Idolator
A tipster recently sent along the intriguing music-biz memo, which was spotted in the offices of Virgin Records. It's the budget for an upcoming album from a little-known Spanish-language artist, and if you were wondering how much belt-tightening is going at the labels these days, this should give you some idea:
$10,000 to remix "key songs on the album"
$30,000 for "reggaeton remix"
$10,000 for " lodging and travel"
$5,000 to "retain stylist"
$10,000 "for vocal coach (three months)"
$3000 to "retain trainer (two months)"
$10,000 for EPK/photo shoot
$1,500 to "revamp interactive site"
$50,000 "for single setup/promotion/indie team"
"Total artist development: $110,000"
A couple of thoughts: 1) we here at Idolator keep our remix costs down to about a grand per track, and we accept all competitors' coupons; and 2) $110,000 seems awfully low for a "total artist development" figure, especially when so few of these items involve artistry and/or development. Why not ditch the EPK and the "interactive site" for a MySpace page and put those dollars into the touring and/or radio budget? And also: $3000 for a trainer is just too much, especially when this tape can be picked up for a mere $2.25.
Comments
And that's just one remix?
I am seriously in the wrong line of work, I tell you what.
Things to do: learn to create reggaetron remixes. It can't be THAT hard, could it?! Can I just use one of the default beats on my Casio?
I need some outside confirmation on this: there is only *ONE* reggaeton beat, right? The one that goes "Oot-tss-tss-oot-TSS! Oot-tss-tss-ott-TSS!" -- right?
Hmm, why would Virgin be suffering as a label? We should hire some high-end financial consultants to look into this.
Pssh, I can beat your trainer costs even more
I just left a place where there was such hypocrisies about money. The salespeople could take their buddy 'clients' out for expensive drinks but us serfs had to walk our envelopes across town in order to save on messengers.
Eff you corporate America.
Yoinks, $50k setup for the first single is nothing. Something to keep in mind, though, is that for a lot of artists they insist on spending money on trainers and photo shoots because those are essentially the reasons they signed with a label--to be able to spend a lot of money on looking good. Also, the people they bring in to do these things tend to be their buddies, and so it's almost a kickback. But yeah, $50k to setup a single is minimal promotion to maybe 20 stations. I guess there aren't that many Spanish-language stations in the US, but damn.
Oh, and the remix costs so much because that's essentially a form of promotion--$30k will buy you a big name to attach to the song, which will hopefully get people to notice it and DJs to play it.
@Catbirdseat: I would have described it as "Oon-KA-toon, oon-KA-toon", but yeah, at the most there's only two of them.
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