Friends and Music fans alike,
The Official Idol Boards sometimes get to deteriorate to broing, insubstantial messages that sound like --- OH HE's SO HAWWWT, NO SHE SUX and all that crap.
But occassionally, you get to watch posts that are really substantial and make you appreciate the struggles that those artists in the music industry have to go through.
A poster named BOY BLUE posted this and I think it gives us INSIGHT into the lives of striggling artists like Taylor Hicks and/or Chris Daughtry....
(note: I emailed him and asked permission to post it here and he graciously gave me his OK. He even asked me how to register in the FR site (note I don't know if he's a conservative or lib ).
http://myidol.idolonfox.com/Boards/topic.aspx?tid=208241&p=1#post641692 Those of you who appreciate the talent of Taylor Hicks and who are red blooded Americans who believe that Merit should be rewarded, know that Taylor is in it because he loves the music.
However, you also know that NOTHING motivates a person more that to see his efforts appreciated and financially rewarded.
Taylor knows that his talent is appreciated by millions of Soul Patrolers, but how about financial rewards ? Is it a bad thing ?
Is he going to continue to be a "BROKE PERFORMER" as he said in his interview ? Is he eventually going to end up in real estate because he has to put food on the table, pay for his medical (in case ), mortgage and all that ?
Are we going to lose his talent eventually because he has to give up his career to be more "practical" ?
So, here is a question to ask yourselves :
HOW MUCH DID TAYLOR MAKE IN HIS MOST AMBITIOUS ENDEAVOR YET --- UNDER THE RADAR ?
Now, assuming that, as a Taylor fan, you’d like to see him do as well as possible financially so that he can keep recording great music - which one of you contributed the most to Taylor's bottom line?
Since you’re reading this I’ll assume that you’re relatively comfortable with digital technology so lets start with iTunes, the massively popular online music store. Apple has currently has about 80% of a $1.1 billion dollar market (SHHH, don't tell the taxman)-- even longtime holdouts “The Beatles” are planning on finally releasing their music online. Therefore, we all know what online music has done to our lives and how easy it is to "pirate" someone's music.
So how much does Taylor make when you download his song?
HOW MUCH OF THE 99 CENT DOWNLOAD DOES TAYLOR GET TO KEEP ?
Let's look at major labels like APPLE for instance.
They collect 34 cents, the label keeps 55 cents and Taylor (assuming he is on iTunes) keeps a dime.
YEP, for every download from iTunes, an artist like Taylor who signs with a major label, gets 10%.
Independent Artists like Taylor might do better but not by much.
If Taylor's song was not self-composed, then his dime gets shared with the composer and he gets less than the dime ( depending on the agreement he signs ).
What about offline sales in traditional markets ?
I hear that if Taylor's UTR were to be sold by a major label like Arista for instance, he gets about $1.14 to $1.17 per CD sold. So, if his CD contains say 10 songs (the average), he gets about 10 cents a song. In otehr words, the artist Taylor probably gets something like between 80 cents to $1.20 per retail sale of his CD. And note this --- Taylor will get this money ONLY AFTER they’ve recouped the costs of making the album which, in many cases, never happens at all.
So, it is estimated that Carrie Underwood has sold 3 million CDs from her SOME HEART album. Assuming that we have a third of that being downloaded via iTunes, I estimate that thus far, she has not even made a million dollars yet from her endeavor. DO THE MATH.
So you do the math to see how much it would take for Taylor to be a millionaire. Guys like Simon profit more from his CD sales than Taylor himself IMHO. That's just the way the game is played.
And oh yeah, you have to consider one more thing --- those sales of burned copies of Taylor's UTR CDs on eBay ? Forget about Taylor making anything from the $300/CD sales. The money goes to the guy doing his home-based business.
FOOD FOR THOUGHT AS YOU CONSIDER THE CAREERS OF A PASSIONATE SINGER/SONGWRITER/PERFORMER ( no wonder his dad wants him to go into real estate ).
MORE OBSERVATIONS FOR YOU GUYS TO PONDER ...
From some quick calculations based on the above financial figures, the relevant question for Taylor to ask would be ---
SHOULD I FOCUS MY CREATIVE EFFORTS ON MAKING HIGH SELLING SINGLES RATHER THAN A FULL BLOWN ALBUM ?
Any thoughts ??
Again, I am basing the above figures on major label artists who have great distribution and marketing deals.
Taylor is an independent artist however ( at this point in time ). He must, aside from having to perform 5 days a week, also deal with having to continue to promote and distribute his work. He has done that and I think the pinnacle of what he did was having his work featrued by radio stations like WBMH and even National Public Radio ( that was pre-Idol). HARD WORK !!
If anyone has paid his dues to the industry, Taylor has every right to say it.
I got the following figures from a distribution company called CD BABY
THEY WRITE :
How the MONEY works
* You set your selling price at whatever you want.
* We keep $4 per CD sold.
* For Digital Distribution and Live Sales, we only keep a flat 9% cut. You get 91% of all income.
* There is a one-time-ever $35 charge to set up a new CD in our store, with everything we described above. (Here’s why.)
* That $35 lasts forever (or until you don’t want to sell that CD anymore.) So we will never tell you that it isn’t selling enough, or you’re not important. Even if you only sell 1 CD every 20 years, we’ll be glad to warehouse it and take orders for it here.
* We pay every Monday night by bank-transfer, paper check, or PayPal. You can set your “pay point” - to be paid whenever you want! (Imagine that!)
It’s pretty clear that, for an artist like Taylor, he makes the most money per unit on an independent label controlling his own distribution methods.
Taylor went this route folks, and look what happened, HIS FATHER, EVER CONCERNED FOR THE WELFARE OF HIS SON, SERIOUSLY ASKED HIM TO CONSIDER ANOTHER CAREER (Selling houses and property ).
Why am I writing this ?? WELL, BECAUSE I WANT TO SEE TALENTS LIKE TAYLOR HICKS TO SUCCEED. There are NUMEROUS Talents like Taylor folks. Bo Bice is just another one, but I can tell you there are still many of them in this great country of ours.
IF YOU LOVE GOOD MUSIC, BE SURE TO SUPPORT YOUR FAVORITE ARTISTS BY PURCHASING THEIR CDs INSTEAD OF GOING THE CHEAP/DIRTY ROUTE.
This will help ensure that people like Taylor will "GET HIS VOICE HEARD".
Another interesting point I gathered from the Idol Boards regarding Taylor's UNDER THE RADAR CD...
Quote:
Originally posted by AGLET
I am speaking about the number of Under the Radar albums which have been sold by one small store in Alabama. Wouldn't you like to know that number??? I know I would.
Talk about a great title; TAYLOR got it right; it is UNDER THE RADAR!!!
I believe I also read that his album sold 2000 albums in TAYLOR's first three days on AI.
Quote:
Originally posted by BoyBlue
Excellent point. Now what would REALLY INTEREST ME is to see the company -- Laseredge give some actual figures of how many units have actually been sold thus far. Taylor has been on TV for about 10 weeks now. So, with a linear increase per week, that would make close to 60,000 CDs sold thus far ( and I am being very conservative because the more well known he is, I expect the more people will want to buy his CD, so the increase isn't really linear ).
Where can we get the actual figure ???
This of course does not include the sad fact that a lot of COPIES his CDs are being hawked at eBay without him getting a single royalty.
QUOTE:
Originally posted by Aglet
It is my understanding, and someone correct me if I am wrong, but I believe the number of UNDER THE RADAR albums sold has been surpressed via a court order by AI against that store. The number, if known, would be a headline grabbing news story which would damage the climax of the AI season.
