Ashanti who has created most of the music that has become the soundtrack of my high school years just recently announced that she will be re-recording her debut album from Murder, Inc. Now this should not come as a surprise as more and more artists are coming out saying that they want to re-record their album so that they can own their masters. I did a little bit of a deep dive into this process and I wanted to address the pros and cons of re-recording one of your albums. We're going to look at both the good things that can come from it as well as some of the negative things as well as ask some questions along the way.
You Can License It Anywhere
Now the process of re-recording your first album is pretty straightforward. Get in a studio and start remaking the tracks from your album. With access to more sophisticated equipment this should only take you a couple weeks once you account for recording prep, recording, post production, and then the mixing and mastering phase. However, there are a couple of things that must be addressed in the process of you doing this.
Pros: You now own a piece of work that you have created and you can do whatever you want with it. If you want to place it in certain movies, films, video games, or whatever else you are the final decision maker. So if you do decide to create your own piece of content in the form of a television series or film you can now implement your very own music into that. And if there's ever a copyright strike on your video that you may post on YouTube or whatever else the money is coming to you. You have complete ownership of your intellectual property.
Cons: This isn't so much of a con as it is a question. If your former label has great relationships with these television studios and filmmakers, who is to say that the television studios won't choose the former master over your new master? Let's think about this for a minute. If your label owns the publishing company or has a strong relationship with that publishing company that use to pitch the former master, wouldn't they have a much better chance of getting that former version into the television series rather than you and your agent trying to start a brand new relationship from scratch? Now this isn't to say that this is a common thing but it is something to think about when you are trying to license your music with these entities that have a relationship with your former label. Now we as independents know that we are the gatekeepers of where our music is played because we own the masters. However, if a company has spent $1.2 million in creating this master they're going to want their money back. And if that version of the album was a huge success and that's the version everyone is already familiar with, it would seem to me that it would be a bit harder to get your newer version out there and placed in these media organizations. Again this is more of a question than a negative. However, I can see this being an obstacle from a mile away.
A Bigger Cut
Pros: This is a no brainer. If you owned the masters and you are licensing the music to other organizations to implement into their content then you would, by default, get a bigger cut of the royalties that are being distributed. So if your song does blow up you now can see how much money you could've made if you didn't sign away your rights with the previous label. This would help tremendously if you were touring, selling merchandise, or doing whatever it takes to promote your new version of the master. This would also incentivize you, I would think, to put a bigger push behind that new master so that way you can get a bigger payout down the line.
Cons: Now we as independents know that to promote a record it takes a budget. So if your former label had anywhere from $500,000-$1 million to promote this one record, then for you to get it out there you're probably looking at sort of the same if not a little bit less. Again, keep in mind you are promoting a new version to people that are accustomed to listening to your older version. The problem with this is that people may not be accepting of your new version. For example, the “Thong Song” by Sisqó was a huge hit in the early 2000s. I can still remember being in karate class that Saturday morning when the music video dropped and that was literally the only thing everybody spoke about that day. So much so, that a few of my classmates failed their test to get the next belt. Now here we are in 2021, Sisqó just released a new version of the “Thong Song” that can be streamed everywhere. However, the promo behind it has almost been nonexistent scale. The reason why is more than likely Sisqó and his new label probably don't have the massive budget that Def Jam had in the late 90s or early 2000's. Again, keep in mind radio was the only way to get your music out there along with a music video and touring. I'm not 100% sure on Sisqó’s situation, but I do know for a fact that an independent starting out probably doesn't have a $2 to $5 million budget for production for a video or any of the other promo things you need.
Control the Album’s Narrative
Pros: Touching back on the video example I gave previously. You can now promote this record the way you intended it. A lot of artists back in the day used to complain about the narrative that was being created around the record. (Especially if it was a complex one.) Because they had signed away their rights they cannot have the final say so on the video, merchandise, tour, where they could interview about the single, or anything else. Now you can control all of that from the comfort of your phone. You can now do a YouTube series explaining the purpose of the album, what inspired the album, and control your own narrative about your art. This would also assist with how you can pitch your record for licensing opportunities because you can now implement it into other pieces of content that go along or run parallel with the story of your album.
Cons: I saved this last con for a simple reason that I believe most people have overlooked and that reason is, can you re-capture the feeling of that original record with your new master? Bands have complained about not being able to capture that nostalgic feeling with the new recording. One of the reasons is because they no longer have access to that equipment. So if the drums were created on an ASR10, the sample was created using an SP 1200, or and an older compressor that no longer exist it's going to be very hard to get that same warmth and feeling from an inbox plug-in. Again, going back to the Sisqó “Thong Song” example, the vocals don't quite sound the same, the chord progression doesn't bring the same feeling, and the strings aren’t as massive as they were. Now, to his credit this may have been done on purpose but for someone that grew up listening to the original it's become a turn off. When you start the tour to promote this new version of your record and it doesn't quite sound the same you're going to get that feedback instantaneously from the crowd because they are used to certain sonics that you are not delivering. We know that Lauryn Hill has done alternate versions of her infamous album, but the main complaint is that the BPM is too fast, the swing of the drums aren't the same, and the sonics are no where near what the original version of those records sound like. Just the overall performance doesn't capture what we fell in love with back in 97, 98, and 99. This leaves the artist at a disadvantage because they gain complete ownership of their art but they've lost the luster of what brought listeners in that made them fall in love with that record.
So what do you do? It's going to take more than just hoping you have a midi file from those sessions to capture that feeling and sometimes, it's just not the the right place nor right time. What inspired you to make those records no longer exist. I.E. Dating the ex, trauma from an event, or the naiveness that allowed you to write those lyrics. The feeling is gone, and you’ve matured.
Now that we've addressed these the pros and cons I want you to keep a few things in mind. As you move forward in your career you should have more than enough examples to explain why it is important for you to own your masters. Anita baker just got hers back and thank God because I don't want to ever hear a newer version of Rapture. I never want to hear a Nexus plug-in or Serum in Anita Baker’s record. I don't want to hear any presets or samples playing in the background. I want those same luscious strings, that baby grand piano, and her vocals going through those compressors whenever I listen to that album. Anything else will take away from what made me fall in love with it and I know her hard-core fans definitely feel the same way.
Read your contracts…..
