Digital-only Releases C or D? (nuance appreciated)

For the radio...depends on the scope. Labels can press a small number of CD-rs, or simply send selected high-quality files to radio stations. As far as press, I believe this is in the hands of the press, I think it's up to them when they want to decide when the "CD" or "record" review section becomes a "release" section. I believe as more labels and artists release interested online-only releases, the press will review them as any other release.

How does this affect the artists? Are they left cow-towing to the relative few labels that have really excellent worldwide digital distribution and what role are those labels meant to play (if any) in attempting to gain exposure for them (and how do they go about it)? What is their obligation on that count? Just put em out and see how many DL's they get?

It's REALLY easy to get excellent worldwide digital distribution. There are many aggregator companies offering these services. The difference is in the promoting. Just because you can get your CD in every Borders and Best Buy in the world, doesn't mean anyone will buy it. I think the label's job will continue to be tastemakers of some sort, curators, a usefull guide. There's also money to invest in pre-production (remastering and such) if not production (no CD manufacturing) and money to invest in PR, which have always been and continue to be services the labels are good for.

The label has no obligation beyond what service they offer to the artist. If they offer nothing, then artists should just find an aggregator and/or do it themselves. But it doesn't really cost a lot of money to press some CDs either. The question is, what can the label do. If a label was only ever good for manufacturing thousands of CDs and shipping them around the world, then forget it because that service is going to be irrelevant. Like I say above, I think it's in the promotion. A label could just put em out and see how many DL's they get, but so could the artists.

Any thoughts on the topic? (actually seems a bit of a rip-off to me

A few! I've thought a lot about it, and don't know how it's going to go. We'll have to see.

What rationales exist for or against?

I've pretty much rebuttled every rationale I or anyone I know can think of against it. The only real problem I see is competition from file-trading and mp3 blogs.

and how the hell does it work?!

You see there's this series of tubes...

Agreed, you can have your CD everywhere and not sell any and obviously lose a boatload of cash in the process (and even the stores lose out there).

And most radio stations will (for obvious reasons really) NOT take CDRs (if they did, they would have to sift through every bar band with an inkjet and a burner).

You see there's this series of tubes...

Aaah, I am starting to understand!

http://prohibitiondj.com/

Forget CDs, they're distributing new release downloads to "top DJs".

You cover your ass by putting whatever crap they give you about their band on your website (in a special ghetto-ized section of course) and tell them that their royalties will be based on their ability for you to recoup your investment (which in point of fact is NOTHING) but which you dress up to include promo costs, whatever, etc.

You promise them that while you offer nothing substantive in the way of actual promotion, that they will be gaining the advantage of the Sub Pop BRAND and hence the digital sky's the limit.

It beats a straight deal with some aggregator, if you are lucky enough to even get one, so you do it. If it takes off, it's because you had the Sub Pop brand. If not, it's because you suck and no one is interested.

C or D??

(I have actually noticed a trend of "profitless aggregators", which pleases me for the moment, if only because I have not figured out their angle).

Forgive the Sub Pop analogy, just a hypothetical, nothing against them. They are too busy still trying to answer for the Fluid.

Who are these profitless aggregators? I know aggregators who take a much smaller cut than IODA, their claim being that they're just charging you a service charge, and not promising you all this futuristic digital marketing that IODA promises.

http://www.anthologyrecordings.com/

And in a few years you'll all have thrown out the CDs and Vinyl will be on the wall. Sad but true.

Yeah, labels like Time-Lag and Foxy D. are going to be just fine, and that's just a small tip of the iceberg from my own perspective.

The services that supply tons of stuff for a monthly fee have to get the content from somewhere. The labels will still serve a purpose there.

OTM... I think I said in another thread, I live in NY and have been paying like $1000 per month for like 20 years to house all my CDs, records and yes tapes. I am thinking about moving and NOW all the stuff isn't worth half of what it might have been if I had ebayed it just a few years ago.

My worry with regard to this thread is principally the people who will get taken advantage of by this model, not the inevitability of the process itself.

But what I am getting is that Digital-Only releases are CLASSIC, yes?

That is very interesting I think.

i agree with dan that super hi-def files will eventually be fed into our brains like air and water. but i don't weep for the world's weirdo audiophiles now, and i won't weep for them then. normal people always have, and always will, choose convenience over fidelity. this explains 8-track tapes and the walkman and the ipod and pretty much every other form of dominant listening formats ever. and getting music is in fact getting more convenient and easy every day. i cheer for this.

Merge had the best thing, sell vinyl and include a CD-r. Even better, sell vinyl and include a code for DL or something. A lot of my friend's labels are talking about doing limited edition vinyl and download only.

I agree that it will be digital-only sooner rather than later

the two things I worry about are --
1) future format incompatibility
2) hard drive crashes

I mean, I back my shit up, but still.

There is a debate that will rage regarding whether you want to have all the files yourself, or have them streamed. Being in various digital media industries, it's something that comes up. I can see a point where my entire music collection isn't even in my house, it's on several servers owned by some huge company who can afford both the security and redundancy to have my media on their hard-drives in some fire-proof, weather-proof building somewhere. Think about it, I already do it with my email. The chances of Yahoo losing my email are probably a lot less then losing it myself when my harddrive fails.

This all depends on bandwidth, of course. Untill it's good enough, the benefit of having the media in your house is the ability to use it when you want and not wait for it.

How does the digital sell for them at shows?

I know a certain artist on a certain very famous label that was the largest single distributor of their records, selling 1200 of them for the famous label in question. This particular artist was buying them for $8 each too, so the label was making a huge profit!

I find that very depressing too...

Is anyone still going to be reading this? (Is this thing on?) Is there a way to go "nu" on this thread?