Corey Taylor says it’s because “most of the bands they sign are shit”.
Slipknot frontman Corey Taylor had some pretty choice words about record labels and P2P piracy in a recent interview with Kerrang!, a UK-based weekly Rock music publication.
In his opinion, record labels themselves are to blame for illegal file-sharing because “most of the bands they sign are shit.”
“Why would you blame [people who download music]?,” he said. “Half the fucking albums that are out there are shit. I don’t download, but at the same time, I don’t buy new music ’cause it all sucks. Okay, there’s a handful of bands that I buy, but other than that, I just buy old shit because old shit is good. Sorry!”
It’s a no-brainer to conclude that people will pay for quality albums just as they do for tickets to see quality movies, but the simple logic seems lost to record labels who still refer to albums as “units” as if they were in the business of producing refrigerators or tires and not compilations of artistic expression.
When your emphasis is on units and volume rather than on quality and appreciation by music fans you’re bound to see a decline in sales and customers.
“People wanna blame the decline of album sales on downloading, I think it’s actually the record companies’ fault,” he added. “I think it’s the quality of the product. If record companies would stop giving any fucking mook on the street with a fringe a record deal or their own record label, maybe you would sell more fucking albums, dipshits.”
Others blame iTunes and it’s single track emphasis for declining album sales, but I think Taylor’s view is the most logical.
Quincy Jones, American music impresario, conductor, record producer, musical arranger, Academy Award-winning film composer, and trumpeter, himself has even opined in “How to Save the Album” that the music industry needs to “..focus on making better music.”
“Ever since Shawn Fanning launched the original Napster — and even more so now that legitimate downloading has taken off via iTunes — I’ve been hearing lots of talk about the death of the album,” he writes. “Rise up to the challenge and make your album so good that fans will want to buy the whole thing.”
Exactly.
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OK allow an old lady (40) to shed some light on this topic. A long time ago (the 70′s and 80′s) bands used to put out albums. Some of these albums contained multiple top-40 hits. Some of these we “concept” albums and others just rocked. You could play the whole LP or cassette without fast-forwarding past a “shitty” song because there were no “shitty” songs. The artists didn’t bog down their releases with cover tunes acoustic versions and re-mixes. They simply put out close to an hour’s worth of music that was a result of hard work and dedication that came from the heart and the soul. I have to agree with Corey Taylor especially in regards to the rap/hip-hop genre. Any idiot can grab a mic and start babbling about cappin’ a ho. I cringe at what passes as “rock” today too. Seems like playing a guitar solo is a lost art form and the so-called “music” drowns out the vocalists.
Who says music sales are down? Independent labels are doing excellent. Mega stars are out. Instead of a handful of people making all the money in music it’s become a lot of people making some money in music. That’s not bad. That’s healthy competition. Many of the Canadian studies have proved that P2P and downloading has not hurt music sales. What it has done is given lesser known bands the ability to be heard. There’s so much music out there that it’s impossible to stay on top of it all anymore.
But the local radio still only plays the same crap over and over again. That’s what the major labels does to music. Guess what? The stuff major labels push isn’t even stuff people want to download – for FREE. I’m sure they have figured that out. The labels want to eliminate all competition.
That’s why THEY say 90% of music “legitimately sold” in the U.S. is represented by the RIAA. That’s marketing hogwash that everyone repeats as if it were fact. It can’t be just by the mere fact that over 50% of Grammy Awards goes to independents.
People need to stop repeating major label marketing. The music business is doing better than ever. RIAA does NOT collect statistics on MOST music sold over the internet digital or cd. RIAA does NOT add digital music to their sales figures including from ITunes and EMusic. RIAA does NOT have figures on independent labels just labels they represent. No wonder their sales are bad.
RIAA wants to eliminate competition. If it’s not what they release we shouldn’t be listening to it = silence. That’s the real RIAA position. Can you imagine only having a choice between Brittney Spears or Nickleback or even a handful of the good old super groups like Zepplin ALL THE TIME?
It’s very true that the major labels have not signed as many or as varied of music that they did pre-90′s. Too bad Congress is too stupid to figure this out.
It’s kinda funny to see this and just a week ago metallica all but blow off the fact that their new album was circulating the internet.
I will agree here though – put out something good and I will buy it. Had I downloaded metallica’s St. Anger I would have never wasted my time buying it. The new album I have listened to I like and I will buy. Hell I might even go see them in concert – and that all came about because I downloaded the album.
The labels should also stick with something that’s happened lately – adding extras to the discs – maybe a DVD of the band live and such. Maybe a coupon to see them in concert? Give us something we can’t download and you’ll be encouraged to buy.
@Signa
I don’t think he’s saying that people download because of poor quality music. I think he’s saying that people aren’t buying albums because of poor quality music.
No one I know wants to waste their harddrive space with crap people will download a few songs to see if they like a band if the band keeps pumping out the quality music then people start buying the albums.
If the band only has a few good hits and the rest are crap people keep the few good songs they downloaded and don’t buy the albums.
If the band is truly teh sux then people don’t buy the albums and delete the stuff right off their harddrive.
Its strangely Darwinistic….
I would have loved to troll that interview and asked him “so why do people download your music?”
It would have been worth it to see him struggle for an answer.