Different Circles

“Fine,” Doolittle said with a sigh of impatience. “Let’s get this part out of the way then. We are prepared to manufacture and distribute both of these CDs for the standard cost of operations. I have the figure here in front of me.” He shuffled through some papers for a moment. “We will manufacture and distribute up to one million copies of each CD for the upfront cost of two hundred and twenty-five thousand dollars per CD.”

Jake, Celia, and Pauline all shared a look. Matt, who had never negotiated such a thing before, did not pick up on this. “Two hundred and twenty-five big?” he asked. “For each one? That’s an assload!”

“Actually, Matt,” Jake corrected, “it’s not. It’s considerably less than we were charged by National for our first CDs and by Aristocrat for the subsequent ones.”

“Really?” Matt asked.

“Really,” Pauline said. She looked at the suits. “What’s the game here? Are you going to try to fuck us on the promotion aspect?”

“We’re not trying to fuck anyone here,” Crow said.

Jake barked out a laugh. “Says the soldier who leads his squad into the whorehouse for a ‘security sweep’.”

“What?” Crow asked.

“I’m saying I’m having a hard time believing that statement,” Jake translated. “Now what’s the deal here?”

“There is no deal,” Doolittle said. “Piddly expenses like the cost of manufacturing and distribution are not something to waste time arguing about. We’ll manufacture and distribute the CDs at cost. Surely you have no objection to that?”

“Don’t fuckin’ call me Shirley,” Matt said.

“What?” Doolittle asked, exasperated a bit.

“I was gonna say that,” Jake said with a shake of the head. He then returned to the business at hand. “All right. You manufacture and distribute for cost only. I’m assuming that when we sell more than a million copies we will be charged the same rate?”

“If you sell more than a million copies, yes,” said Doolittle. “The same rate, broken down into increments of one hundred thousand and billed to KVA after the fact, will apply.”

“If we sell more than a million copies?” asked Celia. “You do plan to promote these CDs to the best of your abilities, correct?”

“Of course,” Crow said. “After all, it helps our cause if you are getting some airplay and appearing on the charts.”

“Then why the if?” Jake asked. “Do you not have faith in us?”

“You have proven yourself quite canny when it comes to finding acts and producing CDs, Jake” Crow said. “We have learned to trust you in this department and we’re sure these CDs will at least go Platinum.”

“We’re anticipating multi-Platinum for both of them,” Jake said.

“That would be nice if it happens, but nobody is really expecting that,” said Crow. “You see, the times are changing. It’s all about the touring now. The modern music consumer is not all that interested in new material from classic artists these days. They just want to see you live and are willing to shell out a considerable amount of money for the privilege.”

“It’s actually quite exciting,” Doolittle said. “Our focus for the next century will be increasingly on touring and concert revenue. The actual CDs are becoming only the vehicle that justifies the tour. We are no longer obsessed with how many copies a CD sells or even the underlying quality of it when it comes to established acts such as you, Celia, and you, Matt.”

“Insane,” Celia said, shaking her head in disbelief.

“And this change in paradigm came about when you figured out that you could charge market rate for concert tickets?” Jake asked.

“That was one of the catalysts, of course,” Doolittle said, “but it was mostly the shifting of attitudes in the music consumer. CDs are simply not selling as well as they used to, likely because of saturation of the market by independent labels such as yourselves.”

“Wow,” Jake said, marveling over the fact that this trio actually seemed to believe the bullshit they were spouting. They had killed the goose that laid the golden egg by spending the last twenty years signing low-talent acts that looked good on camera instead of acts that made good music. And when the consumers started to get tired of mediocre tunes and CD sales dropped, they did not blame themselves for it, but declared it was just a natural evolution in consumer attitude and an influx of tunes by non-traditional channels. And they were now reinforcing their delusion by completely disregarding the fact that when those quality acts that did, somehow, manage to make it to the mainstream—acts like Celia, Brainwash, V-tach, Matt Tisdale, Jake himself—they were selling those CDs like mad because there still was and always would be a market for quality music.

“It’s all very complex,” Bailey said wisely. “This is why we employ a virtual army of behavioral specialists. So we can predict and respond to the trends in consumer behavior.”

“Yeah?” Matt asked. “How much you paying them motherfuckers? I hope it ain’t much.”