Re: "art" & money, was: amanda palmer

[Sjaak Overgaauw <tcplugin@gmail.com>]

Interesting thread.

On Thu, Oct 8, 2009 at 4:23 PM, Per Boysen <perboysen@gmail.com> wrote:
> That's correct. The stat's were that most record labels lost money on
> eight artist signings while the ninth went sky rocket with an album
> and brought dough to cover for the unlucky eight. Over the last decade
> those margins are lost and today every new project needs to be
> economically successful.

Yes. I remember that in the 80's, many beginning bands got record
deals and where paid for their recordings. And they got paid for the
second album even if the first album wasn't a commercial success or
got bad reviews. Those were the days! :)

> However, the market might be smaller
> now if measured in how much money one can make on selling recordings
> of music, but if measuring by what people are listening to and
> appreciating the market is much wider today; much more segmented too.
> Smaller quantities sold within each segment but many more segments for
> exclusive music to find a buyer. This may be good or bad for you
> depending on the type of music you offer.

That's absolutely true. You need more skills today, like marketing,
networking etc. The good thing about the Internet is that you have
more possibilities to market your music, and it's very cheap and
sometimes even free. Perhaps another positive change has been the
increase of ticket prices over the last decade, but I'm not sure if
this means the artists get paid more than they used to.

I'm just writing up what comes up in my mind but perhaps we should
change the way we think about music should do like painters do. Make a
piece music, and make an exclusive package for it, like huge artwork?
I mean, a CD box looks cheap so why don't we make it bigger and look
more interesting? Painters don't sell a lot, but a painting generates
more revenue. But anyway, I think today's challenge is how to make
money with music most people don't (want to or have to) pay for?

-- 
Sjaak Overgaauw
http://premonitionfactory.com/
http://livelooping.be/
http://euroloopfest.com/