Criticizes pay what you want model for making less popular musician brothers and sisters look bad for “not offering their music for whatever.”
Alternative rock band Sonic Youth recently sat down with the UK’s Guardian to discuss the state of music and their band’s latest album “The Eternal.” In it they they make some observations and comments that makes one wonder if they’re having a hard time adapting to the realities of a digital music world.
It recently left Geffen Records for Indie Rock label Matador Records because “[Geffen] weren’t doing much for us besides putting the records out,” says guitarist Thurston Moore.”
The band contemplated going the Radiohead’s “In Rainbows” route where fans could pay as much or as little as they choose for a digital download of an album, but said it would’ve taken too much time and effort and would’ve been insulting to their less popular “musician brothers and sisters.”
“I don’t really think they did it by themselves,” continues bassist Kim Gordon. “They did a marketing ploy by themselves and then got someone else to put it out. It seemed really community-oriented, but it wasn’t catered towards their musician brothers and sisters, who don’t sell as many records as them. It makes everyone else look bad for not offering their music for whatever.”
“It was a good marketing ploy and I wish I’d thought of it! But we’re not in that position either. We might not have been able to put out a record for another couple of years if we’d done it ourselves: it’s a lot of work. And it takes away from the actual making music,” she adds.
Pretty startling right? I’m not sure if it’s the fact that she thinks it would take too much time to do, or the fact that she thinks it would make less popular artists look bad that I find more puzzling.
It would only take a few hours to get a site up and running, and only perhaps a few more after that to really get the word out about the album’s release.
So why the angst?
Digital music puts control of distribution back in the hands of artists where it belongs. Record labels thereby become little more than financing and marketing arms that could just as easily be circumvented with a little creativity and hard work. Surely this is all good for Radiohead’s ” their musician brothers and sisters, who don’t sell as many records as them.”
Just ask Sir Paul McCartney who lamented the “boring approach” of EMI and the fact that it took 6 months to release an album he could write and finish in 6 days.
“I’d started saying to them: ‘Look, we could write a thing and have it released the next week.’ And they would say: ‘You can’t do that these days.’ So I would say: ‘Well, how much time do you need?’ And they’d say six months. I said: ‘Why do you need that long?’ And do you know what they said? ‘To figure out how to market it.’ I said: ‘Wait a minute, are you sure you need six months for that? Couldn’t some bright people do that in two days?’ Jesus Christ. I said: ‘Look boys, I’m sorry, I’m digging a new furrow.”
He too was among the millions who downloaded “In Rainbows,” paying “something reasonable.”
“This was how we used to operate,” he noted. “I remember John [Lennon], for instance, writing Instant Karma and demanding it was released the following week.”
EMI, on the other hand, wasn’t able to perform such a “miraculous” task and he lamented that music artists there “had become a part of the furniture.”
Contrast that with Paul McGuiness, band manager of U2, and anti-P2P crusader, who said that Radiohead’s experiment “backfired.”
“We should all be aware that Radiohead’s honesty box release of their album to some extent backfired,” he told a group of music execs last June. “Even though it was available on their own website for no money at all, if that was what you preferred to pay – 60 to 70% of the people who downloaded the record stole it anyway even though it was available for free.”
Which of the two is more on the side of musician brothers and sisters than the other?
All told, “In Rainbows” sold some 3 million copies, including downloads from their site, and sales of digital albums from other retailers, CDs, and a box set. So by all accounts the experimentation with the pay what you want model was a fairly resounding success, and oh, the album was pretty good too, garnering a Grammy for Best Alternative Music Album.
The only entity really making musicians look bad are the record labels that represent them. I can’t really knock Sonic Youth’s current label, Matador Records, for I know nothing of it, but labels like Geffen, it’s previous one, have done far more to harm musicians and the music biz as a whole than Radiohead ever could or will.
For Sonic Youth to criticize Radiohead for daring to think outside the box makes me wonder what kind of an artist the band really is. Isn’t music an art form characterized by creativity and free expression?
Music should ultimately be about the music, and reaching the fans who appreciate it. Anything a band can do to reach them in new and exciting ways should be encouraged not condemned.
Techdirt’s Michael Masnick said it best last year when doing a case study about Trent Reznor, an artist who’s been even more experimental than Radiohead in trying to reach fans.
He argued that future of music lies in the following equation:
Connect With Fans (CwF) + Reason To Buy (RtB) = The Business Model ($$$$)
Masnick notes that buying an album is a voluntary transaction, and that it’s nonsensical for artists to think to “think that there is some sort of obligation to buy.”
Trent Reznor has connected with fans (CwF) time and time again, having offered things like free album downloads, one of which became Amazon.com’s top-selling album of 2008 by the way, a fan remix contest with the winners becoming part of an offical compilation CD (again FREE), and other EXPERIMENTAL ideas.
“I can give you free music, and in my opinion, it may contribute to more people showing up to a show,” Reznor said a few months back. “It’s not up to me to give you free music, it’s free anyway, you know for anybody that wants to admit it. Pretty much any piece of music you want is free on the Internet anyway.”
Exactly. Radiohead is only guilty of sort of mainstreaming what’s already taking place, oftentimes weeks or even months before an official release date, and without the option of allowing people to pay what they think is reasonable.
“We’re in between business models,” he continued. “You know, the old record labels are dead, and the new thing hasn’t really come out yet. So, I’m hoping that whatever gets established puts a lot more power in the hands of artists and more revenue.”
In fact, he mentions that he’s been talking to some artists about building an infrastructure, which is still “in it’s infancy,” that would allow artists to distribute their music without having a percentage taken from them. He says it’s needed so long as record labels refuse to adapt.
Reznor also noted that the problem with record labels, though perhaps not Sonic Youth’s current label, Matador Records, is that all a record label is concerned with is profits, they only see an artist as a “means to make revenue.”
“At every fork in the road that’s what will be what’s put first,” he adds. “Not your longevity, not your vision. How can we make money from you.”
So for Sonic Youth to say that experimenting with a platform that is more equiatble for artists, where they can distribute music on their own terms and without a substantial cut being taken by record labels, “makes everyone else look bad” is utterly shortsighted and self-defeating.
In short, record labels don’t make music Sonic Youth, musicians do. As long as you make good music you’ll have fans, and as long as you have fans it’s critical that you connect with them and give them a reason to buy.
jared@zeropaid.com
[Hat Tip]
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I think you missed the point they were making. SY wasn’t defending the record labels.
If anything they are a little more tapped into the vibe that most musicians are in. Radiohead can AFFORD to release an album for nothing, and if 10% of your people pay for it, then you still make bucketloads of cash.
This sets a precedent however, and people begin to expect music to be released for free. Which isn’t economically viable for non-mainstream artists, who don’t have royalties streaming in from previous work or million-plus fan bases. This sets up a world where the only music in the public sphere continues to be dominated by corporate machinery. Which I think we can both agree on, is terrible for musicians and terrible for the audience.
By the way, making websites that handle payments and digital file processing, art, mailing services, etc. IS alot of work and not something that can be handled in a ‘few hours’.
Nobody expects it to be free, people know that if you like a band you have to support it, which is ALSO possible via concert tickets, merchandise, etc.., all of which are particularly vital to bands who get the most of the take, unlike albums where they get a fraction of the total.
Also, it can be done in hours – the Pirate Bay(distribution) and PayPal(payment processing) are your friends
Also, when it comes down to it music is ALREADY essentially free for the taking if you know where to look. It’s a matter of artists being able to tap into their fanbase and give them a reason to buy the album.
Connect With Fans (CwF) + Reason To Buy (RtB) = The Business Model ($$$$)
[READ: http://tinyurl.com/n7w7tw
I find the argument that free distribution is hurting smaller artists who “can’t afford it” puzzling.
Then again, some people who argue this also tend to make the argument, “I create, therefore, I must make lots of $$$$!!!” A lot of artists forget that music is an art form apparently. Just because you put together a track, doesn’t mean you automatically make X amount of money. I also think that if you sell 1,000 albums in a few months, you shouldn’t be not making any money.
I often think I’m one of a few artists who think this way. :\
I believe they weren’t just talking about putting a few MP3s up on a web site, but about producing the actual album. Radiohead was in a comfortable position because they certainly didn’t need an advance to pay for the recording engineers, the studio time, the time it took to make the recording and all those things.
And they always had a fall-back plan: The physical release of In Rainbows came out on Warner, which means it automatically had a spot in the shelf of every Target & Best Buy. Oh, and they obviously had some really got PR folks working on the whole ting too. Those are some of the things that your ordinary “musician brother and sister” really doesn’t have.
I’m not sure that I would have come to the same conclusion as Sonic Youth, but I certainly understand their point.
Its a mistake for an artist to make a big budget disc if they know they can’t sell it and turn a profit. If an artist wants to be resourceful they can record a disc using a computer and audacity, and edit it all themselves. This would cost next to nothing and would be adequate for a free release. Hell even just giving away live recordings would be fine. Heck they can even set up a contest and let their fan base edit the tracks and put it all together. You don’t need a professionally remastered track when you are a small act, its just not economical.
Indeed. Really, mastering isn’t all that hard with the right software. The task of mastering can be reduced down to, ‘turn this knob’, ‘move that slider’, ‘turn this knob’, listen, edit, done.
Baloney.
You try to get a recording to average -3db without engineering it to do that from the get go and learning from a real professional. There is nothing simple or rote about it. That’s like saying ‘Yeah, Tony Hawk, riding a skateboard is easy, you just point it and go’. Sure.
I’d also like to point out that Audacity is a stereo recorder. People haven’t made records like that since the 40’s.
You are way off: the learning curve of using any software is less than that of having one’s body adapt to a new set of physical mechanics.
There’s a lot more to it than using soundforge.
Who said anything about using SoundForge at all?
Okay, there’s a lot more to it than knowing how to use a compressor plugin? I don’t know who you are but there is a reason that real mastering costs what it does, It is not easy to do.
Nothing is easy to do when you have no knowledge, malgre.
Actually, not too hard to get a song to average -3db if you set your levels right and produce atmospheric music (little to no percussions). +3db on the other hand is way too loud even if it’s compressed.
Besides, loudness means next to nothing compared to talent in producing quality music. Anyone can make a loud song, doesn’t mean it’ll be good necessarily.
Agreed, but if you want your song to compete, it has to sound just as loud as everyone elses on the playlist or people won’t like it as much (proven in 20 yrs of double blind studies)
Citation?
Turn up the volume?
Ever heard of Replay Gain?
By the way, people detest the “loudness war”.
Oh I agree it shounds like ass. Doesn’t matter, artists who want to make a living play the game. Hobbyists don;t have to.
I suppose you were a victim in many instances of peer pressure.
Dont recall the greats like the Beatles or the Rolling Stones relying on studio gimmickry…
No, they recorded all of their music on a 8 track tape recorder
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abbey_Road_Studios
Actually I think The Beatles used lots of studio gimmick on their later albums, and like the Wiki article says, they used it to full effect. It was analogue and state of the art for the times though.
What using a major studio would give you is access to high quality recording and a high quality engineer. Home recording has closed the gap on the technology part and the sound is clean, but the engineer is so important because bands know how play but not always how to edit and mix well.
I think that recording expertise is mostly what the studio system has to offer these days, engineers, producers and technicians who know what’s in their studio and how to use it, because they operate it every day.
“Dont recall the greats like the Beatles or the Rolling Stones relying on studio gimmickry…”
soulxtc… I think you got a point there.
Sonic youth’s argument is nothing but specious reasoning. THEY feel bad they can’t do it, or are afraid to do it–they don’t need to pass it off inder generalized terms. In other words: speak for yourself. Trent Reznor followed suit, and it worked for him. And there are loads of non-famous artists who stand by the pay-what-you-will model as having helped them gain popularity by exposing their music to unfamiliar audiences. No matter what you do, there will always be both opponents and adherents to it, so, c’est la vie. It’s enough to leave it at saying that it works for some people and not for others; they don’t need to criticize Radiohead for what turned out to be a successful venture for them.
I think the whole point is trying to figure out what works. If you curl up in a ball and complain and wish the world was flat again you’ll inevitably sink into irrelevance.
Artists ignore their fanbase at their own peril.
I tend to think of a fan as someone who ponies up the dough, not just a guy who likes you. The easiest way for someone to be a fan is to buy a record.
It’s not like he can’t lsiten to it beforehand. What’s the big deal?
You are way off, again:
“A fan, aficionado, or supporter is someone who has an intense, occasionally overwhelming liking and enthusiasm for a sporting club, person (usually a celebrity), group of persons, company, product, activity, work of art, idea, or trend. Fans of a particular thing or person constitute its fanbase or fandom. They often show their enthusiasm by starting a fan club, holding fan conventions, creating fanzines, writing fan mail, or promoting the object of their interest and attention.”
You’re thinking of someone who is more like a debtor than a fan.
Well, I’m not sure what the big deal is, like I said.
Last night I spent 25 bucks on a pizza, that’s two or three cd’s with free shipping from Amazon. Which lasts longer, and which one makes you fat? It’s not like we’re talking about buying the mona lisa here. Just buying what people sell because you like what they do.
What you are saying is irrelevant. You’re thinking of someone who is more like a regular customer than a fan.
Pizza is food, but music cannot be eaten.
You bought pizza, since you wanted to eat it. You like pizza, but this does not make you a fan of some pizza maker.
Unless you can distinguish what a fan does, do not babble such garbage, whether it is your opinion or not. As well, anyone can initially pay zero and become a fan before buying anything.
OK fine, but if you respected people, as a fan does, you would buy the music you don’t pay for instead of whatver it is you buy. Folk need money to keep making more music. That is a fact of this non-socialist world.
Music is cheap and plentiful, you can buy a record for the cost of a siz pack of decent beer and the record lasts a lot longer – your whole life if you’re careful.
There’s an exception to that – any top record label signed artist won’t see any of that support. The money goes straight to the RIAA woodwork. When you buy an album from an RIAA signed artist, you support the label, not the artist.
Drew, where did you hear that? That’s simply not the case. A lot of times support is in the form of getting fronted money against futire royalties. Pretty decent, in the sense that no bank is going to do that for you, and they are actually betting that you will succeed.
Any label that can do anything for you at all is a member of the RIAA. There are LOTS of little labels in the RIAA – most of them. You’re a musican? You shouldn’t waste time cutting yourself off from the chance to do somethign you love as your job.
“… but if you respected people, as a fan does, …”
So you claim that I’m not a fan of any kind and that I don’t respect people who I am not a fan of?
“That is a fact of this non-socialist world.”
What the…?!
“You’re a musican? You shouldn’t waste time cutting yourself off from the chance to do somethign you love as your job.”
But he can also love what he does that is not his job.
If you want to refute something, malgre, you need to stay on topic or at least cite actual facts and not make things up. DrewWilson would know about artists much more than you do.
“I tend to think of a fan as someone who ponies up the dough, not just a guy who likes you”
I happen to think someone who ponies up dough is a customer and someone who just likes you is a fan. You can, of course, easily be both.
Well, there have always been those kind of fans, and they serve their small purpose. But at the end of the day music is like anyhting else – there are guys going to work and in order to have a home to go back to they have to get some money. Most of the money an artist gets to keep comes from record sales, unfortunately. Especially from publsihing, because that is mandated by law.
So what is a fan? I can tell you who the fans are that MATTER – the ones that buy your stuff.
Is money all you think about?
I hear you try to make this about materialism or something over and over again.. if it is a moral issue, it’s pretty cleat cut and it’s not about ‘materialism’ or ‘conumerism’ it’s about theft.
Where did you receive the idea that I am regarding anything about materialism? I am not (anti-)materialistic and I have not called you for having “constant concern over material possessions and wealth”. The fact that you equate fans to money and non-fans to no money is your problem. Fans indeed do use P2P to obtain music.
The fact that you think that I regard to moral is very much proof that you don’t revisit your own statements for factual errors before attacking back.
As well, haven’t already I told you that I don’t write opinion? I would have thought that you would become more cautious before attacking back when I posted that, but suppose you’re that stupid.
“but [I] suppose you’re that stupid.”*
There are many ways to support a band without having to buy everything they spit out (think Kiss). A true fan goes to the shows and cheers them on in a blind drunk frothing rage of emotion
.
Not every fan can afford to buy every album just as every fan cant afford to go to every show. It’s a delicate balance.
Fact is, it costs most bands money to play out unless it is right in their town. They have to borrow the money from the record company, and the record company expects to get payed back. Like a bank, except banks dont front money to bands!
You see? If the record company has no money, there is no investment in bands. So music becomes a hobby.
And btw the only people that make money from t-shirt sales are companies that make t-shirts and huge bands like ACDC that have deals with wal-mart. T-shirts are a way to promote the band and cost money like any advertising.
That’s the real world. File sharing or not.
What does this have to do with regard to how fans support artists?
What you are stating is basically how bands depend on record companies. Nothing more.
Also, no one mentioned anything about T-shirts before you.
Wholesale screen printing costs on average $3 to $5 a shirt. Every concert I’ve been to, artist sell shirts at $15 to $20 a shirt. So what you are telling me is that bands somehow are not profiting from this practice?
A common 2″ patch common with rock and punk bands sells for $2 wholesale. On average I see them selling for $4, so again they are making quite a nice profit for the effort to produce the product.
Then you still have fans who buy your music even if its free online which also generates profit.
Finally you have concert ticket sales which vary depending on popularity of the band. Celine Dion made hundreds of millions with her act in Vegas. Of course this isn’t true for all acts, but there is plenty of cash to be made.
What I get from you is that you believe artist shouldn’t have to work at their art. Everyone should be throwing their money at them and feeling pity for the acts that don’t make it. Sorry, I don’t feel pity for artist, if they want to go that route they can take risks like all small businesses.
I think your numbers are off. All that stuff is outsourced and retail gets a cut. And no small bands can get those prices because why the hell are they going to print up 10,000 shirts?
Celine Dion? Really? How about the band down the street that has one fourth as many venues to play in as they used to because clubs swithced to dj’s? It cists money to play out. You have to get fronted that money. Evenm Celine had millions of dollars invested in her that she had to pay back before she made her own bank. Like a business. If ‘greedy record companies’ cease to exist, so do artists. All that will be left are those lame bands that play in their spare time.
Take the risk that people will publish all their stuff to the net without paying? Really? You sure do like their stuff, made by people you don’t respect.
“If ‘greedy record companies’ cease to exist, so do artists.”
As an unsigned artist myself, I call BS to that.
“All that will be left are those lame bands that play in their spare time.”
You clearly don’t know any to be making such a comment.
Dude, I know tons of UNSIGNED ARTISTS that are doing just fine. Are they driving Bentleys? Now, but they are doing what they love and making a decent living at it.
And are you telling me that a band can’t figure out how to get to a PAYING GIG? And why would the record company pay for an event it doesn’t get a cut of the profits from?
Thats the REAL world.
Either they play covers or they wait tables, then.
A lot of gigs end up costing more then they pay or they break even. Labels can front you money to try and do a lot of stuff – becauser they are investing in the band as a business venture. That’s the reality of the business, and it’s only gotten worse as more and more live venues have closed since the eighties.
Your post is ridiculously useless as you make no point in it.
I don’t think SY was defending the record business, neither do I think that Radiohead’s “pay-what-you-want” album was a “marketing ploy.” I’m sure the only thing they did “themselves” was making the record… running the website and everything else was probably “done by someone else.” How is that different from all the other artists (who aren’t professional web-designers, etc), including myself, who self-release records?
Let’s not forget that Radiohead has a whole lot more money than Sonic Youth and can afford to release a “pay what you want” CD, as can Reznor, and U2 could.
WHY does it not surprise me that U2’s manager is against P2P? It always seems strange to me that smaller artists (with a few exceptions like Radiohead, Wilco and Reznor) even artists who put out their own albums, are for P2P (even though when a fan downloads my record he or she either puts me $7 more into the red or “costs” me $7, depending on my sales) whereas the folks who are already financially successful are against it? I’ve downloaded albums by artists small and large, because I have very little discretionary income right now and if I have a choice between buying their record or going to see them, I’m gonna choose the latter.
This is where the major labels miss the point, I accept the fact that my record will be downloaded. But that’s OK, it’ll bring more people to the shows, and it means people dig the album! I also will reward people who actually purchase the CD, either in physical or digital form, with cool free rare/live Mp3s limited edition shirts, etc.
These days, if you release a record, you should be worried if it DOESN’T get downloaded for free: that means it sucks.
Sounds like somebody’s doing what Masnick suggested:
Connect With Fans (CwF) + Reason To Buy (RtB) = The Business Model ($$$$)\
Bravo. Link to your band?
I find McCartney’s comments, if they were portrayed accurately, more troubling. Does he really think a record company that deals in the volume and far-reaching distribution of records by artists such as the Beatles, or any other large act, can coordinate all of that in a week?
Uh, yes it should be able to, its Paul Freakin-McCartney!
If a major record label cant figure out how to produce and promote an album in a week then it’s truly doomed.
Almost any idiot HS kid strumming a guitar in his bedroom can do it, so why cant a multi-billion dollar company?
Plus, it’s not like they’re shipping it to tons of stores on the distribution side of things, its going to Wal_Mart.
Paul want it to be like it was in the fifties. He has a point. The stakes are a lot higher though.
You would like it to be the ’50s for different reasons.