End Of The Century
I want you to read this article:
This is the kind of article we used to froth at the mouth over. The inside story of how a band makes it.
But this band didn’t. Make it, that is.
Used to be you tried to make a noise to cross the threshold into the big leagues. Hang with stars, get treated like God by your label.
The Pink Spiders did all this. But not in the nineties, but the twenty first century. And it didn’t work.
There’s a buzz, off an indie record. Then there’s the showcase gig, a feeding frenzy. The He-Man/Master of the Universe head of the label pronounces you the next star…and you’re not.
That’s the way it used to be. Major labels finding shreds of salability which they can market the hell out of. They find this unformed core and stick on layers of production, shoot expensive videos. It’s not about your artistry, assuming you’ve got any, but the label’s expertise… They know better than you.
But do they?
Now more than ever the talent knows best. Because the talent is playing live, the talent is interacting with its fans online. The talent got this far, they must be doing something right. Do you want to hand over the reins to a corporation that’s in a different game?
What Geffen does with the band here is laughable. The marketing plan could be written by a twelve year old. The Warped Tour, a deal with Motorola, getting the song into the Madden videogame. Wow, THIS is new!
Shit, these guys, and they’re usually guys, or women who’ve been taught exactly how to do it by their male mentors, aren’t about innovation… They’re really no different from refrigerator salesmen. What color’s hip? How much do we have to pay the retailer for positioning?
The question is, is this game DEAD?
There is a game, but it’s something that can now be parodied in music videos. The GAME is the cliche. Get out your portable video camera, round up your friends and shoot a YouTube sensation, where you make fun of all the old farts who just don’t get it, that their game is DONE!
Old wave marketing is history. The public ignores it. Give them a good band and people will spread the word. But it may not break as soon as the suits want it to. As for a single… For what? MTV doesn’t play any music and the target audience doesn’t listen to the radio.
Fuck the trappings, just focus on the music.
And, if this article titillates you, check out this one:
Here’s the key section:
"The candidate must ‘have a keen eye to find money on opportunities at hand.’ That graspingness is precisely why the record labels are so unpopular with musicians, their fans, and the technologists creating the online tools through which people are increasingly stealing – sorry, ‘discovering’ – music."
"Graspiness"… I love that word. Like someone desperate for cash is going to reach out and get me in a bear hug, and won’t let me go until I pay him fifteen bucks.
This is brain dead marketing. We don’t want you to grasp us, we want to grasp YOU! We want to make the choice. Of what we’re interested in and when we want to give you the money. Google says you’ve got to know where in the food chain to charge. The recorded music business thinks this must be up front, in copious amounts. You’ve got to pay for everything! That food you’re eating wasn’t free. And that roof over your head, you paid rent! So pay me and pay me again.
Under label logic everybody’s got to put out on the first date and leave a hundred dollar bill behind. There’s no exploratory dating. No ups and downs. Just all selling, all remuneration. The scorched earth policy utilized by the majors doesn’t fit with the times. Where you can check out everything online and there are endless choices to dedicate your time to.
The fat cats believe the audience is just there to be manipulated. I’d say they’d better wake up. And respect this audience. It’s their only hope for survival.
(P.S. And don’t e-mail me that the title of this article is the same as the name of a lame Ramones album. That’s right, they were ALL lame after "Road To Ruin". Instead of looking for a hit, they should have broken up. Or realized that it wasn’t about the hit, but the road. Actually, the records were superfluous. It WAS all about the road, and eventually the band DID break up. But you know what’s generating a ton of cash today? THE T-SHIRTS! Yup, the cred of the Ramones, the innovation, the geekiness, has people dedicating themselves to the band DECADES hence. When the flavor of the moment is long gone, the credible acts live on. The Ramones didn’t realize it wasn’t about a hit, but the essence. That they created their own art form, the under two minute punk single. And for that, and the way they sold it/performed, they will never be forgotten. So they’re making money off t-shirts as opposed to records…WHAT DIFFERENCE DOES IT MAKE! Furthermore, it was the free availability of the music P2P that kept the legend alive, that is causing everybody TO BUY those t-shirts!)
