The Record Industry's Decline

[mistersloane]

came across this fantastic rant on the subject a while back after the oink fiasco, couldnt put it better myself

http://www.demonbaby.com/blog/2007/10/when-pigs-fly-death-of-oink-birth-of.html

brilliant article thanks for that link

 

[DJ PIMP]

People have been having more or less that same Demonbaby rant since Napster.

 

[crackerjack]

If a band you like is stuck on a major label, there are tons of ways you can support them without actually buying their CD. Tell everyone you know about them - start a fansite if you're really passionate. Go to their shows when they're in town, and buy t-shirts and other merchandise. Here's a little secret: Anything a band sells that does not have music on it is outside the reach of the record label, and monetarily supports the artist more than buying a CD ever would.

Haven't read the whole thing, so apologies if this is dealt with already, but I was struck by this. Why does he assume promoters, venues (many now owned by major brewers) and merchandisers (i.e. cheap clothing manufacturers) are more worthy of our moolah than record labels?

 

[mistersloane]

Haven't read the whole thing, so apologies if this is dealt with already, but I was struck by this. Why does he assume promoters, venues (many now owned by major brewers) and merchandisers (i.e. cheap clothing manufacturers) are more worthy of our moolah than record labels?

It's also not true, what with those 360 deals that the majors are trying to force on everyone nowadays.

 

[crackerjack]

It's also not true, what with those 360 deals that the majors are trying to force on everyone nowadays.

Quite, though I dunno how widely applicable those are just yet.

 

[Gabba Flamenco Crossover]

This is a good read, and pretty revealing of the mindset at the top of the industry.


http://www.wired.com/entertainment/music/magazine/15-12/mf_morris?currentPage=all

ROFL the bit where he's moaning about the public not wanting to pay for an album that's taken two years to make. Well, mate, get them to work a bit faster then. Even I don't take 2 years to make an album, and I've got a full time job.

 

[IdleRich]

"Why does he assume promoters, venues (many now owned by major brewers) and merchandisers (i.e. cheap clothing manufacturers) are more worthy of our moolah than record labels?"

I guess he's saying that the distributors (labels) have been out-evolved by a new paradigm and they haven't reacted so they deserve to be punished. That hasn't happened to the venues so they don't. I don't think he's saying that they are morally better (unless he thinks that the labels efforts to hold back technological progress make them morally worse).

 

[noel emits]

thats a bit of a so what statement.
when you give robbie williams 80 mil then no there isn't ever a need tho.

I just thought the phrasing was amusing. I guess he meant it disparagingly but I choose to take it as people deciding they don't want to pay for stuff and industry having to abide.

Of course artists should be paid but I couldn't give a fuck about lumbering vampire dinosaurs.

 

[mms]

it's weird at the moment cos you've got two things,
britney and radiohead in tandem.
britney's some kind of representative of the big record industry, almost pornography in loads of ways, being chased to the death by the press, who are infatuated with her and her downfall, but still kind of support the glamour of what she's all about.

Then you've got radiohead, they did it with very little help, maybe paying a handful of people to set up their own label to release their stuff then went to xl, who are doing a thorough job at marketing them directly to the fans in extremis, youtube gigs with cameras on their heads, free gigs at rough trade etc in a scaled down accountable and creative way.

I can't help thinking that the radiohead way is a bit boring though, a kind of smug liberal 'i told you so' , all very thoughtful and real, i do hope there is some kind of glamour left in music, infact it's going to be very interesting to see what kind of glamour comes out.

i also hope rock and 'real' music don't win the battle, in a way, it seems that the consensus is that merchandise, gigs, that's real music and that's what artists should make money from which seems a very limited bunch of choices for music and one i think people will regret wishing for in alot of ways..

i also don't mind paying for music, i like physical products like vinyl, not to bothered about cds unless they're nice, but i've never really paid for an mp3, i'd rather have a record than that for stuff i really like, most of the music i like isn't on majors, it's by people who quite often have jobs i imagine or aren't much wealthier than me, or work hard touring and djing etc, i don't have any problem giving them my money and i like albums and artwork etc, i just like tangible stuff, i had loads of mp3s i'd collected on my last collection and i can't be bothered to get them off but i find it harder to part with records. maybe thats just me. I don't want a fucking band t-shirt either not really keen on them.

 

[ripley]

Haven't read the whole thing, so apologies if this is dealt with already, but I was struck by this. Why does he assume promoters, venues (many now owned by major brewers) and merchandisers (i.e. cheap clothing manufacturers) are more worthy of our moolah than record labels?

isn't it just that artists have better contracts with those groups - so they make more money (a higher percentage off the door or per shirt or whatever) than they do off copyrights?

Or am I missing something (also read it quickly)?

 

[straight]

seems that so many industries still have such an 80's hangover with overpaid incompetant figureheads unwilling to change from their outdated business models that involve no-one knowing what happens behind closed doors. Artists and the public in general are so much more media savvy that it just serves to make them feel even more cheated. so what if it took 2 years to make an album and then sell it for 2 dollars? they'lll sell a million copies of it, stop having so many pointless middle men. if now you can make one at home for next to nothing, even the expensive studios are an anachronism, even to the extent that artists like britney's overpaid production team are knockin off sounds made by french laptoppers and 15 year olds londoners on knocked off copies off Floops. They all just do it on pro tools anyway.

 

[crackerjack]

isn't it just that artists have better contracts with those groups - so they make more money (a higher percentage off the door or per shirt or whatever) than they do off copyrights?

Or am I missing something (also read it quickly)?

Possibly true, but then these promoters don't do lose small fortunes by investing in acts who flop. You're onto a pretty safe bet making x amount of t-shirts of a group who've sold a million albums; not so spending, say, £200,000 grand on a band who may sell sod all (though having read the piece in more detail I accept Idlerich's explanation is probably a good one).

Which seems like a pretty good place to post this from today's Popbitch

The EMI soap opera rolls on. Our favourite
legend so far is that Guy Hands, after his
initial introduction to how the music business
works, looked up and asked, “So these bands
who don't make us any money... when do they
pay back their advances?”

 

[noel emits]

Don't know if you all read this last gasp piece of self mythologising from one of the old guard. Cor, we missed out on the golden days didn't we? Nah, actually it's a nicely damning little obit from someone who knows.

Simon Napier-Bell in the OMM.

 

[tryptych]

Music industry finds the solution to its pirate troubles - give everything away

Music industry finds the solution to its pirate troubles - give everything away

http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2008/jan/28/piracy.digitalmedia

If this sort of thing takes off, iTunes could be left in the dust.

Although the idea that providing legal downloads with advertising attached will somehow wipe out the illegal download market is a bit optimistic, don't you think?

 

[mms]

isn' t this the spiral frog idea?
what happened to that fuck all because what makes record labels think they can give artists music away in return for advertising revenue ?
artists want to do singles and albums and gigs overall i think.
i tunes needs its monopoly fucked over but not by not having anything to sell it's ridiculous, big time 2.0 bubble chat.

 

[gumdrops]

that demonbaby guy might be DLing to be a dissenter or wage war against the majors but most people dont DL cos of that, they just DL cos its totally free! they dont care about the industry, have no clue about the ramifications or what it might mean for the artist, they have no interest in/knowledge of that, they just want free music.

 

[Gabba Flamenco Crossover]

that demonbaby guy might be DLing to be a dissenter or wage war against the majors but most people dont DL cos of that, they just DL cos its totally free! they dont care about the industry, have no clue about the ramifications or what it might mean for the artist, they have no interest in/knowledge of that, they just want free music.

To a point, but I think at a subconscious level people realise that the CDs they (used to) pay for are outrageously overpriced, and that very little of that makes it's way back to the artists.

Once you could buy packs of 100 blank CDs for £10, I'm sure a lot of consumers were looking at the £15 they were being asked to pay for commercial CDs and thinking 'Hang on...'.

Live music has been booming over the last few years, and a lot of smaller artists sell healthy amounts of recorded music at thier live shows - always a good indicator that people don't have a problem with paying for music per se.

BTW this new idea about pressurising ISPs to remove services from people who d/l is going nowhere. Especially in the US. It's like saying that if your shop gets robbed by someone driving a Mondeo, you can sue Ford for damages. The supreme court will smack that one straight out of the park.

 

[gumdrops]

i do like that demon baby article. not 100% convinced that his 4 point solution is going to do everything he thinks it will (just look at grime for instance - there arent live avenues open to all types of music, and not all music is 'live' music) but i like the idea that the dwindling profit-margins of music (although you can still make plenty of money if you think carefully about the changing audiences - like the guy from the hoosiers knows here -http://music.guardian.co.uk/pop/story/0,,2246111,00.html_) might lead to less of the mass market mentality thats been around since the 80s.


as for this - http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2008/jan/28/piracy.digitalmedia
why would i want a program that doesnt let me burn cds or put the songs on my ipod?!

 

[hint]

Once you could buy packs of 100 blank CDs for £10, I'm sure a lot of consumers were looking at the £15 they were being asked to pay for commercial CDs and thinking 'Hang on...'.

This argument doesn't really stand up though - the cost of a commercially released CD in a shop has very little to do with the cost of a blank disc.

Anyway... when's the last time you bought a CD on domestic release for £15? :slanted:

 

[swears]

I like paying a lot for music. An import-only 12'' that cost a tenner is always gonna sound better than a pirated mp3.