Record executive stereotype.
Redmonk, a person I’ve been acquainted with through the music scene for a while made a comment on my post ‘I’m Doing It For The Scene Maaaan’ which was relevant to the thesis he’s working on. He posted a few thoughts and links in the comments to that post and rather than type out my reaction as a super long comment that people might not see I decided to do a post about it.
Generally the thoughts are all circling around how artists will make money after the business of selling recorded music, what I call the recording business, finally dies. I use the term recording business rather than music business because there are plenty of businesses about or around music which are making lots of money including gear manufacturers, educational institutions, makers of music listening devices etc. The biggest casualties I see in all this are the labels and at some level the artists. Redmonk is italicized below, my thoughts are interspersed.
Hey Matt, you might have seen this:
http://labs.timesonline.co.uk/blog/2009/11/12/do-music-artists-do-better-in-a-world-with-illegal-file-sharing/
Predicts that artists will supposedly soon be making more from gigs than selling physical copies of their music.
There are more and more theorists (including Gerd Loenhard – http://www.mediafuturist.com/) essentially arguing that we should be heard first, build an audience and then once the trust is there, they’ll pay to see our gigs, buy our merch etc. So give the music away for free (cos if people want to, they’ll get it for free somehow) and make money through other streams.
Firstly I don’t think giving all your music away for free is a valid model for first time artists. It creates the perception that that music has no value and makes it look like un-filtered amateur spew (which it often is) and makes people not think of it as professional. People still place great respect in the idea of ‘getting signed’ or ‘having a record deal’ even if it is just to some bedroom label putting out 12″s or digital singles. There is still an important role for the record label to play as a creative force, and it’s important to know that MOST labels are run by enthusiasts who are contributing to the dialogue about style and sound (like for example my label with Rupture Dutty Artz) by picking cool emerging artists and giving them a platform and helping to filter their output, not by guys in pin-striped suits sniffing coke in some big office trying to make money. Using ‘the record industry’ as a blanket term for some kind of exploitative boogie man is stupid.
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