Steve Albini's essay The Problem With Music is essential reading. It explains in detail the catastrophically bad financial outlook for most musicians.
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.
Just one point of clarification, when I wrote “the labels,” I meant the big three major labels and their subsidiaries. As both a life long musician and avid music fan, I don't count truly independent labels as part of the "industry."
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?
Disclaimer: Not an expert. Not in the music industry.
Many of these license fees are done in bulk. The same with countries that automatically collect a tax on USB sticks and optical media. You pay a volume license, but it never filters down to the artists because it's not collected based on which songs are actually stored or played.
This is hardly all of it. There's a huge mass of corruption under the surface. Such as them not actually forwarding over license fees for song collections, or including songs they don't actually have the rights to include.
but anyway, something like that is how they'd get paid for music they don't own.
These arrangements were worked out back when "radio" was "disrupting" the live music and recorded music industries, and people were trying to "monetize" the "eardrums"
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. They often don't even write the songs - the label has a stable of songwriters to do that for them. The artist is often just a pretty face autotuned in.
Even if a band can produce a CD on their own, they need promotion, manufacturing, and distribution. Who is going to get their CD in front of DJs, etc.? Who is going to set up concerts? Who is going to handle the financing? Who is going to do all the work needed to run a business?
Ditto the Monkees. At least Cassidy could sing (and damn, he was good). The Monkees couldn't write, sing, or play without massive help.
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.
I bought one of their post albums where they wrote their own songs and played their own instruments. Sorry, it's just awful compared with the studio produced albums. Nobody remembers those songs for good reason.
The "just a performer" model is only true for that small percentage of singers who are just performers. That model includes some of the bigger household names. Some of them are essentially fashion models who sing and dance, not musicians. Others are singers who also produce, and have a feel for what sounds good even if they can't play all the parts. (This is harder than it sounds.)
There's literally an entire industry of independent artists who record and produce at home, do their own tour management and logistics, maybe mix in a studio for some final polish, handle distribution, and so on.
And an entire related industry of bloggers, DJs, and other online sites that review and curate the most interesting new music.
The labels keep on keeping on, but their business model is very fragile now. They wait for a producer to manufacture a band, or for a band/artist to bubble up from the indie (artist - not musical style) scene.
When they reach a critical mass they try to buy them. Sometimes this works, sometimes it doesn't.
The bizarre thing about A&R budgets over the last few years is that they're as huge as they've ever been, but concentrated on a relatively small number of artists. Because there's a lot of money involved the labels are ridiculously risk averse. If a signing doesn't turn into a cash cow after the first album they're dropped.
This has always happened, but the cycle is so short now that only acts that have instant mass appeal or a guaranteed existing fan base are successful on labels. Everyone else is indie.
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.
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?
They never brought in session musicians to play their own pieces. All guitar, drum, bass, piano, etc parts were played by the members of the band and on very few occasions piano pieces by George Martin.
Eric Clapton was not a "session musician", he was doing an uncredited solo for his best friend George Harrison's song.
George Martin did a lot more than just play a few piano bits - he had a lot of creative input. Here's what "The Beatles" by Spitz has to say about it:
"Two weeks later, on his way to the Studio from Sussex, scheduled to give the song another shot, he was explaining to Eric Clapton how something radical was needed to light fire under the Beatles. "We were in George's car, driving in London," Clapton remembered, "and he said, 'Do you want to come and play on this record?'" It was an astonishing invitation. The Beatles had used plenty of Session musicians on other albums, but no one capable of upstaging them, certainly never rock 'n roll virtuoso on the level of Eric Clapton. Clapton hesitated, unsure of what to do. He knew the other Beatles "wouldn't like it," but George brushed aside his reservations. "It's nothing to do with them," he insisted. "It's my song, and I'd like you to play on it." Before anyone had chance to object, Clapton was already in Studio Two, strapping on his Les Paul guitar and listening to the rhythm track mixed down from their work on the sixteenth. The song was pretty much there, creating an effortless, affecting groove, but it lacked dramatic device to liberate the emotional tension that is never far from George's caged expression. Clapton's poignant guitar riff provided everything it needed. The way it weeps and moans, held in check by Eric's incisive phrasing, creates the longing that gives the song its emotional center. George's vocal couldn't have been more enchanting as he squeezes the mournful lyric of all its desperation, until by the end, he seems to be just barely hanging on, just riding atop the surging guitar as it works to strangle his overlapping cries."
Technically, sure. But it's pretty obvious that this situation is not what anyone is talking about here.
- Those bowl cuts came years before any success, specifically during the summer of 1960 in Hamburg from a friend of the band.
- The suits were insisted upon by their manager, not the label, in an effort to help get them signed.
- When they first got attention they were doing and playing exactly what they wanted to, mostly because they were singularly focused on being successful. Their set list was mostly comprised of ~500 popular cover songs from the time. You can hear much of this on several of their early albums which were heavily loaded with these - those were the same songs you could find them doing back before they made it, that they played in the Cavern Club and strip clubs in Hamburg. George Martin was the one who pushed them to be bold with the material, get creative with the arrangements, etc, and then the London scene pushed them further forward from there.
Their original drummer, Pete Best, could not keep time when recording. George Martin raised the issue that he needed to be replaced, that's when they decided to reach out to Ringo.
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, ...
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.
PS Don't let my oldest daughter know this I HATE Adele Happy Music and Sad Lyrics crap!!!!
That's part of why Tedesco was much less employed and Hal Blaine was working as a ... security guard(?).
Lumpy on the beginner guitar newsgroup (alt.guitar.beginner) wore out Ovations for a living at some time around then.
Barring circumstances of pure chance, an app needs marketing and promotion to gain any traction, and this costs money. It also usually requires deals with artists of some interest or popularity to get attention, and to ensure the service has enough content.
> 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?
My theory is that most people actually want to be told what to listen to and don't really care to leave a relatively small comfort zone in terms of music tastes. The current system "works" for consumers so the incentives for anyone to come around to change it are weak. Personally I don't consider this an inherently good or bad thing, just an observed state of affairs.
He goes into depth about the market and business nature of the music industry. It's solid. Whether as an intro or review, it's a quality piece. Thanks for posting this, it's very relevant.
I worked at Snocap for a while. Like that Snocap wanted to enable indy artists to self publish. But, the major labels wanted to control the "distribution" of their content. "Their" content. I left.
Now, I'm thinking of getting back into it. Maybe enhance live gigs. This talk is really timely and inspiring!