{"id":1605,"date":"2013-11-15T10:18:10","date_gmt":"2013-11-15T18:18:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/vakseen.com\/site\/?p=1605"},"modified":"2013-11-15T10:18:10","modified_gmt":"2013-11-15T18:18:10","slug":"a-good-example-of-how-albums-dont-work-anymore","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vakseen.com\/site\/a-good-example-of-how-albums-dont-work-anymore\/","title":{"rendered":"A Good Example of How Albums Don\u2019t Work Anymore"},"content":{"rendered":"

The album is dying in front of our very eyes.<\/p>\n

In other words, what kind of screwed up world do we live in where\u00a0<\/span>Katy Perry<\/a>\u2019s new album \u201cPrism\u201d sells only 287,000 copies in its debut? One in which everybody\u2019s interested in the single, and no one\u2019s got time to sit and hear your hour-plus statement.<\/span><\/p>\n

This is not emotion, this is statistics. The shelf life of news is shorter than ever. The shelf life of art. \u2026 You blink and it\u2019s done.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m fine with you preaching to the choir, making an album for your fans. You gotta go where you wanna go, do what you wanna do. But if your plan is to increase your audience, spread the word and make money, suddenly the album just isn\u2019t working anymore. The youngsters are streaming singles and the oldsters are staying home.<\/p>\n

How do I know? Elton\u2019s album isn\u2019t even in the top 50, and McCartney\u2019s album barely broke 20,000 this week, and there wasn\u2019t a better oldster hype than for these two projects. People just don\u2019t want \u2019em.<\/p>\n

So what\u2019s the industry to do? Have a rethink.<\/p>\n

In other words, hype doesn\u2019t work.<\/p>\n

No one had more hype than\u00a0Miley Cyrus<\/a>, but \u201cBangerz\u201d didn\u2019t even sell 45,000 copies in its fourth week of release. She can go on \u201cSNL,\u201d tweet her life away, but it\u2019s not moving the needle. Lorde is selling as much as Miley without the benefit of scorched earth, proving quality music is as good as hype. But Lorde isn\u2019t burning up the chart either.<\/p>\n

We\u2019ve turned into a nation of grazers. And the artist\u2019s job is to constantly be at the smorgasbord. Not to deliver one big meal that is picked at and thrown away, but to constantly provide tantalizing bites to the public.<\/p>\n

Media cannot be limited to the album release date. It must be a 24\/7, 365-day-a-year effort. Same with creativity. If your track gets traction, more power to you. If it doesn\u2019t, go back in the studio and make more. In other words, if you\u2019re sitting at home bitching that you\u2019re not making any money because the Internet stole your business, you\u2019re RIGHT! There are so many diversions that no one\u2019s got time for mediocre anymore.<\/p>\n

If you\u2019ve got a concept album, go ahead and record it. If you\u2019re only interested in selling a little, be my guest. But if you want to penetrate the consciousness of a large group of people and grow the pie, an album isn\u2019t working. Hell, it\u2019s not even working as a revenue model!<\/p>\n

Labels are no longer in the record business, they\u2019re in the star business. How to maximize the revenue of an individual or band in as many media as possible, in as many ways as possible. Yes, while you were bitching about piracy, your whole business model disappeared.<\/p>\n

You put out these albums, and in almost every case, the public moves on in a matter of WEEKS. A few bought it, they heard it, and they\u2019re satisfied \u2014 and left waiting for years until you grace them with a new release. The rest of the public is just waiting for a hit single to burble, and if it does, they\u2019ll tap their toes and snap their fi ngers and ask, \u201cWHAT ELSE HAVE YOU GOT?\u201d And what you\u2019ve got had better be just as good as the hit.<\/p>\n

No one wants album tracks anymore unless they\u2019re every bit as satisfying as the hit.<\/p>\n

So it\u2019s not only classic rock acts who have stopped putting out albums; eventually, no one will do it. Oh, it won\u2019t be soon, because artists think making albums is part of their DNA, going into the studio and making a 10-track statement.<\/p>\n

But that\u2019s like saying typewriters have to be an office fixture. And you can\u2019t post online unless you write in multiple paragraphs. And texting must be abandoned because it\u2019s not in-depth enough.<\/p>\n

The goal of a musician is to be AHEAD of the audience. Right now everybody\u2019s behind.<\/p>\n

Via Variety<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The album is dying in front of our very eyes. In other words, what kind of screwed up world do we live in where\u00a0Katy Perry\u2019s new album \u201cPrism\u201d sells only 287,000 copies in its debut? One in which everybody\u2019s interested in the single, and no one\u2019s got time to sit and hear your hour-plus statement. This is not emotion, this is statistics. The shelf life of news is shorter than […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1606,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[223,162],"class_list":["post-1605","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-industry-tips","tag-marketing-tips","tag-music-2"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/vakseen.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1605","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/vakseen.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/vakseen.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vakseen.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vakseen.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1605"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/vakseen.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1605\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1607,"href":"https:\/\/vakseen.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1605\/revisions\/1607"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vakseen.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1606"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/vakseen.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1605"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vakseen.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1605"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vakseen.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1605"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}