Entertainment For Lively Minds
Pink Floyd vs. EMI
Pink Floyd have won a court battle to stop EMI from selling individual tracks from their albums online:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/8561963.stm
The previous news story from a couple of days ago also reported that they were pursuing royalties:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/8558480.stm
Buried away at the end of the article is the following assertion:
"Pink Floyd's back catalogue is the most lucrative in pop music apart from that of The Beatles."
I find this interesting. Their catalog consists of three massive albums (Dark Side Of The Moon, Wish You Were Here and The Wall), a few less well known ones (such as my personal favourite Animals), and a number of complete obscurities such as Obscured By Clouds and More. Therefore I'd say that their sales are largely carried by three records, not sure what this proves, but it seems significant.
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In a similar way
How many of the HJH's albums actually generate the major parts of the sales?
Sgt. Pepper, Revolver, White, Abbey Road for example would only be four. I suppose for most mega selling acts, they would be distorted by only a few real planet-shaggers (like Michael Jackson with Thriller, Bad). The Beatles may even be the one with the least range across the whole back catalogue.
Good call on Animals though.
Obscurities?
The musical phases of Pink Floyd have thrown up a number of beloved albums.
'Dark Side of the Moon', 'Wish You Were Here' and 'The Wall' are surely not the only big sellers. How about 'Meddle', 'Pulse', 'The Division Bell', 'Animals'? Even 'A Momentary Lapse of Reason' did well. The earlier pre-'Meddle' classics (particularly the Syd years) may not have sold well but still attract those who wish to explore the origins of Floyd, those who wish to get remasters or to replace vinyl, or those who wish to complete their Floyd collection. I would have thought sales of these would be fairly steady - unless Floyd are going out of fashion.
I have some sympathy about breaking up classic albums into 'tracks for sale'; it surely detracts from the whole experience. But of course like many of the Massive, I was there at the time of original release and first experienced the music as a whole via a vinyl record, so perhaps I'm an old-fashioned nostalgic git (something that I'm rather proud of).
Relative obscurities
For example, Obscured By Clouds is hardly stocked anywhere, and the average listener who owns Dark Side of the Moon will never have heard of it. Despite it being (a) a dry run for the more famous album and (b) excellent. I'd say it has only sold to completists. Nothing wrong with that!
Equally how many people have even heard David Gilmour's first solo LP outside of the devoted fanbase.
I have, I have
heard Mr Gilmour's first solo album. Own it on vinyl and now CD and bought fairly close to Rick Wright's first solo album 'Wet Dream'. Far better album then his somewhat disappointing 2nd (Gilmour's that is). And I love Obscured By Clouds but I also love Atom Heart Mother which I fondly remember listening to in the dark wearing headphones, spooky for a teenager at the time.
They are HUGE in Europe
Absolutely massive...from Lisbon to Lvov. Look ye there for the massive sales.
This is...
... all a bit Word Magazine isn't it?
SSOSFAGTIACAGWAP hitmakers
The record shows practically every album top ten in UK. Most albums platinum or multi-platinum in US:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pink_Floyd_discography
No flops.
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But why?
If the contracts say that EMI can't sell individual tracks then I'm glad Pink Floyd won but I wonder about their reasons for raising the matter. What do they hope to gain? Do they think that if they only allow whole album downloads then people will only listen to whole albums? Are they going to make sure that nobody rips any of their CDs and puts them on shuffle or worse still just selects a single track for a playlist. Presumably they're not keen on radio play either given that not many stations will play more than a single track at a time.
It's because
it is a coherent piece of art which should be considered in its entirety. Well, really, two pieces, side A and side B. Quite right too. There's nothing wrong with listening to "Money" in isolation but it makes more sense in the context of the rest of the album.
Leverage
The part of this case not being so widely reported is that this "unbundling" decision was immediately followed by a closed-doors meeting between EMI and Floyd's people where a separate case regarding royalty discrepancies was apparently settled to both parties' satisfaction.
Or in other words, Floyd had just proved in court that EMI was in breach of contract, which gave them the power to demand a (probably backdated) increase in their online royalty rate and immediate payment of all back-royalties or they'd be able to get out of their deal and license the catalogue to the highest bidder.
Always follow the money.
the tales of
Dark Side's longevity to this day are too numerous to recount, but wasn't it one of the biggest selling albums ever, while The Wall was one of the biggest selling double albums. The Echoes best of cd also reached number one in many countries worldwide. And thats just three albums from their catalogue!
Part of the lucrative nature
is that the published dealer price has always been at the highest price band (the MFP compilation "Relics" aside).
This is something they share with the Beatles: a back catalogue that continues to sell strongly, in depth, at a relatively high price (£15 until average prices began to tumble, £8-£10 these days). Temporary price promotions have been few and far between as well.
Compare and contrast with how cheaply you can pick up Blonde On Blonde, Astral Weeks, Blue, etc - these albums would have to sell twice as many to generate the same revenue.
I can't help wondering
who "Pink Floyd" is in this situation?
Is it the lads themselves, or their lawyers or what?
You'd think that individually they would all have had enough of litigation and stuff and would prefer to retire to their country estates with their nears and dears.
Newsnight..??
...I ended up on 'NEWSNIGHT' on BBC2 talking about this subject earlier (I was 'by satellite' as a defender of the 'concept album' ha,ha!!). Paul Morley, John Illsey and Tim Wheeler were on too.
I really just wanted to selfishly and openly state this as I was never as chuffed in my whole life!! :-)
NEWSNIGHT!! And no..I didn't threaten to over-rule him, it was Kirsty Wark (Anal Jeremy Paxman reference there..)
Thomas.
Fair enough
but it makes me wonder how the release of 'Echoes' come about. Did the band try and fail to stop it because it doesn't look very coherent to me.
Dunno
I haven't got it - but mates of mine who have say it is an interesting sequencing so the songs hang together properly as a set. I am quite prepared to believe that PF are extracting every penny they are owed out of EMI, as they should. The bastards who bought it did it solely with the intention of stripping the assets, using someone else's money, and now it is going badly for them. Boo hoo. Let's also remember Dave Gilmour recently gave a £4m London house to a charity for the homeless.
I don't blame them either
It reminds me of when CDs came out at vastly over inflated prices and record companies tried to force artists to accept lower royalty rates.
And I'm not going to get started ranting about leveraged buy outs because I've got work to do.
This is semi-accurate.
Information from the reissue of the Storm Thorgerson PF artbook.
PF signed a new record contract for big money in 1999.
Record company wanted to make some money on the new record contract.
As PF were not going to make a new album they all agreed to release a Best Of (the first since the half arsed A Collection Of Great Dance Songs comp in 1981).
All four PF members wrote a list of the songs they wanted on it and submitted it to James Guthrie (their sound engineer since The Wall tour).
They argued (Waters wanted it in chronological sequence, Gilmour wanted Fat Old Sun on it and to call the compilation Most Of The Pieces (Waters came up with Echoes as the title)).
Eventually it was released in 2001 and made a lot of money and introduced a lot of people to the band for the first time (and is the first PF item I ever bought).
They also ensured...
...that Syd had 5 pieces on the compilation, generating a handsome sum for their Crazy Diamond.