Value in Your Listening Experience

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.

 

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............

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

Anderson III wrote: Henry Plainview wrote: it's become much more difficult for any music made with serious intent to (and irrespective of quality because no two people can agree on how good or bad a work of art is and that would take this discussion nowhere) access a large audience in the first place, let alone do well commercially. I think most if not all pop music is made with serious intent.   Modern pop music? I think none of it is made with serious intent! Well, there is the intent of entertaining 10 year old girls, but I don't see what's so serious about that. Plus, I don't think it's the music itself that's supposed to entertain, but the whole multimedia package. There's for instance choreography, visual art, and most importantly an IDOL for the kids to worship. The music is a tiny part of this package, and many producers of pop music have publicly stated that they don't personally enjoy the music. It's made for children!

The fact that some music is made as a part of a multimedia idol/x-factor package does not mean that it wasn't made with serious intent. Mind you, I prefer the prog approach, just playing devil's advocate here.

Imho the reason the music industry is in worse shape than during the golden years (70s) is because back then, there was no multimedia. There's much more "stuff" to draw away the attention today.

Regarding the original topic: it comes down to a moral decision for me. I enjoy this music a lot so I am prepared to pay for this support the artist. But it can be difficult, painstakingly hunting down a rare cd while I can instantly download it. The fact that I'm no real audiophile doesn't help here. If I was, then a cd would be even more valuable to me.

And in the past I have gotten angry at stores giving me wrongful information and thought "screw it all" and just downloaded.

TheGazzardian wrote: I have to agree with Henry here, although very few people I know are into prog, everyone I know is into music of some type, be it punk/acoustic/singer song-writer (my wife), rock (my dad), alternative/core/punk/country/rock/pop/whatever (my brother), pop/rap/techno/rock (my best friend), video game music and linkin park (one of my high school buddies), core (a cousin), country/classic rock/musical theater (my mom), classical/jazz/soul/blues/early rock (another highschool buddy), lady gaga/pop/classical (my best friends girlfriend), metal/indie/industrial/alternative/acoustic/comedy/classical/chiptunes/etc. (the artist for some of my games), indy/folk (an old co-worker), nu-metal/christian rock (another old co-worker), radio rock (another old co-worker), extreme metal (another cousin), etc...their tastes were wildly disparate but all these people I know care deeply about music.  Even those who don't actively seek out new music have many favorites, new and old, that they enjoy listening to. The problem is a number of these people do in fact pirate with very little concern and only one or two of them other than myself are interested in collecting music in any format. The rest just like to listen to it, however they can.

On the subject of why TV shoes and movies still seem pretty healthy. I think it's two fold.

Firstly a lot of money is not made directly from the sales of DVDs. TV shows make a lot of their money from TV commercials and movies make a lot of money at the box office, as someone had already pointed out.

The other reason I think is that it is more difficult to download and manage TV shoes and movies and there is often a much more recognizable quality loss with this material. While those who download music a lot don't really care about MP3 quality or claim there is no difference between lossless, anyone who watches a small video file of something is going to notice it does not look as good as it did on TV. Either that or they will download full quality and the demands on bandwidth and storage will be much more prohibitive.