Author Topic: Music Industry Wows  (Read 3680 times)

Spriggan

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Music Industry Wows
« on: August 21, 2002, 02:58:58 AM »
Screw it, I'm buying crayons and paper. I can imagineer my own adventures! Wheeee!

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fuzzyoctopus

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Re: Music Industry Wows
« Reply #1 on: August 21, 2002, 05:58:21 PM »
Gee, that really only makes me hate the RIAA more. Shooting their toes off one by one and then blaming the consumers for it.
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Spriggan

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Re: Music Industry Wows
« Reply #2 on: August 21, 2002, 07:50:11 PM »
I love the attempt to blame video games.
Screw it, I'm buying crayons and paper. I can imagineer my own adventures! Wheeee!

Chuck Norris is the reason Waldo is hiding.


EUOL

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Re: Music Industry Wows
« Reply #3 on: August 22, 2002, 11:43:54 AM »
Don't you know, Sprig?  Video games are the root of all of society's problems.
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Entsuropi

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Re: Music Industry Wows
« Reply #4 on: August 22, 2002, 12:09:03 PM »
really? i thought the bible was? or was that marilyn manson?
If you're ever in an argument and Entropy winds up looking staid and temperate in comparison, it might be time to cut your losses and start a new thread about something else :)

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GuJiaXian

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Re: Music Industry Wows
« Reply #5 on: August 22, 2002, 02:10:34 PM »
Touchy subject...careful.

EUOL

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Re: Music Industry Wows
« Reply #6 on: August 24, 2002, 01:37:07 PM »
Nah, the true root of all evil is Marilyn Manson playing a video game about the Bible.
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Lord_of_Me

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Re: Music Industry Wows
« Reply #7 on: September 25, 2002, 01:14:04 PM »
back on topic:

a lot of people are saying it's the music industries own fault

exhibit a
Quote
So I was watching The Simpsons earlier, the 101 Dalmatians parody for those of you playing along at home, and a commercial came on for the local news.  "The recording industry is reporting more sales decreases, and they say it may be your fault."

So I'd like to take a second to step away from the comedy and apologize.  Here we go...

I'm sorry I make you put out bands with more marketing than talent who write uninspired music and then I make you promote dozens of their "Me too!" sound-a-likes so that I can vaguely dislike all of them without having to invest too much attention/bile into any particular brand.  I'm sorry that it costs you about $.20 to make a CD even though you sell them for $15.  I'm also sorry that at any one time there is probably one CD out there that I'd like to listen to, but its songs are splattered across twelve other CDs that feature one or two decent tunes and eight to ten crap ones.  I'm more sorry than I can say that you seem to think it's a wiser decision to alienate and annoy and blame your audience than it is to embrace and adapt to a technology that you cannot ignore or control no matter how much money you throw at Congress.

I hope you guys can forgive me.


there you go then

Kid_Kilowatt

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Re: Music Industry Woes
« Reply #8 on: September 25, 2002, 03:44:57 PM »
I don't know if the music industry really "wows" - they haven't really been impressing anyone lately.  In my opinion, the problem with the music industry is that, gradually, accountants have been taking control of the business.  Decisions used to be made by A&R reps who were in touch with trends in pop culture.  Artists were interesting people, and fans could get to know them by buying their records.  You could look at the liner notes and the packaging while listening to the music and get a feel for the artist who made it.  Now, however, the record labels decide what trends to create through marketing, rarely relying on what people actually want.  When a record-company-created sound clicks with listeners, they scramble to find as many sound-alikes as possible, going so far as to influence artists to switch from their preferred style to a more marketable one (see Amanda Latona, the new Britney/Christina wannabe who is scrambling to reinvent herself as an April Lavigne/Pink-esque "pretty punk" before her first record comes out).

The artists become increasingly faceless packaged commodities only expected to have one good song - a handful at best.  This is why people are preferring to download songs off the Internet - you don't need the actual album because you don't care about the artist.  You just want the one song.  By commodifying the music industry and throwing out any vestiges of personality and artistic sensibility to maximize profits, the accountants running the music business have created the trap that is killing them right now.  Some people are claiming that the Internet is draining money from the record labels, pushing them harder to maximize profits by narrowing their focus further and forcing them to push commercial trends more heavily, giving the audience less choice than ever.  That's true to a certain extent, but people wanting to have a choice and actually listen to something interesting and original have either stopped listening to music or turned away from the major labels before now.  Sooner or later, the record labels are going to one of three things: 1) take control of all distribution of music, over the Internet and otherwise, by new laws so they can profit from it sufficiently (I don't see this happening), 2) change tactics to a more grass-roots personality-oriented marketing system that will prove to be more profitable, or 3) collapse, splinter, and fall apart, creating a more equitable music business of less dominant smaller players.

The musicians are really pushing the record labels and the RIAA right now for better treatment, and the industry is finally being forced to listen because the market is bad.  When times were good they could just jettison any trouble-makers, but now groups like the Recording Artist Coalition are making significant progress on some of the industry's abuses: keeping copyright interests to all songs recorded for them in perpetuity, denying health insurance coverage to starting artists, and structuring contracts to bleed money from artists and keep them under unfair obligations for 10 years or more.

The best article I know of showing how record companies screw musicians over was written by musician/producer Steve Albini (he produced Nirvana's In Utero).  He explains how, after selling 250,000 copies of a record, members of a  band have often earned around $5,000 each, owing the label $14,000 on royalties, while the label has made over $700,000.  I wrote an article on this last year in school, so I've checked with real industry sources and can verify that the numbers he uses are fairly representative:

http://www.negativland.com/albini.html

Entsuropi

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Re: Music Industry Wows
« Reply #9 on: September 25, 2002, 06:22:25 PM »
im really looking forward to when the music industry dies a horrible death. itll probably take MTV with it, which means that the prick who front that request show in times square will be out of a job, which is good.

i really have to wonder about the credentials of the RIAA senior management. the concept of market led product development is a simple one i learned last year. its a basic concept, and these guys are forgetting a idea that was taught to me in college. amazing really.

i noticed that some artists manage to survive though - foo fighters, blink 182, the "divas" - they all manage to take the best that the RIAA can throw at them on the chin and survive. mind you, considering the fact that one of the former members of all saints was forced to go back to the recording studio to be able to buy a 2 bedroom house, after 4 platinum albums....
« Last Edit: September 25, 2002, 06:29:32 PM by Charlie82 »
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