Here Today... Gone To Hell!

We've talked about the music industry a lot on this board and how it's changed radically in the past 15 years...and especially in the past 6 months alone.

Radiohead gave away their album for free.  Coldplay and Offspring are giving away new cuts off their albums on their websites.  And just this week, Nine Inch Nails released a full length album on their website...for free.  No pay what you want...just plain free.  (this happens to be the 3rd album this year NIN has done that with).

So here's my question...what if they gave Chinese Democracy away for free?  Completely.  Obviously, albums sales are struggling...so why spend millions of dollars promoting the album that may not make its money back.  Why not just give away the album and let the "free" album be its own publicity?

Thoughts.

can't since they actually have a contract. NIN and radiohead didn't for their free albums

I'm holding out hope they charge 173 dollars and 18 cents + applicable taxes for the album. But not before you pay 54 dollars and 19 cents + applicable taxes for a link that gives you a chance to win another link that brings you to page where you can sign up for a contest that gives a chance to win a coupon to enter into a site that allows you to download low quality mp3s for 46 dollars and 98 cents ...... + applicable taxes.

NO CHINESE DEMOCRACY SHOULDN'T BE FREE!!!

Paying for music starts now!!

Coldplay and Offspring have labels who are allowing the free music.

If there really are 3 Chinese Democracys in the near future.  Why not give the first one away for free?  Introduce a whole new generation to the band...then start charging for the next 2.

well y it would be ''the right move'' to do it with the first album but isn't the reason the album isn't even out because the label doesn't think it will be profitable, so why even do it for free from a label standpoint (looking at the time and cost it has took to make this album)

I think they should release it in digital format - on a free iPod!  : ok:




But I digress . . .

I can't see how the publicity would do them much good if they're not charging for their product . . .  All this delay is about money,  so I'm sure they're going to come up with something different than just giving it away.  Unless they're going with the Domino's pizza marketing plan - delivered in 15 years or less or it's free!

no way

Hell no

This thing is going to cost some bucks.......mark my words

And I'll be first on line with the wallet open

Would you give 14+ of your work for free? and an invesment of lots of mulla  :confused:

Nope. Democracy will come to China for a price. And I wouldn't have it any other way.

roflers true story too

I say you can download it for free on DR pepper.com and Guns N Roses.com for a low quality for free and then have it released traditionally for 9.99 alot of people will buy this album.

How the hell does an album make money if it is given away? We know it is at least $13 Million in the hole so far

You get sponsors for each track. For example

Better - Johnson and Johnson
IRS - H&R Block
There was a Time - Rolex
Sorry - Hallmark
Prostitute - Trojan
Chinese Democracy - IOC
The General - GM

Haha, best post in a long time.

I couldn't care less if the only way the album is available is on an iPod shuffle shoved up a dog's ass that you have to retrieve with your tongue. I just want the damn thing to come out.

There is no way a cd that cost that much to make is going to be free. I don't want a cheap download anyway. I want the real thing! Cover, sleeve the works.

Axl could video tape you 'getting' the album, sell the tape to pervs online and make a profit.

I think I'd try talk Buckethead into doing it. Apparently he loves the smell of dog shit in the morning....or so I read somewhere. :hihi:

you know what would be even cooler??? get CD for free, and a Dr pepper, and a $150 rebate and a free dinner and a hug from axl and tickets to every concert till they release another album and ....

god, we need better topics...

The album cost $13 million so this is an impossibility

The smart move would be to maximize profits on the first album and then you can start with the discounting/gimmicks with albums 2-3 of the trilogy

How do you know?

well considering how long this album has taken to make, and all the studios/musicians/band equipment axl has hired

I doubt it would be free, do you?

Axl doesn't seem to be the kind of artist who's motivated by money.



I don't doubt that the record company wants to make as much money as possible on GN'R though.



/jarmo

A lot of sources have quoted that figure from the label.  Regardless of how much it actually cost, it's fairly obvious that the record label spent a lot of money on it and will want a return on that investment.  Record labels don't give a damn about anything but money, hence they won't be giving the album away for free

Trent can give his album away for free because he paid for it himself and isn't signed to a label.  He can do whatever he wants.  But since Geffen/Universal paid for much of the recording costs of CD and GnR are contractually obligated to them, they can't do the same thing

AJAAJ.. YES SR.


Chinese Democracy... Digital Download... EP Whit Sponsors... You Remembers BETTER / HD ?

 :beer:

HBK *

in my opinion

GREAT music should be payed for,

and  everyone should buy it,

plain and simple...

axl hasnt busted his ass the last decade +  to give this cd out for free

that is absolutely stupid and ludacris....

of course you should buy it, show your appreciation

at first i thought it wa a ridiculous idea... but after thinking about it... it could work.  look how yahoo and google and other web based companies make money.....advertising......   so if gnr could release the album for free exclusively on there site   and charge corporate sponsors ludicrous fees to advertise on there site..it  could work...  they could even make you sign up for the site for 'free'  but you have to give a email address.. and they could "share" that with the sponsors.    the release of the album would be a huge deal... i'm sure the could get top dollar from sponsors if they only offered the free download for a month and then sold it in stores.. a 30 second commercial during the super bowl costs over 30million dollars.. so clearly companies have a huge advertising budget.  this might actually be a good way for the music industry to capitalize on the internet.

No cd's or albums should be free. If you're a professional artist and the masses like your music than as a fan we should buy the cd for the price. Why is it that music should be free for everyone while everything else you have to pay. We all have day jobs and night jobs. How would you feel if you worked somewhere for eight hours and didn't get paid for the labor and hard work you did? I seriously doubt any of you would go back to that place of employment. Well professional artists should be shown the same respect and get paid for the art they create. Weather it's with a Major label and they get a royalty or if they are with an indie label real good artist should be compensated for their art. Especially if it's great!!!!   :)

Well, you will always have the option to get albums for free these days, period. It's just about the industry embracing it at this point. If you want an album for free, you can get it for free with little to no risk.

In the furure artists will have no choice but to earn the real money from endorsements and touring.

they need to charge around 10-14 bucks for the album in the stores to make profit, considering the department stores buy it from the labels for 50-70% of that. Usually an artist gets around 75 cents to 2.00 per album sold directly... this is after the producer gets his... and etc

I hope they don't do that. I wan't a real album with a cover and a cd or lp.

just to let you know... a cd and lp are basically the same thing.

a LP is a full length disc like AFD

a EP is a shortended demo like album like LIve like a suicide.

most cds are lps....

You gotta realize that even though 'In Rainbows' was released for free, when the physical product came out, it was the number one album in the country. I agree with the theory that they should release the album online for $9.99, then release a physical album the next week. It would still sell a ton of copies, and they make money with both releases. Now obviously, they won't give it away, and they shouldn't. This isn't just some album a band decided to do on a whim...

Although I don't think there is any chance of the label giving it away for 'free', I think that the right option could actually work.

In last weekends Mail On Sunday (UK Newspaper) the new Paul McCartney album was given away for free.  However, the album wasn't free because what happens in those cases is that the Newspaper would have paid a huge lump sum for the album.  The McCartney camp would have weighed up the odds and decided to take the money because a HUGE number of people wouldn't have bought the paper even for the album:

a) because like many of us they just don't want music for free.  The album is avaialble to buy and they will go and do it that way - and probably get a jewel case and full artwork etc.

b) they don't agree with the political stance of the Newspaper and wont buy it regardless of the covermounted gift.

So McCartney has gotten his new music out to an audience of 2,184,303 (official ABC circulation figure of the Mail On Sunday for the UK) which is made up of both fans and new listeners - who may in turn now buy back catalogue music, or pay for merchandise, or concert tickets.


I would think that if the label wanted to do something along those lines (although I highly doubt there is a magazine with a high enough circulation for it to be a serious consideration) it would need Axl's approval and I can't see him wanting the fruits of his labour distributed in that way.  

I see the benefits of Music 2.0 and the new model BUT I still feel that free music on this kind of scale is devaluing the industry.  It;s a catch 22.  I applaud people like Radiohead, NIN etc for thinking outside of the box, but despite the fact we all know music will eventually be 100% free, I think these artists are speeding up the process and in my personal opinion that is not a good thing.

LOL! That post get a big huge LOL from me.
I love it

giving it away for free doesn't necessarily mean they make less money and they wouldn't do it out of the kindness of their hearts so the amount of money spent on it has nothing to do with it.  geffen wants to make as much money as they can off their bands regardless.

if they gave it away for free it would only be because people are downloading more and more these days and profit may be impossible through cd sales but.....................it is not impossible through concert sales. if giving the cd away means more new and younger fans at the end of the day, it means more people spending money on conerts, merchandise, and future cd's.

i don't think the cd will be free but i am sure they are gonna do something different, although a clever or fully invested promotion could do the trick also which may already be in the works with dr pepper.

first of all, i dont think that the actually album Chinese Democracy cost 13 million dollars.  I do think that all of the songs they made cost 13 million dollars, and if you believe what baz says about there being 4 albums worth of material, thats about a little more then 3 million for an album

??

Who's gonna decide if an album is great for me?! Certainly not the "masses"

The Spice Girls sold millions of albums in the late 90's, and were loved by the "masses". But in my opinion, we who love great music/art should have gotten paid for being exposed to their music.

A lot of great musicians/bands make fantastic records, keep a dayjob and doesn't complain at all.....

There are creative ways for an album to be "free". Many of which have been suggested on this forum.

Prince gave away a shitload of albums in Britain (it was included in a newspaper), then held many concerts in London and sold advertising spaces to corporations at the venue and also gave away free albums to a lot of people who attended the gigs.

The fans got a good deal for minimal expences, and in the other end, Prince made millions out of concert and advertising incomes....

Not sure if Prince was under a record-contract during this stunt. But an artist signed to a label has the same oportunities to pull this of. You just have to "think outside the box", as they say...  :)

To think that an album, great or not, have to cost this or that is ancient thinking IMO.

Record companies are making more money from live shows at the moment, thats why there are a load of 'free' records being released at the moment, the way they see it you can make a lot more money from the following tour if more people know about the music. Thats why we got Paul Mcartneys new album free in the sunday paper in the UK.

Because he saw the bill :hihi:

Well I haven't heard of any bands that have a day job and have great music out there. If they are please list them:.........
Let alone selling and doing full blown concerts.
Nope. I disagree. Major rock groups who write the real good stuff should charge $15.00 a cd. It's a group and record company effort to launch a cd to the masses the professional way. It cost allot of money to promote and market a cd the right way. It's also a fortune today to tour for a band. You're forgetting the renting of the club, arena and what ever other places that can hold over 5,000 people.
Plus theirs the PA equipment, light show and roadies.......all this cost $$$$$$$.
We're talking here about the big time bands. I'm not talking about some weekend gig bands who have day jobs who play in bars that hold 100 to 300 people.
So this is why any cd that a major rock group puts out that has great material on it should not be given away for free. The music business needs to revert back to the "Old school of Rock". This modern thinking of selling cd's on the internet and duplicating them for the masses has got to go. Rock is about STICKING IT TO THE MAN who is manipulating the record business and Artists who want to right some excellent songs. These days everyone wants the artist to do everything. This is bullshit!!  A real artist should only concern themselves with making the art and having a half way decent management that gets them what they need without being screwed. This is the way it's suppose to be. I hope Axel and his group hold out for the best deal and make everyone wait until they learn that great rock music is delivered from great artists who write songs that many people pick-up on without shoving it down their fans throats. Like AC/DC once said: "For those who are about th rock. We salute you!!!"  : ok:

If I had known how much pleasure I'd have gotten out of Appetite For Destruction and the UYI albums before I purchased them I would have paid way way more than the going rate at the time.

As long as I can see the value in what I'm buying I'm happy to pay top whack. I think it would be really cool for GNR to offer fans the option to buy a limited edition super deluxe box set like NIN. Maybe this is something for Mysteron to ponder like he did with the pre-sale tickets.

Same with concerts really although I'm getting sick of not being able to buy tickets because of the online ticket touts

ummm

The spice girls... actually had a couple decent pop songs. So don't be like the obvious rocker and say you didn't find any likeable or catchy...

I hate when people bash something to fit in. "Mama" and "2 Become 1" are great songs.

I'm not into the Spice Girls. What were they an industry group? If I'm going to listen to any female groups or singer it I would have to go with The Pretenders and Heart. Now these groups know how to rock.  :smoking:

Maybe because some people spent 14 millon dollars to get some profit from the album sells ?

But remember that based on what we've heard about multiple albums in the can, ultimately the 15 million budget or whatever wouldn't have just been for one album, but 4 or 5 albums of new material which are eventually going to all come out (hopefully).

I don't think there could be any harm in putting a song or five up for free download.

I do think that the fans need to be rewarded in some way for their patience. Sure, any album coming out at all is a gift, but I think there would be something as a thank you for the fans.

Like I said: To think that an album, great or not, have to cost this or that is ancient thinking IMO.

The way the music-buisness worked in the 80's and early 90's are never coming back! Sorry to be the one to break it to you!  : ok:

 :beer: to you for being a nostalgic/retro person, wishing that things would go back to the way they were, but things move forward, that's just the way the world works. But I must admit, I often catch myself dreaming about something like that too... But that train has left....

Due to the music-buisness not being able to adjust quickly enough to the digital-age, we now have a situation where a videogame (GTA4) is the biggest selling entertainment product, youtube and myspace are the no.1 choice for unsigned bands/artist to get noticed. Very few bands are knocking down the doors of record-companies looking for a record-deal. And our old heroes are releasing new singles exclusively in videogames (GuitarHero and RockBand)

And these new ways of thinking (GuitarHero, RockBand, Youtube etc etc...), is the way things are going.

The first time you hear a new finished track from GN'R, is not going to be after waiting in line for hours at midnight outside of Tower Records. That was 1991!!
It's going to be driving around in your car listening to the radio in the next GTA-game, or listening exclusively on the band's myspace, or rocking out to it on GuitarHero 7, or downloading it for free from gunsnroses.com (or even here at HTGTH.com), etc etc etc etc

And the first time you see the new GN'R-video, is not gonna be after waiting for hours for Headbangers Ball to start on MTV.
It's going to be....eh..well....you know where to look now!  : ok:

And after a couple of weeks/months you jump in your car and spend the next hour or two driving to the nearest outlet that still sells CD's (how close is your nearest retailer that sells CD's exclusively?  :nervous:  ???  Eastern Europe doesn't count) and you buy Chinese Democracy Part 1 for $3. Then there will be a tour in support of the album with huge attendence, and by that point the band/record-label will have made millions of $$$$ (wich will make YOU and the band happy). And when it's time for ChiDem Part 2 you will most likely get same procedure over again untill Part 4 is released.

By that point we will all have gotten one heck of GN'R-experience!! Yeah!!  : ok:

Oh I forgot: If you haven't heard any great bands/artists (that most likely keep a day-job), you also now know where to look....  :hihi:

"For those about the rock (among others!), we salute you!!"

I just liked the girls back then.

It wasn't about the music, but about the videos :D

i hated every single song those lhamas sang on. Can i bash it, not to fit in, but just cuz i didnt like it??  :P

I saw the videos countless of times, and nobody was twisting my arm on that one. But for other reasons than the music :yes:
But as far as actually liking the songs, you're on your own... : ok:  sorry!

Kind regards,
Obvious Rocker

The way the music-buisness worked in the 80's and early 90's are never coming back! Sorry to be the one to break it to you! 

I'm laughing at this qoute!!! (Not at the person who wrote it. Just the above line).

For all musicians here do yourselvefs a real big favor. Go back to rockin' with blood, sweat and hard work as a band. Forget about the internet and You-tube. That's the lazy man's way of writing music. And if you need a lesson go rent School of Rock with Jack Black.
 :rofl:

Seems like you're totally missing my point.


Many bands and people I know, have spend a lot of time, effort and money playing gigs, recording demos and albums, even done tours in Europe and Asia. Travelling 5 guys through parts of Europe in one van, sleeping, eating, drinking and other band-related activities. That to me, seems like your idea (and mine..!) of blood, sweat and hard work.
Yet, they are smart enough to use the tools that modern technology has brought us... : ok:


 ???  ??? Jack Black is the man!! But c'mon dude, are you 12 years old? Watch the movie again!!  ::)

I guess if you were 13, or 14 years old. I tolerated them ... because I had tween girls; otherwise, ...

On topic:

I don't download, but I recognize that most do. The industry has to wake up, if it is to survive.

Look I'm not here to start an endless argument with you. I'm just here to remind you and everyone else that good music has a very high price to pay. For me today's modern music is not cutting it for me. Now I'm not going to put it down because obviously there are people you do like it. But it's not doing it for me and I don't think any of these groups are making a real knock-out impression were they are going to be remembered 50 years from now. But I believe Guns and Axel have and will continue to. They made a lasting impression and people are going to be listening to G&R cd's 50 years from now. That's what I'm talking and trying to get across here. The world needs this and the music scene needs this. We need about ten or twelve new rock groups that make a fantastic impression upon the world. What is so wrong with that?  :smoking:

Id rather get gashed in the eye with a splintered log than accept a free copy of CD

Here's the thing...album sales are in the toilet.  The two biggest selling albums of last year are Josh Groban and High school Musical.  and neither album broke the 3 million mark.  GNR sold more albums in 1988 than the top five albums of 2007 combined.

If GNR were to release an album today...realistically, they might go platinum.  Double platinum if the album is really good.  But chances are, most people won't care.  Tweens are buying High School Musical...adults have moved onto Groban.  If a new GNR album comes out...who is going to buy it?  All of us on this board are not a good measuring stick...our impulses are irrelevant.  We're fans...otherwise we wouldn't be here.

You'll probably get some older fans taking a chance on the new material.  But anyone who is new to the band will likely download the album for free...if at all. 

If you're the label, giving out the album for free may be the best publicity you can buy.  Chinese Democracy is the most famous unreleased album of all time.  If the band/label were to up and give it away for free...can you imagine the publicity that would come with it?  Every music mag would write about it.  It would be all over the blogs...on the radio...MTV...etc.

But this is GNR/Geffen's big trick...only the first Chi Dem is free...once they get everyone hooked, they release the other 2/3 albums for a charge.  at this point, hopefully, they've locked in a huge legion of new fans who will be hungry for new material and gladly willing to pay for it.

If sales for the first CD are mediocre...then the second and third will not improve...they will likely go down.  Why not use the first CD as free advertising for the next two?

Sounds like the right route to take!

Around the same time as the free 1st album, they could use the new mediums, like exclusive tracks to Guitar Hero etc etc, free videos for download on their website etc etc...

If Guns/Geffen release the ChiDem-albums only as standard old fashion CD's, I'm pretty sure it's doomed to "fail"....


Agree!
I've said this before..... Some of us on the boards are acting like we're an army of millions!! We should wake up!! We're only a bird's poop in the ocean!!  :hihi:
But some of us are acting like jerks with Axl-like-egos, demanding updates on every little event in the lives of the bandmembers.

For this album to atract the attendion it deserves, it has got to be an untraditional album-launch. There are countless of creative ways for Geffen/Interscope/Universal to make their money. And I'm sure that's what their planning and putting together right now.....

They could release it on their website and Dr Pepper's website.  Think about it ? you get a free Dr Pepper when its released, you could go download it for a charge when u go get your coupon for a free pepper at their website.  That way you can download it for free and then when they release it traditionally I would mark it at 9.99 and have a Dr Pepper sponsored tour in support of the album.

Maybe some of the same people who buy rock CDs and attend concerts?






Or they think they can get it for free like the first album.....



I think this is the issue the record companies and artists are trying to figure out.







/jarmo

Bear in mind that the Dr Pepper thing only applies to the US. The album has to be a success worldwide - same for touring.