the RIAA on music economics

The cost of recording and promoting a major album can easliy top $1 million, and only one out of every ten ever turns a profit.

http://www.musicunited.org/4_shouldntdoit.html

note: yes, easily is spelled wrong above

The quote above is from the RIAA. According to the RIAA: “The Recording Industry Association of America is the trade group that represents the U.S. recording industry.”, although it only represents some of the US recording industry.

He went on about how record companies need money to do “research and development,” and that they’re essentially “venture capitalists” who will sign somewhere around 20 new artists per season, lose money on 17 of them, break even on 2, and make a lot of money on 1. It’s that 1 artist, the Britneys and Jessicas, that make a ton of guaranteed money that allows the record company to sign less successful artists.

http://www.garone.net/anthony/archive/blogpost/386

radio commercial

Jon Shibley has a new radio commercial out for his company Lenox Financial saying something like if you harm a child, you will get the blowtorch and pliers / drill? treatment in this lifetime or the next one. (I don’t remember the exact words.)

That seems like a interesting way to make a statement against child abuse or whatever, and to sell loans.

Also, “harm” is somewhat vague. Some people would consider giving a Happy Meal to a child to be harmful.

400 vacancies?

DETENTION OFFICER: $17.32 – $20.69/hour to start. Phoenix, Arizona; Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office. Excellent benefits. No experience necessary. Contact 602-307-5245, 1-877-352-6276 or www.MCSO.org. 400 vacancies.

These ads are being run all over the US. The question is, why do they have four hundred vacancies?

JCPenney sale advertisements

JCPenney sometimes advertises that they are having/offering “door-buster” sales or deals.

Is that a good idea; having potential customers thinking about stampeding shoppers breaking down a store door?

my SuperBowl 41 rant

From what I saw of SuperBowl 41 a few days ago, it was mostly disappointing/boring.

American taxpayer money was transferred in the millions or billions to support this event.

By the way, the NFL seems to be a pro-war, Republican company.

At the start, football player Muhsin Muhammad seemingly got booed because people in the stadium may dislike people with Islamic or Muslim sounding names, even though he is not one. (UPDATE: see comments below)

Billy Joel did the National Anthem thing poorly, and he looked funny. Looks generally shouldn’t matter, but this is television.

Prince did the half-time show and it was boring and not good, no matter how sexy some women think that he is. The temporary? grandma-style head covering was interesting. The two woman dancers were somewhat goofy or some word like that. I do not understand how the selected fans that they let surround his stage were acting so excited.

Except for the first touchdown, the game consisted of rain due to no roof/not cloud seeding?, not a lot of action, a few players were looking gaunt, multiple instances of minor game rules being decided upon, seemingly unnecessary timeouts, and the Colts trying to use up the remaining time clock minutes by engaging in non-exciting no throw plays.

Then two players vandalized the famously “black” / “African-American” coach before the game was even over with liquid beverage.

I did not see all of the commercials, but from what I did see, there was nothing too special this year. Coca-Cola and Frito Lay? did some pandering commercials or something to “black” people so that they would buy their food. Some commercials were shown twice and/or were regular, non-SuperBowl commercials that I had seen before. CBS ran an excessive amount of commercials advertising their shows, some of which most people have never heard of before. CBS was also running somewhat desperate seeming time filler ads saying how great and popular they are as a network or company and also had Katie Couric, whom I do not like. Budweiser showed that they have money to spend on advertising, and that made them look good as a company.

Coach Tony Dungy could have been more humble.

I do not blame the National Football League for those somewhat wasted hours, but I do blame CBS. For some reason, I think that FOX would have done a better job.

Did I miss anything? Note that I was busy/eating and I did not watch the entire thing.

This guy thinks the game was boring also:

http://rightalways.blogspot.com/2007/02/cbs-completley-boring-superbowl.html

blame Julie Roehm?

Here is a quote from a December 8, 2006 New York Times article by Michael Barbaro and Stuart Elliott entitled ‘Wal-Mart Fires Marketing Star and Ad Agency’:

Several weeks ago, Ms. Roehm courted controversy again when she oversaw production of a holiday TV ad, known inside the company as “Sexy,” that portrayed a husband and wife discussing racy lingerie in front of their extended family. The ad drew customer complaints and was immediately taken off the air, a person involved in the matter said.

I wonder if Julie Roehm is also responsible for the Wal-Mart television commercial that appears to show a husband using a digital camera from Wal-Mart to sneakily take a picture of his wife in the shower; and then the wife squeals.

I think that I might have seen the underwear commercial, but I don’t remember it. I would be interested in seeing any of the controversial commercials. If you know where they can be viewed, leave a link in a comment.

anti-rap radio commercial?

Hoover, a company owned by Maytag that makes vacuum cleaners, has a short radio commercial.

In the commercial, there is supposedly a man singing a rap song, and then a presumably “white” woman turns on a vacuum cleaner and sucks up the rest of the man’s words.

UPDATE: basic lyrics

“I’m cruising in my ride, with sixteen switches (?); I’ve got to get my [ ? ] on while checking out the … (sucking vacuum sound).