Deletion is a
music industry
The music industry consists of the individuals and organizations that earn money by writing songs and musical compositions, creating and selling recorded music and sheet music, presenting concerts, as well as the organizations that aid, trai ...
term referring to the removal of a record or records from a
label
A label (as distinct from signage) is a piece of paper, plastic film, cloth, metal, or other material affixed to a container or product, on which is written or printed information or symbols about the product or item. Information printed d ...
's official catalog, so that it is
out of print
__NOTOC__
An out-of-print (OOP) or out-of-commerce item or work is something that is no longer being published. The term applies to all types of printed matter, visual media, sound recordings, and video recordings. An out-of-print book is a boo ...
, but usually at a record artist's request.
Process
Deletion can be for a variety of reasons, but usually reflects a decline in sales so that distributing the record is no longer profitable.
Singles are routinely deleted after a period of weeks, but an album by a major artist may remain in the catalog indefinitely.
When titles are deleted in the US, the remaining stock would be defaced with a
cut-out through the sleeve or case. Cut-out records formed a
grey market
A grey market or dark market (sometimes confused with the similar term " parallel market") is the trade of a commodity through distribution channels that are not authorized by the original manufacturer or trade mark proprietor. Grey market p ...
outside the major distribution channels. In the 1993 book ''Stiffed: A True Story of MCA, the Music Business, and the Mafia'' Bill Knoedelseder wrote of how
MCA Records
MCA Records was an American record label owned by MCA Inc., which later became part of Universal Music Group.
Pre-history
MCA Inc., a powerful talent agency and a television production company, entered the recorded music business in 1962 wi ...
became the subject of a federal investigation of its cut-out sales practices after a deal allegedly involving
organized crime
Organized crime (or organised crime) is a category of transnational, national, or local groupings of highly centralized enterprises run by criminals to engage in illegal activity, most commonly for profit. While organized crime is generally tho ...
.
Effects
Deletion in the music industry differs from print publishing in that
recording contract
A recording contract (commonly called a record contract or record deal) is a legal agreement between a record label and a recording artist (or group), where the artist makes a record (or series of records) for the label to sell and promote. Artists ...
s generally do not return the rights to the artist when a title ceases to be manufactured. When
PolyGram
PolyGram N.V. was a multinational entertainment company and major music record label formerly based in the Netherlands. It was founded in 1962 as the Grammophon-Philips Group by Dutch corporation Philips and German corporation Siemens, to be ...
took over
JMT Records, a small
jazz
Jazz is a music genre that originated in the African-American communities of New Orleans, Louisiana in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, with its roots in blues and ragtime. Since the 1920s Jazz Age, it has been recognized as a majo ...
label, in 1995, it was understood to have announced that the entire JMT catalogue would be deleted, shocking dozens of artists. According to
Tim Berne
Tim Berne (born October 16, 1954) is an American avant-garde jazz saxophonist and record label owner. His primary instruments are the alto and baritone saxophones.
Biography
Berne was born in Syracuse, New York, United States. He has said t ...
, "this means that the majority of my work simply vanishes."
According to
Louis Barfe, "many deleted gems are locked in archives, unheard and quite possibly deteriorating." Although he recommends that they digitize this music and offer it for download, he notes that "niche labels have sprung up specialising in reissuing out-of-copyright recordings".
Some
bootlegs have been issued just so fans can obtain deleted recordings without having to search the second hand market for them.
Digital media
More recently, the rise of digital media has eliminated much of the cost of music distribution, and companies have begun to see deleted records for their
long tail
In statistics and business, a long tail of some distributions of numbers is the portion of the distribution having many occurrences far from the "head" or central part of the distribution. The distribution could involve popularities, random ...
potential, selling via
iTunes and other online means.
A single company,
ArkivMusic, has struck deals with all four major publishers (and numerous minor ones) of
classical music recordings to make their deleted records available via a burn-on-demand service.
Exceptions
A prominent exception to the practice was the label
Folkways Records
Folkways Records was a record label founded by Moses Asch that documented folk, world, and children's music. It was acquired by the Smithsonian Institution in 1987 and is now part of Smithsonian Folkways.
History
The Folkways Records & Servic ...
, whose founder
Moe Asch
Moe, MOE, MoE or m.o.e. may refer to:
In arts and entertainment Characters
* Moe Szyslak, from the animated television show ''The Simpsons''
* Moe, leader of The Three Stooges, played by Moe Howard
* Moe Higurashi, supporting character in ''Yash ...
"never deleted a single title from the ... catalogue". According to Asch, "Just because the letter J is less popular than the letter S, you don't take it out of the dictionary." When the label was disbanded, Asch enlisted the
Smithsonian Institution
The Smithsonian Institution ( ), or simply the Smithsonian, is a group of museums and education and research centers, the largest such complex in the world, created by the U.S. government "for the increase and diffusion of knowledge". Founded ...
to maintain the catalogue "in perpetuity".
Examples
In July 1972, the British music paper, ''
Melody Maker
''Melody Maker'' was a British weekly music magazine, one of the world's earliest music weeklies; according to its publisher, IPC Media, the earliest. It was founded in 1926, largely as a magazine for dance band musicians, by Leicester-born ...
'', reported that a cutprice LP issued by
Virgin Records
Virgin Records is a record label owned by Universal Music Group. It originally founded as a British independent record label in 1972 by entrepreneurs Richard Branson, Simon Draper, Nik Powell, and musician Tom Newman. It grew to be a worldw ...
was facing deletion because, ironically, it was too popular.
Faust
Faust is the protagonist of a classic German folklore, German legend based on the historical Johann Georg Faust ( 1480–1540).
The wiktionary:erudite, erudite Faust is highly successful yet dissatisfied with his life, which leads him to make a ...
's ''
The Faust Tapes'', then at number 18 in ''Melody Maker''s chart, actually cost more to produce than its selling price (49p) and so Virgin lost supposedly £2,000 on sales of 60,000. It has since been argued that this move was merely a publicity stunt by Virgin's owner,
Richard Branson
Sir Richard Charles Nicholas Branson (born 18 July 1950) is a British billionaire, entrepreneur, and business magnate. In the 1970s he founded the Virgin Group, which today controls more than 400 companies in various fields.
Branson expresse ...
.
On November 16, 1990,
Arista Records
Arista Records () is an American record label owned by Sony Music Entertainment, a subsidiary of Sony Corporation of America, the North American division of the Japanese conglomerate Sony. The label was previously handled by BMG Entertain ...
deleted
Milli Vanilli
Milli Vanilli were a German-French R&B duo from Munich. The group was founded by Frank Farian in 1988 and consisted of Fab Morvan and Rob Pilatus. Their debut album, ''All or Nothing'' in Europe, reconfigured as '' Girl You Know It's True'' ...
's album ''
Girl You Know It's True'' very quickly after
Frank Farian
Frank Farian (born Franz Reuther; 18 July 1941) is a German record producer, musician, singer and songwriter, who founded the 1970s disco-pop group Boney M., the Latin pop band No Mercy and the pop band Milli Vanilli. He frequently created v ...
admitted that
Rob Pilatus and
Fab Morvan
Fabrice Maxime Sylvain Morvan (born 14 May 1966) is a French singer, songwriter, rapper, dancer, and model. He was half of the pop duo Milli Vanilli, along with Rob Pilatus, selling multi-platinum albums around the world. However, he was later i ...
did not sing on the record. In addition to this, the duo's Grammy Award was revoked a few days later.
American
heavy metal band
Pantera
Pantera () is an American heavy metal band from Arlington, Texas formed in 1981, and currently comprised of vocalist Phil Anselmo, bassist Rex Brown, and touring musicians Zakk Wylde and Charlie Benante. The group's best-known lineup consist ...
's first four albums have been notably deleted from label catalogs: ''
Metal Magic,'' ''
Projects in the Jungle'', ''
I Am the Night'', and ''
Power Metal
Power metal is a subgenre of heavy metal combining characteristics of traditional heavy metal with speed metal, often within symphonic context. Generally, power metal is characterized by a faster, lighter, and more uplifting sound, in contra ...
''. The largely
glam metal
Glam metal (also known as hair metal or pop metal) is a subgenre of heavy metal that features pop-influenced hooks and guitar riffs, upbeat rock anthems, and slow power ballads. It borrows heavily from the fashion and image of 1970s glam ...
-oriented albums are not favorites of the band, who transitioned to
groove and
thrash metal
Thrash metal (or simply thrash) is an extreme subgenre of heavy metal music characterized by its overall aggression and often fast tempo.Kahn-Harris, Keith, ''Extreme Metal: Music and Culture on the Edge'', pp. 2–3, 9. Oxford: Berg, 2007, . ...
from the release of ''
Cowboys From Hell
''Cowboys from Hell'' is the fifth studio album by American heavy metal band Pantera, released on July 24, 1990 by Atco Records. It marked the band's major label debut and their first collaboration with producer Terry Date. This was also the ...
'' onward. They are only available in bootleg form.
Rex Brown himself said that there will never be a reissue of them, citing every member of the band's most well-known lineup having been against it.
The British duo
The KLF
The KLF (also known as the Justified Ancients of Mu Mu, the JAMs, the Timelords and other names) are a British electronic band formed in London in 1987. Bill Drummond (alias King Boy D) and Jimmy Cauty (alias Rockman Rock) began by releasing ...
summarily deleted their entire back catalogue when they 'retired' from the music industry in 1992.
Manic Street Preachers
Manic Street Preachers, also known simply as the Manics, are a Welsh rock band formed in Blackwood in 1986. The band consists of cousins James Dean Bradfield (lead vocals, lead guitar) and Sean Moore (drums, percussion, soundscapes), plus Nic ...
' 2000 single "
The Masses Against The Classes
"The Masses Against the Classes" is a song by Welsh rock band Manic Street Preachers, released as a limited-edition single in January 2000. It was a stand-alone single, not featured on any studio album, and was deleted, removed from wholesale supp ...
" was deleted on day of release as a promotional gimmick. However, copies of the single continued to be available until supplies ran out, which allowed it to reach Number 1, and remain in the charts for 7 weeks.
The 2006
Gnarls Barkley
Gnarls Barkley are an American soul duo, composed of singer-songwriter CeeLo Green and producer Danger Mouse. They released their debut studio album, ''St. Elsewhere'', in 2006. It contained their hit single "Crazy", which peaked at number two on ...
single "
Crazy
Insanity, madness, lunacy, and craziness are behaviors performed by certain abnormal mental or behavioral patterns. Insanity can be manifest as violations of societal norms, including a person or persons becoming a danger to themselves or to ...
" was deleted by
Warner Music
Warner Music Group Corp. ( d.b.a. Warner Music Group, commonly abbreviated as WMG) is an American multinational entertainment and record label conglomerate headquartered in New York City. It is one of the " big three" recording companies and th ...
after six weeks at #1 in the UK as a deliberate move to protect it from overexposure. Deleted singles could not then remain on the UK Singles Chart, so the physical single no longer charted after two weeks. However, it remained as a high-selling download single and has continued to receive heavy airplay well after the single was deleted.
On 20 April 2013, Dutch composer
John Ewbank deleted his song "
Koningslied" ("The King's Song") only two days after its initial release, citing an overload of criticism aimed at him personally and at the song itself from the general public and the media. The song had been commissioned to act as the official song of
Willem Alexander
Willem-Alexander (; Willem-Alexander Claus George Ferdinand; born ) is King of the Netherlands, having acceded to the throne following his mother's abdication in 2013.
Willem-Alexander was born in Utrecht as the oldest child of Princess Beatr ...
, Prince of Orange's upcoming investiture as the new King of the Netherlands on 30 April 2013. The song, already at number one in the iTunes download charts on the day of its release, was performed by a large number of well known Dutch artists.
See also
*
Out of print
__NOTOC__
An out-of-print (OOP) or out-of-commerce item or work is something that is no longer being published. The term applies to all types of printed matter, visual media, sound recordings, and video recordings. An out-of-print book is a boo ...
References
{{Reflist
Music industry