(originally uploaded by ginthefer)
A hint for the music industry: STOP FORCING GARBAGE ON US
A November 28, 2007 2:38 PM comment by Sabocat on the c|net article,
The recording industry should thank Apple:
I have a theory that what is killing the music industry is not downloads or piracy or people taking “their” product in any way at all. I think that maybe, just maybe, the fact that the biggest musical promotion (supported by bill boards plastered all over) that the industry is currently offering is… A Greatest Hits of the Spice Girls album.
Reheated warmed over formula music has a lot more to do with flagging sales than new media could ever begin to accomplish.
Give us music to buy and we will buy it.
And on a slightly more real level, there’s this comment by Jay Stone on Bol’s post,
Helping massa build a new house:
Like someone above me said Limewire is the shit. Unless the album is classic (Nas exception) there is no way I’m gonna cop it when you can download it for free. [...]
ABSENTBLUE comments on the Gizmodo post,
Radiohead, Saul Williams and the Inevitable Rise and Liberation of the Music Industry
[...] Digital media in any form is easy to pirate, but that doesn’t mean there aren’t enough people like myself who are willing to pay for something legitimate. All in all, big business is going to lose and the common man is going to win. Quality is still quality and can only be created and obtained by certain means, a talent with merit will still stand out against a flood of trite crap without the record industry.
Traditional artists still do after all, and how easy is it to get a JPEG? Very, but I’ll still go out and buy the book or poster if I like it enough, same goes for music. [...]
Clear enough?
Doug Morris said something in the Wired article the other day that I completely let slide in my quasi-review, but I think it’s a stance that’s important to understand because his take on the perceived value of music is indicative of how the corporate mindset hijacked music into serving as a cash cow for men with capital a long time ago:
“Really, an album that someone worked on for two years — is that worth only $9, $10, when people pay two bucks for coffee in Starbucks?”
A cursory read of that quote will probably leave most people in agreement with Morris — that the hard work that goes into creating an album is worth much more than five cups of coffee. Read it again and I bet you’ll agree that the argument is a strawman.
In classic bean counter fashion, Morris is aggregating the average cost of an album, across thousands of artist’s products, and comparing it to a product that has an absolute perceived value to a return customer based on a history of consistently met expectations.
The difference between two randomly poured cups of coffee isn’t anywhere near comparable to the taste of any two random artists. The creative output of people isn’t a natural commodity — a packaged good with explicit value — no matter whose hands are on what levers of industry.
Maybe twenty years ago, but not today.
It’s easy to understand why some people choose to pay exorbitant prices for a box set of their favorite artist’s music, while others choose to download, rip and trade to avoid the markup of prepackaged crap. It’s called free will. And now that our will lives in a world chock full of ways… well, you know the cliche.
We’re all now empowered with the ability to track, retrieve and experience the most discrete traces of information scents — not only the prefabricated packets of promotion-powered product — so common sense would dictate that it would behoove industry executives who care about the vitality of their industry to think long and hard about their strategy to serve only their prehistoric definition of a bottom-line.
Keep pushing crap on us, from ringtones to pre-fabricated personalities, and we’ll move beyond simply circumventing your mechanisms of product pushing to engaging directly with and supporting the source of our inspiration and redemption; the artists themselves.
nice finish, babe.
“The creative output of people isn’t a natural commodity, no matter whose hands are on what levers of industry.”
But why then hold record companies wholly responsible for quality? They can only do so much with the raw material supplied.
thanks, beautiful (molly).
i hold independent artists 100% responsible for their own quality, cayocosta. that’s why i pay full prices to support artists i respect.
the problem with so much of major label artistic development, led by executives like doug morris, is that they create armies of minions and a&r folk to “develop” talent — who are often better looking or entertaining than they are musically talented — to a corporate, bottom-line agenda, which keeps the “cost” of music bloated no matter the degree of quality music actually produced.
using doug morris’ analogy — labels put out coffee ranging from weak to bland to scalding hot to rich…. yet demand a similar price for it all to support and grow their corporate machine.
the majors take $.53 out of a $.99 sale on iTunes, and the artist receives $.11… so who are you really supporting by purchasing label products?
not all label acts are crap, but definitely enough to motivate me to seek out artists who maintain, fight for and evolve their own creative visions, forgoing the short-cut opportunities.
Well, it might make sense to put digital tracks on sale if they aren’t moving, and likewise raise the price if sales are brisk - however, such a system would reward mainstream acts while penalizing niche artists.
if i have to wait for a digital track from a particular artists to be made available based on sales returns from another sales vehicle, then i’ll find another place to do my shopping; a place that’ll have the product i’m looking for at a market friendly price because they’re not tied to conditional monetization.
labels feel the need to approach product like that because their first responsibility is to their shareholders and growth, but it’s short-term thinking (the problem with being a public company).
Why don’t you explain what you have in mind?
from a personal perspective, i’m good with lala.com… from an angle of providing an industry solution — but not necessarily for this current industry structure — i’m still working on it.
god, i love that song (preachers and thieves)!!!!
i have no problem paying for quality music i.e Molly McGinn.
and, as soon as i’m off this broke road i’ll be purchasing her album.
love it!
Dara, I’ll make a copy for you myself. Your note was just what I needed. Worth a million bucks.
awww, thanks Molly!
Sean,
how do you add a music track like you did in this post?
it’s a WP plugin called audio player