Slashdot Mirror
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 ...
You've clearly missed the point, all bands start out as local bands, only blind dumb luck gets them to stardom, ..that or they're created. Otherwise do you think Backstreet Boys, NKOTB or N'Sync would've ever seen the light of day? No. This gives musicians everywhere an avenue to be heard on the cheap, by everyone, what more publicity could one ask for? It's a great idea and I'm thrilled to see it in action.
3000 dead over past 2 years, still no free Palestinians, still
Actually - I find local music to be CONSIDERABLY BETTER than the crap fed to the nation and the world by New York and L.A. - I'm glad we have some source other than RIAA minions...
Anything you say will be held against you.
Think about it - nearly every major market has at least one "free" newspaper, and most markets do have some smaller newspaper, not owned by conglomerates (like Canwest/Global here in Canada) that could put forth, gasp, an original viewpoint, a cutting edge playlist, and even just good recommendations for new music, unlike any radio station (college stations excepted) or any major venue.
Now, will we have to worry about ClearChannel buying up North American newspapers if this catches on?
ed
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.)
D'Oh!
"reason" was supposed to be "listening"
I guess I should stop erading \.
Sleeman beer is doing an ad series based on the fact that their bottles don't have labels. They have hosted a bunch of bands which aren't signed to labels on their website and are using them in commercials.
In Soviet Russia, hot grits put YOU down THEIR pants.
In Philadelphia, venues like the Grape Street Pub do much more than promote their own shows. They are trying to build a thriving original music scene in philly, especially with the compilations they sell and put out on the web.
Local music magazines are also much better at promoting local musicians to the people who will actually come out to see them. Origivation is a good example for Philadelphia.
Ben Garvey
Acoustic Rock : http://www.bengarvey.com
OddManIn: A Game of guns and game theory.
"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.
Newspapers are struggling to keep readers and stay relevant. I see this as a Good Thing. It provides a good service and it's a way to get more eyeballs on their ads, without resorting to charging for internet content, registrations, etc.
There are 01 kinds of cars in the world. The General Lee, and everything else.
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.
My area is significantly smaller than NY, Chicago, LA, etc.
But we've got a pretty good local music scene (and pretty good local news, for that matter).
I bet if you went out and actually listened to some of the local acts, you might find some pretty good shows. I've found that local acts tend to have excellent stage presence.
Also, the big acts of today were yesterday's local acts, and some from much smaller areas than NY, Chicago, LA, etc. IE: The Tragically Hip, arguably one of the biggest bands to come out of Canada, and quite successful on the world's stage, came out of Kingston, Ontario. I suspect that NY has suburbs bigger than Kingston....
Sure, there's a lot of junk in a local music scene, but just because of that don't discount all of it. Maybe you're just going to the wrong places to experience it.
Dark Nexus
"Sanity is calming, but madness is more interesting."
Wow! This is great news! Think of the vast sea of unknown music as Open Source, and the tiny-by-comparison but hugely more hyped body of popular music as Closed Source. There are many parallels.
Wider exposure for local musicians is the kind of the thing the Internet was supposed to be all about. And it's a necessary step toward eradicating the music industry.
A lot of the individual members of the groups did local acts before hand, some of them just got lucky and were spotted on star search, or wound up as mousekateers. These people were performing most of their lives to one degree or another(talent shows, weddings, whatever...) they just got discovered at a young age and put on a pedistool for all to adore.
Xaotik Designs
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
only blind dumb luck gets them to stardom, ..that or they're created.
.... A newspaper doing something like this is actually very good not only for the musicians, but also for the people living there, as it makes a much more satisfied culture.
So you're telling me bands like Pink Floyd, Led Zeppelin, Rolling Stones, got big out of pure luck, no talent involved?
Ok, maybe you mean currently: what about Nine Inch Nails, Tool, Dream Theater, Radiohead.
Not all bands get big because of pure luck. The bands who do won't be remembered in five years (ie: NKOTB (for those you didn't realize it New Kids...)
Regarding everything else you siad, agree completely, this has got to be one of the greatest ideas. It'd even be helpful if they'd list local shows of all kinds of different types of music. In my hometown, I used to go see the local bands, and had made many friends through the shows, but since I've moved, I don't know what's around here, or where the shows are
I see the emphesis being placed back on local bands, which will then be scouted by professionals from a bastardized version of the recording industry and put on tours designed to make money rather than sell albums. MTV and commercial stations will have to go back to (gasp) making their money off ad sales like everyone else.
This won't be anywhere near as lucritive as the current music monopoly, but that's life.
Every year during my review, I just pray the words "slashdot.org" aren't mentioned.
I do believe there's a lot of bands out there that are good, popular, and weren't just put there...
Just exactly what kind of local music are you basing this on, sure, here in Pittsburgh, we have our fair share of shitty local bands(I really really hate the Clarks), but we also have a whole mess of great local bands.
I've also found that big name bands come around to do a show and the whole thing normally comes off as over rehearsed and without feeling. It's like they have a script that says everything that they have to do, even when between songs. Local bands will joke with the crowd, come off the stage and sing on the dance floor/pit. And when the concert's over, they are at the bar drinking and talking to poeple.
Xaotik Designs
Some pretty heavy spin Timothy is applying to that story. It reads more like -- In order to avoid having his new album widely available through file sharing services, as recently happened to Eminem, distribution of Bruce Springsteen's new album is being tightly restricted. As a result, few reviewers or radio stations have heard it.
Of course, Springsteen can get away with that. (Or is he completely washed up now, anyway? I lost interest in him 15 years ago.) For less prominent artists, handcuffing their publicity efforts is a major issue.
Not that I'm losing sleep over this either way, but the Slashdot writeup is a 180 distortion of the NYT article.
What I'm listening to now on Pandora...
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.
If you read the linked article about pre-release copies getting spread on the internet, it talks about Eminems (sp?) album being available a month ahead of time. Even though it was highly traded online...guess what? When it was released in the stores hundreds of thousands (OK a couple hundred thousand) people still decided to buy it in the dirst couple of months. So how many record sales were lost do to the "pirates" VS. The pre-release mp3's actually helping sales by letting people know what they were buying? Imagine if the record industry were the car sales industry saying "you can't test drive a car before purchase". Sure some customers may decline to buy the car based on having test drove it....But if it is a good car -- the test drives may actually increase sales of said automobiles. I think the RIAA is just scared of how many of the "crappy albums" will not get sold if people actually have a chance to here them before purchase. Or how important is it if people are trading MP3's from a back catlog album that has already sold 14 million copies. There were many cassettes from the 70's-80's that never were made into CD's in the states that were pressed to CD in Japan. Now I have purchased the cassette and LP -- they have made there money from me -- if they knock down my door for downloading the mp3's made from the Japanese CD's...am I allowed to throw the tapes and LP's in there faces and say, "if you would release your back catalogs on CD in the states -- I would be the first in line..."
(+1 Funny) only if I laugh out loud.
Here is a good example: The Synthesis
FoundNews.com - get paid to blog.,
I lived in Rochester from 1992-96, and one of the only stations I ever listened to was 90.5, WBER
Granted, I've never listened to a lot of radio in general... I always thought a lot of it was crap even before ClearChannel began borging every station in sight. But WBER is an entirely independent station and as such plays a very eclectic mix of music, including local bands. --At least, that's how it was 6 years ago. I haven't listened in a while.
The Tragically Hip, arguably one of the biggest bands to come out of Canada, and quite successful on the world's stage, came out of Kingston, Ontario. I suspect that NY has suburbs bigger than Kingston....
Hell, as a former Kingston resident, I suspect that NYC has pizzerias bigger than Kingston. Incidentally, Sarah Harmer is also from Kingston, or at least got started playing there. She's great, I can't believe Nelly Furtado got the Juno instead of her. You'll be hearing more about her in a few years...
Freedom: "I won't!"
I read this story and was wondering, does anyone know a good PHP solution for hosting musician content? I'm looking for something that can allow musicians to upload their music, and automagically add their upload to the
library.
Either that or something custom written. We could probably afford $200 bucks to anyone that could write such an app as well as some free adspace in the print rag. Any takers just reply to
toqer @ pacbell dot net
Thanks!
It would have been nice to note that the song internet porn that Roblimo mentioned was by a group called Da Vinci's Notebook, a really cool male "a cappella" quartet out of Virginia/Washington DC. (Not truly a cappella, as they occasionally use insturments.) Very cool, and I was lucky enough to be told by a bunch of my music pals that they were a kickass group and that I needed to see them in concert.
--You will rephrase your request for me to go to hell. Goto statements are not acceptable programming constructs
I'll go one step further than that. I suspect that most local bands are so starved for exposure, that they'd be willing to sell their CDs at (distribution) cost, if they were guaranteed a large enough audience. P2P sharing is essentially doing just that.
Of course at some point, the opportunity cost of giving away all their work will exceed the benefit. Unfortunately, P2P sharing doesn't give them the option to cut back on what gets shared.
That doesn't explain the Emenem thing. His CD was distributed widely on the Internet before it was released, yet it's still the biggist hit of the year.
It turns out that people like to buy the music they enjoy. It's nice to have a real physical CD, complete with a printed liner. It plays to the same basic human instinct that makes us buy hardcover copies of our favourite books, or DVDs of our favourite movies.
It is tempting, if the only tool you have is a hammer, to treat everything as if it were a nail. - Abraham Maslow
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.
nearly every major market has at least one "free" newspaper, and most markets do have some smaller newspaper, not owned by conglomerates
Ok, be very very careful about this statement. Most "free press" newspapers are owned by conglomerates: Village Voice Media Inc. (which owns the Village Voice, LA Weekly, Seattle Weekly, Cleveland Free Times, Nashville Scene, and OC Weekly) or New Times Media Inc to name a few.
Actually here is a list of Alterno-conglomerates and don't be surprised if your fave local paper is in there.
For the last few years "local alternative" papers have been eaten up by these conglomerates (and have minority members like Goldman, Sachs & Co. and Weiss, Peck, & Greer.)
Of course these papers deny or eschew their corporate ownership with their witty commentary and flippy attitude. But in the end it is still corporate homongenization.
Sidebar: Maybe I'm a little pissed about this since my favorite local paper has just gone down the crapper the last few months due to an "editorial change". What has this meant? 1) New oh-so-cool-but-not-self-conscious-like format redesign 2) removal of any enjoyable entertainment content 3) features that are just bastardizations of two year old stories (the IBM-Nazi Germany connection), poorly written/argued (the current one on Maven/Queen Bee girl socialization behavior that starts out on the topic, switches to a completely different topic to prove its point against the former) or insulting (like how the WNBA should support its lesbian fan base more 'cause "we all know female atheletes are dykes"... good job at reinforcing 19th century stereotypes Cleveland Free Times!). Oh and then they whine and mince at the local big paper, the Cleveland Plain Dealer (Um, hello? What, were you fired from there or something? Didn't return your calls? Anyway: tell someone who gives a damn and don't waste ink on it!)
Summary: Just because it is Propaganda you like doesn't mean it ain't Propaganda. So read a lot of different stuff and make your own choice.
What is music when you despise all sound?
There are several go-go bands listed at mp3.washingtonpost.com (it's an acquired taste - you really have to be from DC to "get it"). Funny - when I was younger people generally swapped go-go tapes...this pre-dates p2p by at least 10 years.
The promise of the Internet for all sorts of businesses was to get rid of the middle man. Clearly, there are few businesses where the middle man is more of a problem than the music industry. It may not be that much longer before relatively well-known artists start distributing their work that way. Then, the record executives will be forced to change or die.
They mention how 'successful' springsteen has been because of his tactics, but in reality, he is catering to a whole different audience and has been for a while. People in the generation that primarily listen to springsteen are not the ones using p2p networks.
Even if he did send out a ton of pre-release albums, you can bet there wouldn't be that many passing around on p2p networks like there would be if a new Limp Bizkit album was out.
Saying that tactic is an effective anti-piracy strategy would be like saying the new Charlie Pride encoded CD they just released was effective because you don't see it on the p2p networks either.
By that logic, I could say a computer monitor will keep tigers away as a natural repellant, I mean has anyone ever been attacked by a tiger while reading something on your screen?
The fallacy in the logic of this article is astounding, especially since it came from the NYT.
-S
-Sternn
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
No, I was talking about the Nerve 95.1. I'm about 30 miles southeast of Rochester and I can't pick up WBER.
That's how it would be if RIAA ran the car industry, and it's a darn good thing that they don't - not just for the customers but for the car makers. Think of all the impulse buys they would lose if potential customers couldn't walk through the lot, seeing, touching, smelling the new car smell . . . . Now, it's true that car dealers have problems with theft off the lot, and they'd have less theft if they kept the cars locked away from potential buyers. But such measures would cut heavily into their sales, so they don't dream of trying it. In most business sectors, the sellers of quality merchandise understand intuitively that knowledge of the product sells the product. Contrast this to the shady used car dealer trying to pass off lemons as good cars -- that's the guy who won't even let you kick the tires, much less test drive.
The counterintuitive, myopic policies of RIAA and its marketing-machine clients stem from their shady used-car dealer psychology. The RIAA machine clearly recognizes that quality music will sell itself to informed listeners. Music that sells itself doesn't need an RIAA machine, so RIAA necessarily becomes the enemy of both quality music and informed listeners, to preserve its own existence. That, in and of itself, explains why the trash the big labels put out keeps getting inexorably worse. If sites like the Washington Post succeed in convincing a critical mass of musicians that they are better off without the RIAA machine, no Fritz Hollings, Bono amendment, or anything else can save this dinosaur industry that exists solely to hard-sell crappy music to malleable children and teens. To speed this day along, I will be making a point of visiting the site, listening to the downloads, and purchasing CDs of bands that I like.
No, no, no. This is not a sig.
I assume that you meant "listen" not reason. You obviously don't reason to techno. Techno does not have many famous people. Many electronic musicians go to great lengths to avoid being famous, despite producing background and soundtracks for all the famous people.
My best friend is an independant local techno artist. I think his stuff is pretty friggin' good - but maybe that's cause I'm comparing it to the utter crap they play on the radio these days.
Anyways my point is that techno actually does better then many genres at having local independant acts that don't suck.
So don't pay for the 'aural junk food'. Are you saying there's no CD you'd pay 15-20$ for? None at all?
You might be the exception, but most of us do pay good money for music we like. I'll pay money for a Sting CD, despite the fact that I can borrow it from a friend and rip it. In fact, I'll buy the legit CD even after I already have a ripped version. I like to have my Sting collection, just like I like to have my Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy boxed set and my map of Thailand on the wall.
Most people build up collections of 'stuff' that have meaning to them. I wouldn't call it materialism so much as sentimentality.
It is tempting, if the only tool you have is a hammer, to treat everything as if it were a nail. - Abraham Maslow
I mean has anyone ever been attacked by a tiger while reading something on your screen?
Nope. The tiger is for defending yourself against people attacking you with fresh fruit.
Sorry, it's been that sort of day.
-r
Just because something is free does not mean you have to take it.
Moreover, the point was not to make an "excuse" for P2P, but to point out how, unlike other industries, the RIAA machine's continued existence depends on keeping the consumer uninformed. Barnes and Noble has clearly decided, like most rational retailers, that they will sell more CDs by informing the consumer. However, RIAA does not necessarily see a cent of that - I will bet my left buttock that the "Kodo" taiko drum group you discovered through Barnes and Noble's open marketing was not put out by any of the studios in RIAA's cartel. So Barnes and Noble, in effect, is putting another nail in the RIAA machine's coffin.
Does anyone know whether RIAA has taken a stand against Barnes and Noble's marketing practices, threatened any kind of legal action, or demanded royalties for songs that customers listen to in the store? Given their stance on webcasting, it seems unlikely that they would let this pass.
No, no, no. This is not a sig.