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RECORD INDUSTRY BLACKS AND THE ECONOMIC CRUNCH
By LeBaron Taylor

With prices soaring rampantly throughout the country it comes as no surprise to find that the record industry is literally taking a beating this year. As the prices of gas, food, rent, clothing and other "essentials" scale to new heights, the demand for luxuries – which unfortunately, includes records – has been decreasing accordingly.

Proof enough of the effects that rising prices are having on the record industry are the recent (and still ongoing) layoffs most record companies were forced to undergo in the wake of one of the lowest profit making years in quite some time. Anytime giant corporations were forced to make "en masse" layoffs in order to make ends meet, the situation is serious. And make no mistake about it, right now this situation is indeed a critical one.

Sadly many blacks were caught in the record industry's recent economic squeeze and are therefore now unemployed and wondering what they did wrong. All too often the answer is "nothing" because these layoffs were undeserved when the employee's job performance was taken into consideration. But, unfortunately, in situations such as this a company does not always base its judgement solely on a worker's productivity: there is that all important factor of "expendability."

That aspect of expendability leads directly to the next point. As the industry's ax began to chop heads it became painfully clear that too many blacks who were recently laid off were unquestionably highly committed and capable workers but, and this is the bottom line, they were expendable.

So how do we prevent such a problem from occurring again? Well, the simple solution would be to simply say that we must make conscious efforts to get into positions that are more vital to the needs of the industry. But, like most things, this is much easier said than done.

One thing that the layoffs pointed out is that senior management considers the overall marketing areas (with special emphasis on promotion and sales) to be of vital importance. And justifiably so. Promotion gets airplay and airplay sells records. Unlike the support areas (publicity and artist development, for examples), there is a direct correlation between the amount of airplay a record gets and the amount of sales made. In the support areas, this is not necessarily true. If, for example, publicity lands a feature in a major magazine there is no way to determine how many sales are generated from that piece. So, in other words, due to the "indirect" contribution the support areas offer to record sales they have become the most vulnerable in any sort of cutback situation.

Unfortunately, not all who were laid off can attribute their predicament to expendability. It's no secret that the record industry – in comparison to other industries – pay well. Many blacks are earning much more money in records than they possibly could make elsewhere. But, I've seen too many who have become living proof of the age-old adage, "money breeds complacency."

It seems that too many of us tend to slack off as the position and the paycheck grow. That's not a "black" problem; that's simply human nature. But since blacks are constantly under a high-intensity microscope, it becomes imperative that we do our best not to fall prey to this complacency syndrome. It's not easy to maintain the high flow of enthusiasm and energy we first bring to the job but, again as the recent layoffs demonstrated, we must.

What happens all too often is comparable to the superstar athlete who, when making $75,000 per year, bats well over .300 for three to four consecutive seasons. After becoming a free-agent and signing a multi-million dollar contract, however, this same high achiever becomes lackadaisical and ends a once promising career as a mediocre .250 hitter. Perhaps we should attempt to follow the example of, say, a Reggie Jackson who, despite his lucrative earnings, is always striving to achieve perfectionalism at what he does.

But enough of the effects of our current economic crunch on employment. What about the concerns of the artists? How will the industry's lack of revenue effect the aspirations of the recording artists? It's no big secret that many of the larger companies are currently carefully examining their artist rosters with the intent of possibly dropping many artists who, over the years, have become – once again – expendable.

And those artists who survive the cuts can probably inevitably expect less promotional tours, less promotional materials (t-shirts, buttons, etc.), less publicity parties...less of everything. That's fact. Just as the employees who survive the budget cuts are now making enormous sacrifices (smaller expense accounts, less travelling, etc.), so will the artists if the above-mentioned situation comes to pass.

And then, last but not least, comes the all important consumer and the effects the economic crunch has had on him or her. Zeroing in on the black consumer, for example, it's obvious that priorities for blacks have changed within the past five years. At one time blacks were considered the most avid record consumers in the market but times have changed and attitudes have changed justly.

With gas $1.00 a gallon in many areas, food prices soaring to ridiculous all-time highs, education becoming more and more expensive, rent going-up, fuel for home-heating going up, clothing costs escalating at phenomenal rates, diapers going for incredible rates and the price of auto maintenance being incredibly high, is it really surprising that consumers have decided to listen to the radio more often and just hope they get to hear the songs of their choice.

Consumer attitudes indicate that in recent years records have transgressed from entertainment necessities to entertainment luxuries. After all, if push comes to shove there's always the radio. What, if anything, can be done to reverse that trend is one of the most serious problems confronting the industry today. And, again as evidenced, there are no clearcut solutions.

All of these problems simply put more pressure on us to work harder than ever before. There can be no room for complacency because there are too many bodies for too little jobs. Surviving the cutbacks does not necessarily mean you are indispensible; it more likely means your position is indispensible. So if you don't peform up to par, you can easily be replaced with someone who will.

And it is perhaps in that regard that the only benefit of the recent cutbacks can be found. For those who will survive the crunch, there is a rather rude awakening and most of us now know that it's time to take a much more serious approach to our jobs (no matter what salary and/or position you now command.) Hopefully this attitude will be maintained if and/or when the economic crunch lightens up and the record industry gets back on its feet.

LeBaron Taylor Is BMA's Vice President of the Recording Division and Vice President of Black Music Marketing for CBS Records.


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