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Steve Miller: The Whole Music Industry Is Fuckin' Gangsters and Crooks

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Re: Steve Miller: The Whole Music Industry Is Fuckin' Gangsters and Crooks

#111

Post by ArkyBeagle »

robbyking wrote: post #92
jdietrich wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Steve Albini's essay The Problem With Music is essential reading. It explains in detail the catastrophically bad financial outlook for most musicians. http://www.negativland.com/news/?page_id=17

Steve Albini's essay really illustrates how labels blaming streaming for declining album revenue is akin to the top 1% of income earnings blaming the poor for the middle class's economic problems. The labels always come out ahead, and streaming has become an easy way for the labels to refocus musicians' attention away from the actual source of the problem.

The labels that didn't come out ahead don't exist any more.

Nobody says this: In the 1980s, you could establish the sort of relationships to get priority at CD plants and resell back catalog that was already universally known. So the people who won did that instead of so much trying to break new acts.

The last gasp of a flood of new acts actually getting on radio was the SubPop ... thing in the 1990s. After that, nothing unless you followed R&B or "indie." That monoculture ended than. But to be fair, it only started in the first place because radio transitioned from being mainstream to being a "youth" market.

Re: Steve Miller: The Whole Music Industry Is Fuckin' Gangsters and Crooks

#112

Post by dipnuggetron »

yolesaber wrote: post #30
bantunes wrote: post #4

Miles Davis on Steve Miller: “Steve Miller didn’t have his shit going for him, so I’m pissed because I got to open for this non-playing motherfucker just because he had one or two sorry-ass records out. So I would come late and he would have to go on first and then when we got there, we smoked the motherfucking place, and everybody dug it.” http://www.openculture.com/2015/05/miles-davis-opens-for-nei...

I mean, to be fair, Steve Miller is like the blandest of bland dad rock. And Miles Davis is literally the coolest person who ever lived.

This is bland dad rock? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gemlal7T-PY&nohtml5=False

Re: Steve Miller: The Whole Music Industry Is Fuckin' Gangsters and Crooks

#113

Post by foobarian »

6stringmerc wrote: post #103
stigi wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Modern pop music follows strict patterns. I have little doubt that much of what's playing in the top 40 can be synthesized or already is :P All that you need then is a human avatar that the kids can connect to and take as their role model.

The only problem though with using a strict pattern system is that it will, I believe, more than likely miss the nuances which a brilliant songwriter can weave into a structure. The song might be 90% as good, which makes a lot of difference I think. Max Martin is an absolute genius in this regard, and his years of success reflect that. He's also a musician, though he is truly making his living as a songwriter/produce…

The other day I was listening to some random pop song (maybe Demi Lovato, not sure) and it was sounding eerily Max Martinesque. I go to look it up, and there he was in the credits. There is just something there that stands out; I don't know if it can be trained into an AI, but my money is on no.

Re: Steve Miller: The Whole Music Industry Is Fuckin' Gangsters and Crooks

#114

Post by CuriouslyC »

slouch wrote: post #39
at-fates-hands wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I used to work in a record shop and found out first hand how much promotion a band needs just to sell a few CD's. I can't tell you how many insanely good bands died because either the label didn't promote them, or they just ran out of cash and quit. The only problem I see nowadays is there's virtually no vetting process. It used to be the good bands would eventually rise to the top and the shitty garage bands would b…

For me, it's still primarily http://last.fm/ 's similar artist feature.

The problem with last.fm (and almost all similar music services) is that a lot of the similarity they encapsulate is chronological and social similarity, rather than musical similarity. For example, a search for Nirvana pulls up Hole (social similarity, the Courtney Love connection) and Pearl Jam (social & chronological similarity) quite high on the list, even though neither really sounds that much like Nirvana. On the other hand, The Pixies, which are musically much closer to Nirvana aren't even on the list.

Re: Steve Miller: The Whole Music Industry Is Fuckin' Gangsters and Crooks

#115

Post by Animats »

stigi wrote: post #96
proksoup wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ha, you had me til the AI part. Personally I figure the musicians will have the last jobs, along with designers. Really artists generally speaking will be the most difficult AI, no?

Modern pop music follows strict patterns. I have little doubt that much of what's playing in the top 40 can be synthesized or already is :P All that you need then is a human avatar that the kids can connect to and take as their role model.

"All that you need then is a human avatar that the kids can connect to and take as their role model."

Already in production. See Hatsune Miku in live concerts.[1][2] Not only is the performer an avatar, the singing is synthesized by Vocaloid software, which you can buy.[3]

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dhYaX01NOfA [2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XyTmXLWCazw&nohtml5=False [3] http://www.vocaloid.com/en/

Re: Steve Miller: The Whole Music Industry Is Fuckin' Gangsters and Crooks

#116

Post by CuriouslyC »

Animats wrote: post #84

Musicians getting rich was a brief phenomenon. Historically, musicians ranked below bartenders. Making phonograph records was a process with expensive tooling, manufacturing, and distribution costs. Radio was an industry with limited airtime and a small number of stations. These factors created an industry with few songs produced in large numbers, resulting in the "rock star" industry. That's over. Through heavy prom…

I don't think the future is "totally" AI generated music. Rather, I think that AI will provide tools to enable humans to make music more easily. For instance, taking a basic riff and "jazzing" it up, maybe suggesting a drumline, providing lyrical "autocomplete" suggestions based on the song's subject and rhyme structure, etc.

Re: Steve Miller: The Whole Music Industry Is Fuckin' Gangsters and Crooks

#117

Post by baldfat »

Dwolb wrote: post #89
baldfat wrote: post #23

I owned a SMALL Record Label and Studio. I was (still?) good at picking out talent in bands. The Whole Industry Sucks I had two bands that ended up on Major Labels and Toured the World. I met a kid on the street wearing one of my Bands shirts and struck up a conversation. They still love the band 10 years later. These guys per person made at the TOP $7,000 in profit after expenses were paid. One band did a KickStarte…

Just a side note, I saw the founder of Pandora speak and he said their mission is to create a middle class for musicians by making it easier to discover, listen, and support non-hit artists. I'm not sure if their plan had a broader strategy, but I felt the vision was at least admirable due to its mission beyond just firm profits.

I was the Owner of the SMALL Label. My friend from college I worked at is a professional acoustic guitar musician. He makes 100% of his money playing guitar. He makes next to nothing from streaming, he says 1% from Pandora, Spotify and others.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lo9kGHYn_bI

Re: Steve Miller: The Whole Music Industry Is Fuckin' Gangsters and Crooks

#118

Post by ArkyBeagle »

marincounty wrote: post #41
0xdeadbeefbabe wrote: post #20

Some people write songs about the music industry sucking. Hotel California is one (I bet). It would be fun to study this idea. Oh, another one could be Don't Download this Song by Weird Al. Edit: I wonder if Mr. Miller ever tried something like that.

When I was in college, I took my girlfriend on a summer vacation. We were both broke, so we decided to camp out along the CA coast. My car was on its last days, and the transmission didn't feel right, but we wanted that vacation. She was a great sport, as I tried to make it work. It seemed like nothing was working as I planned, except the sight of her in that bikini. I had a bunch of camping equipment, and thought, "…

Was that perhaps the Mandalay Beach resort in Oxnard? It's not the Hotel California but as you noted, it would do in a pinch.

Re: Steve Miller: The Whole Music Industry Is Fuckin' Gangsters and Crooks

#119

Post by 6stringmerc »

foobarian wrote: post #113
6stringmerc wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The only problem though with using a strict pattern system is that it will, I believe, more than likely miss the nuances which a brilliant songwriter can weave into a structure. The song might be 90% as good, which makes a lot of difference I think. Max Martin is an absolute genius in this regard, and his years of success reflect that. He's also a musician, though he is truly making his living as a songwriter/produce…

The other day I was listening to some random pop song (maybe Demi Lovato, not sure) and it was sounding eerily Max Martinesque. I go to look it up, and there he was in the credits. There is just something there that stands out; I don't know if it can be trained into an AI, but my money is on no.

One thing you might be subconsciously catching on to is that Max Martin is committed to "balanced lines" when it comes to vocals. It's obious in "Hit Me Baby One More Time" by Britney Spears and his fingerprints on "Teenage Dream" by Katy Perry. Here's a great review and comment piece featuring 30 songs by Max Martin, in order to better study the guy's techniques which seem to work so well:

http://www.stereogum.com/1788251/30-essential-max-martin-son...

Also, I forgot to mention that the weird thing about music is that it follows trends just long enough to want a new one. Thus, whatever formula might win out for a period of time would likely be usurped by a variation or counter-intuitive trend. A funny thought in this line is that a hit-making, successful "Hair Metal Pop" AI would be going great until the "Grunge Rock Pop" AI started getting traction. Humans are fickle!

Re: Steve Miller: The Whole Music Industry Is Fuckin' Gangsters and Crooks

#120

Post by mathattack »

yolesaber wrote: post #79
mathattack wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you say this, you've only listened to early 80s Steve Miller. Check out his blues and folk. Lots are up on Youtube. (Which, to the point of the original article, probably doesn't pay him much)

The Joker came out in 1973 and it's one of the lamest songs of all time in my opinion. Miller's watered-down style just isn't for me.

Try Buffalo's Serenade.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=01WeCge6T1U

If you don't like it, we'll have to agree to disagree. :-)

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