How Much Should an Album Cost ?

[taa4j6]

Just read this article :

Former music label boss: beat piracy by selling albums for £1

Despite growing digital sales, global music sales are going down, year after year, since 2000.

An album cost around 10$ on most digital platforms. Sometimes more, sometimes less. While it's cheaper than ever, it seems it's too much for some, who'd rather buy a iPhone app or a DVD.

What price point would make you buy MORE albums than before ?

[taa4j6]

87 views, 5 votes ? come on !

[Retinal]

I also heard the news on the radio and I thought was a good idea actually.
It will NOT - unfortunately - stop piracy but I do believe that it could increase the selling a bit to lower the price, maybe not 1$ but yeah, something around that.

Some people just compulsively download illegally regardless the price

[Dreamsilent]

If you sell it for £1 and give it all to the artist, maybe.

Artists make so little on most record deals as it is, imagine the current percentage applied to £1 a sale...

[Majestikc]

It all depends on how much the album cost to be made in the first place.

If it's a digital download album by a couple guys in there bedroom using some cracked software and the bare minimum of equipment, then first of all it probably won't sound like something you want to spend money on and secondly it didn't cost them that much so it shouldn't be sold for that much.

If however it's a big budget pro album done in a fancy studio and it's a physical disk with really good packaging and there's promotion and distribution costs involved etc etc etc then it should have an according price tag.

[taa4j6]

yes i think 1$ is just not enough. It would as implie that music has no value at all. you would also have to sell 10 times more albums to make the same profit. that's quite optimistic.

to the previous poster : Burial made one of the best album of 2007, with a old PC running soundforge. Good ideas don't need fancy studios or a huge label. and there are shitloads of big budget albums made with world class musicians that are completely uninspired.

Van Gogh used some paint and a canva.

[waxx]

on Vynil: max 20€ for a single LP, ad max 10€ for each extra lp included
15€ max for a 10"/ep
10€ max for a 7"

Of course, a special box with all kinds of extra can be more expensive, but don't exagerate.

on digital: max 1€ for high quality format per song. i don't pay for low quality format, i only use sometimes those to check out music, and then i search a legal (or illigal when a legal is not arround) digital hi quality version. those low quality formats doesn't stay on my computer for a long period btw...

That is what i call fear prices (as music buyer). But the industry doens't agree yet...

and yes, i think in € (euro), it's because i live in Belgium, Europe...

[Vum]

A few years ago if you sold an album for $7 (US) you'd be parting company with about $3-4 to the retailer then splitting with distributor, label, etc. I think that by cutting out the middlemen in an online sale the price can remain $7 and the artist + label will earn enough to compensate for lower sales figures. However, I'm not sure $7 is low enough as a standard iTunes runs $9.99 on average and I think they take around 40% per $. I think it depends on what site you're selling on (if not on label's or artist's site) as well but maybe $3 would be just enough to keep things afloat. Without physical products the end user gets less but the production costs less as well - $3 is a little higher than 1 GBP but I like the number. Too bad I voted for $7!

[taa4j6]

10$ first
5$ second

keep voting !

[neil456]

The artist should set the price. They should be able to decide if they want to give a high percent away for marketing and hope for volume, or keep more themselves and sell less. That is what freedom means.

[Dean Roddey]

Well, we could stop burgurlary if we just sat stuff out on the lawn for the thieves to take without having to break in I guess. But I don't think that's the way to address wide spread law breaking. It does nothing for movies or software either.

[rack gear]

currently the math works on $10 albums for the distribution of royalties within current rates. publishing alone averages about $1.20 per album and publishing royalties do not slide with list price as they are a fixed stat rate.

so the same amount of publishing royalties are paid on a $10 digital download album as are paid on a $20 physical album.

[initialsBB]

Originally Posted by Majestikc

If it's a digital download album by a couple guys in there bedroom using some cracked software and the bare minimum of equipment, then first of all it probably won't sound like something you want to spend money on and secondly it didn't cost them that much so it shouldn't be sold for that much.

If however it's a big budget pro album done in a fancy studio and it's a physical disk with really good packaging and there's promotion and distribution costs involved etc etc etc then it should have an according price tag.

That's completely silly. The value of music has nothing to do with production costs.

[Dean Roddey]

And something that no one seems to ever consider is, what is the general level of quality difference in any type of product between an item that costs X and one that costs 10X? The guy who makes the one for X is going to cut every corner possible and is going to be all about shaving costs, not improving quality. Why is the stuff you buy at Walmart cheap crap? Because you aren't paying hardly anything for it. And you get what you deserve. Who survives in that kind of environment? We all know, it's not the small, quality and service oriented business, it's the big company that takes an assembly line approach and pays no more than it can get away with, and doesn't use 2mm of plastic when 1mm will let it hold together until you get it home and use it once.

If that's what you want from music, then I guess a $1 price is appropriate. And that's what you'll get.

[rack gear]

or free...
SoundClick - Free MP3 music download and much, much more.

which is a lot different than this:
Apple - iTunes - iTunes Store - Charts - Top 10 Albums

if the music industry was loosing revenue to artists giving their music away for free that would be one thing, but we're loosing revenue to people taking OUR music for illegally for free... that's a bit different isn't it...

[grrrayson]

I don't know if the membership here is the best market to ask. I personally don't buy much music because I'm bombarded with it all day long working on it. I mean to and need to more for my own personal growth, but I often don't get around to it.

[birkasgeri]

Originally Posted by initialsBB

That's completely silly. The value of music has nothing to do with production costs.

+1 ... just think of paintings

[Dean Roddey]

Originally Posted by birkasgeri

+1 ... just think of paintings

Really, all the production cost of any product actually drives is the minimum amount you have to make back to at least break even after expenses. And few people are really going to work their butts off again and again over decades to just break even. Everything after that is about what do you have to make in addition to that to remain viable over the long term, to cover failures, and to make a profit that makes it worth being in the business of doing it.

[E.rOk.stA]

If you go through iTunes, they get 6 of it so 10 is good. Amazon gets almost 5 too.

[lmf]

Originally Posted by taa4j6

87 views, 5 votes ? come on !

I didn't vote as it didn't have the "foggiest" what such a download album would cost? That's why I "peeked in without voting" which seemed to be the fair way.

Do you need a vote to do something? Seems to me the comments should suffice to give you direction. Maybe not?

Best wishes,

Lloyd

[HOTC]

I think download 5
and physical 10

[rack gear]

Originally Posted by E.rOk.stA

If you go through iTunes, they get 6 of it so 10 is good. Amazon gets almost 5 too.

that's incorrect.

Itunes takes 30% of list, so that's $3.00 on a $10.00 album.

Amazon is a little more on digital sales, about 35%.

[thenoodle]

one dollar sounds about right ...

studio costs ... 6 cents
producer fees... 4 cents
advance to artist... 8 cents
advertising .... 6 cents
promo videos .... 4 cents
touring expenses ... to be determined by limit on Visa card
artwork ..... 6 cents
record company fees ... 66 cents

[Vum]

Originally Posted by music monk

that's incorrect.

Itunes takes 30% of list, so that's $3.00 on a $10.00 album.

Amazon is a little more on digital sales, about 35%.

iTunes takes 10% - 40% depending on the artist and the terms of the agreement and from when you manage your sample data. I've worked on albums where Apple takes 40% - 35% - 25%. Others have reported 10% - 25% but I've not worked on these.

Which is pretty low considering what it takes to get your music to a major retailer.

[Enlightened Hand]

I think the question of how much an album should cost is kind of difficult to answer because circumstances vary.

If you incur high production costs then from a strictly financial perspective, you're going to need to break even and the final price will be a balance between what you need to recover your investments, what you want for profit and what the market will bear.

But these days you can manufacture a high quality product with production costs less than $10k if you opt for digital distribution only. In that case you can pretty much charge whatever you want so long as you can count on covering at least that first $10k. With a low budget production like that I don't think it's beyond the scope of fair to charge $5 to $10.

[rack gear]

Originally Posted by Vum

iTunes takes 10% - 40% depending on the artist and the terms of the agreement and from when you manage your sample data. I've worked on albums where Apple takes 40% - 35% - 25%. Others have reported 10% - 25% but I've not worked on these.

I'd like to see those agreements... apple takes 30%, how much other people in the chain take is another issue, not to be confused with apple's % ...

[taa4j6]

100 votes !

10$ wins.
but there's a resonance peak at 5$

i bet this peak would be stronger on a non music studio oriented forum.

[cianthreetimes]

I think the internet service providers should filter what users download and tag them with a bill at the end of the month. The technology is there.

Downloaded 3 albums? That's $30.
Downloaded season 2 of Weeds? That's $25.
Downloaded the Waves Mercury Bundle? Haha, well that's $10k.

[erasedcitizen]

See I voted $4 which is ridiculously cheap, but to me that's all I would be interested in paying for an album download. Buying a physical cd though I would happily pay over 10$


At the moment I would never buy an album as a digital download but if they were as cheap as $4 then I probably would pay (instead of listening on spotify) to at least check an album out and if liked it enough that I wanted to buy it, I would buy a phsyical copy at a decent price.

[Stepping_Stone]

Originally Posted by taa4j6

to the previous poster : Burial made one of the best album of 2007, with a old PC running soundforge. Good ideas don't need fancy studios or a huge label. and there are shitloads of big budget albums made with world class musicians that are completely uninspired.

Van Gogh used some paint and a canva.

This assumes that the demands associated with recording all the different types of music out there are the same...that they can all be recorded in less than perfect environments with budget range equipment and still serve the creative vision, which is simply not the case. I turn down projects in my studio all the time if I feel I am unable to provide the ambiance or vibe that the project needs due to the limitations of my studio or equipment. Just because a particular setup or approach works on an underground metal or indie rock recording doesn't mean that it will work on a folk, country or bluegrass album. Some styles of music still depend on a great sounding ambient space and high quality gear to achieve an aesthetically pleasing and stylistically correct result. Try recording an authentic performance (meaning a full orchestra and chorus, plus soloists, around 100 people give or take, all performing together) of Beethoven's 9th Symphony in some budget basement studio. I can tell you now, that's not a recording I would care to listen to.