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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.
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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.
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It aint the artists, it's the labels.
How we know is more important than what we know.
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.
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.
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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.
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.
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.
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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.
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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.
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The only thing iTunes adds is the ability to partially pay for parts of the music. Before iTunes, you had to pay for the whole thing even if you didn't listen to it all.
So this obviously has nothing to do with "integrity". It has to do with getting paid for stuff people don't want to buy.
One place to find people with management skills is at a label. They'll take care of calling radio stations for airplay, sending promotional versions out, arrange tour dates, and getting your name known in the business. All you have to do is be creative.
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?
(I'll let that sink in for a while.)
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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.
Because they signed a contract. Basically if an unknown band wants to get big time exposure, they need to sign up for a label (at least right now, things are shifting though) and contract their next many years to them. If they are successfull they can't just start releasing their own stuff on iTunes, it would be illegal.
Sound pretty unfair? It is. But it is the way things work right now.
You take it, I don't want it...
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.
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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.
Being able to not have to buy filler,
Good albums don't contain filler material.
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
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.
So you're not really comparing large pies with small pies here, you're comparing Fray Bentos with the the local charity cake bake.
You should probably also read Steve Albini's article The Problem With Music before trying to simplify the figures so.
It's probably more realistic to compare:
- Sales of 670 albums @ $15 each = $10k, you get to keep 90% = $9k.
- Sales of 60,000 albums @ $15 each = $900k, you get to keep 1% = $9k.
These figures are probably more interesting if you consider a "large slice" of 6,500 CDs sold against your "small slice" of over half a million albums. 6,500 CDs as a "self-published" venture would justify the employment of a full time promotional assistant, provide decent wages for the band and only require about 20 CDs a day actually to be put into jiffy bags & posted out to paying fans. Yet both these earn in the same region.I used to have a friend, not a young guy, whose life ambition was to get signed to a record label. Even though he had been around the music industry for years, was realistic about his potential, and realised how little he was likely to make, he once admitted to me that he'd been trying so long that he still wanted to "be signed", I guess as evidence that he'd "made it" or of how good he was, or how committed or whatever. I'd think that most young bands signing up with labels just want to be rock stars, and are not interested in managing themselves or undertaking their own "career development".
Stroller.
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
So if you buy the complete album, should they forbid you to skip some tracks?
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.
Wrong the aim of the big labels is not to promote creativity but stifle it. They are only interested in producing "product" and ripping off artists. They try to force artists in to producing what they regard as fitting into a percieved market. Their aim is to destroy any creativity the band has.
As for getting radio plays on mainstream corporate radio - they don't play anything new now anyway. The only place on air to hear new music nowadays are the college radio stations
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.
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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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.
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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.
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