Suzanne Vega skips out on the record labels
Suzanne Vega has self-released a new album, comprised of re-recordings of some of her most famous songs. I downloaded it last night and it's excellent. If you like folk/pop music, check her site or iTunes for a listen. (The iTunes version has three or four more songs than the one she's selling herself; it also costs $2 more.)
Vega had to go the unusual route of recording and releasing this album on her own, after her record label dropped her like a moldy piece of fruit. The great shame of the recording industry is that labels own the actual recordings of songs, even if the artist wrote the songs. Even if the label doesn't want to do business with an artist any more, they still own the copyright on the recordings, not to mention the physical masters of the songs. So the only way for Vega to really earn any money off of her back catalog was to re-record new versions of the songs and release them herself.
Luckily, there are quite a few more options for artists releasing their own material today than there were back when I saw Vega live in (gulp) 1987. She can post the album on her own site, and iTunes allows independent artists to add albums to their store.
One of my other favorite artists, Jill Sobule, took a very unusual route with her last album and asked her fans to finance it. Anyone who paid $10 to help record it got a copy of the CD when it was finished. People who paid a lot more were actually named in one of the songs on the album.
I don't know how much Vega had to spend to record and release this album (especially since she's also put it out on CD), or where that money came from, but she's getting good press about it (including in this week's New Yorker), so hopefully it will earn out and keep putting food on her table.
From what I've read, Vega plans three more of these acoustic re-record albums. Personally, I'd prefer new material, but I'll take what I can get and hope that her taking over distribution of her own music brings her more success than she got from the record companies.
Vega had to go the unusual route of recording and releasing this album on her own, after her record label dropped her like a moldy piece of fruit. The great shame of the recording industry is that labels own the actual recordings of songs, even if the artist wrote the songs. Even if the label doesn't want to do business with an artist any more, they still own the copyright on the recordings, not to mention the physical masters of the songs. So the only way for Vega to really earn any money off of her back catalog was to re-record new versions of the songs and release them herself.
Luckily, there are quite a few more options for artists releasing their own material today than there were back when I saw Vega live in (gulp) 1987. She can post the album on her own site, and iTunes allows independent artists to add albums to their store.
One of my other favorite artists, Jill Sobule, took a very unusual route with her last album and asked her fans to finance it. Anyone who paid $10 to help record it got a copy of the CD when it was finished. People who paid a lot more were actually named in one of the songs on the album.
I don't know how much Vega had to spend to record and release this album (especially since she's also put it out on CD), or where that money came from, but she's getting good press about it (including in this week's New Yorker), so hopefully it will earn out and keep putting food on her table.
From what I've read, Vega plans three more of these acoustic re-record albums. Personally, I'd prefer new material, but I'll take what I can get and hope that her taking over distribution of her own music brings her more success than she got from the record companies.