Quote:
Originally Posted by Necromancer
Your post reminds me of how modern bands and artists basically produce themselves anymore, making their own videos, touring. Its so much easier for bands to just come out of nowhere if they've got the right ingredients musically these days, but at the same time, its more congested with bad bands.
Cover bands are in decline compared to 10 or 20 years ago. Rule of thumb, don't play out live unless you have an album/CD to push with your band. Everything else is basically just a waste of time when you consider $ for the effort involved, other than just having a good time and paying for it yourself.
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It's gotten to the point where rock bands really don't need record labels anymore. The software for a band to self record music is now within the price range of any band. Since most music is now sold digitally , you no longer need a record label's distribution network to sell your product. And you can do all of the promotion yourself using word of mouth, the media and the internet.
Record labels still provide touring support, but they deduct tour support costs from the royalty payments to artists. So artists are already footing the bill for their touring costs.
Many digital music retailers will do a 50/50 split on net album sales with artists which is a lot better than the 3% royalty cut that most artists get from a record label.
In the future, I think many bands will provide their albums free or very cheap by digital download and not even mess with labels, like Radiohead did. The real money is in touring and very few artists ever see a penny in royalty payments from their record labels.