Recording Music Without the Recording Industry

hephaist0s writes "The 2008 RPM Challenge — to write and record an original album in February, just because you can — is about to begin. Hundreds of musicians from around the world have already signed up. Last year, more than 850 albums were recorded as part of the challenge, a testament to what can be done by independent musicians without a label, without the RIAA, and often without a professional studio. The efforts ranged from an album made entirely on a Nintendo Game Boy to a Speed Racer rock opera, produced by both experienced bands and novice musicians, often in continent-spanning online collaborations. Last year's challenge generated one of the largest free jukeboxes of original music available online, built to stream on-demand all 8500-plus original, artist-owned songs. Imagine if grassroots, independent systems like this foretold the future of recorded music and its distribution."

Comments

What the RIAA does

[Dan East]

The RIAA and producers aren't about making music - they make celebrities. They broker fame to those who are bound to them by contract, allowing the producers and industry to profit from the success of musicians. They control what songs radio stations can play, determine what music makes it into movies and onto television, and even what gets heard while you're riding the elevator. They wield the ability to present the masses with specific songs of their choosing.

TV shows like American Idol reveal the fact that a substantial number of people can sing really, really well. They can find hundreds of talented people easily, so you can imagine how many more are out there that either don't try out, are not within the age range they are seeking, or are simply not shown on TV. If you figure one out of every 3000 people can sing really well, then that's 100,000 really good singers in the USA alone. The job of the recording industry is to pick out a handful that fits whatever mold they are currently using, and will agree to whatever contract they put in front of them.

Of course it is possible to record music without the industry. However no-one will know about your music (unless you happen to rise about the noise of the internet, like Esmee Denters did on YouTube with her home-made webcam videos).

Dan East