I recently read a blog post on Digital Music News about how major record labels are still trying to replicate a formula to manufacture hit songs/records.
The major labels should embrace The Long Tail (Amazon affiliate). I would suggest they put out perhaps half of the volume of material they’re recording, which apparently is about 60 variations of one hook for one song. If they can be that prolific with one song’s hook they can likely create multiple ten-song albums to release in a short period of time.
Instead of one ten-song album that can be sliced up and songs sold individually per track, put out three ten-song albums. Now that’s thirty songs to choose from. I would further suggest the majors take whatever marketing budget they had for that one album and spread it over the three. Get fans involved via blogging and social media contests, etc. Then see which of those three albums sells best. Chances are they may see moderate sales of all three over time, but collectively all three albums would likely outsell the single album they were originally going to put out with the same budget.
It’s at least good to see the majors putting some extra sweat-equity into their process and not giving up, hmmm, that sounds like the model of indie musicians. However, the main difference is that indies tend to be much better at gaining a grass-roots following, likely because of their sincere authenticity compared to major labels.
By Nick Venturella
The major labels should embrace The Long Tail (Amazon affiliate). I would suggest they put out perhaps half of the volume of material they’re recording, which apparently is about 60 variations of one hook for one song. If they can be that prolific with one song’s hook they can likely create multiple ten-song albums to release in a short period of time.
Instead of one ten-song album that can be sliced up and songs sold individually per track, put out three ten-song albums. Now that’s thirty songs to choose from. I would further suggest the majors take whatever marketing budget they had for that one album and spread it over the three. Get fans involved via blogging and social media contests, etc. Then see which of those three albums sells best. Chances are they may see moderate sales of all three over time, but collectively all three albums would likely outsell the single album they were originally going to put out with the same budget.
It’s at least good to see the majors putting some extra sweat-equity into their process and not giving up, hmmm, that sounds like the model of indie musicians. However, the main difference is that indies tend to be much better at gaining a grass-roots following, likely because of their sincere authenticity compared to major labels.
By Nick Venturella
