Reborn in America

Chapter 31: Record Sales

In the United States in 1925, a popular song lasted an average of 16 months, and more than one million scores were published.

By the 1950s, the life span of a popular song was only a few weeks, and it was already very good to be able to sell 250,000 copies of scores.

Due to the development of industry, the importance of radio became more and more prominent in the 1920s.

In the 1930s, the recording industry was booming again. In addition, industries such as television, jukeboxes, and sound films have also developed, which has greatly left the business style of Ding Bang Alley, which only relies on the distribution of music scores to make songs popular.

This era is the era of radio broadcasting!

A large amount of information is transmitted to the radios of thousands of users via radio waves.

In the early 1950s, American radio stations broadcasted music programs, including serious music, various operas, and popular music, which amounted to approximately 15,000 hours a week.

The need for radio broadcasting has produced personnel with the special function of "record program broadcasters" (also known as djs). He has the task of introducing music and playing the songs "clicked" by the audience over the phone.

Some music lovers will go to the phone to request to play their favorite songs on the prescribed music radio programs. An experienced broadcaster can keep the public interested in some songs, and can also produce "pop" songs to some extent.

Alex and his songs can become popular so quickly, the big factor is that the djs of these radio stations like their songs very much. Radio DJs also have circles. They introduce newly received songs to each other, and they will play the songs they like on the radio over and over again.

At the beginning of the first half of 1951, the two songs spread all over the United States. To everyone's surprise, young people from twelve to twenties like to listen to the wild and sexy "that’sallright". They are the largest pop music group! It is also the most enthusiastic music group.

Adults over the age of 30 like "Songs for Mom", they are the main purchasing power of the record market!

Alex accidentally killed both types of people in one fell swoop, thinking that people in this era like rock music. In fact, it is not. On the contrary, white parents hate this kind of crude and sexy music.

American society after 1950 was a relatively stable decade. In the decades before this, the United States experienced the Great Depression and World War II. Until 1950, the economy began to stabilize and the entire society entered a state of settlement.

Social stability and the improvement of living standards have gradually increased the middle class. These people have basically experienced the social turmoil of the previous decades. They especially cherish the peace and stability in front of them. In a relatively prosperous life, they began to raise children, which resulted in a "birth-birth period". By the 1950s, the number of adolescents had unprecedented growth.

This generation of young people has never experienced social turmoil. Under the superior living conditions, under the love of their parents, their thinking and their parents have serious differences. They often dismiss the path arranged by their parents.

In the long-term accumulation, the rebellious psychology of this generation of young people is growing day by day. In order to pursue their own ideals and hobbies, in order to get rid of the shackles of the traditional lifestyle of their parents, they form a powerful rebellious force. At this time, the strong rhythm and unrestrained rock music aroused their interest.

Correspondingly, their parents don't like rock music, which has a strong rhythm and sounds crude and sexy vulgar music! They worry that children who listen to this kind of music will be corrupted, so some conservative parents do everything possible to prohibit their children from listening to this kind of music. It is precisely because of the opposition of parents that more young people are seeking it!

This is a social problem caused by historical reasons. It has existed since the end of World War II, but no one or event has become its fuse.

Originally in history, Elvis did not make his debut until 1953, and thus began the era of rock and roll. The result was two years ahead of Alex, but the rock factor of Alex’s selected song is not yet obvious! The most important thing is that his voice is not like Elvis, people know that Alex is a child when he hears it.

The same song can be performed by different people with different styles and effects. Alex's cover songs are more refreshing, but they have used the rhythm of rock and roll. When these two songs were released, the music industry set off a huge wave.

Alex, who knows nothing about this, has no consciousness of becoming the culprit. In fact, if there is no next action, maybe the rock music trend will gradually calm down and wait for others to lead the trend of the times.

There will always be some unexpected accidents in the world, and the biggest accident is the rebirth of Alex. His arrival has brought tremendous influence and changes to the world.

Rudy is a producer with a musical vision. When the Carpenters walked out of his company, he had already begun the follow-up work on the record. At that time, he had made up his mind to publish the Carpenter Brothers record.

He personally designed the cover and content of the album, and completed some related tedious tasks one by one. Before he came out and negotiated with Carpenter and the others, the Carpenter brothers were already on fire. That night, someone from the radio station received a call and said that he would order 5,000 Carpenter Brothers records.

At this time, he knew that no matter what conditions he set would not be considered excessive, so he set out the condition of forty-six. After getting the Carpenter Brothers' record sales license, he immediately sent the designed cover to the factory for printing. At the same time, the master tape was taken to a record press factory for processing, and a large number of filming began.

As for the record packaging, printing products and other processes, relevant people are following up, and he does not need to intervene. Most importantly, he informed the record retailer of the release date of this record. After all this was arranged, he just had to wait patiently for the ringing of the ordering phone.

Within a week, the Carpenters sold 300,000 records! The retail price of each record is 1.2 US dollars. Under normal circumstances, the record company can get half of the money except for the cost of the record and the part given to the retailer. In other words, $0.6 is divided between record companies and singers.

300,000 records a week, each record has a profit of 0.6 US dollars, divided into four to six, "Teana" company can be divided to 72,000 US dollars. As for the Carpenter brothers, they can get 108,000 US dollars. Of course, record companies have to pay employees, and the Carpenters have to pay taxes.

However, this is already very profitable! Faster than grabbing money.

What is even more frightening is that the ordered phone keeps ringing, even if it is installed with five additional stations, it is still too busy. When Rudy heard the call, he felt as if he saw banknotes flying over, he was so happy.

Bob is in his fifties and he is from a small town in California. He opened a record retail store in the town.

Every morning, the first thing he does is to get up and open the door, and then pick up a new record to play.

This day, as usual, he chose a record at random. When the singing came from the speaker of the record player, he felt as if he had taken it wrong, because he had already listened to the song.

"Strange, I seem to have heard it somewhere. This shouldn't be a new song, right?" He was thinking, and at the same time considering whether to change a record.

At this time, a teenager about fifteen years old broke in.

The boy said loudly, "Boss, give me a record of Brothers Carpenter!"

"Brother Carpenter's record?" Bob thought questioningly, and he replied casually, "I don't have the record you want here."

"Huh? Didn't you listen to the Carpenter brothers sing?" the boy asked strangely.

At this time Bob finally remembered. He always felt that the song he was listening to was very familiar. It turned out that he had heard it on the radio the other day. This song is called "Song for Mom", it's very unique country music, and he likes it very much.

He handed over a new, unopened record, and said, "US$1.2 per piece!"

The young man took out more than ten pieces of change from his pocket and counted them. Fortunately, there was enough money to buy a record. He put the money in Bob's hand while holding the record carefully.

After Bob sent away the teenager, another guest came in, a white woman in her thirties. She also walked in because she heard the singing. She usually doesn't buy records, and her husband usually buys them to listen to. This song touched her heart, so she planned to buy one and listen to it.

One after another, some people came in to buy records, and many people came to buy the Carpenter Brothers records. Some people hadn't heard it before. They came to buy records of other singers. After listening to the Carpenter brothers' song in the store, he immediately paid for it.

When the time came to noon, the 20 records that Bob had entered were already sold out. Usually, in a small town like theirs, it would take a week to sell 20 records. Unexpectedly, so many copies were sold in just one day.

"Here is a Carpenter Brothers record!" Someone still wants to buy this record.

Bob quickly said: "No, it's sold out!"

The man pointed to the record player and said, "Isn't there another one? I want that one!"

"That's a sample, it's not for sale!" Bob explained, he didn't want to sell it either. He plans to collect one for himself and take it out to listen to it when he is free.

The man had no choice but to buy it elsewhere. The person next to him had an idea and said to Bob: "I will double the price and sell it to me. Are you afraid that you will buy the goods tomorrow?"

Bob listened, thought about it, and agreed.

When Bob remembered the incident the next day, he quickly called the "Teana" company. This company has signed a contract with him very early, and they are old customers who have been cooperating for a long time.

"Hey, I want to enter 100 more Carpenter brothers' records!" Bob said to the customer service of "Teana".

He thought it would be okay to purchase, only 100 sheets, not a lot of them. Unexpectedly, the customer service told him that this record was out of stock and would have to wait a few days.

"Ah? I have to wait a few days!" Bob was very disappointed after hearing this, and murmured: "I knew I wouldn't sell the last record!"

Not only Bob is out of stock, the record company is also out of stock, they have allowed the record production line to continuously suppress the Carpenter brothers' records. But even so, they still can't keep up with the speed of sales, and people have a great demand for these two songs.