Saul Williams' album: Failure of online music sales or bad marketing?

[God]

Trent Reznor from Nine Inch Naills released an album called "Ghosts." He made a couple million bucks on strictly digital sales, but his protege, Saul Williams- had an online album release that was a failure. Didn't cut the costs.

How much does a brand name matter in selling an album online? How many people actually buy music from Myspace artists through the "Snocap" option?

Here's two articles on Reznor's digital music sales successes and failures:

Reznor makes $750,000 even when the music is free

Saul Williams' digital failure

What do you think? I believe the brand name of the artist, more than anything, enables groups like Radiohead and Nine Inch Nails to make a huge profit off digital releases as opposed to unknown, unmarketed talent.

 

[2GooD Productions]

I have to agree that a lot of the success of "known" artists online is down to the fact that they are known already.
Trent Reznor is pretty huge so Id expect him to do well with online sales. Whereas on the other hand a relatively unknown artist has his work cut out making a success of himself. Even in the new digital age I think some creative marketing ideas are what make the difference between a success and a failiure.

 

[Relic]

Def people are gonna buy tried and true brand name artists like NIN before the buy something from us scum, but thats not to say you cant do ok as a compariably unknown artist with a decent fan base.

 

[Kontents]

Its all about how far you market yourself through advertisement. Whos gonna buy somthing they only heard about once. You gotta bang that shit into the domes until they understand who the hell you are.

 

[2GooD Productions]

Its all about how far you market yourself through advertisement. Whos gonna buy somthing they only heard about once. You gotta bang that shit into the domes until they understand who the hell you are.

Exactly, but that kind of exposure costs money. Its like a catch 22. For that success you need money, to get the money you need success.

 

[Kontents]

^^^^^ Yup.

Loans are really the only way to do it. And that takes credit (If you havent established credit, get on it). It sucks that you have to get into debt to make money.

 

[2GooD Productions]

The way things are going with the economy right now credit is the last thing you should be contemplating.
Interest rates will soon be rising and many people already in debt are due for a shock, as repayments will increase dramatically. The more people default on their credit the higher the interest rates become to make up for the lost repayments. I certainly wouldnt be trying to get credit for the next 3-4 years anyway.

 

[Kontents]

I am not saying go out and get yourself into trouble, but you need to start establishing credit if you havent already. Life revolves around loans to live and for example pay for advertisement and such for your music.

 

[2GooD Productions]

I am not saying go out and get yourself into trouble, but you need to start establishing credit if you havent already. Life revolves around loans to live and for example pay for advertisement and such for your music.

I say establish some savings and spend those on the right things. Credit costs money, the higher the interest rate the more it costs. There are credit companies that take advantage of those with poor credit ratings, offering loans at high interest. Once you slip into a dependency on credit its a hard thing to get out of, especially on a low income.
If you were in trouble before, how much trouble are you going to be in with debt repayments as well as the bills that were already there. Success is never guaranteed, hoping for money from a successful venture could end up being a long shot, it may not, but it just as well may be fruitless.
I would value investors over creditors anyday.

Maybe we should get back on topic.

 

[Kontents]

Agreed.

My main point is that if you want to pull off somthing like this, it would take time and money in advance to accomplish. There is a great possiblity of not losing money when jumping into Internet sales with out having an established fan base.

 

[Ash Holmz]

i dunno .... 25,000 at 5 a pop for a relatively unknown artist isnt necessarily a FAILURE ... maybe compared to trent or radiohead but those are huge acts that have been around for over a decade. there mistake was more in marketing than the online thing. The other thing they have to take into account is that people might not have actually liked the music. Its funny how people (esp record labels) seem to always forget about that part ; the music has to be good. esp when ur giving it away and not brainwashing the consumers on the radio all day.

 

[The Mastermind]

I have to agree with Mr Holmz. It's all a matter of how you measure success or failure. If I had that many people listening to my tunes I'd be thinking that things are lookin good.

If your desire is to become a mega rich hyper star then maybe it doesn't look so good. But if those numbers, almost 155,000 downloads, translate into a fan base, then it's a good building block. Touring, etc.

If you're talking about promotions then Williams has promoted his music.

Maybe he's in hock to Reznor. That guy's services can't come cheap.

 

[eldiablo]

Wow this thread gave me a great idea for a song, "Thanks God"


The last son

 

[djloccdown]

I saw that Saul Williams album every time I went to a particular torrent site.
It was there for a month at least.

 

[shadeed]

Consumers are no longer buying music, they are buying into a brand. Artists are making money by extending those brands via cross-promotion into other forms of entertainment.
I never thought I would live to see the day where a good marketing consultant would have more relevance than the DJ in hip hop culture.