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I feel like the release flow has slowed, so what do I know? It was really nonstop three or four years ago, with those 24-hour sellouts every month. That was ridiculous.
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Posted: |
Aug 4, 2015 - 3:04 PM
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By: |
Chris Avis
(Member)
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Yes I know it is a boring old farty subject....but, I am very tired and confused at being inundated with release info and PR re new soundtracks!
Is the world coming to an end? Does just about every second of film music have to be released? Enough, slow down, you move too fast....quantity does not equate to quality?
Yes, I know some crazy, money to burn, people say "bring it on"....but I say, most film music is just not that good...I should know having recorded both classic and contemporary scores for more than 30 years. So why so many second and third rate albums?
Hope this encourages healthy and angry debate as I am fed up with spending lots of money on basically crap!
Is the market saturated? From my perspective, absolutely, in that I simply don't have the budget for every title that I am interested in and would probably pick up if fewer releases were coming out. Can the market handle it? This is the more interesting question... the market's been in this condition for going on 2 or 3 years and I don't see any sign of slowdown in terms of releases, at least from the big boys (Intrada, LLL, etc...) - I'd have thought we'd have seen a slow down in production by now if these companies couldn't make a go of it financially.
In terms of the quality vs. quantity argument, I totally agree with what you say about most film music being not that interesting. But I think the old adage of one man's trash being another's treasure probably applies here too. As for being tired of buying crap, no one's forcing you to do it (that I know of!) and I'm increasingly just having to make a call based on clips - if the clips don't do it for me, I don't buy it.
I think the biggest tragedy of the flooding of soundtrack releases is what it's done to this board and this community. There seems to have been a major shift in the past few years in the conversation from analysis and discussion of the music itself towards bottlecap collecting. It seems that right after a label announce its new releases, someone goes right back to speculating as to what the next ones will be. I feel that this encourages endless consumption and acquisition of CDs as collectors items, not as works of art to be appreciated.
If I'm honest, I'm already at the point where I can't really digest my whole collection anymore and I have CDs sitting on the shelf for years before being played. Hell, if I look back at the state of my collection circa-2000, I've pretty much got everything I could have dreamed of at the time sitting on my shelf and yet I feel my attention being dragged ever back to what's coming up and what I don't own. It's at the point where I'm very close to leaving these forums as I think the discussion here encourages unhealthy collecting for collection's sake.
Sorry that was a little rambly, but that's my take on things.
Chris
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The market is oversaturated. I still need to get "Patton" by Intrada, and they released it 5 years ago!
I did warn of market saturation over 5 years ago...but I was told the market could handle it! I rather think not?
Then we both sounded that alarm at the same time - I even called for a summit conference with all the labels - but no, no one cared and this is the result. That's why I slowed down last year (and we were already half of what every other label was releasing) and really slowed down this year so far so we could, with the help of our wonderful Indiegogo contributors, get some inroads into new places. Now, since we slowed down I have noticed a few others have slowed down, too, but there are still insane weeks where there are eight to ten new releases.
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The market is oversaturated. I still need to get "Patton" by Intrada, and they released it 5 years ago!
I did warn of market saturation over 5 years ago...but I was told the market could handle it! I rather think not?
I would not want to be the one to make the call which scores are good and which are not, as some stuff I don't like are beloved favorites among others. So I maintain my philosophy of release whatever and buy what you like. I also don't believe you can saturate a market where each item is distinct from each other. The Netflix market will be saturated whenever everyone who wants a Netflix account has one and they can't sell anymore. When we release two albums, you could view them as competing with each other. But the fan of Disney movie memorabilia or Homeward Bound or Bruce Broughton is not necessarily being forced to decide between that and Desert Fury -- Desert Fury may not be on their radar at all.
So I say bring it on...music deserves to be preserved for whatever small subset of people are interested.
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The market is oversaturated. I still need to get "Patton" by Intrada, and they released it 5 years ago!
I did warn of market saturation over 5 years ago...but I was told the market could handle it! I rather think not?
Then we both sounded that alarm at the same time - I even called for a summit conference with all the labels - but no, no one cared and this is the result. That's why I slowed down last year (and we were already half of what every other label was releasing) and really slowed down this year so far so we could, with the help of our wonderful Indiegogo contributors, get some inroads into new places. Now, since we slowed down I have noticed a few others have slowed down, too, but there are still insane weeks where there are eight to ten new releases.
One of the reasons a summit among the labels would not work is -- it's illegal. It's called collusion and any activity that has separate, competing entities working together to control a market is restraint of trade.
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Posted: |
Aug 4, 2015 - 3:33 PM
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By: |
The Thing
(Member)
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Depends on what you consider second and third rate.
I presume there are fans of most eras and genres, but not everyone is going to be interested in everything.
Some will buy what they enjoy listening to, others might buy the last dregs from their favourite composer regardless of whether it's good or not.
I'm surprised with this topic originating from yourself. Are you finding some of your own releases not selling in sufficient enough quantities? Maybe some composers attract different people. I love Tadlow re-recordings, but there's one forthcoming mentioned title I won't be interested in, just because I don't like the composer's old-fashioned style (Tiomkin's "Duel in the Sun"?). So that non-purchase from me wouldn't be down to the glut of other releases in the market, just my music preferences.
I often check out a lot of the new CDs from current films, and there's been some great stuff that hasn't generated much discussion on here (evident from some tumbleweed PR threads). Whereas many people go crazy over more mainstream titles for reasons I cannot fathom. I'd much prefer LLL's forthcoming Frederik Wiedmann score over some cheesy 80's synth score like Silvestri's "Cat's Eye"... but the latter seems far more popular than something from a newer composer who doesn't have the same sort of fan-base.
You'll find the same in any type of music... some artists and titles will be more popular than others just because they are a more recognised name or have a more established career. There's going to be far fewer people who have the time or inclination to seek out the more obscure stuff, or keep up with new titles in preference to established well-known stuff. Some of those Italian titles are only being pressed in quantities of a few hundred, whilst another label has recently moved to download only probably due to having such a small customer base interested in those niche titles.
The main problem, though, is the small size of the film score collector market. If there's only a few thousand worldwide (I've seen 5,000 quoted before), then that's an awfully small number before even thinking of specific tastes within that customer base.
We had a recent thread about too many PR releases locked due to the content of the replies. However, it's probably due to lack of interest in most of the titles rather than the frequency of the releases. I think there's more fans on here of older scores than newer ones, and probably little can be done to change that without bringing the younger generation of listeners into the market to latch on to the modern stuff.
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Yes, and still the right ones don't get released.
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