Play It Again..........

According to Hal Vogel, an entertainment economist, between the four major record companies, there are an estimated 11,000 label releases each year. Wow, right? So how is it that we only hear about a hand full of artists?

It's also estimated that the industry spends most of it's promotion and distribution on 2% of those releases. That's about 220 releases. Lets say that only ten of those releases receive enough attention to sell between 35,000 to 500,000, to upwards of a million or more copies. These artists will eventually receive most of, if not all of the labels' attention.

When you listen to the radio or watch an awards show, it's no wonder that you hear the same few names, over and over again. It then becomes a question of whether a major label artist becomes hugely successful because of their music or because of heavy industry promotion and distribution. An artist's first successful release might be due to fan adulation, while subsequent releases might be the result of label hype, intended to either repeat or outdo past performance, or maybe to prevent any chance of failure. From then on, they may even be riding on pure name recognition alone.

Mean while, how many of those 10,990 other releases would have a chance, if given the mega amounts of radio and TV promotion that's expended on those ten that make it, to the extreme. I think, and this is just my opinion, that music consumers want two things, they want variety and they want a memorable performance. This is key to why so many music fans have turned to the internet.

While CDs still offer the best sound quality when it comes to available recorded music, digital downloads are still providing the widest variety in terms of genre, style, and selection.

Each year, it's taking longer for an album release to sell a million copies. Over all sales so far this year has only slipped by 1.3%. This was due in part to digital album sales. This alone is not enough to suggest that downloads have won the format wars, but if the major labels are not willing to stand behind more of their product that ships to brick and mortar, then the door is definitely open for downloads to surge ahead.

The problem that remains, is all those other 10,990 releases that receive little or no promotion. Much of the money spent making those recordings is considered as a loss. This could be part of the reason why the cost of CDs from the major labels continues to rise. So, why do they do it? Clearly, it's a hit or miss strategy at work here. Whether it's intended or not, it has become standard industry practice. Which of those all but discarded releases might contain the music of the next musical sensation? And, why would their music be passed over in favor of the same cookie cutter formula that sells less and less with each release, while the art of a possible superstar is being relegated to the cutout bin?