Some Bands Still Refuse Music Downloads 545
Zelbinian writes "Wired News reports there are a number of artists, ranging from The Beatles to Radiohead, that are still holding out on iTunes. Some feel that per-track downloads hurt the artistic integrity of albums as a whole; for others it's simply a matter of negotiation troubles. From the article: 'Since record companies have realized the popularity of iTunes and other sites, many reworked contracts to give artists less money per download. Andrews said while record companies once offered artists about 30 cents for each song sold, now musicians are earning less than a dime.'"
Comment removed (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:I can see both sides of this (Score:2, Interesting)
Then they should make the album one long track.
Or come up with some new terms.
"track" and "album" are archaic demarkation terms. It's much like how "page" is an archaic demarkation term when you deal with ebooks. Who cares which page its on? I want one document. Table of contents and indecies can hyperlink to the appropriate points in the document.
Change of Heart for the Bands (Score:5, Interesting)
Radiohead made Kid A top the charts, both here (UK) and America, through online publicity.
Perhaps it is since the culture of iPods is to create playlists and to "shuffle" that they wish to avoid it, and their release on the internet was in the idea that people still listened to music, downloaded or not, as a whole work, as if on CD.
Often called pretentious, the desire to have your work viewed and heard as a whole appeals to an older perception of music, one that I personally still subscribe to. It holds the idea of an album as a progression, as something that has a beginning and a conclusion, such as one might expect from a traditional symphony.
It can be very discouraging to an artist when an entire medium is practically devoted to destroying that construction. And if they care more about their artistic integrity than making further sales, I can only applaud them.
Magnatune (Score:4, Interesting)
Well from an artistic point of view (Score:1, Interesting)
Re:Well... (Score:5, Interesting)
I think you just answered your own question. The problem here is that too many artists are lured into thinking that the only way to make a living in music is to sign away your soul to record label, for pennies on the dollar.
Now I'll grant you that I don't really know much about the intricacies of the music business, but based on conversations I've had with quite a few people lately, it seems like an artist would perhaps be better served staying unsigned -- if they have any management skills at all, or know where to find someone who does -- than to get on board with a label. What does the label give you? A chance at a very, very small slice of a larger "pie," but really what's the advantage of that over having a much larger slice of a smaller pie?
If you get 91% back from your music sales, it doesn't take nearly as many sales for you to make a living than it does for a signed band. I'd bet that properly done, the margins on CD sales are similarly large. Sure, you probably won't see an unsigned band's stuff in WalMart, but again: if you can make the same amount of money being a regional band, and have total creative control
The one thing that the labels still seem to have is a pretty tight grip on the music flowing into radio stations, particularly the corporate controlled (*cough*ClearChannel*cough*) ones; but the relevance of that mode of distribution is fading daily. Particularly if your audience is in a younger demographic, it doesn't seem like radio play is necessarily the requirement for sales that it once was.
I guess maybe I'm not a musician and I don't understand the desire for fame that might lead someone to believe that being nationally recognized is a good thing per se, versus making the same amount of money as a regional band, and not feeling like they're taking it up the ass every day. If someone can explain what the value proposition of the record labels is, in today's economy, where it's widely known that they compensate artists poorly and essentially do nothing but take your music as payment for questionable PR campaigns, I'd be interested.
Re:I can see both sides of this (Score:5, Interesting)
As an aside, Mars Volta is one of the few examples of music that is much better as a cd than as an individual track. You might like Inertiatic on its own, but until you've heard the full cd as a whole you havn't experienced the band.
Easy Solution. (Score:5, Interesting)
Artists used towrite for albums, noy CD's (Score:2, Interesting)
I think it was easier back then because there were usually about 4 or fives songs per side. Its much harder trying to arrange 10 songs to be played in sequence. Our attention spans will not allow us to listen closely to 10 songs.
-B
PS Musicians make very little off of music. Thats not right.
Re:How are they performed live? (Score:3, Interesting)
A live concert is for fans who have shelled out to come see them, in person, they are going to give a full performance for their fans. The songs are generally already known by fans, that is why they went to the concert. It would be more like the artist doing concerts, but a fan could simply pay 3 dollars to hear a couple of the songs, and they leave during the songs they were not interested in hearing.
Releasing music on the radio is also different, because if a band is going to get their idea out, which SOME portray through an album, some through individual songs, they need some method to do so. You can't just make a CD and expect it to sell, you need people to hear something. So they put their best (or at least most catchy) foot forward, and hope that people like them enough to hear what they have actually put together.
What they want to avoid, or at least the ones who put out full comprehensive albums, is that they produce an album that has a point that they want conveyed, release a single, people love the single, people don't buy albums anymore so they buy the single and noone ever hears the album. Believe it or not, some artists actually care what you see, call them crazy, many will agree. Salvatore Dali was crazy, I bet you would have had a difficult time getting him to agree to cut out your favorite peice of one of his paintings to put on your starter cap. However, don't you agree that this is what is needed from more artists, and not less?
Speaking of Album Integrity... (Score:2, Interesting)
Beatles, Microsoft, Wal-Mart? (Score:3, Interesting)
And how much do you think Microsoft would pay Apple Corp to be able to say that Zune plays the Beatles, but iPod doesn't?
Re:I can see both sides of this (Score:3, Interesting)
At any rate, when I read that quote about preferring LPs I listened to my Kid A CD again and IIRC the side break is between Treefingers and Optimistic. That was quite a while ago, and I don't memorize this type of thing.
I wouldn't want to be on iTunes/Napster/etc. either, because of the DRM, if I could ever get my act together and finish any of the songs I've been working on over the last decade. I'm not sure if Radiohead's reasons are the same, though. I haven't really heard them say much about their concept of the relationship between performer and audience, so for all I know they might be looking to avoid liability in iPod-related pedestrian collision lawsuits.
And on the conceptual level, it seems that today's listener's ability to control nearly every aspect of the listening experience turns the relationship between performer and audience (originally founded in classical concerts, which might have loosely based on the church settings from which "serious" music performances started in the middle ages... I'm just guessing at some of that, my music history courses didn't focus on cool shit like composer-performer-audience relationships but rather on boring stuff like composers and their works...) on its head. Some artists might not be comfortable with that. But the freedoms that the listener has gained through technology, such as those of venue and tracklisting are pretty superficial in my opinion, at least to the performer. The audience has always been free of mind to (mis)understand the work, to rearrange the performance mentally, to be distracted or asleep, to walk out during the show, to be cynical and not step into the world of the work. Audiences and critics have excercised these freedoms for centuries and often pissed off composers and performers in so doing, so these kids with their fancy iPods shouldn't be anything new. But that's just my opinion
Only as an Album? (Score:1, Interesting)
There are very few albums out there that you can pop in your CD player, or make a playlist of the album, and listen through its entirety and could ruin the album integrity if you heard 1 song. Some great examples of artists that could make this claim: Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd.
As for Garth Brooks, I like maybe 5 of your songs, and they are all on different albums. I don't own your 5 songs I like, because you are a TOOL and are greedy. The same for Bob Seger...FYI...Night Moves would be the ONLY entire album I would download of yours.
The artists that are new and opposed to music downloads know they are 1 hit wonders, and buyers won't get screwed on downloading 1 good song and 15 songs of crap. As for older proven bands and artists, you are hurting yourselves.
Vinyl is dead...and CD's are close behind.
This is why (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:That's fine. (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:I can see both sides of this (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:I can see both sides of this (Score:5, Interesting)
And due to what members of the band have often said, I am willing to believe that they really do care about something other than the money.
Re:Man that's a bad summary (Score:3, Interesting)
To be honest, your little story makes it sound insanely easy to get onto iTunes. Much easier than, say, getting a distribution deal into a national music store like HMV.
Re:Man that's a bad summary (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:I can see both sides of this (Score:3, Interesting)
In fact, that whole album broke every rule in the record industry's book. Someone who'd know about these things once told me that they were given a huge advance fee and all the time they wanted to record the album, and none of the money was recoupable. This is in complete contrast to how the major labels normally do things, with artists often needing to sell an awful lot of albums before they see any money from them due to the record company taking the costs of everything from their videos to the flowers in the recording studio reception out of their wages.
Re:Missing the point (Score:4, Interesting)
think about it another way. If you are a painter having just completed your masterpiece [abcgallery.com] stretching across a huge canvas, would you be happy if someone just took a detail [candysangels.com] from it and refused to see the whole work?
back to music how happy do you think beethoven would be to know that his epic works have been reduced to a mobile phone ringtone? and how good an understanding of his work do you get from only listening to that ringtone?
a lot of musicians are unhappy with people reading the lyrics when listening to the songs because they feel it detracts from their work. does that stop you from reading while listening? hell no!
does it mean that they don't have the right to ask how they would like their music to be listened to? again hell no!
Re:Missing the point (Score:3, Interesting)
If Radiohead really wanted you to listen to the whole album, they'd make it one long track.
The REAL artsy bands (Godspeed You Black Emperor, I'm looking at you) do this.
Now, you can complain about lack of context, and certainly the artist should have the right to control their medium of discussion, but ultimately, there is no right answer. The artist is right; the listener is right. Nothing is true; everything is permitted. Et cetera.
Re:Well... (Score:3, Interesting)
The impression I get wasn't so much that it was CD sales they benefited from, but rather better gigs. They got to open for big name stars like Reba, Charlie Daniels, etc. That's where the money was, from touring...
It wasn't much money, but it was enough to go full time at it. Otherwise, it's a part time job and you've got to make money for food doing something else in addition. The dream is to go full time, have a larger audience who then realize your great talents and you go even larger.
Sometimes it doesn't work out that way, and you continue as the opening band.
Still it's all about that dream.
Re:These idiots (Score:2, Interesting)
I agree completely. You will get a better appreciation out of a piece of art by understanding all the things you list. My argument is that this knowledge is not mandatory. Lewis did not preface his books with a EULA stating every reader must learn about x and y before starting.
a painter delivers a triptych to a gallery with the instructions "all three panels to be aligned horizontally, positioned 3 feet from the floor, against a white wall, with 2 inches between each panel"
I concede this point, but with the disclaimer that I'm slightly anti-modern art for exactly this reason.