Warner absorbs Roadrunner Records EU and UK, people lose jobs, bands get pissed
- Thread starter AeonicSlumber
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skyrefuge
Member
heh...so what are you saying? The reason the news has received no mention on Blabbermouth is because....Bori just hasn't heard about it? Or, he doesn't consider it newsworthy? Or, he was busy writing an article on it but got sidetracked by higher-priority scoops such as "DREAM THEATER Is Big In Japan" or "MACHINE HEAD To Film 'Darkness Within' Video In Czech Republic"?
- Aug 14, 2008
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heh...so what are you saying? The reason the news has received no mention on Blabbermouth is because....Bori just hasn't heard about it? Or, he doesn't consider it newsworthy? Or, he was busy writing an article on it but got sidetracked by higher-priority scoops such as "DREAM THEATER Is Big In Japan" or "MACHINE HEAD To Film 'Darkness Within' Video In Czech Republic"?
I don't know, I'm not him, but I really doubt he cares what someone might want or not want him to post about. If he took the site elsewhere he probably could and get someone else to host it on their servers and they would be stoked on it. He makes his money through selling ads on the site and through the service that sells ads for him, which is also separate from Roadrunner.
That's me being objective though. Personally, I think Blabbermouth's penchant for copypasta press releases and aggregating stories from Billboard and other rock websites isn't going to excite people much longer, since I could just as easily get the info I want by checking my news feed on Facebook. People are going to want actual content, not just aggregated news.
- Aug 14, 2008
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- Aug 14, 2008
- 4,893
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- 36
Ash the owner of Sumerian Records posted this today:
"My favorite labels growing up like Ferret, Trustkill and now Roadrunner getting assimilated and dismantled by the majors.. This is why I will NEVER sell Sumerian Records. Passion, excitement, action, artists and family will always be more appealing to me than a bunch of numbers in a bank account. Plus let's face it... I'm way too much of a control freak perfectionist to ever let someone take over my life's work. "
"My favorite labels growing up like Ferret, Trustkill and now Roadrunner getting assimilated and dismantled by the majors.. This is why I will NEVER sell Sumerian Records. Passion, excitement, action, artists and family will always be more appealing to me than a bunch of numbers in a bank account. Plus let's face it... I'm way too much of a control freak perfectionist to ever let someone take over my life's work.
"
AMBR
Metal Grandma
Reminds me of this, "See what happens when you make bad decisions? Don't reenact scenes from Platoon with Charlie Sheen!Get Direct TV." You have to have seen that commercial.
I'll agree with the industry adjustment theory. As a journalist, I watched my job at the newspaper dwindle to about 30% of what it once was. Internet has, of course, hugely impacted news media too. Who wants to buy and read a newspaper and <shudder> have to actually recycle it? But the newspaper I work for has trimmed and tweaked their business model and now I was just offered a plum feature writing assignment along with all the photography responsibilities for each story.
Hopefully, the music industry too will adjust and eventually become revitalized. Maybe this is a necessary "recession" in order to bring about change and trim the fat. We shall see....
Ash the owner of Sumerian Records posted this today:
"My favorite labels growing up like Ferret, Trustkill and now Roadrunner getting assimilated and dismantled by the majors.. This is why I will NEVER sell Sumerian Records. Passion, excitement, action, artists and family will always be more appealing to me than a bunch of numbers in a bank account. Plus let's face it... I'm way too much of a control freak perfectionist to ever let someone take over my life's work.
Nice quote...who gives a fuck?
- Aug 14, 2008
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AMBR
Metal Grandma
Thanks, Ray. If you had asked me just a few months ago if I ever thought this would happen, I'd have said, "no way." I was shocked when I was contacted by my editor and offered this gig. Now everyone is calling me all excited about the project. Who'd have thought? Not me! Apparently quality journalism and decent photography are actually still a good idea! The watered-down stuff they were using wasn't making ANYONE happy. Well, f**k'en A!Congrats, AnnMarie!
TribunalRecords
Record Label(s)/Vocalist
Plenty of people do. You may not recognize those label names but they were big players in the hardcore scene all through the 2000's and beginning independently in apartments in the 90's. They grew so big and sold part of their labels to majors and they crushed them. I started my label because of labels like Trustkill, Ferret, Roadrunner and (early days of) Victory Records.
I have had the same offers come across the table years ago, but opted against it as Ash pointed out because money isn't the ruling factor for some of us. Unfortunately for these other labels money was important, unless of course WMG masked their intentions of purchase as an infusion of cash to help RR grow even bigger. They did that to my distributor and it went bankrupt because of WMG crippling them financially. Myself and about 30+ labels lost a ton of cash because of it. Sadly enough, many of them could not recover from the losses and closed down.
Major labels are ultimately, evil incarnate.
AngraRULES
Member
nailz
Member
There's no real monopoly on higher Education. In fact, several schools give courses away for free, and there's a TON of websites that'll offer free courses, Yet, somehow, I'm still getting paid. You can literally download and watch courses of every make and model, review essays, notes, and learn anything with a click of a button. Your statement is horseshit. You think the complete elimination of pirated material will see mega money flow into artist's pockets? Do you think the people who're stealing shit will PAY for it if they HAVE to? LOLOLOLOL.... they just will go without. You wouldn't see a dime from them either way.
Ok.
http://www.vividexplosion.com - I hardly ever get paid for the work I do, except for entrance to concerts and meeting the bands. Fucking fuck, I even sent Trivium the shots I took from Mayhem.
http://www.khanacademy.org/
http://ocw.mit.edu/index.htm
http://www.reddit.com/r/techsupport
http://www.reddit.com/r/computertechs
http://www.techguy.org/
http://www.computerhope.com/oh.htm
Your move, Heafy.
TL;DR: Everything I can do is done for free too, AND so is the industry I work in, and I'm fine.
nailz
Member
I really don't understand why more bands don't just take the DYI route. It's not like they're getting much of anything unless they're either established greatly or really fucking lucky.
Element_man
Lord of the Realm
I think DIY is the way to go, too. Maybe I'm the only one here, but if I know that the band has made something themselves, I'll give them points for trying and be more willing to buy it even if it's not quite as nice as the professionally-made stuff. I've got a couple cool band shirts that the group screen-printed themselves and they're sweet, even they are a bit off-center.
DIY is also good (if you have the time/resources) because you can control your product stream. Instead of pressing 1,000 CDs and then having hundreds lying around for who knows how long, you can put together a smaller and more realistic run, do something fancy with the packaging that works well with your band, and run from there. If it's got a really cool handmade vibe and it looks good, then you can probably get away with charging more money for it too. To me, this is not just about selling product and pushing album sales, but it's also about establishing your brand and standing out from the crowd and making a real connection with your audience.
nailz
Member
Hell naw man, Press a ton of CDs and include digital downloads or USB drives, play shows, sell the album for $5 a pop, move a TON of them. You'd recoup the initial cost of recording/pressing in the first 500-1000 sales of just the album, and after that it's pure profit! I promise that at $5 a pop, shit would fly off the table if you're any good.
IMO this would work well if you had a distro service that would maybe take a larger cut but let a band keep the rights to sell things directly themselves too. The album would reach a larger market and the band could recoup local profits quickly and REALLY make some money at the local shows. Imagine if you went to see BG for example, and had access to their entire catalogue for $5-7 a pop including a digital copy. How many people would drop $20-25 for 4 albums? Almost everyone planning on buying merch. easier to get $25 out of someone's wallet for 8 perceived products than $10-15 for one.
IMO this would work well if you had a distro service that would maybe take a larger cut but let a band keep the rights to sell things directly themselves too. The album would reach a larger market and the band could recoup local profits quickly and REALLY make some money at the local shows. Imagine if you went to see BG for example, and had access to their entire catalogue for $5-7 a pop including a digital copy. How many people would drop $20-25 for 4 albums? Almost everyone planning on buying merch. easier to get $25 out of someone's wallet for 8 perceived products than $10-15 for one.
Diabolik
Member
tihs is very very true. It drives me nuts to no end when I see bands selling thier CD's and stuff for 15 bucks at a show. Sure I know why....I understand how things work. But like Nailz said, at a lower price people are willing to buy things if it is cheaper, or even give something a shot if they were half interested. Back when I was heavily into punk / hardcore....the average t-shirt price at a show was between 5 - 10 bucks. EP's were 3 - 4 bucks. CD's were about 8 bucks. ALmost every show I went to I came out with tons of stuff. Half of it was stuff I was half interested in or wanted to support the band. At the crazy high prices I see now with stuff I have zero interest in buying a 25 dollar t-shirt or a 15 dollar cd when I can go home and order it cheaper from a distro.
I know a few bands who do the DIY thing and they constantly sell stuff at shows and people buy it up. Recently Superchrist went on a week tour. They have the DIY philosophy. At thier last show of the tour they pretty much has nothing left merch wise. Shirts were all 10 bucks and CD's 8 bucks. In the long run you will do better going this route. While you may not make more with each sale, you will get more of your product out there.
Which in reality is the point of all of this.
But not to derail the thread. Matt from Tribunal made the best point. Not everyone in the biz is out to just make money. I know lots of people who are in it for the love of the music or happy with what they built themselves and not everyone is willing to just sell off years of hardwork for a quick buck.
dcowboys311
Member
Exactly. This might be news, but in the absence of piracy, people's disposable income doesn't go up. So, it's that $30 trip to the movies and the free download, or the $30 trip to the movies and no download. Either way, no $$$ stream. Granted there's always the possibility that there'd be that $30 music binge and no movies, but it's incredibly flawed to think that every download = lost revenue. And, of course, there's the even more likely possibility that it's $30 to a competing band or label, which is STILL no $$$ down your pockets. There are limits and you can't expect every entrant to an already overcrowded market to prosper, with or without the existence of piracy. And it should be no surprise when those who take a more 'business-oriented' approach end up with more $$$ than those who take a more 'love/art-oriented' approach. Not saying the two are incompatible but you get the point.
To make people want to shell out their $$$, you have to make them WANT to shell out $$$. There are always endless alternatives to your income. Make it so that, either through exceptional music, packaging, extras, whatever, people want to buy your records rather than the combo #5 at Burger King.
For what it's worth, I'm like nailz in that I work in higher education, too. And despite many free/cheaper alternatives, people pay out the ass because of the perceived value. If your records (not directed at you Trib, I like some of the stuff you release, just talking in general) do not offer that value, you can't complain when nobody wants to pay for them. Not every band/album is good or talented enough to move units and people seem to forget that.
Berek2000
Member
I am not a collector of CD's...I just don't have the space. I d/l from iTunes for most of my purchases. But, for Voyager's latest, I truly enjoyed downloading from their website and getting the "personal" reply thanking me for the download and letting me know that MY cash was going directly to help the band. The band got cash in their pocket and I felt better about spending my money on the CD. Win Win.
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