Haow musik biz test water belong New Artist

Ol' Preston, this morning, plugging his new single on GMTV, "a bit scared" as in apprehensive how it will go.

So, as he says, he's not brazen enough in the current economic climate to just 'issue' his new album, he's testing the water with a download only single.

So, is this how it is? Record companies don't need to invest much beyond the recording of the music and the 'publicity' advertising/personal appearances? Don't need to manufacture the CDs/Records/Sleeves anymore?

Back in the day, (early sixties), albums and singles were expensive to make and buy, so they would tend to stick to what would sell.

Later, manufacturing got cheaper, so a culture of "fling it out, see what sticks" was borne.

CDs made it cheaper...

Then Downloads made it cheaper still...

From what I've heard they don't even want to spend much on the publicity any more now they can make you street team yourself on the internet.

(Internet) friend of mine does some, y'know, obscure but respected niche stuff, never gonna be a big seller but an impressive history to yr Wire readers etc, and he said that he had some labels sniffing round but they said that before they signed him they'd like to see him using his Myspace more effectively to publicise himself (i.e. friend everyone in sight and then spam their comments). "Normally we wouldn't sign anyone with under 2000 Myspace friends..."

Allegedly etc.

wondering whether that's worse than being forced to tour x# of days a year that often translates to sleeping on people's couches and floors.

Well, the Henry Rollins answer to that is "noh, those days are the ones you look fondly back on, and have a lot of fun"

(TS: Sex/Drinks/drugs vs Internet)