Streaming Versus Physical Product And A New Beatles Deluxe Book...

[guitarfool2002]

The debates have been ongoing for decades, it's the formats and preferred delivery systems for the music (and film media) which have changed. What no one who knows the industry would disagree with is that the music industry, let's focus on the concept of the "labels", was caught fast asleep when the entire delivery system of music changed and the audience didn't wait for the labels to catch up. And the labels still have not caught up which is why the old business model of record companies was destroyed and left in rubble and they're still not sure what to do.

Even the ways in which the artists, songwriters, and publishers are fairly compensated when their music is bought, broadcast, or played on demand in general is still a confusing mess.

But seriously, when have performers and writers *ever* gotten a fair shake when a label was involved? If anyone says "Oh, but, in the old days the labels did this or that for their artists..." I'd suggest taking a weekend and doing some research into exactly how "well" the labels handled artists in terms of compensation. I believe for years, decades actually, the payment rate on a record sold was something like half a penny (US) or less. So who got the other 99.5 cents from every dollar spent on an artist's work? That's what needs to be learned and remembered.

So yes, I agree the streaming services and the payment systems in place do not favor the artists. But neither did the old system. The only way an artist would get a bigger piece of the pie even in the pre-digital era would be if they literally pressed their own albums or singles and sold them directly to fans, or somehow got those records into the shops. Ani DiFranco was one of the bigger examples of this - She formed her own label Righteous Babe and did it on her own terms. Was she playing the Pepsi Mega-Smash Tour 1998 next to Christina/Britney/etc and Smash Mouth? Maybe not, but she got more of a percentage of the sale when her records sold than someone on Sony/BMG would be getting. Ani also managed to cultivate a large and loyal fan base who supported her music whether she has Beiber-level online media numbers or not.

So how does all of this relate to a box set in 2020?

Consider the hype just started over a Beatles deluxe coffee-table hardcover book covering the Let It Be sessions. Wait...I thought the hardcover book industry was almost dead thanks to Bezos and Amazon and the Kindle and online reading and all of that? Wait, I thought no one was buying deluxe edition books because people were living with less "stuff" and living in small city apartments and didn't have the storage space. Wait, I thought most book consumers were carrying Kindles around so they could read on the subway or bus heading for their jobs in the big city? Wait, I thought music that is 50 years old had no viable market and no one cared?

Obviously none of those market analysis blurbs were accurate, and on top of that, 2020 changed the entire game not just for the music industry but for life as we knew it in February 2020.

That Beatles hardcover deluxe coffee-table book will sell. It was part of the marketing blitz supposed to surround the Peter Jackson cut of Let It Be, Jackson even wrote the forward to this book, but that got postponed obviously. Yet the book is set to come out and is already generating a buzz.

I guess the point with this Beatles book example is even in this current market, even in a market that was supposedly destroyed by Kindles and online readers and whatnot, here comes a huge Beatles hardcover book onto the market.

If there is a market for that book in Fall 2020, despite all the business trends which said there wouldn't be, surely the same market of buyers exists for deluxe edition box sets from legacy artists. Surely that kind of deluxe physical product can coexist with the streaming and downloading and social media delivery systems where the Beatles still thrive and reach their audience.

I don't think streaming sales are hurting the legacy artists all that much. Indie artists, yes because the marketing and brand establishment simply isn't there for the millions of industry artists competing for clicks and streams with Cardi B. But here are The Beatles as a brand offering a coffee-table book for fans who are the market for that kind of item, and kids can listen to their music online while doing homework, and people can have their earbuds blasting "Here Comes The Sun" anytime they want. It's a coexistence that will have to be accepted by artists...and hopefully for the indie artists they will eventually get some collective muscle and clout to get that royalty and payment rate up to a reasonable amount so they get more of every dollar when their work is used.

Just consider the lawsuits which were filed back in the day against cassette tape and videotape machine companies by labels and the music industry because they thought fans at home taping off the radio and TV and getting a decent quality copy on affordable blank tape would "kill" the record business. It didn't. What destroyed the business was the business itself literally sleeping through the biggest revolution in media and delivery systems to consumers that the industry had seen probably since the invention of broadcast radio.

So I don't see streaming hurting these bigger labels and major legacy artists and I still see a wide open market for deluxe books and box set releases coexisting with the online digital formats. It's like marketing always has been done: You have to inform people that it's out there and convince them that they want to buy it. Specific to the Feel Flows set, you already have the core fans saying they want to buy it. If a Beatles book on the Let It Be sessions is generating buzz already in an era when hardcover books were written off as niche items that are dinosaurs from a previous era...surely a box set of amazing Beach Boys music can find a place too.

[HeyJude]

One thing regarding the issue of streaming is something that Wirestone alluded to in a recent post.

Precisely *which* artist we're talking about sometimes does matter, for a lot of reasons.

Advocating for not devaluing music via streaming is a worthy cause, but the Beach Boys is not really the home turf where such advocating holds a lot of water. They are not hungry, starving artists. They actually can afford to not bring in a bunch of revenue from old recordings.

Also, to the point of whether the band could remove themselves from streaming services, there is likely a mechanism by which they could do that. But if they did, then BB music would become even more niche and unnoticed.

Just some stuff to chew on.

[rab2591]

They are not hungry, starving artists. They actually can afford to not bring in a bunch of revenue from old recordings.

I almost wish they were money hungry...because they could possibly forgo streaming, make it physical purchase only, and make a lot of money that way. But they don't need it, which is probably why there isn't any desire to release this thing, from a financial standpoint.

[zaval80]

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[zaval80]

I invest in books heavily. The market for physical books is alive and well. Yes there are authors who went the e-book route, either for new editions or entirely (Stephen MacParland is the obvious example regarding the BBs, but otherwise he'd have to sell physical books from his native Australia, and this is pretty much a problem). But their number is few, while an amazing number of music books is being printed, either as HB or PB, both by renowned publishing houses and by the "self-publishing" outlets, the scope is amazing.

A month ago, I was not able to buy a deluxe edition of a book on Hawkwind. Numbered at 500, it sold out as soon as it was announced to go "live", within days - at 50 GBP, at that!
http://strangeattractor.co.uk/shoppe/hawkwind-days-of-the-underground/
The deluxe edition offered a very good value for money in the guise of a bonus book.

As for the music releases, it all depends on the mindset of band members / management. Like, The Doors passed at issuing the promised multi-disc of "L.A. Woman" sessions back in 2011, while during the same time The Velvet Underground issued each of their 4 studio albums as multi-disc set, and then even more.

It's good that we've got "The Smile Sessions". I remember some people were complaining back at the time that this box is too pricey for them. Yet, were this material to appear in the '90s, it'd have been snapped like hot cakes. In my opinion, the labels shoot themselves in the foot by steering off the '90s model when a multi-disc box sold at what, $60 for 5 CDs? yes those weren't "deluxe" but in no way less classy.