July 19, 2004
CHRIST? MAMMON? JELLYBEANS?
A discussion up and happened, just the way we like:
"CMJ samplers = $1500 for placement in the first three tracks, $500 for the slots past that, last I heard. Sometimes you could get em down to $300 if someone over there was really cheering for your band. This also explains, clearly, why if they gave things lukewarm reviews why they were still on the comp."
"When I was there, I think the price for a track was higher but standard (and the first-three-tracks placement had more to do with whoever was on the cover or would make a good sales point for the cover sticker), with the following complications: 1) indies generally paid less than majors (and editorial cheering helped); 2) the editor reserved the right to decline any tracks he thought were seriously lame (and occasionally did); 3) part of my deal with CMJ was that I could give small indies free space for songs I liked at the end of the disc—always at least one song, sometimes as many as six or seven if not a lot of labels were buying that month. (Wasn't Ui's "Match My Foot" on there at one point? If it was, that was how.) The sales pitches tended to go out to labels when somebody was already getting an enthusiastic review or was the subject of a feature of some kind."
SFJ:
It was “Ay Nako," and we very much appreciated it.
Andrew Graham:
"CMJ was literally the laughingstock of the radio station I worked at during college. The fact that it owed its existence solely to being a source of upbeat, superlative blurbage for press-packet & cd-sticker usage was painfully evident. The cirque-de-soleil-style contortions used by the writers in order to come up with new ways of saying "the next big thing!" or "even better than the last big thing!" were occasionally impressive, I'll admit, but as a trustworthy source of information about music, they were great car salesmen. Same goes for, if I recall correctly, HITS magazine, which did basically the same thing but (again, if memory serves) produced better promo comps."
Posted by Sasha at July 19, 2004 05:16 PM | TrackBack