Journal sielwolf's Journal: The Music Industry 101 10
I was just reading some of the questions for Ms. Janis Iann today and was surprised by the questions. Firstly it seems that most people who talk about the RIAA have no idea how the music industry works. Secondly they don't even have the slightest inkling about the independent music movement.
"Will this be the end of music?"
"Why are cd costs so high?"
The first thing I thought: "God! Drrrr!!" But then I realized: most people probably wouldn't know. They probably think that Spin magazine is an underground publication. Or that Def Jam is an independent label. Ok, so its time to go to school. I'll draw the olive branch on this one just to teach you youngin's a lesson.
So what is a Major?
A Major is one of the Big Six mainstream music companies. All of these are owned by seven multinationals. The exact same multinationals who also produce all television, movies, and electronics. Seven companies: Walt Disney, Viacom, AOL-Time Warner, Vivendi Universal, Bertelsmann, News Corp, and Sony. Read that above link. Digest it. That is what a multinational is. See how deep it all goes. To answer the above question, Def Jam is a colabel with Island Records, which is owned by Vivendi Universal. Universal Music controlled 22% of all music profits in 1999 alone.
And it is funny how much they try to snake away from the "stigma" of a major. Jay-Z's Roc-a-fella Records is just a brand of Def Jam. Sure... Damon Dash likes to style himself as a New Wealth CEO... but he's just a lil' fucking cog in a big fucking machine. In the same way Trent Reznor's Nothing Records is a subsidiary of Interscope which is owned by, you guessed it, the Universal Music Group. Why do they go about rebranding shit? We'll get into that later.
A great resource on how much the mainstream entertainment complex is out to fuck you, check out PBS's Frontline episode, "The Merchants of Cool". Great interviews with scholars and MTV on how they systematically go about weeding out cool and milking you for all its worth.
So what is an Independent Then?
An independent is a label or an artist not affiliated or distributed by one of the Big Six. R.E.M., for example, was signed to their own label IRS Records before going major. But IRS was distributed by MCA so that doesn't count. If points from your record don't go to some suit in Los Angeles, then you are an independent.
If you want the real scoop on the formenting of the American Independent Music scene, I cannot stress enough getting and reading "Our Band Could Be Your Life: Scenes from the American Indie Underground, 1981-1991" by Michael Azerrad. It is probably the document on understanding the musical underground in America today. Sure, it only covers American bands and only rock bands and it ignores the early independents (the Motowns and Suns... the first which is owned by Universal now) but it shows you how there is now a network of labels and distributors out there who work independent of the mainstream industry. Even big indie labels like Sub Pop, Touch & Go, and SST still don't even come CLOSE to making what majors do.
FYI: less than 1% of all record sales are by independents. This leads well into our next question.
How do the Majors go about Selecting Groups?
As you can guess there is one major difference between a Major and an Indie: the first is about making money, the second is about making music. That's it.
The Majors have no taste. They have trend-finders (like Dee Dee Gordon) who's only job is to go out and find the latest "thing".
Q: "Why are the Majors only concerned with pushing out a million bands that sound the same instead of a million different bands?"
A: Like I said, the Majors have no taste and are only about making money. How do you make a shitload of money? Market Saturation. Big Black sells a few hundred tapes. Suicidal Tendancies goes out and sells a few thousand records. Korn goes out and sells a million records. Limp Bizkit goes out and sells a couple million. Now is time for the attack! The Ademas, Taproots, Crazytowns, Linkin Parks. On and on. Find that one note and keep pounding away at it until you lose their attention.
Let's talk a little about Diffusion Research . Diffusion Research was first used to see how a new grain was adopted by farmers in Iowa. It was found that there were six classes of individuals: innovator, early adopter, early majority, majority, later majority, laggards. The general chronology works like this:
- The innovator come up with an idea. It is rough around the edges.
- The early adopter recognizes some "gold" in the innovator's idea and polishes it up. Another important feature about the early adopter is that he is "socially relevant". He is a taste-setter.
- The early adopter's clique, the early majority, follow their leader and act as a double check. Everyone is human but this is the first "group" in diffusion theory. They make sure that the early adopter IS actually doing something good.
- Now the majority sees that the popular clique, the early majority is onto something. They follow suit as to not be out of touch. Note: by this point usually the innovator is sick of his idea. He begins to move onto something else.
- Then the late majority. Note: now the early adopter is tired of the trend. He then looks for another innovative idea.
- Finally the laggards. Note: by this time only the laggards and late majority are still following this trend.
Can you see how this plays out into entertainment trends as well? And the key: Majors don't want innovators, they want early adopters. The idea in the innovators hand is interesting and cutting edge... but too obtuse for the majority to get a hold on. The early adopter is necessary to make it palatable for the everyone else. Madonna is the perfect early adopter. She has never been innovative, she has just been gifted with knowing where to look and doing it so the rest of the world can follow suit. Like her transition from "naughty" S&M and West Coast gangsta beats (Genitorturers and NWA she wasn't) to techno-light and rockabilly (say Detroit Techno and Wilco). She was able to turn everything from an "underground" phenomena to a "pop" one (and go on to sell bajillions of records).
Q: "So once you have your Early Adopter what do you do? Market Saturation?"
A: Exactly! People can only own one copy of Nirvana "Nevermind" so you sell them Alice in Chains and Soundgarden. Then you sell them Bush and Silverchair. Then when they still aren't full you give them shit like Harvey Danger.
Q: "Why not get an innovator and try to sell to early adopters then?"
A: Easy... where is the meat of the demographic? Not at steps 1 or 2, God no! That's like less than 1% of the population! You want that 5% of the early majority to confirm your suspicions and the 80% that are the majority and late majority to fill your coffers. Fuck all to the innovators. Statistically the heart of the dollars are with the people who are not looking for trends, just following them. Morons.. You need the early adopter to give you the version that the morons will take. Other than that: attack!
Do you think that Island knows a thing about Hip-hop? Haha! But they can go out and poll those kids in South Bronx (an Early Majority) and figure out what everyone else will eat up (the 'burbs aka the Majority and Late Majority). Give them two hundred bucks in merchandise and write it off as a business expense.
And there is a beautiful side-effect of market saturation: pushing the innovators to new ideas. Think of the diffusion groups as concentric rings with the innovator at the middle and the laggards on the outside. All groups closer to the center than Group X are "cooler but listen to some odd shit". Everyone further outside from Group X is "so fucking out of it". Now the outer rings put trend-pressure on the inner rings, pushing them forward to newer ideas. What does Market Saturation have to do with this? It pushes the ideas out faster to the majority, thus pushing the innovator to newer ideas faster. Now you can get into annual fashions and the majority has to buy new shit at quicker intervals to keep up...
Kind of like the PC market, eh?
So how are Independents different?
Well its becaue they followed your suggestion, they aim at the innovators and early adopters. Who do innovators look at? Why each other, obviously. Naturally they don't see it like that as it is all implicit.
The true reason from the conscious: "We want to put out music we like." You see, the innovator is a wierd cat. He does a-audio-genesis: music from nothing (or a close approximation of nothing). He doesn't like anything ELSE he hears so he goes about looking between the cracks for a new sound. He finds something that he likes and usually there is somebody else out there that will like it.
The beauty of it all for the independent/innovator is that he doesn't care about selling shitload of records (at least as the number one desire), he only wants to make music that he and his like minded indies will like. Some of it is almost premade and could probably jump directly to the early majority but most of it is too obscure.
Who cares though, right? "We're in a band and we sell albums and tour the world and cute girls in little plaid dresses like to play with our penises." Yes there are people who a few basic things makes them happy.
Q: "So what is the biggest difference between Majors and Indies?"
A: In one word: Discovery. New sound or innovative sound or eclectic sound is stimulating just due to its newness. It is personal. Our thing. To listen to the music or watch the movie is like going out with Christopher Columbus over the horizon. Only later would Cortez come along and plunder the new world. But for the innovator, climbing over that peak to see what's on the otherside is the totality of the reward.
Now its a rare animal that enjoys such a thing (or generally rare) so I guess Nietzsche was right!
I still don't see why the Majors are "bad"
For one: the Majors aren't "bad". They aren't out to kill your children and leave you poor. The key is that they are not altruistic. They are capitalistic. You pushing over the dollar to them is all that matters. The key to capitalism is that if people liked to eat Shit Pies, McDonalds would have the McShit and the McShitLite tomorrow morning.
Problem Number One with Capitalism: The Consumer must watch out for himself. We all know this but we seem to forget it time to time.
Q: "What makes the Majors so "bad" then?".
A: They are about minimizing loses and maximizing profits. Lucky for them their product isn't directly hazardous (unlike cigarettes or food or heroin or tampons) so there is no need for Federal regulation. The government protects you as far as having a company killing you. Now you can inadvertently kill yourself...
Anyway, they've been around for roughly a hundred years with the sole purpose of minimizing loss and maximizing gain. Best deal for them is that since they don't kill people they don't have to worry about being considered a cartel!
So they came up with a system with rules that they all follow. All very lingoistic, all very lawyerbased, all very cheap but, most importantly, all very legal.
You want the lowdown? I will defer to the great Steve Albini who knows better than anyone. He's done seminal music and production for both Indies and Majors. Steve Albini knows what the fuck he's talking about when he points out the Problem with Music . Anyone, who has an even MODERATE interest in music, should read that article.
Go ahead. I'll wait... Finished? Good (if not, you're a moron and deserve what you get).
A&Rs... contracts... intents to sign... points... advances... all this jargon all intended to put the band in the shittiest possible place.
Q: "If things are so bad with the Majors, why does anyone go to them?"
A: First off most people are morons and so only know about what they hear on mainstream radio, on mainstream MTV (note to the wise: Viacom owns MTV, VH1 and BET and all their subchannels), or read about in mainstream publications. As far as most people know the majors are the only game in town.
And those that do know a bit more, the only people getting rich in the game are on Majors (mostly... see Russell Simmons or Barry Gordy) so the indies are, at best, a stepping stone to a better Major Label Contract. "Hell, I wanna be able to retire on this shit! I want to have a fucking trust fund for my kids! You can't do that on an indie!"
You know what? That's exactly true. Like I said, indies aim at less than 1% of the population (see how the sales numbers and diffusion groups match up so nice?). Making music on an indie is only a privelige of someone who's made money elsewere or who doesn't care about the Bentleys and the Jets.
But, hahahahahahah!
Q: "What's so funny?"
A: If you did an average income of bands on independent labels and those on majors you would find this very important fact: the mean income of an indie artist is higher than his major counterpart. Like Albini pointed out above (you read it right?), for every Nirvana or Jay-Z there are a few hundred bands making less than a schmoe at 7-11. OTOH, most guys on indies now can actually make a living. Not great, but decent.
And that is the crux of the argument. If you go by the statistics, the Indie is the way to go... unless you are a label head. Then you want to milk every motherfucker and their sister of every red cent. Maybe if you are Michael Jackson you can risk it in the long run. But there are a thousand nameless scrubs who thought they were the next BIG FUCKING THING and there is only one MJ. And MJ even started on Motown...
Ok, so then What should We do about it?
Heh, funny question. Well if your in a band know your priorities. Indie can mean a lot of things outside of just not being on a Major. Step carefully. Heed Steve Albini's words. If you are truly good get yourself a lawyer and be frugal if the Majors come calling. If you only care about the music: fuck all, do what you want, get a good label that supports you and have fun.
But what if you are a consumer? Well it depends on your worldview. I am pragmatic. I buy what I like, Major or Indie. If you read any of my other previous posts you see how I devour music. I guess it is in my lifeblood. I fuck around with ProTools and Acid but I'm just an amateur.
Take Clipse. Clipse is on Startrak which is a front for Arista which is owned by Bertelsmann.
Q: "Does it bother you?"
A: No, because I like the album. In the end, it comes down to enjoying music for its merits. Now cost is just as important as quality and the Majors like to put the screws onto you. Like I said before, this is Capitalism: the only person looking out for you is yourself.
The best parallel is the difference between Free or Open Software versus Closed and Proprietary Software. Do you want to be true to the GNU/Game? Or do you want to play Battlefield 1942 and enjoy Win XP? As you may read on my other posts I run Debian AND WinXP and have no qualms about it.
I guess it is more important to know what is going on. It is important to know where the authorities lie and what to trust (if anything). Sub Pop is owned by AOL-Time Warner. But that Pigeonhed disc I got is still really good.
Q: "But what about the artist on the Major. Shouldn't you be worried about them?"
A: You will be spending a lot of time worrying if you are concerned about the livelihood of someone who made a career choice. Bite your nails over all the people coming out of college with Humanities degrees. Do I wish that they got a better shake? Sure. But could they have made a better choice by going with an Indie? As I said above, of course. You stuck the gun in your mouth. Now you want a refund because there was a bullet in the chamber?
Q: "Ok ok! So what would you suggest doing?"
A: Dig! Discovery, discovery, discovery! Find out the influences of a band and look them up. Not only look them up but buy the discs. Not only that but then listen to them. Let the sound grow on you. Find those Used CD stores and become one of their favorite customers. Say shit like, "Hey, this douchebag on
Develop a bullshit-ometer. If you fucking hate Korn now (they were copying themselves by the second side of their debut BTW) know that Jonathan Davis's brother's band, Adema, is just that: his brother's band. It is a fucking attempt to cash in. Know that they also whored Adema on The Real World: NYC.
Finally. Be fucking true to yourself. The difference between the Innovator and the Early Adopter is that the Early Adopter is doing it for socio-political reasons. The Innovator doesn't give a shit if his friends find his music to be faggy or shitty. The Innovator thinks that Duran Duran and Rapeman make a great road cd. The Innovator also isn't afraid to say stuff: like that the Replacements suck or Black Flag only released one good album.
Like "Our Band Could Be Your Life" ends, the key to punk rock was to think for yourself.
Wait wait wait! Don't leave us hanging! Give us some shit to listen too!
Fine, here is a list of a few artists you can look into who are well known for their Anti-Majors stance and are pretty damn good.
- Steve Albini (of Big Black, Rapeman, Shellac): If you've been reading ANY of this post you would know why this man rocks. He's also the king of producers. Go to google and find out all that he's produced. Nirvana to Bush to Pixies to PJ Harvey to Neurosis. He is the voice of the indie IMHO.
- Ian MacKaye (of Minor Threat, Fugazi): Fugazi- no albums costing more than ten bucks, no concert tix more than five. All about the D.C. scene and getting kids off and running. True to the game.
- Aimee Mann (of Til Tuesday, "Magnolia" Soundtrack): Was whored around after being a "One Hit Wonder" in the 80's. Ended up doing the "Magnolia" soundtrack, getting a grammy nomination, and selling shitloads from her website. How fucking DIY is that?
- Kathleen Hanna (of Bikini Kill, Le Tigre): Heh. This is an odd one for a lot of folks but if you want some RiotWomyyn action, Kathleen Hanna is all about making DIY the battle cry of our American Girls.
- Del the Funky Homosapien: Ice Cube's cousin best known by most for making "Mr Dobolina". Like Aimee Mann got fucked around by Majors before going Indie. "Del's Nightmare" on "Future Development", the album Electra held from production for years, compares the relationship between Majors and black Artists as Master-Slave 19th century shit. Harsh! Also check out his work with Dan the Automator (Deltron 3030, Handsome Boy Modelling School)
- El-P (of Company Flow, operator of Definitive Jux): Company Flow was one of the first off of Rawkus Records to put the label on the map, before they became the mouthpiece of MCA and putting out shit like Soundbombing III. Went on to form the fastest up and coming indie hip-hop label, Definitive Jux (CannOx, Aesop Rock, RJD2)
- Justin Broderick (of Godflesh, Techno Animal, Fall of Because, Ice, etc...): Personal favorite. Ex-Napalm Death when the Birmingham, England scene was just like 1981 SST L.A. Has gone on to fucking tear through all music like a maestro: dirge rock, grind-core, ambient dub, hip-hop. With Godflesh just recently broken up, I'm looking forward to his new main project, Jesu
Good publications to read:
- The Onion (yes, THAT Onion) AV Club.
- Cleveland Free Times and all the other Village Voice affiliates.
- Hip Hop Site. Great indie hip hop news
And there is so much more. Labels like 75Ark, Stones Throw, and DHR. Read music publication shit like NME and RockNews. Magazines like URB and XLR8R. Mostly: keep your ears to the ground and eyes to the stars (or somethin'. What would Jimmeny Cricket say?). I'm gonna break precedent and leave Comments Enabled on this one. If you want to ask me shit, feel free. If you want to break my balls... shit, I don't fucking care. This is
Re:Die (Score:2)
Fuck! (Score:2)
Classical (Score:2)
I guess it would be like in the year 2312 to go out and find a thousand groups doing "Oops! I did it again"... well different in that I hope by then they realize that song sucks.
Also there is the difference of selling a personal performance and just doing a cover. I'm not up on the law but I think that means you can cover Duke Ellington all you want but you can't resell a Duke Ellington recording without paying his estate... at least I think that's how it works.
I'm glad that the Majors didn't exist 300 years ago.
Another follow up (Score:2)
Aimee Mann on the Majors (Score:2)
Hey you! (Score:1)
Re:Hey you! (Score:2)
*sigh* fine (Score:2)
I spend so much time reading