The Truth About "True Fans"
Why Collectors Can't Be The Entire Audience
Last week, images circulated showing Goodwill bins full of unsold copies of Adele’s second album, 30, on vinyl. The pics were tweeted with the caption, “Imagine ruining the manufacturing process of vinyl for a full year just to end up at goodwill because you didn’t realize there was no market for your music on vinyl.” This was in direct reference to reports that 500,000 copies of the record were pressed prior to its release, causing a global production backup that hit indie artists especially hard.
This sort of major label hubris is nothing new. As far back as the 1970s, it was not uncommon for an anticipated release to “ship platinum” and collect the RIAA plaque even if half (or more) of the records were returned from retailers unsold. Over four million copies of the Bee Gee’s infamous film flop soundtrack, Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, were said to be sent back in 1978.
The difference between 1978 and 2023 is that vinyl manufacturing capacity today is severely limited. So severe that Metallica just purchased a pressing plant to ensure their catalog could consistently stay in print.
Indie advocates were quick to bemoan the sale as another example of elite acts monopolizing manufacturing capacity at the expense of smaller artist’s whose only means of earning a living through music, in the absense of billions of streams, is by selling limited vinyl runs to dedicated collectors, or “true fans.”
This imbalance between revenue-generating product and listen-generating streams caused us a spirited debate at The Cadence as to the value of physical media as well as the fan caste system that is a result of the lopsided economic model. To put it simply — Chris is a vinyl junkie, while Josh could honestly care less.
Since we couldn’t come to a consensus, we want you to help us decide. So this week, we present a “point” made by Josh, which will be followed by a “counterpoint” by Chris next week.
In the meantime, please take the poll at the end of this article and leave a comment to let us know how you experience fandom.
Point by Josh:
Collectors Aren’t Better Fans
Music became currency for me in 1999. That was the year, as a new writer for a fledging alt-weekly, I began receiving promo discs from record labels. No sooner did my first byline appear in Real Detroit Weekly (Issue #1) that packages began arriving at the office with my name on them.
A vast majority of these discs were immediately taken to a record store, where they were exchanged — sometimes for another more desirable disc, often for gas/beer/rent money. This was the way it was in order to survive on a rookie writer’s salary of $200 a week. For a disc to avoid its recycled fate, it had to really deliver. And more than once, an album I liked enough to give a good review still had to be sacrificed if money was scarce.
I might have been new to the promo game, but the exchange economy was something I was amply familiar with. I began gathering music in the late 80s. I use that verb instead of the more conventional “collecting” music because my method of optimizing acquisition ran counter to the idea of a music collector, at least today.
CDs may have been the dominant format of the 90s, but for at least the first half of the decade, I was a decidedly lo-fi taper. While my friends would use their part-time job money to collect the discs, I efficiently bought, taped and exchanged all the music I wanted. In that way, the cost of two new CDs (around $30) could become three albums if the two discs were taped, then traded in for credit ($10), which would buy one used CD ($8) and cover the cost of the blank Maxell UR90 cassette. Even better, $40 could buy five used CDs, taped and exchanged three more used CDs, taped and exchanged for one more used CD plus tapes. That’s nine beloved albums at an average cost of $4.44 apiece. I could never understand what my friends who collected their CDs were thinking. More CDs meant less total music to listen to. Duh!
I finally fell for the trapping of better-quality CD audio in 1996, not coincidentally the same time I got my first job that paid more than minimum wage. For three years, music was an expense — until the aforementioned promo breakthrough.
The hustle increased in 2001 when All Music Guide began paying me to review more or less any CD I had that wasn’t already in their database for $20/each. The workflow became receive promos, pitch promos, review approved promos, duplicate promos on CD-R (sometimes), exchange promos for more used CDs, pitch those, and on and on and on.
So needless to say, by the time Napster came along and decimated the CD biz, I hardly noticed as a consumer. I had been wringing the most music out of the least money for as long as I had been into music. And I LOVED music. I was a working music journalist for fucks sake! (Insert snide comment here, readers).
So what was the point of this little trip down memory lane, besides a defensive reaction to the endless vinyl collector porn that fills up my IG timeline daily? I see two takeaways:
First, it’s not just the average music consumer who doesn’t care how little streamers pay artists. Most more-than-average music enthusiasts probably don’t care either. If anyone had asked me if I wanted musicians I liked to make a living, my answer woulda been “sure,” but my actions said, “not if it means I have to pay full retail for all of my music.”
So when I see musicians and music pundits (an actual Twitter species) protesting streaming rates online, I can only cringe at the hopelessness of their plight. Because regardless of the “fairness” of streaming payments, the reality is that very few people who aren’t musicians care. Not the platforms, not the labels, not the regulators and honestly, not the fans on streaming.
With this in mind, many artists end up focusing on their “true fans.” The few who buy their music on vinyl. The collectors. The ones that pay. The problem, as I see it, is that these artists are limiting their audience to that specific committed/obsessive type who, while financially preferable, might not be the only fans worth having.
I can tell you from experience that the biggest collector doesn’t always equate to the most enthusiastic fan. Someone who fetishizes vinyl (or laughably, CDs or cassettes) might not love the music as much as someone who streams it all day long.
We live in an age when most art exists as a digital ephemeral experience, devoid of a physical manifestation and monetarily devalued. Or, it can exist as an object, valued for its physical product instead of the art contained within. Favoring an audience that prefers the latter is obviously a smarter bet financially. But in doing so, the audience self-selects in a manner that is only partially to do with the art and the rest to do with the object.
Last week, we mentioned an article that revealed 50%-60% of plays on Spotify in the UK were untouched by editorial or algorithmic suggestions in 2021. Meaning, when presented with the possibility of hearing almost any song in the world — virtually for free — the user chooses a particular song or album. Another 10%-20% came from user-curated playlists. The streaming equivalent of word-of-mouth.
Any artists who fails to service the segment of their fans who chose to listen to their music for no other reason than appreciation for that music — and in the face of infinite other options — have a lot to lose. Even if it’s not money.
TAKEAWAYS
Salient statements from this week’s music biz news.
1. IFPI Global Report 2023: Music Revenues Climb 9% to $26.2 Billion
With gains in all 62 tracked markets, global revenue have now surpassed the previous peak in 1999.
Takeaway: Although that rate of growth is half 2021’s rise, when revenues were up 18.5% year-on-year, IFPI said it was still the fourth highest growth level the recorded music business has seen this millennium.
2. Beyoncé & Adidas Walk Away From Ivy Park Partnership
After being burned by the Kanye trainwreck, Adidas is now learning that universally beloved artists are not guaranteed to sell garments.
Takeaway: Instead of producing the hundreds of millions in revenue that Adidas expected — the company hoped Ivy Park would perform similarly to Ye’s Yeezy brand — Ivy Park releases undersold, with roughly half of the merchandise from five of the six releases remaining on shelves.
3. Twitter’s Talks Over Licensing Music Are Said to Stall Under Musk
Negotiations that started in 2021 have collapsed despite early hopes that Musk would get it done.
Takeaway: The company eliminated some of the people responsible for the music rights talks in several rounds of layoffs, leaving the labels with few remaining Twitter contacts.
Beatles not Bee Gees