamedev", but the overwhelming majority of their incom…

> They were a "full time indie gamedev", but the overwhelming majority of their income came from gamedev Udemy courses.

Obligatory "in a gold rush, sell shovels" ;)

Re: The truth that haunts the Ramones: 'They sold more T-shirts than records'

#195

Post by gopher_space »

FeepingCreature wrote: post #102
JKCalhoun wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, thinking the same with regard to the Ramones. They are name-dropped so often by bands that came since—pretty sure it is not because of a t-shirt.

"your favorite band's favorite band"

This is how you end up with a Big Star album.

Re: The truth that haunts the Ramones: 'They sold more T-shirts than records'

#196

Post by andai »

btilly wrote: post #190
lokar wrote: post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

IMO, they, like many other companies, were doomed by the constant chase for growth. Once they had a large share of "have a milk-coffee drink in a nice lounge" market, growth slowed. But having a large market share, good margins and growth that is the same as population/gdp (+/-) is just not acceptable. So they try to find a way to get more growth, even if it changes and perhaps kills what the business was.

There's more to the story than that. Around 2000 the founder stepped away, and MBAs brought in automated machines. They were more efficient and consistent at making the drinks than the baristas, and business tanked. The founder came back in 2008, got rid of the machines, and brought the baristas back. Business took off again. It really is the experience that is being sold.

In the context of AI automation I keep coming back to "cute Starbucks barista" as the archetypal automation-proof job. Because the job isn't producing the beverage, but the little moment of human interaction. (Especially these days, when not much of it remains!)

Same goes with supermarket checkout. I noticed many people intentionally take the line where the human scans your stuff. They enjoy it!

Unfortunately many zoomers do not appear to have been informed of this fact, and will give you a worse experience, "humanity wise", than the self-check out machine!

When you treat your job as robotic, aside from making the experience worse for all involved, you are also competing with actual robots, i.e. competing on speed, price and consistency, which is not a great place for a human to be.

Re: The truth that haunts the Ramones: 'They sold more T-shirts than records'

#197

Post by lokar »

btilly wrote: post #190
lokar wrote: post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

IMO, they, like many other companies, were doomed by the constant chase for growth. Once they had a large share of "have a milk-coffee drink in a nice lounge" market, growth slowed. But having a large market share, good margins and growth that is the same as population/gdp (+/-) is just not acceptable. So they try to find a way to get more growth, even if it changes and perhaps kills what the business was.

There's more to the story than that. Around 2000 the founder stepped away, and MBAs brought in automated machines. They were more efficient and consistent at making the drinks than the baristas, and business tanked. The founder came back in 2008, got rid of the machines, and brought the baristas back. Business took off again. It really is the experience that is being sold.

Honestly, their espresso has always been undrinkable, IMO

Re: The truth that haunts the Ramones: 'They sold more T-shirts than records'

#198

Post by lokar »

btilly wrote: post #190
lokar wrote: post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

IMO, they, like many other companies, were doomed by the constant chase for growth. Once they had a large share of "have a milk-coffee drink in a nice lounge" market, growth slowed. But having a large market share, good margins and growth that is the same as population/gdp (+/-) is just not acceptable. So they try to find a way to get more growth, even if it changes and perhaps kills what the business was.

There's more to the story than that. Around 2000 the founder stepped away, and MBAs brought in automated machines. They were more efficient and consistent at making the drinks than the baristas, and business tanked. The founder came back in 2008, got rid of the machines, and brought the baristas back. Business took off again. It really is the experience that is being sold.

Yeah, I guess if you can't grow revenue, the next best thing is to grow profit by cutting costs (or try both at the same time).

Re: The truth that haunts the Ramones: 'They sold more T-shirts than records'

#199

Post by 9rx »

hvs wrote: post #8
TMWNN wrote: post #4

Isn't it normal and typical for musical acts to make more money from concert tours and merchandise sales than the music itself?

It's not that they made more money from merchandise, it's that they sold more t-shirts than albums. Implying that more people were interested in the "image" of punk rock than the music.

Although the article is unsure whether they sold more t-shirts than tickets, implying that people were interested in the music in a live capacity.

Which is a reasonable implication given that punk grew up around the DIY culture. A commercially produced recording doesn't exactly align with the interests of that type of community, even where that community enjoys the music itself.

Re: The truth that haunts the Ramones: 'They sold more T-shirts than records'

#200

Post by BowBun »

FeepingCreature wrote: post #102
JKCalhoun wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, thinking the same with regard to the Ramones. They are name-dropped so often by bands that came since—pretty sure it is not because of a t-shirt.

"your favorite band's favorite band"

that's Pile!
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