“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.”

someone needs to stop friggin paying for music

I have no interest in subscribing to a service wherein someone else, particularly a large corporation, is choosing what I get to hear

does he really look that old for a man in his mid-40s? i'd say most guys with facial hair start going gray in the beard by that age, if not much earlier.

i agree shakey. i have zero interest in subscription services in general as they are today because i trust my taste before anyone else's, but it could still be done in a worthwhile way i think. (like last.fm/audioscrobbler or something although i never use those)

giant corporate labels can't even cooperate long enough to put out a decent box set for an artist whose work spans across several labels, how the fuck would they ever cobble together a subscription service wherein I would actually be able to find stuff I want to listen to

itunes

itunes' selection is pathetic

Wait, where are you guys getting the impression that a subscription service would involve someone deciding what you listen to? I thought the idea was a monthly fee for unlimited access to songs. I already have an emusic subscription, which is a flat fee for a set number of downloads per month, and it's great. Even though there's tons of stuff not available (all major label music and some indies), I can always find plenty of stuff I want. I'd assume a subscription service that had participation of the big labels would only offer more selection, not less (unless they shut out the little labels or something).

there's such a huge disparity these days between being critically "blog/internet" successful and financially record label successful. i don't know how often the two worlds meet.

Of course, that said, I don't think such a model would save the big labels, b/c the 50-quid men of the world would probably be spending less for more music unless the fee was pretty high, and most other people probably wouldn't want to pay very much per month (especially with free music out there.

I suppose you could have a multi-level system, like emusic does now. A really, really deep catalog that was always instantly available might be able to compete with free, i.e. people who download illegally might pay a monthly fee for the ability to get anything anytime instead of having to find it on a torrent site and then being uncertain about quality, file security, etc.

where are you guys getting the impression that a subscription service would involve someone deciding what you listen to?

Hurting you answer your own question here: there's tons of stuff not available (all major label music and some indies)

i.e., the labels not being able to agree on what's available = access being limited due to corporate douchebaggery

I mean come on the FUCKING BEATLES are not on iTunes.

Ok, but that's not "some corporation" deciding, that's a bunch of different companies not participating, and presumably that's because it's still a new thing and labels haven't accepted the concept. If they accepted the concept, your argument would be moot.

they can't accept the concept because its too complicated legally to sort out all the rights, payments, etc. They'll all collapse (and "be bought out for pennies") before they figure it out.

in other words its the Gordian Knot - it can't be untangled, it must be cut altogether.

You might be right. But why does it have to be complicated? Why not just share revenue as a percentage of total downloads? If the new Justin Timberlake single is 5% of downloads for a given week, why not just pay out a proportional amount of subscription revenue? I know that could be more complicated than it sounds, but these labels use pretty elaborate revenue schemes as it is.

"You might be right. But why does it have to be complicated? Why not just share revenue as a percentage of total downloads?"

You are kidding, right? Have you ever read any contracts? Or any legal documents ever?

it will be amusing if jobs announces beatles on itunes today

Yeah, actually I have.

The record companies already have plenty of complex legal arrangements though.

If the record companies don't move to subscription, it will either be because they're too resistant to change (which they've shown themselves to be so far), or because they think it will be a net loss from the revenue they currently earn from recordings (which is going to keep declining anyway).

personally I feel a high degree of shadenfreude at the major labels' current predicament - with CDs they created an unnecessary and inferior technology and foisted it on the market at ridiculously overpriced rates and now the principles behind that very same technology (i.e., digital copies of music) are proving to be their undoing.

Meanwhile, the original "punk rock"/DIY dream of the music scene being diversified and democratized has been realized: an ever-increasing number of people/kids/music fiends/whathaveyou are freely creating and sharing content with an increasingly smaller and smaller degree of corporate mediation.

I do think the labels have really hurt themselves with the way they've continued to treat artists. 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? I mean you've got a whole generation of kids raised on the idea that the music business is evil; a lot of them have read the Donald Passman book, the Steve Albini essay, etc., not to mention growing up with bands like Fugazi that set a different example, watching labels like Matador rise to prominence, etc., and there's a similar (though not entirely parallel) story in hip-hop. In other words, talented artists no longer necessarily see the majors as the place to go, and this becomes a recruiting problem.

I think the labels still operate with an early 60s mindset - where you could find a good looking kid with a nice voice on the street and make him into a star, then milk everything you could out of him until he went dry.

These days labels want things both ways - they want an artist to walk in already developed and marketable, which takes lots of savvy on the artist's part, but then they want to fully take advantage of the artist, which assumes the artist lacks savvy.

Sorry, those last two statements came out garbled and sound like they contradict each other. What I meant to say is that labels still want the dumb street kid they can take advantage of, but they also want that dumb street kid to walk in as a fully-formed artist, and they can't have it both ways.

Of course the subscription model would entail a HUGE loss in revenue for the labels. That's why they don't do it, not legal complexity, since they certainly have the army of lawyers necessary to make these things work. How much would people pay for a music subscription? $20/month? $50? Do you think that's going to "save" the labels? Sure, they may be fucked anyway, but subscription is basically admitting defeat -- they'd all lose their jobs.

yep

Yeah, they're probably fucked regardless.

Another legal problem that the article didn't address is antitrust laws,both in the US and Europe. If the major labels get together on some sort of subscription thing, this could be a problem

I think Rubin's probably right about this - but I don't think the whole subscription model will prevent it: "The future technology companies will either wait for the record companies to smarten up, or they'll let them sink until they can buy them for 10 cents on the dollar and own the whole thing."

Iowa doesn't do oh-so-postmodern. You're thinking of Brown.

Iowa also produced Flannery O'Connor, Kurt Vonnegut, and a bunch of other people who I will check wikipedia for and then post

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.