Money for Nothing and Cheques for Free

15/02/2008 by ville.

Congratulations to One Night Only for cracking the TOP 10! Not a bad way to start the year, eh?

Of course, I can’t take personal credit for every single copy sold…. in fact, I can’t take any credit for any bought. My pocket money goes towards guitar picking technique books these days. I’m hooked on scales and extremely fast runs.

DEAL OR NO DEAL

I went to a Music Tank http://www.musictank.co.uk seminar at PRS headquarters. The talk was titled ”Deal or no deal, the great artist/label trade-off”. The very excellent panel which included Mike Smith MD of Columbia and Chris Morrison, legendary manager (of Blur amongst others) and a host of other professionals from different parts of the business discussed, among other things, the role of labels and managers in a changed digital landscape, where all the money is going, who should invest it in return for what and so on.

It was a great, interesting discussion, frank and, at times, brutal. The crowd enjoyed the way Chris Morrison lambasted labels, saying that in the 80s when labels were making a killing on CDs, they rolled around in cash but didn’t share in the wealth. It was Money For Nothing And Cheques For Free ( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aNaKWXqXkhw ) as Dire Straits famously opined back in that golden decade. Now that CD sales have plummeted, labels are demanding our sympathy along with a share of artists’ all income streams. 

The message was that is that the digital revolution has… er…. revolutionised the business and pretty soon record companies will not exist.

What’s The Cure, Doc?

No one actually knows and here’s where some interesting sidetracks were explored. Venture capital working alongside managers was discussed. The old adage is that every artist manager wants to run a label - one assumes, because they know how to do it soooo much better than those actually running them. In a digital marketplace everyone has access to distribution, money can buy marketing - so, why not go it alone? Indeed. But stop to think about this: why would venture capital (money not exactly know for being patient and understanding) provide artists with more loving care than labels. Why would those deals be financially any better for artists than new deals with record labels? You’ve seen Dragon’s Den. These guys want a lot in return for their money. It’s hardly a free lunch.

I’d like to take a moment to declare that I’m gloriously uninterested in Radiohead’s free download experiment. It’s not just that Radiohead themselves are uninteresting to me. More importantly, the laws that apply to a huge, rich band like that don’t apply to the rest of us.

The Short And Curlies

People consume more music than ever before, but they’re just getting away with not paying for it.

Stop to think about this: it’s probably feasible for ISPs and others to identify those trading music illegally or for free and to stop them from doing it. Why isn’t that happening? Might it be because those ISPs are making obscene amounts of money from advertisers and consumers drawn to their sites lured, in part, by free music? Social networking sites are getting sold for fortunes - because they lure people onto their sites with… free music. I’m sure if you did a study on this, you’d find that the people behind the campaign demanding free music are precisely the ones who will benefit most from it - enterpreneurs trying to do a fast one on the stock exchange.

Hear the one about the bandits who went to Midem earlier in the year claiming that they’d got all the majors on board in their free music paid for by ads thing?? Turns out it was a complete scam. They only wanted to do a fast on the stock market. As in, inflate the worth of their shares and get out before anyone noticed that there was no business. Brilliant!

This current buzz about music-needs-to-be-free-because-that’s-what-the-customer-demands is, like any other buzz, manufactured. The market economy doesn’t just happen. It’s manipulated. That’s what PR and marketing is all about.

Did you know that the PR industry came about as an afterthought to when Great Britain needed to convince a largely uninterested US to join the First World War? They made up all this stuff about the Germans killing babies and blah de blah (of course, we had to guard freedom and democracy - we’ve always had to do that!). The Americans had their own propaganda outfit called the Creel Commission. It worked! Soon the entire country was ready to kill! http://www.zmag.org/chomsky/talks/9103-media-control.html

I call for a PR initiative to convince people that paying for music will keep music coming because then artists will be able to live and create that lovely stuff. And that by not paying for it you’re a music hater making a bunch of computer geeks rich. Let me state that I have nothing against anyone getting rich. If that’s the only way for a geek to get laid…. he needs every break he can get.

Endless Possibilities

Another solution is to impose a water rates type of duty/payment on ISPs and phone companies etc. Every mobile phone owner or broadband subscriber pays, say, £5 for their yearly music consumption (which the service provider would no doubt include in the tariff so that the consumer would get it as part of their phone package). The technology to account for what gets downloaded/streamed exists. The service providers drop a fair share to the music business, the music business drop a fair share to the artists. Or: why don’t artists do direct deals. I’m sure that especially the Radioheads of the world will have considerable clout to do so. The rest of us will probably have to go through an intermediary of some sorts and get stuffed along the way.

The earning possibilities are humongous…

A word of warning

Check this out:  did you know that of the multimillion dollar settlements labels have made with the napsters/kazaas of the world, artists have yet to receive a penny? That sucks. The so called black box income? Unaccounted for. It was suggested that all round there needs to be more transparency. As in, where does the money come from and who gets what.

In closing

On the subject of artist development, Mike Smith of Columbia said that labels need to invest more in a&r and sign better bands. The simplest ideas are always the best…

Someone on the panel said that we’re all in the business of connecting artists and fans. That’s a cool thought.

You know, if all you want to do is make a lot of money, why don’t you piss off into banking or something. If you want to make music for a living, get your twanger in tune and write a song!

mEd1A MadNes5

I was at Soho House http://www.sohohouselondon.com/ the other day. It’s a private drinking club in, yes, Soho, where a lot of media types gather every day. I met a radio plugger there to discuss one of our artists. This plugger mentioned a hot new band and spoke highly of their songwriter who is so cool because he doesn’t mind being told what kind of lyrics to write in order to get more plays on the radio. Call me old fashioned but I think that kind of attitude is terrible.

Great rock lyrics make you want to drink, fuck and fight. Lyrics written by committee in a media lounge make you want to drink latte, have a relationship and discuss your share portfolio. In what way is that cool?

Other than that Soho House was pretty vibey even if I can’t see myself a regular there. I guess I just don’t have the media thing in me… read: I’m on music wages.

Speaking of music, check out the new video Esteban made for their song Say It Loud http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZVzEdmuwxGk . Then venture to www.myspace.com/morethannormal for a bit of punk rock. We did a few tunes with them recently. We also worked with an interesting Scottish band called The Day I Vanished. Check them out at www.myspace.com/thedayivanished

I do believe rock music is the best kind of music around. Ah, with the exception of Nickelback and their song Rock Star. I’ve always wondered who buys that stuff. Thing is, I doubt the band are doing it in a sarcastic/ironic sorta way. I think that to them it’s an aspirational song.

My mother-in-law bought me a present. Leona Lewis’ single Bleeding Love. Now I know what kind of people buy her records….

But pop music, too, is cool. In fact, I’d love to find a great pop band to work with. A real pop band that write their own songs, like Duran Duran and Pet Shop Boys used to. Still do, beg your pardon!

The outstanding news is that Ejectorseat and Rosalita are both bringing out records on Taste Media, the label that launched Muse. Pretty cool. We’ll start out with a single and an EP and work our way up to an album from there. If I’m not mistaken, the last time the label was used was on Muse’s Absolution. Let’s hope some of that success rubs off on our lads!

Ejectorseat are out touring

That’s enough for one blog…. Rock! Thanks for reading.

Ville

Posted in News At Zen | 1 Comment »