matt heafy is bankin

[rhino]

[Devy]

This will leave him more time to ride bike.

[rhino]

on a strange mountain

[Devy]

Your mum's a vicar.

[zim]

i thought trivium were pretty big?

[Mr. P]

but you also need to pay your tours somehow.

[Meat Engine]

Labels are a joke. Self-publish.

[Mesarthim]

yeah, it seems like you are better off just getting a loan from a bank then going through a label. if cds really are dead maybe a lot of bands would have some success doing what Louis CK did and put out a quality album online for like $5. of course people will still pirate the hell out of it, but if it's good -- people are also a lot more likely to drop $5 on it then say $10-$20. i know i would.

[Meat Engine]

Exactly. Why give away the rights to your music when you can retain them, and use them as collateral for a loan? I think labels serve a very small purpose - they have contacts to get physical copies pressed and distributed. Bands should look to do digital distribution without the help of labels. Bandcamp, Amazon, iTunes. Even if you only make 30% from iTunes, that is probably 30 times more than you would get by having your label do the iTunes thing for you. All that is left to do is partner with a tour management agency and try to get some shows arranged.

[zim]

didn't radiohead give away a full album on their website once? also with the available option to purchase it?



that's probably what i'd do.

[bills bro]

I'm assuming that thing (free album) works a lot better for bands with an established fan base. A new band releasing an album for free will probably be ignored or assumed to be shit.



I think the main way to get popular is still through radio airplay and touring.

[Lavabug]

[quote name="Meat Engine"]Exactly. Why give away the rights to your music when you can retain them, and use them as collateral for a loan? I think labels serve a very small purpose - they have contacts to get physical copies pressed and distributed. Bands should look to do digital distribution without the help of labels. Bandcamp, Amazon, iTunes. Even if you only make 30% from iTunes, that is probably 30 times more than you would get by having your label do the iTunes thing for you. All that is left to do is partner with a tour management agency and try to get some shows arranged.[/quote]

Actually the artists' return on digital sales through iTunes & other major digital music stores is MUCH lower than returns on physical copies sold through major labels! Like fractions of cents for every song or something of that order, I posted a thread a while back with a fairly extensive dot graph showing the comparison. Only small digital stores like cdbaby made the artist money comparable to that made from a selling a physical CD.

[Meat Engine]

Does that account for when the artist holds the digital distribution rights, or when the label holds them, because I could have sworn the rights holder got 30% of the price from iTunes.

[Hugo.]

I heard something like that too. Maybe I'm thinking of another digital distributor though.

[Olden Polynice]

It seems lazy not to just do your own thing in this day and age.I've seen a couple of labels go from virtually nothing to recognizable names in a short period of time through alot of hard work (not metal).I guess too many musicians just want to be rock stars.

[Hugo.]

You can seel your tunes through bandcamp and the likes now anyway.