What Ever Happened To?
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| Music Specialist |
The new music industry has been ushered in with a swift change of leadership and direction. Many foolish people still hold on to ancient concepts and believe that the Black radio & record community will revive itself. This is NOT going to happen, for everything must change. The music industry became an industry of “smoke & mirrors” where companies and individuals were paying thousands of dollars just to tell a LIE about their music. The reasoning was that a major label would pick them up, pay them and make them a star.
So what ever happened to?
RETAIL PROMOTION – Hiring people that would make sure that your song got SoundScan reports every week and assist you in “hyping” the charts. No longer is it necessary for there are no independent records on the charts to be hyped.
RETAIL TRACKING – Seems like there is no one who really cares about where your record is physically or digitally located and what it is doing on a weekly basis. So there’s no one left who calls retail on a regular rotation.
RADIO PROMOTION – The KING of hype games is still being played but on a much larger, more expensive level. Today you can pay a promoter $25,000 to $40,000 just to get spins at night, during mix shows and on weekends. This can get you into the Billboard charts, however you haven’t sold any music and you still have to spend money to have your artist work promotional dates. For $80,000 - $250,000 you can have your music placed on air (depending on the stations format), BDS (Broadcast Data Service) reported and eventually Billboard charted. However since NONE of this promotion is truthful you still have to find another way to sell physical and digital product to the masses.
RADIO TRACKING – This was a given job for hundreds of label secretaries and interns, now there are no lists of songs for the station to give out, no one within the station who even makes a decision on music or relationships between the caller and the station. Independently owned music is not even being played on terrestrial radio under any format except non-commercial.
VIDEO PROMOTION – Who tracks your video plays, has the relationship with the major video television companies or even owns a list of the available television programs to send your video to? Of course there is You Tube, but who knows that your video is on You Tube?
RECORD POOLS – When DJ’s were playing records, then you needed someone who knew the most popular club DJ’s and could get your music to them PLUS get feedback on your tune. The advent of MP3 technology coupled with the shady, money hungry actions of Record Pool Directors has made this type of company totally unreliable and unnecessary.
INDEPENDENT RETAIL STORES – Sure there are still a few stores left in certain neighborhoods around the United States
BILLBOARD - The Billboard charts were once used as a list for the record retailer to purchase from. Customers would come in, look over the list, normally posted on a wall or bin, and make their purchases. As a record label you had to chart your record to justify sales, improve airplay and get wholesalers to pay you what they already owed you. It truly was the bible of the music industry. No longer is it necessary to “climb” the charts to become a musical success. The “bible of the industry” has become the “comic book” of the major labels.
INDEPENDENT DISTRIBUTORS – These are the wholesalers that operate as middlemen between the label and the retailer. Because the chain system (Best But, Target, K-Mart, etc...) now controls the majority of sales of recorded music, these distributors have a much tighter and smaller inventory and some malicious games for the label. As a label you must pay for distributors’ promotion, marketing, place and positioning within stores, special programs and if your product sits on the wholesalers’ floor more than 30 days you pay for storage.
ONESTOP – a smaller wholesaler that has disappeared from the industry landscape, while most were specialty record orientated there inventory was never large. The majority went out of business based on outstanding debts.
The death of the BLACK RECORD DIVISIONS at the major labels is probably the worse thing to ever happen to the music industry. Not only did it affect urban contemporary music, but also pop, gospel, Christian, jazz, and more. The reasons behind this failure of the divisions are varied but a few more important ones are:
1. EXECUTIVE EGO – Big jobs normally mean big heads. One ex-executive told me that he would have never treated people the way he did if he knew that it would come back to haunt him as it has.
2. A&R DEPARTMENTS – Budgets and promotional plans were normally based on the A&R department’s choices. Once these executives stopped picking music for its musical purity and sound and started picking music out of FEAR of losing their jobs they made themselves obsolete. They also made sure that the major label owned everything they could on each and every song. Who they cheated was the artist and producers that kept the entire system working.
3. PROMOTION DEPARTMENT – These guys took honest straight forward relationships and made them into “pimp – hoe” relationships. Many major label promotional executives created dishonest criminal approaches to getting music played on air and elsewhere. Drugs, sexual favors and money became the promotional tools of choice.
4. SALES – You would think that sales people had an easy job, wait for the promotional department to do their job and sell music into the retail system. These executives started using the same criminal techniques that the promotional department used to get unreal estimates on orders causing millions of records to be pressed, shipped and ultimately returned to the source.
I am truly glad for the change that has over taken the music industry. Today you can own your music completely and sell directly to the consumer without any middlemen. For all you old timers that wish for the good old days to come back. Keep dreaming.
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