...Motown offered us a deal at 2 cents per record, out of the royalties came inflated recording costs, inflated promotion costs and inflated distribution costs. <...snip...>
You've talked about this before and so have I because I have a similar experience in 1976.
I've often wondered though if we had accepted that deal. Sure, for a good 20 years we would have gotten totally screwed but still done a ton of recordings and probably big shows, including TV. Still getting screwed though. But....here it comes....<...snip...>
I don't know man but maybe we still shoulda done it.
And back on topic, no the vinyl thing doesn't mean squat in the big picture.
Bob
I agree. I thought about that myself.
Except for the fact that Motown would have owned the name.
They would have hired different people to play our songs and pretend they were us, like what has been done with
Earth, Wind & Fire and so many other groups.
At the time, there were a half dozen "Four Tops" touring the country at the same time. Prince and John Fogarty had to sue the record companies to use their own given name. Fortunately they had made enough money to afford that suit.
But then, I could have toured with "Formerly of Rare Earth". But I wouldn't have gotten the big arenas.
On the other hand, we would have made money on the concert tour when our records were on the chart, had a great time being the headliner, and when our recording debt to Motown was paid off with ticket sales, they probably would have quit tour promoting us, and owning the name, we couldn't do it ourselves.
Back on topic.
Vinyl won't help. We listened to low-fi-mono 45RPM records, we listened to very low-fi-cassettes, and we listen to low-fi-mp3s. Why? The average listener doesn't care about the difference (if he/she can even hear it) but prefers convenience.
Vinyl is a lot of work. 45min and flip the disk. Clean the record before playing and still get pops and clicks.
I'm afraid at this point nothing can save the recording industry (I could be wrong though). And furthermore, it makes no difference to me (except I'm not doing add-a-sax-to-your-track studio work anymore - but that was only a trickle).
The -1% of the musicians who made big bucks from records will suffer, the record company 'suits' will suffer, and the songwriters will suffer. The only ones I have any sympathy for are the songwriters.
Me? I'll continue playing live music like I always have, and I'll do so as long as there is an audience that wants to hear it.
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