CD sales

I am fixing to paraphrase this next quote, but Chuck Berry once said “ The record company sells my records for 35 cents a piece.  I make a half cent off of every record.  Where is the other 34 and a half cents going?”  Well after being around the music scene as little as I have, I can say I don’t know where it goes either.  But one thing I do know is I tunes hurts local bands in a small way.  Now I am not saying I tunes is the devil and you should boycott them.  I tunes is great and I use them to buy one or two songs instead of a whole album.  Or,  buy songs that are out of print.  But never the less I tunes does hurt local bands in a way.  Now what I am about to say does not speak for everyone or anyone I may be affiliated with.  But lets say you go see your local favorite band or a band that comes out of another town but you are still a big fan.  Over at their merch booth is their latest and greatest CD fresh off the digital press.  The merch man asks if you want to buy the new CD and you say “nah I will get it off of I tunes”.  Nine times out of ten the band will never see that money you pay for the album or the tracks that you buy.  You see most bands don’t take the time to go through the trouble of putting their songs on places like that.  They leave it up to the record company and if and when the record company decides to quit taking their share they will pass what is left down to the artists.  Now you have some bands that do set up their own songs and they receive all the money that is after the server gets their cut, but this is a far greater amount than if you were to let the record company do it for you.  You are probably asking by now, why don’t the bands just do it their selves?  Well do to contrary belief, not every band has a Ted Nugent style crew that takes care of every aspect and all the musician or musicians have to do is show up and play.  Most bands you see on the local level take care of their own business and loading their songs on the inter net for sale is the least of their worries.   They have to set up shows make sure certain people get paid, make show posters and write songs.   And next if you like to listen to music I mean really listen to music you will know that downloaded music is so digitally compressed that some of the accents that band may have put in there for your enjoyment well, it has been lost due to compression.   So next time if a merch guy asks you if you want to buy the new CD or even the older ones, keep all these factors in mind.   The sales at the show is on of the big pay offs to put gas in the tank and food on the table.   Now if I have gotten any of my facts wrong in this feel free to correct me after all this is just my take on the whole deal.  But remember the band cant sign your I pod after you buy the album and put it on there but they will be happy to sign the album you just purchased, they are happy to know you took a little bit of your heart earned money and spent it on them.  That in itself is a compliment to the band.