Mixed blessings

It seems like the limitless availability of free mixes and podcasts hasn't stopped labels from putting out mix CDs by DJs and non-DJs alike. This month, both Gui Boratto and Booka Shade are putting out mixes, even though they're producers and live acts, while mixes from well-known names like Bug and Villalobos - although his Fabric CD is an unusual mix/artist album hybrid - also appear. Meanwhile, Agoria is the latest person to put together one of the 'At The Controls' series and other selections from Alter Ego, Secretsundaze and Andrew Weatherall, in punk/rockabilly mode show that labels' appetite for releasing the format has not yet diminshed. But how well are mix CDs selling? Anecdotal evidence suggests that sales have dipped in the past few years, undoubtedly hit by the availability of free sets online. Last year, I was writing a feature on a well-known European DJ who was releasing a new mix CD, his first in 4-5 years. The label manager told me that a few years ago, the label could have expected to sell 15,000 to 20,000 copies, but that in the current climate would be happy to shift anywhere between 7,000 to 10,000 units. That was nearly 12 months ago, and there can be little doubt that in the interim, broadband penetration in the US, Asia and Europe has increased. In the past, the mix CD format acted as a filter, a way for fans and aspiring DJs to check out what tunes their favourite DJs were playing - and then to buy them all. The format was (and hopefully still is) a way for small labels to earn some extra revenue through licensing and was also a guarantee that any of the featured tracks on a mix would sell more copies thanks to the patronage of a well-known name. Nowadays, while licensing still brings in some welcome cash, the filtering effect has become more dispersed and fragmented, with online offerings joining the taste-making hierarchy. Beats In Space and Cybernetic Broadcasting are just two examples of small, independently-run websites with large, loyal followings because their owners, Tim Sweeney and I-F (as well as all the other 'robots' who play on his station) have become destinations for anyone interested in the respective styles that they support. Certainly, support from a big name will help an obscure artist, but judging on the nature of the mixes commercially available this month, a big name is no longer enough to guarantee success. Many labels have twigged that it could make better business sense to employ a popular producer/act - both Booka Shade and Boratto fit this bill - get a well-known DJ to present an unusual side to their tastes - in many ways, Weatherall's 'Lo Fi Sci Fi' is the inspiration for his recent Swordsmen albums and should be seen as a 'raw material compendium' - or to bastardise the format, and I mean that positively, as Villalobos has done. Otherwise, labels might be looking at lean times ahead.

Comments

[tom/pipecock]

you can definitely see the effect of any record (old or new) getting play on CBS: the wants list on discogs will grow very quickly!

i feel like the deejays putting up mixes online are 99.9% of the time more interesting than the licensed real mix CDs. a certain forum im a member of (not exactly a public forum) has such a ridiculous set of mixes just from the forum members that its tough to even get to them all!

[Chymera]

with mixes put up on the net, there's no need to worry about licensing issues. I wonder how different many released CD mixes would sound if they had been able to put on all the tracks they initially wanted to license. There's always people who will refuse to license their tracks to compilations. With online mixes the original vision of the DJ is not compromised.

[SoulFunkLifestyles]

"There's always people who will refuse to license their tracks to compilations."

True.

I've read Tony Humphries couldn't procure licensing to include A Guy Called Gerald's "Voodoo Ray" on his Azuli Compilation (dropped a few years back).

[Brophy]

@ Tom - totally agree - the vast majority of the good mixes I have I downloaded for free. This makes the labels play it even safer with tracklistings....

@ Chymera - most people give permission to licensing, it's free money after all, apart from some money grabbing US house producers...

@SoulFunk - depends who the copyright owner was, but they probably wanted mad money for it