Sunday, June 19, 2016

"No More Songs" - say the famous and the obscure

Big stars like Steve Miller or Gene Simmons are shouting, "Why put out a new album?" Right. It gets pirated. You can't make big bucks.

But worse, you aren't likely to go gold. Until the RIAA and Grammy assholes start to include "piracy downloads" in their count, artists don't even get the prestige of saying, "I sold 500,000 copies...a million copies..."

Gee, in the future it might be, "I had 500,000 copies stolen! A million!" And there's a little tin replica of a hand gun to commemorate the robbery.

The big stars can at least enjoy SOME royalties via Spotty Pie and Panty Dora, and they can tour, maybe. Hopefully they saved some of their money.

How about the minor rockers? They are in worse shape.

The cult guys who had one or two hits, but enough loyal listeners so that a major label would keep them around...are screwed. Major labels expect hundreds of THOUSANDS of copies sold now.

What does that leave? Indies expect 'em to have the album already done so they can just make copies and distribute them. No point in that. No way to even break even.

Self-publishing and selling on CD Baby and at whatever teeny-tiny gigs you might be able to play? Simply throwing the shit on iTunes like everyone else and hoping SOME people PAY for downloads???

Here's a guy who made a few albums almost nobody remembers...and he won't be making more.

He was over in the UK to perform at some show for some Abrahammy guy who used to be in Jethro Dull, and Bloody Pig. It was the guy's 50th Anniversary in rock or something. Gee. Maybe this guy made back the airfare and the hotel. Maybe not, maybe he just did it because he wanted to see old friends, and might be able to write off the trip on his taxes.

Whatever, he came back and wrote this:

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