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Can Newspapers Save Local Music?
impaler writes: "Roblimo has posted a great piece over at NewsForge about how the Washington Post and other newspapers are hosting MP3 download sites for local musicians and how the sites are actually very popular. An interesting read." Just because the "music industry" works a certain way right now doesn't mean that all change is bad; Bruce Springsteen is apparently finding that he doesn't need much beyond a lock and key to keep the Internet hordes from passing around his albums before they're released, and the musicians on the Washington Post site seem to like being there.
mp3.slashdot.org ...
I'd disagree with that. There's a lot of high-quality local music in many cities that I've played in. Yes, there's also a good deal of trendy, badly-produced, over image-engineered crap, but that's music in general, isn't it? You have to take the bad with the good. Of course, you also run into the fact that people are used to hearing albums with high-dollar production values, and just can't see through the mediocre production to good songs/music.
Sadly, as a musician local to the D.C., I have to say that I didn't even know this existed. I now have to hope that the Post's snotty attitude towards forms of music other than Folk and Alterna-Rock doesn't carry over to the page, as there are a lot of local musicians here doing things worth hearing that aren't working in those genres. (Although I admit the Post's music critics have been getting better in this regard lately.)
"You mean," I ask, "you guys sell CDs through your Web site, and play concerts, and don't have a major record contract, and you manage to make a living as full-time musicians?"
"Yes, we're making a living, Cliff says. "We're all full-time musicians."
What's this? You can share your music AND make money. And I thought the RIAA was telling the truth. But really, I think that song-sharing is a great idea. A lot of times, I'll download the music just to see if I'd like to buy the CD; and more often then not, I do. Also, I think that it makes the artists look very favorable when they actually let you download their music, so you are more apt to want to support them over a group who tries to destroy and user with a ripped, illegal version of their song.
My other sig is an import.
In the UK, one sunday paper (Sunday Times?) recently gave away an Oasis CD with every purchase. Half the songs were playable on a CD player, and half were PC-playable four times, before they expired. Imagine if CD giveaways were integrated with MP3.com-like portals.
This would be a great way to promote new music, since CDs are cheap to manufacture and small enough to package with a newspaper. It would be great to see the newspaper websites host local artists' music, and then their distribute songs.
One of the arguments in favour of Free(dom) music is that artists can promote themselves with free distribution, then earn their feed by doing live gigs. Newspapers are an excellent mechanism for alerting people to upcoming events. They could play an integral part in reinventing the music industry by promoting small artists and helping them sell tickets.
No reason why these things couldn't be done with free software either.
Being in an indie band for the past 4 years (www.snoozerland.com) I can say that napster and other file sharing programs have helped our record sales alot. Not that we are selling millions of records but napster helped boost our sales outside Canada. (Actually untill napster we weren't selling any records outside Canada!). It also brings people into the clubs in the cities you've never been to before when you tour.
Thanks to file sharing we're hitting the states for the first time in September when our new cd is released and we also will have two songs on an upcomming movie sountrack.
What record companies have forgotten is that word of mouth is a very powerful thing
Snoozer.
Can Newspapers Save Local Music?
A better question should be can local music save newspapers. When I used to buy a paper, I typically did so to look for something in particular; classfied ads, movie listings, the latest electronic store ads, even the comics. Occasionally if I had a few hours to kill, I'd actualy read the news.
But the net has given all of those things to me for free, and a heck of a lot faster. So newspapers have to find new ways to bring in revenue. I don't (and currently won't) pay for a local newspaper online, but I would if it were to provide new avenues of information like local band MP3s. This is such a great and fantastic idea.
If my local newspaper were to still provide the news and information I want online and add mp3s from local bands (and who knows what else), I'd have no reservations about plunking down $15 a month for it.
The Internet is generally stupid
I wish the nearby alternative rock ClearChannel owned station would play some of the local artists that they keep advertising for, and holding events at their concerts. All I've heard for 3 years is "XXXXXXXXX at the Penny Arcade" or "xxxxxxxx at the Water St. Music Hall". Never have I actually heard any of the music unless it was a cover band, in which case they just played one of the cover songs over the ad.
For example, you are not allowed to distribute the music over a LAN. This means that I could not use my Rio Receiver to play the music over my hifi system. You are also not allowed to use the music to construct any kind of database. This probably rules out most fancy players that create nice indexes of your music. It may rule out all hardware based players as they will create a (small) database of the music stored internally to the player. It certainly rules out using JReceiver as my music server.
I understand that they want to restrict the use that people make of the band's music, but it does seem a little over restrictive.
Here's the deal:
I've never heard of snoozerland (until now). I've never heard any of their songs. How am I supposed to find snoozerland on a file sharing network when I don't even know it exists? WHY would I search for snoozerland if I don't know it exists? WHY would I search for snoozerland besides something with more name recognition?
Filesharing doesn't help get the word out about your band. It only helps get the music out to those who already have the word and care about hearing your music.
For instance, you say: "(Actually untill napster we weren't selling any records outside Canada!)". As I stated above, how could napster help you sell records outside of Canada when no one outside of Canada knew about your existance?
Wouldn't 'net radio or sites like MP3.com be more influential for fledgling bands when a filesharing system?
(I'm not trying to poop on your parade here. Just presenting a line of thought. It's cool that you are now experiencing greater success because of MP3s and the 'net, I'm just saying that I'm not sure how important a factor filesharing was to the bands success due to the natue of filesharing systems.)
-- kwashiorkor --
Leaps in Logic
should not be confused with
Jumping to Conclusions.
You obviously don't know squat about local bands. Promo cd's aren't sold, they' GIVEN away. That's why we hate the blank cd tax because it artificially inflates our costs quite a lot (sometimes as much as 60% of the cost of media is pure tax - fuck them all).
The general idea is that for a hundred dollars' worth of blanks, you can get a few hundred people listening to your music, telling their friends, driving around in fucking honda civics with their 8000-watt noisebox playing your tune... if you've got good music and you can get it out there, it will become its own advertising up to a certain extent, which will be much more effective than buying airplay at your local CKFU.
-Billco, Fnarg.com