Value in Your Listening Experience

AtomicCrimsonRush wrote: I scanned portions of the OP and found there to be a case here. In any case in order to listen to as much prog as poss, the obscure stuff is impossible to obtain and demands to be downloaded, but I will buy as much as I can when I can. There is no harm in listening online before buying though to ensure the album appeals.

That is troublesome that you can't get reasonably priced hard copies of some stuff and yet still encouraging that you can obtain it through buying a download.

Alitare wrote: That's like, your opinion, man.

I should get some royalties for that.

Meh.... Warner Brothers probably stole it all. In fact, the Coen Brothers are so poor now, they had to sell Frances McDormand on eBay.

Back on topic.......film piracy is affecting the film industry to a similar degree as music piracy is affecting the music industry, it's just that the film industry has generally higher value. It's a trillions of pounds/dollars industry rather than a billions of pounds/dollars industry, so it isn't hurting so bad (yet).

The OP makes a good point about we who buy the music valuing it more than the free downloaders, but it's not like they care (if they were the sort of people who cared about that, they wouldn't illegally download in the first place). The bolg isn't aimed at anyone. 

The whole philosophy of a person who illegally downloads is that they must justify it by whatever means possible. Of course, every single one of them is aware of the law, aware of the moral issues, aware of people like us ranting about it, but none of those things are enough to change their habits. Presenting them with what is right and wrong clearly has no effect, because they never would have started downloading in the first place if it did. These people already know what is right, but there is no punishment, no side-effects, no repercussions for them; and, given that we are discussing what people value, it only takes for you to value your own financial situation more than the music industry for illegal downloading to seem perfectly justifiable.

It's not a question of valuing other forms of entertainment over music (if they were easily obtainable for free, exactly the same categories of people would be exploiting that fact), it's a question of valuing oneself over the success of others, including the bands you like. It comes down to selfishness, a kind of selfishness that no shame is felt about, and one you can make excuses for, in the face of the angry opposition. On a general scale, I value "the economy". I value industry of any kind, at least enough not to steal any product or service. Someone who doesn't have this value is someone who either thinks stealing is morally good (unlikely), or thinks that their small contribution is having no effect on a large scale. When there's millions of them, it does.

The problem is, when one stops, there are still millions of them. What reason can we give somebody, who has no interest in the welfare of musicians they don't know, or no interest in owning physical packages with little extras, to pay for their music?

The answer: there isn't one.

The industry must die, and be reborn with a completely different model. It seems unfair for the morally justified side to back down, but it's the only option. Most businesses go out of business because of lack of demand, not because of large-scale stealing...... but that's life. We can't arrest them all. I mean, we should arrest them all, but no government is efficient or practical enough to carry that out. It's just impossible. A crime can only continue when punishment is out of the question.

Wow..... that turned into a really long rant. Hats off if anybody read it!

Some people have theorised the solution (i.e. the new business model) to this crisis. The one that looks the most tangible to me can be found in this book.

Starless wrote: thehallway wrote: .....value your own financial situation more than the music industry ..... Surely everyone values their own financial situation over the music industry,

Musicians don't........ well, they are one and the same to a musician. But yes, most people would value their own finances over any industry's. My point was that some people see this as a complete justification for downloading music. I value my credit rating more than value that of any band, but just not enough to steal from them. People who pay for their downloads obviously agree. Some friends of mine think its a stupid "compromise" that I make, just because I am going into the industry myself. Since when was 'not stealing' a compromise?!

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 Although I can understand what you're saying, nothing is as black and white as you make out. What about the point I made earlier where bands who would otherwise be nigh on invisible deliberately make their music available on filesharing sites in order to gain exposure they would otherwise have no chance of getting? Can you honestly say that every new band you've dicovered in the last ten years has been through entirely legit means? Maybe personally, yes, but I'll bet a good proportion of them were discovered by someone further up the chain from you who did so by dubious means, assuming the band didn't put their wares up there in the first place. Doesn't make it right, I know, but we're all culpable.

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The exposure is a good thing for bands, but it doesn't get them any money. This is a whole different argument, but basically, it just leads back to the first problem: When the free file-sharing earns the band enough popularity to actually start making money out of music, they go and get a record deal. But given that their audience and fan base is a digital one, why would anyone start paying for the music at this point? Again, this is off-topic, but I'll just add here that more and more money from CD sales is also being taken away from bands by the record companies who can't do maths...... or just want to screw you over. They've always been like that, but more so now that they are losing the battle against illegal downloads. If Band X this year make a million dollars less than last year, guess who doesn't get paid? The musicians. Warner will just make up figures to recoup their losses..... and no one is fighting for them because everyone knows they're still stinking rich. (I'm sure there are exceptions! Probably the smaller record companies....... what they call cottage industries??)

I personally have only ever discovered a band by a legitimate means, but that's mainly because I'm still working my way through a list of 70s prog bands who don't have a myspace! If a modern band doesn't have a CD out, I don't own any of their music. Digital music is great, just not for me. It would be even more great if bands were actually able to get any money from it. Spotify have the right idea: charge people for the right to access music rather than "per track" or "per album"...... then leave it to Spotify to distribute the royalties according to download figures (it's not like they, as an independent company, have any wish to screw musicians over.... although they will take their cut of course). The trouble is, Spotify have a free version..... and the people I described above would still rather sit through ads than pay anything.

I wouldn't be into prog if not for downloading music.  Fact.  I never would have heard of anything I listen to without it.

himtroy - Well said that man! Exactly my point from earlier. If no-one d/loaded music there are literally hundreds of bands out there that you, me and the man in the moon would never ever get to hear of, or more likely would not exist at all as they would have no audience.

 

rogerthat wrote:   I have not said that music is not an art form but we cannot talk about musicians being impoverished in the same breath as remaining oblivious to commercial realities.  The fact that Van Gogh died in poverty perhaps also underlines that if an artist wishes to more than subsist on his art, he must recognize these realities.  Some artists follow their heart and still win much commercial favour, that is just destiny and not something that can be perpetually repeated. I am not saying people should not make the supreme sacrifice for the sake of art and on the other hand I admire such people. But you cannot then grumble about the lack of commercially viability for those who choose to make the music they desire to on their own terms. It's as simple as, if you want to make money as a musician, you have to understand the rules of making money and it is not enough to understand the rules of art alone. Aside from all this, I am not convinced at any level that making art that is true to your values must necessarily always entail divorcing yourself from commercial considerations. It is more that artists are poor at marketing and positioning their own work and fear that they would be perceived as sellouts and lose a small but loyal audience.  That is understandable because they specialize in making art and not in doing business but the commercial world and the art world are not necessarily polar opposites and those who understand the rules of the former often get the best of both worlds.

The concepts of art and business indeed are not polar opposites, however, they don't have enough in common to ever avoid compromise (except in extraordinary cases like The Beatles), which means that, yes, even though people well-trained in both can make a decent financial gain from their art, it also means that they will never be 100% satisfied (unless their entire artistic desires happen to be exactly the same as what sells millions in the charts, which, given that that kind of music is fabricated by producers, record execs and calculating "hit-writers", and never the musicians, is unlikely). I hope that long sentence makes sense. 

You're saying that compromise is necessary in order to make any kind of practical living out of music, which is totally and unquestionably true. I just don't like it. It's not fair. It makes me grumpy! I'm sure if you've met any passionate artists, you'll know how they dislike compromise. A vision, a goal, a statement..... these things need to come out, and the harsh reality that you'll probably live in poverty if you don't compromise it in some way, sickens me. I wouldn't mind if it were even a poorly paid job, one that literally allows you to scrape by..... but it isn't, it's literally £0.00 (unless you start compromising). My own musical aims are not completely commercially infeasible, I guess, but they aren't exactly mainstream either. In ten years time I'll let you know how I'm doing! If I need a second job, so be it...... I think I would rather earn money by other means and keep art separate. If the current trends in art change in my favour however............

thehallway wrote:   The concepts of art and business indeed are not polar opposites, however, they don't have enough in common to ever avoid compromise (except in extraordinary cases like The Beatles), which means that, yes, even though people well-trained in both can make a decent financial gain from their art, it also means that they will never be 100% satisfied (unless their entire artistic desires happen to be exactly the same as what sells millions in the charts, which, given that that kind of music is fabricated by producers, record execs and calculating "hit-writers", and never the musicians, is unlikely). I hope that long sentence makes sense.  You're saying that compromise is necessary in order to make any kind of practical living out of music, which is totally and unquestionably true. I just don't like it. It's not fair. It makes me grumpy! I'm sure if you've met any passionate artists, you'll know how they dislike compromise. A vision, a goal, a statement..... these things need to come out, and the harsh reality that you'll probably live in poverty if you don't compromise it in some way, sickens me. I wouldn't mind if it were even a poorly paid job, one that literally allows you to scrape by..... but it isn't, it's literally £0.00 (unless you start compromising). My own musical aims are not completely commercially infeasible, I guess, but they aren't exactly mainstream either. In ten years time I'll let you know how I'm doing! If I need a second job, so be it...... I think I would rather earn money by other means and keep art separate. If the current trends in art change in my favour however............

Let me put it this way. You try to make the art you want to and THEN you look at how best you can position to to get the best possible audience. There are two mistakes commonly made here: one is trying to second guess what people like and deliberately dumb down your art. The other is in assuming that anything accessible or with wide appeal is dumbed down and necessarily compromised (hence a true artist must make something esoteric, inhabiting a rarefied sacred place). Neither positions are correct in my view. 

A case study here, which I have always been fascinated by, is Iron Maiden.  During their long career, they hardly changed their style (though they got more ambitious within it around Powerslave-SSOASS and again Brave New World - AMOLAD) and they did not depend only on radio airplay for success. They have seemingly mobilized or galvanized legions of metalheads all around the world and filled stadiums time and again on tour. Not just back in the 80s but even in the decade gone by, and they still found YOUNG fans, not 40 somethings feeling nostalgic for childhood or teenhood favourites. And if one were to ask Steve Harris, he would not say he had to compromise to ensure the band lasted longer. On the other hand, he would say they remained 'true' to metal ideals.  There is, as such, much to learn from the concept of 'true' in metal.  They could never convincingly sell something like that in rock because it was too mainstream from the get-go but 'true' is everything in metal.  Iron Maiden quite miraculously added new fans to the legion all the time while never alienating loyal, die hard metalheads.  I don't think it is a historical accident, it's just excellent positioning. 

Another thing is I have never felt convinced that merely making something accessible and appealing involves a compromise. I would personally want as many people as possible to read my work and same goes for music. I don't really understand how snobbery derives from making it out there and difficult.  If somebody WANTS to explore new horizons and the results of that would not be so appealing in the near-term (Stockhausen or Schoenberg's innovations, for example), I fully understand that but I don't know that one has to necessarily be out of bounds of the mainstream to be true to art.  Sure, people do compromise but I strongly feel that if artists tapped into many, er, non musical factors that influence the listener's preferences (and I don't mean anything dirty or unethical here),  they would not have to compromise on their work and still find a good audience. 

Lastly, I am not saying you said that but I don't think embracing contemporary sounds and technology in music is a compromise. It makes it sound 'different' but that is not objectively a bad thing.  In all honesty, I am at a loss when aspiring musicians talk about what "sounds good" because that is a highly opinionated and close minded way to look at music. I am strongly influenced by early 20th century fiction but I try to use specific words that are very commonly used nowadays without resorting to 4chan.  When I submit non fiction articles to websites, I use much shorter sentences than what I do on such internet forums and attempt to communicate the same thing thus (and it is a fascinating challenge and learning exercise in itself). You must speak the same language as your audience, that being my point earlier about cultural oblivion.  The 'classics' that are admired by many rock listeners were all cutting edge for their time, be it Beatles or Led Zeppelin. They were 'with it' and pushed rock into new directions at the same time as they achieved commercial success.

Henry Plainview wrote:   rogerthat wrote: The question I pose to this general argument is if piracy alone is to blame for music's present state, why does Avatar rake in the millions? Why do kids rush to get their copies of Harry Potter/Twilight? I am not trying to talk up their quality, just asking how is that writers and filmmakers can still access a large audience in the same economic and social conditions as musicians? Well reading a book on a computer sucks, and you can't repeat seeing Avatar in 3D on your computer screen. Music is the same no matter where you get it. I think we'll start seeing more widespread book piracy as digital reading devices take hold in the market. And movie companies are suffering hard from piracy, or at least people not going to theaters anymore. I can't find the link now, but I read that theater attendance in the US has stayed more or less flat even though the population increases. 3D has excited Hollywood so much because the same amount of people would go, but pay more money for tickets. Fortunately, people seem to be getting tired of this.

No time to go through this whole thread, but I just wanted to add, that pop music (-aka- anything that is shoved in our faces on TV/radio/internet/etc) still sells by the buttload. Maybe our beloved prog bands and jazz artists are getting hit, but pop is still thriving; as it gets more and more bland...

But on the bright side, our beloved prog bands and jazz artists are making more money touring than they were in the 90s (generally speaking)

rogerthat wrote: One related point I omitted in that long-ass post is that commercial viability can actually fuel ambition by providing the means and resources that an artist would be otherwise denied. That's what happened in the 70s when bigger was actually better. When lack of resources makes you pare down your ambition and scale, that also affects how exciting (or not) your music is.

This is a case where I am happy to compromise, if I can reap the benefits later by using all the cash I've earned to make the art I couldn't afford to make when I first started out. It's just another unlucky trend in genres like Prog and Metal, that the best albums and the best shows are typically the most expensive ones (just look at Pink Floyd's lighting bill........)!

"I think Steve Harris certainly is quite shrewd and knows what he wants on an Iron Maiden album."

Maybe he is. I don't know enough about the band to even know who that is. In any case, musicians being shrewd is rare. Robert Fripp comes to mind but not many others. Often it is a record exec or A&R guy that is shrewd, and that is when the compromises come in; whether they benefit or taint the music is just luck, the aim of these people is purely financial.

 "I have never been comfortable with the difficult-simple dicohotomy and don't like to look music in such terms."

Me neither. I was referring to the difficult-easy dichotomy, and regarding one's aims, rather than the music itself.

"I don't see why a piece cannot be memorable"

It can...... of course it can. If a musician creates something according to their artistic maxim, and it is memorable, then great. Win win situation. What I've been trying to get across is that, if a musician creates something according to their artistic maxim, and it is not memorable, then any attempt to take that music and alter it's memorability, can be defined as an artistic compromise. Even if it actually improves the music, and the music still makes its artistic statement, it is still changing a piece of art for financial gain. I'm all for being business-aware, but I just feel that the whole marketing process should be done after any music is completed, i.e. not overlapping with the actual creative process.

It's all to do with how music is made, I feel. Let's say I sit down with the goal of writing a number one hit single. If, when it's finished, I think to myself that the song actually isn't single-worthy, then I change it accordingly until the goal is achieved (or until I give up), then that's all fine. Chances are, the song may be worse than it originally was on other terms, but it succeeds in it's only purpose, which is to get to number one. This artistic goal happens to coincide with financial gain, so you can see how there would never be a need to alter this song on purely financial grounds. However, let's say I want to write another song that represents the sadness of unnecessary death in war, a protest song perhaps. Again, I can change it's musical elements at any point in order to help achieve the purpose of the song. But if I want to make money out of the song, and I find that it isn't a natural money-maker, I will have to change it more, and in other ways. If this still aligns with the artistic goal, then great, but it is unlikely. When it doesn't align, you have compromised one for the other. For me, the artistic goal is more important, which is why I am uncomfortable with such compromises, even if I have to make them from time to time in order to avoid poverty.

And, regarding the non-musical factors....... again, you're right in saying that having a particular personality can earn you money, while your music can remain safely unchanged by greedy hands. But Lennon was born with his wit and his charm, but if you happen to have a non-media-friendly personality, then it's just tough luck. Your personality isn't really something you can choose.