After failing to sell one thousand copies of his new single at $200 a pop, Vinnie Vincent is back with a new offer: Buy the entire album for $2,000,000.
It’s a bit more complicated than that, so let’s get up to speed as quickly as possible.
Late last year the former Kiss guitarist unveiled a highly unconventional plan to release his long-awaited new album Guitarmaggedon: He would pre-sell one song at a time for $200 per person, but only complete the sale and ship each single once they reached 1,000 sales.
If successful, this plan would have earned Vincent $200,000 per song – plus another $25,000 in shipping fees. However, not enough people were willing to pony up, causing Vincent to threaten to shelve the album forever.
“Unless I get compensated for my work, the album stays unheard,” he declared in January. “It comes down to this; if the fan support is not there which it does not appear to be, this record will not be released.
“Am I fine with that? Absolutely. 100%,” Vincent continued. “It will be the greatest album of all time, never to be heard, never to be released. If people want my music, and think they’re punishing me by not buying it because of the price, it matters not to me. They’re the ones who will lose out.”
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On Sunday, March 15, Vincent re-emerged with a new plan: The entire album was now available for two million dollars, and the buyer has the right to act like a record label by manufacturing and selling it.
The arrangement brings to mind Wu-Tang Clan’s Once Upon a Time in Shaolin. The rap group only made one copy of that album – then sold it for $2,000,000 in 2015, with the buyer agreeing not to sell any copies until 2103. (It’s been on quite a journey since then.)
In a Facebook post announcing his offer, Vincent explains that the buyer will get “10 songs mixed in master, final product format, all the master files of the artwork, related posters, and 10 separate vinyl and CD packaging art for each individual song, should the buyer choose to release the album on a per-song basis.
“The buyer can choose to release the entire album in any format they desire…vinyl, CD, or any other configuration, in whole or in part, at their discretion. …The price will also include a perpetual license to use the brand name ‘Vinnie Vincent Invasion’ and ‘Vinnie Vincent’ for the life of the album.”
Now, for the fine print: “All marketing plans and ideas require approval by Vinnie Vincent. The price does not include any right, title, or interest in the copyrights and/or trademarks related to Vinnie Vincent or the product itself. If the buyer wishes to purchase any associated rights in the compositions, a separate agreement can be arranged and negotiated.”
The offer does not specify that the buyer will be granted exclusive distribution rights, nor does it state how long “the life of the album” is, or what kind of marketing plans and ideas will and won’t be approved by Mr. Vincent.
So those are just a few of the questions you might want to run by your lawyer before purchasing Vinnie Vincent’s Guitarmaggedon at his official website.
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Gallery Credit: Jeff Giles
