The 7" vinyl record. I just released 2 more of them. And have another lined up. All great material I'm excited about. All of bands that tour a lot, and a good mix of bands. Merkit from Ft. Myers Fl. Demian from Brazil. I Object from upstate NY. FxPxO from Macedonia. Environmental Youth Crunch from St. Augustine Fl. Defiance Ohio from Bloomington. Some bands have done stuff on "bigger labels" already - No Idea, Alternative Tentacles... One release is split between two labels, one of them between four labels.So why am I worried? And what about? I have a storefront where very few people buy 7" records. Pretty much almost none except the super "into it" fans all of who work at the store. Whever someome is going through the 7"s you pretty much know they are either from out of town, or just bored. I even remember talking to Jacob of EYC about stuff we've gotten recently and we both concluded we rarely buy 7"s. And you can't look on any scene-y message board without a few daily posts of people selling off all the 7"s they have.
Ok so I won't sell much. That's not really a problem or the intent. The purpose of the label is for documentation, fun, but also certainly partially for sharing documented bands etc. But if so few people get 7"s (or even vinyl??) what's the point? I'm kinda of worried that maybe this isn't being done right. I was very glad when Merkit came through town and had a tour cdr of the material they had recorded - since otherwise they'd only have tapes and 7"s. I've seen bands put in cdr with the 7". Or how Shellac put a CD version of 1000 Hurts in with the vinyl, and sold the vinyl w/ CD for cheaper than the cost of just the CD. The new Black Heart Procession has a coupon w/ the record to go download the music. But with smaller labels to survive you need a product to sell to keep it going and release more records, but you also don't have funds to put a CD, or even CDR, into every vinyl release. Alteratively you could just post mp3s for free and that's it - but you'd really be amazed how many people don't care about the music you make if it's free.
A lot of the music is short punk songs. Some of it is really noisy and intense I guess, certainly for some. In an interview with In/Humanity they stated about the discography CD that it 'isn't meant to be listen through all the way. Who the fuck would do that?' It's taken from all the early 7"s - out of that context and all together is just too much.
Maybe it's the context the bands want to create. If you have to go through the trouble of playing a 7" that will only last a few minutes, you really listen to it. You read the lyrics, read the song explanations. It's not a long playing LP that you can have in the background - or even a CD or Ipod on shuffle. The latter two formats make music so commodified, so easily taken for granted, that it's that much easier to ignore artistic statement. That much easier to distort context. To skip this track and go to the next. Is technology making music a victim of it's own success? Too much music, so little time...
And economic factors - a 7" doesn't cost a whole lot. Packaging is, well, smaller than a CD - but big enough can screen print it. Recording costs are lowered since it's not a full length.
A band recording and releasing anything in any format - it all seems so accessible to everyone, and that's great, but... will less and less stand out as a flood of music and releases are created? Truly a victim of it's own success?
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Yeah alot of 'noise' labels use cdrs and tapes (as well as vinyl) and often you'll see, this get more obscure as far as format, floppy computer disks, mini disks etc.
Tapes are used alot by labels in 'poorer' countries, 3rd world, etc where CD and record players aren't the norm. alot of label in the US. will do tape releases to trade with these foreign countries. At least that's rather prevalent in the hardcore / punk community. Mainly as a way to, not only create an accessible format, but also as a way to dimish the gap inherent in comparing the 1st and 3rd world.
I don't think interesting packaging is gimmicky - or at the least it's creative first. Maybe then, gimmicky second? Not that you can 'judge a book by it's cover', but alot of (sometimes / generally accurate) pre-conceived notions about the music can be made by the album art. And in this same way packaging conveys a message, maybe even a stronger one. Stamped, painted, screened, stenciled, origami, burnt edges - obviously many more variations etc exist. To me this shows the artist is more involved in the final product. It certainly takes away from the big business angle of "I got 1000 CDs in Jewel cases w/ 4 color inserts and shrinkwrap for $1100."
A very large problem of creative packaging is that since it doesn't fit any norm, alot of stores and distributors won't carry it. Stores have racks for records(ok well good stores have records), CDs and maybe 7"s. An oddball size/format might very well stand out if the store have space accomodations, but most stores don't.
Or people who package CD's in 7" cases. Bad idea. No one will ever find you CD. Even CDs in those cardboards cases, larger distributors don't touch them. When I used to do the traveling distro, I'd accumulate so many alternatively packaged items. Few people bought them because you could read from the side (like on a CD) that it was.
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