Did you know this?

Frank Parish · From: Nashville,Tn. USA

Talking to a friend of mine the other day that's had a record deal for two years but still waiting, told me if he'd known about the record business ten years ago he'd never have tried for a deal. The thing that got me the most was how some of these guys get where they are. He told me that Deirks Bentley actually had to pay the Allan Jackson folks (records company or management, I'm not sure) a whopping $100,000 to be the opening act on just one tour and all they got for money was what they made in their concessions, CD's T-Shirts, posters etc. I've heard many times that Tim McGraw actually bought his record contract and payed for all of the sessions, promotion, you name it with help from his dad Tug McGraw. Also he told me that the record companys are owned by big conglomerates that own big blocks of radio stations so it's kind of like the left hand pays the right hand big money to get a certain artist played on radio. That would be legal payola sounds like to me. The playlist is only fifteen songs in the major markets and the rest is advertising you hear on the radio. Since I spend so much time driving and listening to the radio I've noticed how all of a sudden it seems you hear an artist a lot more than you used to and on all of the radio stations for a period of time. Lately I'm hearing alot of Alabama probably because this is supposed to be their farewell tour. Anybody out hear got some more light on this subject or is this stuff I'm hearing baloney?

Steinar Gregertsen · From: Arendal, Norway, R.I.P.

Don't know anything about the specific examples you mention, but I lost all illusions about the big record companys a long time ago. With a very few exceptions, it seems like most of them aren't interested in music at all...

Today I wouldn't even bother to shop for a record deal, but do everything myself and distribute through the internet. Then, if some company should offer to pick up my album, it would be "my way or no way".

Don't kid yourself, these folks are calculating businessmen who's only in it for the money (with, as I said, a few honorable exceptions).

Steinar

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www.gregertsen.com

Larry King · From: Watts, Oklahoma, USA

Can't say I know very much about what's going on except to say that I was told in 1987 that the prevailing attitude/position was...."welcome to Nashville, bring your checkbook"....I could tell from reading the liner notes on one of Texas' best, that his second album also had to be "sponsored" by someone other than the record company. I'm sorry, but I'm not able to watch ANY of the so called "Awards" shows and couldn't tell you the number 1 song if you offered me a million bucks. Simply put, Country ain't Country no more.

Frank Parish · From: Nashville,Tn. USA

Yes I know what you mean. My friend is working on a deal to lease his album to a record company for five years. They get to market it anyway they want and then he gets it back. What a concept. I hear this is the going thing now.

Janice Brooks · From: Pleasant Gap Pa

On a related note
CBS MarketWatch is reporting that Sony Music, BMG will chop 2,000 Jobs, which will mean close to 25% of their combined workforce once approval is given to the music groups' merger. Work on the reorganization of Sony Music and BMG are to begin next week, following an expected ok of the combining of the companies by the European Commission and the Federal Trade Commission. Word is that the merged company will be called Sony BMG, and according to CBS MarketWatch, executives would like to make 85% of the layoffs by June 2005. Sources also feel that the A&R departments of the merged Sony BMG will not be heavily affected by the job slashing.
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JamesMCross · From: Houston, Texas, USA

At the risk of stepping into relatively unfamiliar territory and sounding completely uninformed....

I have a good friend who 6 years ago found a sponsor, went to Nashville and spent about $60,000 on a CD project. He got some very good pickers, got some great songs, and put a good package together with the idea that he would shop it to the major labels. None of them were interested, so it's on the shelf. He did get some airplay on what was then the largest Billboard reporting station around, and a lot of good local exposure - but nothing ever came of it and he is now selling broadband access plans.

I have another good friend who scraped up just enough money from playing gigs around the state to record his all original music CD project with some awesome pickers that the vast majority of the non-picker world has never heard of. It's a great CD, full of great steel guitar and fine Telecaster work. His project was very well received, in and around Texas and on the Texas and Americana charts, and he sold every copy he had until the distributor went out of business and he lost the remainder of his inventory in the ensuing bankruptcy.

What's my point? We vote for our favorite musicians and artists with our dollars. If we don't listen to the conglomerate radio playlist and we don't buy the stuff they're selling, then we have more dollars to spend on the stuff that we like and we decide who to support and who not to support.

Earlier today I heard Lloyd Green playing on one of the same stations that we're suggesting are the bad guys... So, they can't be all bad all the time...

Just my three 1/2 cents.

[This message was edited by JamesMCross on 16 July 2004 at 07:18 PM.]

Ken Lang · From: Simi Valley, Ca

The way greed runs through the music industry, it wouldn't suprise me that there was a pay to play even among the biggest acts.

Another avenue some have taken: Some years ago I had a friend who was offered to go under contract with Buck Owens. It was a salried position with the apparent understanding he would reap rewards if he became popular and sold a lot of records.

After going over the contract he realized he was selling himself into servitude. While the money was good, he no longer had any control over his life and would have to go anywhere, anywhen he was told to.

He didn't sign, and was glad years later that he didn't.

chas smith R.I.P. · From: Encino, CA, USA

I'm kind of surprised that you are surprised, with all due respect. Anytime there's a lot of money flowing, it attracts the money and power people who bring with them, their "ethics" and business sensibilities. I want them to focus on the "art", quality and tradition, they, in turn, are about marketing, product placement, cosolidating power and quick profits, to keep the shareholders happy. This isn't likely to change any time soon.

Bobby Lee · From: Cloverdale, California, USA

I like everything on the Nonesuch label.

David Mason · From: Cambridge, MD, USA

As radio stations continue to lose listeners, the modern business model tells them that they have to consolidate operations, band together and share DJ's and news, reduce playlists and other "efficient" money saving operations. The more they do this, the more listeners they lose - and therefore, the more they consolidate. The same thing is happening to hometown newspapers and local TV. These people are working with a flawed business model which doesn't acknowledge people's interests in local music, musical variation, local news, etc. They will eventually have to swing back in the future to make money, but they don't realize it yet and who knows how long it will take for the pendulum to swing back? To me, finding good music now is down to word of mouth, if "mouth" can be taken to include the internet. For example, I buy what b0b tells me to. http://www.cdbaby.com/home http://www.guitar9.com/ http://www.guitar9.com/flippingtime.html

Herb Steiner · From: Briarcliff TX 78669, pop. 2,064

I'm not shocked at all by the "pay to play" concept hitting the "big time," though I'm disappointed that the organization of Alan Jackson, one of the good guys IMHO, participates in it. If crappy clubs in Los Angeles have P2P, where there's very little to be gained professionally, why not do it for the big shows that offer tons of exposure? It's the Clear Channel model simply moved to live performance instead of radio.

Note to editor: Insert Hunter Thompson quote here.

James Lutz · From: Wisconsin

And the newspapers are all owned by monopolies too, all with their own agenda. Thankfully you can wade through the internet and glean various angles on stories and usually somewhere between 4 or 5 different sources ususally overseas news sources, you can begin to make out the truth...

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Minds work like parachutes. It's best when they're open.
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"The music business is a cruel and shallow money trench, a long plastic hallway where thieves and pimps run free, and good men die like dogs. There's also a negative side." Hunter S. Thompson

Dave Boothroyd · From: Staffordshire Moorlands

It sounds to me as if your friend got stung by another type of "consolidation". It is not uncommon for an artist to be signed to a label so nobody else can promote them and distract the buying public from the artist the company wants to promote. Basically you get a deal to keep you silent, so all the money can be spent on ........ (insert name of Nashville Clone you hate most)
This happens in particular to people who are similar in looks and style to one of those above, but maybe a bit more independant and creative - or just less naiive and malleable.

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Cheers!
Dave

Steve Allison · From: Eatonton,Ga. U.S.A.

Well here I go with my big mouth;

(IF) or (HOW 'BOUT) all of the "true country" performers that we all love dearly'(old & new) joined together and promoted each others music by way of a conglomerate of radio stations and one big record label that they were all a part of, do you think that we would rally around and get behind them to support this. I think that at one time,(Branson & other areas) it was fashionable to kind of "run away" instead of stand up and fight. Would we stand up and fight with them or would we demonstrate an attitude that is all too prevalent in this country as a whole.

Every thing has changed to a bunch of nonsense that I no longer understand!

I must go back to the wagon, "These shoes are killin' me."

Donny Hinson · From: Glen Burnie, Md. U.S.A.

James Lutz · From: Wisconsin

Donny, you are very observant, and IMO right on the money.

I think there are a couple steps that occur prior to your observation that bear pondering. They are the mechanism that allows what you have pointed out to occur.

One is that any unions in place that protect the workers need to be removed. Second, the owners have to buy the politicians that will enforce their will, and their will is to accumulate as much gross capital as they can regardless of who is destroyed in the process.

It is capitalism gone mad and unchecked. We are just beginning to see it ever so slightly brought into the light of day. Martha getting a slap on the wrist, Ken Lay will get off cheap. Token responses to crimes against all the little people.

I wish I could live long enough to see the revolution, when the 'have nots' finally get tired of taking it from the 'haves' and start paying attention and holding the corrupt politicians accountable.

There, I feel better.

Respectfully exercising my American rights,
Jim

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Minds work like parachutes. It's best when they're open.

Michael Johnstone · From: Sylmar,Ca. USA

Record companies routinely sign talented,promising acts knowing full well they're never going to use them for anything other than a "designed to fail" tax write-off. Gotta fill up that schedule C list with something besides limos,hookers and cocaine. And there's always a conveyor belt of hopeful chumps waiting for their turn to spend five years in record contract limbo. I thought everybody knew this. My advice: take the money,set up a recording studio,start your own record company,sell the CDs at gigs and on the net - it's cheaper and way more profitable.
-MJ-

John Macy · From: Rockport TX/Denver CO

In today's world, spending $100,000, plus the tour support to keep Dirks and his band on the road is a pretty good investment. Alan sells out his tours, and you have an intense, captive, country music audience seeing Dirks in a favorable environment night after night. In the million dollar plus budgets it takes to break a new artist, it actually makes sense. I am curious how it was split between artist/label/promoter ??

Now I know the label will recoup the tour support for keeping the band on the road, the question of the $100,000 is whether it is just advertising or if it is 50% recoupable like a video budget. How many records sold it will take for Dirks to recoup is another question, which I sure he and his manager have considered.

I was head of a CCM label for three years, and we sent one of our artists out on a "pay to play" tour. Their sales that summer increased 10 fold or more, and while it was basically a wash for the tour, it really set up sales for their next record. All in all for us, it was a great investment, both for the label and the band.

Joey Ace · From: Hamilton, Ontario, Canada

This is nothing new.

I remember a record company exec telling me, around 1975, "The thing you need to understand is we're not in the business of selling art, we're in the business of selling vinyl."

Many bands, in all styles of music, are surprized that their their advances have to get paid back to the companies.

I've given up trying to tell any 'up and coming hopeful' the way it is. They believe getting a deal is the end of the rainbow.

Tony Prior · From: Charlotte NC

I'm with my buddy John on this one. 100K investment for a tour with possibly the #1 touring Country Show is probably not a bad thing, and thats why Dirks promo company did it ! They probably bid on it .Quite opposite of what some of us may feel, they were probably thrilled to get on the ticket.

AJ has built his business to the top spot. A newcomer , whos good by the way aka: Dirks, wants top gain access to what AJ has done and taken say 15 years or 20 years to do ?

The money on the road for someone like Dirks is always from CD's , shirts, hats etc, not necessarliy the "playing for money" thing.

Lets see, a tour of lets say 20 shows, sold out at probably 60,000 each show. Thats 1.2 million concert attendees, how many shirts , hats and CD's is that at about $15 each ?

I wonder how many shows AJ 's promoters gave concessions to back at the beginning to get an instant boost.

I don't see this as a bad deal but a rather good business decision.

I doubt there was any conversation between AJ and Dirks at all... I suspect AJ would say..
"I dunno' much about this stuff thats done by them folks inn the front office"..and he would be right.

Do you want to advertise on the back page of your local small town newspaper or the back page of USA Today ?

I hope Dirks scores the big one here..he certainly will have been in front of the right audience.

As far as Tim M. goes, this is not uncommon, actually quite common if you have the financial resources to get it done. Remember the "Chicks" did this last year. It's risky but what the heck..they don't call him " The Donald" for nuthin'...

there's no free lunch, never has been..not even at home..
t

Brian Davis · From: San Francisco, USA

I agree with Bobby. Nonesuch seems to be the exception to the rule. However, they are not taking any chances on unknown artists. And they are owned by Warner Brothers.
www.nonesuch.com

erik · Posted 20 Jul 2004 5:40 pm