Different Matter: Greed Sucks

Categories: Different Matter

Originally Published on: January 26, 2012

The BIZ isn’t dead, it just deserves to die…

There has been a load of eco-socio-market analysis undertaken to try to glean why our beloved music industry, known as THE BIZ to many within it, has dwindled to the point of needing a hospice.

Quite often the practice of file sharing is stated as the prime reason why the profits of the BIZ have reduced exponentially over the years. I disagree! I think this practice is a symptom of the greater disease and treating just the symptoms never actually cures the disease. (er, hmmm…Hello? SOPA?) I also maintain that the industry has gotten pretty much exactly what it deserves!

It is called the ‘Music business’. It would benefit both the musicians and the business people to understand what these two things actually are and the importance of each.

As with any business, money does need to be generated in order to sustain the industry. This means that being so idealistic as to wish to prevent some profit from being created is plain ignorant. The concept of the ‘starving artist’ gets mystifyingly glorified. Somehow, as a result of some romantic fantasy, some have this horrible view of that in order for a person to be capable of creating art of any worth they must put themselves into a position of suffering.

(Cue SHADOWLESS HEART by Dramamrama here:

“Don’t you know it’s stupid to suffer for art?”)

The reality is that many artists of great value have been more than willing to defiantly and terribly suffer in order to do their art. They often fought censorship, persecution, and even outright hatred and violence in the name of following their artistic vision. For many of them it was not a matter of choice, but a matter of no other choice.

It is that willingness to, no, incapability of giving into suffering which is the result of the important art needing to be made, rather than the suffering being the foundation of the art. There is no paradox here; giving a value to art does not devalue it. I am willing to bet that if you asked any sane artist if they would be opposed to making a decent living from their art without needing to neither compromise their positions nor mistreat the customer, they would say, “absolutely not.”

There are quite a few levels of business ranking in the BIZ too. Everyone from the smallest local band doing occasional gigs to the biggest major labels in the world, music is a complicated business that tends to involve a lot of different people and organizations doing a lot of good and important work to keep it all going. And all of these people need and deserve to make a living for their efforts. Let’s face it; even the guy busking in the subway is trying to get you to throw a few coins his way.

This does not mean, however, that the pursuit of higher and higher profits should be the aim. In fact, it is that exact thing that, like a malignant addiction, has been at the very heart of the demise of the BIZ.

What made the BIZ such a powerhouse industry of the mid to late 20^th century was the explosion of artists of extremely varying styles who were pushing the envelopes of musical experiment being encouraged and supported by an industry that saw the benefits of such things. There was a hierarchy of venues, touring circuits, and labels that supported and helped foster a wonderfully varied array of talents at every level. And the audience, the music buying public, showed their appreciation willingly through their purchases.

So, what went wrong?

Well, from my perspective, Greed.

Sorry, that film lied. It is not good.

What happened is that the Major Labels started seeing the money making potential of the biggest acts that were selling the most albums. What the Majors failed to realise is that what made these artists such huge sellers (not completely, but in large part) was those artists giving the record buying public something unique that stood apart from the rest, hence making it more valuable. Instead, the Majors, or rather the business people running the Majors looked at music as a commodity rather than as art.

We all know the process now. Majors see a band, or even just a song, get some success or a following. They then scramble to find as many other ‘products’ that closely resemble the valued ‘product’ then flood the market with the copycats in order to milk as much money out of the trend as possible. As a business model, it does make sense.

Well, back in the ‘good old days’ (misnomer!) the majors were willing to foster a few bands that didn’t quite fit the business model. They did need to take risks in order to ‘discover’ the next trend to exploit. However, their willingness to take risks only went so far. This is what gave opportunity for the Independent labels join in the game.

These Indie labels were usually started as a result of a person or group of people who had some money and a love of music not being satisfied with what the Majors were offering. Especially in comparison to the bands they were seeing live in clubs all over the place. Sometimes, these labels even started when someone was trying to get a band they believed in a deal with the majors because the band they supported had great talent and potential. After getting no satisfaction from the Majors these people put their money where their mouths were and put the band’s material out themselves.

These people tended to be rather business savvy as well, but their driving motivation was a belief in the music, not just to get rich. As a result, loads of these labels became huge (Motown, Chess, Elektra, Epitaph, Lookout, Metalblade, et.al) enough for the Majors to start using them as their fishing grounds. The Indies could take the risks on the bands that were a bit outside of the ‘safe’ business model, then, when a band on an Indie got a bit of success, the majors could afford to swoop in and buy these bands for their own labels. Sometimes compensating the Indies and sometimes screwing them completely. Hey, no point wasting unnecessary money, right?

This arrangement worked pretty well for a while, but then some of the Independents started getting so big that they were starting to make almost as much profit as the Majors. Of course once they reached that level, some of the folks who started out just trying to support the band(s) they loved and make a little money in the process felt overwhelmed. Some of them simply sold their labels to the Majors for a huge amount of money (to them, not to the Majors) as the Majors were eager to simply assimilate an already profitable label. Others became business partners with the Majors, selling off part of the label for financial and business support, thinking they could maintain artistic control over their labels.

Again, this worked out for many of them; at least until the point that they were no longer as profitable as their partners wanted them to be, or they were presenting an image problem for the Major. Once that happened, the Independents would either be completely bought up (or at least then taken control of) by the Major, or the Major would pull out of the business often leaving it to die a slow and agonizing death; sometimes even bankrupting the people that founded the Indie with such noble intentions in the first place.

As time went on and the Majors became the semi or secret owners of the larger so called Indies, the process kept getting pushed down to the smaller and smaller labels until only a handful of major corporations had the real control of most of the labels on the planet. Yes, that one too.

As a result, the risks on new and different, experimental artists became fewer and fewer. The ‘copy and push’ business model started to become the standard everywhere. All of a sudden all of the music started to sound the same. Even the radicals of music PUNK and METAL started becoming banal regurgitated mimicry. And all so the money making machine could make some rich dudes richer.

Now, not all of the blame can rest on the shoulders of the Major labels. After all, these people are business minded. Equal blame, and perhaps sadly more, falls of the shoulders of the ‘artists’ that succumbed to the draw of riches and success. Sure, people fell for it at first; buying into the image of what they were meant to want being forced down their throats. People want to feel as if they are a part of something bigger. Marketing to this humanity works… to a point.

If you convince people that they need to buy and eat excrement, eventually, some of them are going to realise it; maybe just subconsciously at first. And if that is all that is available to them, some might just start finding ways of getting it for free. “Hey, Dave… You wanna swap ours rather than buying their Sh**?”

So, that is my theory on why people are willing to, and feel justified in, downloading music and file sharing. Perhaps if they were being offered something they actually wanted and craved, people would be willing to pay for it. It would have to by high quality, have good artwork, and reasonably priced though.

This is where the real Indies of today are making headway. It is back to a very grass roots effort. Sometimes it is even the bands doing it themselves, but it doesn’t need to be. Labels are still a hugely important part of music’s survival. Profit is also still important, otherwise no business can survive. But, and it is a big BUT, profits need to be reasonable and always tempered by the art which they are derived from and intended to perpetuate.

One last point, that is directly related to this subject and has been brought up to me by several people as I have been writing this and I want to touch on, is about musicians giving product and services away for free.

There are situations where giving something away makes sense as a tool for promoting your art. However, it does seem that this idea has been exploited and twisted into this cancer of everyone expecting it to be the norm. This has not been helped by the likes of Radiohead and Prince who were in a position to make their give-aways so hugely publicized. Yes, for them it was no issue to do what they did, but most bands in the world cannot survive by doing this; especially the smaller bands without millions of fans.

Musicians are artist that provide the world with an essential and extremely important service/product. It is about time that we all started to recognize its value and make sure that they can afford to provide us with it. This means paying for it when you like it and making sure that the money goes to keeping all of the people doing it (bands, managers, labels, et. al.) instead of mostly into a few people’s already bursting bank accounts. This includes bands being paid for performing, but I will reserve that discussion for its own article.

So, the moral?

Greed sucks!

2 Comments

1. Simon Collier says:

January 26, 2012 at 08:07

Awesome article William. Your observations of the history & subsequent rot of the industry is how I see it. I run a my Stereokill Recordings label on a small budget in an attempt to make a little profit so I can re-invest with the intention to bring new & interesting sounds to the fore. Very much in the way the essential middle ground Indies used to.
One point I would pick upon is I do think you have let the public off very lightly in your observation as to why they download for free rather than pay, greed & opportunity without any apparent consequence is the root, of the problem. I believe the majority of people would clean out supermarkets without paying if they thought they could get away with it. However their sense that there is no consequence is ill-founded, it may not be that they are prosecuted for stealing in the way that they would had they stolen a tin of beans or indeed a CD but there is consequence. That consequence is the deterioration in the standard of music on offer in the mainstream is suffering & you brilliantly observed that you can convince people to eat excrement & without the middle independent breeding ground for new music the consequence is that excrement is mostly being served. Corporations thrive on lowest common denominator product & without the public buying into new independent labels the excrement will just keep on coming.
Convincing people to buy new unknown music, however good it is, when they can legitimately get the “superstars” releases for free continues to be the biggest challenge……that & balancing a budget whilst promoting original music.
I persevere but at the moment I fit the bill of ‘suffering for the art’ as I am still doing what I have done for many years because music needs the balance between passion & accountants to be restored. I am one of those people who don’t currently have a choice but I would choose to make a living at it should the opportunity arise again, the suffering financially is an imposition I could well do without.
Keep up the good work, the future of new & innovative music depends on the solution being found & adopted / implemented.

Simon / Stereokill Recordings.

• William says:

January 26, 2012 at 12:22

Well, Simon. I know your intentions (we have been friends for over a decade and even suffered a brilliantly shitty tour together where we became family) and I support your efforts and would encourage everyone to check out your work and if the music hits them, BUY IT!

Now, I agree about downloading and people needing to change practices, but I also think they can and will change their current practices if educated properly. I am endevouring with the help of my friend and fellow writer Lav Nandlall (she writes here too) to work through the multiple facets of this issue. We have already started the discussion. If you would like to join in on it, just let me know.