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Interesting Admissions From Record Industry
way2trivial writes "Many in the Slashdot community say the reason music sales are off is the content. It appears the industry and some music producers agree. In todays NYTimes magazine there is an article that says the quality of todays music is the problem. I have an issue with one part however, it reads "...and the once lucrative album market has been overshadowed by downloaded singles, which mainly benefits Apple" and here I thought Apple made most of their money with their hardware sales and a pittance on each track, giving the majority to the producer."
You mean it doesn't all go to the artist?
This is why when I want new music I try to get them directly from the artist, or through a website like cdbaby.com which seems to have better service than big labels and hopefully gives more money to artists. It also seems to promote a lot of the little guys which is a nice bonus.
lol: You see no door there!
Comment removed based on user account deletion
(From the New York Times website: properly cited, and being used for criticism and discussion so if you want to complain that reposting it here is violating copyright, I call if Fair Use so go stuff yourself.)
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From http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/02/magazine/02rubin
September 2, 2007
The Music Man
By LYNN HIRSCHBERG
Rick Rubin is listening. A song by a new band called the Gossip is playing, and he is concentrating. He appears to be in a trance. His eyes are tightly closed and he is swaying back and forth to the beat, trying at once to hear what is right and wrong about the music. Rubin, who resembles a medium-size bear with a long, gray beard, is curled into the corner of a tufted velvet couch in the library of a house he owns but where he no longer lives. This three-story 1923 Spanish villa steeped in music history -- Johnny Cash recorded in the basement studio; Jakob Dylan is recording a solo album there now -- is used by Rubin for meetings. And ever since May, when he officially became co-head of Columbia Records, Rubin has been having nearly constant meetings. Beginning in 1984, when he started Def Jam Recordings, until his more recent occupation as a career-transforming, chart-topping, Grammy Award-winning producer for dozens of artists, as diverse as the Dixie Chicks, Slayer, Red Hot Chili Peppers and Neil Diamond, Rubin, who is 44, has never gone to an office of any kind. One of his conditions for taking the job at Sony, which owns Columbia, was that he wouldn't be required to have a desk or a phone in any of the corporate outposts. That wasn't a problem: Columbia didn't want Rubin to punch a clock. It wanted him to save the company. And just maybe the record business.
What that means, most of all, is that the company wants him to listen. It is Columbia's belief that Rubin will hear the answers in the music -- that he will find the solution to its ever-increasing woes. The mighty music business is in free fall -- it has lost control of radio; retail outlets like Tower Records have shut down; MTV rarely broadcasts music videos; and the once lucrative album market has been overshadowed by downloaded singles, which mainly benefits Apple. "The music business, as a whole, has lost its faith in content," David Geffen, the legendary music mogul, told me recently. "Only 10 years ago, companies wanted to make records, presumably good records, and see if they sold. But panic has set in, and now it's no longer about making music, it's all about how to sell music. And there's no clear answer about how to fix that problem. But I still believe that the top priority at any record company has to be coming up with great music. And for that reason, Sony was very smart to hire Rick."
Though Rubin maintains that his intention is simply to hear music with the fresh ears of a true fan, he has built his reputation on the simultaneously mystical and entirely decisive way he listens to a song. As the Gossip, which is fronted by a large, raucous woman named Beth Ditto, shouts to a stop, Rubin opens his eyes and nods yes. This is the first new band signed to Columbia that he has been enthralled by, but he is not yet sure how to organize the Gossip's future. "Let's hear something else," Rubin says to Kevin Kusatsu, who would, at any other record company, be called an A & R executive. (Traditionally, A & R executives spot, woo, recruit and oversee the talent of a record company.) "We don't have any titles at the new Columbia," Rubin explains, as Kusatsu, the first person Rubin hired, slips a disc out of its sleeve. "I don't want to create a new hierarchy to replace the old hierarchy."
Rubin, wearing his usual uniform of loose khaki pants and billowing white T-shirt, his sunglasses in his pocket, his feet bare, fingers a string of lapis lazuli Buddhist prayer beads, believed to bring wisdom to the wearer. Since Rubin's beard and hair nearly cover his face, his
Amiestreet.com is showing media companies and artists a new model. New tracks by any artist start out free. As demand warrants, the price of a track rises. Max price is $.98/track. Amiestreet keeps the first $5.00 to cover overhead, then passes along 70% of the gross to the artist after that. Much better deal than any other music distribution scheme.
Ok. Why can't we get a writeup that says, briefly, who exactly said what? Because I'm pretty sure there wasn't a joint declaration by all of the music industry that said what the writeup says.
Are you adequate?
Metal has changed. The stuff you old folks like to think is metal (Metallica for example), would be, at best, classified today as hard rock. In some instances, just plain rock, or even classic rock. Starting with Korn, metal became something else. The term Nu Metal was born. It was much harder, much more busy, and tends to be much more disturbing than the metal of old.
But the circle never ends. JUST like Metallica, bands like Korn started softening their music... abandoning what made them good to get radio play and into Walmart. The genre label follows them, but it shouldn't. Now bands like Linkin Park are actually considered Nu Metal. It is the nature of the beast, like it or hate it.
"When life gives you lemons, don't make lemonade. Make life take the lemons back!" -- Cave Johnson
As the other reply here says, "Peaches" was the Presidents of the USA. You might be thinking of "She Don't Use Jelly" whose lyrics do include the word "Tangerine..."
Errors aside, if you did mean the Flaming Lips, I'd question your assertion that they were a quick novelty hit. They continue to tour, make albums, have a large following, etc. Just because you don't hear them on the radio (you're not still looking for music there are you?) doesn't mean they aren't still there. And they're great.
While I agree with your general statement regarding the decline of popular music content, you've actually used in your argument a band with quite a bit of "Virtuosity in musical performances and songwriting." Have you heard Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots or the Soft Bulletin? Ever been to a Lips show? They're practically busting their asses to put on a performance for you every single night they play. Who else besides the The Dixie Chicks, Neil Young, and the Flaming Lips can even write an educated, coherent, timely, and politically pointed song anymore? Wasn't that a large part of why the "older" music is "better?" Because it has something to say? If you truly meant the Flaming Lips when you said their name, you've really missed out on years of not just great songs - but albums that are great, front to back, in their entirety - which for me is pretty rare to find.