Madonna leaving major label system

I heard about this but I'm not really sure what to make of it... will she still have a distribution deal or...? What about her record label Maverick?

This is a wild and crazy guess, but perhaps she might release an album over her website alone.

I think the idea is that Live Nation licenses the records to a label (one with distribution), while holding ownership of the recordings. They also paid a totally ridiculous sum of money for this deal...more than it is worth IMO.

Live Nation is a non-consumer friendly corporate monopoly

I've never heard of them.

I wonder if this shows that it's not illegal downloading that's making the majors obsolete, but the fact that with the internet and cheap recording any big artist can just hire a few people and do everything themselves. Like, I don't think Live Nation is going to spend a lot on distribution contracts when everyone can go to madonna.com (like Matt said).

Or maybe this is just Madonna realizing she's not going to make jack from any new recordings and is for all intents and purposes purely a live act now.

Records don't make money anymore. Concerts do.

xpost

So, we'll finally get the proper career anthology containing all the proper 7 inch versions of her old hits then?

I'm holding on for the 80 quid discbox version.

How much money, proportionally speaking, would Madonna make out of royalties alone?

XP: Sort of preferrably not a box set, as a box set would include yet another bunch of alternative/live versions. And we don't need any more alternative versions of her singles. What we do need is the 7 inch versions of "True Blue" and "Express Yourself" sounding exactly the way they used to sound on the radio, not in their albums versions (that are usually played by nostalgia shows today) but in their 7 inch single versions.

Records don't make money anymore. Concerts do.

Tell that to Radiohead.

Records don't make money anymore. Concerts do.

So no more Scritti Politti, Prefab Sprout or XTC then?

xxpost

Yeah G I totally agree about the 7-inch versions I wuz just zinging Radiohead's exciting new consumer artefact.