| General Bobby Farrell | Bobby Farrell Promotions | Vandor Company Directory |
ARTICLE 11 |
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Sebestian Garcia Mondragon International Industrial Review, Investigative Reporter, San Palo, Brazil With all the MIS-information about recorded music filling the entertainment pages and air waves, getting accurate how to do it right the first time facts is all-but impossible. Nevertheless a non-distributed record is worthless regardless of how much money is spent in production or promotion. Most Artists and Groups squander their entire budget making totally worthless 'demos' or being session-rich and promotion-poor. There's nothing more idiotic than thinking you can produce anything and some 'label will take it from there'. The only time that scenario happens is when some label has to take the act out of competition! Talent is not the prime factor of success in recorded music. It does take good song material, produced in a commercially acceptable manner, sufficient budget to properly manufacture and deliver the record to appropriate promotion and distribution outlets with the industry expertise and logistics necessary for the General Public to hear, find and buy the record! If you're an aspiring artist you're going to have to develop a market following of record buyers who will hopefully become Concert Ticket buyers and long term supporters who will contact their local broadcasters to air your music. And right there is the first Catch 22. How do you get to listeners without first going through radio? The fact is: you don't! That means you've got to produce a recording that is air-worthy at the outset, then get it delivered to radio stations by those elite few who know the who and where your record will have the best chance. Mailing records willy-nilly flatly won't work! Broadcasters are reluctant to air records that can't be bought through existing commercial distribution outlets. You need distribution through one of the Super Six General Licensers! If you're amenable to adapting to the market rather than expecting the market to adapt to you: then you have as good a chance as anybody else to make a well-paying life-long career as a Recording Artist. If you insist on some self-inflicted narrow little nit of 'your talent': you're wasting your time and money in this Industry. So what do you do to get on the air and develop a market following? You pay strict attention to the advice of your General Licenser! Currently, there are still satellite networks offering FREE programming to radio stations for carrying the satellite company's commercials. Stations insert their own commercials, reducing their staff and payroll to sales personnel and on-air technicians, the later usually at the lowest possible wage! Thus "On Air Personalities" (OAP pronounced APE) 90's doublespeak title of an 80's DJ) either have to perform or die the death. If they can't produce solid income for the station: they're dead. Next, live music night clubs can cut their license costs and band overhead with the installation of an amplifier and mike into the jukebox and letting the customers entertain themselves! It's called "KARAOKE" and it became a rage in the Nineties, and a rage of rages in the New Millenium, with no end in sight. There are Karaoke entertainment services with the talent and equipment for hire, but with a lot less trouble of a live band and all their prima-donna nonsense. Club owners can charge the same prices at the door and for drinks as they would with a live band only at a near-nothing cost. And suddenly the door is wide open to the Artist who wants to build a market following! First, the record must be a distributed product, easily obtainable by contacting one of the Super Six General Licensers and requesting an Executive Producer's Record Release Agreement before you record! You'll know how much money it's going to cost, the latest market indicators as to instrumentation and music tastes, and get priceless production advice. Then you only need to concentrate on which FIVE songs to record. FIVE SONGS? That's right. You need only record FIVE songs. And you mix them with and without the lead vocal! Get that straight! You'll have TEN cuts for the album: FIVE with the lead vocal, and FIVE without the lead vocal. That will double your mechanicals as you'll get paid for both inclusions just as you would with ten songs, and cut your recording costs by half in the process! But make sure you only eliminate the LEAD vocal - everything else stays intact! The OAP must either entertain or die, leaving no other choice but to hit the karaoke spots as few bands can actually credibly perform most new and popular records. That dictates the circumstance that said OAP must be about the business of making the songs popular they intend to perform! You've handed them a first rate quality set of KARAOKE BEDS to sing to: but the Karaoke Night Club or Operator has to buy their copy! The OAP has to air YOUR version of the song in order to make it popular enough for their performance of it even in satire! And that has to be done over the air! With OAPs in the either deliver or "we-go-satellite" squeeze, night clubs fed up with ASCAP, BMI and SESAC black mail, and prima-donna band nonsense, the doors to radio airplay and someone else doing YOUR MUSIC as covers are both as wide open as the Industry has ever been in its entire history! Sing-A-Longs (kids call them TRAX, Industry calls them MMVs, Music Minus LEAD Vocal) often outsell the artist's vocal version by a factor of FOUR to ONE! That's a market increase of FOUR HUNDRED PERCENT! In simple rule-of-the-thumb terms if your record sells 100,000 copies - the MMV will generate another 400,000 in sales - and you're SOLID GOLD as it only takes 500,000 to get a GOLD ALBUM! It doesn't matter if the OAP satirizes your song: you're still the Artist of all sold copies! It doesn't matter if the OAP sings your song over the air: you're still the songwriter on the receiving end of those Public Performance for Profit royalties! Once you have a distributed record containing songs ANY OAP can sing: the odds of building a market following are astronomical, not to mention the ROI (Return On Investment) from record sales! At an average of $1.80+ (as ExP and Artist) per copy sold (2004) not counting airplay you can see why over 99% of $100,000.00+ per year Artists are their own ExP! (UPDATE: Royalties have been increased to EIGHT and ONE HALF ($.085 USC) as of January 1st, 2004) per 3:00 song per copy sold. For a 10 selection album, that computes to $.85 to the Artist and $.85 to the ExP - totaling $1.70 per copy sold if you're both! And, when you're your own ExP you can record your own compositions and get another FORTY TWO point FIVE CENTS ($.425) as your FIFTY PERCENT (50%) share of the Music Publisher's mechanical earnings. NOTE: that Vandor/VMG pays EIGHT POINT SIX CENTS ($.086) per 3:00 song, keeping with our policy of always being above statutory. That's the best deal the Industry has ever had. Don't be disheartened if the General Licenser you contact turns down the deal. They may be too far in debt to take on any new projects unless the ExP is paying the whole show! Simply call the next Licenser until you get a taker. But never call until you're ready to do business! The Industry's worst deal is the one that costs you nothing - has ASCAP's, BMI's and/or SESAC's full approval - and a charge back provision that's pure and simple robbery. The only worse case scenario is waiting to be discovered by some 'talent scout' reputedly representing a 'label' or one of the Super Six General Licensers. The only time that is going to happen is when you are making enough noise to be a threat to the investment of somebody who has already bought their way to the top - and you have to be shelved - to protect that investment. |
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Since new count began, 22 April 2008.
