Can someone explain the math behind this?
http://www.last.fm/music/Proem/Socially+Inept
2000 edition CD, of which there are about 100 left
+
less than 500 digital album sales… (though it is #2 best selling digital album for Merck)
=
50,000+ unique listeners??
hmmmm?
to be fair the ratio of cd sales:piracy is probably the same for aphex twin as proem
Yeah, I’m sure it applies pretty uniformly across the electronic (or IDM at least) scene. The problem comes in the economies of scale. Pressing 50,000 cds costs considerably less per disc than 1000-2000 discs. So each disc sold of bigger artists makes more profit per disc, though there are more advertising costs and such, I would wager its still more profit per disc.
Even if it does even out, the ultimate point is that (and im not saying that proem and aphex are necessarily on the same musical playing field) making $50k off an album is a living, making $1-2k is a hobby, for what is essentially about the same amount of work for either artist.
Looks like the album is hosted at Last (and available to play through Last) so I imagine a fair share of those 50k uniques could just be joe-streamed-one-track through last.fm (am NOT downplaying piracy in any way, just rationalizing the equation).
I’d personally like to see a streaming model such as last with an integrated credit system. So listeners purchase credits, and if they stream a song more than x times (set by artist) it’s automatically purchased and optionally downloaded (listeners preferred format). That would encourage more artists to allow their material to be streamed, and also help listeners actually buy what they like. I can’t tell you how many times I hear a track on Last and can’t actually find a place to buy the damn thing.
That’s basically a last/bandcamp hybrid, without bandcamps horrible purchase process.
Said company should then branch into a brick-and-mortar chain, as they’d have a perfect demand model to gauge the stock of physical releases. Have a multi-tier qualification system (i.e. song/album sells >= qty., qualifies for physical distro, PoS promotion etc.). Stores would also host shows for local label/artist promotion and support, interlocking within it’s particular community for sustainability.
I’m still waiting for your “Just when you thought IDM was dead…” Merck is back post
Hmmm, I wonder how much of these 50,000 unique listenners actually come back often to this album. The same happens with internet releases, people download, try and… keep/delete it and even if they keep it, they don’t necesarily come back to it.