We Can Find New Ways Of Living

Matador Records co-founder Gerard Cosloy was kind enough to answer a question that I asked him over on ILM about their decision to initially sell Interpol’s debut album with an artificially lower list price, which has been a strategy that some other labels have been trying lately to introduce new artists. This is precisely what I asked him: Out of curiosity, would you consider trying the ‘reduced list price’ trick again? How much of that album’s success at retail do you chalk up to the low introduction price?

This is Gerard’s response:

re: reduced list price for Interpol.

Hard for us to determine for sure just how much or how little this had to do with the album’s success at retail. The cheap price made it easier for people to check out the band and certainly made it easier for stores to take a bigger initial quantity of the album than they might’ve otherwise. On the other hand, were it not for other things happening in concert with this cheap price campaign (ie. strong press, well received gigs, lotsa college play, good word of mouth in advance of the album, good reactions to the pre-album EP, etc.) the reduced list might’ve been meaningless. We did this once before with another band’s debut album and struggled to sell a couple of thousand.

Since ‘Turn On The Bright Lights’ went up to full price in January, the sales have actually increased. Would we have seen similarly strong sales had the album gone out with a standard price last year? We’ll never know.

I’m very curious about what folks from other record labels trying this tactic would respond to the same question, particularly the major labels. For example, RCA tried this with The Strokes album, and Virgin did the same with the N.E.R.D. record. Was it entirely necessary, considering the fact that MTV et al embraced those artists rather quickly, especially in the case of N.E.R.D. who were already technically superstars in the industry? Also, I wonder about how much of a budget deficit this strategy creates, since in addition to the small fortune being spent on advertising and store shelfspace, they’re probably not making any money off the record itself til they increase the list price and even then it may take longer than usual to break even, much less make a profit. This business model seems like it could screw the artist over even worse than the average record contract, even if the idea of decreasing list prices is a very appealing one. It’s such a gamble.