I’ve read that many artists are by-passing the Record Labels and producing on their own. Am I wrong?
People wasting time on Free Republic will never get a record deal. Useless post.
“If you’ve been playing for years, we’ve already heard your song.”
#6 Can I be sued for torture or crimes against humanity by singing?
The Boy Band Con: The Lou Pearlman Story
He was also a total con man and rip-off artist, who died in a federal prison while serving a 25-year sentence for conspiracy, money laundering, and making false statements.
There are no record deals these days.
80% of the money in the industry today is from streaming which is full of fraud and must go online via only authorized agents (no direct path for independent self-released artists anymore).
The streaming charts are even faker than this past election. Server farms around the world banking play counts.
I ran the smallest brass, jazz, and blues label from 1997 to 2017. Not an easy business.
>>I’ve seen unscrupulous record labels use five- and even 10-year terms, locking their artists into long-term contracts that destroy their artists’ creative lives and financial futures
They can even get you under contract simply to park your career and not threaten their status quo.
What’s an aspiring young artist/band to do? CoVid stopped the touring. Radio stations are going out of business. Maybe you get a few hits on YouTube but nothing produces any income.
Under the terms of the contract, Joel signed to the label for life; the pianist was unaware of the clause at the time, but it would come back to haunt him - Family Productions received royalties from every album Joel sold until the late ‘80s.
https://www.allmusic.com/artist/billy-joel-mn0000085915/biography
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>>A typical release commitment is a promise from the record label that it will release at least one album during your initial contract term. If you record the necessary tracks for a record and the label fails to release the record, you should then be allowed to walk away from the contract.
Someone should’ve warned Buddy Holly. But at least he knew to record his phone call with his label when they didn’t want to put out what became his first hits.
Feb. 28, 1957, Holly hooked up his reel-to-reel tape recorder to the phone and made a call to Decca Records, his label at the time, inquiring about the non-renewal of his contract.
They never released anything and said that the session was bad (and implied that there was nothing to the songs either). Buddy asked if he could get his songs back and the label response was no, that they had a lot of money tied up in them. Buddy offered to buy them/the session costs. Naw, we may release them some day, ya can’t record them for 5 years time!
One of those songs was “That’ll Be the Day,” which reached No. 1 late that year. Buddy ignored the ignoramous and went to Brunswick which was an affiliate label of Deccca and putting it out as The Crickets (on Coral another affiliate of Decca) so the big lawsuits were avoided.
Decca then issued the original recording of Buddy Holly With The Three Tunes.
It doesn’t appear that the audio of that call is currently on youtube.
https://blog.wfmu.org/freeform/2009/02/buddy-holly-on-line-one.html
>>3. Make sure your royalty rate is reasonable
Although royalty rates differ wildly based upon an artist’s notoriety and past success, there’s a general ballpark number for royalty rates that every artist should know. For new artists with little-to-no notoriety, a royalty rate of five to 10 percent is typical. Up-and-coming artists generally see between 10 and 14 percent royalty rates, while seasoned professionals can bring in as much as 18 percent in royalties.
In streaming you will see pennies. Even for tens of thousands of plays.
The platinum artists today don’t even need to have a physical release (or paid digital download) to reach that level in a week. Sure.
>>Standard deductions include recording costs, video production costs, the cost of creating CD and DVD packaging, and other similar costs.
CDs are going away and so are DVDs.
Some artists are just fine with that. They don’t have compete against used CD sales (or hear that stores are so glutted with used copies of their CDs that they refuse to even buy them).
>>5. Make sure you can audit the record label on royalty payments
No one who ever went in with an auditor came out empty handed. Your. Label. Will. Screw. You.
There are soooo many ways to screw the artist you can’t even track them all. Some contracts claim a percentage of all work you do, not just recordings. So if you act in a movie (no singing) you owe them their cut. If you produce an album for someone else, yup, their cut. If you work in a grocery store, you owe them a cut.
We have walked away from deals where we saw the producers screwing the artist. We watched many really good musicians put out mediocre crap and earn nothing, but the producers and label got theirs!
My friend talks about the heartburn he has when he gets a rotalty check, knowing the guy who signed them, but did literally nothing for them, gets one of the same amount. I have another friend who talks about the micro pennies they get from streaming.
We have another friend who is very well known in his genre. He has refused to sign any more deals. He says that selling fewer CDs on his own web site earns him more money than he ever got from a label.
Also, there are record label deals to be had out there, but you have to prove you can write hot level music, as well as the ability to generate and grow revenue streams before they will take much notice. Yes, the whole industry changed from top to bottom thanks to computers, but I can tell you for a fact, there are entertainers out there who you've never heard of before that are easily pulling 6-8 figures a year in ticket sales and merch--well not this last year though thanks to covid. .
A few years ago, my son was offered a contract as studio guitarist for a big LA label. He had dropped out of Berkeley, saying it was a waste of time, and I told him Godspeed in the business, but you must read every industry/ artist/agent “tell-all” book about it that you can find. He read them all.
They sent the lawyers to see him in Miami but refused to allow him to have anyone else in the room, not counsel, not family. He went, listened, thanked them, and told them to screw off. Was the most ridiculous one-sided deal ever.
Another classic was when a Korean studio sent a “Vice President” to Miami to convince him to play for them. I asked him how the meeting went. “Well, Dad,” he said, “I don’t think she was actually a Vice President. I mean, she was wearing 6 inch heels, stockings, and was dressed like a hooker.” He declined that job, too, lol.