JPF Home Page Forums General Messages Musician Message Forum Thought Music Doesn't Sell

The key to being an artist and making money has always been LIVE. Records, radio, and later television, movies, etc. were just ways to advertise for the artists' live shows. Artists always make their money from merchandise, live performances, endorsements, etc. For years when record sales were happening, songwriters did make money off of the songs performance and sells. As sales of physical product has diminished, the money from that has diminished also.

Artists have always been BRANDS. Sinatra was a BRAND. ELVIS, THE BEATLES, were BRANDS. They were on lunch boxes, fan magazines, they sold breakfast cereals, all of that was branding. The Beatles and Elvis also moved FASHION, CULTURE and pretty much every thing in their era. That is BRANDING.

Now, money in songs themselves have declined to a point where the other money has had to get bigger to make up the differences. It is why record companies went to the "360 DEGREE DEAL." where the labels also recieved a percentage of touring merchandise, live performances, endorsements, product placement. Thank you AMERICAN IDOL. And now, if you are expecting to get a song "pitched" to an artist, particularly one who is signed to a deal, better plan on them being a writer on the song, whether they are or not. Because without that, you don't even get heard.

There are still indpendent artists, younger and older, that might be open to the idea of outside songs, but for all but a very few, now outside songs are "someone trying to put words in their mouths" and they don't even consider them. This comes from 1964, where the BEATLES proved that the artist could also be the writer which is what put an end almost completely to the outside cut in rock and pop. Country was the last genre to go, but now it is pretty much inside also. Once the Internet made everyone a writer and artist, it pretty much ended the era of the songwriter outside of that artists inner circle.

"Well,
When my former Publisher was accepting songs he exclaimed to me practically all the submissions were "Junk". So maybe a lot of those millions of songwriters weren't actually songwriters????"

Ray, for the most part they weren't songwriters, at least not at the level of people who do it for a living every single day. They were well intentioned people who had friends and relatives tell them how "THEIR SONGS WERE AS GOOD AS ANYTHING ON THE RADIO" and the world just "HAD TO HEAR THEM!" The same as mothers who have fairly homely children who think they are ready to win beauty contests, be on television or the bench sitter in kid's baseball that just needs to "get into the game, to be drafted by the neighbors. Well intentioned and tremendously misinformed.

Millions of people try to pitch these songs to publishers, pluggers, film and television libraries, and not one of them are really involved in the "REAL MUSIC BUSINESS."
They aren't sitting there, holding some artist's hand as they go through a life altering death of a loved one or a break up. They are there at the birth of their children or the day they sign their record deals. They don't understand the inner workings of an artists life and don't know the inner sould of the people they think should be singing their songs. Their songs are almost always completely forgettable, being just mediocre copies of other songs. Most often behind the times following some trend that played out long ago. Or some things that are so obscure or challenged in subject matter that makes no sense for people to even try to pitch them. They are substandard in recordings, sounding like they were recording in some bathroom, complete with a toilet flush. They are overproduced that sound like some other genre than intended. They go on four and five minutes, 5-6 verses, 3 bridges and choruses that sound exaclty like the verses and bridges. I always laugh at the monthly "American Songwriter" contest winners. When is the last time you heard a 5 verse 10 line in each verse, each chorus changing, and nothing remotely understandable in the entire song, on the radio?

Most people write for THERAPY. They mine the inner recesses of their soul, without giving a thought to OTHER PEOPLE WOULD RATHER MINE THEIR OWN INNER RECESSES. It's a business of "relationships" and those people have no relationships. So yes, like your publisher said "They are JUNK. " Barely listenable.

But they try. Lord they try. They grow by legions and the more the Internet grows, the more and more people will be attempting to do this. And they can GET THEIR SONGS OUT THERE. They can form their own YOU TUBE channels, their own podcasts, their own radio stations. The world is their oyster.

Some people will reasonate with an audience and advance. Most won't. Just the world we live in.
MAB