Serious musicians beware

MIKA-the-better-one · 2010-06-09T17:22:19+00:00

I have been talking about this for awhile, and you wouldnt believe how many ignorant bands still think major labels are the way to go... http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/entertainment_and_arts/10272490.stm

AlanRatcliffe

singemonkey wrote What Steve Albini article? ?

This one: The Problem With Music

singemonkey

Alan Ratcliffe wrote
singemonkey wrote What Steve Albini article? ?
This one: The Problem With Music

Which one? ?

Maybe someone could summarise it for me...

? ?

Bob-Dubery

MIKA the better one wrote But as mentioned I come in I see a whole bunch of angry posts, I write very fast with my brain 3 steps ahead thinking about what i shall say on the other post. And that is how little baby spelling mistakes are born.... perhaps we shall post a thread about it!!!

Well I'm often in that territory. Now I don't actually care that much about spelling and grammar for their own sake (and know next to nothing about the latter), but I do care about being able to understand each other. There have been occasions where I've written/said/posted something and then revisited it some time (maybe some seconds) later and couldn't even understand it myself. What chance does anybody else have? So I have tried to make myself, or at least my postings/writings, more understandable.

This is why I made the comments that I did a few posts back. There were parts of your post that I literally could not understand, not because I was being pedantic over "who's" and "whose" and pretending I couldn't understand when the intent was clear, but because I couldn't see what you were trying to say.

And, as I said, this is not picking on Mika really, it's picking on what I see as a growing problem. We're getting so unconcerned about the rules of language (or it's getting fashionable to feign such a lack of concern) that we're starting to render ourselves unintelligible. It's a new tower of Babel, but this time we're corrupting the languages and making communication impossible all by ourselves.

End of rant. Normal servis can nowresume where doesthat dot thing go dude

Bob-Dubery

singemonkey wrote Maybe someone could summarise it for me...

? ?

Executive summary: As a professional musician you exist in one of three states
1) You're screwed
2) You're going to be screwed
3) You're going to be screwed again.

MIKA-the-better-one

X-rated Bob wrote
MIKA the better one wrote But as mentioned I come in I see a whole bunch of angry posts, I write very fast with my brain 3 steps ahead thinking about what i shall say on the other post. And that is how little baby spelling mistakes are born.... perhaps we shall post a thread about it!!!
Well I'm often in that territory. Now I don't actually care that much about spelling and grammar for their own sake (and know next to nothing about the latter), but I do care about being able to understand each other. There have been occasions where I've written/said/posted something and then revisited it some time (maybe some seconds) later and couldn't even understand it myself. What chance does anybody else have? So I have tried to make myself, or at least my postings/writings, more understandable.

This is why I made the comments that I did a few posts back. There were parts of your post that I literally could not understand, not because I was being pedantic over "who's" and "whose" and pretending I couldn't understand when the intent was clear, but because I couldn't see what you were trying to say.

And, as I said, this is not picking on Mika really, it's picking on what I see as a growing problem. We're getting so unconcerned about the rules of language (or it's getting fashionable to feign such a lack of concern) that we're starting to render ourselves unintelligible. It's a new tower of Babel, but this time we're corrupting the languages and making communication impossible all by ourselves.

End of rant. Normal servis can nowresume where doesthat dot thing go dude

Dude I understand, there were parts of my posts I cant understand.... ?

Sean

Alan Ratcliffe wrote
MIKA the better one wrote Did anyone read the BLOODY DAMN STEVE ALBINI ARTICLE
Last year already! Have you read: The Economics of Recorded Music?

Whoa!! Great article. Actually really has me thinking ? ( yeah, something that is sometimes foreign to me :? )
So after reading both articles, I am a little overwhelmed by the complexity of the two issues, so help me out here to see if I understand this properly.

In my nutshell:

Historically, labels have become these huge corporate machines that have chewed up and abused many musicians, manipulated the art of music, and generally have been unscrupulous in it's treatment of musicians ( barring exceptions ) in it's quest to make profit.

On the other hand, musicians deciding to go it alone have been undermined by technology, in essence, which has reduced the musicians product to a public good, thereby making it difficult/near impossible to receive compensation for it.

Is it just me, or is this situation a little bit bleak?

Thanks for the links to the articles, I enjoyed reading them ?

Warren

Keira WitherKay wrote
oh just on the lady ga ga topic..................i think Lady gaga is "genius" she has hit after hit on charts...... made a career for herself in a cut throat biz that many can't even get a toe in the door even tho they'd love to be in her stillettos' ..............
.
.
.
"respect "

I don't think someone has to be a genius to earn respect.

It's just a perceptions thing I think.

To me (and Viccy, by the sound of it), Mozart is a genius. First full opera at 14 (I think). Didn't bother making copies of his works (the originals were note-for-note perfect) etc. Isaac Newton was a genius (and also an ass, but that's besides the point).

If commercial success is the yardstick by which we measure genius in music, then Madonna, Britney Spears and Rihanna are all part of the "genius" brigade ?

Different strokes.

(modded for bad grammar)

AlanRatcliffe

Sean wrote Is it just me, or is this situation a little bit bleak?

Bear in mind that article dates back to the Napster days of filesharing. Since then people like iTunes have proved that it is possible to make money in a new way - once the restrictions of the old business model were adapted to suit. There are other methods of monetising your music which are gaining ground too.

The main thing is that you can no longer protect your music the way you could before, so it ends up freely available either way. So I believe we need to find a way to make giving it away (or close to) profitable. ? Few people want to be freeloaders and, if they feel it has value to them, I believe they will happily pay a small amount via micropayment or even donate a little to those artists they like the most. Removing the industry from the equation makes the product cheaper (and not $1 either - that's still way inflated), and the lower price promotes even higher sales. Some web comics are already making good money from donations and advertising.

As an example - take the Sons of Maxwell song United Breaks Guitars on YouTube as an example - if each view resulted in only a 1c (US) micropayment to them and 1c to YouTube (and how would you feel about paying 2c for a view?), the band would have netted nearly $100K by now ...for one song. Plus that will boost the interest in their other songs and back catalogue, audio downloads and live shows - lots of revenue streams.

http://www.futureofmusic.org/article/article/future-digital-infrastructure-creative-economy
http://www.futureofmusic.org/article/article/new-business-models

DonovanB

Sean wrote
Alan Ratcliffe wrote
MIKA the better one wrote Did anyone read the BLOODY DAMN STEVE ALBINI ARTICLE
Last year already! Have you read: The Economics of Recorded Music?
Whoa!! Great article. Actually really has me thinking ? ( yeah, something that is sometimes foreign to me :? )
So after reading both articles, I am a little overwhelmed by the complexity of the two issues, so help me out here to see if I understand this properly.

In my nutshell:

Historically, labels have become these huge corporate machines that have chewed up and abused many musicians, manipulated the art of music, and generally have been unscrupulous in it's treatment of musicians ( barring exceptions ) in it's quest to make profit.

On the other hand, musicians deciding to go it alone have been undermined by technology, in essence, which has reduced the musicians product to a public good, thereby making it difficult/near impossible to receive compensation for it.

Is it just me, or is this situation a little bit bleak?

Thanks for the links to the articles, I enjoyed reading them ?

I love it. Although I foresee that a very original and creative idea will prevail. IMO it won't be as forward thinking as it may seem, but sponsors and advertising would be the way to make money.

Metallica record and sell every concert they play in mp3 format. I bought the Durban gig, complete with printable covers for R60. I have all the songs on other albums but I wanted the record of that experience. if there were 2000 others at that gig who bought it, they made an extra R120,000 over and above the performance fee. Sure that can be copied and distributed as a public good as the article mused on, but the cost of manufacture for them is so low that they even got paid to produce it and sell it. Pure profit*. Imagine a massive festival, having 10,000 sales at $10 each per download?

*not just for the band, but those involved ie staff etc. basically Metallica inc...

« Previous Page