Slashdot Mirror
Anything Box Releases An Album To Share
cats writes "Anything Box, the synthpop band from the 80's who had a hit with 'Living in Oblivion' have released an introspective albumn in mp3 format under a 'freeware' style license. Anyone who has ever seen these guys perform know they are just a bunch of nice people trying to make ends meet as musicians. I had the opportunity to hang with Claude before his show in NJ at The Pipe back in 1998. He had some interesting asides about how the music business in general operates. They manipulate the artists' work as well as take huge cuts of musicians' profits. The album is available via download as one big zip file including artwork and is in mp3 format. Very cool."
A band from the 80's, just trying to make ends-meat, and you link them to slashdot. Hopefully the publicity will skyrocket whatever profits they can make, instead of just incuring heavy ISP costs.... looked like an independent site.
--
"I'm not bright. Big words confuse me. But Wanda loves me and that should be enough for you." - Cosmo
Not my kind of music, but if you like it...this is they way we've been hoping thigs would start to go. If there's anyplace on their site where you can donate a couple bucks to help support the band, it would be a good idea.
We DO want to encourage this kind of thing, and the only way to do that is if they can make a little profit from it.
Chaos, panic, disorder...my work here is done.
...that basically, as I have been led to understand it, the record companies make virtually all of the money on record sales. The money made by the artists truly comes from doing tours and other live performances.
It seems to me that these guys are actually on to something. If they give the music away free, it does NOTHING to discourage anyone from coming to see them live. In fact, it goes a long way to encourage it with all the extra "good will" and generosity the band will be perceived with. THIS is the move bigger artists should experiment with at this point. I think it could at least be educational to test the notion.
Forget about secure digital formats and all that DRM crap, let's share the art and go see their shows if we love'm! Let the band publish their own CDs and sell'm themselves from their web site using paypal as a convenient means of payment.
Independent is the only way to keep the artists from being screwed, I think...
Rather than trying to make their album available on their own site, they should have been led by their chief techie to the P2P networks. In fact, I suspect the folks at Sherman Networks would have loved to help promote this as another Legal use of Kazaa.
So, anyone who's already posted this around and has the song list to look for?
- Created in a boardroom by suits
- Sex symbolism more important than musicianship
- Underdog in engineered, artificial controversy
- Willing to change fundamental values to increase profit
- Cannot write their own music
- Inane, cliché-filled lyrics
- No innovation
What is bad for the music industry is that this makes my purchasing activities as limited as my listening activities. Because so many of today's alleged artists can answer "yes" to one or more of the above points, I simply don't buy very much music. I know many people who feel the same way. Certainly, we are outnumbered by consumers of the "fickle sheep" variety, but I do wonder how much money the industry loses because it refuses to address my wishes as a listener.One of my favorite quotes addresses this subject. It is from the Rush's "The Spirit of Radio" (words by Neal Peart (the drummer)).
I also like what Pink Floyd's "Have a Cigar" has to say about the music industry.Washington, DC: It's like Hollywood for ugly people.