The culture scene is total madness. As Billie Holiday warned long ago: “Nothing is what it once used to be.”
So Madonna is working as a standup comedian.
Somebody bought a Van Gogh at a Minnesota garage sale for fifty bucks.
The luxury Disney Star Wars hotel—where families paid $20,000 for a stay just a few months ago—is now boring office space.
Old ladies in Japan are trying to get sent to prison.
And just when you thought it can’t get worse….Olive Garden starts replacing its famous breadsticks with hot dog buns.
Is nothing sacred?
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I try to make sense of it all. I do that for my own sanity. And for you, too, in my arts and culture briefings.
So let’s analyze the latest happenings….
Vinyl record sales are growing—except they might really be shrinking.
A few weeks ago, Billboard warned that vinyl record sales were collapsing—and had dropped 33% in just one year.
The next day, new ‘improved’ numbers were released. These showed vinyl sales had really grown 6% during the last year.
But the RIAA released different numbers saying that vinyl sales were up 17%.
Then, just a few days ago, Digital Music News reported that nobody really knows what’s happened with vinyl in 2024—because the method used to track sales has changed.
“Therefore, independent retail physical sales under the new methodology for 2024 are isolated and no trending is provided versus 2023.”
This leaves us in an uncomfortable spot. Official numbers show vinyl sales in 2024 declined versus 2023. But we’re asked not to compare them.
We’re all left with guesswork.
Let me state the obvious (that few dare say): When you see huge industries that don’t know if they’re growing or shrinking, that’s a warning sign.
So I’m sticking by my previous assessment.
The vinyl opportunity is huge, but the major labels are killing it.
Most of their back catalog is still unavailable in vinyl—even after 15 years of the vinyl revival.
Prices are far too high. Labels could make vinyl more affordable, and turn it into a mass market product. But instead they’re fattening margins by selling albums as luxury products.
They are destroying the business. So if the market isn’t flattening (or declining) already, it will be soon.
Are Substackers now selling advertising?
You don’t see advertising here on Substack—hooray!—because the business model is based on subscriptions.
That’s great news for me, because I’ve insulted almost every possible advertiser, corporation, and nation state here at The Honest Broker.
Freddy Krueger has more friends on Elm Street than I do on all of Madison Avenue.
But some Substack writers are much friendlier than me, and are now selling ads. More will soon do the same.
They don’t have to share this revenue with Substack, and some of the deals are very lucrative—much higher than what blogs can charge.
According to the Wall Street Journal:
An affiliate link or mention could cost as little as $100, a few paragraphs can bring in up to $5,000, while sponsoring a single edition of a newsletter with a subscriber base of more than 75,000 might run $20,000, authors and media buyers said.
Twenty grand to sponsor a single issue of a newsletter?
I’m a little surprised, but maybe I shouldn’t be. Substack has become a hot thing in the last year or so, and corporations want a taste of the action.
By the way, I have no plan to sell advertising here at The Honest Broker.
And on a related note….
You can now copyright your personal vibe.
Lawyers joked about this “sad beige lawsuit.” But not anymore.
Two women in Texas battled over their cool beige aesthetic. Each influencer wanted to force the other to switch to some other, brighter color. So it ends up in court.
Gifford accuses Sheil of adopting the same “neutral, beige, and cream aesthetic” that comprises her brand, featuring many of the same products, and copying Gifford’s style and captions.
That’s crazy talk. The whole purpose of influencing is to convince people to imitate your style. How can you possibly sue them?
But the court agreed.
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