Your Take: Do Discount Gimmicks Hurt Independent Artists?

Ah…I’ve already been down this road. I’ll stay out this time.:)

Smarter people then myself have been trying to figure this out for years now. The big labels had a long stretch dictating terms to both artists and consumers as long as they held the keys to distribution. Once distribution was a mouse click away and the product was no longer trapped in an album, cassette or CD. In response to a changing world the labels didn’t get smart, they got lawyers and damaged an already tenuous relationship. To this day a full priced CD. The full price of a CD at Best Buy still hovers around $15. I think iTunes and Bitorrent has made that price point a non0starter, but the labels don’t get it.

Young bands like The Dexateens give away their (excellent) new release as a loss leader to increase awareness and make the money on their tours and merch tables. Veterans like Prince see giving away new music as a media stunt, because people don’t want to hear new music from them. They’re interested in the hits.

Good? bad? I don’t know…but it’s going to shake out and look a lot different. I just hope there’s enough money left over to allow excellent artists to quit their day jobs and that the technology allows artist that don’t fit the rigid (and boring) American Idol/Nashville Star mold to get their voice out.

Everyone knows (and I think perhaps even the music industry is finally catching on) that the days of those guys being able to make money selling discs of plastic for $12.99 and up are long gone. Seth Godin has a current blog post about this very topic. Anyhow, the $3.99 CDs are a decent deal and likely to get people who would otherwise torrent his CD or just pass over it to consider springing for it. As far as hurting the labels I am pretty sure Amazon is treating these Cds as loss leaders to get people into their music store, especially since they no longer have anything on the iTunes store now that Apple has been able to drop their DRM.

Actually its not a bad thing, because it lets indie artists do things like give away their cds which gets them into the hands of fans who will come to their concerts. In an era of 10, 15, 20 million selling albums we got away from the purpose of albums–albums are not supposed to be profit tools, they are supposed to be promotional tools. Artists make money off of the live shows. Pulling down the cost barrier that keeps indie music out of the hands of fans is a good thing.

“And, lets face it, if you have Neko Case’s album for 25.00 and Carrie Underwood’s album for 1.99, Neko’s fans will find the other 23.00.”

Do you ever do any research before making such an asinine statement?

Both Neko Case & Carrie Underwood albums are selling for around $9.99 at Amazon. Never seen a CU album for $1.99 unless it was at some flea market or a garage sale.

I think there are some unwarranted assumptions there (sorry): firstly it implies that fans of artists like Neko have more money than those of Carrie Underwood as well as being more prepared to spend it, and I’m not convinced either is true; secondly, even if they’re willing to shell out for artists they already like, will they be prepared to take chances on new independent artists (or at least as many of them as they might at lower prices)? And it’s not just the price per se, but perceptions as to whether something is value for monry or overpriced. There might just as easily be Carrie fans who would be prepared to pay high prices for her records.

Do songwriters get a reduced royalty rate if the album their songs are on is sold at a discount rate?

Fair enough, once the fan base is developed. I do think there’s an argument that it may be trickier to encourage potential new fans to part with their money if the product is significantly more expensive in which case it may be seen as being overpriced – and most people start exposed to the mainstream. It’s not that anyone would be persuaded to buy Carrie’s latest instead, rather that they might end up passing altogether. And the smaller the market is to start with, the more each individual lost sale hurts.

But I think you could side track mainstream country fans with cheap alt-country albums. I think it would be more likely that a Carrie or Taylor or pick any mainstream artist fan to pay full price for say a Carrie cd or whoever and notice a Neko Case cd for 3.99 and recognize the name from a blog or article they may have read and throw that in the cart as well. If they like it great deal if they don’t oh well it was only 3.99.

Gavin: Exactly, which is how this new pricing plan can help alt-country singers.

Baron Lane: Most mainstream country fans don’t differentiate between sub genres. All they know is Neko Case is in the country section along with Carrie Underwood, Taylor Swift, and many others. The only difference is familiarity. While artists like Carrie Underwood enjoy the spoils of mass marketing Neko Case and artists like her must be more innovative. What will motivate me as an consumer to pick up Neko Case album and read the back? Price. My motivation behind actually purchasing the album? Curiosity. The trick is finding out how much I’m willing to spend to satisfy it.

Gavin: Except Neko Case can NOT be found in the country section. Even on iTunes she’s in “Alternative.” I think you are an anomaly for most music consumers. Do you really think that most Underwood fans are musically curious? Really? I still contend that the barrier between moving an Underwood fan to Case is not price, it’s the kind of music each offers and the already established familiarity in the consumer that entertainers like Underwood get from commercial country radio.

Stormy: I agree completely.

All I know is that I like to buy actual CDs for as little as possible and I don’t buy downloads at all. If I can acquire a CD I really want for a reasonable price, say $ 15 or less, I will gladly pay for it. There are still a fair number of music loving dinosaurs like me that don’t have an MP3 player and have no interest in acquiring one. If an album I want isn’t offered in the CD format, I just won’t buy it.

Neko Case and Carrie Underwood do have one ting in common. I wouldn’t pay a dime by music from either of them in any format. A friend purchased a copy of “Blacklisted” and since he didn’t like it gave it to me. I endured listening through a couple of times then sold it on eBay. Neko doesn’t do anything for me personally although I know she has a dedicated following. Neko’s vocals are not my cup of tea..