Hello Folks. The Economist gives us a wonderful article this week telling us of poverty-stricken record labels that can’t sign anything but a sure thing (with healthy, growing followings and robust merchandise sales) and laid-off A&R folks that have not been rehired back into the profession since the meteor hit the music business in 1999*. They also offer the interesting factoids that recorded music sales have dropped by 33% in Britain and 50% in the US since 2001 with rising e-sales doing little to make up this gap. They quote the advance for a first (pop) album at between $119,000-237,000. full article
*Jazz Dinosaur sets this date at June 1999, the year that Napster established the defacto “payment optional” policy that now governs music sales.