Patrick Says:
May 25th, 2011 at 10:15 am
Jojo:
A few reasons -
1. This is an incredibly competitive market. More releases come out now in a given week than used to come out in a month. It takes time to build up the word & anticipation for a record. A proper marketing campaign will get the maximum possible sales & chart position for a new album on release date, which in turn drives the media to pay attention and drives further sales.
2. Long-lead print press still exists, and their deadlines for features in August is NOW. They won’t run features about a new release 3 months after a record comes out – by then, there will be a whole new batch of records competing for their attention. And they need to spend time music to confirm features, and then spend time writing them.
3. Physical retail, including chains, still exists. Our distributor’s deadline for getting into their August 23 book, driven in turn by their big customers like Best Buy and Target, is NOW. And of course it takes time to manufacture records… you see a cover image above, but we don’t have the full packaging in for the CD and vinyl. The final EQ’d master is in today, and then it needs to get made into a glass master for CD and cut for lacquers for vinyl, which in turn will need test pressings, for approval. Once the records and the print are made, they need to be assembled, shipped to distributors, who in turn ship to stores – and for chains this means depots who ship out to branches, or drop-shipping to individual accounts – all to arrive on a certain date before release date.
Even for digital stores, there’s a time-consuming process which includes metadata for royalty tracking, audio polishing and checking, lots of uploads and downloads and tests.
Then there’s booking advertising, planning the marketing campaign, designing banners, and all the rest.
It’s a delicate balancing act setting up a record properly for release. 3 months is about the minimum lead time possible from delivery to street date.
Lots of people fortunately do still spend money on music!
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