Dub dot dash

Kiwi musicians get rich!
Unlimited magazine's September issue has an excellent feature on NZ musicians and their recent successes here and overseas, written by Russell Brown.
"Locally produced music has roughly doubled its share of a stagnant music retail market in five years, to just over 11% in the last quarter. More artists, and a wider range of them, sell gold and platinum. The proportion of overall commercial radio airtime devoted to New Zealand music has reached 15%, up from 2% seven years ago, and at least one commercial station, Channel Z, tops a once unthinkable 30%. The industry is looking healthy... At this point a reality check is necessary: selling gold (10,000 units) and platinum (15,000) in New Zealand will not make anyone rich, especially not the recording artists, or, in most cases, their indie labels."
The story contains plenty of hard numbers detailing the growing success of New Zealand music on the radio and in the charts here. So, whats the payoff? "If we score the big one we could be looking at serious money for New Zealand — Ireland reaps $600 million annually in music exports; we currently earn about $5 million. But even if we don’t, there would be something terribly sad about living in a country that couldn’t make its own music."

For the flipside of the successes of the Datsuns, D4 and Pacifier, our bands taking it to the US, Murray Cammick has dug up some numbers too. "We hear all the good news, the hype about NZ musicians gaining releases in the USA, but we don't hear much about the reality, the sales or the cost of trying to sell those recordings."
According to Murray's research, The Datsuns album has sold 24,000 copies in the US, D4 are at 26,000 (remember their label trumpeted about shipping 100,000 copies to shops prior to release?) and Pacifier, despite 4 months intense touring in the US, have sold 9,600 albums there. Given the huge amount of money thats been pumped into their new album by their US label, you get the impression that unless one of their songs takes off at US radio, their latest shot at the big time will be chalked up to experience, and they'll shuffle back to Melbourne.

Still, they rock the bejesus out of local crowds - at the end of Pacifiers jubilant gig at the St James in Auckland, Jon Toogood walked back on stage, pulled down his jeans (exposing his Pacifier panties - ladies variety) and sprayed the front rows with a water bottle held at crotch level. The he turns and waddles offstage, with jeans still round his ankles. He's all class, that boy.
Murray told me recently that when Pacifier toured the States for this album, they didn't take their own soundperson. This is something that bands just never never do. You ALWAYS take your own soundperson, they're generally seen as an integral part of the band. Apparently the reason they didn't take one was the expense, and the soundman for the band they were supporting had a very good reputation. Weird.
So, Bic Runga may have sold 90,000 copies of her latest album, but her label Sony expect to maybe break even from that, against recording and promotion costs. Thats how Kiwi musicians are getting rich? No, its in music publishing. See Russell's article for more on this.