How the music industry works

Do you know how a record deal works?

I used the Lily Allen feet photos discourse as a ‘teachable moment’ in this week’s newsletter

Are there any things about the music business that you’d like me to breakdown and make sense of in future?

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A good read!

Is the current state of THINGS much different to stuff when Albini wrote his notorious piece? Doesn’t seem massively so, other than less money because streaming? Same basic ‘problem’ of artist snuffling up the filthy lucre and then whining when corporations act like corporations?

Seems like the idea of the ‘industry’ (as opposed to underground/DIY) voluntarily transforming into something that better suits artists at the expense of the shareholders is somewhat fanciful?

Eg. Feels like 3/4 Hot New Artists are from affluent/privileged backgrounds. How is this state of affairs detrimental to ‘the industry’? Definitely detrimental artistically, but, like, who cares? Not the shareholders I’d guess.

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The whole thing about advances has been confusing for years, despite not really changing. Of course the likes of X-Factor aren’t going to advertise a £1m recording contract prize with a long caveat of (most will go on promotion for you and will need to be recouped) though, so can see why people are always duped into thinking being signed equals megabucks.

Think I heard a story recently that Tony Wilson refused champagne when they were in America trying to get New Order a label as he knew he’d ultimately be paying for it. Something like that.

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“Don’t let the record label take you out for lunch / because every sip of soup is gonna get recouped”

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The bigger issue is that a lot of big names are still signed the legacy deals that he wrote about.

Some modern deals are radically different in terms of how streaming is paid but they also don’t really have tour support any more. But I’m trying to dig into some of this a bit more as there’s obviously lots of NDAs and privacy around deals.

I was reading an interview a little while back, i think it was Avey Tare - he was saying that Animal Collective got a 5/6 or whatever album deal with Domino in the mid 2000s, whereas now they’d be on a two album deal at best. Increasing casualisation in the indie world, I guess.

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“These days, plenty of people want to call musicians “content creators” but it feels dismissive because music is not “content”. It’s songs that reconfigure your soul, it’s era-defining albums, it’s life-changing concerts, it’s 90 minute drone pieces, and 1.316 second Napalm Death songs.”

Fucking preach!

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I nearly cut this bit out as I couldn’t decide if it was a bit off topic bur glad I left it in now. Cheers!