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It was distributed by ADA. You think they shipped thousands of promo CDs/mailouts to radio stations and record stores across the world all on their own? These a

It was distributed by ADA. You think they shipped thousands of promo CDs/mailouts to radio stations and record stores across the world all on their own? These artist-run labels are usually just shell companies. But yes, this track is maybe not the best example for the point I'm making. Just replace "record companies spending millions of dollars" with "ADA spending some other very large amount of money and macklemore spending hundreds of man hours" and the point is the same.

sliverstorm 13y ago
My understanding is Macklemore (a man, not a band) is pretty wealthy, so I suspect it was mostly his dollars behind the track, including for distribution. That leads to the other interesting part- if he's already wealthy, does he care if the track makes a lot of money or not? But, yes, for most any other hit pop song you'd be right.
w1ntermute 13y ago
> It was distributed by ADA. You think they shipped thousands of promo CDs/mailouts to radio stations and record stores across the world all on their own? The relationship between Macklemore and the ADA is fundamentally different from the traditional relationship between an artist and a record label, where the record label loans the artist money up front and takes care of all the promotional efforts in return for a majority share of the revenue from album sales. The ADA takes payment upfront - there is no "investment" going on. This is why Macklemore was able to take the lion's share of the profits from his album sales. In fact, Macklemore addresses this very point in one of his songs on The Heist: http://rapgenius.com/Macklemore-and-ryan-lewis-jimmy-iovine-lyrics http://rapgenius.com/Macklemore-and-ryan-lewis-jimmy-iovine-... > But yes, this track is maybe not the best example for the point I'm making. No, it's actually the worst possible example you could have picked. > Just replace "record companies spending millions of dollars" with "ADA spending some other very large amount of money and macklemore spending hundreds of man hours" and the point is the same. No, it's not the same. It's just about as different as it gets when it comes to the music industry.

sliverstorm 13y ago

My understanding is Macklemore (a man, not a band) is pretty wealthy, so I suspect it was mostly his dollars behind the track, including for distribution. That leads to the other interesting part- if he's already wealthy, does he care if the track makes a lot of money or not? But, yes, for most any other hit pop song you'd be right.

w1ntermute 13y ago

> It was distributed by ADA. You think they shipped thousands of promo CDs/mailouts to radio stations and record stores across the world all on their own? The relationship between Macklemore and the ADA is fundamentally different from the traditional relationship between an artist and a record label, where the record label loans the artist money up front and takes care of all the promotional efforts in return for a majority share of the revenue from album sales. The ADA takes payment upfront - there is no "investment" going on. This is why Macklemore was able to take the lion's share of the profits from his album sales. In fact, Macklemore addresses this very point in one of his songs on The Heist: http://rapgenius.com/Macklemore-and-ryan-lewis-jimmy-iovine-lyrics http://rapgenius.com/Macklemore-and-ryan-lewis-jimmy-iovine-... > But yes, this track is maybe not the best example for the point I'm making. No, it's actually the worst possible example you could have picked. > Just replace "record companies spending millions of dollars" with "ADA spending some other very large amount of money and macklemore spending hundreds of man hours" and the point is the same. No, it's not the same. It's just about as different as it gets when it comes to the music industry.