Props to Wendy Day!
#2 Successful Indie in Sales
TMI Boyz from Houston, TX
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It hit the internet last week in a study by Tom Silverman that a label that I had built and consulted, TMI Boyz out of Houston, was the second largest selling independent release last year. And while it would have been nice for us to hit #1, I am quite happy with the #2 position as well, of successful indie releases from last year. Upon our first week release, we hit the Billboard rap chart in the Top 10, which as an indie is always exciting. That week we outsold BloodRaw, another artist I had consulted who was signed to Young Jeezy's CTE and distributed by Def Jam.
Last week, Tom Silverman (he built the most successful indie label in urban music in the 80s and 90s-the Tommy Boy Records empire was responsible for Afrika Bambaataa, De La Soul, Queen Latifah, Naughty By Nature, Information Society, Coolio, House of Pain, Everlast, etc. He owns the New Music Seminar), published a study on numerous music industry websites. (You can see his study and read an interview with him at
www.MusicianCoaching.com).
He pointed out that in 2009, there were 1,500 independent releases in all genres. Of those 1500, only 13 releases sold over 10,000 units (that's only $70,000 to $100,000 in wholesale sales). The #2 release was the label I consulted, TMI Boyz. They were one of the ONLY rap acts on that short list of 13, and the #1 selling rap release. And that list was based on the (inaccurate) SoundScan sales of 30,000 CDs sold. While on the road for a year and a half, TMI Boyz sold 2 mixed CDs and a full length CD. Tom's research was based solely on the CDs that were sold at FYE stores in the mid-South. Since we weren't focused on SoundScan, just on making money, we weren't trying to have each sale counted. The bulk of sales were at shows, Mall parking lots, state fairs, flea markets, street corners, gas stations, car washes, high schools, clubs--anyplace where a mass of people were gathered so TMI Boyz could jump out of their wrapped van to make a sale. You may have never heard of them, but they made $1.6 million in sales in 2009. Isn't that the best measurement of all? But being #2 is good, too.
To see excerpts of what Tom said about the State of the Music Industry (excerpted from Musician Coaching from January 2010), please go to my blog here! I recommend you read this in its entirety and then also read Tom's three part interview at
www.MusicianCoaching.com. Meanwhile, here are interesting bits and pieces, by Tom Silverman:
Last Thursday, the new 2009 statistics came out from SoundScan and what we've been identifying at the New Music Seminar is that overall music sales are up by 2.1% -- 1.545 billion sales were made. That includes physical, digital, singles, albums, everything, video, music video. Total album sales including digital are down 12.7%. Digital tracks are up 8.3%, which is pretty great considering everyone is saying digital is leveling off, and I find that to be hype. The percentage of increase is slowing down, but that's because it's a numerator/denominator thing. The actual amount -- the number of additional units was almost 100 million more digital tracks sold this year than the year before, and 100 million is nothing to laugh at.
Vinyl sales are up 33% going from 1.88 million to 2.5 million; so, the increase on that was about 700,000. Full-length digital albums are up 16%, but then again they started at only 65.8 million, so they're only up to 76 million. The interesting trend we follow at the Seminar also is the ratio of singles to album sales. In 2004 there were virtually no singles sales-- it was all albums. Last year there were 2.5 times as many digital download singles as albums, physical and digital combined. This year it's moved to 3.1 times as many, so look to see the ratio of singles to albums to increase. A lot of this comes from the radio hits. What's happening is that where the major labels play, they're getting marginalized faster than the indies and the smaller artists. We identified that the Top 10 has dropped 65-70% since 2000, probably 70% as of this year. If you just take records that sold over a quarter of a million that's down 65%; but if you take records that sold under 10,000 it's only down three or four percent.
In 2008 there were only 112 releases that sold over a quarter of a million copies. The major labels can't survive on that. They need sales larger than 250,000 copies sold to survive. So those 112 records are the only records they could make money on at all. Probably 25-50% of those didn't make money either. So only 60 releases make money, and the amount of money they make except for maybe four or five giant hits - the Lady Gaga and Black Eyed Peas level of hits - aren't really making significant money. In the old days, one hit used to pay for 20 stiffs. Now one hit doesn't even pay for one stiff.
What if half of those 112 didn't even make money or broke even. To sell 300,000 albums and not make money? That's not a good thing. It's because they were hoping to sell 600,000 or 700,000 or 800,000. The labels are getting more cautious. So here's what's happening, and this is what we discuss at NMS. The labels-- majors and independents, are more conservative; they're not going to take risks on artists or invest in artists just because they hear the demo and they like the songs or just because they can pack a house. That's not enough - at least not the major labels. They need to know the artist is going somewhere between 30 and 60 miles per hour already to make an investment in it. They can't start from scratch anymore, because so few artists are breaking.
Here's another statistic: in 2008 there were 1500 releases that sold over 10,000 album units. Out of that, there were only 227 of them that were artists that had broken 10,000 for the first time. So in the whole year only 227 of the artists were artists that had broken what we call the "obscurity line." When you sell 10,000 albums, you're no longer an obscure artist; people know about you. You may not be a star yet, but you're in the game. That gets you out of the glut and into the game. We looked at the 227 and identified that only 14 of them were artists doing it on their own and all the rest were on majors and indies; a little more than half were on indies. And that includes Lady Gaga in that number of 227. It includes the biggest artists and ones that sold 10,000 as well, whether they sold a million or 10,001. That's a pretty daunting number.
Here's the list of the 12 artists that sold over 10,000 albums in 2008 for the first time. Remember these are 12 albums out of 105,575 new album releases that year.
BON IVER
Record Label: Jagjaguwar (US/CAN)
Album: For Emma Forever Ago 103,112
TMI BOYZ
Record Label: TMI Entertainment
Album: Grindin' For a Purpose 29,119
CAS HALEY
Record Label: CaptainHooks, also Big Karma Records, a "Texas start up label"
Album: Cas Haley 22,580
DUKE SPIRIT
Record Label: SHANGRILA
Album: Neptune 19,403
EYES SET TO KILL
Record Label: BreakSilence Recordings
Album: Reach 16,133
PROZAK
Record Label: Strange Music Inc./ DeadMan Productions Inc.
Album: Tales From the Sick 14,929
SLIGH*CHRIS
Record Label: Brash Music
Album: Running Back To You 14,785
REBEL SOULJAHZ
Record Label: GO Aloha Entertainment
Album: Nothing To Hide 14,262
BLIND PILOT
Record Label: Expunged Records,
Album: 3 Rounds & A Sound 11,281
MORNING BENDERS
Record Label: +1 Records Album: Talking Through Tin Cans 11,201
STS9
Record Label: 1320 Records
Album: PEACEBLASTER 10,601
TRIP LEE
Record Label: Reach Records
Album:20-20 10,003
Wendy Day
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