Courtney Love does the math

[Nilfennasion]

Oh, right, I am an idiot because I learned as a teenager that avoiding the RIAA's product for the most part gives me better value for my hard earned, eh?

You have to laugh at a superiority complex from a guy who cannot even spell the name of the actor in his avatar correctly.

Getting back to the topic, both the RIAA and MPAA have cried foul at changes to the marketplace that they first believed would destroy their profit margin. The RIAA claimed that the radio would be the worst thing that ever happened to recording artists because nobody would pay to buy recordings they could hear over the air for free. In the 1980s, just before the radio was coopted to push only the most "marketable", people actually bought the recordings they heard over the air. Because they wanted to hear those recordings again and again.

The RIAA also whines what MP3 is the worst thing to ever happen to them. Only in this case, they are right. It is just as easy to hear about independent artists such as Orphanage (http://www.orphanage.nl/ez/control.php?&topgroupname=releases&groupname=bytime&subgrou...e=bytime_music) as it is to hear about poseurs like Metallicrap, if you know how and where to look. But for true innovators in the business like Nuclear Blast or Moonfog, MP3 has been a literal godsend.

The RIAA doesn't want MP3 taken away from you because it threatens their profits. They want it taken away from you because it takes their assertion that theirs is the only product that exists, and kicks it firmly in the teeth. This is about more than artists just getting paid what they are entitled to. It is about controlling the perception and consciousness of the entire record-buying public.

[bazooka]

Nilf,

You are correct.

It is funny how they are complaining yet the customers have been getting the shaft for decades.

[NamPla]

250,000 could easily have paid for the recording of all of DarkThrone's albums. Hell, with the production standard of most of them, I'd not be surprised to learn they had cash to spare out of that. Yet, exceptions like Transylvanian Hunger notwithstanding, I'd listen to any of their work long before the shite the RIAA puts out.

This is not an idiotic statement at all. Half-a-mil to record an album is a bloody joke. What a waste!!!

Like I always say, a good song will shine through a bloody $50 buck recording. But a SHIT song will always sound SHIT, no matter how many millions are pumped into the production. In fact, occasionally an OK song is actually "destroyed" by over-production!

The corporate music world is one gigantic daisy-chain of self-congratulating yuppie tossers!

People only buy their crap "music" because people are ignorant. If they were exposed to a wider range of music, they might re-evaluate their tastes... It's a total scam!

All the best music comes out of the underground - always has, always will. That's not personal opinion, it's fact!

Courtney Love is an idiot. So was Kurt.

[richdvd]

Anyone who isnt still making money off their albums is either too stupid to sign a good deal or too shitty a musician to care about.

You have no clue.....LMAO.

[AlecWest]

All the best music comes out of the underground - always has, always will. That's not personal opinion, it's fact!

I'm inclined to agree. Rather than listening to local "hit" stations anymore, I find myself spending a lot more time listening to Brainwashed Radio or Alternative.nu (when their streams are working). The first link is audio only. The latter link is broadband video (WMV), again, when the streams are working. You won't hear music like this on the radio or see videos like this on MTV ... but you might like what you hear and see anyway.

[JohnnyCNote]

[quote="NamPla"]

Like I always say, a good song will shine through a bloody $50 buck recording. But a SHIT song will always sound SHIT, no matter how many millions are pumped into the production. In fact, occasionally an OK song is actually "destroyed" by over-production!

I'm curious what you'd think of my music in light of the above statement. Check out this link: The Iron Tree...

[Nilfennasion]

David Bowie had an album in the mid-1980s called Never Let Me Down or something to that effect. One unofficial site basically said "Danger, Will Robinson! This album sucks!" about it. This is the same guy who wrote such classics as Station To Station or Ashes To Ashes we're talking about here. So you might wonder exactly what the problem with the album is. In a word or two, the production. Having heard bits of it myself, well, let's just say that Bowie has said in many an interview around the late 1990s that the real problem with Never Let Me Down was the production, not the material. Which is easy to believe when you have a screwed-up version of Iggy Pop's Bang Bang. Basically, the album is a million dollar's worth of production in search of a song.

That's not to say that a good album cannot be destroyed by bad production, though. DarkThrone's Transylvanian Hunger had production so poor that it sounds like a 10-watt PA at the bottom of a public swimming pool. I've also listened to a demo by one band that I was assurred were a force to be reckoned with on the Sydney underground. Given that the tape sounded like a red rattler through a megaphone, I guess I never got to know it.

What concerns me is that we are at a crossroads here. There's basically two directions we can go in. We can let the RIAA and MPAA maintain their monopoly on how we entertain ourselves through exterior sources, or we can start taking more control. One of the ways in which to do that is to start asking the MPAA to explain how piracy can be making them bankrupt if they can afford to pay thirty mill to a guy I often refer to as Coffee Table.

[vitualis]

At some level, you can understand it from the music industries point of view. They are trying to make money, not music or art. And obviously, they spend money to make it. An artist who gets signed up with a record company has a good chance at doing well from the publicitiy and marketing machine that the record company can provide. At some level, they can't really complain if they sign up.

For example, I could probably earn three or four times what I do now by working as a locum or in a consultancy firm. But I don't, so I don't. Although I can whinge all I want about not being paid "fairly" or at a "market rate", at the end of the day, I signed up and agreed to the contract. No one forced me into it.

Considering the amount of money that CAN be earned, there is a lot of opportunity for the artist to earn more by being more enterprising in any number of areas.

Regards.

[Nilfennasion]

Well, don't get me wrong, if someone puts a contract in front of you that is blatantly exploitative of you, and you are too naïve or out of it to tell them to sod off, you get what you deserve. But businesses should not be allowed to make obscene profits from overexploiting resources. This is what one economist referred to as bad externialities. In essence, the RIAA is putting the artists over a barrel and making them pay the RIAA's cost of doing business. Which is little different from how spammers basically force the rest of the internet to pay the costs of distributing their advertisements.

Johnny: I am listening to that MP3 right now. I'd kill to work with a rhythm section like that. It is a little repetitive towards the end for my liking, but to get past the semantics, you are definitely right. A good band shines through bad-to-average production.

[NamPla]

I'm curious what you'd think of my music in light of the above statement. Check out this link: The Iron Tree...

Do you mean the quality of the recording, JohnnyCNote? Don't get me wrong, I like a good production/sound, but I just think half-a-million buckeroonies is criminal! :P Nowadays you can record for FREE in your own home, and get top-notch sound quality, heh! (Just download Audacity!)

Sure, I can agree with Vitualis in pointing out that "money is the name of the game" etc etc, but I honestly feel it is unethical to market such a narrow spectrum of music to the world, at the expense of the great infinite range of fine music out there. There's something for everyone out there, and yet all we are given (in our fine "democrazy") is the choice of "Greenday" ("whoa radical maaan!") or "Britney Spears" ("she's sooo pretty (slut), I wanna be just like her!"). Or else that lame-ass hip-hop shite!

I don't call that consumer choice, I call that a SCAM.

The trouble with music is that, if you wanna hear the good stuff, you gotta dig for it, it doesn't just fall in your lap like all that MTV/FM radio crap...

And let's face it, Joe Blow & Mary-Jane next door is a dumb & lazy idiot...

It is my strong opinion that REAL rock'n'roll & money do not mix - at all!

And we're talking rock music here, ain't we?

[JohnnyCNote]

The quality is not the greatest, but it's done really well online. I just like to get feedback on it. My brother and I and working on a scheme to get some home recording equipment and produce better examples of my music. You're right in pointing out that it's possible to get very good results at home these days.....

[NamPla]

I just meant that streaming mp3's muffle the sound & don't do it justice. BUT you can still hear the mix - and yes, every instrument in your song is there! I bet your CD master is crystal clear. Audacity is great for multitracking - latency is very good now, and supports tons of free VST plug-ins etc.

Your guitar has a unique kinda sound (from what I'm used to, at least)... What do you use, delay pedal or something? What kind of distortion?

I am a "fuzz" addict! :P In fact, I like plugging my guitar straight into my little Behringer mixer & cranking all the knobs up to full!

But where were we? Courtney Hole? Oh yeah, she's a slag!

[Nilfennasion]

I think it is possible for money and artistic merit to mix. In the 1980s, it still did so fairly often (new artists like Devo, or old ones like David Bowie from 1980 to about 1983 or so, for example). The problem is that as (c)rap and preprogrammed garbage began to enter the picture, a lot of unscrupulous producers suddenly decided "hey, I'll use the same drumbeat for 1,000 songs and use marketing to convince people it's somehow 'cool', that way, I can sell 1,000 copies of 1,000 records and only pay one person".

Sadly, the consumer has been trained to forget listening past a voice. People forget that behind Michael Jackson's best recordings, there were drummers, bassists, pianists, etc etc. People are forgetting that beneath a veneer, there has to be a foundation.

[NamPla]

Man, DEVO were GREAT!!!!

"Jocko Homo"...what a song! what a video clip!

[Capmaster]

I just meant that streaming mp3's muffle the sound & don't do it justice. BUT you can still hear the mix - and yes, every instrument in your song is there! I bet your CD master is crystal clear. Audacity is great for multitracking - latency is very good now, and supports tons of free VST plug-ins etc.

Your guitar has a unique kinda sound (from what I'm used to, at least)... What do you use, delay pedal or something? What kind of distortion?

I am a "fuzz" addict! :P In fact, I like plugging my guitar straight into my little Behringer mixer & cranking all the knobs up to full!

But where were we? Courtney Hole? Oh yeah, she's a slag!

You got that right 8)

[mattyboy]

At some level, you can understand it from the music industries point of view. They are trying to make money, not music or art. And obviously, they spend money to make it. An artist who gets signed up with a record company has a good chance at doing well from the publicitiy and marketing machine that the record company can provide. At some level, they can't really complain if they sign up.

For example, I could probably earn three or four times what I do now by working as a locum or in a consultancy firm. But I don't, so I don't. Although I can whinge all I want about not being paid "fairly" or at a "market rate", at the end of the day, I signed up and agreed to the contract. No one forced me into it.

Considering the amount of money that CAN be earned, there is a lot of opportunity for the artist to earn more by being more enterprising in any number of areas.

Regards.

EXACTLY.

[BJ_M]

yes - you can record in your home studio , and the quality can be just awesome ..

you can even get a neve sound or whatever if you want fairly easy with todays better quality digital mixers ... (Im not talking recording into your creative labs soundblaster though) ..

10- 30grand (and up) ... 5ish at the real low end ..

in fact the increase in home studios and 'micro studios - on locations' are the reasons that a lot of the big guys are hurting and or packing it in (witness all the studios closing in NYNY)

[JohnnyCNote]

I came up with the name "The Holes" back in 1980, but decided it wasn't one I wanted to stick with.....

[BJ_M]

probably a good decision

[Nilfennasion]

I would have just changed it to something mildly offensive along those lines like The Arses.

[Bschuler]

Heh, I guess I am the only Hole fan around here. Shame, seeing that some major song writing talent was on her last album and on her other albums. You don't think she writes all her own songs now do you?

But on the topic of RIAA, radio, etc.. and artists getting the shaft. Of course it's true. You can be an independant or wait to get popular before signing the contract.. but in the end.. the only way to make it big.. is to sell your soul.

The recording artists who are rich.. tended to be the ones who got big independantly first, before turning to the recording industry or old timers.

[JohnnyCNote]

probably a good decision

Yes...I'm glad I settle on Last Rites instead. Howver, I still think "The Holes" would be a great name for a punk band...

[offline]

What about " The C Hunts "

or the " A Holes "

[richdvd]

What about " The C Hunts "

or the " A Holes "

LMAO.....

[Bucky_Katt]

The whole record Industry sucks, what year did the CD come out? That is still the primary format after 25 years? I would think if the record industy kept up with technology, more people whould be willing to shell out the $15 for each album if it had DVD content and HQ audio tracks.

[JohnnyCNote]

What about " The C Hunts "

or the " A Holes "

Here are some of the names I came up with over the years, The Holes, The Cosmetic Dogs, The Scofflaws, The Magdalenas. I can't take credit for Last Rites - a drummer came up with that one, but I liked it. Unfortunately, several other bands have used it since, although none has made it big, so I'm using it (followed by "from San Francisco"). I have a back-up name of Rex Mundi and the World Leaders.

There is one way that a band can keep its integrity and sign a good deal, and some have alluded to it. It involves having a very original sound and developing a strong following. If the record company sees that there's potential to make money with the band in its present form, then you can negotiate from a position of strength.

The main pitfall to watch out for is the dreaded 10 record (CD or whatever) deal. It's nearly impossible for any band, no matter how talented, to put out 10 releases of fresh material. More likely than not they'll start repeating themselves after the 3rd one, unless they make personnel changes like adding another member, etc. You can also use a live album or two to complete the committment, along with a "greatest hits".

Much better is to sign a 2 record deal. Then if you catch on big, you can renegotiate for a better deal. If you fail, you don't have a huge committment hanging over you. Still, it's a struggle to maintain artistic control. You have to find a producer who'll work with you to develope your sound in a way you're happy with, rather than someone who'll take over and mold you into his or her idea of a "hit band". Check out Mike Chapman for a good example of the latter....

[JohnnyCNote]

The whole record Industry sucks, what year did the CD come out? That is still the primary format after 25 years? I would think if the record industy kept up with technology, more people whould be willing to shell out the $15 for each album if it had DVD content and HQ audio tracks.

Not only that, look at the crap that's come out in the past 20 years. Very little has changed. Check out the movie "Hype!" to see how record companies can take something good and destroy it.....

[lordsmurf]

The whole record Industry sucks, what year did the CD come out? That is still the primary format after 25 years? I would think if the record industy kept up with technology, more people whould be willing to shell out the $15 for each album if it had DVD content and HQ audio tracks.

The only reason I bought Pantera and Metallica CDs in recent years is because they came with bonus DVDs, for $9-10 total price, and had several good songs (and decent DVD content).

That's a rarity.

[Nilfennasion]

Actually, you are pretty wrong about that. The recording industry did try to introduce a format that offers higher quality audio tracks along with added value content such as music videos. Perhaps you have heard of DVD-Audio? If not, I don't blame you. The segment of the RIAA that was behind it thoroughly messed up the launch. It's like they expected to be able to just put it out there and have the record-buying public instantly attracted to it.

One of the reasons I never got into DVD-Audio was because there was very little content on it that I wanted. Being that I supposedly fit the demographic that the RIAA considers its primary market, that bears some thinking about. I mean, I was absolutely blown away by Queen in 5.1 96 kHz, and the prospect of hearing Deep Purple's When A Blind Man Cries in the same format puts a smile on my face. But then, when I ask where bands like Therion or Emperor are in terms of getting their material into such a high-res format, Toshiba and Warners are strangely silent.

The fact that Sony broke off in another direction and released SACD has not helped matters any. They don't seem to have realised from the Beta experience that the market will not support two mutually incompatible formats, and the fact that their marketing is no better than is the case with DVD-A does not help.

The only reason I bought Pantera and Metallica CDs in recent years

The only reason you'd ever see me buying anything from these tossers is if they include a big apology for being such poseurs to we who have seen the real thing.

[smearbrick1]

I keep hearing that these "artists" got screwed by a record company. Cant they read?
There is contracts in place, and I doubt its a big conspiracy between the lawyers, record company CEOs and the concert promoters to steal all this music for themselves. Anyone who isnt still making money off their albums is either too stupid to sign a good deal or too shitty a musician to care about. Its not 1950 anymore where vinyl records are brand new and its all poor, southern black kids sitting on the front porch strumming a guitar waiting to get ripped off by educated bid-nessmen.
But, I could careless either way. :D

Just ask 75% of new bands/solo acts out now how many of them actually own the original master tapes of their records. I would bet most, if not all, of them do not (great example is the band Styx. They don't own the rights to the song "Lady". They actually had to re-record the song for their repackaged "Greatest Hits" album.) This is why you hear thirty seven different remixes of the same damn song over and over. You take a decent song with decent message behind it that is a bit on the slow side... add a nice house beat at double the tempo... BANG!!!! Instant dance sensation! (it also is a nice maneuver employed by record companies to market across different genres). Sometimes it isn't all about what you are getting at the moment, it's about what you have to show for it down the road when your band no longer sells and your only recourse is to put out greatest hits after greatest hits collection.