On 28 Feb 2002 at 3:28, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: > So true. I had a very bad experience with an A&R guy/Producer from a > record label 20 odd years ago. It left a taste so bad in my mouth that > I dropped out of the music scene completely.
I did A&R for five years. We're not all bad! ; ) However, I will say that when you get interest from a company it is very important to find out what their motives are and what the individual's motives are and what your potential success will mean for them. > That's pretty heavy about your friend. I have an entertainment lawyer > if I can ever pay her the retainer! But from what you are saying, not > all of them are to be trusted either. Again, you have to know what the lawyer's motives are, who else they work for and what other deals they may have on the table which might effect yours - meaning will they make concessions in your deal to try get something favorable in another deal with the same party. I believe what you are saying > about the more you sell, the more you owe. I watched a Behind the > Music special with TLC and they broke down how you can sell millions > of records and still end up broke. TLC had a production deal; they were like employees. They were subcontractors of a subcontractor. They had to split their royalties (which were at a low, new artist rate) 50/50 with Pebbles and Pebbles recouped some items that a label would never get away with recouping. And then they split the balance three ways. Nightmare. I believe that the key thing for artists to understand when dealing with labels is that there are at least three profit-loss statements. One is what the labels tell you they've spent. The second is what the labels actually spent. (Those two get reconciled by audit.) And the third is the artist's. The artist has to understand that the label can get to profit faster than the artist will because they have a huge share of the profit compared to the expense that comes out of that profit. The artist's share of the profit is small compared to what get's charged back to them. So if an artist does not make an effort to keep the recoupable costs low and watch like a hawk what gets charged as recoupable, they will constantly be in deficit. (And hold on to your publishing. Owning the song is where the money is at.) Brenda n.p.: KCRW
