I've been working on a project that will be an attempt to provide both musicians and users much better alternative than they got, with radical freedom and also a new kind of economic ecosystem. I don't wanna pitch this idea to VCs, so have a crazy idea about how I'll grow it all around the world. I've been coding for a while and if you're crazy enough, let me know. My e-mail is azer@roadbeats.com.
Steve Miller: The Whole Music Industry Is Fuckin' Gangsters and Crooks
231–240 of 313 posts
Re: Steve Miller: The Whole Music Industry Is Fuckin' Gangsters and Crooks
#232The president of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame responded: http://www.rollingstone.com/music/features/rock-hall-preside...
Makes Steve seem like a bit of a jerk, imho.
Re: Steve Miller: The Whole Music Industry Is Fuckin' Gangsters and Crooks
#233Earlier quoted context omitted.
Literally anyone can put a streaming app into the major app stores these days and bypass all of this. Why are the Big 3 still in this chokehold position? Is the market failing, or do they actually provide valuable services that can't be obtained elsewhere? In either case: why is that?
Watch the movie "The Wrecking Crew". Essentially, the studio fixes the nascent tune penned by the artist, and provides studio musicians to play on the recordings. The band rarely plays, or even sings, on the album. The reason is simple, they don't play that well, or sing that well, and the studio musicians do. This is one big reason why bands/singers/artists need labels. They're not able to turn the lyrics on the bac…
> This is one big reason why bands/singers/artists need labels. They're not able to turn the lyrics on the back of a napkin into a credible album on their own.
You're incredibly mistaken. Yes, the Backstreet Boys/One Direction were exactly what you are describing, as are any major acts. But bands outside "mainstream" music are anything but pretty faces. One can write credible music without production. See: Pixies, The Jesus Lizard, Andrew Bird, ...
Re: Steve Miller: The Whole Music Industry Is Fuckin' Gangsters and Crooks
#234I 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…
You mean Jesse Smith? Jeff Gretz (current drummer) is the nicest/coolest/most talented drummer ever.
He has to mean Jesse. Gretz didn't play any of the Solid State albums, if I remember correctly.
I'm also fairly sure that Underoath's Define The Great Line has since outsold any of Zao's albums (I'm guessing either Liberate or Blood and Fire were the top seller that bald_fat mentioned).
Re: Steve Miller: The Whole Music Industry Is Fuckin' Gangsters and Crooks
#235Earlier quoted context omitted.
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 t…
How do you measure similarity to capture what you want? The obvious approach is that you look for "people who like this, like that". This is easy to measure and understand. And when you're faced with a person who liked this, it is usually the right answer. The problem is that you don't know WHY people who like this, like that. Often it is simply, "Heard both at an impressionable age." What you want it to be is, "On t…
You do it by objectively analyzing the music from a technical standpoint. That's how last.fm started; it was someone's research project to look for "musical DNA" and then use that "signature" to find similar music. It actually worked well.
Re: Steve Miller: The Whole Music Industry Is Fuckin' Gangsters and Crooks
#236Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Artists can do and have done all of the above Of course. But not that many are successful at it. Even the Beatles floundered for years before success came only after signing with a label. Note that Ringo was a session musician brought in by the label. George Martin made enormous contributions to their music.
Yeah, but the story as I've heard it is that the Beatles only became successful after signing with that label, and completely changing their style, adopting those stupid bowl cuts, and playing really simplistic formulaic music, all because the label convinced them to. After they achieved a lot of commercial success with this, they started going in the more artistic direction they really wanted to, because they had th…
Yet they still brought in session musicians and George Martin still made enormous contributions. Ironically for your statement, Eric Clapton was a session musician to play lead guitar for "While my guitar gently weeps."
Their pre-label original tunes just weren't that good. They played mostly covers. Can you suggest a pre-label Beatles original tune that was worthy?
Re: Steve Miller: The Whole Music Industry Is Fuckin' Gangsters and Crooks
#237Earlier quoted context omitted.
Watch the movie "The Wrecking Crew". Essentially, the studio fixes the nascent tune penned by the artist, and provides studio musicians to play on the recordings. The band rarely plays, or even sings, on the album. The reason is simple, they don't play that well, or sing that well, and the studio musicians do. This is one big reason why bands/singers/artists need labels. They're not able to turn the lyrics on the bac…
> This is one big reason why bands/singers/artists need labels. They're not able to turn the lyrics on the back of a napkin into a credible album on their own. You're incredibly mistaken. Yes, the Backstreet Boys/One Direction were exactly what you are describing, as are any major acts. But bands outside "mainstream" music are anything but pretty faces. One can write credible music without production. See: Pixies, Th…
> as are any major acts
Exactly my point. To become a major act (i.e. make money) artists need lots of artistic help. I know this is a brutal thing to say, but if you want to get a band out of obscurity, you're going to need help.
Even Michael Jackson had Quincy Jones help him achieve his breakout album (Off The Wall) and was smart enough to go get the artistic help he needed. And Michael Jackson was one of those incredible artists who could write, sing, dance, and arrange. And he still needed help.
If a band is not interested in making mainstream music, that's fine, but not making money comes with the territory of not appealing to the taste of lots of people.
Re: Steve Miller: The Whole Music Industry Is Fuckin' Gangsters and Crooks
#238Earlier quoted context omitted.
While I am really familiar with that film and the players in it, I think your point is rather limited to considering "pop" music, which creates the biggest returns. None of the 'hired studio musicians / songwriters / etc' dynamic applies to a band like Muse, Coldplay or Radiohead, yet still applies to Adele and Taylor Swift. The Wrecking Crew film is a very good summary of the way 'the business' worked long ago - sti…
For fun, listen to David Cassidy's work during the Partridge Family years, when the studio wrote the songs and provided musicians for him, and compare to Cassidy's post-PF work. What, you never heard of his post-PF work? :-) It's because it's awful. Ditto the Monkees. At least Cassidy could sing (and damn, he was good). The Monkees couldn't write, sing, or play without massive help.
Actually, two of the Monkees were in bands before their "acting career" and they performed live together without assistance.
They broke up because of a no-holds barred fight with their producer/svengali, declining sales and an awful vanity film (think Spiceworld but much worse), but their albums still sold.
Re: Steve Miller: The Whole Music Industry Is Fuckin' Gangsters and Crooks
#239Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
How do you create a 'middle class' when there is no money left in the industry for smaller artists? Pandora pays the superstars well and if you aren't getting millions of plays, you aren't making enough to even provide for yourself. This all started with file sharing 15 years ago. Everyone thought they were helping out the independent artists, but in reality, it made it so they could no longer compete without a huge…
Pandora pays the superstars well and if you aren't getting millions of plays, you aren't making enough to even provide for yourself.
In November 2012, the Grammy-nominated hit song-writer Ellen Shipley reported that one of her most popular tracks got played 3,112,300 times on Pandora.
For this, she was paid $39.61
(Source: the somewhat depressing "The Internet is Not The Answer", by Andy Keen)
Re: Steve Miller: The Whole Music Industry Is Fuckin' Gangsters and Crooks
#240Earlier 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…
> not some guy programming the guitars, drums tracks and bass and then does the vocals himself? Some highly regarded albums that use that exact process, all are five stars on Allmusic: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/There%27s_a_Riot_Goin%27_On https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dirty_Mind https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pretty_Hate_Machine Another that legend has it was recording the same way, albeit under different circumst…
Some of Van Halen's albums were done at home, in his home recording studio named "5150".
I believe the "Beat It" guitar solo was also recorded there. Because there was no legal paperwork with MJ's mgmt., that was a freebie - to the utter dismay of his label.