Billy Corgan

It's probably going to have to keep eroding to the point where a lot of artists either hang it up altogether or switch to some sort of diffuse patronage model. I think the message being sent is less that music has literally no monetary value to people than it is that a business model largely favoring the music labels is no longer sustainable.

I mean, a-doy. But still. Needs to be said more and all that.

well, also recorded music literally has no monetary value to people

I think the message being sent is less that music has literally no monetary value to people than it is that a business model largely favoring the music labels is no longer sustainable.

― You Don't Throw Oranges On An Escalator (Deric W. Haircare), Friday, May 4, 2012 3:31 PM Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

IDK this just sounds like the same pat line we keep hearing and it doesn't seem to have proven true. Big labels are sustainable, artists are not.

xpost

Yeah, at this juncture that's true, but I'm positing a point in the not-too-distant future where music largely stops being recorded and subsequently sold because the market can no longer sustain it. At that point, recorded music may find a niche where it does have monetary value to a (probably much smaller but likely also more fanatical) number of people.

basically, the volume of musical choices available to us as any given time has come to a point where there's far, far more supply than demand, creating a buyer's market whose magnitude has previously never existed. music is a commodity at this point.

xpost

I.e. welcome to the world enjoyed by much of the rest of the arts, Music.

well, also recorded music literally has no monetary value to people

^^^^^

hate how this gets elided all the time

I think a better way to put it is not that it has no value, but rather that something has to prove its value to a consumer first, and it's really hard for anything to do that given the glut of alternatives people have just one click away not only in the realm of music, but any kind of entertainment.

how does a product "prove its value"

by being good, making a positive impression, creating a sense that someone may want to revisit it, etc

I don't think even that happens. I have albums that I've gotten for free that are great and I have not gone back and paid for them after the fact.

Because you actually got the tracks in your possession, instead of just getting a taste of them. It might be different if you heard them on the radio, or in a video game, or in a commercial. For example, I bet that Fun song that was shoved down our throats for the past few months racked up a ton of sales.

In the future, recorded music will be subsidized by wealthy patrons and you will only be able to listen to it while in some sort of museum.

I don't think there's any reason to think that "recorded music" will become less available, just that it will be less monetizable.

not looking forward to the 'fourth wave of ska' wing at the moma

but it's an interesting one to see coming from someone who sprays so much verbal diarrhea in interviews and who has often engaged in projects like a series of EPs every few months that seem to be partially engineered to constantly hold fans' attention.

maybe that's Corgan's partial answer to why he is so bad and hated these days

ha true

he actually even made some reference to his being bad and hated in the interview, a kind of awkward metaphor about how he's the nba player who everyone hates but grabs a lot of rebounds

I don't think there's any reason to think that "recorded music" will become less available, just that it will be less monetizable.

That 'music museums' idea kinda glosses over some of the steps in my logical leap. To clarify my argument, I'm talking about recorded popular music (i.e. not stuff like classical which already has a form of patronage in place). Major labels will, at a point, tire of pouring money down the recorded music drain, and once they realize that suing potential customers only nets them a fraction of the revenue they've historically made, they'll cut way back on something. Whether that 'something' is marketing or artists' pay or the number of artists on their roster, the amount and influence of recorded output from major labels will probably diminish significantly (if not disappear altogether) in our lifetimes. To the extent that the majors cease to be much of a viable option (i.e. the extent to which musicians can basically forget about livin' like a pimp), you'll see a lot of people who don't really give a shit pulling out of the game altogether, while the people who do give a shit and/or who have a solid fanbase that does value their recorded output monetarily to some extent will continue on via other routes (e.g. Kickstarter, Bandcamp, etc.). This will basically be the 'folk/outsider' branch of tomorrow's recorded music, with the majors' increasingly-meager output forming a second branch. The likely third branch (to the extent that musicians secure forward-thinking managers and arts patrons see a dying creative industry that will need financial assistance to become more) will be the 'fine arts' branch. If incessant touring becomes the only other option for musicians to make a buck, I can see a lot of musical acts going in a sort of 'more accessible Laurie Anderson' direction (multimedia, performance-based work that caters to a gallery or pseudo-museum setting), even if only to appeal to an audience with deeper pockets who will keep them fed. I mean, I don't know how accurate my predicting will be, but sustaining a music career in the future is definitely gonna be all about sussing out alternative business models.

On the flipside, sort of, I've often wondered what it takes to knock a band down a few notches after they've hit it big. Like, will Gotye ever play a small venue again? Phoenix? MGMT? Interpol? Whomever? How many crappy albums would it take to do so? Because I can't think of any band in recent memory that has been demoted, though I can think of several whose ascent has been pretty fast.

in the future? it's already like that

xp

yeah i remember making a similar observation a while back, when MGMT made that album people really seemed to dislike but their career didn't suffer at all for it. i can't remember the last serious 'sophomore slump' in rock/alternative circles where the act really seemed to lose half their audience or whatever.

what size venues does mgmt usually play to begin with though?

in the future? it's already like that

Man, Yauch and the major labels all on the same day...

i can't remember the last serious 'sophomore slump' in rock/alternative circles where the act really seemed to lose half their audience or whatever.

that's because bands and albums are not the currency of relevancy anymore; it's songs. And as long as those songs are in circulation (ipods, video games, commercials, etc.) they have currency. there are more venues for songs to be in circulation now than ever before, and the more share they have of these venues, the more currency they have. bands per se are almost irrelevant.

That's an interesting point.

One band that kind of sprung to mind while I was listening to Corgan talk about social media and the net not panning out so well for artists was Ok Go -- a band that I don't particularly like, but that seems to be able to keep making money from a brand built not, I don't think, on albums at all, but on a stream of clever individual videos and clever live shows that dovetail with the videos. And people will keep going to see that band, at least for a while, because it's kind of more like going to see Blue Man Group or Stomp! or something, although I don't doubt that their fans actually like their music too.

And that band is a great example. I don't think anyone who watches those videos, whether it be fans or casual viewers, give a flying fuck who is in that band. Probably the entire band could be replaced and no one would care. They know the band as OK GO and that's about it. They're there for the spectacle and the entertainment, and if anyone's watching it, it's because at that particular moment, the spectacle is better than some other spectacle available at that moment.

cannot think the words "the world is a vampire" unless recited in corgan's snarl. absolutely cannot.

Do you find yourself thinking those words in other contexts?

Everytime I see Billy Corgan, I'm reminded of the video he did for his band Hexen, probably years before the Pumpkins. It's hard to hate him after that, even as pompous as he often comes across.

James Iha is still what made that band tick.

James Iha is still what made that band tick tolerable.

I said that as a guy who is most distinctly not a fan of the band.

that's because bands and albums are not the currency of relevancy anymore; it's songs. And as long as those songs are in circulation (ipods, video games, commercials, etc.) they have currency.

So it's like the 60's all over again, where a band could have one or two hit singles and tour the oldies circuit more or less indefinitely. If that's the case then I really don't have a problem with it, FWIW.

recorded music is still absolutely monetizable but the money is, always has been, always will be in the carrier.

or controlling the carrier, more accurately.

Yeah, he would.

http://www.spin.com/articles/billy-corgan-ambient-siddhartha-herman-hesse-synth-jam-chicago/

i wholly & unironically support this

very excited for a recording

Love the photo with this article:

http://cdn3.pitchfork.com/news/54028/363e3876.jpg

In that Corgan has the dazed look of a man who doesn't realize that everyone else behind is not the original line-up, precisely because he doesn't remember driving them all away.

haha, also i like how a pumpkins fan who checked out 20 years ago could see that photo and think "okay, yea, i don't remember the rest of the band looking like that but i guess they're the same members"

I won't be impressed until he submits a life-size sculpture of himself made out of butter for judging in the Iowa State Fair

Live Stream Billy Corgan's Eight-Hour Ambient Jam Inspired by Siddhartha:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C3tV8n-CVnA#t=7694

Anyone else watching this and following Dan Lopatin's live tweets? I guess this is suddenly my Friday night...

Although I have to say that I'm not sure I'm going to last more than 10 minutes of this.

i'm about an hour in. it's not terrible

The Siddhartha audio samples are pretty... literal, as interpretations go.

yeah, the sections where he turns off the text are much much better

I know it's kind of a cheap shot, but Billy's gained some weight, right?

oneohtrix livetweeting https://twitter.com/0PN

Daniel Lopatin ‏@0PN 1m
"quietly dangling hand" its as if Hesse knew Corgan would one day patch that OSC!

Ergh, why did he go for the Australian audio book?