{"id":259,"date":"2005-12-16T13:44:18","date_gmt":"2005-12-16T20:44:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/index.php\/archives\/2005\/12\/16\/larry-stessel-weighs-in\/"},"modified":"2005-12-16T13:46:26","modified_gmt":"2005-12-16T20:46:26","slug":"larry-stessel-weighs-in","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/2005\/12\/16\/larry-stessel-weighs-in\/","title":{"rendered":"Larry Stessel Weighs In"},"content":{"rendered":"
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My kids never go to record stores. "Why would I want to go in there daddy?\u00c2\u00a0 Do they sell video games?"<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Ironically, the video game industry is starting to hurt now too, and for the exact same reason as the music business.\u00c2\u00a0 The BLOCKBUSTER MENTALITY!\u00c2\u00a0 Spend a fucking fortune on a TITLE!\u00c2\u00a0 Hype it to high hell.\u00c2\u00a0 And, when it doesn’t meet expectations, you lose MILLIONS of dollars.<\/p>\n

The key is to create something great.\u00c2\u00a0 It’s not like the old days.\u00c2\u00a0 You can’t keep a good act\/game down.\u00c2\u00a0 It’s human nature, you want to tell EVERYBODY about your new discovery (and with the Internet, it’s easy to do this!)\u00c2\u00a0 Amazing that the labels have forgotten this.\u00c2\u00a0 By BOMBARDING their audience they’re eliminating this one key aspect of human nature, and hurting their bottom line at the same time.<\/p>\n

Independents know it’s first and foremost about the music.\u00c2\u00a0 There must be CREDIBILITY!\u00c2\u00a0 The band has to play live.\u00c2\u00a0 There has to be a relationship with the fans.\u00c2\u00a0 People need to feel that they can OWN the act.<\/p>\n

Many indie record stores are still cool.\u00c2\u00a0 But people have gotten out of the habit of buying CDs.\u00c2\u00a0 The CD lost its value when AOL started giving away discs for free and DVDs could be purchased for under twenty bucks.\u00c2\u00a0 But music was lucky.\u00c2\u00a0 It was at the technological forefront.\u00c2\u00a0 If Napster had been HARNESSED instead of REPRESSED the major labels wouldn’t be in the situation they are now.\u00c2\u00a0 Larry Stessel’s kids would be downloading Zeppelin and the Beatles P2P, not worrying about either spyware or the long arm of the RIAA.\u00c2\u00a0 ALSO, acts that can’t even get in the indie store, never mind the big box retailer, would sit equally, side by side with the major releases, available for the listening, for the experimentation.\u00c2\u00a0 Hear about something from a friend, download and check it out!<\/p>\n

But instead we’ve got fucked up systems like Urge.\u00c2\u00a0 Where the music is locked up.\u00c2\u00a0 And you’ve got to get an authorized player to take it with you.\u00c2\u00a0 God, could you imagine needing an authorized turntable to play vinyl?\u00c2\u00a0 And, that you had to use an Admiral or GE instead of a Thorens or Linn-Sondek or even a Technics?\u00c2\u00a0 THIS is what the labels are fostering.\u00c2\u00a0 Open the format and you open up the technology.\u00c2\u00a0 Better and better players emerge.\u00c2\u00a0 But, the majors would rather have the online music landscape like Eastern Europe.\u00c2\u00a0 BALKANIZED!<\/p>\n

Here’s the paradigm:\u00c2\u00a0 More music for more people.\u00c2\u00a0 That leads to a healthier industry.<\/p>\n

Then again, will the majors rule??\u00c2\u00a0 They’ll make a lot of money, but competitors will eat market share.\u00c2\u00a0 Should we save the majors at the risk of hurting our own emotional well-being, our desire to experience the joy of music?<\/p>\n

Make no mistake.\u00c2\u00a0 The majors are keeping the music from the people just like the Administration is keeping AIDS drugs\/relief from Africa.<\/p>\n

Where’s John Lennon when you need him.\u00c2\u00a0 Power to the people, RIGHT ON!<\/p>\n

<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

My kids never go to record stores. "Why would I want to go in there daddy?\u00c2\u00a0 Do they sell video games?" Ironically, the video game industry is starting to hurt now too, and for the exact same reason as the music business.\u00c2\u00a0 The BLOCKBUSTER MENTALITY!\u00c2\u00a0 Spend a fucking fortune on a TITLE!\u00c2\u00a0 Hype it to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-259","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-music-business"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p96vPs-4b","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/259","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=259"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/259\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=259"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=259"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=259"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}