Gospel Faces ‘The Perfect Storm’
Marvin Sapp's ever-increasing sales have defied the odds of the current market.
By Lisa Collins, Senior Music Editor, GospelMusicChannel.com
Say goodbye to artist hand-holding, super-sized magazine print campaigns, promo tours, artist development, and big marketing budgets to develop new acts.
These days, say hello to joint venture deals with labels where artists take on some of the risk in financing, and interactive marketing, Internet-based advertising and media campaigns, pre-programmed gospel MP3s, and digital-only releases. All of these tactics are here to stay. Gospel is beginning to look a lot different these days, due in part to the recession that has consumed the nation, coupled with the scourge of illegal downloading and music sharing that has come to threaten the very profitability of making music.
The fact is, gospel today is a whole new world. A world where the once sovereign Billboard charts are taking a back seat to CD rankings on iTunes, Amazon and Rhapsody.com. A world where the mega-platinum hit record just might be a thing of the past. And all too clearly, gone are the days when gospel thrived in spite of an economic downturn.
“In the past, we wouldn't get hit so hard because of the kind of music we make,” says Larry Blackwell, vice president and general manager of EMI Gospel. “People would always turn to the spiritual music during hard times. But if you spend more money than you're selling, you’re not recession-proof. This is the perfect storm. Everything’s going wrong at once, with illegal downloads and sharing and the recession. And the proof of that is in the numbers.”
Overall, the music industry has seen five consecutive years of declining sales, with CD sales dropping 50 percent over the last three years. Just last month, a new report showed CD sales decreasing another 11 percent for the first six months of 2008, compared to sales in the first half of 2007.
If that weren’t bad enough, Blackwell says the retail space is shrinking as well and has been for the last few years.
“We're looking at alternative retailers,” Blackwell reports. “Now, even Wal-Mart is starting to pass on records from new and developing artists, and they were everybody's biggest buyer. They buy 35 to 40 percent of gospel. But these days, you've got to have heat on a record, airplay and a solid story to tell.”
Ironically enough, the problem has little to do with the popularity of gospel music.
“Music acquisition,” says Tyscot Records president Bryant Scott, “is at an all-time high. People just don't want to buy it. Seventy percent of the people getting the music are doing it for free, with the bulk of sales lost to sharing. With tumbling sales have come tumbling budgets.”
“The cost of doing business is higher, and the return is a lot lower,” reports Demetrius Stewart, president of Pure Springs Records and manager to GRAMMY-winning artist CeCe Winans. “At the end of the day, every time you spend money it is with the hope you have the return of product sales, and when you're not sure, you have to think twice.
“For Alabaster Box, we spent upwards of $500,000 and still made money. It used to take a lot of money to get the coverage you need, but now you can’t spend that kind of money because the return is not going to be so much. And we don't have the luxury of buying for the possibility of exposure anymore. It needs to pay off.”
Karen Jackson, director of marketing for EMI Gospel, agrees: “It is not uncommon for someone to ask you to break a brand new artist for $20,000, and there are a lot of labels who will do only interactive marketing and that's it. It will also hit home with some of the older artists who have been cut from their labels and can’t understand why a new deal is yet to be found. You can forget the days of being discovered in a mall. Today, labels will want you to build your name and a solid following first.”
By all accounts, new artists could be the biggest casualty of gospel’s new way of doing business.
“We are signing new artists, but we are looking for them to be self-contained and to already have somewhat of a following,” says Damon Williams, senior director of marketing at Zomba Gospel. “Like a Jonathan Nelson – someone who’s been around for years, but is looking for that major label break.”
Vicki Mack-Lataillade, credited in breaking some of gospel’s biggest names, observes: “Putting an artist out there in the traditional sense is not going to work anymore. A lot of artists are going to get a reality check. Some of the new artists want to compete with Jay-Z, so in a sense this period is correcting the market. It’s back to ‘old-school’ where people are going to really have to be sincere about their ministry and not being the next big crossover act. That’s why Marvin Sapp is doing so well.”
That is the silver lining for those like Mack-Lataillade and Williams.
“I'm actually pleased that some of the fluff is going away,” Williams adds. “Instead it's about making music from the heart to touch the hearts of others. The hardest times always bring out the best in our character and definitely gospel is going through a period of purging. It's down to where the rubber meets the road – making the kind of music people feel compelled to buy. People are a lot more discriminating because their dollars don't go as far, but everyone has had a "never-would-have-made-it" moment (referring to the lead single from his label’s biggest seller).”
Marvin Sapp has indeed become the gold standard for what is believed will get the industry through these hard times.
Celebrating his best week yet with more than 16,000 units sold, Sapp is enjoying a bump in sales after his performance on the BET Awards. That’s a 50 percent increase from his average over the last two months.
“People will still buy gospel as long as there is a song on the album that's compelling enough to buy, and Marvin Sapp is proof of that,” says Blackwell.
The indication that people are listening to gospel now more than ever is what keeps Scott going. “We just need to create a way to get the revenue so that we can continue providing the service,” he says.
For Stewart, that means supplementing strategies with ringtones, streams, mobile phones, and feeding a growing international market. Stewart’s company Pure Springs will be partnering with Zvue this fall on a preloaded MP3 player with video capabilities that is reusable with a SIM card and loaded with tunes from CeCe Winans’ November holiday release, retailing for $49.99.
Winans is also set to hit the road this fall for a church tour that will be underwritten by love offerings.
“It’s a faith walk for her to unify the body of Christ – something she feels God is calling her to do,” says Stewart.
Tyscot’s Scott, who has somewhat taken the lead in requiring artists to come with finished masters and or participate in the financing of their projects, is also looking squarely to the church.
“I believe it's going to come down to getting black churches to help out with the situation, not from the standpoint of saying ‘if you continue to use our songs, you have to pay,’ but to get the power of their endorsement in compelling people to buy,” he says. "One thing is sure. We’re getting ready to find out what real ministry is about.”
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About the Writer
Lisa Collins, a Los Angeles native and resident, is a syndicated columnist, writer, publisher and former Billboard Magazine columnist. Her career in gospel began in 1988 with her creation of “Inside Gospel,” a daily/weekly syndicated radio series that provided news, profiles and product updates relative to the gospel music community. For the next eight years, she would also serve as executive producer of the show that was broadcast in more than 100 markets nationwide. Collins has also served as a segment producer for BET and authored well over 300 articles on a variety of issues for a number of national publications from Essence to Upscale. Her background in the field of entertainment reporting is extensive, featuring cover stories and interviews with the likes of Richard Pryor, Michael Jackson and Prince.
