I’m positively stunned at the blowback from business regulars about that chap giving his music away for free.\u00c2\u00a0 Oldsters can’t understand the economics!<\/p>\n
I’ll clue you in, THERE ARE NONE!<\/p>\n
This is your worst nightmare.\u00c2\u00a0 People who can follow their dream on sweat equity.\u00c2\u00a0 Who with their computer and the money from their day job or mommy and daddy can compete with you.\u00c2\u00a0 It’s like the North Vietnamese, all our military might couldn’t defeat individuals who would fight to the death.\u00c2\u00a0 Same deal in Iraq.<\/p>\n
It’s an eye-opener.\u00c2\u00a0 That your model is IRRELEVANT!<\/p>\n
YOU need to pay the mortgage.\u00c2\u00a0 YOU need to go on vacation to the Caribbean.\u00c2\u00a0 But the new musicians?\u00c2\u00a0 They’re willing to sleep on the floor and eat ramen.\u00c2\u00a0 Hell, they’re in their twenties, they’re not on the corporate track, they’ve got different ambitions!<\/p>\n
This flummoxes the old wave.\u00c2\u00a0 Especially after the eighties and nineties.\u00c2\u00a0 You’re supposed to go through the usual filters.\u00c2\u00a0 Get a lawyer and a manager and then shop your demo to labels, who get to not only decide whether to sign you, but what your music should sound like.\u00c2\u00a0 But the music coming from said majors…it makes the new music-makers puke.\u00c2\u00a0 So they’re doing it their own way.\u00c2\u00a0 They care as much about the old system as snowboarders care about skiers.\u00c2\u00a0 In other words, NOT AT ALL!\u00c2\u00a0 They believe they’ve got a better system.<\/p>\n
Popular music wasn’t always such big business.\u00c2\u00a0 Go back to the press of the British Invasion acts.\u00c2\u00a0 They were doing it on a lark, they didn’t expect it to be a lifelong career.\u00c2\u00a0 And they got ripped off and underpaid until they survived long enough to work on THEIR terms.<\/p>\n
Don’t forget, the Beatles played multiple sets a night in Hamburg before they had any recorded music success.\u00c2\u00a0 They did it to get off the docks, to have some fun, to get high, to get laid.\u00c2\u00a0 But they were so good, that they broke through.<\/p>\n
How many of the major label acts have paid those kinds of dues?\u00c2\u00a0 And are so good that people are clamoring for them?\u00c2\u00a0 The majors are looking for putty that they can mold and sell to the usual suspects, lame terrestrial radio and TV.\u00c2\u00a0 Whereas the new musician wants no part of that crap.\u00c2\u00a0 It used to be the only way to get any exposure, any traction, but no longer.<\/p>\n
Yes, as the majors are trying to sustain a business selling discs, new musicians don’t give a shit about discs.\u00c2\u00a0 They’ve got an enterprise.\u00c2\u00a0 Based on their DEDICATION!\u00c2\u00a0 They’re doing it THEIR way, and if they never break through…\u00c2\u00a0 Well, they’re not willing to compromise, sell out to the man just to make it.<\/p>\n
Come to think of it, that’s why the old music was so successful.\u00c2\u00a0 It was uncompromised.\u00c2\u00a0 It came directly from the heart of the makers.<\/p>\n
You say kids can’t make it giving their music away for free because YOU can’t make it.\u00c2\u00a0 But they can outlast you, starve for years all in pursuit of their art.\u00c2\u00a0 They don’t want an expensive video, never mind a stylist.\u00c2\u00a0 They don’t want to play the game.\u00c2\u00a0 And, if you don’t play the game, I hate to tell you, it just doesn’t cost that much.<\/p>\n
To believe that the majors will be the logical filters in the future is to be completely ignorant.\u00c2\u00a0 They’re only necessary if you want to reach the masses INSTANTLY!\u00c2\u00a0 Is that a good thing?\u00c2\u00a0 Furthermore, as every day goes by, it’s easier and easier to reach more people for almost free.\u00c2\u00a0 Hell, you post your stuff on MySpace, and if you’re any good, your friends will tell EVERYBODY!\u00c2\u00a0 You might not sell "Thriller" numbers, but "Thriller" was twenty five years ago, when we were all beholden to the box, to MTV.\u00c2\u00a0 Today everybody’s scattered in a million different directions.\u00c2\u00a0 The mainstream is the Top Forty joke of the seventies.\u00c2\u00a0 It’s a dying vine.\u00c2\u00a0 Hell, just look at SoundScan.\u00c2\u00a0 The "hit" albums sell ever fewer.\u00c2\u00a0 And the problem isn’t piracy, but the fact that so much of the theoretical potential audience has tuned out, isn’t paying attention.\u00c2\u00a0 Why listen to crap radio when you’ve got an iPod?<\/p>\n
Why make an expensive disc and go on a tour-supported trek that has no traction when you can do it YOUR way, making all of your OWN decisions, and have a chance of making it.<\/p>\n
You just can’t beat these kids.\u00c2\u00a0 Your only hope is to help them, not decry them or try to reeducate them.\u00c2\u00a0 Somebody’s gonna figure this out.\u00c2\u00a0 And it won’t be an old fart part of the decrepit system.\u00c2\u00a0 Sure, bands need managers, and agents, even labels.\u00c2\u00a0 But only if they’re honest, only if they can be trusted to help.\u00c2\u00a0 If you’re signed to a major label and you trust it, you’re an idiot.<\/p>\n
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I’m positively stunned at the blowback from business regulars about that chap giving his music away for free.\u00c2\u00a0 Oldsters can’t understand the economics! I’ll clue you in, THERE ARE NONE! This is your worst nightmare.\u00c2\u00a0 People who can follow their dream on sweat equity.\u00c2\u00a0 Who with their computer and the money from their day job […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","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-743","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-music-business"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p96vPs-bZ","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/743","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=743"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/743\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=743"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=743"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=743"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}