Posted on 12/23/2013 2:45:02 AM PST by wastedyears
For more than a decade, musicians have battled rampant music piracy that has put labels and record stores out of business at a rapid pace. Unlike the shift to Amazon that did in the book store chains, record stores are suffering from outright theft, and the migration to iTunes or Spotify streaming isn't making up the difference.
(Excerpt) Read more at citeworld.com ...
Underrated? Not!
Used to be that making a record meant expensive studio time. And you couldn’t dink around, you’d better be damn good to limit the amount of studio time needed to cut a record.
Now you could make music in your own home and distribute it easily, so anyone can do it, even if you have zero musical talent.
All the while, they are downloading old music that is new to them, and listening to it.
And eventually it leads them to want to buy that music
They’re downloading it for free and that leads them to buy it...
Huh?
What you can download is often of poor quality compared to production CD or even vinyl. And older music is often a lot less expensive.
The statistics bear this out, that a significant number of pirates do start buying their own music, except for those who could have never afforded it in the first place. This is why record companies complain about lost sales, but don’t actually lose sales attributable to piracy.
Excellent point. Was reading about The Beatles recently and how they cut their teeth for years playing in dive bars night after night. They didn't all turn 21 until Feb 25, 1964 (George Harrison's 21st birthday), after they made it big.
So had the drinking age been 21 at the time, all of The Beatles would have been banned from the bars and would have had to go out and get regular jobs. We never would have heard of them!
A lot of people think The Beatles just kind of exploded on the scene in 1963-64. But they spent years before that playing in Hamburg night clubs and at the Cavern in England. All rough-and-tumble joints where they had to get good and get good fast just to survive. By the time Brian Epstein got a hold of them and cleaned them up a bit for the masses, they were already one of the tightest, rawest rock outfits out there. That's why they made it as big as they did.
I know it’s a smart business model, they put everything onto a plane and toured the world in a month the first time around.
“So had the drinking age been 21 at the time, all of The Beatles would have been banned from the bars and would have had to go out and get regular jobs. We never would have heard of them! “
Early days they used to play a regular gig at a bar in Hamburg until George was found to be under age 18, then boot!
The Monkees was a teevee show about a band. The Coasters and especially the Drifters were about commercialized vehicles for the songs of Lieber and Stoller. Ever changing casts, I mean bandmembers, several Drifters on tour at the same time during the original "incarnation" of the band.
Mowtown was studio musicians and put together bands/song-writer productions as well. But everyone has to pick on the fictional Monkees.
Iron Maiden was neglected by radio, the US press, awards programs, and their label, yet they continued to build a base through constant touring.
However The Monkees were musicians in real life and they played their own instruments both on the show and off the show.
Some of their music is quite good and stands up well even today. Songs such as "Words"; "Tapioca Tundra" and "Pleasant Valley Sunday."
The Monkees were a put together tv program. They eventually came to play and write their material. But around that time the plug was pulled on the franchise.
Their songs had some of the same studio musicians as records by The Beach Boys, the Byrds, and other “genuine” bands.
There are interviews where persons such as Mickey Dolenz stress that it was a show ABOUT a band.
Ricky Nelson was a TV shoe too!
Rock music was destroyed on purpose from the top down. Trust me, I was there and I saw it. The biggest rockstar on the planet used the “n” word in a song. Rock music had always involved 16 year old girls looking up to sexually potent white men. That is not allowed in today’s world.
The way an IP specialist put it to me was: if you ever knowingly fail to pursue an infringement claim, you weaken any future IP claims you may pursue.
That is, Paramount couldn't have cared less about the fan websites, but their lawyers were telling them they needed to go after them or they'd weaken their case against true IP thieves.
The myths, the myths. Monkees a real band? ‘fraid not. Even less than the Beach Boys, a vocal group backed by studio musicians. I once saw a package show at a ghetto movie theatre (the only pale face in the audience), saw it twice, it happened between the B movie showings with all white casts to make me feel better, and the audience worse, and in it was Wilson Pickett, the Shirelles, and a couple of others. Live and all dubbed like Milli Vanilli, long before Milli Vanilli’s time.
Times they are a-changing but musicians still don’t get more than a dollah fitty per disk sold, the same as authors selling $24.95 novels, the money is and always has been in concerts. Even the old Lolling Scones, who own their material, know it, and don’t bother visiting the studio any more. Entire albums are being given away on bandcamp.com and similar portals, but please spread the word, buy our T-shirts, and attend our shows.
In 1994 when Nirvana got $1million for their top selling album, David Geffen got $55million from that same album.
Allen Klein wound up with the US publishing on their 60s albums. He also got the money from George Harrison’s “charity fundraiser” concert.
There’s a racket in selling such racket.
Very smart: “The fans want our music? Great! We’ll go play there, too!”
The money seems to be in songwriter royalties, though not from the cheapskate streaming service, or for drummers and bass players, too advance musically to write silly love songs. But get a tune into a TV show, and you’re going to Disneyland, even if you’re not homo. And to give credit to the Hollywood fags, they do tend pick good tunes from lesser known artists (according to the latter, anyway, I don’t watch the idiot box.)
Bill Wyman, the fool who quit his band that wouldn’t have made it back when if not for his equipment, quit it just before the big moolah started rolling, said in an interview I read in an European magazine a few years ago, that yes, he had a million (or two) in his bank account, and a restaurant. Not to mention the mediocre 2nd-run All Stars Band which couldn’t compete with Ringo Starr’s ad hoc outfits.
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