As you may know the band RADIOHEAD is releasing their latest album for free over the internet, and boy are they getting a lot of press about it. Now I think radiohead is a great band, there's no question there, it's just that with all this press about how they're sticking it to the record companies by releasing this album for free (actually the customer gets to set the price they pay), well I don't know if I really buy it.
Lot's of artist put out free music and work on the internet and accept donations for the work. This is also a very popular practice in open source software development. But you don't see these people making the news because of their charity, and bravery, and stick-it-to the man-ness, usually they just struggle to get noticed, no matter how good they may be.
The thing is that the only reason this is a big deal is because radiohead is a hugely popular band. And how did they become hugely popular? Could it have had a lot to do with major record companies promoting and marketing their material for the past X years? So now the band is just basically stabbing the people who financed their rise to fame right in the back by using that fame as a means to promote what their doing now with their "by donation" album. Not to mention the insinuation to up and coming artist is that "hey you can make it to, just be like us", when in reality, without some very inventive promotion no artist will make it, especially with this model.
I know that some think it's the essence of rock and roll, "sticking it to the man", but I don't really see it that way. I see it as exploiting the success that was the result of a system that they were happy to use to get rich but now that they are rich and popular they don't want to be a part of it. It's not that special, artist, authors, and software developers have been doing this for years and with alot more integrity...well I say integrity, I don't really know the hearts of the men in radiohead, all I'm really saying is that what they're doing is not all that special. Because of their major record label success they are able to do what everyone else has to do by default, and they're going to make alot of money at it, most good artist out there doing this very same thing are struggling even to make it. Why? it's basically because promoting the music is the hardest part of making a living at it. Getting in front of people, getting people to listen, and getting people interested. This is true for any good idea or product, not just music, anyway, radiohead got this service rendered to them with tremendous success by Capital Records etc... and now their being toted as some kind of "everyman's band" by the fact that their sticking it to the people that enabled their success in the first place.
Now I'm not sticking up for the record companies. I think that most of them are simply using copyright laws in order not to have to innovate and deal in a new digital marketplace. I mean the fact that we can still buy music on Compact Discs, which came out in like 1982 ... and there really has been no major progress in this technology since then...well that's just pathetic. By using copyright laws the record companies are able to artificially leverage the well returned investment they have in the compact disc technology way beyond it's market relevance, that's a good deal for them, but a bad deal for consumers who want instant access to the music they want through the medium we all share (the internet). No wonder the MP3 piracy revolution was so huge, and it scared the record company to death because they see that their ability to make money is threatened by losing the direct tie they have the CD product.
Maybe what the record companies should focus on instead is developing an industry standard file format for digital music, and then use their marketing might to promote the bands they want and digitally sell their content for them. Bandwidth and promotion are expensive, but it's easier to streamline and automate, and overall I can almost guarantee that the margins are alot higher than on manufacturing and distributing CD's. However it is different than what they have been doing for the past 25 years in marketing CD's, and besides, as long as they stick with CD's they can keep suing single moms for $220,000 a pop for using the technology of the day to get the music they want. Let's not even talk about the fact that the new digital economy makes it alot harder to sell really sucky songs by forcing people to buy an entire album just to get the one good song on the CD. Yes it's would be alot different for the record company to actually have to sell quality content in the format and method that the customer demands.
The whole copyright problem is a joke in itself. The problem is not a copyright problem is a problem with the ignorant lack of keeping up with technology. When the CD came out there was no broadband internet, file compression, or anything like that. Really there wasn't a whole lot of broadband internet until almost 20 years after the CD came out. Now that there are these technologies where a file of the same or better quality than a CD can easily and cheaply be transmitted over the internet, people naturally and rightfully want to use that technology to their benefit. Seems to me this is a problem with the record companies not innovating. People didn't have the equipment to reproduce records or 8-track tapes in their homes, cassette tapes were just bad quality, and when the CD came out the record companies had 15-20 years where people still didn't have or couldn't afford the technology to reproduce the music. Now we do have this technology, it's just the reality of reality, record companies have to deal with it or they'll go by the wayside as the bands with whom they DON'T Have contracts start to outnumber that bands with whom they do. It's like they're driving a horse drawn carriage down the interstate and screaming at all the people in cars for going way faster than they are.
What radiohead is doing may have this kind of "rob from the rich and give to the poor" ring to it, but I'd really rather see a band succeed at this from a ground roots level before I'll really believe that "by donation" content is really a good way for an artist or developer to make a living. But hey, it works for the church ok, maybe it will work here too. But wait even the church lets you partake of the content before asking for a donation, maybe radiohead should do the same. How can I decide how much an album is worth if I haven't heard it?
As for the record companies I hope they crash and burn, the destruction of the current system is the only way to make room for the new system (and that should have happened 10 years ago...)
Tuesday, October 9, 2007
Radiohead, record companies, and ramblings...
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7 comments:
I have a really hard time seeing any major record label in the role of 'victim' under any circumstances.
Their bread and butter is in artificially inflating the value of obsolete media (CDs) and using the courts to manipulate the market. While they operate within the letter of the 'law'--which in most cases they lobbied for and bought--they usually operate in a highly unethical manner.
It is common knowledge that all but only a few record contracts are written in a manner to greatly benefit the label. Even successful acts are often forced to give up publishing rights to their music or are forced to earn as little as 1-3% of record sales with all previous costs recoupable. That means that every penny of advance money must be recovered in record sales for the artist to see any royalties for their work.
So, for all intents and purposes, having a major label record deal is most often no more financially beneficial than giving the music away in the first place, provided you have the means to record and publish the music yourself.
I think the real issue here is whether or not Radiohead really is even remotely 'sticking it to the man'. I think that whether this move accomplishes its purpose is yet to be seen and will likely be of a highly subjective matter. In other words, no one will agree in the end whether the move did anything or not.
I will conclude this comment post with a quote from a very troubled but unbridled mind, Hunter S. Thompson: "The music business is a cruel and shallow money trench, a long
plastic hallway where thieves and pimps run free, and good men die
like dogs. There's also a negative side."
Hey Rick!
Good points, however I still contend that even if the label wasn't financially lucrative to radiohead or any other band, the value of the pure promotion of the band is what made them have the name recognition power to now operate without a label with no problem. It's much harder for a guy who hasn't been promoted by the big boys to go out and sell and album online all by himself.
The thing is that although distribution and production of an album has been put squarely in the hands of the artist because of technology, promotion, the actual getting the product out to market, is still a bear. It's hard to get your music, writings, software, or whatever to be noticed amidst the slew of all that's out there now. The labels still offer the artist the ability to get their faces seen amongst the crowd. So until that niche gets filled by a more artist/consumer friendly company, I think the label is still here to stay.
They'll go on just like they are, promoting a band, releasing the content on 25 year old technology, and then suing anyone who wants to use the content in any modern fashion.
Firstly, I see your points on the major labels being the promoters of music and popular acts being beholden to them for their growth, but the model is a bit outdated.
The reason I say this is because Radiohead came from an era in popular music that is now closed. In fact, the last meaningful period in popular music (the one that is most likely to have produced acts that will withstand the test of time and have meaningfulness outside it's primary generation) was the post-grunge era. This is the group that Radiohead is a founding act and it all came on the heels of the untimely departure of Kurt Cobain and the reticence of Pearl Jam to appease the masses.
The point is, in that period record labels still invested in acts that had something of a timeless quality to their sound. They also sought out highly creative but risky acts that in some way defined their own sound in lieu of falling squarely behind the leading acts of their time. High bandwidth internet was still sufficiently scarce enough to ensure that the CD would still be the primary delivery system for music publishers to music listeners and everything was well with the world.
Now, however, the business model has changed and the major labels have failed to adequately change with the times. The first example of this is covered ad nauseam in the earlier discussions (the ones about how downloading files has made buying CDs obsolete). The second, and most important, way in which the model is changed is in that people do not look simply to record labels for choices in what music they will listen to.
Social networking sites (myspace and the ilk), television ads, TV shows, and movies are all excellent sources of good new music...and no major label contract is required to break into that music outlet.
I was reading an article on this exact phenomenon no too long ago (regrettably can't remember who wrote it) but the gist of it was that the guy (a marketing guru) was at a loss to come up with what a record label could do for a band that they couldn't do for themselves.
The point is that there are infinitely more avenues for getting heard than there was in the era that Radiohead emerged from. CDs are no longer the sole source of music acquisition and record stores and radio stations are no longer even the primary avenues for the advertisement and promotion of new music (though they are still major players).
If you view what a label does as a service (the marketing of music) and you view products and services somewhat interchangeable, it is easy enough to see that the specific product that the typical major label offers is much like a product in the declining stage of its life cycle. The model is obsolete.
More importantly, and answering a question I posed in my first post, is that Radiohead's act is definitely getting the point across as a number of high-profile acts are following suit and are considering offering new material of their own free of charge--all to thumb their nose at the labels for being overly harsh in the prosecution of file sharers. This tide of belligerence, started by Radiohead, is seeing support out of acts such as Nine Inch Nails, Oaisis and Jamiroquai--none small change in the music industry.
I, for one, am giddy at the thought of a music industry coup d'état.
Ok.
First, you must boil the chicken until it falls off of the bone, then continue to boil until the the stock cooks down. Then you raise the temperature to 1,780 degrees and rotate the pot every 20 years, giving no consideration to who gets burned along the way.That's the industry's recipe for how to make musical soup.
For centuries the origin, heart, soul and power of music has been in its delivery. The message leaves the performer to the audience, it is received, processed, and then if accepted, the performer is then complimented in the form of respect, fame, and sometimes, on the rare occasion, with monetary gifts or gratuities. Ask any musician and they will tell you the same. A song is alive as long as it has a heart and bares its soul. Anyone can right a song, but not everyone can tell its story.
If you could only hear one last song before you were to lose your hearing forever, would you rather hear it from the artists "LIVE" or from the latest, greatest 6" plastic digital disc with the pretty rainbows underneath.
"Technology giveth,.... and technology taketh away!" (Philip R. Woods)
Only until recently (1870's) have we as intelligent humans been able to generate a sound and re-broadcast it to the masses via mechanical means. Now once we learned to improve the recording, we found a way to make more money. If there is one thing we are really good at, it's selling the shirts right off of our backs!
Take 3 parts entrepreneurs, 2 parts talent, 1 whole greed (lightly minced) and add a splash of technology, and you have the perfect ingredients to make a Musical Molotov Cocktail that will strip control away from the artist, along with his/her rights to share their creation (know now-a-days as Copyrights, and Licensing Agreements) and the perfect position to crown yourself as the "All-Knowing and Great Oz of Music" an thus expect the artist to be grateful and submissive because you have harnessed the mysterious and unattainable TECHNOLOGY like a dictator of a distant foreign land.
No wonder Ian Moore has had a sour taste in his mouth, and Pearl Jam, and Nirvana, and Boston, and John Fogerty, and Paul McCartney, and, and, and, and,...... you get the picture.
Ask any of these seasoned victims of the music machine and they will tell you how it really is. Our silly perspectives are nothing more than just that, unwrought and unused opinions. We are fed information from a limited perspective and rarely ever experience the just what really goes on in this crazy industry, and at the end of the day all we can do is to stand around and say, "awe, that's too bad, but you know those people knew what they were getting into, they made that deal so they get what they deserve."
The industry is broke. They know. We know! NOW,... they know we know. They were to busy counting the $'s to pay attention to who was cooking in the kitchen and just what was on the menu and being Served.
There is a time to gain and a time to lose. Sound familiar?
Go ahead give the masses your music Radiohead.
Only now are you doing what you should have done all along.
Taking control of your artistry,...... for better or for worse.
Good luck.
"Try eating steak with a spoon! ... long live the FORK"
I've been impressed with a couple of record labels in particular lately.
1) Tooth and Nail Records. I met a couple of the guys that started Tooth and Nail back when I was in college at OBU, their some really cool guys. For those of you that don't recognize the name, they produce some really rocking Christian bands. I like them because they don't seem to be the traditional "Christian" band scene. They don't pour out cheesey Stephen Curtis Chapman crap, most of the bands they produce fully rock and just happen to have a positive message. If you have heard them, check 'em out.
2) Starbucks is pumping out some pretty cool stuff with their new record label. What an ingenious idea to give away a free iTunes song with every Latte... I like them because they seem to promote bands that are not as mainstream/poppy as a lot of the other big labels are.
Finally, I think that it's not so much record labels that have ruined radio... it's 13 year old girls that ruined it. It seems obvious to me that the record companies are out to make money and the easiest place to make it is from these kids that will go out and buy one mass produced/watered down band after another. I mean really, can anyone tell one Nickleback song from the other (Yes Justin, I still have to sing "my heart was breaking, for handing me a pound of bacon" thanks for getting stupid lyrics stuck in my head forever). Even worse than those no-talent-ass clowns is the whole pop/R&B genre. Most of those guys have zero talent but have been over modulated and synthesized to sound like something they obviously aren't (think Ashley Simpson).
So maybe we shouldn't fight the labels as much as fight giving 13 year olds enough disposable income to shape the freaking music industry!
It is interesting to consider that the recording industry is relatively young, born sometime in the early to mid 20th century, yet because it was birthed in an age of exponential technological growth, it was born and died very quickly on that ever increasing curve we call innovation.
Now all that's left are the lawyers fighting over what's remaining of it's orphan children, much like what happened with Anna Nicole Smith.
You started out with something beautiful: talent, art, passion, potential, but once it was figured that you could effectively fake all that and drop the expense of it right to the bottom line, you're just left with a drugged up whore, and when she finally OD's all you can do is sue for the paternity rights to her illegitimate children.
It would be cool if the songs of our culture started telling stories again. Gives me some additional appreciation for Mr. Wheeler for taking the time out of English in 6th grade to teach us about Woody Guthrie and Bob Dylan.
Of course at the time, my friends and I were all drinking the Poison kool aid, which was the adolescent precursor to the current artistic genocide of Brittany Spears, Ashley Simpon, and the other WMD's (Whores of Musical Degradation) in the arsenal of Big Music's un-Revolutionary Guard.
The cool thing is that it looks like a real revolution is on the horizon. It will be interesting to see how it shakes out, what alliances form, what processes arise for filtering the art from the crap. How the story of our culture and world is effectively going to be told through music and art. The sad part will be that in the melee that is sure to ensue I think alot of real good art is going to be lost in sheer noise and clamoring from the simple but huge battle to just be noticed. I guess music and liberty will always share a common bond, so to quote Jefferson:
"The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants. It is it’s natural manure."
So goes it, all we can do is stand prepared, forks in hand, ready and willing to fight.
Another good article on this subject.
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