HW: Final Word on Voiceprint

[Doug Pearson]

On Wed, 3 Apr 2002 11:01:02 +0100, =?iso-8859-1?b?TWFyayBWb24gQmFyZ2Vu?=
<mark.von-bargen at GENIEONE.CO.UK> wrote:
>I was talking to somebody in music retail a few weeks back about
>Voiceprint and the trouble I was having getting their releases.
>He told me that they are PRIMARILY A DISTRIBUTION COMPANY for small
>independent labels although they do sign up some artists themselves.

Thanks for posting this, Mark!  A lot of people here seem to not quite
understand the Voiceprint situation.  You are correct that they are NOT a
label in the traditional sense (in that actually "signing" an artist is not
the norm for them).  I suspect that their deal with Hawkwind (and the Fall,
and Man, and Gong, and all the other bands that they're releasing
on "private" labels - Cog Sinister, Point, and GAS, respectively in these 3
cases) is a "Manufacturing and Distributing" (known as M&D in the business,
and a very common practice for independent labels working with a larger
independent distributor) deal.  If that is indeed the case, then those two
tasks are probably *all* that Voiceprint is responsible for - NOT the
artwork, not the track selection, not the promotion, not the mastering, not
tour support, not any of the other things (besides manufacturing and
distribution) that "full service" labels are generally associated with (in
other words, "blaming" Voiceprint for not providing these services is
entirely misguided unless the deal is some sort of "enhanced" M&D deal that
covers more than those two tasks).

>To confuse the matter even further, he said that they also use Pinnacle
>for UK distribution (never got my head around a distribution company
>using another distribution company, tho' there must be some marketing
>reasons for it).

That's not at all uncommon.  Oftentimes, stores only want to deal with
*one* independent distributor (saves time, makes accounting simpler, etc.),
or a smaller independent distributor may distribute stuff through a larger
independent distributor in order to get its titles out to the larger stores
(Virgins & Towers & Best Buys & all).  The end result is still the same,
though - the artist always gets paid last (unless they sell direct through
their own label)!

    -Doug
     jasret at mindspring.com