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MP3.com Ad in Grammy Magazine Pulled!
Sander van Zoest writes "Grammy Magazine, the quarterly, consumer-brand publication developed by Grammy organizers the National Academy of Recording Arts & Sciences
(NARAS) pulled an Ad for MP3.com's 5,500 Artists. "
Gee, wonder what Grammy Magazine is scared of. I thought
they were about music, not money. Shows what I know.
Talented musicians of the world, fire up your sound cards and MIDI software. We've got a revolution to start.
I don't care about how she sounds, but I'll WATCH Brittney Spears ANY DAY, WOW!!!
If you dig around the Grammy site, you can read an article about how the poor, innocent RIAA is combatting all those evil felons on the net. It's really quite funny. See their article: Caught in the Web
Here's a little quote: "Until recently, technophobic labels had been slow to clue in to the Internet and its anarchic, music-pilfering ways"
She has been number one on billboard for the last couple weeks or so. So she will sell her LP to all her fan base (8-15 year olds) and then drop off the charts like the Titanic's anchor. Can anyone say Tiffany?
Bjork...now that's a honey.
The Grammy's aren't the only group in that story that are trying to screw musicians. My band was on MP3.com for several months before the sent us a contract. They claimed that they needed it to protect them from legal attacks. I would have been OK with that if it hadn't attempted to take away all of our rights to our music. If we signed the contract MP3.com owned our MP3's, the music included in them, and the song that was recorded. Thus they could take our original music and recut it legally with another artist because it was theirs. Hate to burst the bubble.
There are some pretty good artists out there who rose from college radio and moved into "Top 40" -- U2, REM, Nirvana, Sarah McLachlan, Prodigy and the members of Fugees (especially Lauryn Hill) all come to mind. Do they immediately fall off your playlist the moment they become "Top 40"? If KRS-ONE's next album debuts at #3, like his last LP did, does he immediately get kicked off the rap shows?
This can be a dangerous attitude. I can understand not playing clearly manufactured mainstream acts -- Spice Girls, Backstreet Boys, Brit Spears, etc. On the other hand, if you support an artist when they're struggling, why would you stop when they finally become successful? I never understood the mentality of branding a group a sellout simply because the group achieves mainstream success. It would be one thing if they clearly compromised their talent to hit the charts. What if they don't compromise and make it anyway? That would be grossly unfair to the artists in question, wouldn't it?
Now, if your purpose is solely to expose new, unheard, or out-of-the-mainstream artists to the listening public, then a strict "No Top 40, period" rule makes sense. On the other hand, kicking artists off your playlist simply because they "made it" does a real disservice to artists who got their start on college radio.
Between the "Aren't we great" Oscars and "Aren't We Cool" MTV awards, I'm just plain worn out. At what point does the public catch on to the fact that its just another promotion, just another way to seperate you from your money?
Look, that's simply not true. The contract you sign to post your music on MP3.com only allows them to post your music. I dare you to reproduce the portion of the contract where it says MP3.com gets ownership of your music. In fact, they're probably the only "label" where the artists automatically retain their masters. Maybe the legalese threw you, but you definitely hit a road bump somewhere.
look at Russia, China, nuff said.
I want you guys to understand, the whole purpose of commercial music is not to provide good music, but to make you buy "the next CD". therefore, the music industry will try everything to prevent you from getting good quality music-- simply because if you do, you don't get tired of it and purchase new ones.
... anything but pop! you get high quality music. sincere music. music that does not rely on commercial.
think about it. the reason that they do not advertize classical music or high quality underground music is NOT because these music are no good, but because they cannot sell it as many times as pop music. they want to make sure you will get so sick and tired of what you buy from them in a few weeks, that you do out and buy others. they don't want artists who can act independently. they want to control the artists. so they choose the telantless, sexy ones and make sure those won't survive without the industry.
see how they paint the rebels: the artist formerly known as prince, george micheal... these once controllable people who act against the industry gets media killed.
if you want real music, try anything but pop. classical, ambient, indutrial, gothic, techno, trance, jazz, blues,
underground music forever!!!!!
...and no one has come up with any talented, new, and above all different music in years...
Sadly, as a musician, I almost get the feeling that everything that can be done to music has already been done. It's like television--show X becomes popular, so the new season contains umpteen copies of X with different casts, and, if the viewer is lucky, maybe a novel twist thrown in. In the past few years, music has been going through this with angry, confessional, folk-rocky chicks (oh yeah, and they have to be good-looking).
Maybe I'll just release 18 tracks of me belching, passing wind, or flushing my toilet. Or has that been done?
Sigh.
Am I the only one drowning in a deluge of spam from fucking mp3.com artists?
And mp3.com seems to not give a rat's ass. Multiple complaints and ZERO responses.
By their inaction, mp3.com is condoning spam.
mp3.com can suck my cock. fuckers.
> no one has come up with any talented, new, and above all different
> music in years.
Sounds like you've been watching the Grammies instead of listening to music.
http://www.denounce.com/mp3.html
Hey you can leave feedback and comments on the NARAS website....i think if enough /.'s tell them what they thing, maybe they will reconsider their position.
It's not the "Grammys", it's the "Best Marketing Team Awards".
Backstreet Boys and Brittney Spears...pop music is at an all time low.
I'll just take the Coltrane.
Radio? riiiight.
This is why I don't listen to any "canned" music any more. If the mu$ic industry just can't help shooting itself in the foot, well, then T.S.
From near the end:
Still, despite the best intentions of the RIAA, it's tough to envision a time, at least in the near future, when the industry will be able to rein in the Net.
Damn straight.
...phil
"For a list of the ways which technology has failed to improve our quality of life, press 3."
He has always done well in the US. Public education, Social Security, progressive taxation, a good job at a decent wage... heresies straight out of the Communist Manifesto. I long for an America that looks like those old Jacob Riis photos. May a million tenements and sweatshops bloom!
--
--
=8^
I know a lot of musicians who support everything the NARAS and the RIAA does to channel business to their own. They flat out don't have any concept of economics at all and don't realize that only 0.1% of musicians ever benefit from RIAA, NARAS, and XYZ.
Musicians need to start taking a business class and figure out that banning advertizements for musicians who aren't signed with one of the 5 distributors isn't going to help them.
Have you ever noticed how many of Shakspears plays defended the Natural Order (you know the one that goes from God to the King down to the rest of us)?
Do you know how many great musicians got screwed because they rubbed the Monarch the wrong way?
How about this guy Elvis who made it big being a white guy who sang black music?
Very few people are able to recognize great art. The rest of us will listen to whatever crap we get fed, and the guy with the $$ does the feeding.
Visoblast isn't saying that we should swithc to a psuedo-communist economy (neither of he affor mentioned nations are actually communist) simply that we understand them.
At the very least it lets us recognize (and hopefully learn from) our mistakes.
Imagine if people stopped learning about slavery, or the holocost just because we don't practice them at the moment...
Grammy's are The Simpsons' favorite target for jokes among the award shows, and this is just
yet another reason why.
All NARAS cares about is the bottom line, artistic
freedom be damned.
I think she's a cutie. I don't really listen to that sort of music though.
>> I thought they were about music, not money.
Everthing is about money. Especially when the major record labels have a hand in it. I suspect that if you look at the financial backing of the grammys(tm) you'll find where the pressure to pull the ad came from.
0 1 - just my two bits
Sander...you didn't really think that NARAS was more concerned about music than money, did you? Considering the cash cow that is the Grammies, I don't find it at all unusual that they pulled the ad.
That being said, I think it's too bad that the folks who are attempting to keep their stranglehold on the music industry are continuing this futile fight against alternative music formats. I'm reminded of the battles that the movie industry fought against television. Or that radio fought against television. Or that the record companies fought against cassette tapes.
Perhaps a better analogy might be that of trade unions. At one time there was a pressing need for them because workers were being ridden roughshod by their employers. Unions helped them by...well, you know the story. But today, the need isn't really there and unions are a vestige of a time gone by.
The same thing is true of the recording industry. It's about time that this stranglehold on recording media loosened and these vestiges of a time gone by were dumped.
But I think that as long as control and power can be centralized in the hands of one administrative body, you'll see actions like those of Grammy Magazine. They know who butters their bread.
HardCase
For all of you messing with the idea of what is about money and what isn't, read Karl Marx's "The Jewish Question" (its about money, not Jews). He has some fascinating insights into the matter. Naturally, they're disquiteing to anyone who thinks capitolism is *THE* way to run an economy, but those people are mostly westerners, and they seem to hold ancient Greece as the birthplace of western civilization, and Socrates did mention that those who do not question do not live.
So expand your horizions and give Marx's ideas a look over. I'm not saying that he's right, I'm just saying that his ideas are worth being familiar with. They may challenge your own ideas -- see how well your's stand up and improve your understanding. Its healthly.
"Luncheon meats make the sawdust in your stomach explode."
NARAS
Jason Dufair
"Those who know don't have the words to tell
Jason Dufair
"Those who know don't have the words to tell
and the ones with the words don't know too w
What on earth are you talking about? Spam to where? this thread or your email box. I've visited mp3.com for the better part of a year and they have my email address. I don't recall receiving anything from them or the artists they carry.
Jason
Perhaps a better analogy might be that of trade unions. At one time there was a pressing need for them because workers were being ridden roughshod by their employers. Unions helped them by...well, you know the story. But today, the need isn't really there and unions are a vestige of a time gone by.
Yeah - you're absolutely right, the workers have nothing to fear from their bosses, so let's dismantle all the unions. And no one's invading us right now, so let's shut down the military - send them all home. And if your house isn't on fire, right this very minute, then we don't need a fire department. Think of all the money we waste preparing for potential problems, when we could be spending it on beer instead!
"So far, three sites have discovered what the "or else" means, landing on the losing end of million-dollar lawsuits."
Wow! 3 sites since 1997! Sound like their efforts have been really effective. NOT!
Most sigs are dumb. This is one of them.
What the hell is happening to the music industry,
er, I mean commercial franchise? Can anybody
remember when popular music was good? CD's are
still outrageously expensive, and no one has come
up with any talented, new, and above all different
music in years. This really angers me that the
music is not about musicians any more. Down with
the man!
One of the most popular musical groups of all time used to encourage "bootlegging". I miss Jerry!
By my understanding, ALL the MP3s on MP3.com are legal, authorized cuts... so what's their rationale for killing the ad? Could it be that the established record companies can't stand even a little honest competition?
"Freedom means freedom for everybody" -- Dick Cheney