1. They cant make any money on it. Its show business, not show art. The bottom line is the bottom line. Major labels dont care if youre the new Mozart Beatles, if they cant make any money on you theyre not interested, now more than ever, where recordings render less cash than ever. 2. Radio doesnt want to play it. Marketing. At this date, radio is still number one. Once again, if you deliver the album of the century, a full-length opus that cant be cut up and aired on a radio station that will generate sales, the major label wont play it. This is what the major labels know best. Theyve got huge radio promotion departments. Deliver something they can get airplay on and theyll take a whack at it. At many major labels the head of promotion is the most powerful person. Even if the A&R guy or the President gets you signed, if the head of promotion shrugs his or her shoulders and refuses to make an effort, youre dead in the water. 3. Major labels are most interested in Top Forty airplay. Top Forty sells tonnage. Thats where all the eyeballs are. Thats where stars are built. So decry Max Martin and Dr. Luke and Katy Perry all you want, theyve just calculated the percentages and gone where all the action is. Doesnt mean you have to go there too, just means if you dont want to go there, the major label probably isnt interested. 4. You refuse input. Sure, acts had power in the seventies. The labels didnt meddle with the product. But with so much money involved today, and so much risk, the label wants the ability to get you to use a cowriter, or sing someone elses song, or redo the track with a new producer. You can earn the power to do it your way over time, then again, Clive Davis wasnt happy when Kelly Clarkson did this and let her album languish. Doesnt matter how good your album is, its whether they decide to put the weight of the company behind it. Furthermore, the label doesnt care about albums. Oh, they want an album to sell, because of the price point, but they truly only care about singles. Tell them an album has four or even seven singles and theyre thrilled. Tell them its got no singles but tells an incredible story and their jaws will drop and refuse to release it. 5. It doesnt play overseas. Now more than ever before in history a label wants a record with reach. Something that can be spun in Greece and China and Brazil and a bunch of countries most Americans havent been to, never mind lack the ability to spell. Just because the makers of music are oftentimes unsophisticated, that does not mean those running the labels are. Proffering something that plays only in the U.S. is like trying to get Yahoo to buy your app that only works in Rhode Island. Its all about scale. The risk is in product creation. Make something great and it can sell everywhere. 6. Its just not good enough. Good is subjective. You must filter it through all of the above. Most people dont have the talent, almost no one can meet the requirements. (See #3 above, the star producers know the game, and thats important.) And good is not good enough. Back in the seventies, when there were 5,000 albums a year and no national radio, never mind MTV, a label could get something good on a radio station and via relentless touring get traction in specific markets. Those days are through. The best of the best is available to everybody online 24/7. Thats who youre competing with. Not the band down the street, but Rihanna. Oh, you think Rihannas garbage? Well, do you look like her? Are you willing to have your songs written by committee in camps? Are you willing to do whatever it takes to make it? Oh, I didnt think so. 7. Because youre good-looking and can sing and thats it. Major labels want someone who can write, someone with a personality, someone with something more than TV competition qualities. Isnt it interesting that no one breaks out of The Voice, and you can win American Idol and not end up a recording star. Because those qualities are not enough, and if everybody knowing your name were enough, Paris Hiltons recording career would be a juggernaut and Heidi Montag would be at the top of the charts. 8. You havent demonstrated anybody is interested. Thats how you get signed today. By showing youve already got fans. YouTube views are important, but even more important is how many people show up at your show, in multiple markets. Since its all about the money, if youre generating some and the skys the limit, the major label is interested, despite all of the above, they want in on that action. If youre recording goose farts and your stage show resembles a rodeo and youre ugly as sin the major label doesnt care as long as people show up and buy merch and recordings. 9. Because you dont want to be on one. Now, more than ever, you can go it alone. You dont even have to sign with an independent label, which usually loves your music but is underfunded and poor at marketing and struggles to pay royalties. Sure, some acts with traction sign with a major label. Because they want to be bigger, they want to tie themselves to the major label marketing machine. Does it work? You can decide for yourself. But you dont have to make a deal. You can get an agent and book tours and sell recordings at the gig and on iTunes and stream on Spotify without the major label touching your efforts whatsoever. But if you want major label support, youve got to play by their rules. -- Visit the archive: lefsetz/wordpress/ -- twitter/lefsetz -- If you would like to subscribe to the LefsetzLetter, lefsetz/lists/?p=subscribe&id=1
Posted on: Sat, 30 Nov 2013 00:28:21 +0000
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