JK2006
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The solution in the music industry today - 2008/08/20 09:17
It's very simple. Spend virtually nothing; make decent profits (far less than needed to run a major); bottom line - a healthy black.
What people tend to forget is - we spent nothing in the 60s and early 70s.
In those heady days we were unaware of how profitable music could be. So our spend - Joe Meek; Genesis; Abba; Zombies; 10cc - was tiny, hoping for profits.
As it happened, when the profits came they were massive.
Seeing the inflow of cash, INDUSTRY cottoned on. Spending fortunes in buying, promoting and so on - because profits were huge.
They no longer are. Receptionists, secretaries, limousines, drugs, luxury - profits do not cover them.
This is a GOOD THING.
I founded UK Records with a tiny budget in small rooms above Boots the Chemist in Grafton Way.
We decorated the office ourselves with cheap boards and lowest cost carpets.
When I plugged THE SPARROW by THE RAMBLERS on Decca I got my staff in Gt Marlborough St to come in over the weekend (free; coffee and sausage rolls provided) to pluck feathers from a boa and place them in little boxes with tissues and the note "I'm only a poor little sparrow and can't afford Rolex watches to give away to shops" and sent them out to retail and radio. It sold hundreds of thousands - all profit (apart from the coffee and rolls).
But the greedy companies bought up labels, spent millions to make billions.
And grew and grew and grew.
Now the income - still very decent potentially - is simply not big enough to fund the overheads of Universal, EMI, Sony...
So it's back to basics.
If you find/write/produce/record a hit, you can do very nicely selling downloads, a few physicals via Amazon and others, building the artiste through small venues growing bigger if demand kicks in...
But you cannot fund giant offices in West London, executive salaries, drones to do the basics.
So your spend is limited to the creative effort.
What's wrong with that?
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