Why Vinyl Can't Survive

er, to me that is

people really have no conception of how much music was not released on CD/digitally

"You know that Queen gatefold of them in the huge studio? I want my album to sound EXACTLY like it was recorded there."

"...sure."

― Ned Raggett, Thursday, February 7, 2013 4:20 PM (1 hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

We want this to sound "really pro", can you do that?

I think it's really cool that there was a time in the '50s and '60s where somebody with a little independent label could go into a studio in a day, record one song and press it to a 45 with any old filler on the back, and then end up selling a million copies and being set for life.

I think there are way, way fewer examples of this than you seem to believe, in fact I doubt you can cite a single one that ended up with the artist being "set for life". Goes back to earlier points made itt about the music industry in general.

Sure they did. The only other option was buying the $18 CD (or having a friend burn said CD for them, I suppose). It began with songs, and very soon after the obvious leap to sharing albums was made.

So why didn't they just buy the track they wanted for $1 from iTunes? The scenario you're talking about really only happened for a year or two.

tbf wk didn't say the artist, he said somebody with a little independent label. altho yeah I agree that even those cases are much rarer. much more common was for people to get screwed out of money then to be "set for life"

xp

I think there are way, way fewer examples of this than you seem to believe, in fact I doubt you can cite a single one that ended up with the artist being "set for life". Goes back to earlier points made itt about the music industry in general.

Sure, it wasn't common but I'm pretty sure I've read multiple examples. I'll dig out the books and do my research later tonight. Let's say somebody sold a million records in the late '50s, early '60s and ended up making $250k from that, which is about 1.8 million now. They could have bought a nice house for say $15k. Sounds pretty set for life to me.

I'm pretty sure Phil Spector's first record is one such example but I think I can find others.

Spector was not "set for life" on the basis of "To Know Him is to Love Him". He became a millionaire very young by being totally ruthless, fucking over his partners, recording a ton of hits, owning his own label/publishing, etc. he is the exception (in SO many ways!) not the rule.

I bet Fowley was pretty comfortable after Alley Oop and Nut Rocker. xp

but ignore "set for life" if that bugs you. The fact is that it was a lot easier to make a living off of singles in an era when they cost the equivalent of $4 today and an independent label could get their song on the radio without spending $1 million to promote it.

well okay yeah that's true. because there was more money flowing into the music industry then, is the main reason.

So why didn't they just buy the track they wanted for $1 from iTunes? The scenario you're talking about really only happened for a year or two.

Because iTunes didn't start until 2001. And you're right, my scenario would have only been effective from 1997-2000 or so (or later, as AG pointed out re: bandwidth -- DSL/cable didn't become widespread until 2004-2005 at the earliest). And in those three years, file sharing completely exploded. It caughton quick, and the industry was simultaneously caught unawares and WE HAVE TO TRY TO STAMP OUT FILE SHARING IN THE MOST INEFFICIENT WAY IMAGINABLE INSTEAD OF TRYING TO COME UP WITH A WORKABLE ALTERNATIVE! (cf. the Sony and Universal attempts at iTunes-like services that were beyond unwieldy for users. Neither service lasted more than a couple of years).

Itunes in the row was much later i think

when the big labels did away with selling singles in stores they got people out of the habit of buying music! a lot of people. people who just wanted the newest/biggest tracks. which is a huge portion of the buying public. so if they are out of the habit or they came of age right as singles were disappearing, ripping them for free was no big deal. they were already used to not paying for stuff.

man this idea that it was the lack of available singles that drove filesharing is just so not even...it's just not the case. people had moved away from the single in the post-vinyl age, period. You couldn't sell CD singles or cassette singles, not even if the CD singles had extra tracks. The single lost viability when album sales experienced their dizzying CD-boom era rise. People didn't want 'em any more, they didn't buy them in the formats they were otherwise consuming in large numbers (CD and cassette).

there was a weird cd single market back in the 90s to be fair, but it was feeding the obsessive fan base more than a mainstream one to be fair. one little indian sold a crapton of those bagazillion bjork singles, for instance.

jesus man i dont think ive ever used to be fair twice in a sentence. busy day at work, my head hurts etc

the other prime mover i remember was tori amos

if you say so. i bought them. and then i couldn't and i hardly ever bought CDs again. and i didn't fileshare or download music. i've never napstered in my life. in the 90's it was not uncommon for bigger stores in philly to still carry new 12 inches too. and then they didn't. and then they all went out of business.

x-post

people didn't by cd singles but those now what I call music comps sold well through the 2000s, no?

Aerosmith I bought one of your cd singles once...but I'm no hero, just a regular guy doing his bit

in the 70s people would return defective stuff to stores and the stores would sell the returns to middlemen/the mob and the middlemen/the mob would just reseal them and sell them back to stores as dollar bin stuff. everyone was happy.

My uncle (now living in Germany) apparently used to scratch such records with a key before returning them to make them un-resellable, as a service to future buyers. I have no idea if that worked. Sounds specious.

I bought CD singles too but I am a music nerd!* I'm just pretty sure that in terms of numbers, they fell off real quick & real early

*only a terrible one because I can't remember names, dates, people's names, etc

The fact is that it was a lot easier to make a living off of singles in an era when they cost the equivalent of $4 today and an independent label could get their song on the radio without spending $1 million to promote it.

Totally agree w/this, just not sure how many 1-hit wonders got to quit their day jobs for life.

I think it's really cool that there was a time in the '50s and '60s where somebody with a little independent label could go into a studio in a day, record one song and press it to a 45 with any old filler on the back, and then end up selling a million copies and being set for life.

I think there are way, way fewer examples of this than you seem to believe, in fact I doubt you can cite a single one that ended up with the artist being "set for life". Goes back to earlier points made itt about the music industry in general.

― sleeve, Thursday, February 7, 2013 7:01 PM (56 minutes ago)

to wk's point, I think it's pretty cool that somebody can record a song in their bedroom, upload it to youtube, and end up with a record deal nowadays

and sleeve, plenty of folks were set for life based on a hit single, but only if they didn't sign away their publishing rights (many did, but many didn't). performing rights societies are a controversial part of the music biz but they ensure musicians can get paid as long as their songs remain in the public consciousness. boxcar willie talks about being destitute and wondering how he was gonna buy xmas presents for his kids when a check showed up from BMI for "king of the road" performance royalties. the guy who wrote "spirit in the sky" got some fat checks when it started getting used in vietnam films of the 80s. for better or worse the rembrandts don't have to work a day in their life after writing the friends theme. paul pena (close to mind cuz I just watched genghis blues) had a middling music career, but I'm sure his royalties from writing "jet airliner" kept him in good shape for the remainder of his stay on the planet.

per wikipedia:

Sidran gave an unreleased copy of New Train to Steve Miller, who recorded "Jet Airliner" with the Steve Miller Band for the 1977 album Book of Dreams. Miller's version of "Jet Airliner" was a hit single, and went to #8 on the charts. Pena's primary source of income in his later years were royalties from that single, which was a song about Pena's airplane trip from Boston to Montreal to play the first-ever date with T-Bone Walker's band.

well okay yeah that's true. because there was more money flowing into the music industry then, is the main reason.

well yeah, that's my point! you can't say "hey the industry ran on singles in the past before" and ignore the fact that everything else about the music industry landscape is entirely different now.

to wk's point, I think it's pretty cool that somebody can record a song in their bedroom, upload it to youtube, and end up with a record deal nowadays

yeah a record deal to make a full-length album. I'm sure there are some people who have made a boatload of money solely off a single in the past decade but the only one I can think of off the top of my head is Rebecca Black.

Sidran gave an unreleased copy of New Train to Steve Miller, who recorded "Jet Airliner" with the Steve Miller Band for the 1977 album Book of Dreams. Miller's version of "Jet Airliner" was a hit single, and went to #8 on the charts. Pena's primary source of income in his later years were royalties from that single, which was a song about Pena's airplane trip from Boston to Montreal to play the first-ever date with T-Bone Walker's band.

well, that's publishing money - this could still happen, and does

soulja boy, kreayshawn, carly rae jepson, etc

xp

I mean obviously there are also plenty of artists who would still be hugely rich if you only counted their single sales and the album didn't exist. But they all have albums too! And they tend to sell pretty well. And if you cut out that whole chunk of income, the entire industry that's set up to produce those singles can't really function in the same way anymore.

xp to myself

i can definitely see a domino effect though. someone wants a new song goes to store they don't have it in single form so they grumble and buy the album for $18.99. they do this enough and then when free internet sites pop up they're like fuckit i ain't paying those prices anymore. i still feel the need to blame the record industry for everything.

soulja boy, kreayshawn, carly rae jepson, etc

these people have all released albums afaict

the guy who wrote "spirit in the sky" got some fat checks when it started getting used in vietnam films

NORMAN FUCKING GREENBAUM deserves more respect than this ffs.
also, you ever play that 45 at 33rpM? wooooaaahahh it's heavy! can't do that with a CD! (not easily, anyway.)

I was going to say something earlier about how I think EPs are the future (present actually I guess) and I'm looking at Carly Rae Jepsen now and didn't realize that her hit is originally from an EP. She's a good example though. 10 million singles sold and only 226,000 albums in the US. So yeah, a few people can still make serious money primarily from singles. But not the kind of money that she would have made if she sold 10 million albums! Not Adele money. And then when you extrapolate that down to the lower tiers of artists who only sell in the tens of thousands you can figure out the huge chunk of great music that is no longer financially sustainable in a singles dominated world.

so how many actual singles would she have sold in stores? not enough to break even, i guess, if i'm to believe you guys.

although come to think of it she's probably one of those people whose single you CAN actually buy in gas stations and drug stores and stuff. they had a huge taylor swift display in the walgreens down the street. probably still there.

The only cds I see in gas stations are bizzie bone and Alabama.

The only cds I see in gas stations are bizzie bone and Alabama.

the gas station of my dreams

But see that's the thing, Red has sold over 5 million copies worldwide. So yeah, 5 million $10 albums vs. 10 million $1 downloads is kind of a no-brainer.
xp

If the 5 million people who bought Red only bought WENEGBT and Trouble, that would be $10 million vs. $50 million

And a band who makes a living selling 10k albums a year is not going to do so well selling 10 or 20k single tracks.

has aerosmith ever put out his uh their own records? i thought that was the future for "cult" artists. the cult of aerosmith...would join probably. unless they met in boston...

is their a good current indie money breakdown thing on the web? please don't make me read albini. something that lists costs and describes the current situation. what people make. what people do. i guess everyone has different situations now.

Is there a similar discussion on ilx about film distribution/dvds?

the other factor that hasn't been mentioned re: CD singles is shelf space. If the retailer made 50 cents or a dollar on a CD single but $3 on an album, then why would they want to take up valuable shelf space with singles? but I guess the death of CD singles came before places like best buy sold cds as a loss leader to get people in the store to buy washing machines.

i think the chain music store across the street from me makes all its money on dvds and games. they sell a ton of new video games. i buy dvds there. out of the giant buckets of dvds. i graze in them for a while.

i'm really glad that chain store is there. cuz people who want to steal stuff just get confused in my store. they don't know what's flippable. so, the dumb chains do serve a purpose. they keep shoplifters employed and out of my hair.

Without wading through this whole discussion let me say that I LUVVV my vinyl and that I LUVVV my CDs and that I'm against arbitrarily pitting them against each other because they have their own pros and cons and 'cause it's kind of pointless to argue about one being better than the other 'cause they're their own singular entities and, y'know, peaceful coexistence and all.