pgss wrote: The majority of the people think there's too much music released nowadays. It's a lot of crap in their opinions. They wouldn't mind to have less to choose from.
I don't know about that Paul, certainly just from the larger boards I visit (which are devoted to single bands/artists), the 'other artists' sections seem to be huge, thriving and very diverse. Maybe it's just that those particular bands/artists attract a high proportion of people who are really passionate about music, maybe the larger public doesn't have the same level of interest.
pgss wrote:Sadly this makes a bad case for emerging artists: no profits from touring, no profits from merchandise. Yet a lot of costs for recording music and videos. Who'll be willing to invest? It might well be that there'll be less new releases in the near future just because of that reason.
But if artists are not continually paying back advances to record companies out of what they earn, they should be better off financially overall - I mean, it's not record companies who pay for recording costs and video costs. They may put that money up initially, but they 'recoup' that money from the artists' earnings. It's one of the biggest complaints artists have about record companies. They claw back literally every penny they can for 'costs'. To demonstrate the extraordinary lengths they go to in this respect, Tori Amos tells a story in her book Piece by Piece about how, when one of her albums had done well in the charts, her record company sent her a lavish arrangement of flowers as congratulations. When she was going through her accounts later, she found that the record company had claimed the cost of the flowers back from her.
Home studios and promos made for internet sources like youtube etc are lowering the costs for artists, so I can see many of them increasingly opting to self-finance.
pgss wrote: Still I don't understand why Radiohead is in talks with a recordcompany for releasing the album "properly". By then, everyone should have bought this album so I don't see the use in it.
I'm not sure that's been confirmed yet Paul, but if they are going to negotiate with a record company for a traditional cd release, they'll be in a much stronger position to get things on their terms if they can show that they can achieve respectable sales without any help. It may be that they're worried the website won't cope with demand, or their pressing/distribution method isn't big enough.
Or it may be a back catalogue thing - Radiohead albums tend to sell steadily over a long period of time.
pgss wrote:I doubt that smaller bands will have enough money to fund the release themselves. And a move like Radiohead requires a solid fanbase. How do you build a fanbase nowadays? It's presscoverage.... and the press are currently mostly reporting the big recordcompany artist.
[/quote]
I'm not sure press coverage is actually as vital as the media makes it seem .... fanbases tend to be built initially from live work. That was certainly the case with Radiohead, who were a huge live band for a good 18 months before 'Creep' happened and they began getting all the press coverage. Let's not forget also the impact that the internet has had on spreading the word about new bands/artists. Look at Arctic Monkeys, to take a contemporary example. They were an internet and live phenomenon before their first album came out.
