https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-features/f-ck-it-well-take-the-bet-the-gold-rush-to-sign-the-next-rap-god-699707/

TL;DR - Labels are throwing cash at yet-to-brake MC's hoping that one of them will break. Since streaming revenue is building and a hot album is potentially worth more in revenue than the money taken in from one CD, labels think getting one big act can continue to bring in money for the label far down the line.

MC's can look at user metadata from social media and streaming services and dictate to the labels their worth rather than letting labels start with a figure.

Also, while the record industry is starting to grow, it's likely that the money spent on new deals will cause a bursting bubble at some point.

<--- Me when my head hits the pillow

The fact that they threw in a section about a reggae artist in an article obstensibly dedicated to rap artists shows how poorly equipped Rolling Stone is to cover anything related to rap, still. Besides its failure to sonically describe anyone in the article, this piece is barely even an article about the music business, since it doesn’t drill down on the terms of any of the deals briefly mentioned, nor does it discuss the success (or failure) of any of the previously signed acts, based on revenue generated for the label. The article doesn’t even make a cursory mention of how much money labels generate per stream on different platforms. The editorial comment that selling 100,000 records in a day in 1999 would not have been impressive is completely wrong. Selling 100,000 records in a day is incredible in any era (and also generating the million dollar equivalent of selling that many units without the costs of physically manufacturing and shipping 100,000 units is quite the money-making feat)*. This article is largely useless.

* we are also not even getting into the money labels lost on returns in the physical media era, among other physical media-related costs that they (by default) charged back to artists with breakage clauses and the like


>https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-features/f-ck-it-well-take-the-bet-the-gold-rush-to-sign-the-next-rap-god-699707/
>
>TL;DR - Labels are throwing cash at yet-to-brake MC's hoping
>that one of them will break. Since streaming revenue is
>building and a hot album is potentially worth more in revenue
>than the money taken in from one CD, labels think getting one
>big act can continue to bring in money for the label far down
>the line.
>
>MC's can look at user metadata from social media and streaming
>services and dictate to the labels their worth rather than
>letting labels start with a figure.
>
>Also, while the record industry is starting to grow, it's
>likely that the money spent on new deals will cause a bursting
>bubble at some point.


Peace,

Spirit (Alan)
http://wutangbook.com

>* we are also not even getting into the money labels lost on
>returns in the physical media era, among other physical
>media-related costs that they (by default) charged back to
>artists with breakage clauses and the like

Could you go deeper into this. Is this another example of shadiness by record labels?

<--- Me when my head hits the pillow

All You Need to Know About the Music Business is a good old school one.
I don’t know if there is a modern equivalent for the digital age.

The funny thing is, I’m told labels kept breakage clauses in the digital age too, even though digital songs cannot “break” in transit LOL

Peace,

Spirit (Alan)
http://wutangbook.com