@solium: If I understand you right, you're basically saying that TinkerBell is as popular as DuckTales (or vice versa) - I think you can't compare this. Everyone knows the Duck-clan from somewhere. Although from what I've heard Disney-comics never really were big in the US (so I guess DuckTales actually had it harder there to find a fanbase than in other countries I'd guess) but they were quite popular in Europe (and probably still are, sort of? At least they still exist.). As I found out many of the comics I've read as a kid came from Italy for example. In comparison, I've never seen or read anything involving Tinkerbell. Is there a Computergame for Tinkerbell? I don't know but if yes, it's probably not as popular as the DuckTales-game(s) I assume.
As much as I would love Duck Tales and Tail Spin I don't think they would sell much better than Intrada's Tinker Bell. Sorry folks, rose colored glasses.
I disagree. Ducktales, besides being a marvellous score, has also the nostalgia factor for all us grown-ups, that Tinker Bell doesn't have.
Yes... Tinker Bell I had never heard from and listening to the samples didn't want to make me buy it. Plus that is a score to an animated movie, the approach is still different then is the case with tv scores which tend to be catchy IMO and more pop/big band orientated. I did get their release of Transformers: The Movie, which to me is closer in style to the 80s cartoon sound.
Ducktales has some nice action adventure cues that could easily fit on a one CD release alongside the theme music! Same for Thundercats, Transformers and G.I. Joe.
Scores to animated shows like Real Ghostbusters, X-men, TMNT might be a tough sale because of their predominantly synth sounds, I think a best of boxset covering the highlights might be a better approach than separate releases.
@solium: If I understand you right, you're basically saying that TinkerBell is as popular as DuckTales (or vice versa) - I think you can't compare this. Everyone knows the Duck-clan from somewhere. Although from what I've heard Disney-comics never really were big in the US (so I guess DuckTales actually had it harder there to find a fanbase than in other countries I'd guess) but they were quite popular in Europe (and probably still are, sort of? At least they still exist.). As I found out many of the comics I've read as a kid came from Italy for example. In comparison, I've never seen or read anything involving Tinkerbell. Is there a Computergame for Tinkerbell? I don't know but if yes, it's probably not as popular as the DuckTales-game(s) I assume.
I would say Tinker Bell is more popular than DuckTales and more widely known along with the Disney Princesses. Besides watching the cartoons and reading the comics doesn't translate to soundtrack sales.
Popularity doesn't equal sales. As someone else said we got a huge Ron Jones Next Generation box set, Next Generation has a huge fan base and the CD set was a total bomb sales wise.
@ Francis - I don't know how you cannot like the Tinker Bell samples! Oh well.
Popularity doesn't equal sales. As someone else said we got a huge Ron Jones Next Generation box set, Next Generation has a huge fan base and the CD set was a total bomb sales wise.
Do you think $150 is the same with $30-40 that a Ducktales cd or double cd would be?
Popularity doesn't equal sales. As someone else said we got a huge Ron Jones Next Generation box set, Next Generation has a huge fan base and the CD set was a total bomb sales wise.
Do you think $150 is the same with $30-40 that a Ducktales cd or double cd would be?
Yes because there are far more NG fans than Ducktales fans in the world. So numbers wise I think it evens out. But I guess MV will let us know if and when these titles get released. Again for the record, I'm interested in the titles and would purchase them. I just don't know how well they would sell.
This thread is yet another example of the "I like this, so surely thousands of others must, too!" school of thinking. I don't think that's true.
Before I proceed, let me say that I don't begrudge anybody wanting anything. There are scores I'd love to own that nobody else here may care about. And maybe these scores would surprise me and sell very well! I don't claim to be psychic.
The only thing I'm questioning is the certainty expressed here (and in other threads) that "I'm sure this or that would sell very quickly!" I think this is a fantasy.
Let's face it: We're a very, very small niche. While it's true that an extremely obscure film is unlikely to have a score that sells well, the converse is not true. Popularity of a film (or show) does not translate into very many people wanting to hear what they'd call the "background music" on a CD. It just doesn't. My James Bond-loving friend, who has all the movies and many editions of the novels in his collection, has about six Bond CDs, none of them the expanded ones. I have two friends who are big Star Trek fans, but one owns no Trek soundtracks and one has a best-of only. (On the other hand, I own all these soundtracks but have no interest in, say, a replica phaser or a Starfleet uniform.)
In our little echo chamber, we imagine there's thousands and thousands of like-thinking people out there eager for these releases. But there's no evidence at all that that's true, and a lot of evidence to the contrary.
Remember back when LLL was issuing their "Star Trek: The Motion Picture" release? It's a fantastic release, and they licensed it for 10,000 copies. I have no idea how many of those are left, and I hope for them it's not a lot. But back in the run-up to that release, there were posters here who'd worked themselves into a lather that all 10,000 copies were somehow going to sell out even before the release date! (There was a screening event in advance of release where you could buy the CD.) Well, it's been two years, and it's still readily available. Because 10,000 copies is a lot of copies.
We see it time and time again around here -- predictions of quick sell-outs are common, quick sell-outs are very rare indeed.
About "Duck Tales" -- I just listened to the samples on Jones's site, and there's some charm to them. I hope you get what you want. And I hope it sells 3,000 copies in a month. But I still can't imagine that happening.
Oh, and CrazyQuark: Tinker Bell is huge. There are movies and (yes) video games and books and a whole "Pixie Hollow" area at Disneyland where you can meet her. You don't know about it because you aren't a young girl, or the father of a young girl. For that matter, I don't know anything about this duck-clan of yours, other than that I think it's Scrooge McDuck and Huey, Dewey and Louie. Am I right?
Popularity doesn't equal sales. As someone else said we got a huge Ron Jones Next Generation box set, Next Generation has a huge fan base and the CD set was a total bomb sales wise.
Do you think $150 is the same with $30-40 that a Ducktales cd or double cd would be?
Yes because there are far more NG fans than Ducktales fans in the world. So numbers wise I think it evens out. But I guess MV will let us know if and when these titles get released. Again for the record, I'm interested in the titles and would purchase them. I just don't know how well they would sell.
My point is that, for someone to buy a $150 box, he should be a really ARDENT fan to purchase it... and still...
But, a $30-40 cd could sell to non-ardent-fans too, who just like the score or want it for nostalgia reasons, or maybe for a gift, etc...
SciffyM, speaking for myself, i don't have the notion that every score I love, is loved by many people and would sell thousands. Eg. I LOVE Anton Profes' Sissi trilogy music, but if those soundtracks were released, i doubt they would sell even 200-300 copies. But for Ducktales, I've seen over the years the talk about it in message boards etc., and I think it WOULD sell. And as I've said, it wouldn't be an ultra expensive box (so it would be accessible to much more people than the Star trek box), and someone wouldn't need to be a huge fan of the series to purchase it.
And something else: if a Ducktales video game soundtrack can be released as we saw, surely a TV soundtrack can be released too.
And in the end, if a company thinks 3000 copies wouldn't sell, well, they can release 1000 copies.
The only thing I'm questioning is the certainty expressed here (and in other threads) that "I'm sure this or that would sell very quickly!" I think this is a fantasy.
Releases haven't been selling out in general lately, most going OOP when the license expire. Only the really limited editions like 500 edition Italian soundtracks still occasionally sell out, and in some cases even get reissued. Like most stuff that sells out. I agree with you that when you see someone on this board going 'this is going to sell out within days' obviously not up to speed with the current market.
As for animation scores, they wont sell in the thousands easily, just like golden age scores or other niche genres like you pointed out. But I could see a boxset compilation do well. Don't underestimate the popularity of cartoons like Ducktales, Thundercats, Transformers, G.I. Joe, TMNT... These have all had dvd releases, some of which went OOP themselves. Why do you think we just had a new Thundercats series, new G.I. Joe, Transformers movies and now even a new TMNT movie?
When it comes to cartoon scores, there is a demand that has gone unmet over the years and if you go to fan fora of these shows and franchises most often you'll find people who did dvd channel rips or youtube videos of music featured in these cartoons; I'm sure they would like to get an official release with decent quality as well.
As for people constantly bringing up the Ron Jones TNG boxset... apples and oranges. The Ron Jones TNG set wasn't marketed the best IMO (compared to how la-la did their TOS boxset) and perhaps too much a dream release for Lukas than a realistic business venture in hindsight. We're not asking for a Ron Jones complete Ducktales set, just a highlights disc that satisfies fans and could still find new fans as well.
I'm glad to see MV is still trying to make something happen, I hope we'll see a release that is as professionally done as the Batman TAS sets and I'm sure it would get a lot of interest from the comic con audience as well.
Oh, and CrazyQuark: Tinker Bell is huge. There are movies and (yes) video games and books and a whole "Pixie Hollow" area at Disneyland where you can meet her. You don't know about it because you aren't a young girl, or the father of a young girl. For that matter, I don't know anything about this duck-clan of yours, other than that I think it's Scrooge McDuck and Huey, Dewey and Louie. Am I right?
Thanks a lot for clarification on that - I had a suspicion there might be more to it (after all Disney wouldn't have produced several of these movies just for nothing) but I don't have much knowledge of this stuff otherwise. I still found it hard to believe that she might be a more popular character than let's say Scrooge McDuck, but I guess his "popularity" comes mostly from the comic books and if they really are pretty much non-existant in the US I can certainly see how this came to be. And yes, that Duck-clan I was reffering to was indeed Scrooge, Huey, Dewey, Louie and outside of DuckTales of course also Donald Duck.
This thread is yet another example of the "I like this, so surely thousands of others must, too!" school of thinking. I don't think that's true.
I agree about that, and if I sounded like that, I apologize. I wasn't really trying to imply that, but since we have this Star Trek example already up, let's stick to that; for years now I've been a fan of the music for all the shows, not just TOS. Over the years it was very easy to find people on the net wanting the TOS music released. In all the time I can't remember anyone really screaming for music from the other shows, so I never got the feeling of "I like it, so others must too" it was more of the opposite. But DuckTales (and other cartoons mentioned in this thread) just seemed different about that, I don't have the feeling that I'm all alone there. Although it's not a thing I'd like to put in numbers... even if you have a dedicated fanbase, that doesn't neccessary mean it's a big fanbase, it's just a more vocal one. But the Ducktales fanbase just appears to be so much more vocal about this than the NextGen-Star Trek show-fans, which makes me wonder. (And I'm not talking about the FSM-Board here.)
KonstantinosZ and CrazyQuark, if my post seemed condescending (and it probably did, now that I reread it), I apologize.
Also, I'm wrong about these things all the time. Again, my only real point here is that the "I'm sure it would sell great!" should be more like "I hope it would sell great!"
By the way, I just checked out the DuckTales video game score just released (download only, as you mentioned), and every track I listened to was synths, which makes a big difference in cost to release it. Also, it ties to a very recent game (which, granted, ties to an older show), which may also account for its appearance.
Anyway, after all this, I hope you (and 2,998 others!) get your DuckTales soundtrack.
3,000 is kind of wishful thinking. "Knight Rider" is way more famous than "Ducktales", yet Hitchcock Media Records still had trouble moving CD's. I think an initial pressing of 1,000 copies, with the option to press another thousand as needed, up to 3,000, is more realistic.
Truth be told even fans of a certain thing like Star Trek don't give a BLEEP about the music. I have worked many Trek conventions in my day (both for GNP and LLL) and most Trekkies can care less about the music. The most popular thing to buy is usually a "Best of" compilation.
Even with comic book properties like Batman the music is a tough sell. Sure, there are about 1000 people who go "bat-shit" over a TAS release, but when you got another 2000 more to sell you need to start thinking about costs vs. returns on these projects.
A title like Ducktales is far more expensive to release than a film score like Black Cauldron because you are dealing with hours and hours of material that need to be transferred and logged and cut.
On the DC titles we have been fortunate enough to have DATS to work with. That is a hell of a lot cheaper to pay for than the 1/2 inch or 1/4 reels we would have to get transferred on say an older title like THUNDERCATS or TRANSFORMERS.
By the time you are done doing a 4 cd set you have already spent upwards of $50k (sadly that sometimes doesn't even cover Union and publishing fees). If you sell this to 1000 people at $50 a pop you are breaking even. Great, now try and find 2000 more people who love the music as much as those first 1000 so you can pay the rest of the royalties (not too mention make a profit!)!
(It's not easy)
To be perfectly frank and honest with you we should be charging a premium for a lot of these releases (especially tv related) because the cost vs the return is kinda tragic.
Also let's not forget that the game got a soundtrack release from Walt Disney Records, which was released about 2 weeks ago: (only mp3's of course, but still...)
Err...
As much as I hate to say it, the popularity of the DuckTales video game is nowhere near indicative of how many sales a soundtrack of the TV series would fetch. Ron Jones had nothing to do with the game, which uses completely original music by a Capcom composer, aside from 8-bit renditions of the theme song.
It's all very conflicting for me, because I do love the video game score as well. I have to agree with every other gamer in the Internet: the Moon theme in particular is amazing. But I also find it endlessly frustrating how people will sing praises to the NES soundtrack to the point of complete ignorance of how equally awesome the TV series' score is.
We're not asking for a Ron Jones complete Ducktales set, just a highlights disc that satisfies fans and could still find new fans as well.
Speak for yourself... the score oozes with too much awesome to try and have fans be satisfied with a dinky little "best of" release. Plus, I'm dying to hear the material that never quite made it into the final cuts of the episodes. I know there are at least a few cues we've only heard in part.
For the record, a complete release of Ron Jones's work on DuckTales (which hopefully would also include the material by his ghost-writers) would take a little more than just two discs - try something more like four. Which would probably come out to, what, $50 on the cheap? While I'd love a boxset, I'd have to imagine it'd be a smarter move to either release each disc individually or in two sets of two.
This is the site I put together documenting the first 75 episodes worth of DuckTales music. Keep in mind that it doesn't use the official names for the cues, simply because that's information I don't have (and I really really wish I knew where to go and who to talk to in order to get that info, along with the slate numbers! I actually emailed Jones the other day asking him if there was any way he could help me - either by giving me the names himself or putting me in touch with someone who could, but he couldn't be bothered.)
I also really do wish Jones would have provided a much better set of cues on his site, both the handful that are on there right now and the 10-minute suite from his old site. Sure, there's some amazing stuff in there, but he seemed to avoid picking the cues that really show off his composing muscles. There is one that I think would convert just about anybody to DuckTales music fandom, but you have to go to the episode itself to hear it: It's from Treasure of the Golden Suns part 2, when Scrooge and the nephews sail out of the caves on a gold-patched ship (this cue is named on my site as "Set Sail!"). That statement of the adventure theme as the ship actually begins its voyage simply has to be heard to be believed.
To be perfectly frank and honest with you we should be charging a premium for a lot of these releases (especially tv related) because the cost vs the return is kinda tragic.
As the number of unreleased film scores from favorite composers dwindles, we naturally wonder about television scores. It would be nice if they were financially viable!
Anyway, next time somebody implies in a post that some favorite TV score or other is a goldmine the labels are ignoring, we should point them to your post.
This thread is yet another example of the "I like this, so surely thousands of others must, too!" school of thinking. I don't think that's true.
Before I proceed, let me say that I don't begrudge anybody wanting anything. There are scores I'd love to own that nobody else here may care about. And maybe these scores would surprise me and sell very well! I don't claim to be psychic.
The only thing I'm questioning is the certainty expressed here (and in other threads) that "I'm sure this or that would sell very quickly!" I think this is a fantasy.
Let's face it: We're a very, very small niche. While it's true that an extremely obscure film is unlikely to have a score that sells well, the converse is not true. Popularity of a film (or show) does not translate into very many people wanting to hear what they'd call the "background music" on a CD. It just doesn't. My James Bond-loving friend, who has all the movies and many editions of the novels in his collection, has about six Bond CDs, none of them the expanded ones. I have two friends who are big Star Trek fans, but one owns no Trek soundtracks and one has a best-of only. (On the other hand, I own all these soundtracks but have no interest in, say, a replica phaser or a Starfleet uniform.)
In our little echo chamber, we imagine there's thousands and thousands of like-thinking people out there eager for these releases. But there's no evidence at all that that's true, and a lot of evidence to the contrary.
Remember back when LLL was issuing their "Star Trek: The Motion Picture" release? It's a fantastic release, and they licensed it for 10,000 copies. I have no idea how many of those are left, and I hope for them it's not a lot. But back in the run-up to that release, there were posters here who'd worked themselves into a lather that all 10,000 copies were somehow going to sell out even before the release date! (There was a screening event in advance of release where you could buy the CD.) Well, it's been two years, and it's still readily available. Because 10,000 copies is a lot of copies.
We see it time and time again around here -- predictions of quick sell-outs are common, quick sell-outs are very rare indeed.
About "Duck Tales" -- I just listened to the samples on Jones's site, and there's some charm to them. I hope you get what you want. And I hope it sells 3,000 copies in a month. But I still can't imagine that happening.
Oh, and CrazyQuark: Tinker Bell is huge. There are movies and (yes) video games and books and a whole "Pixie Hollow" area at Disneyland where you can meet her. You don't know about it because you aren't a young girl, or the father of a young girl. For that matter, I don't know anything about this duck-clan of yours, other than that I think it's Scrooge McDuck and Huey, Dewey and Louie. Am I right?
Out of curiosity, how possible would it be to put out Michael Tavera's scores for The Adventures of Super Mario Bros. 3 / Super Mario World, and Shuki Levy / Haim Saban's Super Mario Bros. Super Show?
For Transformers the original 1984 score (by R J Walsh) I will order about 50 piecese for my club here in Italy. For Masters of the Universe 50 pieces. For an Hanna-Barbera anthology wit ALL the title tunes and some back ground music (Shazzan, Butch Cassidy, Wheelie, etc) al least 100 copies for me and my club. For a complete compilation of Shuky Levy / Saban tv tunes, with the italian versions included (and maybe also with the french and spanish versions), at least 100 - 150 copies for my club. no matter the sale price. We're talking about our childhood and the mighty power of nostalgia flowing here in Italy And so on.
Again for the record, I'm interested in the titles and would purchase them. I just don't know how well they would sell. 
