In front of me is an object that signals weight. A brick of cardboard and paper and vinyl issued in honor of the 25th anniversary of Falco’s death – the deluxe edition of his debut album “einzelhaft”, remixed and annotated by his then producer Robert Ponger. This work, published in 1982, is considered by many to be the best in Austrian pop history. So it is only fitting that it comes out fresh, although it may seem slightly doubtful that the two further discs of instrumental versions and remixes are really needed. That’s the way it is with hunters and gatherers: They would buy the box set even if the vinyl was a different color than the original (one of the most popular nonsense in the industry, by the way). The manageable edition – I estimate just a thousand copies, maybe two thousand – does the rest. So the deluxe material battle for record collectors and vinyl fetishists is of course a desirable artefact. It definitely exudes the spirit of the past – which may add to the appeal. Pure coincidence: I was once very close to the action when Stefan Weber, professor of drawing and head of “Drahdiwaberl”, made the cover for “Individual Detention”. And label impresario Markus Spiegel proudly presented the magnum opus to school newspaper editors. Hans Hölzel was known as a polished bass player from the live stage, anyway. One inevitably gets nostalgic when one thinks of the “Fast Years” and the new waves of the early 80’s.
The joke of the story is: Falco’s record company (or its successor) makes more sales and profits with vinyl than with millions of clicks on Spotify & Co. Music streaming has proven to be extremely attractive and convenient for the masses of consumers proven, but the Swedish internet pioneer and market leader Spotify is still in the red. And the mass of today’s artists sees ditto (whether the small fractions of a cent per call) through their fingers, while the music industry rubs its hands en masse. Here the “long tail”, the legacy of decades, length times width, pays off. Anyone who once signed a contract that was lucrative or at least acceptable for the physical business (that is, vinyl, music cassettes and CDs) looks old in the online age. If Falco were still alive, he would probably have said a few hearty words.
Even the boss of the industry giant Universal Music has now recognized that this cannot go on forever with the negative surprise effect of the streaming age for artists – he is demanding a new, fair business model (and could even implement it himself). The big ones still earn enough: imagine Falco’s hits as global TikTok hype. Even with foreseeable inferior musical adaptations – soon in Vienna – the cash register is ringing. My only hope (if I were a speculator) is that on Discogs, the world’s largest online record exchange, the price for the “Individual Adhesive” box will rise rapidly.
