Jerseystar
New member
and why the local scene sucks...
So this is the promised off shoot from that post 'Why the local scene sucks'
Here’s a lesson I learnt from then general manager of the KL branch of one of the big five recording companies, now he’s one of the vice presidents I hear but I won’t name names or else every one adds him on Facebook or something and he gets mad at me . Anyway, he taught me this course on Music Industry Operations so take my word for it as he likes to say, ‘there is no bigger fish’ in the region. So if what he says goes against your grain, these are not my words so…
Anyway, according to him no band will ever be exported by a major label to another country unless that band makes it in its own country first. For instance in Malaysia, if a band managed to sell say 10 000 copies of its album, do you think that’s a lot? (Its laughably small.)
So now do you think the GM of say this record label is willing to call his counterpart in Australia and say “Hey I have a band here that I think I should bring over there so that it can make you money’
‘Oh how many albums did they sell in Malaysia’ GM Australia
’10,000’ says GM Malaysia
Phone slams down and GM Australia will NEVER entertain another call from GM Malaysia ever again.
Now do you think GM Malaysia will risk his career/reputation with a band that sold only 10,000 copies? At the end of the day, it is a business and a business is about making profit, not making a loss.
Okay, now apply this to Singapore. When was the last time any band sold even 10 000 copies in Singapore? Maybe in the 90’s or 80’s and even then it is hard. The problem is that we are simply too small to sustain a reasonable sales figure. A country like Malaysia whose population is around 23 million has a buying public about 8 million people. Even if you manage to get only 1% of them to buy your album, that’s already 80,000 copies sold. If you manage to get 10% of them that’s a more respectable 800,000 copies. They can probably do that if the whole country spoke the same language in that case Malay and your released a hit album in Malay. Now look at how pathetic we are.
Considering how small we are as a country, we only have one city. Imagine you manage to sell say 2000 copies of your album in a year. Assuming you sell it at say SGD20, your total revenue is SGD40000. Now assuming you don’t have to recoup your costs, and you split that 40000 evenly between 5 members. We are talking SGD8000/- a person and most likely that’s all you can make in one year from CD sales… Which is pathetic. How many albums can you release in one year? After a while you will also run out of songs so lets face it, 2000 copies just ain’t big enough. Might as well work at Starbucks or MacDonalds and just jam on weekends and never release an album and you will still make more than SGD8000 a year.
Now… assuming we lived in a country that had at least 10 cities and in each city you manage to sell 2000 copies. Now we get a more respectable SGD80000 per person per album. You’d have to do your own indie tour of course to get to play in all 10 cities.
Back to reality, you wanna bring your band from Singapore to say Johor Baru or to Jakarta, firstly you are crossing international borders so are you really going to bring 2000 copies of your CD through customs? You’ll probably be taxed on entry or fined if you don’t have a business permit. So how? You’d probably have to get some way to print your CD’s domestically in each country.
I don’t wanna get too nitty gritty into all the details but moral of the story…. Do not rely on CD sales as a source of income anymore, even signed international acts are suffering from this, unless you belong to the upper echelons of the roster like Coldplay or Britney etc.
The good news is… the loss of the CD has leveled the playing field for all musicians now. It is just like 60’s and 70’s where musicians made their income from touring and playing not so much from the sale of their vinyl records or from radio airplay. Unless of course you still think a one city country can sustain a band financially....
So this is the promised off shoot from that post 'Why the local scene sucks'
Here’s a lesson I learnt from then general manager of the KL branch of one of the big five recording companies, now he’s one of the vice presidents I hear but I won’t name names or else every one adds him on Facebook or something and he gets mad at me . Anyway, he taught me this course on Music Industry Operations so take my word for it as he likes to say, ‘there is no bigger fish’ in the region. So if what he says goes against your grain, these are not my words so…
Anyway, according to him no band will ever be exported by a major label to another country unless that band makes it in its own country first. For instance in Malaysia, if a band managed to sell say 10 000 copies of its album, do you think that’s a lot? (Its laughably small.)
So now do you think the GM of say this record label is willing to call his counterpart in Australia and say “Hey I have a band here that I think I should bring over there so that it can make you money’
‘Oh how many albums did they sell in Malaysia’ GM Australia
’10,000’ says GM Malaysia
Phone slams down and GM Australia will NEVER entertain another call from GM Malaysia ever again.
Now do you think GM Malaysia will risk his career/reputation with a band that sold only 10,000 copies? At the end of the day, it is a business and a business is about making profit, not making a loss.
Okay, now apply this to Singapore. When was the last time any band sold even 10 000 copies in Singapore? Maybe in the 90’s or 80’s and even then it is hard. The problem is that we are simply too small to sustain a reasonable sales figure. A country like Malaysia whose population is around 23 million has a buying public about 8 million people. Even if you manage to get only 1% of them to buy your album, that’s already 80,000 copies sold. If you manage to get 10% of them that’s a more respectable 800,000 copies. They can probably do that if the whole country spoke the same language in that case Malay and your released a hit album in Malay. Now look at how pathetic we are.
Considering how small we are as a country, we only have one city. Imagine you manage to sell say 2000 copies of your album in a year. Assuming you sell it at say SGD20, your total revenue is SGD40000. Now assuming you don’t have to recoup your costs, and you split that 40000 evenly between 5 members. We are talking SGD8000/- a person and most likely that’s all you can make in one year from CD sales… Which is pathetic. How many albums can you release in one year? After a while you will also run out of songs so lets face it, 2000 copies just ain’t big enough. Might as well work at Starbucks or MacDonalds and just jam on weekends and never release an album and you will still make more than SGD8000 a year.
Now… assuming we lived in a country that had at least 10 cities and in each city you manage to sell 2000 copies. Now we get a more respectable SGD80000 per person per album. You’d have to do your own indie tour of course to get to play in all 10 cities.
Back to reality, you wanna bring your band from Singapore to say Johor Baru or to Jakarta, firstly you are crossing international borders so are you really going to bring 2000 copies of your CD through customs? You’ll probably be taxed on entry or fined if you don’t have a business permit. So how? You’d probably have to get some way to print your CD’s domestically in each country.
I don’t wanna get too nitty gritty into all the details but moral of the story…. Do not rely on CD sales as a source of income anymore, even signed international acts are suffering from this, unless you belong to the upper echelons of the roster like Coldplay or Britney etc.
The good news is… the loss of the CD has leveled the playing field for all musicians now. It is just like 60’s and 70’s where musicians made their income from touring and playing not so much from the sale of their vinyl records or from radio airplay. Unless of course you still think a one city country can sustain a band financially....
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