The always-insightful Bob Lefsetz posted a terrific assessment of why chart-topping albums, radio play, press and buzz don't necessarily equal mega-ticket sales. It’s worth reading his whole post, but here’s the short answer: hipness, cred and staying power. The industry veteran, who calls the biz a "circle jerk. Squeezing out dollars for dinosaurs" (ewww, but true), brings up platinum pop-rockers Maroon 5, who were forced to downsize their arena tour earlier this week. Though the group’s latest album has scanned 1.36m copies since May, they had no choice but to abandon an 18,000-seat venue for a 3,500 capacity club in Denver. An email obtained by Lefsetz highlights the “ticketing debacle,” which included ticket giveaways and comps galore that STILL couldn’t sell out the second night at the littler space. OUCH.
Meanwhile, Arcade Fire sells 1/5th as many records on their sophomore follow-up (Neon Bible = 310k copies), with zero Rolling Stone covers, less mainstream radio play, zero Grammy wins, and they play Red Rocks in Denver. Granted it wasn’t sold out or full, but I doubt they expected it to be and they don't have to. If touring is a band’s bread & butter, acts like Maroon 5 are screwed in some respects. The insane amounts of money invested in recording with top producers/engineers, renting an eccentric practice $pace (like, say, Harry Houdini’s mansion), the fancy tour buses and gear, etc. -- all of it doesn’t scale one bit if you can’t actually sell 18k tickets at $50 a pop. For music biz accounting 101, check out Steve Albini’s classic, oft-cited essay “The Problem With Music” (scroll down for the #s). Then again, there's always licensing, publishing and endoresements...
