Ask 411Music 9.24.02: The Inaugural Edition!

Posted by Adam Wallis on 09.24.2002

CD Clubs, Praga Khan, Justin Timberlake, Korn vs. Orgy, The Rarest Record In The World, Eminem vs. Everlast, Eminem vs. Limp Bizkit, Matthew Wilder… How can you resist all this useless information?

Hello, I’m Adam and this is the newest branch of Ask 411, Ask 411Music. For future reference, this column will be written approximately whenever I get enough letters to fill out an entire column (for the sake of argument, I’ll just arbitrarily choose 10, although this one is getting posted with a few less than that because I promised it for the weekend). Hopefully that will resemble something like twice a month, although only time will tell. And now, the very first letter…

MrCharisma91: Hey man, I have had a question that no one has been able to answer for me for quite some time. I'm hoping you can help me out. You know how Columbia House has 14 CDs for a penny deals? I know that they make their money back from charging like $20 a CD later, but how do the artists whose CDs are purchased make money?

Ah, Record Clubs. You’ve probably seen the colorful advertisements for BMG or Columbia House, the two most well known Record Clubs, offering you 12 CDs for the price of one as long as you pay for the shipping. These Clubs have actually been around in some form or another since the 70’s, and still do business to this day despite virtually giving albums away. How do they do it?

Well, they start by not paying royalties. The sad truth is that artists rarely, if ever, get a full royalty from Club sales. Usually, an artist won’t receive a royalty at all for copies of CDs given away free as part of Club promotions (much like they wouldn’t receive royalties for promotional copies given out), and will only get half their normal royalty for an album sold through the club. However, if an artist has a high enough profile, they can re-negotiate their contract to restrict what albums are available to be sold through the clubs, or to eliminate their albums from being offered altogether.

There’s another secret of how Record Clubs not only stay in business, but continue to make money over the years, too: they’re actually run by the record companies themselves. Don’t believe me? Take a gander at the webpage for BMG Music, the parent company of BMG Music Club, where they proudly proclaim their ties to RCA and Arista Records, among others. That’s also why you can’t buy certain albums from Columbia House or BMG Music Clubs - the artists aren’t signed to the parent label (although with business in the centralized state it’s currently in, I wouldn’t be at all surprised if one company owned both of them now).

Another thing to keep in mind is that, as anyone that’s ever actually subscribed to one of these 12-CDs-for-a-penny deals will tell you, the shipping costs are absolutely ridiculous. I mean, come on now, it can’t possibly cost $35 to ship 8 CDs via 4th Class Bookrate, can it? The answer, of course, is no, and it’s the Record Club’s way of trying to recoup all of the expense of shipping and still pocket some money in the end. Now, let’s look at that figure again, shall we? $35 to ship 8 CDs. Subtract the actual shipping cost of something like $5, and we have $30 for 8 CDs. Subtract another $2, the cost to press the CDs (including liner notes), and we’re left with $14 for 8 CDs - $1.75 for each CD. This will cover advertising costs and things like that.

So, that explains how they manage to stay in business, but you’re probably wondering how they actually make money (or at least more than seven cents an album). Well, compare the price of a CD at the mall to the price of a CD from BMG or Columbia House. Since it’s immediately visible on the BMG homepage, let’s use Usher’s 8.7.01. The suggested retail for 8.7.01 is about $18, and there it is for $17.90 on the BMG homepage. However, when you buy an album from a record store, the store itself actually had to buy the record too, through a distributor. That’s just how retail works. But, of course, the store paid far less (usually $5 or so) than you for that CD - that’s called the "wholesale" price. This price is already engineered to make the record label a tidy profit, while at the same time not being prohibitively high. The amount of money the record store tacks on to the price is called "mark-up," and it’s how the store makes a profit. So when you buy an album from a record club, you’re not only paying the label the wholesale cost that’s already engineered to make them a profit, but you’re also giving them those few extra dollars that would make up the retail cost - which, over time, can become quite profitable for them.

Moving on, Gray Hogan has a list: Has Praga Khan released anything new?
Is it just me or does the new song by Korn "Thoughtless" sound a lot like "Stitches" by Orgy?
When did Justin Timberlake start working with the NERD group (aka the neptunes) and despite their help, should we care?
Is fruityloops the end all be all of computer-enhanced/generated music?
Have any of the newest hip/hop acts decided to rip off the Bulgarian Womens Choir?

1) Actually, yes. In the past two years, the Belgian rave guru has actually released three new albums: Mixed Up (Antler Subway Records, 2001), Free Your Body (Instinct Records, 2002), and Freakazoidz (Antler Subway, 2002).

2) It’s not just you. Korn and Orgy, however, have a long-standing relationship: Orgy guitarist Ryan Shuck had collaborated with Korn’s Jonathan Davis before the band’s first album even came out, and Orgy was the first band signed to Korn’s "personal" record label, the Elementree branch of Reprise Records. Even with the riff coppage, the two bands will probably still be friends at the end of the day.

3) The collaboration started with *Nsync’s Celebrity album. The Neptunes provided the beat for the song "Girlfriend," which was later re-mixed in collaboration with Nelly. As for the second part, I thought Celebrity was a great album for what it was, and Timberlake actually wrote or co-wrote 5 songs, and produced 3 of them, so hopefully his solo album will be a decent follow-up. But if you don’t like *Nsync already, then you should probably stay pretty far away from this one.

4) I highly doubt it. For those unfamiliar with computer-generated music, Fruityloops is a computer program that aids in the creation of loops, beats, and songs (available for trial download at www.fruityloops.com). For now, it has probably the best combination of user-friendly interface, power, and control, but I’m sure someone somewhere will release a better program sometime in the near future.

5) To the best of my knowledge, no, although the last Bulgarian Women’s Choir album was produced by Roxy Music’s keyboard player.

Gary Koutsoubos calls me on something I said last time around: Why is Jean-Michel Jarre's Music for Supermarkets considered the rarest record in the world?

For those that didn’t read it, this is a reference to the mini-article I wrote to hype Ask 411Music, in which I mentioned that Music For Supermarkets is the rarest record in the world. The story behind the album is this: Jarre, a pioneer of electronic music, recorded the album as a companion piece to an art exhibit in the late 70’s. Since the record was never intended for commercial release, Jarre insisted that only one copy of the record be pressed, just for the art exhibit. And after that, he ordered the master tapes be destroyed, thus making it impossible to ever press more copies. So, since there’s only one copy in existence, it’s become the world’s rarest record. Incidentally, I have absolutely no idea what’s become of that one copy.

From Kisc: Alright, here's a stupid one that Scooter won't answer.

Eminem seems to have heat with some folks: Everlast, DJ Lethal and Fred
Durst of Bizkit, are the folks I'm aware of.

Now, if you can tell me how that all go started, that would be fun.
Otherwise, this is a question that you might be more willing to answer:
Where does one go to get STARTED looking for information on stuff like this?
I was downloading MP3s of Eminem, to see what his non-singles were like, and
found a couple with him really going after the above-mentioned folks. Just
listening to them was interesting, you could get a feel for the issues, but
no real meat, so to speak.

I don't care a great deal for any of these artists ... someone who's opinion
I respect (and agree with) said that Fred Durst is the biggest twink in
creation and Limp Bizkit would be an awesome band without him, I think;
Everlast is now a two hit wonder, which I can only imagine must be a strange
place; Eminem's singles tend to interest me, but the rest of his CDs do not
(I require interest in the entire CD to either consider myself a fan, or to
purchase the CD) ... but I have this desire to know stuff like this.

Funny you would mention that "Scooter" wouldn’t answer this one, because I never understood why people ask him all sorts of random music questions.

Right. Getting back to your question, supposedly this all originates from either a concert Everlast and Eminem had together, or a night when they both had gigs in the same city; keep in mind that this took place back when Eminem was still considered an "up-and-coming artist" and Everlast was being played on the radio pretty frequently. According to legend, Em passed the former House of Pain member in the lobby of a hotel, and failed to acknowledge him, which in turn pissed Everlast off - him being the ‘hip-hop veteran’ and everything. But the ‘heat’ between Em and Everlast didn’t really begin until Everlast guested on a Dilated Peoples track, called "Ear Drum Loops." In it, Everlast said "I’ll buck a .380 on the ones that act shady/lift up your skirt and expose your panties for the world to see" - a pretty direct message to ol’ Slim. Eminem responded by recording "I Remember (Dedication to Whitey Ford)," which was essentially nothing but a really long burn directed at Everlast, where Eminem called him a "dickless piece of shit" and made fun of his history of heart trouble.

Pretty soon after, Limp Bizkit were guests on TRL, and were asked what they thought about the feud between the two. DJ Lethal, who had previously been a member of the rap group House of Pain with Everlast, said something to the effect of "They’re both men, they’ll work it out," but also added that if it ever came down to a fight, Everlast would win (and I’d have to agree, since he’s got about a hundred pounds on Eminem). Eminem took offense to that remark, but didn’t really do much about it until the D12 album was set to come out, since DJ Lethal was supposed to help out with a song called "Quitter." But when Lethal found out that the song was another jab at Everlast, he backed out due to his connections and friendship with him. Eminem got royally pissed, and wrote the song "Girls" as a way of getting back at Lethal, and wound up insulting Fred Durst in that song too (probably because it’s just so easy). Oddly, Eminem had previously been on good terms with Durst, and even teamed up with him on a song once before.

Anyway, if you’re looking for where to go to find information about artist feuds and stuff, try just searching Google. You could also try searching the news archives at VH1.com or MTV.com (where I "crib" all my third-hand music news from), since they usually have pretty detailed articles about musical feuds and that kind of thing.

Billy asks: here is one for the "where are they now?" column….
Matthew Wilder...he had one hit in the 80's called "break my stride"....i
noticed on the no doubt BTM on Vh1 there is a guy by the same name who is
their producer?? is this the same guy?

Matt Wilder, actually, is one of the few people that have been able to overcome the stigma of being a one-hit wonder and still have a successful career in the music industry. Before he broke into the charts with "Break My Stride" in 1983, he sang back-up for Rickie Lee Jones and Bette Midler, and was also in a two-man folk group. After his second album flopped, he turned away from recording and began producing instead; among other albums, he produced No Doubt’s Tragic Kingdom. However, I don’t believe he’s worked with the band since then.

So, in a word: yes.

And that wraps it up for this edition of Ask 411 Music. As always, if there’s a burning question about music you’ve got, feel free to email me at