Undertaker wrote:
Moving on ;- Obviously i should have known that you wouldn't let this budget thing lie, which is fair enough. you think you are right and i think i am. I'm actually interested in this budget thing and as you claim to work with record labels every day, i'd like to know how it works.
So you say that record companies do not issue budgets for future releases, based on previous figures. I asked you why record companies drop artists and you never answered. That didn't look good on your part, to be honest. Anyway, being a fair guy, i'm going to let you have another go
Seriously, i'd like to know what criteria a record company uses to budget an artists next album..
I'm definitely not trying to evade any of your questions (as you can tell, I never have), but I am not interested in stating something just for you to spray all over it with ill-conceived ideas designed to prove your flimsy statements. I don't want to burst your bubble (again) but many of your beliefs aren't valid. It's like giving a child a rocket-building manual with which to construct a rocket - sure, all the info is there, but none of the physics. Hence, you always throw out chart stats and pre-conceived ideas with zero forethought and zero understanding of the bigger picture. Not to mention my biggest pet peeve: you thinking something is better merely because it sells more.
As I said, there are no "guidelines" the way you describe them on why an artist gets dumped by a label. Sometimes it has to do with an expired contract, sometimes it's internal politics when people in the label's organisation change, sometimes it is a catalogue-wide reduction in sales (rarely ever will a single record get a band dropped), sometimes it involves the label having promised too much outward flowing capital earlier and now that artist can't bring the inflow - there are more reasons to get dropped than I could mention here.
Similarly, there are a cornucopia of considerations when it comes to a label deciding on how much money to pump (or not pump) into a project. It's quite a complex issue. Not to mention, now there are times where the label won't put money into the artist, but the artist will set up a system where other outside sources fund the project. I've seen deferred payments through a label and the exchange of artist's services who are on the same label. I've also just seen a label funnel massive funds into an artist simply based on what they hear of the new material, even if that artist didn't do well commercially previously.
The reasons are endless, and they won't be found on the walls of your blinkers.