Tommy Boy founder slams TuneCore ‘hobbyists’
Tweet
Tom Silverman, founder of hip-hop label Tommy Boy, has torn into the long tail of music releases, claiming that 79,000 releases sold less than 100 copies last year. “80 percent of all records released are just noise — hobbyists. Some companies like TuneCore are betting on the long tail because they get the same $10 whether you sell one copy or 10,000,” he says. “Those are the people who are using TuneCore and iTunes to clutter the music environment with crap, so that the artists who really are pretty good have more trouble breaking through than they ever did before.”
July 13th, 2010 at 3:02 pm
It’s a bold and silly statement – I disagree with the concept that one person, i.e. Tommy, gets to make the decisions for the rest of us – the world can decide what does/does not have value, not one person on my behalf
What’s more ironic, this is the same person that runs/owns New Music Seminar
I find it a bit odd that Tommy thinks 80% of the people he is trying get money from to sell them a path to the dream make music that he thinks is “crap”. If this is the case, why take their money. Why not have attendees send you in music so you can determine what is not “crap” and then charge them to attend the conference? After all, you would not want to take advantage of someone?
Even more odd, well over 90% of the releases on Tommy’s label TommyBoy records failed. Or further, over 90% of what the majors released failed. So does just being “signed” make you good?
But ultimately, I take issues with someone attacking and delegitimizing artists around the world.
There is more music being created and recorded today then ever before in the history of humanity. Although the sheer volume of music creation does not make it good, the fact that more people are creating it certainly increases the odds. Hell, just having access to affordable gear and recording equipment (like your Mac) allows more music to come to life, both the terrible and the incredible.
What Tommy doe not seem to know, or acknowledge, is that the real “music industry” is that thing over in the corner main-stream media is not reporting on and not aware of.
I have to suspect that Tommy has heard perhaps less than half a percent of all them music being released. But even if he did, who cares, finally the world gets decide what has value, and that’s the point. The industry has been democratized and set free from those that anoint themselves as the gatekeeper.
There is more great “rock”, “punk”, “dance”, “hip hop” “classical”, “funk”, “folk”, “country” etc etc than there has ever been before. And this is why IT IS SELLING.
TuneCore Artists have generated over $70,000,000 in gross music sales since its launch. Some TuneCore Artists are actually outselling Top 40 artists – guess the Top 40 aren’t really Top 40 anymore.
And with all due respect, people ARE buying and consuming and stealing and streaming and listening to music. And more and more of them are becoming so inspired that they actually are going out to teach themselves how to “rock”.
So unlike Tommy who apparently has “the” golden ear and can tell all of us what is good and what is bad, most of us take the time to listen and/or make our own decisions.
He better quickly call Pandora/LastFM/MySpace/Slacker/Jango/iTunes/Amazon/Beat Port/Amie Street etc and tell them aside from a few artists, the other hundreds of thousands they play and sell are “crap”
Jeff Price
TuneCore
July 13th, 2010 at 3:14 pm
I think the point he is making Jeff, is that you have no other interest in artists than taking money from them ( which is a lot more than $10, i have paid over $100 ) and then bombarding them with bogus sales pitches.
Your company is full of affiliates with insurance companies, bogus CD printing, basically anything you can sell. Not things that actually help artists.
You have no interest in promoting artists or helping unsigned bands.
And please do not tell me about Soulja Boy or other artists that you had no idea were even using you until they got signed.
You have not had any hand in success for any of the artists you work with, all you care about is putting as much content out as possible, and getting paid.
And please do not come on here running down Tommy Boy. They have at least promoted successful artists, more than you guys have done.
July 13th, 2010 at 4:07 pm
Striking out against TuneCore and – by the way, iTunes too (which you only see if you read the entire interview: http://bit.ly/a2OFG2) – is sort of like blaming low music sales on the number of guitars in existence: “If only we could decrease the number of guitars being made and sold, and make sure they find their way only into the hands of those who really know how to play them, and, by the way, I, Tommy Silverman, will decide exactly who knows how to play them, we’d have a lot more sales.”
It’s such a strange, sad, and oddly bitter (ad hominem?) gesture to suggest that stifling creativity/restricting access into markets would, in any way, benefit anyone.
[disclosure: I was involved in the founding of TuneCore]
July 13th, 2010 at 5:06 pm
To Austin’s comments above, I’m really happy to say we’ve helped thousands and thousands of artists precisely where they needed it–providing them infrastructure and access to the stores for a startlingly low fee. And those artists and labels, through their own hard work, have accumulated more than $70 million since TuneCore launched, every penny of which went right to them.
That’s the joy of it, that’s what makes me so proud of what we’ve built. How many places can an artist go where they’re promised promotion, but must first give up so much of their control, their rights, their profits by massive percentages, to get things like access to iTunes’s free download of the week–we’ve had thirty artists featured as free downloads at iTunes alone, and the artist kept everything. Hundreds more TuneCore artists have been featured on iTunes, eMusic, Amazon–this is tremendous promotion, we’re overjoyed to have been able to help.
–Peter
peter@tunecore.com
July 13th, 2010 at 5:18 pm
I use Tunecore and I’ve never been harassed by affiliates or ‘bogus’ schemes. If you don’t like what some of the affiliate offers are, then don’t use them. Pretty simple really… So far, Tunecore has proven easy to use and without issue IMO
July 13th, 2010 at 5:42 pm
We have had tremendous success with TuneCore. Our group The Walkabouts has been releasing albums for over 20 years with numerous labels (Sub Pop, Virgin, PopLlama, Glitterhouse) and over the years many of those albums have gone out of print because the labels no longer had rights and/or sold as many as they thought they could. Additionally, most of those albums have been unavailable in the US given that most of our success over the years has been in Europe. The end result being that almost none of our albums were available on iTunes, eMusic, Amazon MP3, etc. Thanks to TuneCore we now have our entire catalog available and in two years we’ve earned over $6K in incremental sales. We’re not quitting our day jobs, but we’re pretty psyched about selling our music and we expect interest in our back catalog to increase when we release our next album of new music early next year (first album in five years, woot!).
July 13th, 2010 at 6:00 pm
Peter, could you explain how you facilitated them having a free iTunes release please? And does this mean that you are approaching iTunes on behalf of every artist.
Your infrustructure is a computer system that uploads music to iTunes, and as Tom says, you have no quality control, or interest in the music, as long as they pay you. I have read that you received 7 million in investment. Why has this money not been spent on developing artists?
There are actually hundreds of great free promotional outlets on the web, who do not take any percentage of revenue or rights to your music.
All of these are transparent about what they do.
I have no problem with what you do, which is a bit of computer programming.
Please do not compare yourselves to a label, or music industry specialist as you have not earned the right.
Amazon may pick an artist randomly for a feature on their site, but that is not Tunecore promotion.
You do not do any promotion and have never CREATED a successful act.
July 13th, 2010 at 6:45 pm
Austin, I don’t know what to tell you, but you’re wrong. In addition to distribution, we also market and promote. Of course we haven’t created a successful act–we haven’t created any acts. TuneCore is a distributor: we no more create acts than Federal Express creates packages. It’s up to the artist or their label to do more.
The bands and labels who use us are the ones doing that hard, hard work. They create themselves, they play gigs, they spend real money on posters and stickers. They use those free marketing services you mention, and they also use pay services, and pay PR people, and do everything in their power to get their music out there and heard. And this is why we only charge a very reasonable up-front flat fee to deliver music to the stores and shepherd the sales data and funds back to the artist or label. They’re now free to market and promote themselves to their limits–and we’ll help!
We liaise with the stores. This is how people so many TuneCore artists have been featured on iTunes and eMusic and Amazon and more. I advise people all the time what to do to improve their chances of getting promoted by a store. I’m happy to advise anyone, and that’s just one reason why I put my name and email on every post.
–Peter
peter@tunecore.com
July 13th, 2010 at 10:21 pm
Peter forgive my naivety but what exactly would you be able to tell someone about the music industry? Putting music on to iTunes does not make you an authority, on anything!
And responding to the comments above about Tunecore constantly selling bad products to its artists.
A few months ago i was offered the chance to have my music on MTV Rockband, Fantastic!
Except it wasn’t fantastic as you wanted to charge me $2500.
It later came out that ANYONE could submit their music to Rockband free of charge , and the so called service that you were offering did not even exhist.
How can a company try and take $2500 from unsigned musicians for doing absolutely nothing.
And i guess if i had got a record deal from it you would have shouted from the rooftops and claimed to have instigated the whole thing.
Tommy is an inspiration. You guys are corporate , greedy network nerds who would be trying to make a fast buck in real estate if you weren’t doing this.
Please stop patting yourselves on the back and come back into the real world
July 14th, 2010 at 10:06 am
First, I think services like TuneCore are responsible for the great variety of music we experience currently, which is great.
As musician, you should be aware of the services you use, expecially in times, where we have kind of an overload. You need strong cooperations who are willing to push you.
In Germany, we do have examples, where independent artists are selling without a major label. but they were either already developed and known (xavier naidoo, moby, nena), or scouted later on by a major label or some one who invested in them. It is an illusion to have long-term success as artist without marketing/promotion spendings. that is why I agree with Tom Silverman. Of course he is able to have a feeling about a hit or not, that is experience and of course having the sense.
Two questions to Peter/Jeff:
1) I actually am wondering which artists really have had a succesful (long-term, meaning more than one single) career using your service so far? You mentioned some Top40 artists, I would rather prefer some names/examples if you don’t mind.
2) Peter wrote: “we’ve had thirty artists featured as free downloads at iTunes alone, and the artist kept everything.” how is the artist getting everything from nothing?
July 14th, 2010 at 2:40 pm
As an active member of Tunecore, I find Tom Silvemans comments quite ignorant and offensive. I think that $10 per album is next to nothing to distribute a whole album to millions worldwide. I’ve personally made a huge profit on this. The value of Tunecore is that they take a lot of the cost and risk out of music sales, which at the moment to be quite honest is a dying industry. Sales of physical music have declined for the past decade or more, and the future is digital. Services like these should be applauded and can lead the way in coming up with a better business model since the bigger labels have clearly no clue how to do it. Believe me this is the future!
July 14th, 2010 at 3:56 pm
I’m adding to my previous post wherein I was praising TuneCore for the role they’ve played in helping The Walkabouts get our catalog in the online stores. I stand by everything that I said about TC, and frankly I’m baffled by the hostility toward them in some of the posts. As Peter has said repeatedly, they provide a distribution service and they make a best effort to offer ancillary services to help artists promote their music, but they certainly don’t force the services on anyone. In the two years I’ve used TC I’ve never felt the need to use these services nor have I felt that TC was aggressively trying to get me to use the services. Do your homework, people, and you should be able to pretty easily determine for yourself what is useful and what is not – use TC for what they’re good at, which is distributing digital music and video. And if you did your homework you’d also see that Peter and his cohorts are not corporate hacks out to make money any way that they can. For years these guys have been involved in leading edge online music services such as eMusic… sheesh.
As for Tommy Silverman’s gripe that the long tail has cluttered up iTunes which then supposedly makes it much more difficult to find the ‘real’ music, when was the last time you visited the iTunes store? The noise that you so dread is safely hidden away and in no way makes it difficult to find the so-called ‘legit’ music that greets you when you first enter the store. That’s the interesting thing about iTunes, Amazon, eMusic, etc. they are online UIs that make it pretty easy to navigate, filter, include and exclude music to one’s personal tastes. I’ve never felt overwhelmed by a bunch of hobby bands when visiting these stores. I do often feel overwhelmed by the dreck that music industry tastemakers such as Mr. Silverman offer up.
July 14th, 2010 at 4:11 pm
I’m going to be writing here in much greater detail very shortly, folks. That way I can discuss a lot of the points raised here in depth, and without cluttering up the comments thread.
Big thanks to Music Ally for making it possible. In the meantime, as always, feel free to write me!
–Peter
peter@tunecore.com
July 14th, 2010 at 5:29 pm
Michael Wells / Peter Wells / George Howard founder of Tunecore / Jeff Price from Tunecore
Is anyone going to contibute to this discussion who isn’t sent from Tunecore.
Peter, when you think of a fake name, try and at least remember not to put your OWN name as their surname.
Or am i to take it that Michael Wells is a distant relavtive?
July 15th, 2010 at 3:59 pm
Here’s the deal with tunecore: you put up about $30 of investment and make that back in a week or less. The rest is profit for you (and them, really. but you won’t get a royalty percentage like that from ANY label, Tommy Boy or otherwise) period.
Yes, you have to do promotion on your own but it’s simple when they supply you with links & widgets (I know it’s hard to cut & paste to a webpage or blog, but bear with me). If you aren’t promoting yourself as an independent artist then you’re useless. With my first batch of profits I had them make some swell looking (and sounding) CDs to sell at shows thereby doubling my profit stream. I know, I’m a genius, I bet no one ever thought of that. I shouldn’t tell you my secrets even under a pseudonom. Eek!
Point is, tunecore is perfect for an independent artist. It should be noted though that the reason we sell is because we have good songs & perform them in an entertaining manner. I can’t speak for others. If you’re not ready or willing to market yourself then step back.
July 15th, 2010 at 4:52 pm
…and more
I just read the whole article & thought i’d comment more.
I was part of an LLC 50/50 deal a few years ago. It didn’t work out. The “executive” still attempted shady underhanded practices behind my back & the whole thing was disolved less than a year later in a room full of lawyers. Great idea.
By the end of the interview it seems tommy boy seems to support what I stated before. Be your own record label. If you measure success by your own profit margine DON’T seek out a label, don’t pay people to do what you can do yourself, don’t pay ANYONE for an “opportunity” to “showcase”, don’t do anything but get your money. Fame? Fame is a fleeting b**ch, notice half the people mentioned in the article intro are crackheads now. Good one tommy boy. If anything you’ve proved a still antiquated & useless business model. One in which you look out for yourself. Well, Mr. Boy, imma look out for myself too. Enjoy your “closed-door, invitation only” executive meeting, you old sod.
July 18th, 2010 at 5:40 pm
Bottom line Tunecore or no Tunecore, record company or no record company, artists need to get out their and promote themselves. I’ve worked with so many artists who still don’t get this very simple concept.
Tom is right when he says that there’s a lot of “Noise” out there. And the “Noise” that he speaks of is why so many really talented and deserving artists will never be able to quit their day job or leave their parents house.
And Tunecore is right. They are a distributor. They are not a record company or a promotional outlet. They have found a niche, and because of them many “Artists” (and I use the word loosely) have been able to get their music on I Tunes and a few other popular sites which otherwise would not have been open to them.
July 19th, 2010 at 10:00 am
I’ve once read a statement from a university professor (sorry can’t recall his name, but he’s from the Netherlands) who said something like this: “Mass media like TV and radio have brought the world to us, Internet has brought us to the world.”
With this in mind, except for the stage and the marketplace nothing much has radically changed. 25 years ago you could take your guitar, play the streets and try sell your badly recorded tape to passers by. Today the streets are replaced by Internet, and music can be recorded and produced in decent quality with just a single laptop.
I don’t think all the “so called noise” out there is preventing the “so called talented” to be heard. But if it is, there’s another thing going on too. Stardom no longer is the exclusive domain of rock starts and actors. Sportsmen are big stars as well, and in fact anyone can be a star – even if for a very short period.
The music industry is responsible for turning music into a product to sell, and services like Tunecore have made it possible for anyone to sell this product – noise or not.
There is no use in wondering why the public are just consuming the product by just listening to their probably illegally obtained copy ONLY ONCE! They have been taught that way, haven’t they? If music is a product it is our job to consume!
The question remains – who are to profit mostly from a gatekeeper that decides if music is good enough to be released or not: the artists, the (big) labels or the public?
Peter Berger