Record Store Day A Big Hit

The annual Record Store Day was held last Saturday and, as always, it was a big hit, setting a 12 year sales high.

Indie record stores recorded 532,000 album sales for the day, which represented more than 21% of all physical sales and almost 12% of overall sales.

It was an almost 50% increase from the week before, and many record stores reported that this one day was equivalent to 2 weeks of normal sales. Many stores even said that it was their best sales day ever.

Half of the vinyl chart slots for the week were occupied by records released specifically for the event, such as The White Stripes Get Behind Me Satan in the #2 spot, and Bob Dylan's The Basement Tapes at #6.

That said, the best selling release wasn't a vinyl record at all. It was Metalllica's cassette-only release No Life Till Leather, which sold 3,000 units.

While the heyday of the record store probably won't ever return, there is still some enthusiasm for physical formats and the stores that sell them. If only every day could be like Record Store Day, the music business would be in a much better place.

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Who Are The Most Covered Artists?

One of the goals of a songwriter is to write a song that is covered by many artists. This is the ultimate stamp of approval, in that the song is considered so good that singers want to sing it, and artists feel compelled to record their own versions.

Whosampled.com did a study to determine the most covered artists of all time. Not surprisingly, The Beatles lead by a wide margin, with Bob Dylan, Stevie Wonder, Frank Sinatra, and other musical icons in the mix.

When it comes to the most covered songs, The Beatles have no less than 6 out of the top 20, and are the only artists to appear on the chart more than once, a fitting tribute to their writing abilities.

While the artist covers chart seemed about right, the song cover chart has a few entries that are head scratchers, but still is very interesting.

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Marketing Bob Dylan All Over Again

Bob Dylan - 1962

By now you’ve probably at least heard about the latest video to capture our collective online hearts - the first official video of Bob Dylan’s most famous song “Like A Rolling Stone.” The video has caused a sensation not only because it’s interactive, but mostly because it’s based around the concept of doing something we all do probably too much of; watching television. On this video, the viewer can change between different “channels” that represent a cross-section of what we have available today (16 in all), meaning news, reality, sports, game shows, a children’s cartoon and finally a vintage of live video from 1966 of Dylan and the The Hawks (later to become The Band) performing the song.

What’s disconcerting is that each of the television scenarios has the actors lip synching the song, but acting as they normally would on their prospective channels, so there’s a big disconnect between the song lyrics and how the actors are saying it. The interactive part where the user can change the channel is a tribute to technology as the each channel stays in perfect sync regardless of where during the song the channel change is made.

Forget the phenomena of the video for a moment and think about the marketing that the video represents. As brilliant of an artist as Dylan is, he peaked a long time ago and has been mostly irrelevant for at least a few decades. That’s no knock on him, as the same thing happens to all but a few artists. Sometimes it’s the market that dictates it, while other times it’s the artist him or herself that pulls away as the ability to enjoy the fruits of one’s success grows. Either way, the man doesn’t have to push himself anymore as he’s earned his freedom to do whatever he desires.

That’s exactly why I don’t believe that he’s the driving factor behind this video, but that fact is almost irrelevant. There’s some brilliant marketing that we’re witnessing.

First of all, the video revives a hit from 1965. Think about that for a moment. This isn’t a remake or a duet with a new hot artist, it’s the original song, which as great as it is, is still 48 years old! Read more on Forbes.

Join the conversation and let me know how Bob Dylan impacted your life. Share a lesson learned from Dylan below, and please share this post if you know others who’s lives were touched by Dylan.

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Help support this blog. Any purchases made through our Amazon links help support this website with no cost to you.

You should follow me on Twitter and Facebook for daily news and updates on production and the music business.

Check out my Big Picture blog for discussion on common music, engineering and production tips and tricks.