There's a chapter in my book on "questionable practices" - at the top of the list were custom deals and/or vanity deals. But I saw them from an even "sleazier" side than STACK did.
There were LOTS of really bad studios that had record labels, publishing companies, distribution, and even D.J.'s AND CHARTS that were all tied loosely together but the sum of the parts was a complete unit and a TOTAL scam.
Yes, you could make a 10 song record for $10,000.00 - the budget was $2000.
Yes, you could get your song on a compilation CD that was sent to a LOT of radio stations and actually get a few of spins between midnight and 6 a.m.
Yes, you would give up 100% of your PUB - (just in case the song had a snowballs chance in hell of being a hit - if SOMEBODY else heard it and cut it right)
Yes, you would actually become CHARTED on these self-owned, self-promoted charts - BUT that meant nothing.
IN FACT, you would spend this $10,000 along with 11 other people - so the "label/studio" made $120,000 and spent $20K for the entire project and the artist got very little - the "scam artists" would take it all to the bank. The act would fold and leave Nashville and go to back home having to report to the home town people that put up the money that it was all gone. In fact the leading case for Consumer Fraud was Caprice vs. Brungard Records (20th Circuit- Nashville) which allowed the plaintiff to get THREE TIMES their damages AND attorney's fees for ripping off an act just like this!
IF anyone would bring me a deal like this to review - I would ask them to call the BBB and see how many complaints were filed - they would and 50% would walk, the other 50 would find a lawyer that would tell them this was a GREAT DEAL -
I wanted NO PART OF IT!
I even had a few REALLY RICH clients that did IN FACT buy their own record deal at a MAJOR as their Dads had a TON of DOUGH...lots of Oil Money in Texas was the norm. And then there's - the new Country Phenom – that’s drop dead gorgeous but CANNOT SING! You think she got signed on pure talent? Nope, DADDY bought her way in!
I’ve got buddy, who are still pounding it out in Nashville fighting for the scraps for any deal they can along with every other label guy that's been fired that cannot get a job doing anything else – one of them just dealt with a guy who just sold his business for a boatload of cash - so he buys a tour bus, gets a whole band together, starts to break into the music business in his 40’s – yes, he's OK but no star that’s for sure - but once everyone found out what kind of money he had - then they started to circle like buzzards, each one trying to pick the carcass clean before the others could get any of his money....all in all, he'll never amount to much of anything as an artist - but he does have enough money to open up a whole new office with a ton of people working for him that are all in it for themselves and once the money is gone - they are back on the street...
Sad but true - I wouldn't mind providing a good service for a good talent - but when you start "raising money" - albeit through Private Placement Memo's to sell stock in a closely held Company that does fall outside of the SEC's priorities (or at least is not as stringent as public stock) - but you've got to have a GREAT ARTIST that everyone believes in and then put them into development - and then get the bucks to pull it off and even THEN it's a huge Gamble! How do you get ROI?
Here's a couple of things to think about - the Viral Video that’s had 64 MILLION plays later on YouTube and they grossed a Whopping $30,K...That's $0.0000149 cents per youtube spin and iTunes sales were de minimus for something that was HUGE from a viral standpoint. My math may be off as I did the calculations a couple of weeks ago - but it was ridiculously LOW.
And the last point: did you know it takes 400,000 spins on a pure-play server like Pandora or last.fm to generate $400.00? Another way to look at it is it takes 7200 spins to equal one (1) CD purchase (if you own all the rights!) and that's the medium of choice these days - Satellite and streaming radio...cloud technology!
Wonder why a huge act like John Mayer has to KEEP TOURING and putting out records like a mad man? He's not making shit in album sales or iTunes much less for radio plays or even SYNC deals - you used to be able to get $65,000 for a major film, or sync deal - now your lucky to get $1200....the biggest deal I've heard about as of late was my buddy that got $5,000 for "AFTER THE CATCH" lead song on History Channel/Discover (?) - the money was spent before he got the check not including other fees that could have been incurred such as attorney’s, managers, etc.
SM @ MSO
