Comments on: Say What? – Dolly Parton

By: Paul King

Paul King — Sat, 06 Oct 2007 04:05:43 +0000

Great find! I hasn’t heard or read that anywhere. Good thing I come over to CountryUniverse every now and then – otherwise, I would’ve missed it.

The somewhat funny thing is, pretty much the same thing happened to Johnny Cash- but in his case (like that of Porter more recently) someone was smart enough to realize…

I’ll never forget something Ricky Scaggs said (not a direct quote), “I can more money on 100,000 with my own record than I can selling 1,000,000 for someone else.” And he said that 10 years ago.

Great blog – I really enjoy it.

By: TobyFlattsfan01

TobyFlattsfan01 — Fri, 05 Oct 2007 02:28:20 +0000

Dolly’s right, if you take a look at what the likes of Toby Keith, Tracy Lawrence, Emerson Drive, Little Big Town have done on indie labels (or in Toby’s and Tracy’s case, owning them), they have been making better music than most of the guys on the Sony/BMG monopoly. The only guys on the roster that have been up to par have been Martina, Alan, Brad, and Sara.

And Jim, I agree on what you think commercially. Unless you still have momentum at radio like Toby did in 2005 when he decided to launch Show Dog records, you’re not going to have a gold record or a top ten hit.

By: Jim Malec

Jim Malec — Wed, 03 Oct 2007 16:53:26 +0000

Simple answer? No. Major labels are going to have to change the way they do buisness–that’s a FACT. But to sell records at a superstar level takes a perfectly-timed convergence of promotion, publicity, and distribution on a global scale that only a mega can provide.

We know that a self-label or an indie label can be more profitable on a much smaller number of units, but those smaller labels are just unable to launch superstars.