2 sayings have passed my desk this week that have gotten my attention and anger.
1. IF YOU GET 300 SPINS I CAN GET YOU A DISTRIBUTION DEAL
This is an ongoing problem within the entertainment industry, that individual and independent companies think they can “HYPE” the charts and a major label will give them money, and then spend additional money on marketing & promotion of their project.
Nothing could be further from the truth.
Major labels invented the HYPE game and know when and who you have paid to get spins on radio. In quite a few cases family members of major label executives are the ones receiving the money and building the HYPE around a project.
Labels are in the business to sell music and musical products; they are not in the business to finance independent company’s marketing and promotion schemes and NEVER in the business to make other people rich on their backs. There was an article on Sean Diddy Combs receiving 100 million dollars and becoming one of the richest men in Hip Hop, when questioned about this phenomenon Clive Davis (Chief Creative Officer of Sony Music Worldwide) said. “I know he made this money, I paid it to him”
Spins can only assist you in getting a deal when you have many other things in place. A real fan base, online marketing & promotion that consistently builds’ a larger fan base, offline marketing & promotion, robust product and download sales all are needed to make a major label want to do business with you.
Spins alone will only get you broke.
The current HYPE game is to spend between $25,000 - $35,000 to acquire national spins and become charted. Good game for the promoter that is receiving the money, but I have yet to have ONE PERSON OR LABLE tell me that they acquired a deal based on spins.
A fool and his money are soon separated.
- YOU NEED THE RIAA TO CERTIFY YOUR GOLD ALBUM STATUS
This opens up an entirely new problem in thinking and understanding of the entertainment industry. When I first entered the industry almost 50 years ago, the RIAA was the standard for certification of Gold & Platinum status (I only know of one Diamond status album). These certifications were based on SHIPMENTS of physical products for sale from the record labels to the distributors, both who are members. Back in the day when a project stiffed we would say that it shipped gold and returned platinum referring to the amount of physical product sold. Today there are many different delivery systems NOT being monitored by the RIAA and many more questions to be asked.
First and foremost who cares if the RIAA does or does not believe you have sold a certain number of copies? What is the significance of having a RIAA approval on a recording? It won’t make anyone purchase more recordings; it doesn’t get you additional shows or sell other merchandise from your catalog. What exactly does it represent?
OK you say that the RIAA represents sales, but we now live in an era of digital downloads and where does the RIAA start their consideration? If you sell a download for 25 cents or 5 cents does that constitute a sale? If your download is part of a service that you pay monthly is that considered a sale? If your song is on a compilation that sells for 99 cents what portion is considered a sale? Are sales based on pricing or downloads? And what do you do when the sale comes from Dubai, or China or Australia or the UK? Does any of this count?
What is real success?
The current state of the Internet features so many different download and streaming capabilities that a standard is unheard of.
The problems in both sayings lay with the interpretation, greed, ambition and stupidity of the individuals or company that believes them. These same concepts are the ones allowing the music award shows to create television programs geared to having viewers buy advertising and not geared to the musicians and writers that make the music. What do you get when you win a Grammy, Billboard, BET, MTV, CMA, AMA, NRJ, GMA or any of the multitudes of other organizations awards?
By the way gold album awards are only gold colored paint over either nickel or lacquer, you never get REAL GOLD.