The Supremes Reissues

[BayouMotownMan]

What you guys don't realize is that the reason we aren't getting the reissues is because the record industry is in peril. Digital downloading was the worst thing that ever happened to them. That is the biggest problem. Promoting current artists is more expensive than ever, with videos, and pirating. That's why we don't have as many releases in a month/quarter/year as we did before digital technology came along. These kids today are wizards at finding ways to download music for free. And in order to have our music issued, a record company must have income from current artists to bankroll these re-issues.

Secondly and more important, The Supremes belong to yesterday. Record executives seek bands that sell in the millions, not just a few thousand copies like oldies acts sell. Additionally new legislation is making the oldies stations who play this music dry up because of copyright infringements. Re-issues of classic artists on a record label is nothing more than icing on the cake, a couple extra bucks. These issues are not priority.

When a classic artist dies, or when a movie is made that is very successful, briefly there will be a spike in sales for that artist. Look for a sudden resurgence in Doris Day's music in the months ahead. Then it will get quiet again.

It's called show BUSINESS for a reason.

[bradsupremes]

What you guys don't realize is that the reason we aren't getting the reissues is because the record industry is in peril. Digital downloading was the worst thing that ever happened to them. That is the biggest problem. Promoting current artists is more expensive than ever, with videos, and pirating. That's why we don't have as many releases in a month/quarter/year as we did before digital technology came along. These kids today are wizards at finding ways to download music for free. And in order to have our music issued, a record company must have income from current artists to bankroll these re-issues.

Secondly and more important, The Supremes belong to yesterday. Record executives seek bands that sell in the millions, not just a few thousand copies like oldies acts sell. Additionally new legislation is making the oldies stations who play this music dry up because of copyright infringements. Re-issues of classic artists on a record label is nothing more than icing on the cake, a couple extra bucks. These issues are not priority.

When a classic artist dies, or when a movie is made that is very successful, briefly there will be a spike in sales for that artist. Look for a sudden resurgence in Doris Day's music in the months ahead. Then it will get quiet again.

It's called show BUSINESS for a reason.

These releases don’t cost an arm and a leg to do. Universal isn’t losing money on a Supremes reissue. And if it’s not a priority to them then why are they withholding from third party labels to release them? From what I see, places like Ace, Second Disc, Real Gone Music seem to be doing very well because every time you turn around they’re releasing reissues and expanded treatments right and left. There’s a market out there for this stuff. It’s almost as if Universal thought process is “If we lease our catalog to a third party then we won’t be making any profit from it, but if we hold onto it and issue it ourselves we may not make any profit on it because this is an old catalog and it’s not worth doing for a few thousand copies, etc.” That’s how stupid they sound.

I seem to recall reading an article within the past year or so that read back catalogs were selling better than new releases or something to that effect. There’s value in the catalog especially a rich one like Motown and they don’t do anything with it. I understand it’s a business, but none of it makes sense and frankly I don’t think they know what they’re doing.