| General Bobby Farrell | Bobby Farrell Promotions | Vandor Company Directory |
ARTICLE 02 |
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Everest Whyte, International Industrial Review, Investigative Reporter, London, United Kingdom The dream of getting a recording contract and living happily everafter in the lap of luxury is the prime motivation for most entertainers, despite the few burned out hippies that still insist in their best American nigger english, "for the arts, man". Being an actor, singer, musician, or any other 'art' related profession is being in that particular business! Businesses cost money. Somebody must pay the bills, profit or no profit. And right there is the prime downfall of most hopefuls trying to break in to this most-lucrative of all Industries: they never recognize anything but the glory trip! They'll squander every last farthing in recording (known inside the Industry as "session rich and promotion poor") under the false assumption that some record company 'will take it from there'. Nothing could be farther from the truth! Executive Producers must not only foot the recording bill, they also have to pay their share of promotion! Record Companies only 'discover' those few artists who pose a threat to those acts the company already has a hard financial commitment to! The only 'insurance' they have is to play people's ignorance against them and let the fools keep themselves out of the Industry on any ruse that will work. If you will believe their "record-company-pays-all" nonsense - you're a prime candidate to become a never-was. Any record available on the commercial market is owned by four entities: 1., the Executive Producer; 2., the Record Label; 3., the Music Publisher(s); and 4., the General Licenser. These are the same four who finance INITIAL promotion! If the record should achieve market sales, the Label, Publisher(s) and General Licenser must carry the load, at the direction of the General Licenser. If the record is one of those out of eight that actually sells any copies at all, the General Licenser usually just carries the load on their own. It's the General Licenser who fronts the marketing and distribution costs, with a charge back to the Label and Publishers (especially their own in-house subsidiaries) should there be severe losses. In cases of dubious market demand, General Licensers are often required to produce financial statements of the Label and Publishers or have them contract for some portion of liability (co-sign) to acquire short term business loans. It should be becoming apparent there are no free rides in Recorded Music regardless of myths to the contrary. After all, it's a business! The cold hard facts for all concerned is: only ONE distributed record out of EIGHT ever sells any copies at all! Non-distributed (Indie) product is totally worthless as an investment, even as demos. But with an ROI (Return on Investment) at a tremendous FORTY SEVEN PERCENT (47%) AVERAGE: the reason why records still exist as investment entities is obvious. Even at those ONE out of EIGHT odds: when a record does pay it pays in solid-sterling spades! Therefore, if Labels, Publishers and General Licensers are financially embound as partners: they only need one more to make a complete set: Executive Producers to create and invest in the actual product! Executive Producers are like all other businesses: they need to buy goods, services and expertise in order to sell their wares at a profit. All businesses must buy goods, services and expertise just to stay in business, and those in Recorded Music are no different. The days when a Label would front or pay all costs of recording, promotion and distribution began to fade in the '50s when returns fell from previous 800% levels and went on the critical list in the '60s, except for communist money to finance the moral and intellectual degeneration of Western youth. By 1970 it was a Zombie (rare but reputedly walking dead), and by 1980 both the funeral and grave site had long since been forgotten. There are no surviving Labels who pay all the bills except to shelve the unsuspecting competition! Even when Labels did front money their contracts had charge back clauses to deduct any and all expenses incurred plus loan-shark-level interest from just the Artist's royalties: all to be paid in full: before the Artists get paid one red cent and before the contract can expire! That's right! All the investment plus interest deducted from just the Artist's royalties even if the Executive Producer, Label, Publishers and General Licensers were making money by the bucket! And, until the entire debt was paid in full: including all that exorbitant interest, the Artist was bound to that contract and not allowed to contract with anybody else! And that's where the one-hit acts came from and went to! All other myths and delusions to the contrary are just that: myths and delusions and only a total ignoramus doesn't know any better. That Record Companies pay anything except to shelve is on equal par with the 'send it in' stupidities still found among the terminally ignorant 'song-poem' writers. To cut through all this: anyone can get a solid recording contract! 'Talent' has nothing to do with it. It's a business procedure pure and simple. That means you're going to have to spend some money and manage your career as a business. 1. You should be your own Executive Producer if at all possible. It will permit you to retain 100% control over your career, including what to record and how to record it and double your mechanical royalties at the same time! You'll get paid as the Artist, and get paid as the Executive Producer, and have the right to record your own compositions and get paid any songwriter public performance earnings you can blackmail your ASCAP, BMI or SESAC affiliation out of! 2. You need an EXECUTIVE PRODUCER'S RECORD RELEASE AGREEMENT [INSERT: VMG's current issue on-line for your study and review.] that only a member of the Board of Directors can authorize. Don't waste time talking to anybody else, they're in place to 'wild goose chase' all those who don't know any better. And don't waste your time with anyone who doesn't respond immediately to your request! A turn-down or run-a-round is solid evidence that the company you're talking to is simply out of available money for your project. Unless you've shown your Industry Ignorance or paranoia, or both. Call the next one until you get a "YES!" response. 3. Your finished productions (which you will pay for) must conform to the General Licenser's dictates: format, total running time, etcetera. Therefore, get that ExP Agreement in Paragraph 2., above, before you spend one penny in recording something that is totally worthless! The Licenser will provide a BREAKDOWN and you'll have no more than THIRTY (30) DAYS to deliver, so be ready to do business. New Artist album promotion budgets (2004) should run between $60,000.00 to $250,000.00 for a project to financially prove itself; up to $5,500,000.00 for a project that intends to buy the 'main' charts and make a good bid for the equally bought 'awards'; of which you will be required to pay from one quarter to one third, depending on the Licenser. And these costs do not include any Artist Promotion, which has little to do with Record Promotion, although they look a whole lot alike in most cases. There are only six General Licensers, so don't waste your time talking to 'labels'! And don't waste your time 'waiting to be discovered'. |
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Since new count began, 22 April 2008.
