Evil corporate music industry

Subject: Evil corporate music industry
From: GUEST,hippie
Date: 28 Aug 00 - 02:22 PM

Today's corporate music industry sickens me. All it is interested in is money, money, money, and producing air-head droids to appeal to the masses. This machine of capitalism, has no values. New musicians, with new ideas are forced to conform, or else they don't have a chance. I'd be interrested to hear your views on this matter. Thanks.

Subject: RE: Evil corporate music industry
From: Midchuck
Date: 28 Aug 00 - 02:26 PM

Are you looking to get an argument going on that issue here?

The position you're taking is what this site is all about!

Usually, if someone makes as strong a statement as that, I'll argue the opposite position, no matter what my real opinion is, just because True Believers generally get me started. But I can't argue with you on that one.

Peter.

Subject: RE: Evil corporate music industry
From: SINSULL
Date: 28 Aug 00 - 02:36 PM

What am I missing here? Would you expect a profit centered organization to produce for the eclectic few or the deep pocketed masses? Is that evil? I don't think so. Look at network television and tell me why PBS has to beg for money to produce folk/jazz/opera/ballet/Shakespeare etc.? Because there is no money in it. Why is prime time radio and TV mainly crap? Because that's what the buying public wants and the stations are in business to make money. Evil? Waste maybe.

If you want to change it, don't buy the products sponsoring the crap and let the manufacturers know that you are not buying. Fight them on their own terms.

Subject: RE: Evil corporate music industry
From: GUEST,hippie
Date: 28 Aug 00 - 02:50 PM

I'd like to apologize for making such a strong, and pointless comment. My intent was not to create an argument, but rather a debate. Sorry, I'm new.

Subject: RE: Evil corporate music industry
From: Ed Pellow
Date: 28 Aug 00 - 03:00 PM

Most people hear buy 'uncommercial' music. We do so because we want to. The musicians who post here aren't forced to 'conform' They play music they like to people who want to hear it.

They don't get rich, but I for one am quite glad about that.

Hippie, if you want to be an "airhead droid" and buy "airhead droid" music, you can. If you want to buy good, interesting, intelligent music you can do that too.

All the best, and welcome to the Mudcat

Ed

Subject: RE: Evil corporate music industry
From: SINSULL
Date: 28 Aug 00 - 03:02 PM

Guest hippie - Your comments weren't too strong. And I believe you will get some excellent feedback before the day is out. Actually, I will probably have my head handed to me for my stand.

I owe you an apology for coming on so strong. Your point is valid. The music industry (probably the whole entertainment industry) produces for the most part worthless drivel. I wish I could say it was rebellious teens trying to shock their parents who support it. But it's not. Look at the crap people buy, support, request. These companies give them what they want.
Ouch!! Just fell off my soap box.
Mary

Subject: RE: Evil corporate music industry
From: Jim the Bart
Date: 28 Aug 00 - 03:04 PM

The music industry is capitalistic - which means that it's purpose is to produce money selling music, not to produce music for its own sake. If you don't understand that going in, they just squeeze whatever commercial music you may have out of you and dump you when they think you're played out.

One key factor in the very simple equation (popular music + promotion = money) is the personality or charisma of the artist. Since personality is a primary factor in determining what is easy to sell and what isn't (keep in mind that 99.9% of the audience is not schooled in music, doen't recognize art, has little or no time that they wish to devote to determining true originality or quality from imitation and pap, and sees music as an add on to whatever else they're doing), the music industry promotes performers that rate high on the charisma chart. All that matters in this context is that people like you enough to spend money on you. If you have some talent, that's OK, just don't let it get in the way of your popularity.

All that being said, if you want to make music - no one is going to stop you. If you want to make recordings of that music, the technology is out there. All you have to do is induce whatever other musicians you may need to play along. How you do that is another discussion. If you want to sell your recordings, you can always do that, too; door-to-door, from your soapbox on the corner, from whatever stage you can talk yourself onto. If you want to sell enough recordings to make a living. . .welcome to the music industry, no unsolicited tapes accepted, have your people call their people, and let's do lunch.

Remember one thing: They can package it, they can sell it, they can dress it up real pretty and make more of it than it really is. Hell, they can even copy it. Or steal it. But they can't create any music that is genuine and original on their own. Only a real musician/artist can do that. Whether anyone buys it or not, if you can make your own music you've done something that the music industry can't.

Subject: RE: Evil corporate music industry
From: RWilhelm
Date: 28 Aug 00 - 03:05 PM

I'll take an almost opposing view. The popular music industry is definately evil treating the public like idiots and thier artists like disposable commodities.

However, there are some good independent labels that are able to concentrate on quality and still make a profit without worrying about the mass market (Rounder comes to mind but there are many others.) They don't have the same distribution as the major labels but the internet makes that less and less important.

I'm hopeful that MP3 and other innovations will take the big money out of selling music. I'm all for artists being paid what they deserve but right now the industry is heavy with middlemen who really add no value. Maybe if the lure of big bucks goes away these guys will go back to selling aluminum siding.

Subject: RE: Evil corporate music industry
From: Sean Belt
Date: 28 Aug 00 - 03:18 PM

Agreed tht most of what the "music industry" turns out is crap. But that's the case for almost any corporate output. Nothing new there.

What is new is the technology available to eclectic/uncommercial artists to make it easier to get their music out to a wider audience. It takes less and less money to put out CDs which one can now record and burn digitally on their home PC. I have a couple of these home-made CDs at home that I enjoy very much. And I'd never have known about them or about the artists who produced them with out the internet. The computers and the internet are wonderful tools of which the folk and non-commercial artist can make great use. And that's just part of the new, exciting avenues available to us all for getting our creative output before an ever widening group of like-minded people. Sure, you'll probably never get rich doing that, but I don't know many musicians, actors , artists, etc. who are fabulously well-to-do. One does this for the love of it. Money's nice, but not the biggest motivator.

Now... one can sit around and moan about those dirty, rotten corporate greed-heads and how they're ruining things for the rest of us. But, I really do think that that's wasted energy. The solution is not to complain and do nothing more, but to find a need and fill it positively. It's all about living skillfully and ethically.

- Sean
(Now alighting from his soapbox.:-))

Subject: RE: Evil corporate music industry
From: sophocleese
Date: 28 Aug 00 - 03:20 PM

What always interests me in these debates about the evils of the music business is the core fact that music sells. Even lousy, inane, mindless music sells. People need music and are willing to spend money buying it if they think they can't create it themselves. Even people who are labelled, in this thread for instance, as uneducated and uncultured will buy music. Visual art just doesn't have the same impact as music.

Subject: RE: Evil corporate music industry
From: Art Thieme
Date: 28 Aug 00 - 03:21 PM

Most of us agree with Hipper (Gore?). Most of us have been trying for many decades to change things by WITHOLDING OUR CASH from mainstream music. I do realize that many here call all of it folk now, but I'm into folk music; I'm not into hippyhop or pop or Elvis or rock or much of the rest. My own recordings were done for companies and people I love and admire. I've watched them have to use boxes of vinyl records for firewood in their fireplaces when new tech stuff, from cassettes to CDs to MP3s to DVDs and whatever's next, made their life's work, if not exactly obsolete, it's made it economically terribly difficult if not completely untenable. And this includes the present condition of the company on which I issued my last record (CD) just 3 years ago.

It all leaves me wondering if life is short in order to keep us from needing to re-buy our music collections yet another time in order to line the ever-growing humongous pockets of the corporate big-time world !?

Art Thieme

Subject: RE: Evil corporate music industry
From: GUEST
Date: 28 Aug 00 - 03:44 PM

I have to agree with most of you. What I said is nothing new. I enjoy hearing your comments.

Subject: RE: Evil corporate music industry
From: Mbo
Date: 28 Aug 00 - 03:47 PM

Hey, some of those "airhead droids" make damn fine music.

Subject: RE: Evil corporate music industry
From: Whistle Stop
Date: 28 Aug 00 - 03:48 PM

I don't know, Art. I've never tried to starve the big record companies by withholding my money from them; that would be like expecting McDonald's to go out of business because I buy my lunch at Joe's diner. I just buy what I like, and much of that happens to be on the small labels. The big labels will survive me, no doubt, and will flourish within their own sphere. But as long as I can continue to find, and purchase, the music I like, I'm happy. And as long as I can accept the fact that I'll never be as big as Madonna by playing acoustic music on self-produced recordings and for the few people who want to hear it, I'm happy with that, too.

Subject: RE: Evil corporate music industry
From: Naemanson
Date: 28 Aug 00 - 03:48 PM

This might be a little thread creep but here is some interesting info that I scanned off of the liner notes on one of Harvey Reid's CD's. I was going to use it to start a thread when I noticed this thread. Coincidence or alien influence? You decide! ********** About the Public Domain (P.D.)

You may have seen (P.D.) or (Trad) on album covers and wondered what it meant. (Trad is short for traditional). The U.S. Copyright, Patent and Trademark laws provide a period of ownership for creative works, inventions and product names, after which ownership is supposed to expire and pass into the Public Domain, which means that they are available for any use by anyone without threat of infringement lawsuits. However, law a1lows the copyright of an arrangement of a public domain work, and there are thousands of arrangements on file for well known PD works, and it is unclear exactly what is privately or publicly owned.

ASCAP and BMI are private licensing organizations that monitor radio, TV, movie, restaurant, store, and live performances of copyrighted music and require users to pay yearly license fees to create a fund (now a yearly amount of about $320 million), from which royalty payments are made according to statistical samples of airplay and various calcu1ations. If an arrangement of a public domain piece is sampled during such a survey the copyright owner receives less money (about 1/5) than an original work.

Many of us feel that the current system is not ideal for several reasons. It discriminates statistically in favor of major artists, since money is paid out based on very small samples when the computer power exists to actually log airplay, as is done in many countries. It prevents popular artists and record companies from recording and disseminating traditional music because will make a lot less royalty money, thus making it hard to find traditional music on mass media. (If you play your own songs on TV you make a lot more money.) there are also many songs (including some extremely well known songs) that have traditional melodies but that are registered as original music. The copyright owners receive royalty money for music that belongs to everyone. Many familiar songs that were learned as folk music or collected as folk lore were copyrighted by folklorists and musicians in the 1920's and 1930's. Club owners and promoters who hire traditional music performers must pay license fees to ASCAP and BMI that are paid out based on sampling of radio airplay and this tend to end up in the pockets of the rich rather than the actual authors of the music. (ASCAP samples public radio at a .000066 or only 27.6 minutes a year per station!) Many of us feel that public domain music has been used for personal profit rather than to benefit the public, much like our public lands and resources, yet the system is set up such that there has never been legislation passed (except by irate states that tried to outlaw ASCAP and lost in Federal court) by elected officials to regulate it.

For more information or suggestions as to what you might do to help our traditional arts, send a SASE to me c/o Woodpecker I am currently researching the issues of public domain copyrights, and will gladly pass along my findings Our national musical treasures must be cared for and remain available for all of us to enjoy, just like our natural resources and parks

Subject: RE: Evil corporate music industry
From: M.Ted
Date: 28 Aug 00 - 04:13 PM

The music industry has tried to destroy this site, and to get rid of this forum--that tells you, in a nutshell, what they are about--they don't market the music that people want--they control the market, so that it is easy for people to buy their products, and difficult to hear or buy anything else.

Even in the adolescent market--the kids in school from grades 5-12, the majority don't necessarily buy, like, or even listen to, the stuff that is "Popular"--however, the companies that are selling NSYNC and the Backstreet Boys and all the rest, control what is played on the radio, what is stocked in the stores, and what is tied in to television programs and movies, so, no matter what people like, the stuff that the "Greedy, Evil, Corporate Music Industry Bastards" are pushing is what is available.

There is a simple rule in marketing, which boils down to the idea that if you plaster the name of your product all over the place, people will buy it--

And if your buy all the music publishers, record distributors, radio and tv stations, and movie studios...well, you know what I mean--

Subject: RE: Evil corporate music industry
From: SINSULL
Date: 28 Aug 00 - 04:20 PM

rE: "aIRHEAD dROIDS".
i HAD THE MISFORTUNE OF WATCHING dONNY AND mARIE oSMOND INTERVIEW AN EX-sPICEgIRL, tATTOO sPICE i THINK. sHE WAS ELABORATING ON HER KNOWLEDGE OF cHINESE MYTHOLOGY AND CLAIMED THAT SINCE HER PHOENIX TATTOo WAS A FEMALE ENTITY (ON HER BACK) SHE HAD JUST HAD A DRAGON DONE ON HER CALF - A MALE ENTITY.
Damn Capslock!
The depth of her knowledge became apparent when Donny said "Oh and this is the 'Year of the Dragon'" To which Ms. Spice looked blankly and said "Oh?" She didn't have a clue. I sighed and went back to work. Sorry for the drift.

Subject: RE: Evil corporate music industry
From: Bill D
Date: 28 Aug 00 - 04:44 PM

1) really good music of ANY kind comes slowly...much folk music is that good part which survived.

2) the music industry needs VOLUME...thay want to sell new songs & CDs every day.

3) some music wannabes find that singing & playing for a living sounds like more fun than sitting in an office.

4) in order to get a bigger share of profits, both singers AND the promoters need stuff which THEY own.....

do you see a pattern here? The entire system is geared toward volume and 'new',...and if it is not all good, why then they will sell 'bad'....and they have ways of making you think it is 'good' for a few weeks.....Songs and sounds are stolen, artists are just a commodity..."loud" is substituted for "quality"...and so it goes....

When there IS something innovative and well done on the scene it is often lost in the shuffle because it is not promoted well. And those of us who would rather wallow in our little backwater retreats where we try to retain 'quality' are looked down on and ignored by the larger venues...and I for one am just as happy with that.....

Subject: RE: Evil corporate music industry
From: Naemanson
Date: 28 Aug 00 - 05:08 PM

I heard an interview on Fresh Air (radio interview program out of Philadelphia hosted by Terry Gross). She was interviewing the author of a recently published book on the music industry. What he had to say was enlightening. Apparently, in the old days, there were people in the business whose job was to bring along the promising fresh talent and coach them through their formative years. Of curse, in return for this the record companies kept most of the income of the performer.

Today this same person is only known for the last hit they managed to coax out of a performer. It's a matter of throw them out there, get the hit and then drop them for something newer and fresher and more exciting.

Can any of you imagine Sandy or Dick doing anything like that?

Subject: RE: Evil corporate music industry
From: Groucho Marxist (inactive)
Date: 28 Aug 00 - 05:39 PM

You know, it's not just the big corporations that can act like greedy pigs. In the past year, I've heard from several friends of mine about how they've been burned by Green Linnet Records. This weekend at the Philly Folk Festival, I heard a real horror story from one artist about how Green Linnet ripped her off.

I just did a web search about Green Linnet and came on this interesting story from Pete & Maura Kennedy about their horrible experience at the hands of Green Linnet.

Follow this link.

It's sad when you find out that some of these companies that you thought were in it for the music turn out to be as sleazy as the big corporations.

Groucho

Subject: RE: Evil corporate music industry
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 28 Aug 00 - 05:44 PM

Art Thieme laments that technology changes can leave us "needing to re-buy our music collections yet another time". The vinyl still works pretty well for me, and I've got a lot more of it than CDs. And the audio-cassettes still OK. I grant you when I had to replace my music system ealier this year I had to hunt around a bit to find a turntable, but not that long.

Just because something new comes along we don't have to ditch the good stuff we've already got. That's what folk music is all about when you get down to it.

It's a waste of time lamenting the system that's built round money worship. It'll die when the time is ripe, and I don't think that'll be all that long. The thing to do is turn your mind to doing what you like doing and what needs doing, and not getting sucked into a system in terminal decline.

There's probably more good music being played and good songs being written and sung today than there have been for a long time.The mass media ignores it, the spotlight of publicity shines on other stuff. There's a frenzied search for novelty, and a race to be the first to discard it and move onto the next new thing.

But all that doesn't really matter. The interesting stuff is still there all the time. And the people who make it are finding a way to scrabble around and survive.

I don't want to make a killing,
I just want to make a living.
I want enough to live on
and to earn my pay.

Subject: RE: Evil corporate music industry
From: Jim the Bart
Date: 28 Aug 00 - 06:48 PM

You can't make a living making music any more than you can make a living making chairs. You can only make a living selling that music or those chairs. As someone who knows personally what can happen to your creativity when your focus becomes selling that which you love to make(and I am talking about the music), my suggestion is simple: Make your music without thinking about the money. Make your money any way that you can. If your money isn't a function of your music (or vice versa)you'll never get confused about the real value of music in your life.

If people want to buy something I love, I will only sell on my terms. And somethings just aren't for sale. It's like Bruce Cockburn says about love - "it only lives when you give it away". But that's just me. . .

Subject: RE: Evil corporate music industry
From: RWilhelm
Date: 28 Aug 00 - 07:47 PM

I think the music industry is in the early stages of a revolution that will turn the whole business upside down. For about a hundred and fifty years the product has been the song (sheet music, and recorded formats) and all the focus of the pop music industry has been selling the song. Now, no matter how many lawsuits they win they can't stop songs from being distributed free over the Internet. The Napster idea is here to stay, the technology is beyond their control. The song will stop being the product.

What they will eventually realize is that, for pop music, the star is the product and the song is just the advertisement. Instead of overblown hoopla to sell a song, the song will become a loss leader to sell the overblown hoopla. Does anybody really believe that the Spice Girls or Back Street Boys have anything to do with music? Before Jerry Garcia died the Grateful Dead was the highest grossing act in show business. They never had a hit record and they encouraged people to record and trade their music. This will become the new model. The pop song sellers will go down kicking and screaming but will die in the end.

The real question is how this revolution will effect "real" music (I won't elaborate, you know what I mean.) I think the markets will become more segmented with smaller and smaller niches. The audience and the performer will become closer economically and music will be distributed the way Stephen King is selling his new novel on-line. I realize this is all speculation and things are liable to get worse before they get better but I'm convinced that RADICAL change is coming.

Subject: RE: Evil corporate music industry
From: Naemanson
Date: 28 Aug 00 - 08:05 PM

Bartholomew said "Make your music without thinking about the money."

Right on! And thereby hangs a tale. Last month the featured performer at the Mocha Cafe was Kat Logan. She was great. She has a voice like liquid gold. Anyway, as we were cleaning up I realized that management had not left me an envelope with her check. I was horrified and went to apologise to her but she had already left. I spent the next week or so tracking down her pay and arranging for its delivery but what was truly illustrative of the point (Remember? There should be a point!) is that she didn't realize there was any pay in it for her. She had done the performance because she loves the music and those of us who make up her audience.

That is what we have to do. Sure, it would be nice to make our living at the music but would we love the music as much if we HAD to sing every night?

Subject: RE: Evil corporate music industry
From: T in Oklahoma (Okiemockbird)
Date: 28 Aug 00 - 08:52 PM

his seems a good place again to post this link to a talk on the music industry.

I think this speaker is likely to be right that "success" on the scale of a successful band signed by a major label is not likely outside the system run by the major labels. But there is more than one way of defining "success".

Here is Harvey Reid's essay on the performing rights societies.

I'll say it again...and again...and again....we need:

-> a shorter term of copyright

-> some reform of the music licensing system

T.

Subject: RE: Evil corporate music industry
From: GUEST,Rich(stupidbodhranplayerwhodoesn'tknowbetter
Date: 28 Aug 00 - 10:53 PM

I've heard that Green Linnet owns the rights to all material recorded on their label and therefore does NOT pay royalties to artists for compilations. It's second-hand hearsay, but it's second hand hearsay I've heard from a few different people. I tend to believe it. Sadly, they have enough of a corner on the market that if you want to buy certain types of music, you pretty much gotta buy from them.

Rich

Subject: RE: Evil corporate music industry
From: Escamillo
Date: 28 Aug 00 - 11:15 PM

"I have a dream.." I could say, for the time is coming when all we will find the music we like just here, in the net. Today it is much less expensive to download a full .WAV file than to purchase a CD at the music store. The net is full of crap too, but the good news is, that it is a free way. Sometime the artists will find their own place in the market, and we'll buy directly from them, and that will be the end of the music industry as we know it.

Un abrazo - Andrés

Subject: RE: Evil corporate music industry
From: Groucho Marxist (inactive)
Date: 29 Aug 00 - 09:05 AM

GUEST,Rich(stupidbodhranplayerwhodoesn'tknowbetter,

The complaints that I've heard from several of my friends who have recorded for Green Linnet, and which the Kennedys write about on their site, is not about compilations. It is about the artists own albums.

It seems that when Green Linnet decides not to make any more CDs with a specific artist or group, they just stop paying them their contractually due royalties.

The Kennedys have gone public about this, which is why I've mentioned them by name and provided a link to their report. However, I've privately heard similar stories from about half a dozen other artists or groups about their dealings with Green Linnet.

Sometimes these "nice" little labels are as sleazy as the corporate giants. Or maybe even more so because they pretend that they're your friends while they rip you off.

Groucho

Subject: RE: Evil corporate music industry
From: rabbitrunning
Date: 29 Aug 00 - 09:58 AM

I'm gonna play devil's advocate here for just a minute. Granted, 99% of everything the music "industry" puts out is crap, but everyone has a different chosen "good" one percent.

I am, myself, eclectic. My CD changer has in it, right now, The soundtrack to "Lost Boys", "Vintage Children's Favourites", and the King Singers. And it was the evil music industry that made them all available to me. Maybe not all for a reasonable price, (I thought CD's were supposed to get cheaper???) but the existence of the music industry guarantees that I can walk into a place like Tower Records and find a broad variety of music.

The trouble with "narrowcasting" music, the way that the internet does, is that we will mostly find what we already like. What chance would I have of stumbling over the Pizzicato Five at Mudcat?

And commmercialized music has a function. Folk Rock on the radio in the sixties, made it easier for our teachers in school to teach us real folk songs. Especially when we had gotten to be teenagers and needed to be cool. Mitch Miller on tv gave us a large shared repertoire that made it possible to have sing-alongs at church picnics.

I'm all for a shorter copyright period and better tracking of use during it, though. There should be profit for the artists. But the middlemen get too much of it.

Subject: RE: Evil corporate music industry
From: GUEST,Russ
Date: 29 Aug 00 - 11:00 AM

The "corporate music industry " has been irrelevant in my life since I bought my last mega label LP sometime during the 70's (I think it was "Blood on the Tracks"). Since then my obsession with Old Time (and a bit of folk) music has taken over my musical life and recordings collection.

Except for some releases on Rounder, mainstream music stores carry none of the labels or artists I buy. To be honest, I really don't mind. I am actually glad that my musical interests are not mainstream and never will be. I've seen what commercial considerations do to musicians. It's not pretty.

I prefer to buy directly from musicians who aren't in it for the money at their concerts. I also donate a significant portion of my child's inheritance to the John Hatton Retirement Fund every year at Clifftop.

However, I am quite encouraged by the apparent ease and cheapness with which CDs can be produced these days. All the new technology has been a boon for my interests. Tons of Old Time music, including the current bands and reissues of 78s, have appeared in the last few years. It has actually become hard to keep up with it all. It seems to be easier and more economically feasible to produce niche musical than ever before. I'm very happy with that situation.

Subject: RE: Evil corporate music industry
From: GUEST,Mbo_at_ECU
Date: 29 Aug 00 - 11:08 AM

HA! I can't even find popular music at regular CD stores. Where is ELO? Where is The Move? Where is Roy Wood, Wolfstone, Dougie, or Horslips? Circuit City (the closest big music place we have here) only carries 7 Oasis import singles. I bought them all, and I want all the others too! But no one has them! RRR!

Subject: RE: Evil corporate music industry
From: LR Mole
Date: 29 Aug 00 - 11:40 AM

When I was about ten, at a wedding, I heard my first real instruments being played, as opposed to lo-fi home and car radio quality. It was just THRILLING to be in the same room with the thing that made the noise. We've come further than that, anyway. At the same time, I noticed the incredibly bored expressions on the faces of the musicians. I thought then (and pretty much do now) that something was horribly wrong when this activity was so obviously tedious to the people who could do it. As with most human activities, there's more going on, and for more reasons, than we know.Quid pro quo.

Subject: RE: Evil corporate music industry
From: Whistle Stop
Date: 29 Aug 00 - 11:40 AM

I'm with rabbitrunning on this issue. If I don't want it, I don't buy it, but it doesn't bother me that it's out there. If I do want it, it's nice to be able to find it easily. And some of the artists I like to listen to are on the big labels, so I'm glad the distribution network is there. As much as I like the smaller, homemade stuff, the big corporations get their pound of flesh from me -- I drive a Chevy, wear Levis, and I even eat at McDonalds on occasion (but I always wear a disguise when I shop at WalMart).

Subject: RE: Evil corporate music industry
From: Jim the Bart
Date: 29 Aug 00 - 03:13 PM

To look on the bright side - There is more music than ever being created and more and more ways to find it. As an example, A few years back I was in Boston (for my day job) and as is my wont, I went looking for some folk music. I found it at an open mic at the Coffee Cup, out in the burbs. I had a great time and was very impressed with all of the performers (a bunch of punk kids, if you ask me!)both in regard to their skills and attitude. The featured performer was particularly good and mention that he was working on an album.

Fast forward to about a year ago.
I found myself humming a tune and realized it had been sung by the featured guy at the Coffee Cup. Gee, I wonder if his album ever came out? Luckily, I had written his name in my journal - Mark Herman - and in a blink I had found him and had ordered his album on the Web. It's really good, too.

My point in all of my posts on this thread is simple. Don't wail and gnash teeth about the music business! It is what it is - a money making machine built around music rather than canned soup, or shoes, or tractors. Ignore them and do it yourself. The technology to make recordings is better and cheaper and easier to use than ever. And the distribution potential because of the WWW is unsurpassed.

If you love acoustic music, traditional folk music, country blues music - you're better off not having it sucked into the "star making machinery" (there, I said it). In a business sense, to the music industry our music will always be an afterthought; the changes you have to make to music this personal to make it a mass-consumed commodity just eviscerates it. And when your favorite folk hymn has become muzak fodder, the pop spotlight will move on to something else, anyway, leaving you to pick up the pieces. I see this happen every few years to one of my true loves - country music. Popularity just ruins it.

If you have some music to sell there are now other ways to do it yourself. Thankfully, right here (thanks to Max) you can get in touch with a core audience of people who appreciate this music on a whole different level than "the music business" or the average Bay Watch-loving crowd ever did or ever will. So make your own kind of music and let everybody here know when it's ready. I can't wait to hear it! To H*LL with the music business, long live the Mudcat.

Subject: RE: Evil corporate music industry
From: Escamillo
Date: 30 Aug 00 - 12:41 AM

I've just read (from CNN) that on August 22 MP3.com and Sony Music reached an agreement for which MP3 will pay Sony for each MP3 album downloaded from their site, and Sony will reduce its share so as both get benefit from the new distribution channel, and there will not be a trial, and this is the fourth agreement among MP3 and the music industry monsters. Could it be the beginning of an easy and economical distribution ?

Un abrazo - Andrés

Subject: RE: Evil corporate music industry
From: Amos
Date: 30 Jun 03 - 10:10 PM

Here's a refeshing backlash from the musicians themselves that the RIAA claims tobe "helping" with their heavy-handed control tactics:

http://www.politechbot.com/p-04905.html

Anyone in the trade who feels like signing it should do so!

A

Subject: RE: Evil corporate music industry
From: Frankham
Date: 01 Jul 03 - 09:33 PM

The corporate music industry is not evil or good. It's neutral.
It's about business before music. It's like money. It's what you do with it that determines it's value.

Within the framework of the biz some excellent music has been made and continues. But if we want to talk about this, we need to analyze what that means. To say that current pop music is all valueless is overstating the case. Rap and hip hop are not my favorite forms of listening but I do consent to the valuable elements that are there.
Some of the rhythms are subtle, danceable and the lyrics are interesting compared to some of the saccharine pop lyrics of the 40's and 50's. Of course, not all the pop lyrics of the 40's and 50's were saccharine. Some were marvelous. And it's the same today.
There are singers such as Whitney or Celine who are first rate despite the material they are forced into. (Although they are dated today by industry standards). There have been wonderful technological advances in recording due to the corporate biz..innovative producers and engineers. MTV has added a new dimension to music whether you like the music or not. The country music scene is still vibrant although unlike it's former self. There are clever songwriters in the idiom. I don't listen to the radio much but once in a while something catches my attention because it is innovative or has a special quality about it.

In short, the music business has always been what it is today and older folks have always bitched about what younger folks listen to.
But the beat goes on for better or worse.

My two cents.

Frank Hamilton

Subject: RE: Evil corporate music industry
From: An Pluiméir Ceolmhar
Date: 02 Jul 03 - 07:34 AM

Even the apparently folk-friendly corporations are not immune. The Green Linnet saga, which I had heard about privately, is now well and truly out in the open. See this press release


Unfortunately, boycotting them means that the artists are probably even less likely to get their money.

Subject: RE: Evil corporate music industry
From: GUEST,sorefingers
Date: 02 Jul 03 - 07:44 AM

Hippie that you'd be wasting your time here will by now be abundantly evident. This site has a large share of such people and those that are not on the payroll share the same adgenda in lots of little but nonetheless irritating ways.

Perhaps the online 50cent a song sites would in time help rid us of mediocre, and worse, recorded 'stuff'.

BB servers now less than a thousand dollars will make a big difference - ....

Subject: RE: Evil corporate music industry
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 02 Jul 03 - 08:17 AM

"...you'd be wasting your time here..."

It's not a bad idea to check the date on posts in revived threads like this, sorefingers - "hippie" last posted on the thread back in August 2000.

A propos of what Frank said there, "money" isn't actually neutral in all settings. When buying and selling becomes central in an area of life where it hasn't been central, that changes things.

That isn't to actively disagre with Frank. I think talking about the music indiustry in terms of good and evil is a mistake. Buying and selling has always been part of the process by which music has been passsed around.

However it has just been part, and in general a peripheral part at that. When it becomes central, and dominates everything, the change that is introduced is pretty signifucant, and I would say harmful.

As with other aspects of human society, such as sport, or sex, or human relationships.

Subject: RE: Evil corporate music industry
From: GUEST,Russ
Date: 02 Jul 03 - 08:50 PM

The music industry is about making money. It has always been about making money. I have no problem with that.

Once upon a time the music industry produced recordings that I still love such as those of the Carter Family.

But times change. The problem as I see it is that the major players have become so huge that they need to make astronomical amounts of money to stay alive. Economics forces them to abandon all attempts to serve what they perceive to be "niche" markets.

My musical interests have been focused on such niches for years. I have no hope that the big players will produce anthing I might want to hear. But I'm comfortable with that. I satisfy my musical needs in other ways.

Subject: RE: Evil corporate music industry
From: Peter T.
Date: 03 Jul 03 - 06:19 PM

I don't know. It is hard to know what to make of the paradoxes: look at the shelves of any sizeable grocery, a diversity of food unparalleled in human history, and yet most of it is mediocre compared to the originals in the original homeland. Sympathetic as I am to the "evil capitalism" language, when I look around I see more music and more variety out there than is possible to handle in many lifetimes. Look at the explosion of world music -- globalization at its most amazing -- hideous, wonderful, mediocre, new, all at the same time. The same is true of books -- people are talking about the death of books, and it is raining down books from everywhere upon us. Much of it is "mediocre diversity". Would we have less diversity for more quality? Is the diversity real or fake? How can we answer such questions?



yours,

Peter T.