Do You Want a Record Deal? If So, I Have a Bridge or Two, I Wanna Sell You.

Its 2007 and cats still want record deals. In the era of myspace. Mixtapes.

Itunes.

Blogging.

&

Youtube.

Cats STILL want record deals.

Phonte summed it up perfectly when he said,

Speaking for me personally any record label is just not for me - major, indie or whatever. Signing exclusively to a record label with the state the business is in is like buying a ticket to the Titanic. Record sales are steadliy going down...these labels are doing artist crazy gestapo shit and try to save their money. So signing a record deal in 2007 is insane, there is really no need for it. But that´s my personal thing. No matter what label, I´m sure it´d be the same way. Concerning Atlantic, it just wasn´t a good fit.

Which bring me to the artist showcase I went to earlier this week.
I attended at the behest of a jawn that was checkin' for me.

He told me he was throwing an underground "party".

I was like, Im a b-girl, so I'll rock.

Dude.

The spot smelled like corona's were splashed on the walls which seemed to emit beer steam.

Thats just the begining.

There were these hood-lic-ious young gurls.

Fort green houses respresent, represent sent. Bed-stuy houses respresent, represent sent.
And THAT was what was fresh to me because the crowd was young and the music wasn't commercial.
Come to think of it I was prolly the oldest female there that DIDN'T work for a label.
So, the around the way girls and dudes came through to support their homies that were performing.

It reminded me of that late 90's Nuryorican era.

Man lissen. There were these shark skin suit wearing label types double fisting hennessy and (whatever you chase hen-rock with).

Here is the rub tho'.

Cats were COMPETING for an opportunity to have a "sit down" meeting w/ cats @ shady records.

Why compete for a meeting w/ a label?

One should at least be competing for enough cash for a new cell phone, some chucks, or one of the skelton hoodies.



Speaking of which, Imma have to blog about my phone issues because it is outta pocket.
What does it mean that in 2007, artist are still willing to sign their art over to a label for a loan via a contract that will effectivly have them hoe'd out to the label for the next 7 albums?

Technology offords the opportunity for jawns to make a living and connect directly with the fans.

An alternative rock cat is caking $3-5K/month from online sales,

More than 3,000 people, on average, were visiting his site every day, and his most popular songs were being downloaded as many as 500,000 times; he was making what he described as “a reasonable middle-class living” — between $3,000 and $5,000 a month — by selling CDs and digital downloads of his work on iTunes and on his own site.

"His fans do not want merely to buy his music. They want to be his friend.........This is not a trend that affects A-list stars. The most famous corporate acts — Justin Timberlake, Fergie, Beyoncé — are still creatures of mass marketing, carpet-bombed into popularity by expensive ad campaigns and radio airplay. They do not need the online world to find listeners, and indeed, their audiences are too vast for any artist to even pretend intimacy with. No, this is a trend that is catalyzing the B-list, the new, under-the-radar acts that have always built their success fan by fan. Across the country, the CD business is in a spectacular free fall; sales are down 20 percent this year alone. People are increasingly getting their music online (whether or not they’re paying for it), and it seems likely that the artists who forge direct access to their fans have the best chance of figuring out what the new economics of the music business will be.

Ohhh. And I just came across this link today from Eskays house,

10 Reason Not to Sign W/ a Major Label,

1. They Tell You What to Do.
2. They're only in the Disc Business.
3. They Don't Pay You.
4. There's No One Working There.
Read more here.

Industry Rule Number 4080, record company people are shady....

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Yes. M.dot. is in the building and blogging lovely.

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