Music Touring Bad; Album Sales Hit Record Lows
Its been a while since we published a music industry update — and the details are pretty ugly.
First up, the touring situation:
SUMMERTIME BLUES: It’s the worst of times for the summer touring business. Apart from standing rock fests like Bonnaroo, Sasquatch and Lollapalooza (see story), along with package tours like Warped and Taste of Chaos, all of which offer multiple acts for reasonable prices, the business is in terrible shape. Stadium dates and entire shed tours are being canceled, while promoters and agents pressure managers to take reduced fees, cancel dates and give back deposits.
Ironically, the situation this year is uglier than it was last summer, when economic conditions were at their worst, and some are attributing the numerous disasters to overexposure, as certain acts attempt to move high-priced tickets in markets they’ve hit frequently in recent years, including radio shows. (6/10a)
-Hits
Album sales are even worse:
Album Sales Plummet To Lowest Total In Decades
Bad times just got worse. For the week ending May 30, the U.S. music industry sold a total of 4,984,000 albums, according to Nielsen Soundscan. This figure, which includes new and catalog releases, represents the fewest number of albums sold in one week since Soundscan began compiling this data in 1994.
-Billboard
A friend in the industry adds:
Digital is already approaching 40% of sales. The problem is the rate of growth is slowing (digital download sales growth could be negative this year). And of course as CD sales continue tanking, digital sales are a larger percentage of the total.
There is no answer for owners or creators of recorded music except an ISP level fee imposed from above. Subscription services are losing users – why subscribe when everything you want is available for free on YouTube? And mobile isn’t the answer either. As people migrate to smartphones and 3G and now 4G services, they’ll have You Tube connectivity anywhere so no need to subscribe.
I have a Spotify subscription, which is pretty cool. And I might pay for it if it were available here (though it does need some tweaking), but I’m not sure most people would cough it up. Most people care about the hits, and those are ubiquitously available for free.
But I’m a broken record . . .
Thanks for the update, Gene!
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June 15th, 2010 at 10:59 pm
Entertainment related.
Goodbye ESPN Zone
http://wjz.com/local/espn.zone.disney.2.1753207.html
June 15th, 2010 at 11:00 pm
Blame the economy, blame digital sales/pirating. I may be getting old, but it’s possible that sales are down because today’s music SUCKS.
June 15th, 2010 at 11:06 pm
“Most people care about the hits” is a bit back to front. Most people can’t be bothered to go “just music” event unless there are hits. Realistically, this is 2010: spending 5 hours to just listen to 2 hours of music in a fairly crappy environment is just not that fun.
I like live music when I’m at a bar or party. That’s fun: the music is an add-on that makes things better. My kids’ nanny used to sing opera while she got them ready for school: was great, but hard to imagine they would like sitting down for 30 minutes of arias with nothing else to do.
People need to face the fact that consuming pretty noise was cool in the 1960s, but it really isn’t that important today.
June 15th, 2010 at 11:10 pm
Except this is moronic x 10.
a) U2 is not worried. They are wealthier then they ever deserve to be (they know it, and say it). As is everyone else on the list — Miley, Gaga, Stones, Kayne, P-Diddy, Bruce, etc…
b) Digital is overpriced. Why isnt a digital song $0.25? An Album $2? They dont have to produce it physically or stock it? Or have some dumb store carry inventory and sell it to me. But prices are the same… why? I dont transfer all my music to my new iPad and my family and I… we buy alot of duplicates. If it were cheaper… we’d buy more.
c) Why does a technology inventor or medical inventor retain patent rights for 10-20 years…and then everyone get to share their invention freely… but copyright lasts 75-150 years? This makes no sense and should be reformed IMMEDIATELY.
I’ll tell you a secret… every musician and writer will continue to happily create. The difference between $1M and $5M… or $10M and $100M is not what motivates the artist to create. The Chinese and Russians dont abide by our copyright laws… and they really shouldnt. 100 years? For a movie or book. Thats non-sense. If I were them, I would only start paying royalties if we reduce the copyright period to 10 years.
June 15th, 2010 at 11:34 pm
Maybe people are buying less music because they are listening to less music?
Not only because, as TerryC says, the music today generally SUCKS but also because people are getting tired of wearing earbuds which socially isolates them from the world? It’s also dangerous in many places to walk around plugged-in,not paying attention to your surroundings.
June 15th, 2010 at 11:47 pm
I have to agree with TerryC and Gorobei. I personally am tired and bored by guitar-band music in general. Can’t anyone learn any other instrument? (at least Lady Gaga can play the piano!)
I have CD’s of 1960’s rock and jazz that I listen to occasionally more for nostalgia sake as anything else. Music itself has become so much white noise. You can’t escape it. It blares out in hotel lobbies, at the mall, in the shops, in the grocery store, in the health club, restaurants, etc. Then if that’s not enough, people walk around outdoors with their earbuds, listening to more music. What’s wrong with living the moment to the fullest and hearing what is actually going on around you? The minute I enter someone’s car, they feel the need to turn on some music. Why can’t people enjoy conversation instead?
The only time I generally listen these days is when I am in the car alone (the local classical station) or at my home preparing and eating a multi-course weekend feast. Occasionally, I will relax by engaging in serious listening to one of my favorite works by extinguishing the lights in my library, settling in to my lounge chair, cranking it up, and slowly dosing off.
The only CD’s I’ve bought in the last year were two Italian works, a compilation of Paolo Conte, and Nicola Conte’s Bossa per Due.
June 15th, 2010 at 11:47 pm
Every few years the “back end” of Disney’s catalog gets close to falling into the public domain.
And every few years congress extends copyrights for another few years.
Why is it the case? You tell me.
No matter that the constitution only allows the congress “To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries.” After all, “authors and inventors” doesn’t really mean the people who created stuff, it actually means whatever corporation ended up owning the rights, because the SCOTUS tells us that corporations are people too, and in the context of a corporation’s unlimited lifespan, anything short of “forever” can reasonably be considered to be a “limited time.”
Not surprisingly, many more of us are just skipping the whole thing.
June 16th, 2010 at 12:28 am
Part of me wants to tease out the economic and technological factors behind the decline in music sales. The other part of me wants to declare that people are buying less music because music just sucks now. As people become more media savvy, music acts have become even more transparently shallow, manipulated marketing vessels propelled by hype and an occasional eyedropper of talent. That’s why dinosaur acts like U2 and the Eagles still rake in the big concert bucks — the pipeline of acts following them is so lame. Like sequel-and-comic-book-addicted Hollywood, corporate-conglomerate record companies are devoid of inspiration and seek only the lazy, fast-buck path of milking old acts and cynically pushing crap.
June 16th, 2010 at 12:31 am
Good comments. One and all.
Pricing. The middle men still feel like they should be ripping us all, when anyone, and most all new bands can produce their own tracks in someone’s garage. And their CDs complete with skins. And comparable quality, if not better.
Quality. At some subconscious level most everyone rebels against MP3 and CD quality. Particularly on downloads including iTunes. Whether they realize it consciously or not, the brain finds MP3 and CD toxic.
Irony. We went to MP3 to fit our tunes on MB hard drives only to now have TB hard drives that can support thousands of tunes at twice the CD quality.
History. Analog vinyl has never ever been surpassed in quality and listening pleasure, which is why there is some revival. But sadly, it’s too late. I have a major rig, separate components, an Onkyo power amp that weighs 70 lbs, JBL studio speakers. For what? MP3 or CD? What a waste of quality components.
Market: Unfortunately, the most important component today is a massive kicker, distorted as it may be. If the car doesn’t bounce, it’s not “music”. Some refer to it as “noise”. The noise generation.
Rights: Cognos is correct. Copyright law has gone off the deep end. With rippers and crackers everything is there for unlimited duplication. Don’t need the internet. Just rip and burn and pass on.
Price. Price it right. Make it more affordable. $16 for a CD is a major rip. $.99 per iTune or more is a major rip.
Mobility: The hard drive successor. Now that we have TB hard drives we now have KB cell phones, that demand even more compression. 4G? Not. Not even close. Just more low fidelity noise.
June 16th, 2010 at 12:33 am
@MikeG: Correct. It’s not the music it’s the video. Stardom? Make a lascivious video, with a studio enhanced weak voice and become a music star. Madonna created that genre.
June 16th, 2010 at 12:40 am
What I think would be a decent plan is buy once, play anywhere. Essentially once someone buys (licenses?) a song, they could get it from any source without having to pay again. Of course, this would have to be kept track of somewhere. Another idea is just make it so cheap that people don’t mind paying each time… like 1 cent or so that could be paid for via ads or whatnot.
June 16th, 2010 at 1:00 am
It would really help if the music was any good. I don’t buy music because i haven’t had much american music in the last few years worth buying…
June 16th, 2010 at 1:08 am
Remember when a CD cost almost $20 at your local music store? That little silver disk back then had real currency. People actually gave them as presents. Now the perceived value of music has dropped to almost nothing because it is so easy to steal the tunes. It hurts the B and C level acts the most. Even in the best of times many were barely making it. Even though the Internet offers young bands the opportunity to self-publish the fact remains that without marketing and development dollars it is almost impossible to rise above the clutter. The only music business model that is sorta working is the touring end of things and that sucks unless you are one of the very top acts. Almost all the top 20 touring artists have been in the business for decades and are frankly getting a old. It will be very interesting to see what happens in the next five years as these folks start to retire. Who will fill the sheds? I have been in the live music business since 1975 and was lucky enough to sell my successful production company back in 2004 before the bottom dropped out. In my opinion though more recorded music is being consumed than ever before but simply not being paid for. I anticipate some snarky comments about this post and that is ok. Too many great music professionals are losing their jobs and there is blood running in the street. To have a successful music career normally takes a team of professionals including a manager, A&R person, marketing department, a booking agent, a PR person, record producer, publisher, concert promoters, road manager, tour merchandiser, lights and sound, plus many more. Frankly, 99 cents a download does not generate a big enough pie to share. Artists used to view their tours as a way to promote their albums and were willing to lose money on the concerts. Now the only things that makes any money is the live shows. It is not a good situation.
June 16th, 2010 at 1:13 am
This is bad news for the artists. My son did his extended essay for IB on this very subject based on the rampant piracy here in Asia. His conclusion was that artists in Asia, and now too in the US and Europe, would become more dependent on live performances and associated merchandise for their income.
I don’t know if anyone has any comments, but I have a funny feeling that music in the digital age will also in general have a shorter shelf-life because there are no visible “Fossils” such as album covers, CD boxes and stores where brousing often lead to “Impulse” purchases?
June 16th, 2010 at 1:19 am
Note that the old reliable *artists* are still doing fine. Rush is touring around right now and they still draw a crowd. McCartney fills ‘em up. Eagles can still fill a room or two.
Another factor is that there are other things that kids are into. When I was a kid we listened to the radio, listened to records, or went to concerts. Today, my kids don’t buy records – they surf the Internet (YouTube) or watch DVDs. My kids seem to know what a wasteland MTV is and Idol is even getting old to them. Rap played a big part in killing music too, my kids hear that stuff coming out of a car and take one look at the people in that car and then they just say no.
I don’t understand all of it, but many good comments here. I will admit that I have to periodically give my kids the “don’t steal stuff” lecture just to keep them honest, and they seem to be proud to be honest. It is way too easy to steal music, but that’s the nature of the new digital world.
June 16th, 2010 at 1:21 am
Good comments.
Music now functions mostly as something to get our attention just long enough to try and sell us something else.
CD’s are inconvenient and too expensive. Good point on the Disney copyright extension but the copyright laws have become mostly unenforceable.
Does music suck more? Maybe there is just so MUCH more music and a certain percentage has always sucked so it just seems that way.
It’s all moving into the cloud very soon anyway.
June 16th, 2010 at 1:33 am
rock n’roll religion failed* at its mission .. now we believe in blogging – ya thats workin … like the cog wrapped in red tape – its gotta break now – that will focus attention
beyond that .. music and other man made sounds for intake is everywhere for free … and no real requirements to transport for safe keeping now
* coda – failed is such a strong word .. baby steps take time time time
June 16th, 2010 at 2:11 am
Cognos says: “b) Digital is overpriced.” Spot on. I skimmed the rest of the comments and there are great points, don’t think anyone mentioned that an iPod/mp3 player/etc. costs hundreds of dollars – but if you wanted to fill it with music from iTunes, it would cost tens of thousands. Yikes.
I remember when CD’s caught on in the mid-80s and all the hype was that they were cheaper to produce and would cost less than records and cassettes…never happened. Digital via the internet is even less expensive to distribute, and yet prices still climb.
How about diversification as a cause as well? Again, not sure if mentioned, but I think the same thing that’s happening to network television is at play in the music industry. Much more choice, with easier access to exactly what you want to listen to – with hundreds of genres and sub-genres, versus a handful or two just a couple of decades ago. There’s some pretty crazy sh*t out there. Lot’s of crap, but some people like crap. And a lot of that crap, that satisfies people that might have bought more mainstream stuff years ago, is either free or peer-to-peered among those “nichified” fanbases.
Anyway, aside from the big (and mostly graying) acts mentioned previously, maybe it’s a good thing that the pie is being divided into more slices (even though it seems it’s a smaller pie). Less Lady Gaga and more Strangefolk sounds good to me.
June 16th, 2010 at 2:36 am
As a former seller of albums, I think that sales would be helped by bigger packaging with great art on the covers. A good to great cover really helped sell many an album. At the very least, people would take a look at the group. Having non-microscopic print on the album’s back helped, too. Look at the great cover art of the 60′s and 70′s. CD packaging killed the graphics and the verbiage. Side benefit: Bigger packaging means less theft and eliminate the need for box-cutters and razors.
I no longer trust my judgement on current music, so I don’t know if bad and boring music is the problem. But I do know that there is little point-of-sale salesmanship going on now. The industry should look a little bit to the past. They have got to reduce this definite trend in order to make some real money for all involved.
June 16th, 2010 at 6:20 am
When recorded music (not just Rock and Roll) was a dominant entertainment format, there were only so many other things you could do: TV (3 channels) Movies, Sports, Magazines and Books.
The entertainment choices these days are 100 fold that. Its no surprise that the old school analog entertainment industries are losing market share.
June 16th, 2010 at 6:20 am
BTW, Great comment thread!
June 16th, 2010 at 6:57 am
Now that you mention Concert and Tour problems:
We attended a “Magic of Motown Tour” performance this weekend. “Martha and the Vandellas, Contours and the Spinners.” They had to drop the prices on the tickets because the sales were so low and the large Concert Hall where it was held maybe had 700 people instead of the 2,200 the hall will hold and we assume the promoters thought they would fill. Last Summer the “Temptations and the Four Tops” played to a packed house in another Concert Hall that seats 5,000 that was packed and the tickets were sold out well in advance of the performance.
MoTown has a big audience where we live (Beach Music & Nostalgia Crazies) and so it was shocking that they had to lower the ticket price to $27.00 for prime seats and there was such poor attendance. Normally there are buses of people from close by towns for concerts and performances but we didn’t see any of that. It may be the economy or even the sense of gloom in the country that’s tampering sales. The outstanding performances of those “oldie but goodies” professionals should have had people rocking in the aisles…but folks seemed very subdued compared to last year.
June 16th, 2010 at 7:02 am
Good comments, though I don’t agree with them all. I don’t think $.99 or $1.29 is over priced. If that is overpriced then what where 8-10 song $12-16 albums/CDs? Super overpriced?
I also don’t think theft is as big a problem as some suggest. Oh, I know there is a lot of illegally downloaded music out there, but a very high percentage of that wouldn’t have been purchased if that was the only option. Not saying it is ok to illegally download, just that the industry wouldn’t have made as much off of pirated stuff as they think.
The music industry still has too much overhead when a band can get 90% of studio sound from a cheap garage studio. Some times we try and make things too perfect.
The music industry has also put the cart before the horse. They don’t go find good bands anymore. They artificially create them and then promote them (which they have no idea how to do in the current environment). These bands, of course, have no soul (might not be the right word, but I can’t think of another), since they weren’t born they were engineered.
Also, why do we even need a “music industry?” They are still fighting for survival, but that business model is broken. Someone will win when they finally shatter the model completely.
I do agree there are far more entrainment options.
I would also like to see album/cassette sales from before the CD and compare it to revenue now. I have never seen the numbers, but it seems reasonable that music had a big run up in the late 80′s and early 90′s when people replaced all the album/cassette music they already had with the same band’s CD. Seems like there could be an artificial bump back when Soundscan first started collect data in 1994. Not to mention that grunge had just become huge and was new and different, which created more sales. Nothing like that now.
Music does rather suck now. Where are the interesting bands/singers? Where is a Guns and Roses, Motely Crue, The Doors, Nirvana, Rolling Stones, etc. uncontrolled artist (not commenting on music style)? They don’t exist anymore because corporate has crushed that type of band. American Idol…that’s just rainbow/PG/packaged vomit. I’m not necessarily a fan, but Lady Gaga is about the only current singer with any type of entertainment value.
Finally, we just might be in a creative lull right now, as we are far more conservative as a country than we were in the 90′s. This feels more like the boring 50′s-60′s in entrainment than a time that could produce the Sex Pistols, NWA, or Nirvana. Right now it’s more likely we will have a Senator McCarthy type witchhunt than Woodstock.
Sorry, that was a little long.
June 16th, 2010 at 7:35 am
Going on forty and haven’t bought or illegally downloaded a piece of music…..ever. I listen to what I grew up with and the new stuff doesn’t cut it. Music is the car is for the kids; and the itunes catalog is my previous hundred discs, with my wives recent hits (crap in my opinion). Sure she gets a Twenty dollar itunes gift card on Hallmark holidays; and reducing the cost of music would make that go farther. With little kids, a car ride alone or post bed time is used to enjoy some peace and quiet. Silence is golden.
June 16th, 2010 at 7:55 am
The sad irony is that the Grateful Dead’s business model was ahead of their time, and Jerry didn’t live to see their “radical” idea of allowing anyone and everyone to tape their shows, pass the tapes around, direct show ticket sales from the band, etc – vindicated.
June 16th, 2010 at 8:49 am
I would agree with the comments that todays music is very poor compared to the unique sounds of the bands back in the 60′s.
Everything today has the same sound, the female singers all sound the same more or less, same for the males, screeching complaints about life.
Think back to all the 60′s groups with their own special sound that you never would confuse for another band.
Janis Joplin, Jimi Hendrix, Steppenwolf, Stones, Doors, Dead, Canned Heat, Jethro Tull, Moody Blues, Procol Harum, Rick Derringer, Beach Boys, Cream, etc. all had their own sound.
Not to mention the world of Motown.
June 16th, 2010 at 9:20 am
Have gotten most of my tunes from the library the last few years. Never know what you’ll find. Play’em in the car and give’em back. Can’t help but think that in Melvis corporate structure it takes an awful lot of people to play one instrument. Guess music has gone back to being mostly local and live. Reality bites.
June 16th, 2010 at 9:29 am
dsawy has it right – lover ‘em or hate ‘em the Grateful Dead pioneered the model that will work going forward – give the music away and sell tickets & merch to make $. The caveat to all this is the control of ticket sales by a few entities that are strangleing live music. There’s absolutely no reason for a service fee of $8 a ticket or whatever it is these days.
June 16th, 2010 at 9:40 am
Everything is free now
That’s what they say
Everything I ever done
Gonna give it away.
Someone hit the big score
They figured it out
They were gonna do it anyway
Even if it doesn’t pay.
I can get a tip jar
Gas up the car
Try to make a little change
Down at the bar.
Or I can get a straight job
I’ve done it before
Never minded working hard
It’s who I’m working for.
Every day I wake up
Humming a song
But I don’t need to run around
I just stay home.
Sing a little love song
My love and myself
If there’s something that you want to hear
You can sing it yourself
Everything is free now
That’s what I said
No one’s got to listen to
The words in my head.
Someone hit the big score
And I figured it out
That I’m gonna do it anyway
Even if doesn’t pay.”
Gillian Welch
June 16th, 2010 at 9:42 am
@Melvis
Thanks for your comment and many others.
I have to add, having known an artist who started in the late seventies and took three tries to make it mainstream, that record companies were also less in a hurry to develop talent and considered signed artists as investments.
This trend has completely disappeared, the quick profit has taken over every aspect of society.
Good luck to the next experimental and/or progressive band, music as a beautiful craft is gone.
June 16th, 2010 at 9:48 am
We’re still at a stage where there’s an overlap of acts that came to the fore in pre-digital (U2, Bon Jovi, even Jay-Z etc) and post-digital (Miley Cyrus, Lily Allen). Hence, it’s very difficult to use a one size fits all framework, since a generational aspect occurs here. Also, we can’t be judgemental with a “current music is crap my time music good” attitude. I personally like the music my Dad grew up with (The Doors, Pink Floyd, so good luck to me watching them live), but I also like some contemporary stuff. I think purchasing in this case is about how much I value I think I can extract from that piece.
There’s a key aspect being missed here, including in the comments. It’s ALBUM SALES going down, and that shouldn’t be suprising to anyone, given behavioural changes in consumption. The iTunes generation doesn’t purchase albums, they purchase singles. One can argue about the price point, but that’s a different discussion. Very few people I see using iTunes actually download entire albums anymore. It’s a more impulsive single-only purchase, and artists (these include newer successful ones who recognize that like Dizee Rascal in the UK) market only singles. They don’t want (or need) to release 12 songs which form an album, composite in nature and all that. They want 6 tracks, each will flash-sell and then that’s it. You only need to go to a concert and hear people sing along to realize that – I’ve been to a Deep Purple concert where 75% of the audience could sing along to 75% of the songs, to a Red Hot Chili Peppers (cusp band) where it was maybe 50%/50%, and also been around a Justin Timberlake (he was opening for the Rolling Stones, I swear), where it was 25% and only to the “hits”. If there was a better, more normalized way to measure music consumption, that would make for interesting reading. On the whole though, I think earlier commenters are right – if time is the constraint, and there are so many other (freeer in some cases) options available for entertainment (blogs like BP, video games, endless youtube), the premium people are willing to pay for music will simply decrease.
The other interesting, quickly-googled statistic is that the average iPod fits 5000 songs. That’s $5000 in order to fill the tank. I find it hard to believe that there are people out there buying 250 albums worth (in $ terms of CDs) of music to fill their gizmos. Has there been another piece of technology built solely for the purpose of enabling the storage of stolen goods (and I don’t say that as a prude, I have enough “downloaded” music to ensure my non-Sainthood)?
June 16th, 2010 at 9:49 am
Once again, I’m late to the posting party here. I don’t really have anything groundbreaking to add to the discussion. However, I feel like we’ve missed a small detail, which is that concerts have progressively become more and more expensive to attend, and the associated costs outside of the ticket for a seat is nuts. After the monopolistic vampire Ticketmaster has their way with you, you get nailed for parking. Then you get your head knocked off on concessions, because God knows they aren’t letting you bring a bottle of water into the place even if it’s 100 degrees with 90% humidity, like it was here in BIrmingham last Friday evening when the Zac Brown Band played at the amphitheatre near my house.
I didn’t attend. Nor did I even consider it.
Now, I’m not some old codger who hates all the new music. I really don’t. In fact, I listen to Satellite radio in my car constantly, never turn it off. I switch between new pop and hip-hop, to first wave hits of the 70′s and 80′s, to stuff I grew up on in the 1980′s and 1990′s. I listen to “classic rock” like the Rolling Stones and Moody Blues, jam band stuff by Widespread Panic and Phish. Besides the jam bands and the really old groups like Aerosmith, U2, so on, no one else is fit to see live.
Took my young wife to see Rob Thomas a few years ago. Music was good, the guy is really talented. But the experience itself? Meh….Too hot for outdoors, even at night, crowd was far too drunk and wasted, and this was ROB THOMAS, not the Dead.
Live shows generally are an opportunity to get out, be seen, get drunk, and listen to a little music. That all costs MONEY$$$$$. That’s something a lot of America has a lot less of these days.
June 16th, 2010 at 10:26 am
Ticketmaster is, at least to me, enough of a reason to NEVER go to a concert any more.
I absolutely refuse to pay these guys the enormous rip off fees they charge. And then they have the NERVE to call them a ‘CONVENIENCE fee’! Its up to around $15/ticket now, and then there’s a HANDLING fee on top of that for the entire order.
This could be stopped if everyone just went on strike against Ticketmaster for about 60 days. But Americans seem to like being screwed over by monopolies for some reason.
June 16th, 2010 at 10:28 am
All time best rant about the music industry with respect to artists and money: http://www.negativland.com/albini.html
June 16th, 2010 at 10:56 am
@tagyoureit
Good article. It seems like every aspect of our economy has moved toward this style of “no value capitalism” to at least some degree.
June 16th, 2010 at 1:16 pm
Great comments. With regards to concert prices, I recall a friend of mine complaining back in 1981 about the “outrageous” ticket price for a Rolling Stones show: $15. He paid it because – well, it was the Stones. (Remember that this was a time when bands like the Stones and Led Zep traveled in their own jets and lived like royalty.)
Fast forward 30 years and ticketmaster has the gall to charge upwards of $200 to see has-beens like The Eagles plus the customary “service” and “convenience” fees, etc (that sometimes range into 30% of the ticket cost). I’ve sat out many shows where the ticket was 40-odd bucks but the service charges pushed it into the %$60 range.
“Who will fill the sheds?” Springsteen is 60. Phil Lesh is 70. Does anyone expect the Red Hot Chili Peppers to be packing ‘em in when they hit their 50′s? Unabated vendor greed alongside any lack of cultivation of talent with any longevity by the record biz seems to point to the sheds going the way of the single-screen movie theater – and they have only themselves to blame.
June 16th, 2010 at 1:17 pm
Fuck Ticketmaster.
June 16th, 2010 at 1:30 pm
My 16 yr. old and all his friends think music sucks today also. They listen to my era music, Doors, Hendrix The Dead, Led Zep etc. They look like hippies but with their tie dyed pants a little lower than our day. They went to a festival and thought those “really old guys” New riders of the Purple Sage were the “shit”. Which is good. It actually is kind of sad that they don’t have their own age music that is cool. But I love the rides in the car with all my favorites blasting away.
June 16th, 2010 at 2:31 pm
Remember when buying and listening to an album was an event? You can’t duplicate the experience anymore. You went with your buddies to check out the vinyl, you looked through the liner notes, etc. It was an all-day event. Now we just put it on a device and get to it when we can. The culmination of the event was to see the group when they came to town. Take out the first part and who cares about the concert.
The computer age took out the adventure.
June 16th, 2010 at 2:44 pm
Ticketmaster has merged with Live Nation so look for the service fees to start being built into the price of the tickets. Ozzy’s tour is doing this as are many others. On the surface it looks like a good deal for the customer but do you really think that the total price with the included fees will be less. I suspect that this new policy is aimed at making it harder for the independent promoter’s like AIG and JAM to compete as they will still have to use TicketMaster for many shows because of the hall contracts and may not be able to offer the same deal. An experienced promoter though will try and negotiate a percentage kickback of the service fees along with a piece of the parking and merchandise. Margins are very thin with the artists taking the lion’s share of the proceeds. Yes you can make maybe 10% on a sellout but it is also very easy to lose hundreds of thousands on a single show if it bombs. Even though Live Nation does most of the shows in the country it has never made money. SFX was a rollup of most of the nation’s top promoters and in 1997 stock was sold to the public. The founder Robert Sillerman made over a billion dollars profit from IPO. SFX was sold to Clear Channel and then spun off as Live Nation and then merged with Ticket Master. Let me repeat, if you made $5 mowing your neighbors yard you would have made more money than all those companies combined ever made. Check out this link for the current sorry status of Live Nation. http://www.digitalmusicnews.com/stories/060110live
June 16th, 2010 at 3:03 pm
I agree 100% with TerryC. I’m a lifelong music fan, a musician, and I’m currently voluneering at a community radio station. Trust me, the reason CD sales, digital sales, and concert tickets are going down is because TODAY’S MUSIC SUCKS.
It’s that straightforward, it’s that simple. We are living in what is by far the worst era of recorded music EVER. People would tolerate ticket prices and less-than-perfect sound quality if the music was worth listening to. It isn’t.
The blame is entirely on corporations who bought up or crowded out the independent labels that were responsible for nuturing the major music movements of the last 70+ years. The desire to move a million disks at Wal-Mart has ruined popular music in the United States.
There’s still a lot of great music being made, but don’t bother looking for it on commerical radio or the chain stores. College radio, community radio, independent outlets, and bands that distribute their own stuff.
June 16th, 2010 at 4:42 pm
http://www.bluebeat.com has “something to do” in this digital music space now and going forward. Stay tuned and pay close attention.
June 16th, 2010 at 4:42 pm
@ louis: Yes, when I dug out my album collection, my kid went nuts, but i had to tell him that his older brother (29), wants them too someday, but for now I still get a thrill that they appreciate how cool it all was. If you were real careful you could pick up the needle and place it for a repeat of your favorite song on the album. There was no Instant Gratification back then, you had to have patience and wait. Remember there was also lay-a-way then. Who had credit cards? You put money down weekly and when it was paid, you brought it home. Imagine that !!! My Mom did that for Christmas and school clothes.
June 16th, 2010 at 6:13 pm
What a bunch of whiners! I like all the old groups too, but there’s an entire world full of great music out there. Check it out.
June 16th, 2010 at 8:14 pm
impermanence Says:
June 16th, 2010 at 6:13 pm
“What a bunch of whiners! I like all the old groups too, but there’s an entire world full of great music out there. Check it out.”
I agree. Join a music subs. service like Rhapsody or MOG or Spotify. Explore and you will find some excellent music.
June 16th, 2010 at 8:32 pm
Re BP spill: Late one evening I tongue in cheek proposed simply crimping the riser pipe in a number places and trying to put a “wrap” clamp in place at the well head.
While it would not have stopped the flow totally, it could have cut it back far more than is happening now.
If you watch the video, once they cut the riser at the well-head, all hell broke loose. And they can put all the caps on it they want and pretend to be stemming the flow. And pretend lightening stopped collection.
Blah, blah, blah. The spill estimates keep on going up. All they did was open the well up to dis-engorge itself. 20% increase? My ass. try 50-80%.
And BP always seems to have more help on the way, in two days. 90% capture – right. And I’m a virgin.
Well the riser was cut, and that’s a done deal.
But hey, they are recovering enough oil daily to cover cost. Perhaps that was the plan along. F*** the GOM and US.
I say one well-placed surgical procedure on people with egos far beyond their wisdom might be a worthwhile retribution.
June 16th, 2010 at 9:47 pm
I blame American Idol. When mediocrity is offered as “talent”, what do we expect to happen to the general state of music?
Music used to be a binding social phenomenon whether buying the latest Neil Young record or scoring tickets to the Stones. There was excitement and something to share with friends. There is so much eclectic product out there that mathematically most of it has to be junk.
Now it’s an expensive chore to get concert tickets and you have to listen to some obnoxious idiot drunk blather on and on throughout the show or scream at inappropriate times. I love music more than ever but good stuff is getting hard to find. I admit it: I guess I’m becoming an old fart.
Oh to live on Sugar Mountain.
June 16th, 2010 at 10:10 pm
This complaint is really nothing new. DK in 1984:
Tin-eared Graph-paper brained accountants
Instead of music fans
Call all the shots at giant record companies now
The lowest common denominator rules
Forget honesty, Forget creativity,
The dumbest buy the mostest That’s the name of the game
But sales are slumping, And no one will say why
Could it be they put out one too many lousy records?!?
On a more serious note though, a lot of ‘the kids’ are getting into vinyl in a big way and some bands are even issuing on vinyl. And there are more decades going back for them to discover too – particularly rifling through bins at thrift stores or their parents’ collections – which could also account for lower new sales.
June 16th, 2010 at 11:55 pm
Ooops. I posted in the wrong thread. How did I do that?
And this is a great thread.
Sorry.
June 17th, 2010 at 12:06 am
@jessica: I can believe that. I did that. Unfortunately I converted it all to digital and then re-donated the vinyl. Well some of it was quite tired and in need of repair.
Vinyl rocks. Period.
Hope it makes it back.
June 17th, 2010 at 7:12 am
@ impermanence & jdjed
There could be good music out there, but it’s too hard to find. I can remember being exposed to new bands all the time on radio and MTV (when they actually liked music), but not anymore. If someone isn’t really serious about music, and 95% of the population isn’t, they won’t find it now because the corporations have crowded out any decent new stuff from the mainstream media outlets. I’m not going to work to find ways to spend my money, and most others won’t either.
July 9th, 2010 at 12:40 am
I must agree that concert ticket pricing is outrageous. So instead, I target the up and coming artists which have reasonable pricing such as Home Jones out of Phoenix, Arizona. If you like the old style of music you’ll want to check them out. They have a great sound.