3 ms·

It is the same audience. At the end of the day, if your music isn't good, unique, or worth my time, you're not getting my money spent on merch, vinyls, and tour

It is the same audience. At the end of the day, if your music isn't good, unique, or worth my time, you're not getting my money spent on merch, vinyls, and tours.

PaulDavisThe1st 3y ago
It is demonstrably not the same audience, but I do agree that one is a subset of the other. Also, notice that the usual line about "it's the merch, touring, etc that really makes money" is only true because of streaming. It's precisely because you make essentially nothing from "the music" anymore that the revenue stream from other things now matters more than ever. But with systems like Bandcamp, where the artist is collecting 85% of the gross per digital album download (which could be on the order of $4.50-$11.00 per sale) the balance between these things can shift quite a bit. Of course, if you've got dedicated merch buyers, cooking up new merch is generally easier and faster than another album (though for some, maybe not).
- mjr00 3y ago
  > Also, notice that the usual line about "it's the merch, touring, etc that really makes money" is only true because of streaming. Given that "bands make all their money from merch and touring" has been true since at least 1970, I don't think you can blame it on streaming, no. Before Spotify was paying out fractions of a penny per stream, you just had record labels taking $11.99 out of every $12 CD sale instead.
  - PaulDavisThe1st 3y ago
    Right, and that's why systems like bandcamp are different. The artist doesn't need a label to start with, and BC takes just 15%, and the artist controls pricing strategy. But you're right that label robbery of artists played a big role in the significance of merchandise. It just wasn't true to the same extent in (say) the 70s, because revenue from actual music sales was larger. That was particularly true for musicians who had significant merch sales - they also had really significant music sales revenue. As I noted elsewhere here, the one upside of label thievery was their ability to cross-subsidize artists. Even tiny (in terms of general sales) labels like ECM got a huge hit every once in a while (e.g. Jarrett's Koeln Concert) that enabled them to keep working with artists whose albums barely broke even. That model has essentially ended now.

It is the same audience. At the end of the day, if your music isn't good, unique, or worth my time, you're not getting my money spent on merch, vinyls, and tours.

PaulDavisThe1st 3y ago

It is demonstrably not the same audience, but I do agree that one is a subset of the other. Also, notice that the usual line about "it's the merch, touring, etc that really makes money" is only true because of streaming. It's precisely because you make essentially nothing from "the music" anymore that the revenue stream from other things now matters more than ever. But with systems like Bandcamp, where the artist is collecting 85% of the gross per digital album download (which could be on the order of $4.50-$11.00 per sale) the balance between these things can shift quite a bit. Of course, if you've got dedicated merch buyers, cooking up new merch is generally easier and faster than another album (though for some, maybe not).

mjr00 3y ago
> Also, notice that the usual line about "it's the merch, touring, etc that really makes money" is only true because of streaming. Given that "bands make all their money from merch and touring" has been true since at least 1970, I don't think you can blame it on streaming, no. Before Spotify was paying out fractions of a penny per stream, you just had record labels taking $11.99 out of every $12 CD sale instead.
- PaulDavisThe1st 3y ago
  Right, and that's why systems like bandcamp are different. The artist doesn't need a label to start with, and BC takes just 15%, and the artist controls pricing strategy. But you're right that label robbery of artists played a big role in the significance of merchandise. It just wasn't true to the same extent in (say) the 70s, because revenue from actual music sales was larger. That was particularly true for musicians who had significant merch sales - they also had really significant music sales revenue. As I noted elsewhere here, the one upside of label thievery was their ability to cross-subsidize artists. Even tiny (in terms of general sales) labels like ECM got a huge hit every once in a while (e.g. Jarrett's Koeln Concert) that enabled them to keep working with artists whose albums barely broke even. That model has essentially ended now.