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stray 1799 posts |
Edited Jun 27, 2012, 05:15
Jun 27, 2012, 04:44
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I don't think that there is anything wrong with the grazing really, it has contributed to a widening of peoples music tastes, albeit the downside is attention spans. Still, good music still grabs people, er... I think. Artists cannot however drive traffic, ever, services drive traffic, and we have to use the services just like we had to use labels. Opting out of them isn't actually a sensible decision. There is no point in artists setting up their own websites anymore, you're much better off using an existing service or a facebook page. I make little to absolutely no effort promoting my stuff (apart from posting about it here I actually don't post about it anywhere else really), which is entirely my fault and I intend to redress that with the next set of tracks we're working on. If only because they're dub and therefore were.. _effort_ to make. My netlabel experience has always been positive, but then I am basically saying 'here, it's free'. Plus I'm shifting a lot of work to the netlabels, who are basically gatekeepers on value/style much like old labels. It works with electronic music, which amazingly seems to have managed to maintain the label loyalty model it built up from the 1990s. As in, a DJ would buy anything released on the labels they trusted. The netlabels, and new dance labels, are functioning off this loyalty model still, and quite well. But this is a peculiarity of dance music/electronic music, and tools like Traktor and CDJ decks replacing vinyl in the clubs has actually meant that its worthwhile releasing your tunes digitally and online only. As in they'll still get played in clubs. Albeit as MP3 files though, and sometimes (honestly I've seen this a few times) even played off iPhones into club PAs. What I have noticed though is your window for downloads, the attention span if you like, has shortened. For example, my Inference release (and I made bugger all personal effort to promote this myself) on Kreislauf got about 2,000 downloads in total in the first month and a half and next to nothing since. I'm very happy with that though. In the past the download window was longer (say about 4-6 months) before you saw a dramatic tailing off. Bands though, bands are screwed. There aren't even netlabels that support them anymore, well, none that get traffic (Clinical Archives being an exception, and only if your band is weird enough). Bandcamp in my opinion, while it may be a good service on paper, doesn't actually generate much traffic on its own weight. Annoyingly I got an email from them today advertising a new 'Pro' service which will allow you to opt out of 'streaming', heyho, a pay to not have your tune playable service. Its a weird world. If the internet model for musicians is about anything its all about exposure, nothing more. Most artists never earned a living from music before the internet, and thats not actually changed. However, getting 1000s of plays/downloads/streams has made many artists go 'hang about, wheres my fucking money'. This on the face of it seems to be a reasonable response, but maybe it actually isn't. I'm not suggesting we should all just accept it, that we should be happy little free content providers for other peoples revenue streams, but I think we do need to have a bit more perspective. We've been commodified, as in devalued, due to removing scarcity (something we ourselves have happily taken part in) and due to well.. its what capitalism does to all products. There is no scarcity, there is no value, its that simple really. So artists generate scarcity, ltd editions etc, etc. Is that actually sustainable though ? I don't think so. Returns on a ltd edition anything aren't that great really are they. They're no living, and if you scaled them up to be so then you're killing the scarcity. Also, fuck making T-Shirts haha, wtf, I'm with Ian Mackaye on that one. Make money from touring ? um... its amazing how many times people throw this up as an option, they need to sit down with a calculator and think about it. Sure, it costs me and Anna fuck all to go and play somewhere (travel cost and now a babysitter too), but we're not a band and all we do is hand over a stereo pair to a sound guy and say 'don't fuck with it'. Others have more costly requirements than we. Also, how on earth does a little known band actually get enough venues interested in them to actually let them play ? Same was as always, you pay to play, you hire the venue. You do all the promotion, you sell the tickets, you pay for the posters, you stick them up. Thinking about this more, maybe we've no right to bitch as much as we are. Noone owes us a living, not until the entire current economic/political system changes anyroad. Even then, we'll have to argue our case in another model. As an anarchist I would fully expect, insist even, that I contributed more to society than just tunes after all. The lack of scarcity/value is maybe a good thing, culturally. You're still going to get those emails from that one guy that you're music has profoundly touched. Oh and you're still going to get people following you on soundcloud who haven't even played any of your tunes to make you feel really appreciated ;). Yeah, I'm resigned to what we have. There is no point whining and its very, very, wrong to try to guilt trip your audience into handing over some money to you. Thats hideous, we're not exploited coffee workers for Nescafe nor are we sweat shop workers keeping Primark in cheap underwear.
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IanB 5396 posts |
Edited Jun 27, 2012, 10:30
Jun 27, 2012, 07:38
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Much there that I am nodding along with. The problem with grazing is that it reduces art to wallpaper which is literally what has happened to Rothko. One of the giants of 20th century art commodified as a signifier of tastefulness. Music should be more than conveniently packaged M&S take-away Sushi The only thing I deeply disagree with is the last thought. People need to be educated as to the economic realities otherwise the only way orchestral and large forces studio recordings are going to get made is through corporate sponsorship. I don't want that being the determining factor as to what works get recorded and who by. Like Folk it is an evolving tradition and in many ways less of a museum music than jazz or "classic rock". I want that music to keep evolving in the studio. Rock n Roll is 60 years old. The western classical tradition is 600 years old so I think that there is possibly something there worth protecting ;-) I don't want to guilt people into parting with their money for my benefit but I want people to know what it means when they stuff themselves on free. The fact that recorded music has been my living for 30 years is a factor in my thinking for sure but I just find the stupidity offensive. Not least the people who would pay £2.50 for a record in 1975 who won't pay £8 in 2012 and claim recorded music is over priced. I suspect that if people could blag their way into the O2 they would make the same argument to justify not paying £50 for a ticket. So yes there are economic factors but there is also crass self serving greed headedness dressed in anti capitalist clothing. I will be waiting a long time before the anti copyright intellectuals work the lecture circuit and occupy their university teaching positions for free. They hate rock music, see all pop culture as ephemeral corporate crap and have nothing at stake in the game.
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stray 1799 posts |
Edited Jun 27, 2012, 11:25
Jun 27, 2012, 11:23
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IanB wrote: I don't want to guilt people into parting with their money for my benefit but I want people to know what it means when they stuff themselves on free. The fact that recorded music has been my living for 30 years is a factor in my thinking for sure but I just find the stupidity offensive. Not least the people who would pay £2.50 for a record in 1975 who won't pay £8 in 2012 and claim recorded music is over priced. I suspect that if people could blag their way into the O2 they would make the same argument to justify not paying £50 for a ticket. So yes there are economic factors but there is also crass self serving greed headedness dressed in anti capitalist clothing. I will be waiting a long time before the anti copyright intellectuals work the lecture circuit and occupy their university teaching positions for free. They hate rock music, see all pop culture as ephemeral corporate crap and have nothing at stake in the game. Completely agree, but its wrong to say the academics don't have a stake in the game. They do, but its unfortunately currently running contrary to the needs of artists, but that may change in the future. The academic take on music culture, and its development, is always a parallel stream to reality. It doesn't actually matter, as their students are not always (in fact are rarely) those who actually change things (unless they're MBA students). Also, the current copyright model is broken, so they have some valid points. I fear what you say about the Classical tradition has already happened. How many composers actually write full symphonic works these days ? They write for smaller ensembles and quartets, if only so they actually get to hear their own work performed. It may be a sad thing, but I think the economics of scale, and the lack of an audience, has finally killed that tradition. It has become something else, and I'm not sure thats a bad thing anyway myself, and as you know I listen to a lot of classical music and take a great deal of influence and inspiration from it. The ENO has been on arts council funded life support for decades now, and I think its time to let that patient die, but then I hate opera ;). Yes, music means more to me too than the way it seems to be becoming, and I think all we can do is to put more of ourselves into the music itself. More emotional content and care, and then hopefully people will notice. The vast amounts of mediocre, lazy, half assed, tunes and production out there (particularly in the experimental forms) isn't helping. But yeah, thats a subjective opinion, one mans gold etc.. Still I'm beginning to think the whole devaluing of the form financially is directly resulting in artists devaluing their work. As in they're making less effort, being less involved, even being disingenuous. Thats something we can all personally fight against in how we approach our own work. Jazz is safe though, as long as the'yre are enough of us of a certain age to keep putting our hands in our pocket. Its not as great a situation as it used to be, not even close. But the Jazz audience seems to have remained static in terms of size for a long time, its oddly self replenishing. But yep, tell people the situation, make them think about it, but they can't do anything more about it than we can. Definitely deal with the fake anti-capitalist stance though whenever you hear it, we all should do that. If just for good political, educational, reasons if nothing else.
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IanB 5396 posts |
Edited Jun 28, 2012, 06:18
Jun 27, 2012, 15:11
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I agree totally except on the opera thing as I think it does something unique in using music to provide a commentary on what is being sung. At its best you get a sense of character motivation and / or sub conscious streams that can't be entirely expressed in lyrics and melody alone. Whenever I go to the Barbican or RFH or ENO the hall is almost always rammed and not just with people acting out some class imperative. It's not Henley or Cowes by other means. A lot of people still seem to want the symphonic ocean of sound experience. ROH has more of that and also seems to host more of the corporate entertainment types. I would hate to see the ENO go down necause it does provide access to an art form that I still believe in. Obviously other opinions on that are available!
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