“Fear is making the record companies less arrogant. They’re more open to ideas. So, what’s important now is to find music that’s timeless.”

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iowa_Writers_Workshop#Notable_Alumni

That thing about revenue sharing from touring and merch is really offensive. What self-respecting artists would want to go to a label that even considered a deal like that?

yeah this is completely wtf. I guess the label could assume more responsibility, financial and otherwise, though (and I'm completely talking out of my ass here) e.g. providing a touring band with an employee to handle merch, running the website, pony up for t-shirts/ screen printing overhead etc. Not saying this is an ideal situation by any means, but at least try to make a 50/50 split more palatable...

Vonnegut was from Indiana.

yeah this is completely wtf. Its wrongheaded and offensive but I don't think its completely wtf - they see where the income is and then demand a piece of it, this is standard corporate label MO.

Whoops, he TAUGHT at Iowa Writers Workshop. (I know he was from Indiana, I was talking about writing programs)

word

(Ha, probably better not to sidetrack into MFA-talk, but I just meant Iowa's aesthetic is really crisp, precise, and conventional. Also, hardly anyone writes bloated, pretentious, postmodern novels anymore, in part because boys don't like to read.)

oh yeah. I'm not saying I don't believe record companies would be all over this, I'm saying you (the artist) would have to be pretty dumb to get on board with it. That is unless most of the financial/ manpower investment is assumed by your label.

xxxpost

Yeah, I think you might see some labels take on more of those roles in exchange for revenue sharing. If a label can get some other hand out of your pocket in exchange for digging its own in a little deeper, artists might agree to it. But knowing the majors they'll probably find a way to make sure the artist comes out worse off in the end.

hardly anyone writes bloated, pretentious, postmodern novels anymore,

David Foster Wallace to thread

His last novel came out more than ten years ago.

I didn't read it then either

Is it wrong to enjoy seeing the slow collapse of the major labels? It's like watching the Hindenburg go down.

You enjoyed watching the Hindenburg go down?

it's more fun than watching the slow collapse of the bloated, pretentious, postmodern novel

hahaha

i just hope the music columbia releases now is as good as that article makes it out to be...

I think someone got a jump on Rick's word-of-mouth department with that whole Marie Digby fiasco going down right now.

the hindenburg went down pretty quickly actually

that's odd, it looked like it was barely moving in all those photographs.

oh the humanity

Marie Digby...? what's the deal?

I guess that's really the most insulting thing about the article--the assumption that major labels are worth saving, that we should be upset if Rick can't keep Columbia from going under. Personally, I could give a fuck. Seems like the real winner is large indies who are agile enough to roll with filesharing and for whom 50,000 sold is a success.

While I don't think *the majors* as they currently exist are all that worth saving, I do think there's something to be said for capital. Maybe labels the size of Matador and Sub Pop have enough money these days that you don't really need something bigger. But fact is it's pretty hard to make a great album without an advance.

Our label (a small but established and reputable indie) is paying for four days of studio time for us to do a full-length. That's including mixing. The only way we can possibly get it done is to do all the main tracking live in 2 days or so, a day of overdubs and a day of mixing. And that means practicing the hell out of the songs, which we can only do two or three times a week with our rental space schedule. And it's stressful as hell and no matter how much practice we get there's no guarantee we'll get good takes.

Which I don't mean as a complaint - four days is better than nothing. Hell, there are probably Stax sessions that were done as quickly. But if you name 20 of your favorite albums, at least 19 of them took more than four days to make, unless you deliberately pick ultra-lo-fi stuff or pre-studio-wizardry records. The majors are the ones who can put up the money, and they used to make great records as a result.

Seems like the real winner is large indies who are agile enough to roll with filesharing and for whom 50,000 sold is a success.

Most indies will never have a 50,000-seller, and I'm not sure what "agile enough to roll with filesharing" means -- agile enough to not mind losing money?

I think Black Sabbath's first three records were done in 10 days, total. And they still sound awesome.

Again, not saying you can't make a good record in three or four days. But there are a lot of great records that couldn't have been made in three or four days.

Marie Digby...? what's the deal?

Here.

Ms. Digby's simple, homemade music videos of her performing popular songs have been viewed more than 2.3 million times on YouTube. Her acoustic-guitar rendition of the R&B hit "Umbrella" has been featured on MTV's program "The Hills" and is played regularly on radio stations in Los Angeles, Sacramento and Portland, Ore. Capping the frenzy, a press release last week from Walt Disney Co.'s Hollywood Records label declared: "Breakthrough YouTube Phenomenon Marié Digby Signs With Hollywood Records."

What the release failed to mention is that Hollywood Records signed Ms. Digby in 2005, 18 months before she became a YouTube phenomenon. Hollywood Records helped devise her Internet strategy, consulted with her on the type of songs she chose to post, and distributed a high-quality studio recording of "Umbrella" to iTunes and radio stations.

that is very interesting

I think Black Sabbath's first three records were done in 10 days, total.

if the first three black sabbath albums were released today everyone would say they sound like shit and that they need more dynamic range compression or something

"Marie Digby...? what's the deal?"

She was sonned in internet beef.

Most indies will never have a 50,000-seller, and I'm not sure what "agile enough to roll with filesharing" means -- agile enough to not mind losing money?

You mentioned two large indies yourself--Sub Pop and Matador. I know Matador has had 50k sellers, I bet Sub Pop has too. Hell, so has Touch and Go, although it took them a while.

As for filesharing, indies may have a better chance at devising things to download that people will actually buy--the New Pornographers "Executive Edition" is at least an interesting idea.

By the way, watch the video in that Marie Digby link to hear a WSJ reporter say "acoustical guitar." Tesla fan??

Sub Pop has a multi-million seller.

(Bleach)

And what are the totals on the Shins records at this point? Gotta be up there.

Re: Independent record labels, people on here seem to be forgetting that independent labels aren't some sort of sentient entity. They require employees. I have a friend who works at a pretty big independent metal label, and he's making peanuts. As much as he loves his job and the music, he just isn't making enough to support himself considering his education. As bloated as major labels may be, they can (or could) afford to pay their employees well, and provide the necessary apparatus to get the music to the people in the first place. So yeah, 50,000 records sold is great for an independent label, but those labels still need people to run them.

"As bloated as major labels may be, they can (or could) afford to pay their employees well, and provide the necessary apparatus to get the music to the people in the first place."

Until they all get laid off because 90% of lost album sales seem to be coming from majors, not from indies.

If the majors really do die off like fat, stinking shit dinosaurs, then won't that give a long slow boost to big indies? Won't we end up with a playing field crowded with labels bigger than todays big indies, but smaller than the majors? If so, there'll be more money to go around, though less than at the Columbia top floors circa 1980-whatever.

Shit, totally forgot about Bleach. The Shins, well, they're kind of forgettable.

Isn't a big part of employing people at indies the fact that they'll work for pretty cheap because they feel strongly about what they're doing? If a label I liked called me and offered me a job at half what I make now (which isn't a ton) I would take it in a second.

x post

Well, the layoff factor is why I put in the "could."

And yes, the reason a lot of them do it is because they're passionate about it, but it isn't a great long-term career, not if you want to live very far above the poverty level. I think once you get married and have a family, it isn't nearly enough to support that, which is why a lot of the independent label employees I've met are single (or least unmarried) males.

Yeah that's true, but it's not like there's any shortage of young males who are passionate about music. I'm not suggesting that you don't need talent to run an indie, but most indies are guided into their fruitful years by one or two people with vision and a lot of chipper young help.

"We will employ passionate young men who quit when they turn 30 and are sick of not having health insurance, to be replaced with newer, greener passionate young men" -- this business model has not worked so well outside of retail work

I dunno: people's notions of how the music industry might be radically reconfigured tend to put a lot of emphasis on fresh, creative music, but I honestly don't know how well those notions would serve would serve the many, many people who rely on having solid, conventional, corporate-product music in the world. (And when I say "I don't know," I seriously mean that I don't know: there's plenty of evidence to suggest that people are happy to get their traditional pop music from near-amateurs and kids with great voices straight out of high-school musical-theater productions. I just wonder who the discontents of a decentralized system with passionate gatekeepers might be -- what, if anything, would suddenly go unserved.)

Nickelback.

diplo remix

Bob Standard may be right - the Matadors and Sub-Pops might become the new old majors, and perhaps their boost in profile might make up for the loss in CD sales. Plus they don't have a stock price to drive up, so maybe they can be a little more flexible with profitability. But make no mistake that they are being hit and will continue to be hit by file-sharing too. You think people aren't getting The Shins and Joanna Newsom from torrent sites?

Every time I see the first sentence of the thread title, I think of:

http://moviesmedia.ign.com/movies/image/article/753/753021/tarkin_1167867382.jpg

I just wonder who the discontents of a decentralized system with passionate gatekeepers might be -- what, if anything, would suddenly go unserved.

that's why i brought up the (done to death) subscription idea upthread.

clearly the majors make shitty gatekeepers, but gatekeeping's a bit separate from fandom, too, and i think it's more than an rss app sponsored by targeted ads though that's obviously the first step.

i have to wonder what bill hicks would have to say about it.

Alfred COMPLETELY OTM. I've been reading it in my head with that voice every time.