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twistedAM
Left Of The Dial
Like what?
There'll be less choice I think. Major labels will survive in some form but will force a smaller range of sounds onto radio, TV etc.
Meanwhile it'll be all back to myspace for cheaply recorded music.
TitanSound
Mr Beardy Drummer
I am in favour of emerging artists getting the money they deserve for sure.
Having played in bands for the last 13 years I have spent a fuckload of money pursing it. I'm not talking about a couple of grand either. My drum kit and cymbals are worth that alone. I'm talking about beer money for gigs, taxis, rehearsals, drumsticks, drumheads, recording time, mixing equipment etc. I reckon I've done at least £10,000 on that stuff alone. I do it primarily because I love playing the drums with people who I get on really well with. But if I was doing it for a living, I would expect to be paid for it.
Having played in bands for the last 13 years I have spent a fuckload of money pursing it. I'm not talking about a couple of grand either. My drum kit and cymbals are worth that alone. I'm talking about beer money for gigs, taxis, rehearsals, drumsticks, drumheads, recording time, mixing equipment etc. I reckon I've done at least £10,000 on that stuff alone. I do it primarily because I love playing the drums with people who I get on really well with. But if I was doing it for a living, I would expect to be paid for it.
Nanker Phelge
Leave the gun. Take the cannoli.
Well I think that the music industry developed a false environment which gave musicians the impression that it was about them and their art when it was really about making the most out of the product - flogging units for cash regardless of the musicians.
The collapes of the music industry as it's become known may just be the saviour of the musician, allowing them to think outside the current industry structuring and take music and performance in to the next phase of it's life. It's unlikely that will be Mansions and Sports cars for most of them, but it may be a more interesting exisitence.
Lots of people are being told that their salaries are cut and lots of people are having to find ways to make up the difference, or go without. it's not 90%, but I've just taken a 12% pay cut, and a design firm I work with have made a 50% pay cut for their staff.
I'm still having to produce the same results for less - it's not that uncommon in the world. Musicians are not exempt from having their effort and time drop in value.
Richard Stallman, of GNU fame, had the idea of the populous choosing how much they want to pay. For instance you go to the website and can either order a hard copy of the music with accompanying photos etc for a minimum price or download the music for whatever you think it's worth.
I know most people still pay for a hard copy of the music they like after they've downloaded it for free.
I'd also ban advertising of music to stop the likes of Britany et al lording it over us.
With a ban on advertising the larger corporations will find it hard to cope.
ouchmonkey
Singe Gainsbourg
the problem with Falco's position here is he's half in and half out, (or maybe all the way in) of the old school music biz way of doing things, which everyone seems to know is coming apart at the seams, I'm suprised they don't have a more garage band/D.I.Y kind of attitude to control of things (maybe i'm mis-reading that)
I expect he's more annoyed that they don't get to have control over the music getting out to people than he is about the money though
sim667
All aboard the 303 bus.
Lets be honest tho, it always goes full circle with these musician types
And Im sure there's many more such cases.......
And as far as dance music producers are concerned, they're alright becuase they can just invent a new genre and ensure their tracks are on the 'best of......' compilation a few years down the line
Who the fuck wrote this article anyway?
And Im sure there's many more such cases.......
And as far as dance music producers are concerned, they're alright becuase they can just invent a new genre and ensure their tracks are on the 'best of......' compilation a few years down the line
Who the fuck wrote this article anyway?
Nanker Phelge
Leave the gun. Take the cannoli.
Yeah, Madness offered their new album as download, standard CD or a big fuck off box set with t-shirts and badges and posters etc...they also put in out in variations versions, 12 track, 15 track 0r 20+ track, and a version with all the demos and studio out-takes, alternative versions etc.
And they structured gigs around the album and events to support the marketing.
Through having to do it themselves they've prouduced their best album in years and playing some of their best gigs.
Yeah, cool I must have spent the best part of 50 grand on vinyl CD's tapes and stereo equipment over the years. I'm sure I'm not the only one either. There's always gonna be people nicking shit, be it downloading or sweets from WHsmiths but the majority of the population are generous kind hearted souls willing to buy their goods for market value.
Ranting at a minority claiming it's a majority just gets everyone's backs up. Personally I disagree with "the Piracy's killing music" mantra being rolled out by second rate musicians an producers. If it's good shit people will want to buy it where's the good packaging, artwork, branding? I know it's pricey but if you believe in your product you've got to show people you believe in it by producing the best package you can.
Ranting at a minority claiming it's a majority just gets everyone's backs up. Personally I disagree with "the Piracy's killing music" mantra being rolled out by second rate musicians an producers. If it's good shit people will want to buy it where's the good packaging, artwork, branding? I know it's pricey but if you believe in your product you've got to show people you believe in it by producing the best package you can.
twistedAM
Left Of The Dial
Very good points.
They've probably signed EVERYTHING away and probably have a manager (20%), agent (10%), lawyer (blank cheque), radio plugger, print PR and a few other music business accessories who'll all take money out of the ever-decreasing pot.
Musicians shoudn't be expected to be business people but I little savvy helps.
twistedAM
Left Of The Dial
Yeah but that's not going to happen though is it? Much as it would make watching late night TV more pleasurable.
The collapes of the music industry as it's become known may just be the saviour of the musician, allowing them to think outside the current industry structuring and take music and performance in to the next phase of it's life. It's unlikely that will be Mansions and Sports cars for most of them, but it may be a more interesting exisitence.
Lots of people are being told that their salaries are cut and lots of people are having to find ways to make up the difference, or go without. it's not 90%, but I've just taken a 12% pay cut, and a design firm I work with have made a 50% pay cut for their staff.
I'm still having to produce the same results for less - it's not that uncommon in the world. Musicians are not exempt from having their effort and time drop in value.
sure. but the point is a moral one - you SHOULDN'T be having to produce the same results for less. Everyone who works knows that it's not that uncommon in the world. The point is that that's WRONG and even though there are people who are far worse off than musicians, I don't see anything to celebrate in yet another bunch of people being worse off. I think there's some misplaced shadenfreude in this thread.
Most of the musicians and bands I know already earn bugger all and operate at a loss. They already have the "artistic freedom" of not having a record deal or any money. So this brave new world of zero-reimbursement isn't all that new. I can't see the death of the record industry helping them in their lifetimes - I can just see the little amounts of money they did get which kept them in beer money and guitar strings vanishing in a puff of smoke.
There's ways round it - have any bands done a reduced entry on a tour deal if for those holding a copy of the new CD at the door?
you could read the thread?
Fictionist
Serving Eargasms....
f-u-c-k-i-n-g a+!
Spandex
A crazy bulbous punchbag of sound
Surely there's a basic problem with paying to download music: you need a credit card.
I saved up my pocket money and bought my first record when I was 7. I spent a small fortune buying records before I finally got a credit card in my early 20s. How is the huge teen/pre-teen audience supposed to pay for downloads? Not everyone's parents will trust them with their credit cards. Not everyone can get a credit card.
There's a generation of younger music consumers who can't pay to download music. And they'll get used to getting music for free.
I saved up my pocket money and bought my first record when I was 7. I spent a small fortune buying records before I finally got a credit card in my early 20s. How is the huge teen/pre-teen audience supposed to pay for downloads? Not everyone's parents will trust them with their credit cards. Not everyone can get a credit card.
There's a generation of younger music consumers who can't pay to download music. And they'll get used to getting music for free.
YouSir
Retired from Urban
The mainstream industry as it is is horribly repressive, prescriptive and exploitative of artists in my opinion, it's a strictly market based entity and acts as you'd expect, without any real interest in the music itself. I'm all for the decline of the current model, it's increasingly inevitable anyway and whilst I sympathise with bands who're suffering for it it's still better to create a new model which doesn't screw them over rather than sticking to the devil they know.
I also think that music should be free to download though, not as an obligation but I do think it's going to be the norm with the new industry model. How that gets balanced though I'm not entirely sure, donations, sales of hard copies, touring, merchandise, commercial licensing (for some); all have a part to play perhaps. At least with the new model though it's to be hoped that the artists will retain control over their music and choose what ways they make money and how much they're reflected in the art. More effort certainly but there y'go, most struggling bands now have to put in an inordinate amount of effort already just to keep bubbling along, there are very few who are entirely freed from commercial and practical considerations by the nature of the industry.
Stuff like Creative Commons and the free music movement are the most interesting things going on I think, there's the community and potential there to help define a new model for music distribution. Plus there are some insanely good musicians who piss all over the hobbyist theory and who are, very gradually, starting to make money out of the fledgling scene.
So there y'go.
e2a: Anyone who thinks that MySpace is the self-selecting evolution into free music distribution has absolutely no idea about the subject.
I also think that music should be free to download though, not as an obligation but I do think it's going to be the norm with the new industry model. How that gets balanced though I'm not entirely sure, donations, sales of hard copies, touring, merchandise, commercial licensing (for some); all have a part to play perhaps. At least with the new model though it's to be hoped that the artists will retain control over their music and choose what ways they make money and how much they're reflected in the art. More effort certainly but there y'go, most struggling bands now have to put in an inordinate amount of effort already just to keep bubbling along, there are very few who are entirely freed from commercial and practical considerations by the nature of the industry.
Stuff like Creative Commons and the free music movement are the most interesting things going on I think, there's the community and potential there to help define a new model for music distribution. Plus there are some insanely good musicians who piss all over the hobbyist theory and who are, very gradually, starting to make money out of the fledgling scene.
So there y'go.
e2a: Anyone who thinks that MySpace is the self-selecting evolution into free music distribution has absolutely no idea about the subject.
ATOMIC SUPLEX
Member Since: 1985 Post Count: 3
"At least with the new model though it's to be hoped that the artists will retain control over their music and choose what ways they make money and how much they're reflected in the art. More effort certainly but there y'go, most struggling bands now have to put in an inordinate amount of effort already just to keep bubbling along, there are very few who are entirely freed from commercial and practical considerations by the nature of the industry."
I can't think of a time when musicians have had LESS control over their music! Have you ever read the responses on a music blog when a musician has politely requested their album be removed? It's not a pretty sight.
At least when they were being 'exploited' by record companies, musicians had CHOSEN to do so and were getting something in return: they had signed a contract swapping an advance sum of money against future royalties etc.
By contrast, the supercession of the music industry with untrammelled "free" music is the ne plus ultra of passive consumption. It's robber baron couch potatoism. It's pre-capitalism: it's FEUDAL. It's essentially: 'I'm fucking you and this time I'm not even gonna pay'.
I can't think of a time when musicians have had LESS control over their music! Have you ever read the responses on a music blog when a musician has politely requested their album be removed? It's not a pretty sight.
At least when they were being 'exploited' by record companies, musicians had CHOSEN to do so and were getting something in return: they had signed a contract swapping an advance sum of money against future royalties etc.
By contrast, the supercession of the music industry with untrammelled "free" music is the ne plus ultra of passive consumption. It's robber baron couch potatoism. It's pre-capitalism: it's FEUDAL. It's essentially: 'I'm fucking you and this time I'm not even gonna pay'.
Brainaddict
slight system overdrive
I don't buy that they would be hugely more successful without leaks - that just comes across as slightly delusional self-pity.
But the real problem with the piece is that it doesn't mention the record labels. I think a lot of other people are like me in thinking that if they pay £12 for an album then £1 will go to the artists and the rest to a pool of human ordure expelled from the arse of satan. This is why no one feels too guilty about nicking it.
As others have said, the internet is just creating a pressure to move across to a new model for selling music - one that could be hugely beneficial to bands who repeatedly get screwed by record companies - but this ranter doesn't seem to have thought about that at all. I can understand he's upset about the leak, but for his own good I think he needs to calm down, take a step back, and think not about how to get back to the old ways, but how to do it differently.
Also, if you want to *really* go back in time, popular music used to subsist completely on live shows before records, but it was likely an every-night-of-the-week job to make it pay - and would he do that? Hell no! Too fucking lazy, that's his problem!
But the real problem with the piece is that it doesn't mention the record labels. I think a lot of other people are like me in thinking that if they pay £12 for an album then £1 will go to the artists and the rest to a pool of human ordure expelled from the arse of satan. This is why no one feels too guilty about nicking it.
As others have said, the internet is just creating a pressure to move across to a new model for selling music - one that could be hugely beneficial to bands who repeatedly get screwed by record companies - but this ranter doesn't seem to have thought about that at all. I can understand he's upset about the leak, but for his own good I think he needs to calm down, take a step back, and think not about how to get back to the old ways, but how to do it differently.
Also, if you want to *really* go back in time, popular music used to subsist completely on live shows before records, but it was likely an every-night-of-the-week job to make it pay - and would he do that? Hell no! Too fucking lazy, that's his problem!
Brainaddict
slight system overdrive
Balls. The whole pop music industry is about passive consumption (as were most of the trends that emerged from the sixties
). I don't see how downloading makes it any worse. It's not about fucking bands over either - you've got to look at the bigger picture. There's a huge sea change in how people see digital data in general. I don't imagine the Encyclopedia Brittanica has nice things to say about wikipedia, but if they spend their time bitching and whining about it I'm sure they'll just go out of business a lot quicker.
The internet is a technology that provides free data. You can't put it back in the bottle now, any more than governments could fight the emergence of new popular ideas after the invention of the printing press.
I couldn't care less if the record industry dies. How bands are going to deal with it I don't know, but if they want to play music, and people want to hear their music, then it will happen somehow. Maybe it will be more difficult, but so what? There's too much shit out there anyway - we could do with a purge of the bands who don't care enough to fight through a few difficulties
YouSir
Retired from Urban
You're talking about either piracy or the mainstream somehow being forced to conform to such. Within the Creative Commons artists are treated with the utmost respect and I assure you, if they asked to remove their content within the community it'd happen. You're talking about the Piracy Scene vs The Mainstream, learn about the alternatives, there's a whole other world out there.
That's a bloody good point actually!
twistedAM
Left Of The Dial
Aye but you can buy with PayPal as long as you have money in your bank account. Hold on a minute.....
Yeah is a good point.
ouchmonkey
Singe Gainsbourg
I think a lot of other people are like me in thinking that if they pay £12 for an album then £1 will go to the artists and the rest to a pool of human ordure expelled from the arse of satan. This is why no one feels too guilty about nicking it.
fair point
a point no-ones really made yet here is how the same digital technology that is stealing everyone's precious money for their work is also offering them cheap and sometimes free new methods of promotion, distribution and most importantly creating and recording new music
Trentemoller uses Acid and Soundforge doesn't he? Or at least he started out with it and that is not prohibitively expensive equipment for a band to get and use.
too techy?
Bon Iver last year made a massively successful album, in a shed, by himself with some old equipment and a few microphones. he self released it and then got picked up by smaller then larger labels.
there's opportunity for people to completely own and control their recordings (cutting out some possible leaks) if they can be arsed and it'll cost them less than a studio too.
I know those examples don't perhaps allow for the complexity of recording a five or six piece band, or a choir or something but it would certainly be possible for a band like Future Of The Left to do it.
It looks like the future to me. No more big record companies to pay for six months in the bahamas twatting about with the drum sound and how much you all hate each other/love coke
nah, majority of people that download illegally couldn't give a toss who made the music and what money they're getting - it's really clear from the comments on music blogs.
And, while i can see the point of Creative Commons in terms of making certain things formal, most of the musicians who wanted to do the sort of things Creative Commons standardises were already doing so.
And, while i can see the point of Creative Commons in terms of making certain things formal, most of the musicians who wanted to do the sort of things Creative Commons standardises were already doing so.
Balls. The whole pop music industry is about passive consumption (as were most of the trends that emerged from the sixties
It's not about fucking bands over either - you've got to look at the bigger picture. There's a huge sea change in how people see digital data in general. I don't imagine the Encyclopedia Brittanica has nice things to say about wikipedia, but if they spend their time bitching and whining about it I'm sure they'll just go out of business a lot quicker.
The internet is a technology that provides free data. You can't put it back in the bottle now, any more than governments could fight the emergence of new popular ideas after the invention of the printing press.
I couldn't care less if the record industry dies. How bands are going to deal with it I don't know, but if they want to play music, and people want to hear their music, then it will happen somehow. Maybe it will be more difficult, but so what? There's too much shit out there anyway - we could do with a purge of the bands who don't care enough to fight through a few difficulties
1. I never suggested for a second that pop music has ever had a golden age when it wasn't about passive consumption. I think the DEGREE of it is today unprecedented though. (And I do think that NOT ALL aspects of recorded music, even recorded pop music, are about passive consumption. There's communication, debate, interaction, which is what art is about.)
There's a massive irony in the way downloaders bandy about discussion of how great it is that selfless music bloggers provide all these albums for free, and yet never once think of contacting the makers of these albums, depositing money in their paypal account, even just saying hi.
2. There's a lot of totally irrelevant posts in this thread. Musicians know about Creative Commons, they know about what the internet can do for them, they know damn well how many opportunities there are for getting their music out there. What they don't know is HOW IT WILL MAKE THEM MONEY.
damnhippie
shark sandwich
Piracy has existed as long as music has.
Making music is now almost as big a commodity as listening to it.
Supply is outweighing demand.
Making music is now almost as big a commodity as listening to it.
Supply is outweighing demand.
ouchmonkey
Singe Gainsbourg
because the internet does not cost anything like the cost of a mailout?
because you can put your music up for people to listen to, at their convenience, without having the fight and expense of getting it on the radio for a few minutes and hoping that that catches someone's ear?
because they can have their own web presence which allows interaction with their fanbase as they choose and allows them to present themselves and their work as they see fit without the compromises of traditional media?
because they can have so much more CONTROL?
and while none of this generates income it is very cheap and in the past a record company would have taken a massive amount out of your sales, should they ever materialise, to pay for it. If the record never sells (and in the old model most do not recoup - the big hits help the record company take the blow) the band is dumped by the label still owing them money back on the advance and probably without full, or any, control over their recordings either.
so it doesn't pay the rent but it's a massive expense that is dissappearing a huge SAVING.
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