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Comment by WalterBright | Hacker News Reader

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 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?

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Artists can do and have done all of the above, especially on the indie scene.

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.

> 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.

No he wasn't. He was the drummer for another local band they were friendly with. He stood in with their drummer on several occasions nearly 2 years before joining, even recorded with them as a backing band for another singer.

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.

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 the money, popularity, and leverage with their label they needed to do so. That's how they went from pop crap like "I want to hold your hand" to "While my guitar gently weeps".

Mostly incorrect (die-hard Beatles fan 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.

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?

They only brought in session musicians for instruments they could not play (ie. orchestral pieces).

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.

If he was paid for it, he was technically a session musician. The fact that he was uncredited shows he was never a band member.

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."

> If he was paid for it, he was technically a session musician.

Technically, sure. But it's pretty obvious that this situation is not what anyone is talking about here.

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 - still does to a certain extent, say in Nashville - but the access to instruments and music now has really changed the dynamic.

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.

And one of them even grudgingly admitted decades later that the studio had been right in not letting him play.

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.

That was true in 1964. It was no longer true around 1974. Because people like me bought those records ( ten years before I did this ) and learned how to play off of them.

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.

There are YouTube songs that have no backing from the big labels and make it big without promotion. YouTube has geeat potential if they cater to indie musicians without alienating fans (extra ads would be painful), which was one appeal for me to use MySpace, I held out on Facebook till it became clear MySpace was the odd elephant in the room.

Most of all they provide marketing for the fairly bland consumer friendly sort of music that makes a lot of money.

I recommend watching "The Wrecking Crew". It's an eye-opener. Especially the parts where they show what the artist brought them, and what the studio turned it into.

> 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, ...

> 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.

I hate to say it but Adele is a good example of an independent artist making her way.

PS Don't let my oldest daughter know this I HATE Adele Happy Music and Sad Lyrics crap!!!!

PPS don't tell your secrets to the intertoobs!

@WalterBright: (wrong Quincy, you mean Quincy Jones ;-)

Thanks for the correction! Fixed.

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