The other day, I happened to read a blog post that was in response to another blog post by an intern at NPR's All Songs Considered. Her name is Emily and she claimed that she only ever bought 15 CDs in her life while her iTunes library contained over 1500 songs. She also stated that while she worked at a college radio station, she ripped some 11,000 more songs.
She' 21 and doesn't feel that there was anything wrong with how she got the music. After the great war on file sharing, I can imagine that there are millions more just like her. She also said that she would like to have a Spotify style catalog of all the music ever recorded, with royalties payed to artist on a per play count basis. She wanted access to what ever she wanted when ever she wanted.
Quite a few have responded to her blog post. Some were surprised that the "culture of free," still persists, and obtaining free music continues to be one of it's principle objectives. I was a little surprised that Emily was a college DJ but didn't want to pay for the music of her favorite artists.
With all that is going on with regard to the changes that are taking place within the music business, I guess that we've all kind of tuned out the issue of how to transition from the current physical model to a truly all digital model. I think that a complete transition will probably never really happen. That there will always be some tangible fixture that will allow individuals to purchase their own copy of an artist's recorded music. If not the CD, then the Thumb Drive or maybe some other form of portable memory storage device.
As an artist, I have no problem with paying for the music of those other artists whose music I admire. Having spent a good bit of time making and releasing my own music has given me an even deeper respect for what it takes to record a single or an album. There's a lot more to it then just setting up a microphone and pressing the record button.
First, you have to have the song or songs that your going to record. If you don't write, then you'll have to pay someone to write the songs for you. If your're not a musician, then you would have to hire some one to play the music. Your songs will need to be arranged so that they make a coherent and complete sound as a composition. This is the producers role, which could be you, or you could hire some one to arrange the songs for you.
You will either have to buy recording gear, if you don't already own some, or you would have to rent a studio which could be costly, depending on how long it takes to make your recording. Recording a song or an album could take several hours, days, weeks, months, or even years to finish.
Someone would have to engineer your recording, if you don't know how to do so yourself , or hire someone to engineer for you. Also, you or a friend, or maybe someone that you would have to hire, would have to sing the lyrics, unless your song is an instrumental.
Once the song is recorded, it would then have to be mixed. This could be done by your recording engineer. After your project is mixed, you may want to send it to be mastered, if this is not something that you or your engineer feels comfortable doing. Many mastering houses can master your finished recording for a price starting around $45 to $349 and up, depending on the number of tracks to be mastered and who you get to master it. Mastering gives your music that ready for the radio sound and is often an expense many independent artists and bands forgo for fear of exceeding their budgets.
If you choose to release your music as a CD then you will have to have it replicated. The price for replication has dropped considerably with the rise of digital distribution. A small run of about 100 CDs with jewel cases and a one or two page insert can cost about $200 to $300 dollars. Some replicators are offering free websites or release to CD Baby as part of a package deal.
Once your project has been mastered, it's on to the distributor. Digital distribution is probably the cheapest and quickest way to have your music released. Prices vary with each distributor. A single track may cost you $9.99 and up while an album may cost you $49.99 and up depending which distributor you choose. A digital distributor can get your music into emusic stores such as iTunes.
You will need a photo or cover art that will be used to reference your finished music in the emusic stores. Some distributors may offer this for a small fee, other wise, you'll have to either make it your self or pay to have it done.
All of these things cost the artist time, and/or money. Then there's promotion. If you're signed to a major label then this it's likely to be included in your contract. If you're an independent, it's all on you. I didn't list the price of everything that is involved in making a record, but the above should give you some idea of just what it takes.
I don't know about anyone else, but when I see my favorite song available for .99 cents or my favorite album for $9.99 and I either don't have a copy or my copy is either lost or destroyed, I tend to see this as a bargain. What's more, some emusic stores offer deep discount prices that allow you to download sings for as little as .49 cent while albums may go for as low as $4.99.
To me, that's cheap... a mere pittance. So, why is there still a problem.
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