Major labels function with the assumption that 90 percent of artists they sign are going to fail — that should have been a red flag for everybody. I mean that’s a bizarre business model in any arena. But particularly in the cultural arena, the idea that the system through which culture is transmitted is dictated entirely by profit should concern us, because that’s going to narrow the types of culture that are transmitted. And then, on top of that, the alternative venues of distribution are stuck in the shadows of these major labels.
That's Dr. Bethany Klein, in an outstanding interview about her research into the commercial licensing of pop music, and its impacts on artists and the music industry as a whole.
The interview is in support of her upcoming book As Heard on TV and you can read her dissertation on the topic as well.
If you're so inclined, a few years ago I'd ranted about Bob Dylan's appearance in a Victoria's Secret ad, which certainly marks a nadir in the realm of musicians licensing popular music for commercials. Not because he was "selling out" (I don't believe in that idea), but because he is so damn unsexy.
The Bob Dylan post is completely unreadable (in IE, Firefox, and Chrome) due to something going on with the ad banner on that page.
Thanks, Josh, I actually made a typo while editing my HTML. :) Should be fixed now.
MLB teams operate under the assumption that more than 90% of the players they sign will fail. The same goes for football, soccer, basketball, pretty much every sport.
Where I work, we operate under the assumption that 90% of the ideas we invest in will never pan out.
This is not "bizarre" in any way, it's just the way the world operates in any "winner take all" business.
When a single "hit" artist can make you tens of millions of dollars, and the upfront cost is negligible, it makes sense to invest in thousands of potential hits...
I think Dr. Klein should personally invest in some basic microeconomics courses...
PLC is right. Book publishers do the same thing -- their small number of massive hits pay for a huge number of probable failures. The thing with book publishers is that they've (at least historically) been able to do this in a way that runs contrary to Klein's thesis -- the massive success of a few hitmakers allowed them to publish a whole bunch of riskier works.
So, yeah, she doesn't really understand "business model."
This business of trying hundreds of things in the hope that one will pay off and you'll win big seems to work quite well in a few different industries. In fact, copyright law seems to be set up with that in mind: all you need is one hit and due to the length of copyright terms you can in theory live off it for the rest of your life if you play your cards right, and maybe even pass that privilege on to your children.
It's a shame that despite this fact -- that record labels will sign up thousands of acts almost expecting them to fail -- that hundreds of great acts fail to even be considered.