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| From | Not Lame <popmusic@notlame.com> |
| Subject | Twilley, where art thou? |
| Date | Fri, 25 Feb 2005 19:15:41 -0700 |
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> Hey Bruce,
>
> Funny that Twilley's label, Digital Musicworks International, Inc. (DMI) is
> making his new album available at Amazon. This is their creed according to the
> label's website: "By distributing and promoting artist's music exclusively
> through digital music stores, DMI is taking advantage of this new medium to
> deliver an improved artist experience. Through a digital-only music
> distribution model, artists will have more creative control, and can release
> more songs, more frequently."
>
> If given a choice, I'd rather buy albums from Not Lame or similar independent
> music stores. It's a hassle to download music and burn a CD. But looking at
> the other side:
>
> I bought the album for only $9.99 at the Real Music Store. Amazon charges
> $6.00 more. Plus shipping. Is it worth more than $6.00 to get a jewel case and
> the inserts? The CD-R costs cents, not dollars.
>
> They are predicting that digital music distribution will be the most popular
> method. Will there still be demand for brick and mortar and mail order
> distribution of physical CD's?
When they price it this way, Sherman, of course it WILL and should be a more
popular method(to go digital). It would be for me.
The issue here, as you put forth inside their mission above, is that it IS
available to Amazon and not anywhere else. If yr going to be all-digital,
well, God bless ya....GO for it. Hard.
But don't stick your hand in the pie and poke it in the middle and not
expect to find someone who does not like a hole in his pie piece to remain
quiet. (okay, lame analogy, but it's after 7PM on a Friday at the office
and I gotta get home!)
And speaking from a retail standpoint(again), it's offensive to any retailer
that has supported an artist for years(pick any one, this especially
applicable to indie retailers who have developed cool bands that go to
majors and then do exclusive arrangements with, say, Best Buy) and then
finds themselves be locked out *to do their job*. It's a tough enough road
w/ indie retail for years now to get snubbed, too, by the digital startups
in such fashion.
I'm down with the vision, really I am..but if this how it goes, well 'burn
in hell as yr making my life and the life of other cool indie retailers a
bit more hell-ish'. (not literally, of course, I'm a nice guy...but this
all is really, really irksome)
It's a company's right to go this way. And this how DMI is setting it up.
Fine. But there will be some heat to take and wounds to lick doing it this
way.
Also, $16 plus shipping is pretty over priced. And DMI determines that set
up inside their costs and splits to the artist. Amazon just has their own
mark up(like any retailer), which I believe is now $6/CD in the Advantage
progam, so they are charging $10 wholesale which higher than the norm(most
indies sell to their disttrributs in the $6-$8 range) for indie labels.
For NL, we're on the highest level for pricing, I think, for indie labels,
$13. We don¹t' sell a lot, tho and literally ever dollar of a sale of a
label release off the NL web site, keeps the whole thing going. And NL does
not have venture, angel funds flowing thru it's model, just old fashion spit
'n grit from its owner.
Anyway, a place like DMI cares little about retail, that's obvious. And
that is their right inside their mission they are communicating. BUT if they
are pressing up cd's, making them available on Amazon and then not letting
indie retail in, well, it's hypocritical and insulting to the retailers who
have been there to the career of the artist AND to the process of developing
an artist together alongside that artist. Retailers deserve to be a part of
the process of communicating to their customers about WHY they care about
any artist. That's what the good ones DO, every day. Help arbitrate and
inform their customers so they have a relationshp with each other. To take
that out of the sales equation for a digital label is folly and a flawed
model. You leave it to just the only digital label, the artist and a
faceless digital delivery mechanism to to care about the musical output of
the artist, it's going to be hard to make much of a story, in most cases.
So there's the answer to your question, possibly, Sherman. A 'all-digital'
label like DMI may think they can go it alone into the new frontier, but if
you really think it out, music retail has a much more important function,
one connected to what one could call a "long-term Career".
(before Lewis and Clark made it out in these Rocky Mountain parts, many
other explorers had their scalps chopped for not bothering to take along an
informed Indian guide to navigate thru the new territory, ya know? There's
an better analogy I can chew on now!)
Regardless of our 'wonderful' digital-only future in front of us, there is:
An artist. There is a label(which can be the artist now!). Then, there is a
retail mechanism in place that, ideally, works together to cut thru the
morass of over-information and choice to the get the fan to care enough to
buy it.
Cut one of those off, and it's a harder road than it needs to be.
This will change, but pretty much all the digital distribution places leave
a lot to be desired in the marketing area and certainly have no ability to
have any personal interaction with the fans of the artist, at the street
level.
Bottom line for many of these new Digital Only labels coming on: The Vision
is fine. The guts inside, holding it up, have a rotting disease, that if
not treated, will be fatal to their investors. Respect retail in 2005 so we
can work with you in the future.
It's an opinion. But I think one worthy of discussion for any digital-only
label to wrestle with.
Btw, here's a supposed power pop discussion group and an important artist in
that subject's cross-hairs has had an 'album' out for a few months now and
until today, there was not one peep about it. That says something worth a
bit of wrestling with, as well.
Thanks for indulging the industry crap here, folks!
Peace On,
Bruce
@ Not Lame
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