JPF Home Page Forums General Messages Mentor Questions Forum Scammers in Nashville's Music Industry

Studio's are out to make money, just as any other business is. My fiancee and me went furniture shopping yesterday and worked with a great salesman who laid it on pretty thick, and I listened, Sara and me talked, and chose the set that WE wanted, not the expensive one that the salesman thought we should buy. I don't see those name dropping with their studio doing anything different. I'm sure if Tom Cruise had bought the bedroom set we were looking at, the salesman would have told us. He wouldn't SAY it would make us a movie star, but it's always implied. But we've done this analogy to death already. Its sales, pure and simple, and it happens in EVERY business.

I agree that moral business practices are important, and I've left an employer because their practices went beyond where I thought the line was, but that doesn't mean I couldn't see it from their perspective. As long as you are honest about what you are and are not doing then I don't see the issue.

If you extend the analogy to studios, then as with every other business its buyer beware. As long as all they're promising is a good recording then I don't see any problem with it. If people don't do the research and find a smart way to spend their money then shame on them. This is the internet age and if you don't take ten minutes to google the studio and find some positive feedback then you're a fool and there's nothing we can do to help. I don't see why studios should be held to any higher moral standard than those in any other business.

At the end of the day the studio is in business to make money by recording people's songs, not to critique them and its not their perogative to judge people for the songs they have written or want to record, just as its not your mechanic's perogative to judge you on the cleanliness or type of your car when you take it into the shop.

Brian - I agree that many of the marketing practices (not just from studios but from all over) are often toeing the line between honesty and dishonesty. But, as consumers, we have the ability to counter those practices by doing the research from home, on sites like this and by simply searching the internet. We have the power to avoid these folks, but there will always be slick sales people who over-promise and under-deliver, and others who are willing to believe their promises. All we can do is educate people and you do a GREAT job of that through the board and through JPF as a whole. I would also like these scammers out of the business, but all I can do is talk to people and vote with my dollars by giving my money to someone legitimate.