Inside The Industry: Music, Its More Than Just Your 1st Week Album Sales

admin April 28, 2011 Comments Off on Inside The Industry: Music, Its More Than Just Your 1st Week Album Sales

Written by Dave House

“I usually Go Where My Soundscan Ain’t Tough, So When They Say NORE yo it aint that Rough” Noreaga, Super Thug, 1997

“Royalties takes too Long its like Waiting on Babies” Raekwon feat. Ghostface Killa, Rainy Days, 1995

These lines had to be hidden jewels for the Music Business Major. Lets take Noreaga’s line for example and figure out where did we go wrong with Album Sales. First off, ANY ARTIST WOULD WANT THERE NUMBERS TO BE LOW, I REPEAT ANY ARTIST & MANAGEMENT WILL WANT THERE NUMBERS TO BE LOW & DECREASE IN PERCENTAGES. Why is that? Who would say such a crazy? Yep Dave House would and here is why: The recording artist, though he is in the business of music, really is in the business for the passion of having their art presented to the public. A recording artist lives to perform and lives to gain ONE MORE FAN (unless your a corporate Frankenstein like Katy Perry).

The best way for a recording artist to gain one more fan is to perform and showcase their talent. Any manager not caught up in the Hip Hop way of looking at the Music Business, where 1st week sales is really equivalent to gaining the attention of Richard Pryor’s character in the classic film The WIZ, will look at the artist DMA REPORT (not the Top 200s your getting in this email). Management is supposed to see where sales are dismal and route out a MEAN ass Promo Tour. Recording Artist can get upfront money for some appearances, probably get money to collab with artist in that market, & have the opportunity to charge for any promo request outside of what was already routed specifically for the tour. Your job is complete when you look at the DMA REPORT one month later and see that your sales increased from the markets visited. In addition, the recording artist could make a couple more thousand while n the road if management know what they doing strategically and on the artist is on the road long enough, which leads to Ghostface Killa’s classic line from “Rainy Days” off the Purple Tape.

Even if the artist sells a “milli” the first week, that check ain’t coming til 9 months after its release and the recording artist will get paid in pennies (depending on their point spread in the original record deal, where all the artist is doing is recouping the budget from Album 1 & 2 in Album 1. The bulls*** plastic wrap on a cd that gets ripped off and tossed first is charged back to the artist 2.99 at best. (some deals say that package is 4.99 if they have to put a promo sticker on top of the plastic that customers rip off to open the cd).

I say this to say this: the enthusiasm of why we here in the first place when it comes to Hip Hop is on complete life support and by now, we could have done more to stop the bleeding. First everyone on this email, MUST get off the 1st week sale sh**. If we want to talk first week sales, we must stretch our vocabulary past what we read is the TOTAL NUMBER SOLD & being hip to determining the increase or decrease in percentage of sales from the prior week. Unless your going to factor in DMA’s, Point percentages of the SPECIFIC artist deal, & Tour Marketing, amongst other subjects to have an educated discussion, then what the hell we worried about first week sales for? Cause we can read the Overall number and we higher the number the doper the album?

We turning Hip Hop Record sales into one Big Voter Registration every Tuesday and the Next Wednesday we see the results. Yet we only read what we see in front of us, laughing at our favorite artist failure in our eyes, yet we wonder why the artist that sold 45K in his first week is still touring. Why is Nas & Damian Marley still touring and Rihanna can’t? Think about it in my Special Ed Voice, Would You Join the Navy if you Didn’t Like the Gravy & Rice?

Lets get Back to Just Enjoying Music & Providing Music for others to enjoy, keep your first week sale talk.

Dave House, Founder of WHOOOOSHOUSE WORLDWIDE, LLC
Over 50 Million Records Sold/Over 100 Million Spins Detected
Follow Me On @DaveHouseOutlaw on TWITTER for your
WEEKLY MEDIABASE MONDAY REPORT EVERY MONDAY @ 12PM EST/ 9AM PST &
MEDIABASE MONDAY RECAP @ 6PM EST/3PM PST
SKYPE: WHOOOOSHOUSE
“To Be a Champion One Must Always Feel Like a Champion”

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