Breaking the star = Breaking the bank

Once upon a time there was an artist named Bruce. He was signed with great fanfare to a major record company. He had a tremendous reputation up and down the mid-Atlantic Coast, concentrated on his home turf in New Jersey, as an amazing live performer. He got a tremendous buildup by his record company as a brilliant songwriter, the second coming of Bob Dylan (which was strange, as Dylan wasn’t – still isn’t – quite through with his first coming). His first record sold only 23,000 copies in its first year, and even after he was proclaimed “rock and roll future” both his first and second albums together didn’t reach 200,000.

Now, if Bruce were recording today, chances are he wouldn’t have gotten a third chance (at least at that record company). In fact, chances are he wouldn’t have gotten a second chance and would have been cut loose after the disappointing sales of his first album. He would not have gotten the opportunity to redeem himself with his breakthrough third album (indeed, one of rock’s greatest albums, period), Born to Run. Yes, that Bruce.

The record company did a lot of work to build Bruce Springsteen into a success, just as record companies did for countless other artists that made it (and didn’t) throughout the first three decades of the rock revolution. These days, that work either doesn’t get done, or is done before an artist signs to a record company.

With a little over a thousand albums accounting for more than 50 percent of all records sold, and perhaps only 150 new ones making money during any given year; with the actual costs involved in the creation, manufacture, and promotion of the recordings; and with companies now responsible to stockholders and business conglomerates for their bottom lines, the stakes have made that kind of long-term effort impossible. Today’s artists must create music that will reach a maximum number of people in the minimum amount of time, or scale back the expectations of their careers. Today’s record companies have to struggle just to get the music in front of potential fans.

As we’ve seen, the conventional way to reach an audience has long been radio, to the point that payola has become institutionalized. These days getting an artist onto the charts, depending on what kind of music the artist plays and which chart the record would get on (many get on “genre charts” like R&B/Hip-Hop, Country, or Dance before they get onto the Hot 100) could cost from $100,000 up to a quarter of a million dollars. That’s just for one song.

Take the admittedly extreme case of Carly Hennessy, signed by MCA to compete with Britney Spears. Her debut album cost nearly a million dollars to make, and over $1.2 million to promote. After three months, the album had sold fewer than 400 copies.

“We’ve never been one to spout that major labels no longer practice artist development,” wrote Billboard columnist Melinda Newman, “it’s just that they now limit it to acts that they believe (and hope and pray) can turn into huge moneymakers down the line. And that line is getting shorter and shorter.”

Much of the work that used to go into artist development would seem to have fallen to artists’ managers or even the artists themselves. “Labels used to thrive on demo deals and development deals but the machine is not what it used to be,” noted music business veteran Jack Ponti of the Platform Group. “Managers of any worth or stature also want to see/hear a developed act before they commit.”

Of course, while it used to fall to the record company to groom the artist during and after recording the demo, that whole process has fallen to the manager. A developed act in terms of having songs and beginning to develop a following has to be further groomed for success in the mainstream of the record business. This aspect of bringing an artist to the fore makes or breaks both the artist and the manager in the current record business environment.

“I’d say managers do most of the artist development these days, if not all of it,” Barry Bergman, president of the Music Managers Forum-US, stated. “It’s not that the record companies want a readymade product. They want an artist that can sell tickets, they want an act with a following, they want it on the radio somewhere. There has to be something going on. Or you have to be an act that’s selling a lot on your own.”