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Some Bands Still Refuse Music Downloads
Zelbinian writes "Wired News reports there are a number of artists, ranging from The Beatles to Radiohead, that are still holding out on iTunes. Some feel that per-track downloads hurt the artistic integrity of albums as a whole; for others it's simply a matter of negotiation troubles. From the article: 'Since record companies have realized the popularity of iTunes and other sites, many reworked contracts to give artists less money per download. Andrews said while record companies once offered artists about 30 cents for each song sold, now musicians are earning less than a dime.'"
First, why is this under "Your Rights Online?" Second,while I prefer to be able to pick and choose tracks, I can see how a band might prefer that an album be sold as a complete "work" and not picked apart. I think the album that should be viewed as such is probably rare, however.
http://www.busyweather.com/
The Beatles? On iTunes? What happened to Apple v. Apple?
They can hold out as long as they want. If downloaded music sales start to eclipse that of normal CDs, then I suspect those artists will begin singing a different tune.
Hexy - a strategy game for iPhone/iPod Touch
It aint the artists, it's the labels.
How we know is more important than what we know.
When information is power, privacy is freedom.
"It's amazing how many people go there," Andrews said of iTunes. "We're hoping albums work there." Andrews said he wasn't sure if Apple eventually would allow the album to be kept intact.
I've seen a bunch of tracks that weren't available unless you purchase the entire album. The albums usually have 1 or 2 tracks for sale individually but the rest require you to buy the album. I understand the artistic concerns, but if you would release some of the songs as singles for play on the radio, why not make them available as downloads? Or do artistic concerns end when you want a hit single so the album sells well?
Reading code is like reading the dictionary - you have to read half of it before you can go back and understand it.
"From the article: 'Since record companies have realized the popularity of iTunes and other sites, many reworked contracts to give artists less money per download. Andrews said while record companies once offered artists about 30 cents for each song sold, now musicians are earning less than a dime.'"
This is why you have a good manager/agent to represent you. No different than any other negotiation. BTW Taco, I want a raise.
Can you really blame them? The new contracts take away any monetary incentive that digital formats offered. What I dont get is Itunes delivers the tunes at their cost, the publishers have no packaging, promotion or media costs, so where does the money go? Maybe im a tin-foil hat type here, but it seems to me that the labels are just attempting their best to make sure that digital downloads are no incentive to the "artist" in order to keep their control over the industry. If it isnt cost effective, artists will stick with cd's and big labels as they see that as the only path to success. Too much success in digital format would show the artists that the labels were not needed in the modern age so from the labels perspective thats something best to avoid.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
I remember when CDs came out. The labels pulled all sorts of renegotiation tricks to pay less money on CDs compared with vinyl. One of the excuses was that it was a "new technology".
If the RIAA really wanted to go after music thieves, they would be sueing the record labels.
"Trademarks are the heraldry of the new feudalism."
You deserve one; you post here all the time!
I would recommend that artist negotiate a seperate contract for digital sales. My band is unsigned, but we get 91 percent of the iTunes cash (after Apple takes their cut). What band could be against that deal? iTunes is a potential cash cow for forward-thinking bands.
Are they performing the albums in their entirety at live performances?
Or selling singles/releasing singles to radio?
Seems they are defeating their own argument.
The bands who have concerns about their art being sold as a complete work have fans that go buy the CD anyway. If it's really a good album band (not just a one hit wonder) I want the physical media in hand, full quality and with all the artwork.
How much is a dime?
Not to mention the worthless value of compressed mp3's....
Buying from iTunes you're actually paying 10 times the album price of a CD !
Is the whole world Deaf ?
Why don't these artist release their album independently of the record company ? If anything, the internet should allow the facilitation of the shift in how music is being distributed. I am surprised that there aren't more companies that is trying to take business away from the tradition CD selling music distributors by offering better deals with the artist and specialising in internet distribution.
Since record companies have realized the popularity of iTunes and other sites, many reworked contracts to give artists less money per download. Andrews said while record companies once offered artists about 30 cents for each song sold, now musicians are earning less than a dime.
That's so wrong on so many levels. I can see there being lost income because of the album vs track purchasing option, but not everybody was willing to buy a full CD for one good track. Factor in that they don't lose money on digital copies not being sold (unlike CDs), less shipping/damage costs, recovered sales due to album sellouts being a thing of the past, faster distribution and such, this is practically criminal.
I hope this is what leads to changes in the current music system. Bands realizing that the "costs are going up" BS from their respective labels is just another way to get cheated by a company that should be concentrating on their mutual success.
Can anybody comment about getting thier own music onto iTunes or similar online music store? Easy? Hard? What snags were there and how would it compare to trying to get a contract with a label?
"Common sense will be the death of us all"
It's strange how Radiohead have chosen to do this, considering they were one of the first major bands to offer MP3 downloads to the public. Kid A was released for free online before in stores, and they found it advantageous. This was at the same time as their refusal to release singles or advertise the album in order to sell it purely on its merits.
Radiohead made Kid A top the charts, both here (UK) and America, through online publicity.
Perhaps it is since the culture of iPods is to create playlists and to "shuffle" that they wish to avoid it, and their release on the internet was in the idea that people still listened to music, downloaded or not, as a whole work, as if on CD.
Often called pretentious, the desire to have your work viewed and heard as a whole appeals to an older perception of music, one that I personally still subscribe to. It holds the idea of an album as a progression, as something that has a beginning and a conclusion, such as one might expect from a traditional symphony.
It can be very discouraging to an artist when an entire medium is practically devoted to destroying that construction. And if they care more about their artistic integrity than making further sales, I can only applaud them.
It's not like Beatles and Radiohead albums are hard to come by, both new and used -- who cares if they're sold on iTunes or not? Is there anyone who wants to buy the Beatles catalog who hasn't already purchased them on CD?
Online music stores (especially the subscription ones) are great for discovering new or obscure music, and they're ideal for buying a single on an album that's otherwise lousy, but the Beatles and Radiohead -- the most common holdout examples used -- don't fit any of those descriptions.
Since record companies have realized the popularity of iTunes and other sites, many reworked contracts to give artists less money per download.
The irony is that with online distribution, artists don't need to go through their record company middlemen anymore. They can sell their music directly through services like iTunes and claim their profits for themselves. All that's needed is for a few musicians with some guts to stand up to the people holding their leashes.
"I've seen a bunch of tracks that weren't available unless you purchase the entire album. The albums usually have 1 or 2 tracks for sale individually but the rest require you to buy the album. I understand the artistic concerns, but if you would release some of the songs as singles for play on the radio, why not make them available as downloads? Or do artistic concerns end when you want a hit single so the album sells well?"
They're called "enticements". You know, like when game makers use to include extras for those who bought the "special edition boxed set". No one likes to feel "left out", but that's the way the world works. You want extras? You pay for them on their terms.
From what I understand, Steve Jobs runs, controls, negotiates, and manages everything at Apple Computer. Maybe he has not had time to talk to the Beatles, The Grateful Dead, and Micheal Jackson yet? I'm sure the reality distortion field works in the Neverland ranch just as it does at a new Apple product showing so it is just a matter of time and those artists will be available.
...but I use CDBaby.com to sell my music on iTunes. I actually make more money per song than I would per song per physical CD sold, which is how it should be. I also get paid per play on subscription services. And while that's just a fraction of a cent, it does tend to add up if someone likes a CD and listens to it often.
I chalk this one up to major labels just being bloated and greedy.
vk.
also consider it a crime to play a cd on random or listen to just one track.
so it is their loss, the whole concept of integrity of the work art is just plain bullshit. They created the work for us to enjoy, not for themselves to tell us how to enjoy.
The phrase "more better" is acceptable English. suck it grammar Nazis
Since record companies have realized the popularity of iTunes and other sites, many reworked contracts to give artists less money per download. Andrews said while record companies once offered artists about 30 cents for each song sold, now musicians are earning less than a dime.
I thought the RIAA was out to help and protect all those starving artists, y'know? From all those nasty pirates who deny them their fair value for their music. Right?
Surely this cannot be!
Weaselmancer
rediculous.
All of Radioheads catalogue is available on warchild. It's like iTunes but it all goes to charity.
Whoever said iTunes needed to get all the goods.
http://www.warchildmusic.com/
1 5&artist=304
http://www.7digital.com/stores/listing.aspx?shop=
For musicians, it's another way to resell their entire catalogs to fans who want the songs in multiple formats, he said.
Musicians my ass, this is being driven by the media companies. They are dying for a change of formats like album to CD. Album to tape did not do it for them and CD to lossy format outside of DRM and device maker collusion won't either. Yeah, I'd like the artist to get their fair share too. Reselling DRM'd versions of the exact same thing every 10 years is not my idea of a fair share. Only a few RIAA poster boys think iTunes is really a fair deal.
The device collusion is not happening, so it's all a dead issue.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
Unselfish actions pay back better
I assume you use CD Baby, since it says 91% in their Sell your CD section. It's a good deal. A friend's band uses them.
Of course, it's really only about 50% or so after Apple's cut, but still good.
"Some feel that per-track downloads hurt the artistic integrity of albums as a whole;"
Some customers feel that the albums integrity is hurt as a whole when we're forced to pay full price for 3 good songs and a bunch of filler. The per-track business model wasn't slow to take off because of the artistic integrity of the album. Spare us that horse shit. It doesn't matter whether you sell albums or tracks, you still have to generate quality work.
"I like to lick butts!" by MobileTatsu-NJG (#32700246) (Score:5, Informative)
I tend to buy whole albums simply because I'm a music pack rat; however, I can't stand musicians who complain about people not appreciating the entirety of their albums.
Give me a fucking break. Most top 40 artists already prescribe to a 3-6 minute song model, segment their album for radio play, and don't maintain any overwhelming unity between tracks. Moreover, they've been doing this for DECADES.
People have grown accustom to picking and pulling individual songs. We been promoting this model long before iTunes came around. If respecting the whole GD album was so damn important everyone would be producing albums like The Wall and releasing them on 8 Tracks.
"Things are more moderner than before- bigger, and yet smaller- it's computers-- San Dimas High School football RULES!"
There are certain albums that deserve to be listened to from start to finish. Bruce Springsteen's epic Born to Run comes to mind; listening to just one or two songs doesn't do it justice. But Springsteen isn't pretentious enough to force that view onto fans and lets us download one or two tracks anyway.
That's just it. Whether the work is sold by track or by album, most people are going to miss a great deal of the point of the work as laid out by the artist. Insisting that people buy the entire album instead of a track makes as much sense as making sure that people take a test to ensure they grasp all the artistic points.
Just sell the entire 'album' as a single 'track', for $.99
I honestly can't think of many CD's that need to be played all the way through. Back in the days of records, songs would be arranged with the medium in mind. Often, each side of the album would be completely differrent, or the best songs were the first couple of songs on each side, etc...
I think it was easier back then because there were usually about 4 or fives songs per side. Its much harder trying to arrange 10 songs to be played in sequence. Our attention spans will not allow us to listen closely to 10 songs.
-B
PS Musicians make very little off of music. Thats not right.
Geeze, The Beatles really should get with the times, that Lennon guy should really know better.
Why do musicans even need publishers? Why don't they join digital wagon and make use of it? How hard could it be to deal directly with Apple and Napster to form agreements. The world doesn't need record companies anymore. What the world needs is musicans who are willing to step out on their own.
\
Artistic integrity - my ass. Prententious bullshit - maybe.
Doesn't it make you feel good to know that our freedoms are protected by politicans, lawyers and journalists.
One word, man: TOOL.
Why don't they complain about audio quality? 128 kbps doesn't do it for me. In double-blind tests, I can tell the difference between 128kbps and the original around 90% of the time (depending on track), 70% for 192, 60 for 256, and falls to around 52% for 320. (100 trials, various tracks). (By the way, these are down with Sennheiser HD-650s, M-Audio Audiophile 2496 for source, DAC, and amp). I would never purchase an album on itunes for 10 dollars when I can pick up the CD at Barnes and Noble at full quality, with full media, etc, for 13. As a music lover, I agree with the album should be considered an artistic whole, but truly, how many bands even think of their music as an art form anymore?
I'm just curious, don't music artists have a trade union? (or are they stuck with RIAA for that?) It does sound like the music industry is treating the artists unfairly..
For musicians, it's another way to resell their entire catalogs to fans who want the songs in multiple formats, he said.
.ogg then put it away on the shelf. The disc itself is what I consider my "backup" and is never used. My PC is hooked to the stereo and that is how the music plays -- digitally. Some stuff is moved on and off my iRiver so I can listen on a plane or while I drive to work.
I'm sorry, but I refuse to do that. If I paid for it once, there is no way in hell I'm going to pay again short of going to a live concert.
I still purchase most of my music on CD. The first thing I do is rip the disc to
I have no problems at all paying for music -- once.
Learning HOW to think is more important than learning WHAT to think.
Fuck'em then, I will not even download them from a torrent.
*Satan Laughs As You Eternally Rot*
I'd agree and disagree, as this really depends on the album.
Playing the tracks of Pink Floyd's Pulse out of order or with tracks missing loses impact. Playing the good track of shitty-CD-with-two-good-songs without the crappy tracks is an improvement
Generally as rule once something ends up on joe publics Maxtor, it generally loses whatever value it started with, take for exaample that gateway commerical where they are dumping family photos into the gateway box only now splice in a trashcan because thats the effect computers in general have on media - no im not plugging for the record companies i just say this as a cheap ass.
Yeah, this is total speculation, but what better way for Apple Corp to say "fuck you" to Apple Computer than to make the release of the Beatles' music in electronic format in WMA, on the 88-cent-a-track Wal-Mart music store, as part of the Zune player launch?
And how much do you think Microsoft would pay Apple Corp to be able to say that Zune plays the Beatles, but iPod doesn't?
It is unfortunate that today any joe or jill schmuck with a pile of electronics and a computer generated beat can churn out schlock tunes by the tonne.
Only truly great artists can do wonders on stage with real instruments, including the human voice. Then with the help of great studio musicians produce recorded music of lasting value.
There is no way that the average teenybopper of today should have to pay big dollars for mass produced electronic junk tunes, those days are over like the dot com bust of 2000. Get with it or miss the boat guys. The days of Motown and real musicians is long gone. And the pop music industry is stuck on fresh faced talentless stage meat.
The Beatles, who were one of the last bands to embrace CDs, haven't allowed any online service to sell their music. Solo songs from John Lennon, for instance, are not on iTunes but available on MSN Music and other sites.
Nice sentence... Dumbass, basically he just stated... "This band doesn't sell anything online, at all! An example of this is a guy from the band that sells his stuff online."
You take it, I don't want it...
"Andrews said while record companies once offered artists about 30 cents for each song sold, now musicians are earning less than a dime.'"
Some of them are worth even less than that!
Well, at least until the RIAA comes and sues our noses off.
Well, as a music lover and owner of 16 some odd GB of music (and it's ALL legit, and I don't share), I love iTunes.
There are very few albums out there that you can pop in your CD player, or make a playlist of the album, and listen through its entirety and could ruin the album integrity if you heard 1 song. Some great examples of artists that could make this claim: Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd.
As for Garth Brooks, I like maybe 5 of your songs, and they are all on different albums. I don't own your 5 songs I like, because you are a TOOL and are greedy. The same for Bob Seger...FYI...Night Moves would be the ONLY entire album I would download of yours.
The artists that are new and opposed to music downloads know they are 1 hit wonders, and buyers won't get screwed on downloading 1 good song and 15 songs of crap. As for older proven bands and artists, you are hurting yourselves.
Vinyl is dead...and CD's are close behind.
Then why not sell the album as one track?
I'm not going to spend my time trying to fast-forward thru that hour-long single track just to find what I like to listen to. That's why.
Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
most people are going to miss a great deal of the point of the work as laid out by the artist.
And who is anyone to tell me how I should interpret art? Being able to not have to buy filler, or just stuff I don't want in general, is a huge advantage of iTMS and other shops like it. Shovel more stuff on me that I don't want (and force me to pay for it) and I buy nothing. You (the hypothetical artist/label/store) just lost a potential sale that way.
i am a soviet space shuttle
Radiohead has allowed for their music to be sold digitally. 7Digital has, more or less, their entire collection. Not only that, but they have it in WMA, AAC and MP3, no DRM required. A little more expensive than iTunes at £7.77 (about $14.60 USD), but not too bad,
I only by CD from the artist at the concerts I see them at. If we all do this we'll be supporting the artist and treating them the way they deserve to be treated.
"To be is to do." --Socrates
"To do is to be." -- Aristotle
"Do-Be-Do-Be-Do..." --Sinatra
"Some feel that per-track downloads hurt the artistic integrity of albums as a whole"
Translated, this means that artists are now mad that they can't produce one or two good songs and package it with 10 crappy ones they recorded while drunk one night and charge people $20.00 for the whole thing.
As for the record companies taking way too much money, yeah that's always been a problem. But for some reason, nothing really seems to get done about it. It would only take a couple really well known bands to demand higher payments (or not let the record company produce their music, which could make them a lot of money even with the new terms) to solve this problem.
-1 disagree is not a modifier for a reason. -1 troll, flaimbait, redundant, overrated are NOT acceptable substitutes.
You people need to understand *How Much a Band or Individual Actually Makes from an Album or CD*... Not as much as the Record Companies I can assure you...
LifeTime Gamer
Some feel that per-track downloads hurt the artistic integrity of albums as a whole
Then they shouldn't complain when I download the .rar of their albums :)
Or maybe these artists actually care about their art more than the corporate bottom line, and thus deserve enough of your respect to buy their entire album or none at all.
Honestly, if they're insisting that you buy their entire album instead of just the single, I don't think they care. A lot of artists still believe in some mythical ideal of artistic integrity, even at the expense of making more money.
// file: mice.h
#include "frickin_lasers.h"
The Beatles portfolio is owned by Micheal Jackson. Paul was pissed when he found out.
Being able to not have to buy filler,
Good albums don't contain filler material.
now musicians are earning less than a dime.
And that's the fault of iTunes? Or is it the fault of the record companies who grabbed a cheap excuse to rob the artists further?
The real pirates are and always have been the record companies. The main reason they are so quick at finger pointing is that it serves to move attention away from themselves.
Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
Perhaps. But don't you think that makes the complaint of "we aren't making enough from online sales" kind of silly? Maybe that's true because you're denying people what they want. You have to make people want to buy your music to make a go of it, and while most musicians do what they do because they love it, at some point you have to be mindful of making a living.
i am a soviet space shuttle
Good albums don't contain filler material.
And mediocre albums have great songs on them.
i am a soviet space shuttle
Some time soon, the rights on all the beatles songs will start to expire. Rights on songs are held for 50 years after they are first produced. So it will not matter for very long.
It's not just Weird Al who signed a bad contract. Nearly all artists get stuck with the same ridiculous clauses. All the major labels give you a simple choice: Sign the standard contract, or be a nobody selling your CDs at pub gigs.
Take a look at this letter from Steve Vai - it lists some of the many ways that the labels burden the artist with every expense, fair and unfair, but retain all ownership of the songs. They short-change them even the few royalties that are due, require large upfront costs for any auditing to check this, disallow auditing of crucial figures like actual manufacturing numbers, then typically "settle" with the artist for around a third of what the artist is actually due anyway.
Regarding iTunes, he says even a well-established and popular artist who is entitled to 15% royalties, would typically see only 4-5c per iTunes track, due to such creative deductions like 15% for "free goods" (there are none, for digital downloads) and the 50% "new technologies" deduction. After, of course, the label has deducted all production and marketing expenses for the songs they now own. Read the linked article, it's hair-raising.
Remember, this isn't some naive and ignorant wannabe speaking, he's been playing for 20-odd years, including many years with Frank Zappa before he went solo - he's been around. He still had no choice. The labels control the radio playlist (via illegal payola) and the shop shelfspace, so if you want to succeed, you have to do a deal with them, and they will only offer the same "standard", artist-raping contract.
Why would anyone engrave "Elbereth"?
It annoys me whenever I see words like "dime" on an international page. I'm british, and had to google for "dime" to find out how much it is. How difficult would it be to put "dime (10c)" instead?
It also annoys me that some americans call cents "pennies". It gets really consfusing if they never mention that they are using american slang instead of meaning the real english penny, which is worth 1.88 times as much.
"Andrews said while record companies once offered artists about 30 cents for each song sold, now musicians are earning less than a dime."
Now why would the recording companies want to do that?
Oh yeah, because downloading pretty much destroys their reason for continued existence!
Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!
My view is that if the album contains filler, none of the tracks on it are worth paying for. Don't support any band that doesn't produce solid albums.
Besisdes, once you get away from pop you'll find that most bands have solid albums.
"It ain't a war against drugs.it's a war against personal freedom" --Bill Hicks
don't you think that makes the complaint of "we aren't making enough from online sales" kind of silly?
No-one is complaining that they aren't making enough money because people don't like their music. They're complaining because they receive a pittance from each sale, while record company executives and shareholders (and Steve Jobs) become rich.
at some point you have to be mindful of making a living
No. As an 'artist', you make the music you want to make. If you're lucky, people want to buy it. If you're not, it's kinda handy that you didn't give up the day job.
As a manufactured mass-market musical commodity, designed by committee like a Hollywood film, then you can be mindful of making a living. Not that you need to be, since you've got plenty of people doing that for you.
All artists are not the same. Some do it for money, some don't - some artists actually prefer less sales if it means they can keep true to their ideas.
It's a very rare actor that can demand millions up-front. Most have to settle for a percentage of the profits. However, due to accounting practices "considered odd by any normal business standards", 95% of movies, even box-office hits, somehow fail to make a profit - as defined by the studio, anyway. This article lists many of the ways in which this is managed, including spreading of gross receipts amongst poorer-performing pictures, "distribution fees" far in excess of reality, a 10% "overhead" fee to be applied to all marketing expenses, tax breaks that are kept by the studios & not counted for the picture, and many others.
Stan Lee got nothing from the Spider-Man movie, because the studio claimed it did not make a profit, at least as defined by his contract. My Big Fat Greek Wedding was produced cheaply and was a huge success, yet somehow "lost $20 million". Even Babylon 5, which took in $500 million in DVD sales alone, is apparently "$80 million in debt". As the creator, J Michael Straczynski said, "Basically, by the terms of my contract, if a set on a WB movie burns down in Botswana, they can charge it against B5's profits."
Steve Vai says very similar things about the record labels' own standard contracts, not least their various bogus deductions for digital download sales. As the saying goes, the really creative people are the accountants.
Why would anyone engrave "Elbereth"?
Is that not everyone likes all their stuff. Hell for that matter not all their stuff is good. I think they get all bent out of shape because there will be some tracks on the album that nobody downloads. Gee, you think maybe that's because they just aren't that good? Nah, gotta be that people just suck, and you should force them to experience your work as a whole.
So if they are truthfully whining about people playing their music out of order, then they need to just shut the fuck up. If you wish to sell your art to the masses to enjoy, you need to accept that they'll enjoy it in different ways than you intended.
However, my guess is that more often than not you have the right of it, and it's about money. They want people to have to pay them for all the tracks, regardless of if those people would choose to pay for all the tracks.
You are both right and wrong. Kid A had no singles, but was leaked to napster, dooma nd gloom was predicted, but it became radiohead's only No1 album.
Solid albums? Taste is very subjective. I don't care what they aay, "If I Could Fall in Love" is the only halfway decent track on the album "Lenny", which I picked up at a library for 25 cents, and the only reason I did that was because I caught the video for "If I Could Fall in Love" while switching through channels.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lenny_Kravitz
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lenny_(album)
On the other hand, Yoko Kanno, is almost pure gold.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yoko_Kanno
See if they only presented their music in a given format, then maybe you'd have a point. If they didn't sell it, only performed it live, and only in the settings they chose, in the order they chose, then ok. This is akin to a painter who makes only an orignal peice and permis no copies to be made. It is shown only in galliers of their choosing, with lighting to specs and so on.
However if that same painter starts making prints of the peice and selling them at Wal-mart for a buck fifty they can't very well get pissed at me if I hang on in my bathroom, or if I cut part of it off to make it fit in a frame. Is that what they intended? Maybe not, but they chose to make their art available to any takers on any terms. You can't whine about your message or the supposed way it has to be delivered when you've decided it's more important to have mass distribution.
So when artists play live sets in arbitrary orders, and when they do singles, and when they release albums on a random access medium (CD) with discreete tracks, they can't bitch if people want to pick and choose what they like. You allow your work to be presented in multiple ways and you make it easy to do more later, don't get huffy if people expect that and want control over it.
I'd take the "our work is meant to be heard as a whole" more seriously if when they performed, they did so like a symphony orchestra. There, it's somewhat rare to see a peice played out of order, or to have parts skipped, though it does happen. If they chose to present their work like that, always as a whole, and didn't give in to pressure to do singles and such, then maybe I take them seriously on it. However as it stands, they can get bent, it's greed not artistic integrity.
I mean hell, take an album that WAS produced as a whole and compare it. Something like The Wall (Pink Floyd), Thick as a Brick (Jethro Tull), or Nothing Lasts (Shpongle). There is a real difference from the slideshow of tunes that comprises a Bealtle's album and those. Not that there's anything wrong with a collection of songs, but you can't give me this BS of "It has to be appreciated as a whole." No it doesn't. I don't have to look at all of Michaelangelo's frescos at the same time, I don't have to listen to your whole CD at the same time. In fact, I usualally find that on any given album, even for bands I really like, there's at least 2 songs that I just don't care for.
Sorry, thems the breaks. If you release your art to the masses, you don't really have the ability, or the right, to tell them the way in which they must enjoy it.
Fine, but some artists do view an album as more than just a series of tracks. Can you be sure, in advance, which tracks are "filler" and which aren't? Why, when I was a lad, it was my pleasure to unearth an "unsung" album track with special meaning to me.
Radiohead is mentioned in the article: any thoughts about the overarching story told in the order of the songs on OK Computer? It's there, almost a hidden message that rewards careful listening, and it would be destroyed if the songs were Shuffled. My "unsung" song on that album is Let Down, one that got no attention and would be left out if I had bought the "singles" on iTunes.
You should try this with a book - after all, who the heck is the author to decide that Chapter 7 comes immediately before Chapter 8?
(this is not a
ok so if downloading a single track hurts the integrity of the album (by the way how can a fucking album have integrity), does this means that 'pay-for' singles hurt it to or are we really saying that it hurts the pocket?
Blammo! You just blew the bottom out of your own argument. The Charts have very little to do with music, they are the marketing equivalent of a Quake III Deathmatch. One week you score a kill, next week you die, the next week you score another kill. Complete musical movements have appeared and flourished without even touching the bottom of the Charts. Some good bands do get some attention e.g. Tool, NiN, Muse et al - but getting a chart place requires musical compromises that not all artists are prepared to make.
(this is not a
I am nothing and should be everything
From what I know, majors typically pass on between eight and sixteen cents per track to the artists, and that number hasn't changed much since the ITMS launch.
Most artists are lucky to get 15% of gross take, so given 65c going to the labels, that's less than 10c. Then, the labels deduct the standard 26% for free goods, packaging, restocking and breakages (all obviously still quite relevant for digital downloads), and my personal favourite, the 50% "new technology" deduction (which previously applied to CDs, even though labels made far more per CD than they did for vinyl). After all that, the artist is usually entitled to around 4c for the song.
Of course, this is not to say he/she actually receives that. First there's all the recording and promoting expenses to pay off as well, even though the artist does not get to keep the copyrights to their own songs. Then there's no easy way to be sure the label actually pays you what you're entitled to under your contract anyway, and the barriers to successfully auditing this are set as high as possible. Finally, even if you do manage to scrape up enough money to mount a successful audit, the label will offer to settle (typically for around a third of what you're owed), or to drive your legal expenses up a lot higher still.
Why would anyone engrave "Elbereth"?
So if you buy the complete album, should they forbid you to skip some tracks?
You cite iTunes taking 35 cents on each $0.99 sale. That information seems outdated.
Here's one website that has more information. I think there is at least one other site to check, cdbaby.com, but I'm not going to do that right here. This is the payment plan for independent artists, so I imagine the "labels" could try and negotiate a better deal, but this deal is pretty sweet:
iTunes: $0.70 per song, for 10+ songs (AKA an "album") payment is only 10 x $0.70 = $7.00
Rhapsody: $0.65 per song (subscriber download), $0.70 per song (non subscriber download), for 10+ songs album payment is 10x
Napster: $0.65 per song, for 10+ songs album payment is 10x
MusicNet: there is some undisclosed "independent record label" pay rate. See the FAQ
eMusic: the "subscription pay rate" model. They pay a percentage of their profits.
Sony Connect: the "subscription pay rate" model. They pay a percentage of their profits.
So, the best deals offered by tunecore.com, at 70.707070% of the purchase price, are very, very good for the artist. Any artist only making around 30% is simply losing money on their next album.
apple vs apple admission that the beatles back catalogue is being remastered and will be released on itunes?
I have never heard an album that I liked each and every single song on it. Never. And I don't just listen to pop, either, I like oldies, classic rock, rap, folk, j-pop, etc. Maybe it's not fair to call all the songs I don't like filler, I'm sure they put a lot of effort into them, but I still don't like them. If I limited my music buying only to albums that don't have any song I don't like, then I wouldn't buy any music at all.
"What is Internet Explorer 7? Are you saying we can't access the normal internet?" - I love tech support. Really.
Yes, all the oil companies could say, ok lets sell at $15/pb, but they wont, because the extraction costs are perhaps $5 in saudi, but $18 for shell
in the north sea. But demand is demand, and its needed for civilization to survive, there is no substitute. Try battleing with stupid environ groups
and govt for rights and permits, take 10 years to build a refinary at $2-5billion, then the govt will ask for a 30% cut in oil rights and their 30% cut
in taxes. (NOTE: the Venezuala govt wasnt a thief went it asked for a modest cut in the profits. I dont see it as right for a company to walk into
South America and start selling oil and giving the country back 3%. In that case, yes the oil companies are evil.
I dunno, maybe its in their interest to trick the greenies into thinking oil is bad, stop pollution, and even covertly fund them via ex-ceo employees
who have 500billion+ in shares. That can 'donate' to pro-green groups to hurt the oil companies and thus reducing supplies and causing prices to go up.
I mean, whats the best trick to pull, its to fake someone else hurting you so you can tripple your profits. But also seriously the oil sector
is very heavy in capitol, it takes a lot of $$$ and effort and time to biuld things of grand scales, like 10000's of miles of pipe lines, and big oil tankers.
Liberty freedom are no1, not dicks in suits.
Gescom and Autechre did this a while back http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gescom.
I would like to here the Jazz one though.
$ cat
cat:
But then again, you don't have publishing houses telling authors they need to write a book with not less that 50 chapters and not more than 60. With musicians, the labels tell them they need to produce three "sellable" albums with at least 11 tracks each. So the artist writes 5 to 10 catchy songs and spreads them out over the three albums with filler tracks for the rest. The albums will sell because of the catchy songs, but the rest of them are just to please the label which doesn't really care about the music in the first place.
I'd argue that while the infrequent band will write a full album that creates a cohesive whole, it's not what the majority of mainstream music is and it's not what people are used to expecting anymore (maybe they did back in the 70s, but those days are gone). Perhaps they could make a deal with iTMS to only sell the full album and not the tracks piecemeal. That would be an interesting test of the iTMS users -- will they buy an album if it's only sold like a regular CD and not by track?
...and that's the way the cookie crumbles.
Here's a few I've bought recently:
Mastodon - Leviathan
Flyleaf - Flyleaf
Slayer - Christ Illusion
Fear Factory - Transgression
Opeth - Ghost Reveries
All solid the whole way through. It's been years since I've bought a cd with filler. Mainly because I buy either after seeing a band live or through recomendations from friends. The radio is not a good source for finding new music without filler. MTV's Headbanger's Ball is a good place, though.
"It ain't a war against drugs.it's a war against personal freedom" --Bill Hicks
If artists are bummed because folks won't buy an entire album (so-called artistic integrity), they can lay all the blame on William Shatner. He single-handedly demolished (pardon the pun) consumer demand for entire albums. He very nearly killed the music industry.
If Nalgene water bottles are outlawed, only outlaws will have Nalgene water bottles.
Great album.
Still, the artist puts his work out there. Someone buys it. They enjoy tracks 1 through 3, hit skip on the CD player at track 4 (not in the mood for it).
Too bad the artist wasn't able to lobby Congress for the anti-track-skip flag to be in effect so that the artistic integrity could have been preserved; uh, mandated.
The ability to ruin the 'integrity' of the album has already been available for years. The artist can only make it available. They can't control what people will respond to.
Consider Bowie's Alladin Sane. You wouldn't know from the Ryko CD that every song title was matched with a city in parenthesis on the LP.
I think it is just that every technology is so much more expensive -- the same way CDs are so much more expensive than LPs to produce. Yeah, that's the ticket.
On the other hand, I've listened to OK Computer many times, usually without random shuffle, and I've never picked up an underlying album-wide story and message.
On my portable music player I have 3-4 tracks from that album in my two most common playlists and love them as tracks; I almost never listen to the album itself.
Maybe there is a message and the album represents a coherent body of work. Frankly it's wasted on me.
Speaking as a recording artist performing in a reformed band (that used to be signed up) all I can say is that the record companies can all line up and kiss my ass.
:)
We've done our own deal with iTunes and are selling our new stuff without a middleman of any sort.
As we're lucky enough to own our back catalogue we also sell our CDs, T-Shirts etc. at gigs or from our website. We also sell stuff on iTunes and do the occasional "promotional" mp3 post to "the source that must not be named" *cough* use *cough* net *cough*. So far it's working very nicely.
So quite why anyone would want to be in thrall to some bunch of cocaine addled wide boys who take the lions share of their cash off them for some dubious "PR" and "media liason" is beyond me.
Sorry but it's time for the parasites to die off. Fuck the *AA, fuck record companies. They're now totally irrelavant.
Posted anonymously as I don't want to karma whore
So, each file currently costs about $1 to download. Consumers want to be able to mix-and-match songs across albums. Enter the artists that either want: 1) to sell more songs by bundling them into an album or 2) to maintain artistic integrity. In the latter case, let them bundle the entire album into a single file (to be sold for $1). Call the bluff and we'll see whether it's profit or art that rules.
Not too long ago I spent a lot of time trying to pick out a track on iTunes. After quite a lot of my time invested, I went to buy the track I picked out, only to find that the only way to get it was to buy the whole album.
I can see artists holding out for other reasons, but am I missing something on the "whole" album thing? I mean, if they want people to purchase the whole album, it must be just a bit in a database that Apple needs to flip...and boom, you are screwed if, like me, you just want that one track.
Transporter_ii
Doctors destroy health, lawyers destroy justice, universities destroy knowledge, religion destroys spirituality
Nullum magnum ingenium sine mixtura dementia (There is no great genius without a mixture of madness) - Aristotle
[i]Why, when I was a lad, it was my pleasure to unearth an "unsung" album track with special meaning to me.[/i]
A song cannot have special meaning to you. Songs are only allowed to mean what the artist intended. Right?
[i]You should try this with a book - after all, who the heck is the author to decide that Chapter 7 comes immediately before Chapter 8? [/i]
I have a fantasy anthology book that contains just the "Riddles in the Dark" chapter from [i]The Hobbit[/i]. It works perfectly well as a stand-alone short story. Sometimes I don't feel like reading the entire book, but reading just that chapter can still be fun.
think about it another way. If you are a painter having just completed your masterpiece stretching across a huge canvas, would you be happy if someone just took a detail from it and refused to see the whole work?
back to music how happy do you think beethoven would be to know that his epic works have been reduced to a mobile phone ringtone? and how good an understanding of his work do you get from only listening to that ringtone?
a lot of musicians are unhappy with people reading the lyrics when listening to the songs because they feel it detracts from their work. does that stop you from reading while listening? hell no!
does it mean that they don't have the right to ask how they would like their music to be listened to? again hell no!
"Of course, they'll also take the lions share of the money. But, hey, where else will someone pay you to just sit around and strum on your guitar and come up with songs?"
Or pay you to just sit around and write code all day.
Well, nobody is forcing you to do anything but, there are some albums which are created to listen to them in order (at least if you really want to enjoy it).
Just like films. Do me a favor, go to your nearest Blockbuster and rent any random DVD that you have not seen. Now, instead of playing it all select the "choose chapter" option and watch the chapters in the following order: "5, 4, 7, 3, 1", you skipped chapter 2 and 6 (and if there are more than 7 chapters, all those also). Did the movie made any sense to you?. See, some MUSIC ALBUMS are made the same way. Of course, for those albums the *song* element plays a strong role which will make you enjoy certain "chapter" without having to listen to the whole album just as what happens with video very often.
I always like to put as an example the Scenes from a memory cd from Dream Theater. If you listen to the 8th song "8. Scene Six: Home" and the lyrics will make no sense to you, they might even appear to be crap, but if you listen to the whole album at least once, you will *understand* the mood of the song AND the lyrics.
Ubuntu is an African word meaning 'I can't configure Debian'
I'd like to think a better example is how this painting (NSFW, as far as classical paintings go) is more famously known for the one foot in the bottom-left than any other portion of the painting.
Tluin natha Linux xxizzuss uriu olt bwael mon'tun.
Didn't you know? These companies are all about the artist and what's good for them ... YEAH RIGHT! ;-)
If they want the album to be listened to as a whole instead of as a group of tracks, then they should record it as a single track. Otherwise, they need to shut up and give the people what they want. They don't seem to mind their "art" being chopped up and sold to the the public by marketers and promoters. I don't see how that's any different, really. I see Radiohead has a couple of singles on Amazon. How does that fit into their vision of art?
I figure this is about negotiations instead. Who the hell wants the Beatles on iTunes anyway? If you are a Beatles fan, you probably already own their CD's. I'd recommend CD purchases over iTunes 10 out of 10 times anyway. And I'm a multiple Mac and iPod owner. The only music I download from iTunes are their free releases every week. Otherwise, I want DRM-free music in CD quality.
Isn't that the point of this argument? That music is not like books? Either a song is its own entity, or it is not.
If Radiohead really wanted you to listen to the whole album, they'd make it one long track.
The REAL artsy bands (Godspeed You Black Emperor, I'm looking at you) do this.
Now, you can complain about lack of context, and certainly the artist should have the right to control their medium of discussion, but ultimately, there is no right answer. The artist is right; the listener is right. Nothing is true; everything is permitted. Et cetera.
I'd argue that while the infrequent band will write a full album that creates a cohesive whole, it's not what the majority of mainstream music is and it's not what people are used to expecting anymore (maybe they did back in the 70s, but those days are gone).
But the majority you're talking about is the majority that's not complaining. Britney Spears puts 3 singles on an album and pads it out with filler; you can buy those singles on iTunes. Radiohead makes albums with a beginning, a middle and an end, and would prefer you to hear the whole thing in sequence.
I became a music lover in the 80s, meaning that I missed the "golden age" of the concept album (thank God), but pretty much all my favourite albums, I've always listened to as a unit. "Back in the USSR" leads into "Dear Prudence". If something else kicks in, it jars. Orbital's "Chime" segues into "Belfast". I was once somewhere where they were playing a Smiths best-of album. I loved hearing the songs again, but I cringed every time a song ended and the wrong one followedd it.
Those days may be fading away, but they're not quite gone yet, and should they disappear altogether, I'll miss them.
OTOH, as a recent Paul Morley column I can't be bothered to find and link to said -- the length of both singles and albums has always been dictated by playback technology. The classical symphony's length was dictated by musicians and audiences' stamina. The 3 minute pop song was dictated by what would fit on a 7" single. The 10 minute dance track or remix was dictated by what would fit on the 45RPM 12" single preferred by DJs. Albums used to be approximately 45 minutes long because that's what fitted on 33RPM 12" vinyl. Artists who wanted more time adopted the double album format: you got to use a gatefold sleeve, and often the album would be structured around the four sides; each side being a "chapter". As CDs took over, albums became longer.
Downloads mean a song, or an album, can be as long or as short as the artist, or the consumer, likes. What's going to happen? Are people going to go for short-sharp 1 minute pop songs -- like in the days when punk bands would fit two songs on one side of a 7"? Or will artists start making single tracks 90 minutes long? It's going to be interesting.
Taking your metaphor a step further, should it not be up to the consumer whether or not they choose to buy and read the book, or just chapter 7? And what if the book is a collection of short stories instead of chapters?
I prefer that an artist can recommend the prefered consumption, but I still get to choose.
Artists often try to prevent the misinterpretation of their work, but in the end how much can they control?
Well i knew the foot and i knew the painting, wasn't aware that that was where terry swiped the foot from. I've always thought that was a great example of how bad bronzino's basic composition was . just look at the curve in cupids back, it looks like a poor blend of two different poses, one standing, and one bending behind. i assume he changed the composition halfway through, either to have the legs extending out to the left, or i suspect more likely to get the breast groping in.
What percentage of movies are meant to be viewed in order?
What percentage of albums are meant to be listened to in order?
Why is it that everyone beats up on artists just for becoming successful? That's what they were doing before some guy from the music industry came in and said "Hey, you wanna do exactly what you're doing now, only for more money?" Who in their right mind would say no to that?
Being successful in their work is not a crime and is not synonymous with being morally bankrupt. You'd be surprised at how little the artists have control of financial decisions after a big label comes in. Especially if said band is wet behind the ears as far as being suavvy business men.
Putting the 33k in G33k.
I don't see what the problem is. You can listen to individual tracks on iTMS without making them available for sale individually .. the button just says "BUY ALBUM" rather than "BUY SONG". And once you've bought the album (all MP3s) what's the difference between having a collection of MP3s on your iPod and having a CD in your CD player? You still can skip tracks and rearrange playing order with a CD. So I don't understand what they're kvetching about.
It's not a lie. It's the truth with lossy compression.
What if music stores offered a discount to peopl buying the whole album in a single download. Like 80-90cents person if you buy the whole albumn, but then most people have their music on random anyway, but hey, there's prob a good many that listen strait through for an albumn chalked full of musict they LIKE.
"You will do foolish things, but do them with enthusiasm." - S. G. Colette
So when you listen to Radiohead you only ever listen to the whole album at once, never one song. I only say that because you compare it to a book, which I would always read from front to back. Some times when I listen to music, I just listen to one song. This line of thinking that the whole must be listen to as well completely destroys the idea that they should release a single or a music video, which I am pretty sure Radiohead have done.
d eos.jhtml#/music/artist/radiohead/videos.jhtml). They have artisitic integrity up until someone waves a few bucks under their noses. Selling online music isn't making as much cash for them as selling whole albums. I'd believe them if you couldn't already listen to or view single selections outside of the whole album, but you can, they already let people do that. aritistic integrity, what a bunch of tossers, it's money intergrity they meant to say, which i'm fine with, but call it what it is. Sorry to Radiohead and any of there fans, but they are just an example used in the article and I am taking a guess that other bands in the article would pan out just the same.
Screw this idea that they are holding onto some kind of artistic integrity when they already shilled out singles as ads and as many as possible at that(http://www.mtv.com/music/artist/radiohead/vi
I have never heard an album that I liked each and every single song on it
I would agree that for most albums I don't like every song on them but I can think of a few off the top of my head that I do truly like every song:
1) O.A.R. - The Wanderer and Risen
2) Green Day - Dookie
3) Korn - Korn
4) AC/DC - Back in Black
5) Linkin Park - Meteora
I could list a few more too. They are rare but there definitely exist some albums that at least for my taste in music I enjoy every song.
If I limited my music buying only to albums that don't have any song I don't like, then I wouldn't buy any music at all.
It is good to hear that you don't limit yourself in that respect. I hate filler as much as most people but as long as I like at least half of the songs on a disc I will usually buy it. Like people have mentioned before, being able to purchase individual songs online is great for those times when you only want 1-2 songs from an album. For bands such as above that have given me great discs in the past I will usually purchase new discs without testing out every song, this has turned out to work pretty well and even if some albums disappoint me (O.A.R. Stories of a Stranger for example) I don't feel so bad since I am still supporting a band that has given me a lot of entertainment.
Hey, there is only one Return and it's not of the King, it's of the Jedi.
It seems that Itunes could still benifit the Artist who believes in the 'artistic integrity' of their album. I use sometimes Itunes as a good way of preveiwing an album I'm willing to fork out extra the money for.
There is no disputing the always increasing popularity of downloading for consumers, but it could work for an artist to release just a couple of songs to promote an album, which still earns them money for Itunes singles if nothing else.
I've wondered before why it is that nobody posts albums on iTunes with all the tracks set to "Album Only." If bands really were objecting to the store on those "You need to hear the whole thing" grounds, that would be the workaround, and yet one never sees it. Sounds like a flimsy pretext.
Somebody with an accountant's instincts would probably see through this situation. As it is, my first reaction to the Beatles not letting iTunes list their catalog is that they're fools for spurning the potential revenue. I'm pretty sure there are plenty of sources for that set of music on the p2p networks, and there Apple Music gets nothing, nada, zilch.
"Fundamentalism" isn't about divine morality. It's about human authority.
Hey, everyone likes "we don't need no education" but separating it from the rest of The Wall is like reading one chapter out of Moby Dick. Yes it's a Song, and Radio Stations have been known to play it independantly, but it is part of a larger unit. While Floyd is an extreme case, it is true on some level for most Albums.
For the record, an 'album' is a collection of 33 1/3 pieces of Vynil played on a Victrola. Music of the era was too long to fit on this 7 minute long format, so when you bought the 1810 overture, it came in a bound book of several records. Sure, an single movement, or song from an opera COULD be sold separately, but why would you? This collection of records reminded people of a photo album, and the name stuck through 33 1/3 LP's (and their single side kick, the 45), 8 Tracks, cassettes, and CD's. There was a phase in the industry in the 80's to try and get away from the term 'album' as the industry embraced optical and tried to escape vynil as the pinacle of music distribution. The reason it stuck, it is like a photo album, a collection of pieces, bundled together as a collective unit.
To sumarize - An album is a unit being diluted by single releases of songs, just as songs are being poluted now by a 5 second hook of a ringtone. Is our attention span really this small?
Being able to not have to buy filler, or just stuff I don't want in general, is a huge advantage of iTMS and other shops like it. Shovel more stuff on me that I don't want (and force me to pay for it) and I buy nothing
And I'd like to buy a DVD without all the extras and "Director commentary", and pay half price. Maybe get rid of the boring scenes, and save even more money. I'd like to buy a book with only the best chapters, and get it for a fraction of the price.
The problem is, even if artists are willing to have their work chopped up for whatever you want, it's an assumption to say this will significantly affect the price. That work in its entirety has still had to be made.
I do think they should offer the album as a whole for download - if iTunes doesn't support that however, then that's not their fault. Maybe they could also offer individual tracks for only 1 cent less than the price of the album...
What percentage of movies are meant to be viewed in order? What percentage of albums are meant to be listened to in order?
Since it's not all albums which aren't being listed on iTunes, the percentages in general are irrelevant. What matters is whether those particular artists have albums where the songs are meant to be listened to in order.
Take a band like Coheed and Cambria. Their entire discography (including the Shabutie stuff) is one big epic space opera. If you listen to one song here or there, you don't get the entire picture. They would probably want you to get the entire album at each release so their story can be told, but honestly if you can grab a copy of the graphic novel it's based on you've already got the story.
Nonetheless, it's some of the best music to have come out this decade; get what you can get of it, I say.
selling you singles if it comes on physical medium.
Indeed with these sorts of bands, the distinction of an individual "track" is often less significant, sometimes the music continuously blends from one to the next, or can be considered a single song (e.g., the 42 minute long Six Degrees of Inner Turbulence). The tracks may just be added for convenience on a CD player, to skip to different sections.
... if people are going to whine they want just a part of the track, I might as well ask if I can only buy the chorus of a particular song, because I don't like the verses.
Genesis' Supper's Ready consisted of 7 sections, but all as one track I believe - so it seems a bit silly that whether you can buy the parts individually or not depends on whether it was made a single track or not. I think the suggestion of providing the album on iTunes as a single track makes sense
Okay, given, but why should we care?
Art, music included, is not a pure expression of its creator, meant to be interpreted only as he/she sees fit, but instead how the viewer/listener/whatever sees that creation. Once a piece of art gets released to the general public, after all, it becomes, in part, the domain of that public body's imagination.
For example, if I like only two songs off of a Radiohead album, then why should the band dictate that I have to listen to all of the other songs on the album just to get to those two? What if I see those two songs as individually more enjoyable than the album as a whole? Is my preference any less important than the band's? And if so, how far are you willing to take it? Should we stop playing cuts from Dark Side of the Moon on the radio? Bundle songs into one huge (and annoying) track on a CD so that the listener can't skip anything?
So, frankly, I don't give two bollocks what the artist thinks. If they want to keep the precious "artistic integrity" of their work, then they can never release it to the public and keep it hidden in a vault somewhere. But if that's the band's only reason for not releasing already released albums on iTunes, then they should cave in and just do it, unless they're a bunch of pretentious wankers...
...oh, wait, this is Radiohead we're talking about...
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Pass my tinfoil hat, I think I sense astroturfing...
While I can see what you're saying for most artists, Radiohead goes more into the realm of art than most popular acts out there (do we count Sigur Ros as popular or not?) so I can at least buy THEIR argument. I, uh, disagree with Metallica trying to go with the same argument, though. But I don't see why the artists can't ALSO make as much money as possible from touring. Besides mural art, I don't think there's anything about art that makes it necessary (or even better) to make it freely available.
HI, MY NAME IS ISAAC.
This deal has Yoko Ono written all over it! First she splits them up, and now this!
-M
The last person in contact with a product before it reaches the consumer always makes the most money on it. Why is it that a car dealer makes a lot more money per car sold than the engineers who designed it and the factory workers who built it? The music industry is coming of age.
So artists have the option to suck it up or join with others to change the system. Capitalism and nationalism are plagues upon humanity. A cure is way overdue.
Politicus
Then, why not offer a "buy track" and a "buy album-only" options? ;-)
That is, if it is really a matter of track vs. album. It probably go further for some.
Thanks for the music suggestions. I will check them out.
Anyways, I think it's just my tastes, not artistic laziness that makes me not like every song on any album. I've listened to some excellent albums, but even the best still have a song or two I'd rather skip, not because the artist just put something random to fill time but because what they created just is not my style. Because of that, I love the whole concept of being able to buy only one track, because sometimes songs I really love are on albums with other songs I don't really care for.
"What is Internet Explorer 7? Are you saying we can't access the normal internet?" - I love tech support. Really.
Here's Thom Yorke (you know the leader of pretty much the most influencial and powerful pop band of the last ten years - also label-less at the moment) take on the matter:
"vee shall make zem PAY for zer mistake. ha ha ha. they vill never get avay viz ziss. vee are verrry verrry precious about are little KID A yu know and also zee others and you mr job jobs are no exception ya?
unbundle zis KID A record anda vee vill unbundle yor face.
H HA HA ha HA ha HA ha ha
(cough)"
http://www.ateaseweb.com/news/archive/2005/06/ind
And yet, artists should be able to decide that they only prefer people to consume their work in the context of the artists' choosing. This is the "rights" part of copyright. I think it is only appropriate. The creator should be allowed to put out his/her work in whatever format they'd like (vinyl, tape, CD, MP3, only live performances, etc). If the artist needs more money and thinks that they can get more by selling individual tracks, then it is their right to decide whether they will break up their work into smaller segments or only sell the work as a whole. The onus is on the creator, which is as it should be.
And, yeah, I know we can start talking about how the big, bad music industry exploits all but the most recognized artists. Heck, I'd even agree with this statement. But taking away control from the artist (by forcing them to sell individual tracks, either through legislation or market pressures) doesn't give them more clout, pull or power. It just takes away what little oversight they might have in that decision and takes the balance from the publisher. The exploitation of artists by corporate members of the RIAA is a problem in and of itself, not an argument for making all artists sell by the track.
They might well lose money. But it's their right to lose those sales and keep the work together if they so choose.
I am not a lawyer. This post does not constitute any form of legal advice.
There is big difference between the artist getting to choose the method of presentation and dictating audience behavior. Requiring that you buy the whole album (or making all songs on the album one big track, for instance) is the artist's choice of presentation. If you then want to buy the product and break it up into tracks or only listen to one song, go for it.
If you don't want to buy the album for one song, then you have two choices:
1. Complain to the artist and maybe they'll change their mind for a customer, or
2. Vote with your feet.
If you really like the one song and want to hear it but don't want the rest, then you've got a decision to make. Buck up and make it.
I am not a lawyer. This post does not constitute any form of legal advice.
The iTunes Music Store has the capability of only selling the album and not the individual tracks. These artists and bands know that. This is about staking out a negotiating posture to try and get more money. I wish all negoating parties good luck.
Let the games begin.
I am not a lawyer. This post does not constitute any form of legal advice.
I'm just here to regulate Funkyness
None of my albums contain any filler, and none of them contain mediocre songs either... because I burn them to suit myself.
I even mix artists! On the same album!
Music, is in the ear of the listener... not in the layout of an album... whether laid out by the artist or the label...
What and how I listen to whatever I chose to listen to is, and should be, up to me.
The notion that I must experience something as some other person or power, thinks I should is like some kind of perverted Clockwork Orange, where my ears are forced open to listen to the official version...
All, one, some, none - my choice - it's called freedom...
You are right, I don't know if apple changed from taking 35% to 30% in the last year or so. It would make a reasonable amount of sense if it was true though, as that's about the fat they have reportedly had in their share lately - if they dropped their fees by four or five cents they'd presumably be back to break even or close. ITMS has always been considered a promotional device for their high margin portables so it would fall in line there. I admit it looks like my info is out of date, but bottom line though is that 30% or 35% doesn't make a big difference to my argument. Majors still aren't paying anyone 30 cents a track - even if apple passed on reduced fees to labels in the middle of multi-year contracts (seems like they would if they are eschewing profitability). Moreover the quoted bit in wired was about historical pricing - i doubt he was talking about six months ago - more likely he meant a few years ago, right? So that would be back with my outdated info.
A few random comments:
CD-Baby quotes their fee as 9% and their average pass through as 60 cents putting their average gross proceeds per song over all services at 66 cents. Average could mean a dozen things here but it's likely a vast majority of sales come from ITMS, even more than the industry average as unsigned/true indie acts do very poorly on the subscription/hybrid services.
I'm surpised the website you quoted hasn't gotten flack from apple or others - I find it pretty much impossible to believe apple has dropped the pricing non-disclosure terms from their ITMS contract. Not that that means i don't believe the numbers.
TuneCore: wow! $7 setup and $8/year per album, no sales percentage. That $15 initial price for itunes US apparently includes merchant processing fees, chargeback costs, online database self-service, mail receiving, CD or lossless archiving, CD ripping to one or more formats and bitrates, audio quality assurance (ony real way is real person listens to the whole thing), match to and quick check meta data, due dilligence for checks for copyright/trademark issues in audio or metadata, clearance confirmations, UPC assignment, manual submission to itunes (no bulk submitter available), acting as an intermediary in content disputes, monthly accouting data and usage pass through, no fee monthly electronic payments, no fee customer support, free manual on demand takedowns after 6 months or at the end of a non-renewed contract. God bless them but more than half of these things listed individually costs a business more than $15 - Quite the loss leader, with noi apparent way to recoup costs to even pray to break even. Not to mention a lot of sunk costs like servers, ripping stations, custom software, workflow, contract negotiations, office space, utilities. Must be a labor of love by some guys who are independantly wealthy?
What happens when your iTunes broker goes out of business?
1) Artists can do whatever they want.
2) Apple fanbois can go fuck themselves.
The reason they don't sell on iTunes among other places is because they believe iTunes is not a great place to sell music since much of the world still doesn't access music via iTunes. That's straight from Thom Yorke's mouth. I'll try and find the interview later. Furthermore, they believe the music industry, at least as far as distribution is concerned is about to crumble and they'd rather wait and see what works out and then have control over it themselves.
Radiohead is actually happy they don't have to release albums anymore since their record contract is done.
Plus, I don't think they care. They sell out every show they ever schedule.
"Karma can only be portioned out by the cosmos." -Homer Simpson
The biggest showstopped with most compressed and DRM formats is that they add gaps into the record. This messes up everything from DJ Mixes to Mars Volta to Joe Jackson's "Night and Day."
I'd buy online if I could get non-DRM'ed FLAC files. But outside of a few innovative artists like Coil, few are going this way.
Forgive the offtopic, but anything off Scenes is unfair as a standalone, but even listening to most of Images & Words and then A Change of Seasons makes you understand the song even more. Maybe it's just the leet music nerd within, but I hear so much of the music within those songs in the rest of the body of work that it almost takes a listen to all of them to understand any given part. That said, there are those of us who don't listen to lyrics, so lyrical continuity is a useless metric for whole-album status.
I agree with the above statements on Six Degrees, though - that's how you make a concept album. If you want your listeners to listen to something all the way through, then make it compelling enough to do so. Me, I very rarely tend to listen to anything on-the-go as anything but whole album, but that's because my iPod likes to crap itself out every once in a while, and it's a lot easier to restart listening from one point in an album than to restart shuffle and "risk" hearing the same song twice in rapid succession.
ITunes already can designate a track to be sold as "Album Only", where you have to buy the whole album playlist to get it. Technically at least, it would seem QED to just assemble an album playlist with all entries marked "Album Only"; problem solved!
Too bad the Wired people didn't ask why this wouldn't be acceptable.
In the context of deciding whether to publish downloadable copies of their music, you can't call The Beatles an "artist". The two surviving Beatles, Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr, don't own the publishing rights to their music, haven't for decades.
What you're saying is that "some lawyers still refuse music downloads". That should hardly be surprising to anyone.
--
make install -not war
I don't know how many times I have bought an album, and liked a track other than the released single. This may not apply to the poppy throw-away music, but listening to an album in context seems better to me. What do you think Dark Side of the Moon, or The Wall would be like without listening to it all the way through? Either way, artists are getting jipped when it comes to $$$, it all goes to the corporate fat cats.
Absolute power corrupts absolutely. indymedia
Some feel that per-track downloads hurt the artistic integrity of albums as a whole
This is true. Especially of artists like nine inch nails who blend tracks one into another, and Anal Cunt*, which, ah, doesn't. Live albums like Nirvana's Unplugged are much easier to listen to from start to finish.
Of course, they could offer the entire album in one continuous mp3 for $12. Sometimes an album is so good, you want the whole thing.
*Although their music is pretty pointless, it is infinitely moreso if you try to download an album one track at a time, since they completely ignore track boundaries. This is artistic inasmuch that their main goal is to piss off their audience in a very, very Punk way.
"No problem. I have the capacity to do infinite work so long as you don't mind that my quality approaches zero."-Dilbert
Obviously, our views differ. If you like something, great. Buy it all. If I don't, I don't want to be forced into buying crap I don't want when it is no longer necessary to make all-or-nothing choices.
i am a soviet space shuttle
The artist doesn't get to decide.
The artist certainly should not get to decide for a work over 30 years old (Beatles).
It's not like the artists in question are like DaVinci at the height of his influence. The modern musician is already lucky if he not treated like the equivalent of a framing carpenter.
Even corporate art immediately gets picked apart as soon as it is created. That's what it's for.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
Some albums are simply collections of singles, and there erally is no "complete work". The Beatles "1" album is an example, as is any "best of" or "greatest hits" album.
OTOH you have albums like The Who's Tommy, obviously a single work.
What is being missed here is many of these old works were meant to be played a side at a time; each side of the LP was a single work. Example is Magical Mystery Tour and just about any Led Zepplin album. The best example of Zepplin's "one side at a time" is probably Houses of the Holy. Side one ends with The Crunge, which ends with the music stopping and Plant asking "where's that confounded bridge?" The CD completely ruins these works, why aren't the artists insisting on making these a two CD set? Why are two record sets that will fit on a single CD (e.g., Zepplin's Physical Graffitti) made as a two CD set?
And then finally you have the stinkers, with one good song and the rest crap (Lunatic Fringe).
So yeah, maybe, with a few, but it's mostly bullshit. We're talking about commerce here, not art. If you want art, buy indie music.
Where do they play.
Perhaps you meant: "Copyright holders of some music still refuse music downloads".
The current copyright is 120 years. It is not likely now, and less likely in the future, that popular musicians would own the rights to their music. Also unlikely is that the original musicians are still a functioning band. In the "120 year copyright" long term, assuming that music would be written in a distributed fashion, the average musician who wrote the music 60 years ago is perhaps not likely alive.
They're complaining because they receive a pittance from each sale, while record company executives and shareholders (and Steve Jobs) become rich.
Then why did they sign contracts that specify those puny returns? While I do think the industry needs an overhaul, don't complain if you signed a contract! Lots of people don't read the fine print, don't take the time to read what they're agreeing to, and then act surprised when the other party upholds their end and executes the self-serving clauses they put in. If you don't like the deal, why did you sign your name to it? You weren't forced to. There's alternatives out there -- you should find them. Oh, and the music store doesn't make a huge profit. It holds its own and maybe a little more, according to Apple.
No. As an 'artist', you make the music you want to make. If you're lucky, people want to buy it. If you're not, it's kinda handy that you didn't give up the day job.
Not every artist has the luxury of holding down a day job while spending the time to make music. It can take a lot of time to do that. Not all music is mass-market manufactured. My favorite artists are artists and that's all they do.
i am a soviet space shuttle
...except chapters of books are not ever presented
to the public as an atomic work. Pop songs off of
a larger pop albums are.
We call this radio.
This is an extension of the single.
In the beginning of consumer music, a fan's music
colletion could be NOTHING BUT single individual
songs brutally ripped from the busom of some larger
album.
iTunes is not progressive. It's a throwback.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
but she plays radio birdman too
http://www.wfmu.org/tt/
This might be off topic but...what would be the disadvantages of Apple starting their own recording studio? They could charge 80 cents per download, give the artists 30 cents of that and still come out on top. I don't know that much about the recording industry but it seems that if the recording industries are being that unfair most artists would gladly make a switch.
That doesn't make me any more agreeable to forking out money for stuff I don't like, and "I don't like that" is an individual judgment for everyone. I've had bands or artists recommended to me as good and then discovered that I don't care for them. That's fine; stuff I like is disliked by people I know. That's the way the world works.
i am a soviet space shuttle
sometimes even bad albums contain A great song.
1980s pop hits for cases in point
the "supergroup" GTR in 1986 (containing a member of Yes and Genesis)
Hit: When the Heart Rules the Mind (peaked at #14 on pop charts)
Miss: everything else
the duo Sly Fox (1985)
hit: "Let's go all the way" (peak at #3, I think)
misses: everything else
Those were 2 of the first albums I ever bought - GTR was even, I believe, the third I ever bought. Sandwiched in between was Weird Al Yankovic's "Dare to be Stupid," which had I not bought as an album, I'd probably never have heard Yoda (to the tune of Lola) or George of the Jungle (from the 1960s cartoon).
but then you've got albums that just aren't the same unless taken as a whole, like a lot of the later Pink Floyd stuff, Radiohead (or so I hear - I don't really like them enough to buy), and pretty much any rock opera albums from the 1970s and early 80s (artists like Styx, Queen, etc).
Can you be sure, in advance, which tracks are "filler" and which aren't?
You can't be absolutely sure without hearing it all, but you can get a good idea from a preview clip if the sound agrees with your tastes, or doesn't. I've expanded my collection that way by listening to previews and then finding I really like the sound of a track, and I've found that my final like or dislike does align pretty well with my initial impression, when I do buy the track or listen to it in a friend's car or whatever.
Fine, but some artists do view an album as more than just a series of tracks.
And again, that's imposing someone else's views on mine and telling me that what I think doesn't matter, when on the contrary, it matters very much to me. When it comes to your imposed views costing me money, your imposed views can figuratively go to hell, because I don't have a ton of money to throw around just to indulge somebody I don't know. Want me to listen to it all even though I don't really want the rest of an album? Fine, don't charge me for it and I will but I won't pay for something I don't want. (this is why many features on cars are "options").
You should try this with a book - after all, who the heck is the author to decide that Chapter 7 comes immediately before Chapter 8?
A book chapter is not a self-contained item like a song is, unless it's part of, say, a single song that spans multiple CD tracks, but those aren't that common.
i am a soviet space shuttle
Do people forbid you to jump from page 5 to page 10 on a book, no, you might not get all the experienced planned by the artist though. What should really happen, is that some people should do album(LP), and other should do track(single). What happens today is that the people that do track, or the people behind them, want to make more money by releasing some track as an album, hence the "filling track", iTunes just deconstructs this model, and it is a good thing because it concerns mostly "bad" pop music. I see a future where artists choose if their track can be sold as single or not, and there you'll see the difference between people working on an album as a whole, and the others
What percentage of movies are meant to be viewed in order?
You mean, considering porn movies?
Ubuntu is an African word meaning 'I can't configure Debian'
What's wrong with wanting to both maintain artistic integrity and not be exploited by the record companies?
The fact that you signed their self-serving contract? "Artistic integrity" seems to equate to "screw your views, mine are all that matter" when art and its intepretation is something that is in the mind of the viewer. It's snobbery to think that everyone who views or listen to your art is going to share your views, and elitist to whine when you discover that there are actually dissenting viewpoints out there and that those dissenting viewpoints are actually causing, in many cases, the low sales you use to justify your "that wouldn't do enough for me" comments.
CD sales are sliding. The "I don't want to have to buy it all when there's an alternative that can let me have just what I want and no more" is probably a big factor in this.
If you're an artist and you want to be treated fairly, sign with a place that does that. I hear good things about CD Baby...
i am a soviet space shuttle
...that bands could be holding out on iTunes because they disagree with their particular setup and monopolistic like practices, and all the alternatives that exist are barely comparable compensation wise?
Judges and senates have been bought for gold; Esteem and love were never to be sold.
there are some albums which are created to listen to them in order (at least if you really want to enjoy it).
You mean, the way you like to hear them. I'm not you, and I have my own tastes. Sure, I have stuff in my collection that was originally placed in a certain order, and I can listen to it in that order if I want, but I enjoy it just as much when I don't. I "really enjoy" whatever the hell I really enjoy. Enjoy whatever you want, but don't think that everyone else wants what you want.
i am a soviet space shuttle
Maybe they could also offer individual tracks for only 1 cent less than the price of the album...
If a whole album cost $1 on iTunes instead of $0.99, since all tracks are $0.99, I'd buy it. That falls within my range of "that's a fair price for one or two tracks that I really like and 8 that I don't". A buck each for bits I don't really want does not.
Look around iTunes (can't say much for other stores) and there are indeed album-only tracks. But I have never bought one because I don't see a single track I want as effectively worth the $10 they want for it (since I will never use the crap that's force-bundled with it that I do not want).
i am a soviet space shuttle
It's kind of like how the oil companies could afford to reduce the price of oil artificially, but they know that we are dependent on their oil(purposefully) so that we give them tons and tons of money at unfair prices to get our fix and as a result they become immensely, excessively, profitable. Sounds like a collusion in an oligopoly to me.
The government tried this in the 70's--they placed an artificial price control on gas. The result was gas shortages and huge lines at the few gas stations that did have gas. Oil prices are set the same way every other commodity's prices are set--supply and demand. If the price goes down, demand goes up, and if the supply doesn't change, then we run out of gas just like they did in the 70's.
They might well lose money. But it's their right to lose those sales and keep the work together if they so choose.
I never said otherwise -- I did however point out that I'm not going to cater to it because I don't like having other people impose their views on me, and I also think that whining that online sales don't do enough for you is kind of something you bring on yourself if you destroy one of the very things that is an advantage of online sales.
Wasn't it just a couple articles ago when everyone here was acknowledging that and holding it up as a great thing about online sales, and as a reason for why people download music off file sharing services, and now all of a sudden that's a violation of "artistic integrity" and yet another example of "to hell with what the customers want"?
ahh slashdot.
i am a soviet space shuttle
Music, is in the ear of the listener... not in the layout of an album... whether laid out by the artist or the label...
What and how I listen to whatever I chose to listen to is, and should be, up to me.
Precisely. Thank you. That's what I've been having to explain to every single one of the zillions of people who seem to be replying with nothing but "to hell with what you want, someone you don't know has views that matter more than yours do".
i am a soviet space shuttle
Thank you for conflating me with the general opinions expressed on slashdot when you could instead look up all my posts.
ahh, slashdot.
I am not a lawyer. This post does not constitute any form of legal advice.
I just tried that with Pulp Fiction, and it made much more sense than watching it in order. Thanks for the tip.
warning: This post is likely to contain gobs of dripping sarcasm. Consume at your own risk.
And some bands deliberately have "filler", blank tracks that don't play anything. Check out Tool's Undertow (which has 69 tracks, with the majority lasting about a second of no sound) or Korn (I forget which disk) where the first 12 or 13 tracks are blank.
/DVR (TiVo)/mp3 player.
It's cute the first time, but then it's just plain annoying (but those disks have great songs on them). Probably like most of you who actually own the cds, I ripped them and either made my own disks, or just play them through my PC/mac/*nix
So this way, rather than get something for their music online, they get nothing since P2P thrives on making available what you can't get otherwise. Sounds stupid to me.
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
"Karma can only be portioned out by the cosmos." -Homer Simpson
Who's saying that you must listen to a whole album at once, songs in the order the artist laid out? I didn't, and I didn't see anyone else doing that either. You're turning this into an either-or proposition, when it is nothing of the sort, there is room for interpretation.
I'm not saying I fully agree with what this minority of artists are saying in TFA, trying to force the issue, my point was that completeness and song order are part of the experience you get out of some albums. The "value proposition", in VC-speak. But if the artist who created the work feels it IS important, can you simply dismiss that? Sounds like you're saying their opinion on this does not matter, which calls into question why you would pay any attention to them or their work at all. You would deny them any say over the form in which their music is released, which is like telling a painter he or she has no say how their art is hung in the gallery. Try that (with a living artist) and see what happens! So if an artist wants to sell an album only, what are you going to do? Boycott them? Go ahead, you're obviously not the kind of fan they want anyway. It's only money, some things are more important than 3c per track.
The type of "Album artist" I'm referring to would not deliberately produce "filler", so that's why I say you can not pre-judge what the "filler" is - IMHO that is not a valid reason to insist they release individual tracks. I know it's different today, on the charts, and I can hardly argue against cherry-picking the best tracks and avoiding the filler there - all I'm saying is that there really are "Album artists" who take the making of an Album very seriously. Example: when Rush were asked to produce a 4-minute "filler" to balance the sides of their Signals album in 1981, in 2 days, they took the job seriously. The result of imposing these "pop song" limitations on their methods, New World Man, was anything but filler, and became a live favourite.
When the artist is putting that kind of care in to an album, what's wrong with trying to get it out in the listening? It really is rewarding to the listener. Or is it all about money, and all artists care about is getting the maximum amount of money out of you, even though they will see very little of it themselves? Too much "Top 40" music may make you cynical, you may feel that the music business is all about money. Well, you're right about the Business, so if you care about music, look beyond the crud the Business is foisting on you today, to the modern independent artists, and the veterans who got pushed out because they failed to move the units. You can tell I feel passionately about this, because I know what music can do, and the importance of the difference between a set of songs and an Album. Go ahead and laugh if you want, see if I care. 8-P
(this is not a
What perplexes me is that the Beatles management (Paul?) is so paranoid that they won't even let Amazon supply clips of their songs like most other pop artists. They don't seem to understand that allowing this would boost sales.
I am becoming gerund, destroyer of verbs.
Me? I usually listen to one song over and over again until I decide to turn it off or switch to another song.
Except that most don't care about whatever the musican has to say. They just want a cool song to listen to, forget about, and move on to something. At worse, they want some background noise for their car ride. Music isn't something most sit around to do and concentrate on. Its on while they're doing something else.
let me see 1% of 0 is still ZERO.
Because puny returns is better than no returns at all? The problem is when one side has more power or leverage than they "should".
But songs are regularly chopped up. They each have their own start and end; a painting isn't a collection of other paintings which CAN be seperated. Its ONE piece of art. Most view ONE song as art, if they view it as art at all.
If these bands are so worried about their 'artistic vision' being chopped, why do they not force the radio stations to play every track in order? They don't; the hit songs get played, some other songs may never be played.
Someone with an education that the United States doesn't provide?
Andrews said while record companies once offered artists about 30 cents for each song sold, now musicians are earning less than a dime 30 cents before compared to 10 cents now?!?? my god, how shallow can these people be??? Ya, you're getting only 10 cents, but you're getting it on a larger volume and a lower priced item. The percentages are all probably about the same. What's more? 30% of $9000 or 10% of $27000? Geez, let me think about that one.
Now, if their contracts were reworked so that they ALSO only get less than 10 cents per CD sold in a brick and morter store, then that's something to get upset about.
That's what David Lynch did for the Mulholland Dr. DVD.
Ring tones are nothing new musically; they are merely a more ubiquitous form of what's been played in clock towers for hundreds of years. To be able to make a memorable musical statement in the space of 10-20 seconds is a significant accomplishment.
If the artist cares enough about the fans to make an album worth listening to, such as most Pink Floyd albums, I'll buy the entire thing. Afterall, who would want just "Another Brick in the Wall" without the entire album? If they just record an album with 2 good songs and mostly filler, I'm cutting out the filler. I suspect most fans will decide if an album is worth buying and if so, buy the whole thing. If artists want people to buy the entire album, they should make the album worth buying on its merits.
Except there's plenty of music editting software that you can use to create your own tracks.
Most albums are 90% absolute crap, most tracks are meerely padding to get you to pay $15 for that one song you liked. Yeah, you can complain about the poor misunderstood artist all you like, but if the vast majority of them actually made albums that weren't 90% pure SUCK, there wouldn't be an issue, because people would want to download the whole thing and listen to it in order.
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
.. no evil record contract or copyright re-assignment required. The indie bands I contribute to have physical CD inventory with CDbaby, and they bargained a collective agreement to put any willing clients' discography into iTunes, for free. CDBaby takes their regular 50% cut if I recall -- so through iTunes you're getting a much better cut than if a record company put you up there.
ERROR 144 - REBOOT ?
You know it's a lot like an art gallery, or a museum... there is often a general theme that runs through it, but you need not linger over a painting or statue you don't care for.
I suspect the deal is that some people like to be led from A to Z (take the whole museum/musical tour, as designed by whoever), and others like to skip around on their own.
Either way is OK, but I find it odd that those who like to be led are rather insistent that we all be led... those of us that like to skip around don't seem to care much if the other guy wants to be led.
Sort of weird... and typical of all herd animals... oh wait, this is /.
KoRn's was "Follow The Leader". They did that to have the album start on track 13. doubleDrive did something similar for their "hidden" track, which was track 87 (there were 11 tracks before the many blank ones).
Soulfly did a silent track on "3". The track was called "9 11 01" and was one moment of silence.
That's not filler.
"It ain't a war against drugs.it's a war against personal freedom" --Bill Hicks
The era of "record companies" may be drawing to a close. Because they really don't do very much. Once, they found the artists, financed them, operated the recording studios, had the recordings made, manufactured the records, shipped them to distributors, collected the money, and handled the publicity. Now, they find the artists, finance them, collect the money, and handle the publicity. The actual making and distribution of the music is outsourced to other companies who will deal with anybody. Anybody can get CDs made; the going rate is about $1000 for 1000 retail-ready disks. Anybody can book studio time. Anybody can get music onto a download site. Basically, any band with a few thousand dollars can get product out the door. Doesn't make them rich and famous. But the mechanics of making the product are no problem.
So record companies today are really in the venture capital business - they provide front money and publicity. But they take a much bigger cut than other organizations that provide money and publicity in other industries. That's a vulnerability.
We're seeing this vulnerability exploited. There are now "Myspace bands" and "Walmart bands". So far, the "Web 2.0"/social networking boom hasn't produced a mechanism for making a band a national name, but that may come.
That's the real threat to the RIAA. Not piracy. Disintermediation.
how many tracks on that LP?
You should try this with a book - after all, who the heck is the author to decide that Chapter 7 comes immediately before Chapter 8?
I know people who read the ending of books first because they get irritated when books keep them in the dark too long about the plot. I think they're missing out, but if they make the choice to miss out, who am I to tell them they can't make that choice?
If music should only be enjoyed as the artist intended, all of us need high-end hi-fi systems that cost thousands of dollars. And just forget about using that ipod, unless you've hooked it up via the cradle's line out to a pair of studio headphones and listening to lossless encoded music.
Artists just do not deserve a say in how I listen to my paid-for music. I often choose to listen to the whole album, but only because it's my personal choice, not because some elitist musician got on his high horse.
Or maybe these artists actually care about their art more than the corporate bottom line, and thus deserve enough of your respect to buy their entire album or none at all.
If that is the case, why have multiple tracks on the CD? If it truly was only to be appreciated as an entire album, would the artists not also insist on also having only one track?
Coding with assembly is like playing with Legos. Coding an application in assembly is like building a car with Legos.
The way I see it, if control of the experience is what they want [and that honestly is what defines true artists], they should be doing that at the concert level, not at the individual-album-sale level.
We are the fire that lights our world.. and we are the fire that consumes it.
...artists whose work is only available as DRM-laden iTunes downloads. Like chunks of Richard H. Kirk's back catalog, and Funkstörung's latest.
GCHQ Quantum Insert installed. If only our tongues were made of glass, how much more careful we would be when we speak
So if you buy the complete album, should they forbid you to skip some tracks?
/me really annoyed with that bullshit policy.
DVD's do it. They forbit you to skip over the advertisements and previews.
09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0
Why and how are artists allowing record companies to offer them less per download?? Shouldn't they be receiving more? Aren't record companies spending less if consumers are downloading tracks? It's time, no, it's long past due for artists to take back the music industry from the record companies.
"If Radiohead really wanted you to listen to the whole album, they'd make it one long track." I've got it! If they pull their CDs off shelves and replace them with cassettes, they can legitimately claim that the one-song buying technique on iTMS is fucking them over! After all, you could argue that tracks on a CD are just convenient markers to which your player can jump, like chapters on DVDs, and not an indicator of what consitutes a complete work.
back to music how happy do you think beethoven would be to know that his epic works have been reduced to a mobile phone ringtone? and how good an understanding of his work do you get from only listening to that ringtone?
How happy do think Francisco Tarrega would be to hear that the end of the 2nd phrase of Gran Vals - and only those 13 notes - is well known today?
...record labels might as well require artists to release only two songs at a time, instead of longer albums. That's a bit extreme, but think about it. How do you, the consumer, know which individual songs you like and want to download before you hear them? Radio stations have only ever played the 1-2 songs per album most likely to be popular, so it's unlikely that most people will have heard anything else from a new album. Many of my favorite songs have never been played on the radio, and some of them I didn't even like much at first. If people don't download whole albums, the only songs that will be significant (read: highly profitable for the label) will be the 2 or occasionally 3 songs that get stuck in your head the easiest. I think that's a bad thing. I like the idea of a dicounted rate (80 cents/song?) if the album is purchased as a whole. Good incentive for people to take a risk on music they haven't heard which might be amazing, while still allowing for the option of buying just the one song they like and ignoring the rest.
You live and learn. At least, you live.
Afterall, who would want just "Another Brick in the Wall" without the entire album?
Actually it's interesting that you choose that particular song as I frequently use that as my example... people hear and like that catchy tune, but unless you're "into" Floyd who wants to sit through that whole damn album?
Not to bash your band for the sake of bashing, but I downloaded their entire discography and that was the only song of theirs I enjoyed.
Greenday - "American Idiot" is supposed to be another where the "album" is the attraction. While it does work well together, there's no reason people couldn't just download "Boulevard of Broken Dreams" and "When Septembet Ends" because that's what they're heard ont he radio.
- Frans.
Todays Musical composers should take note of the efforts of the working man of the Industrial Revolution and form amongst their ranks a great collective to leverage and wield power against the oppression handed to them at the hands of these contract assigners who would take 80% or even 90% of their CD and MP3-single profits.
This organization could provide them solid legal representation and secure them a standard form of contracted rates industry wide.
Being that this problem is so wide spread and the ire unto the situation so deep, obtaining the large number of membership in this organization would not be much of a problem.
All this organization needs is a name... I propose the Recording Artists Association of Am^H^HOohh never mind.. you musicians all are fucked, deal with it.
Now we should look this from another view.
As now iTunes and other per-track download channels are becoming more and more people, we should expect labels forcing artists to make albums with more tracks with a shorter lenght? With that way, they may sell more tracks optimizing revenue via these services.
Then there are the other albums which are intented to be listened to on random, like TMBG's "Apollo 18".
Because of the Fingertips tracks (each is about 10 seconds long) the album is $25 to buy from iTMS, or $38 if you buy individual tracks.
If you take a work of art and then hang it on a bare, cracked brick wall and try to tell me that I need the entire wall to appreciate the piece of art I will call them crazy. That is the whole album theory. I have 800+ CDs and out of those maybe 30 are great in entirety, the rest are CDs with one or two songs that are worthwhile and 10-15 songs of pure trash recorded hastily to fill the album. How many CDs do you have with 1 catchy well made song and 10+ songs that are not even listenable? Why are there so many 1 hit wonders?
I have stopped buying whole CDs for the most part and only buy one or two songs that I like and leave the rest of the "artistic" crap for someone who cares about a message that a musician (over partied, spoiled, barely high school educated, less than half my age) is trying to tell me about life. This is why so many artists have a great first album followed by crap, they stop being hungry and lose touch with reality (their daily issue is whether to drive the ferarri or porsche); for the most part they stop relating to their audience; they no longer have anything in common.
Record companies need to justify the high cost of CDs by having a minimum number of songs per CD so people feel like they are getting their money's worth. If a CD only has one or two songs, they can't sell it for as much. In reality a full CD with only 1 or 2 good songs is just the same as a single CD in quality.
Musicians and producers are totally dictating what you hear, regardless of album sequencing.
If you have a little time and some RAM, download Propellerhead's Reason demo and play with the demo song. You'll find that changing the tempo, tweaking some filters, and adjusting the volume for some of the insturments can have a dramatic effect on the song without changing one note.
Making a record extends beyond pressing record and letting the band play. Countless decisions are made about what microphones to use, where to put the drummer in the studio, what effects the guitar player will use, and so forth. Should we throw a synth in the mix for some dramatic effect or would it just make things sound messy? If we turn the band down for this part of the song so the singer's voice can be heard better, but everything else could get lost on the radio. A whole science centers around devices like compressors, which are used to make sure everything sounds squeaky clean. On the other hand, too much compression can narrow a dynamic range and kill some of the dramatic effect. You get the point.
Lastly, record producers know that not everyone listens to music on $30,000 laser guided turntables and vaccum tube receivers. History has proven that most albums requiring a special setup have flopped.
Oh, and some albums are just collections of songs that abut one another, others have a narrative structure that sprawls across the tracks. Sometimes trying to tell the two apart starts debates that last for years. It is what it is.
Dinasours have became extinct throught the same mechanism - they werent able to adjust to changing environment.
...
Just like those bands and whoever sides with them
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think about it another way. If you are a painter having just completed your masterpiece stretching across a huge canvas, would you be happy if someone just took a detail from it and refused to see the whole work?
No, but I don't believe it is right for the person who bought the work from me and is now reselling it to add a technological mechanism to force everyone viewing it to look at every part of it either, especially when my original vision was for for a 3x3 work, but they insisted I add another 3x3 section as well as "filler" so they could charge more. I especially don't think so if this happens long after I've died.
back to music how happy do you think beethoven would be to know that his epic works have been reduced to a mobile phone ringtone?
Amused, astounded, and gleeful that his work and fame is spreading so long after his death.
does it mean that they don't have the right to ask how they would like their music to be listened to? again hell no!
There is a difference between asking you to listen to the whole album in order, and refusing to sell the good song unless you also purchase the crappy ones at a greatly inflated price. Not that they don't have the right to do so, but the ones doing so out of a sense of artistic integrity instead of greed are few and far between.
What about concept albums? Do you really want to buy just one track of Abbey Road, Sgt. Pepper, Dark Side of the Moon, The wall, and other records which are designed to be listened to straight through?
:( ).
Take The Wall as an example: who on earth is going to buy the track "Stop" or "The Happiest Days of Our Lives" or "Outside the Wall?" I think out of six billion people, you might find a grand total of *pulls number from tush* three who might buy those tracks individually. Of course, if out-takes and live versions were offered, you'd find a good deal more, but none of the band is willing to authorise live recordings or outtakes they haven't already (Gilmour, Waters, and Mason are all pretty vocal about that) and express disdain for bootlegs since most of the bootlegs lack the polished quality of their officially released material. (I don't know if Pink Floyd's work is on iTunes, I run Linux therefore cannot access iTunes to check
For some works, offering them by individual tracks doesn't make sense - concept albums in particular.
The Christian Right is Neither (Christian nor right). See: Matthew 23, Matthew 25, Ezekiel 16:48-50
Do these same artists insist that radio stations only play the album in its entirety or not at all? If not, then the whole stance that the artistry of the album is compromised by selling individual songs is just grandstanding.
The Moon doesn't have a dark side; and although I haven't listened to any of those albums, I would still prefer to have the choice of buying individual tracks.
...
For some works, offering them by individual tracks doesn't make sense - concept albums in particular.
It does to those who want individual tracks. Who doesn't it make sense to? You? Granted, I'm sure there are lots of people who would agree, but lots don't.
It would be interesting to see a survey about this posted somewhere that would get a lot of traffic (Slashdot is not a good place for that) to see what the real answer is
i am a soviet space shuttle
You would think that the artists would be entitled to at least 51 cents on the dollar, if not 90 cents on the dollar, for everything that they created being sold. I mean, really, without the artist there would be no content for these talentless corporate vultures to be leaching off of.
'Since record companies have realized the popularity of iTunes and other sites, many reworked contracts to give artists less money per download. Andrews said while record companies once offered artists about 30 cents for each song sold, now musicians are earning less than a dime.'"
Isn't it interesting how management can "rework" contracts in their favor? Hmmm.
And then cut the artist's royalty by almost 70%? Hmmm.
Oh, but this is the free market, so you can't complain.
Business isn't willing to pay for products, innovation and careers, so we get brands, mortgage commercials and layoffs.
If they aren't happy with Apples contract, why not sell their music on their own website?
Someone needs to remind the musicians they are singing for their supper,
not developing the next CPU, drug patent, bridge building, or growing food...
They should be happy to get paid anything at all.
iTunes should start signing up bands directly, 50 cents for the band, 49 cents for Apple.
Forget the labels - iTunes reaches the whole planet,
CDs are sooo 1900's...
It's only a matter of time before every GarageBand group can upload their 'albums' to the iTunes server and start selling songs directly to anyone who wants to listen to their stuff...
This whole discussion is missing a fairly obvious point: the artists in question have already decided not to sell their songs separately, so what anyone here thinks isn't going to change a thing. Gee, I guess that means it's their own business what they decide to offer for sale, doesn't it? Who'd a thunk it?
Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, still exists.
Why should you dictate that they have to sell you individual tracks?
Yes.
Do you also send letters telling people to "take the tambourine out of track #3" because your preference is just as important as the musician's?
Malike Bamiyi wanted my assistance.
What's best for Apple, musicians and music fans is if the labels don't exist at all. The dynamic would work much the same way that it works now - except that musicians and Apple would take home more cash. Apple are already involved in the production, manufacture, distribution and promotion of music. That makes them a record label, no matter what Justice Mann said. They can't skip the intermediary labels and sign the musicians just yet, because most of their sales are coming from a back catalog that still controlled under the old paradigm - so if Apple starts signing bands, then their available catalog disappears. So Apple is waiting for a quiet revolution, which the music industry could probably help along by creating the vehicles that will help artists get on to iTunes while they still own the digital distribution rights to their songs.
Fella', your analogy is stretched so far you could slingshot bowling balls to the moon with it. I certainly hope by "some MUSIC ALBUMS" you mean "1 in about 15000 MUSIC ALBUMS". And even if they were created with the intent of 'linear auditory consumption' it is still nowhere near the amount of confusion you would incur by watching a DVD's chapters out of order. Other posters' 'book' analogies are even worse than yours.
I know when I put, oh lets say, Dark Side of the Moon on shuffle I'm not thinking "What the heck is this 'money' he's talking about? What's a 'gig in the Sky"? Who the frig is on the grass? What the hell is this 'sun' that everythings in tune with? I can't make any sense out of this damn album?!?!?"
Sorry to belabour the point, but geez...if you can't make sense of an album on random you got bigger issues that need taking care of...
Support the mob or mysteriously disappear.
Like the previous poster said - Do it there way! Think about it. The artist makes the music. From concept to finished product it's all about the musician and the music. The record companies used to represent the package under which this was facilitated. They supplied studio, the equipment, the engineers, the presses, the labeling and cover art and the marketing. Now the only real thing the Big Studios/Labels need provide is perhaps the advertising and marketing. But consider the fact that you are a fairly well known artist. Why does one need to give the record companies the majority of the proceeds in order to make a sale? 30 cents per song down to less than a dime?!?! The RIAA affiliates need to be relegated to the position they truly are now - that of a marketing firm. Between indie studios and computer technologies what does an established artist really need from a record company. Pro Tools is the standard and is completely HDD technology. Many well know and established artists use other software such as Cubase, Sonar, Ableton Live to make their creation. The only thing I can see the RIAA affiliates are really needed for is marketing and to a point distribution - and distribution is soon to be an non-factor due to a little thing called THE INTERNET!
Show me a major corporation gives the advertising/marketing and distribution divisions 70% of their operation revenue and I'll show a corporation soon to be delisted and facing board member and share holder torts up the ass! There are some people that have made music from their bedrooms and put it on MySpace. Now they have literally 10 of thousands of fans. With a little marketing/advertising in the right areas and they could be facing some real "market" success! How much success do you think Cold Play would have if they set up a portal and did direct sales??? I bet they'd make a lot of money and people would more than happy to patronize their website.
How much do most lawyers get for awards? About 15%. How much are most finders fees? About 10 to 15%! How much do most companies allocate to a well know marketing and advertising firm? About 10 to 15% for most well established corporation. So why are musician, especially well known musicians giving as much as 70 to 80 or more percent to the record companies - especially in this day and age? I have no idea, other than the mind set of most is that "this is they way it's done". That "was" the way it was done - and things are changing. It's time the creators to take control of their creations and reap a fuller benefit for their labors. The point of taking individual songs out of context in terms of concepts productions has some validity, especially from the artist point of view. But giving over such large amounts of control to people that are basically piggy backing on the technology accessible to "everyone" is beyond me.
If they truly thought that their music should only be listened to by album only, they would never release singles, music videos, or perform on music shows or in concerts where they only perform a couple of songs together (ie. those New Year's style concerts).
They do, so they are either: idiots, hypocrites, or liars.
I leave it to you to decide which they are. Of course, the above aren't mutually exclusive.
This whole notion is assbackward. I sell all my music as singles! No album dicounts!
:-)
See, I write 15 brilliant tracks, charge US$0.99/single. Versus. $9.99 per album.
$14.85 vs. $9.99.
But then I write fabulous music for desirous buyers.
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
Also, I believe that was a hit "single" on the radio at the time that album came out and was sold as such.
Indeed, it was their only #1 in the UK and astonishingly one of only 2 top-10 singles they ever had. (And the other I'd wager most people haven't heard of even if they know quite a few floyd songs, I certainly didn't)
You could use that arguement against, for instance prosecuting a major monopoly software manufacturer too.
You don't like IE, don't use it, get an alternative.
The problem is most wouldn't, just like they won't look outside the top 40 and HMV for their music. You want to be heard, you have to go with the big boys.
You want to be heard, you have to go with the big boys.
Microsoft actually forces you to use their stuff; you can't get rid of it. Record labels don't do that. They can't; there's no way to.
iTunes doesn't promote offerings from one label over another, and with music sales shifting there and other online outfits, no, you actually don't have to sign with a big label anymore. That argument may have been true a decade ago, or five years ago, but that is not the case now.
i am a soviet space shuttle
Good albums tend to be the ones people buy with cover art and a solid CD, as opposed to on the internet. I know I do anyway, and so do many of my friends.
Depends on whether you want the clutter or not. I'll buy Elton John's albums on hardcopy CD, but everything else, it's digital. I have 750 sq. ft., I need as little stuff as possible in it. (but it's real cheap to heat and cool!)
i am a soviet space shuttle
Then why did they sign contracts that specify those puny returns? While I do think the industry needs an overhaul, don't complain if you signed a contract! Lots of people don't read the fine print, don't take the time to read what they're agreeing to, and then act surprised when the other party upholds their end and executes the self-serving clauses they put in. If you don't like the deal, why did you sign your name to it? You weren't forced to. In the older days, the issue was studio time, and in order to afford that (and they still would have had to find a distribution outlet) you didn't have a lot of choices. Now there are smaller labels and you can work out a distribution deal through the majors -- and this is the better route to go for about 85% of artists & composers. However, it isn't gravy, even the "best" deals with the smaller labels are typically on the order of $3-4 per CD sold through their network, $2-3 sold through the distribution network and $1 or less if you go with a major label - usually less as the promotional expenses can really eat you alive. Most artists I personally know, they made more money at the smaller labels with a distribution deal than they did on the majors. I watched Sony eat my brothers money alive, and I learned the lesson well.
..etc sales), doormen have to be paid at less than honest places, the contracts at many clubs have some very difficult to meet advance ticket sales (and there are a lot of other things you have to watch out for, some places try to skip out on paying you entirely >cough the other world), if you are using an advance ticket sales service (and most do) those folks want a cut. If you are touring with a major, you will get nickled & dimed for everything if they have arranged any part of it, and by nickled & dimed I mean robbed blind. Some labels want a cut of that action as well - I wouldn't sign anything like that, but some did. Certain cities are no bargain either, you may not be familiar with things like the "entertainment & entertainers tax" (I fully understand hockey players that crab about this one as well, imagine getting dinged at every city you go play a game at? Same thing for performers), we defeated that thing in St Louis - but certain other dying cities have tried to hook into it as a source of revenue, and they want money as well. So do the union people... TV appearance? You need to be part of that locals union as well.
...cut into your money by itemizing each thing you do in your day, and re
However, there are promotional things the majors can do by virture of owning (or being owned by) other companies. It is easier to get on certain late night shows, rotation onto certain networks, and they can tie your music to movies easier. While its possible for the indie labels to get your stuff in for that type of use, and TV shows are usually willing to do it no matter who does it - the majors do have some promotional carrots depending on who they are & what they are willing to do for you. My brother & I both get ASCAP checks from movie & TV use of our materials - his are a lot bigger than mine (his stuff has a wider audience than mine as well), and part of what got his stuff used in so many things was that major deal. The whole awful Scream II, I know what you did last summer and some other uses - they still generate decent size checks for him, not enough to say offset the per unit CD sales difference - but its nice to get a check in the mail every time someone gives it a whirl.
Touring is not the endless pit of money people think it is either. Club owners are a ton more greedy these days, soundmen have to be paid, many of them try to cut into direct sales (some are even trying to stick artist with 50% of revenues from T-shirt, CD
I don't know what you folks make, but I have a feeling that the average salary in IT is more than the average musicians with 100K albums under his belt that year even though his gross is higher, his net isn't... If they were to say
No they don't, you can install something else, it's just most people won't bother.
Just as they won't bother hunting out your music if it's not being promoted by a major label on major radio.
And most people don't use itunes. Most people buy CDs, from shops.
Ronny would rather sell you two Fishing Buddies, a pack of plastic worms, and a vial of bait stink for the same incredibly low price of just $19.95 (plus shipping and handling) that you would expect to pay for just one Fishing Buddy. If the Beatles want everyone to download their White Album in all its glorious integrity, let them price it at the cost of a single song.
And most people don't use itunes. Most people buy CDs, from shops.
Maybe. For now. But CD sales are going down and digital downloads are going up. Think about that.
i am a soviet space shuttle
Yes, they're changing but since the point of this little thread is "It's their fault for signing contracts", that's already happened.
Maybe. But like I said earlier on in the thread, if you were dumb enough to sign away your rights when better alternatives, I have no sympathy for you. People are inherently lazy and think everyone else, or the government, will look out for them. Everyone's out to screw you; it's up to you and no one else to protect yourself. Why should we be sorry when you don't use your brain?
i am a soviet space shuttle
That's just it. There WEREN'T better alternative.
The point of writing, whether music or words is to communicate. If no-one ever hears you because 99% of people don't or didn't look beyond MTV and Clear Channel what exactly was the point.
People signed those contracts because it was the best way to be heard.
People signed those contracts because it was the best way to be heard.
And yet, they want to have their cake and eat it too. It is not the rest of the world's problem if you are unhappy about being treated the way you explicitly agreed to be treated. They either need to find a different label that will be fair, or stop fucking whining. They'd have something to bitch about if there were no alternatives, or if a gun were held to their head and they were forced to sign (but then it would be "under duress" and void), but neither of those are true, so they can just shove it.
i am a soviet space shuttle