Hacker News Reader

Comment by jmngomes | Hacker News Reader

Actually, I think there's a major upside in revenue as the artist profits way more from live shows than from album sales, which are a low margin business as record companies take its lion's share.

Getting their music out there increases their visibility and, therefore, desirability, meaning more people will be willing to pay to see them live.

One trouble is that booking artists for live shows is (or used to be) very driven by album sales, so perhaps we'll start seeing other interesting metrics - like Youtube/FB followers, # downloads, etc - achieving the status a "more official" indicator.

View on HN

> Getting their music out there increases their visibility

If everyone did it though, they'd be back where they started in terms of visibility, and short the money they were earning through album sales.

Or, the potential market could grow along with the deluge of free music, no longer restricted to the credit card-holding western adult listener. This would have the potential to trigger increased popularity in radio and other media, benefiting both the artists and listeners. Pure speculation, of course.

>If everyone did it though, they'd be back where they started in terms of visibility,

Maybe so, which is why it is a good idea to be first.

> and short the money they were earning through album sales.

But if you aren't selling a lot of albums, or if your profit per album is low, then you aren't risking much.

believe it or not, amount of local radio play still is the most referenced metric for booking consideration, at least on a profitable touring scale (as in touring for income rather than promotion). downloads and internet fanbase metrics have been used as well for quite some time now, just on a smaller scale, ultimately these decisions are up to the promoter, whether to trust facebook likes to turn into ticket sales, whether to trust a new artist being represented by a historically successful agent (this probably holds more value than any online clout), whether to trust the promoter's own instinct with their local market in deciding what acts will prove successful. ultimately, i agree that making a back-catalog free will benefit certain artists but probably not the domestically touring indie band.

With the rise of national corporate-owned radio stations, you have fewer program directors you need to convince to play your songs. But you're also competing with lots of other bands who sound just like you, because of the record company's tendency to sign clones of already top-selling bands.

Internet playlists (today's mix-tapes?) and college-radio probably have the greatest chance of becoming famous. Live venues work for local markets (Austin in particular), but breaking out onto the national stage is tough.

This is very interesting. Do you have any insider experience on the way music promotion happens that you could share?

Reply on news.ycombinator.com