[QUOTE=KenB;1092623]
Quote:
Originally Posted by Jondalar
Billboard by Keith Caulfield, Los Angeles | May 10, 2013 8:30 AM EDT
http://www.billboard.com/biz/article...rling-hits-new
-- Fleetwood Mac, "Extended Play" (EP) (No. 48): After a 10 year wait, Fleetwood Mac has returned to the Billboard 200 chart with a new studio album. The legendary band's Extended Play (EP) bows at No. 48, selling 9,000 copies in its first week.
This isn't about the SYW question -- but, yikes. 9,000 copies? At $4 a pop, that's $36,000, of which the band will get about $20,000. For a legacy act like FM, sales almost always drop off after the first week. $20,000 in an album's biggest week might be nice for a young indie band, but for Mac it's tantamount to no income at all. With numbers like that, what would the incentive be for them to continue recording? (I don't think Lindsey cares about the money, but it's clear from her recent comments that Stevie does -- and it appears she's right that people don't care enough to buy their songs anymore.) |
The thing is, bands and singers don't make riches from album sales anymore. They just...don't. An indie band that sold 9,000 copies wouldn't make squat from their album sales - maybe 3% if they are lucky. The real money is in touring, and with many bands these days a new album is the promotion for a tour - in the old days it was the tour that promoted the album, back when tickets were cheap and royalties were high, but that's just not the way it works anymore.
That's why people like the Stones and Madonna don't bother to release albums, or choose instead to release crappy albums. When you make 300M off a tour, who needs album sales?
One could make the argument that Fleetwood Mac doesn't need good albums either, or albums
at all, in order to sell concert tickets. In that same light, I think the E.P. is really, truly, just a gift for fans - Lindsey likes recording and he knows that we want...no, rather, he knows that we WAAAAANNNNTTTTTT new music.