From: "Glenn Meadows" 

Ani Defranco is an established artist, she doesn't need the
"exposure" to make people aware of her music.

She might set up a different model for trying to break new talent, but most
of that precludes that the talent, in a joint venture, has the resources to
help as well.

The artists that don't get treated "so special" are many times
the ones who fail.  Being on the inside and watching, most of this
"pampering" is driven by the artists themselves being spoiled
brats, wanting more than the guy over there is getting.  Most don't have
any clue as to what reality is, in what their real potential is.

True example.  A group on one of our labels, who had not had a cd out in
2.5 years, and historically, has never sold more than 250,000 units TOTAL
in a full album over the life of a record, got real "head
strong", and "eat up with their music", and everyone got
convinced that this record was going to be THE NEXT SMASH RECORD (everyone
thinks that of their own product). Anyway, everyone was SO convinced, the
initial order for Pressing was 180,000 units, and the sales people got
retail to take 80,000+ units into the stores prior to release date.  Lots
of marketing, promo, hype, pitch to radio, new videos, placement on the
various Video Sites, the groups MySpace page, etc.  Lots of mass emails to
their fan club, etc.

Street date hits, first week sales are 2500 pieces.  Not good.  Second week
are 2100 pieces.  Third week 1750 pieces.  Major panic at this point.

Our sales person (not involved with the pop/rock side of our company, and
NOT involved in any way with that division's sales dept.), does some
historical checking of Sound Scan, and sees that the group has NEVER, over
3 prior releases, EVER sold more than 3,000 the first week.  This group has
been OUT of the market for 2+ years since their last CD, their audience has
changed, and gone on to other acts.

Bottom line, when retailers see THIS low an initial sale, and they're
loaded up with product, it starts being sent back immediately.

To make matters even worse, some bright bozo agreed to have another 250,000
sets of their print done initially as well, and it is a very expensive
package to print.  So, beside sitting there with 100,000 pieces in the
warehouse already pressed, 50+% or the initial shipments are being returned
for credit, and all the print that's been paid for will most likely be
destroyed in 6 months, because it will never be used.

--

Glenn M.
"Geo"  wrote in message
news:457ce528$6{at}w3.nls.net...
> "Glenn Meadows"  wrote in message
> news:457c2a1f{at}w3.nls.net...
>> Limo's, most likely, yes, coke, depends on how they hide it...LOL
>>
>> Remember, all this stuff is advanced by the label, and recouped from
> future
>> sales, at the royalty rate. Very expensive loans.
>
> Production costs for big money music companies and production costs for
> Ani
> Difranco are vastly different. IOW, it doesn't *need* to be expensive, the
> music companies just make it that way. Expensive lunch meetings,
> entertainment, treating artists like they were sooo special, advances, all
> of this is non-essential stuff for the business of making music and
> bringing
> it to todays market.
>
> All you need today, is a friend in the media business and a little
> imagination. Look at what Murdock did with myspace after he bought it,
> nobody heard of it before that but a couple court cases and poof it's all
> over the news with more visitors than google. If that man got into the
> music
> business, he would turn it on it's ear.
>
> Geo.
>
>

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