by jorge » Sat Dec 19, 2009 3:08 pm
I asked the head of a company that has successfully marketed rumba CDs. First he said that record companies as a rule do not disclose their sales figures. Then he said that even the major labels that produced rumba CDs in the 90s often sold less than 1,000 copies, sometimes 500 or less. Successful rumba CDs in the 90s sold in the 1,500 to 5,000 range, with 10,000 being a "solid success". He thought it was unlikely that Patato y Totico sales over the years reached 40,000 copies. Those numbers are for rumba only, not including bata, palo, and other Afrocuban religious music, and not including sales in Cuba, for which I don't think anyone in the US has reliable (or any) sales information. One caveat is that some record companies have an incentive to underreport sales because their artists are already sometimes suspecting they are getting ripped off by the record companies. Also, those numbers are from before digital CD piracy really took off and killed CD sales, so modern day numbers would be considerably lower. He said the emphasis has shifted to live performances and now selling T-shirts. Maybe a bit pessimistic. Maybe video DVDs, a dance craze, some kind of crossover fusion that preserves la clave y el sabor rumbero, or some other musical or business innovation may change things in the future. For now, get the dollar signs out of your eyes, guys, y siguen tocando por el sentimiento manana y la cultura que no hay mas na.