5 Things Record Labels Don't Want You to Know They Do

[Tom22]

You've read so much about the music industry and its upstanding business practices that you likely think there isn't anything else we could tell you that would come as a surprise. But some record label tactics are so covert that it takes a fair amount of digging just to find out they exist. Here are a few things record labels don't want you to know that they still do in an effort to separate you -- and the artists -- from your hard-earned cash. Things like ...

Read more: http://www.cracked.com/article_20256_5-t...z2LZbh8WsZ

Great article and it references other great articles too.

Really a must read for curious people.

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Teasers on the topics.

5) Great info about lots of ways artists/labels can make money and receive royalties with public play of music, not record sales. Other articles linked in that and to me, it wasn't really the point but the details and trends that I found interesting.

4) REALLY Interesting description with embedded audio files/videos that quickly make it clear why music sounds like sh#t today . Compression of the "loudness" that takes all of the cristpness and dynamics of the rhythym section out of it . You got to go and see those for yourself if you're interested in music

3) Paying to get on radio - described how it has always been poltics and connections that got radio play but that it has gone a step further and taken the past tit-for-tat games to another level by outright paying to have songs played.

2) Playing big games with sales numbers to appear on the charts -- collusion with record stores and other things (maybe I was too harsh on Miguels idea to buy and return albums 8 month ago.. might be the way of the world)

1) ways labels screw the artists out of revenues from actual sales of albums; we've seen this in other posts here. Idea that the advance gets eaten up by costs.. often padded. There's a line from Lyle Lovett that he hasn't seen a penny from an album that had $4 million in sales.