Marketing and pop music in 2005

It is if you want it to be though the MOBOs are self-appointed and irrelevant in industry terms, even if it was nice to see Sway win a gong. But turn up and you will receive- that's how they work. It's not a secret.

I do not understand your point comparing Belle and Sebastian's press 'strategy' (spoke to no one, at least in the UK- abroad they played the usual press/meet and greet game) to that of bands like Hard Fi (would suck a dog to be famous), Kaiser Chiefs (did suck dogs to be famous) and Franz (not exactly wallflowers)? Sorry.

No one at any major label is interested in putting themselves out of a job. Why do you think bands who are dropped spend so long negotiating themselves out of deals even though terms of separation are standard. To keep the legal department looking busy and indispensible. This applies across the board.
More coverage = more sales = cobblers. eg- MIA- 20 000 sales. That's not many is it?

I hope this helps with your article.

Yeah, it's not clear for me too.

they are. myspace.com is totally hooked up with the record companies in the states.

in a discussion of whether press coverage generates sales, i totally think it's valid/interesting/"matters"... i'm frankly astonished.

really?

No, because Sway's actually BETTER than Fiddy and The Game haha etc.

xp- The point about lawyers is that if terms are standard, why should it take months, or even years, to sever a contract? I've been involved in such negotiations and ultimately they're just a chance to bully the weaker party.

Obviously we need a amnesty (hand over your hard drives and record collection now) and full investigation on this pressing and vital issue. Record Companies might have lost money here!! CEO's may end up poor, homeless, drug-addicted & threatening to members of the public. This lost money/profits would under no circumstances imaginable to anyone THERE ARE NONE would have ever been alternatively used to purchase a different record. WILL MP3 STRIP YOUR DAUGHTERS OF ALL DIGNITY? COULD SOULSEEK INFECT BRITAIN'S SWANS WITH AIDS?

none of this has much bearing on whether she's any good or not, though for some reason it's a stick used regularly to beat her with, whereas i rarely hear about how poorly roisin murphy (already an established UK hit-making artist) is selling (clue: same reasons!)

Roisin Murphy's underperformance, on the other hand, is due to her label's incompetence.

yeah partly - i guess i'm saying that, like MIA, roisin's album was simply too weird to shift units. and like MIA's '10 dollar', it may well have made a difference if 'sow into you' had been the lead single rather than the nondescript 'if we're in love', but even then...'sow into you' is still pretty unusual compared to 'the time is now'.

essentially - i don't think the lack of success of either MIA or roisin murphy can really be blamed on their record labels. in fact, in 99% of such cases i'd always assume that there's a more underlying factor.

Conversely, the Arctic Monkeys are utterly submerged in their fanbase, it's so bleeding obvious to everyone what their demographic is and how to market to them (provided you've got the right product - it didn't work with the Bravery). This hasn't always been there and will disappear in time - Bet You Look Good On The Dancefloor wouldn't have got anywhere near number one in 1999 despite existence of indie kids.

american acts sidestep all of this. none of them are 'desperate' because most don't give a shit about uk success.

i agree re: MIA not having a fanbase but then having one didn't help kano. or roots manuva, come to that; why is his (lack of) commercial success never commented on in the same way that eg lady sovereign's is?

I still think that one of the main problems with MIA was the delay in releasing Arular; that just when people were getting interested in her there was nothing really to focus attention on, and by the time the album came out, a sizeable portion of the people who might have had some hype-boosting effect had had the record for ages and were getting bored of her.

(whenever it was galang was first released, I deleted the mp3 i'd picked up of it after a few hearings because I decided I wasn't interested, and I like MIA a lot now - so I feel that the abasiveness and newness of her sound could validly be taken into account.)

* I am very fond of mcfly and especially how they are so so so successful despite being distinctly average. i get mailouts from mcfly dot com, right, and they say things like 'here is the number to phone to vote for mcfly in smash hits poll! did you know if you buy this download it counts as an extra sale towards getting a chart placing?', and as mcfly fans care about this kind of thing, it really works. first week number one and swift drop thereafter == classic fanbase mobilisation etc etc etc.

Roots Manuva's sales aren't commented on like Lady Sov because he isn't signed to a major label which broke Snow Patrol, ffs, and probably thought it couldn't fail.

Of course it could just be that MIA, Kano, Roisin Murphy, Rachel Stevens etc have just made bad records that no one wants to buy.

Sean, press only sells so many cds. Radio and video airplay always sell more copies. Convincing the powers that be who program such outlets to play one single is what is most important to sales. The term "critics favorite" has existed for decades. Critics faves sell cds, but not as many.

What?

Also, MIA discussion = yawn.