Pianist, singer and composer extraordinaire Bruce Hornsby has a new album out. It’s called “Bride of the Noisemakers.” He and his label are doing the modern thing, looking at a number of ways to get attention and sell the music. They’ve even picked out a single they’d like people to hear on radio stations.
The album, a 25-song, two-CD affair, features songs culled from Hornsby’s long career and rerecorded in live settings.
It is being offered by 429 Records, part of The Savoy Label Group, which in turn is part of Nippon Columbia.
The album will be offered at amazon.com for the first four weeks of availability, then will be available universally. One of the cuts, “Shadow Hand” will be the lead single seeking radio airplay.
RBR-TVBR observation: OK, let’s get this straight – a label wants to sell recordings, and wants radio to play the music so people get a chance to hear it, and then perhaps buy it. That’s using radio purely for its promotional value. And RIAA believes radio stations should pay a royalty for the privilege of providing this value.
As proposed, the royalty, sold by the labels as a way to assist financially-challenged musicians, would in fact benefit the label (50%) and Hornsby (45%). The other musicians who make the entire venture possible would each get a share of the remaining 5%.
Let’s put this in perspective. There are five sidemen listed as album participants. For every $1,000 in royalties collected as proposed in the Performance Rights Act, the label would get $500, Hornsby would get $450 and each sideman would get $10. And ultimately, the label portion of the royalty would be heading from US companies to Nippon Columbia, which is of course based in Japan.
So the bottom line is that labels continue to admit they want free promotion on radio stations, and the structure of PRA proves that their claim to be acting on behalf of needy musicians is a complete and utter sham.
