I've more or less ditched my mp3 player, the battery was fucked on it anyway.
i get my pleasure from listening to records in my house usually now. i like music alot and i tend to get more pleasure from listening it waft through my house either listening to albums or mixing pon decks.
I think the argument that musicians can now get their money from touring and licensing to ads etc is not a great thing at all, and the argument that you can cut out the middleman thru myspace etc isn't viable at all at the moment, esp as myspace's monopoly is actually dropping. The whole myspace as artist development space is a little mythical too, and things pass, esp in the flickering world of the internet. The idea that an artist has a fair chance to develop themselves in this totally oversaturated marketplace is silly.
It's terribly sad to hear people say that an artists body of recorded work has no value, but it does if it's used to prop up products, which is essentially what the licensing argument is. Also touring doesn't suit or work for all music, and there is an equal monopoly and risk with touring as there is with releasing records, esp as venues and promoters are usually far more canny than the artists, i can tell you some stories, errmm like did you know that mean fiddler close down and open a company each year for glastonbury, so if they don't pay you for playing, you won't get paid, or that most of the venues in the uk are controlled by a monopoly of promoters.
The problem at the moment within the music market is closing the gap between artists who sell 200,000, 20,0000 and great artists who sell 200 copies, there is a huge divide in the british music market, in that there is less and less mobility and possiblity of mobility. There needs to be space for a decent hub to build up a nice cultural meshwork, something that the highly individualised word of the internet has seemingly made kind of impossible.
Personally i think *some labels are important, artists are people and are often not the best judges of their own music, their career and the presentation of themselves and their music, most are terribly sensitive as well, music as a career is an abstract thing like selling art, i think it pays to have someone on your side. I think good labels will act more like managers and think tanks in the future, alot of ambitious artists simply don't have the time money or experience to completely successfully run and manage their own careers to the best of their ability i think.
The other thing that bothers me is that optimism in music seems to have gone, maybe the music industry is slightly depressed itself and can't find it in itself to create smart confident music, i am just personally so so glad that i have been able to go out and buy music in shops on records, with lots of info about the artists, so i can track down other records and form a relationship that way or see magnificent beautiful sleeves that seem to explain the music, and where it's from. I don't think i'd be very interested in music if i was forced to have the same relationship with it like what is being suggested up this thread!
