Exclusive Deals? Help or Hurt sales?

With the success of bands like AC/DC and Jouney (among others) signing an exclusive deal with a big retailer, other bands are starting to look for their own exclusive deals (Aerosmith & Kiss are both rumored to be dealing exclusively with Walmart) to sell actual cd's in the digital/download age. Guns N' Roses latest release was a Best Buy exclusive and yeilded mixed results.

Green Day, on the other hand, refused to release an "edited" version of their latest release 21st Century Breakdown and Walmart, who has a long standing policy of not selling music with Parental Advisory stickers and offer edited alternatives, refused to stock their cd. Despite exluding a huge retail market like Walmart, Green Day still managed to sell approximately 215,000 cd's in it's 1st week of release.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090521/ap_en_mu/us_music_green_day

Do you think "exclusive deals" help or hurt sales in this day & age?

In the case of AC/DC, the Wal-Mart connection definitely helped. They sold more copies of BLACK ICE via Wal-Mart in its first week of release than the last album (STIFF UPPER LIP) sold in its entire first year, and that was available everywhere. Wal-Mart are the masters of the Hype Machine, too, so they made sure everyone was aware that a new AC/DC album was coming and that they were the only store where you could get it. I went into a Wal-mart about a week before BLACK ICE came out, and unless you were blind and/or deaf you couldn't miss the fact that the album was coming soon. They had posters everywhere, racks of T-shirts and other exclusive merchandise, AC/DC videos and commercials for the new CD were playing on the in-store TVs, yadda yadda yadda, They turned it into an "event."

I would think that GNR was a relative flop mainly because Best Buy isn't as widespread as Wal-Mart. They have half (maybe even less than half) as many stores. I don't know what Best Buy did as far as in-store promotion but I didn't see much hype for it on TV. Of course good ol' Axl did absolutely nothing to pimp the release of the album either. On the other hand, maybe Best Buy simply over-estimated how many people still cared about GNR.

Interesting that Green Day were able to move that many units without Wal-Mart though. I have no use for that band but I gotta admire their attitude of "Screw Wal-Mart, we don't need'em."

I think if you are veteran band like AC/DC or Journey it helps your sells, radio is for the most part not going play your newest release, so a Walmart is going to help your sells with their big promos.

I think if Queen had signed an exclusive deal their album 'Cosmos Rocks' would have sold better. As far as the Guns n Roses deal, Axl refused to promote it and also their is noooooooo way any album could live to hype that album had generated during the 13 years it took Axl and his hired crew of lotion boys to complete recording it.

manny wrote:

Axl and his hired crew of lotion boys

Maybe if they'd changed the name of the band from "Guns N Roses" to "Axl and His Hired Crew of Lotion Boys" it would've gotten more notice. I mean, imagine the album cover and t-shirt possibilities. No, wait, I just did. Ewwwww.

Quote :

Interesting that Green Day were able to move that many units without Wal-Mart though. I have no use for that band but I gotta admire their attitude of "Screw Wal-Mart, we don't need'em."

Yea, that's what I found interesting as well.

I guess more to the point of this topic was:

Can bands still sell cd's without the help of big retailers?

I guess more to the point of this topic was:

Can bands still sell cd's without the help of big retailers?[/quote]

The answer seems to be no, look at what No Doubt are doing on their summer tour, if you buy a more expensive ticket, they give you a card and code that allows you to download their entire discography (including Bsides and unreleased tracks ) for free. No Doubt have little faith in a record label making sure their fans have access to their music and this is a platinum act!

I think it still depends on the act. Everybody talks about The Eagles and how well they did with the Wal-Mart exclusive. The real score was for the band themselves who were able to pocket $4 per CD sold which is more than double what they would have made from a regular label deal. However, it's the Eagles, they could have sold the album anywhere and it would have made money...but the label would have benefited, not the band.

Heaven & Hell debuted at Number 8 on the Billboard charts and that album is available for sale everywhere. (not counting Wal-Mart's stupid alternate cover).

I think we'll continue to see a lot of experimenting over the next couple years, as bands and labels try to figure out ways to make money in this tough economic climate.

*side note*

My favorite "trend" that I've seen is bands releasing albums on vinyl and including download cards with the LP that allows you to get the .mp3s. That way you can play it on your turntable at home and load it on your ipod/computer.

I think this trend will only continue as it seems to be mostly a win-win for both the band and the retailer. Retailers are obviously pretty much going to only deal with well known and established acts with a fairly large fan base. The advertising that a band gets from this is probably much better than they might do on their own.

Depending on how the deal is structured both the band and the retailer can make more money from the cd than a traditional deal.

It will work for awhile but what about when the established bands finally fade out. How do bands get established in this day and age?

The Wal Mart exclusive didn't seem to help Loverboy at all. Who's to blame?

TheNazgul wrote:

The Wal Mart exclusive didn't seem to help Loverboy at all. Who's to blame?

Well it is Loverboy after all. What's their fanbase now? 25 or so 40-year-old soccer moms?