Bob Baker's The Buzz Factor
Music marketing tips and self-promotion ideas for independent songwriters, musicians and bands.
Bob Baker's Indie Music Promotion Blog
News, notes and ideas on music marketing, self-promotion, artist empowerment and more
March 19, 2008
Trent Reznor, TVT Records & iTunes
1) Last month TVT Records laid off most of its staff and filed for bankrupcy. Founded by Steve Gottlieb in his New York apartment in 1985, TVT achieved success after releasing music by Nine Inch Nails and KMFDM. In recent years, the label has focused on hip-hop acts such as Lil Jon, Pitbull and Ying Yang Twins.
Sources: Rueters and AllHipHop.
2) In recent weeks, Trent Reznor (former TVT Records act with Nine Inch Nails) earned $1.6 million in sales with NIN's new album, Ghosts I-IV, which was released independently, without a record label. Ghosts was offered to fans at various price points, from a free download to a $300 deluxe package.Sources: News.com and The Globe and Mail.
3) iTunes has surpassed Best Buy and Target to become the second largest seller of music on the planet, second only to Wal-Mart. However, the first-place retailer is cutting back on space for music CDs in its stores while download sales continue to grow, which means iTunes will likely surpass Wal-Mart by the end of 2008.
Apple says 50 million customers have bought over 4 billion songs since iTunes started, with 20 million downloads sold on Christmas Day 2007 alone.
Sources: News.com and Engadget.
4) A December survey by The Pew Internet & American Life Project asked participants which technologies would be hardest to give up. The Internet, at 45 percent, narrowly edged out TV, at 43 percent. Five years ago, a similar survey rated the Internet at 38 percent and TV at 47 percent.
Sources: St. Louis Post-Dispatch and Pew Internet.
-Bob
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posted by Bob Baker @ 10:59 AM
4 comments
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Bob Baker is an author, indie musician and former music magazine editor dedicated to showing musicians of all kinds how to get exposure, connect with fans, sell more CDs, and increase their incomes. Find out more about Bob and his live events.
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Yeppers! Independent digital distribution is the way to go. Just wish iTunes made it easier for independents to get into their system.
Darren
www.curiomusic.com
Darren, if you've checked out Tunecore or CDBaby, then you'll find its VERY EASY to get onto itunes. I would be more worried about marketing yourself then just getting on itunes though.
That Apple will soon overtake Walmart can only be a good thing, Apple are a considerably more progressive company and have a vastly better ideology and politic.
What we've yet to see though as the download market matures, amidst all the excitment of crumbling major label models and artists gaining more control / bigger royalties, is how fans cherry picking songs from albums will affect artists output.
This is great! I grabbed a copy of the free NIN release, and it's really excellent - and a brilliant promotional material for the full package (and all the mp3 files are loaded with metadata, something I think a lot of people forget to do).
Just one thought. NIN and Radiohead have had a lot of press over the free release of material, and being fair, have made a load of money. But they do have the 'slight' advantage over the truly indie release. They were both signed before!
Both bands have had record labels with serious cash behind them plugging them in all the available media, and chucking suitcase-sized amounts of cash around to get them to the front of everyone's mind and on stages with captured audiences. We already love them! They are riding on the back of a lot of money already spent.
(This isn't meant to avoid the fact that they are also popular because they are good - I'm just cherry picking).
Surely this isn't _just_ the end model for all indie releases, but far more what the record labels (hopefully) will realise is the ideal business plan for their industry.
Just a thought.
Mike
riddlermusic.co.uk