Paul McCartney On Music In the Digital World

Rachhpal writes "Former Beatle Sir Paul McCartney will release his new album today — it's called 'Memory Almost Full.' In an interview with the L.A. Times, he talked about ending his long-time relationship with EMI and making the new album fully downloadable through his new relationship with Starbucks' Hear Music label. Some of his comments on the music industry: 'I was bored with the old record company's jaded view,' McCartney says... 'They're very confused, and they will admit it themselves: that this is a new world, and they're a little bit at a loss as to what to do. So they've got millions of dollars and X budget... for them to come up with boring ways — because they've been at it for so long — to what they call "market" it. And I find that all a bit disturbing.'"

Comments

Re:Never in a million years....

[tygerstripes]

I felt pretty much the same way when I heard his single come on the radio the other night. I was humming along, tapping my feet and generally enjoying myself. Then the DJ decides to tell me AFTERWARDS that it's Paul McCartney's new release, and I come over all peculiar.

It felt like that moment when the police tell you she was in fact 15...

Re:Bug Me Not

[Jah-Wren Ryel]

I've seen similar proxy blocking of bugmenot at a couple of the clients I do work for.

Seems like poor security to me - if they had their heads screwed on right, corporate security would not want their employees to be easily trackable on the internet, never know what sorts of sensitive information my leak out around the edges that way.

Interesting comment...

[tkrotchko]

I was listening to the Howard Stern show yesterday and they had Adam Levine, lead singer and songwriter from Maroon 5.

Now Howard is one of those dinosaurs when it comes to distributing music; he constantly rails against YouTube, thinks file sharing is ruining the music business, etc etc.

Anyway, Howard said to Levine (and I won't have these quotes quite right): "I feel really bad for you guys, it's tough to make it in the music business because people won't pay for music anymore, they want to get it for free"

And Levine said something interesting "Don't feel bad for the musicians. The music industry is screwed up, but musicians have so many ways to make money from the internet. We couldn't have made it without the internet".

Levine didn't stop there, he said what other musicians have confirmed... "Of all he ways we made money, despite selling 10 million records [might've heard this wrong], we made *no money from CD sales*. All of our money came from touring and merchandising"

Unfortunately, Howard can be quite insightful on when to follow up, but he ignore this little exchange, probably because it doesn't fit his opinions, but maybe because he was bored with it. But to sell so many CD's and not make any money from it. I just wish somebody would take these quote from successful musicians and play them in front of Congress so that somebody will say "Well gee, who are we protecting with these draconian copyright and copyright extension laws? It doesn't appear to be the musicians at all!"

Re:Interesting comment...

[Evets]

In my experience in the music industry (and granted it was a long time ago), musicians would get typically less than 10 percent of sales, usually 6 percent. If it was a group, that 6 percent was split with the group.

The Producers and Labels would invest money in getting the album put together, but it was all contractually recouped if anything came of it. Very rarely do the labels actually lose money on an artist. They at least make enough to cover their investment, and they do a great deal of free/low cost research about how the music will be accepted. A lot of producers own radio stations or other music related businesses that gives them easy access to the target market.

They also charge pretty huge for "studio time", which is almost all profit since the equipment has all long since been paid for and with the number of recording studios in LA the rental rates really should be next to nothing.

Very rarely does an unknown band get to keep their own copyright. The studio will push for changes to the music and changes to the words in order to achieve at least "collaborative" standing in the unlikely event of a dispute.

I've watched as guys got bullied into contracts. It's brutal to the extreme (mentally, not physically). I remember an incident where a mother got involved. She was pretty tough, but all she really got in negotiation was a guaranteed video production. They passed the video project off to a student with a minuscule budget - basically the lead singer on the roof with a brief scene coming out of a studio limo.

Re:Interesting comment...

[DuncanE]

I've read that essay a number of times and they way I see it the band has 3 choices:

- Get a good music lawyer before signing anything. If the record company refuses to deal with you once you've "lawyered up" then walk away
- Try distributing and marketing your stuff yourself. Internet. Radio. CD's. Whatever. Do the hard yards yourself. If you are good enough it will be heard yeah?
- Accept the deal. Make no money, but get famous/chicks/To tour.

Seems like most bands/musicians prefer option 3.

And worse it seems most listeners don't care which of the 3 options the muso chooses in the first place.

And the saddest thing of all? There are so many bands and musicians out there that the marketing *IS* 99% of the costs. Why else is do we mainly download and P2P top 40 crap.

I disagree

[JudgeFurious]

I think he's probably reaped 1.5 billion in spite of said system not from it.

  If one took all the money that the Beatles made from their work (collectively and individually as solo artists) and stacked it in a nice neat pile I'm sure that pile would fit easily inside the shadow cast by the mountain of money that other people have made off of their work.