Rhodri Marsden on the futility of ’selling’ music

Rhodri Marsden writes on Music Think Tank about the futility of trying to sell your music. The post is written with a lot of self-deprecating humour including links to YouTube videos from the days when he was a member of a band trying to sell records after a gig.

The conclusion of the longish (though I repeat a really fun post to read) is again captured best by a couple of quotes from the post itself. The first one is when he captures why distributors can no longer be blamed. Rhodri believes, it is a band’s own fault if record sales are reaching that ‘zero number’. A bit harsh, but he seems to think it is true.

Now that we’re put in touch directly with our audience and that distributors can be completely removed from the equation, and replaced by MP3 aggregators who a) don’t need warehousing space for your MP3s, b) will put them into a range of online stores for a flat fee and, crucially, c) don’t care whether you’re brilliant or whether you’re bloody awful, we have exactly the same problem selling the music as the distributors had. Just because the songs are available to buy, doesn’t mean we can sell them – in the same way that (and excuse the often-used analogy) installing a landline doesn’t mean that the phone is going to ring. And we can’t blame the distributors any more. The only people that are left to blame are ourselves. And that hurts.

The second is the final conclusive paragraph -

In the unlikely event of anyone wanting my advice, it would be to stop worrying about selling recordings. Just give them away. Let them go. Put them online for free, and tell people that they’re there. And if, against the odds, you’ve been given some cash, you’ve managed to release an album commercially, and you see that someone has posted it on a blog for readers to download – for god’s sake don’t get angry. Don’t see it as being down £20. See it as being up 20 listeners. Yes, your music might conceivably have been stolen, but there are no police. So get used to it. And now you’re freed of this burden, pursue all the other things that you want from being in a band – writing songs, rehearsing, doing gigs, building relationships with other bands, going on wallet-busting tours, receiving unmemorable blowjobs. Because seriously, you’re almost more likely to get a blowjob after a gig than sell an MP3. And remember – just because music doesn’t make you money, certainly does NOT mean that it’s worth nothing.

The post is full of humorous analogies, really worth reading. It does make one wake up to the reality of this distribution on the Internet era - If we can’t take a record, a website, a short story, a novel, a painting to market - it is no body’s fault but our own. But more importantly trying to control the market, limiting the number of people who can hear your music to only those who will ‘pay’ for it is certainly a lost cause.

Hope you enjoy Rhodri’s post.