Beatles History Lesson...You Do The Math

For half a century (!) Beatles' fans have been debating the fact that Capitol Records released different versions of the Beatles' recordings than their British counterpart Parlophone Records, a practice that lasted through the release of Revolver.  Capitol generally released albums with fewer songs, combined songs from different UK albums or EPs or created completely different compilations of songs.  First generation American fans are still jarred when they hear the British versions of albums like Help!  and Rubber Soul. On the other hand, this practice led to some purely American classics like the Beatles’ Second Album and of course Yesterday and Today.

            I've always subscribed to the theory that this practice was motivated by pure greed, i.e. Capitol could sell more records if they offered less songs per album than the British company.  I think that my theory has been slightly modified by the esteemed Bruce Spizer.  As an aside, all Beatle fans owe a debt of gratitude to Spizer, a New Orleans tax attorney who has published a series of fascinating and detailed books on the history of the Beatles' recordings in both the United States and England.  Although expensive, his books are well worth seeking out.

            In his book The Beatles Story on Capitol Records Volume 2, Spizer points out that in 1964 the statutory mechanical royalty rate (i.e. the amount the record company had to pay the music publisher per song per record) was 2 cents.  By contrast the rate today is 9.1 cents.  To quote  Spizer "although this may sound trivial today a reduction in the number of tracks on an album could cause significant savings when considering the value of money at that time."  Spizer goes on to say that by putting 12 songs on an album instead of 14 (as most British labels did) the company could save $40,000.00 per each million records sold and they could save an additional $20,000.00 by reducing the number of tracks to 11 (Spizer, P. 24).

            That's obviously a lot of money in 1964 dollars – according to the consumer price index calculator $60,000 in 1964 would be $461,309 today.  Of course all of this sounds silly when you're talking about the Beatles catalog but remember that no one in the record business in 1964 figured that this music would still be around in 50 years (or  that we would be gladly buying the records over and over) It's even more interesting to look at the Beatles' artist royalty rate on their early recordings, but that's another story.

Selling Zappa

            As anyone who has read my little blog over the past few years knows, I have a real interest in alternate methods of music distribution.  I also have a professional interest in crowd-sourced funding, since many clients of mine have experimented with it to various degrees.  Finally, I am a huge fan of Frank Zappa, for many different reasons.

            So, I was fascinated with the recent announcement from Frank’s widow, Gail Zappa of a new distribution concept intended to raise approximately $1,000,000.00 needed to complete a video release of Frank’s 1973 concerts at the Roxy Theater in Los Angeles.  Apparently these shows were professionally filmed as well as recorded (Zappa fans know the original album “Roxy and Elsewhere”).

            Gail has asked “1,000 highly motivated sensitive and discerning individuals” to become distributors of the audio soundtrack of the concert.  According to Gail’s press release those individuals who contribute $1,000.00 to the Zappa Family Trust have the right to distribute the recording of the concert however they see fit, except that these so‑called distributors have to pay the trust mechanical royalties and report their sales to them.

            This concept is interesting but fatally flawed.  In this environment of internet piracy free‑for‑all (probably imagined by Frank at some point) there is no way that the patrons of this cause are going to make any actual money selling the recordings and if they do, the average fan is going to be ill-equipped to know how to go about reporting and paying mechanical royalties.  Hell, it’s difficult enough to get record companies to do this. What happens if they don’t pay? Does the Zappa trust sue them?

            I may be wrong, there may be 1,000 Zappa fans worldwide who will pay $1,000.00 for the privilege of being an exclusive Zappa distributor and if so this is the apex of the crowd funded money raising model but I don’t think that will be the case.

            Still kudos to Gail Zappa for trying something new.  It’s nice to see that Frank’s legacy as an iconoclast lives on.