Generally speaking, the creative industries are full of people and businesses that operate by screwing over creative people.
They view creative people the way a miner views a resource in the ground: as something to be strip mined and then discarded. I've encountered raw contempt... in a sense they are jealous of the ability of creative people to be creative, and this fuels their desire to co-opt it and take some of that glory for themselves.
But, part of the reason there's so much of this is that creative types are often horrible businesspeople and have no desire to learn. Instead, there is this myth that you get "discovered" and then someone else does the business for you.
Reality: you get "discovered" by a predator. If you don't want to be prey, you have to do it yourself.
Edit: this doesn't mean you have to be a 100% indy do-everything-yourself self-publisher or bootstrapper. But going into things with your eyes open, reading the fine print, and thinking like a businessperson is part of doing it yourself. Businesspeople do go into business with other people and other businesses, but they don't think "wow! I'm getting discovered, now I'm set!" They think "hmm... what's the value proposition here?" and they run spreadsheets and they look for hidden places where they might lose value or not get enough value for their money. Then they push back, and negotiate. Think like this or you get screwed.
Oh, and if it sounds too good to be true it probably is.
I can't believe Courtney Love wrote this. I had a low oppinion of her, but this seems really well written. Also, she's a fan of Neal Stephenson? That quote almost makes me wonder if this were written by some nerd and attributed to her...
...because the wild women of grunge can't possibly have brains too? Disingenuous, my friend. There are famous rockers with PhDs (the guy from green day comes to mind).
I've managed a couple passing conversations while she was staying in SoHo NYC and she definitely has an idea of what she wants out of things but I can't say there wasn't an amount of fakeness to the whole situation (recalling the defamation lawsuit in this case). To her credit, she explains things very well and certainly doesn't give in lightly to things. I guess it takes an extremely determined personality to live her life.
I'm convinced that she knows the record label situation well but it was probably after having the same conversation many times with many other folks in the industry. Still, none of that is necessarily a bad thing nor does it make this a poor piece of writing (regardless of any editors).
(I still find it really satisfying when I google for something I know is true and find myself as the #1 advocate of it on Google -- in this case the search "steve albini courtney love plagiarism")
I think it's incredible how wild woman [1], with so many issues are also very smart, I guess they have too much time in hands to thinker about so many things.
[1] I dated a girl who Coutney Love might as well be her role model... a total disaster, the girl read piles of books, had tons of great ideas, learned math for fun, etc etc etc.
2. Love’s thesis: Through lobbying and collusion, the big labels (she calls them distributors) essentially own artists, which she calls “slaves” and “sharecroppers.” Following, an excerpt from the Sponsorships section.
> When I agreed to allow a large cola company to promote a live show, I couldn't have been more miserable. They screwed up every single thing imaginable. The venue was empty but sold out. There were thousands of people outside who wanted to be there, trying to get tickets. And there were the empty seats the company had purchased for a lump sum and failed to market because they were clueless about music.
> It was really dumb. You had to buy the cola. You had to dial a number. You had to press a bunch of buttons. You had to do all this crap that nobody wanted to do. Why not just bring a can to the [venue] door?
> … They were a condescending bunch of little guys. They treated me like I was an ungrateful little bitch who should be groveling for the experience to play for their damn soda.
> I ended up playing without my shirt on and ordering a six-pack of the rival cola onstage. Also lots of unwholesome cursing and nudity occurred. This way I knew that no matter how tempting the cash was, they'd never do business with me again.
> If you want some little obedient slave content provider, then fine. But I think most musicians don't want to be responsible for your clean-cut, wholesome, all-American, sugar corrosive cancer-causing, all white people, no women allowed sodapop images.
> Nor, on the converse, do we want to be responsible for your vice-inducing, liver-rotting, child-labor-law-violating, all white people, no-women-allowed booze images.
And that may be the least interesting part of the screed.
I do not disagree with Courtney Love that the system is not great for artists but the solution is probably not in the distribution method, or the structure of the financing. It is most likely in solving the cost problem.
If it costs $500,000 to produce a record, like she says it does, that would create limited room for a great number of bands and artist to record. The market size ($s of world wide discretionary income) can only support a certain level of production.
Figuring out how to lowering that number would be far more productive than trying to create the next huge app which helps starving artists with terrible recording quality get their music heard or some other distribution method.
(She also fails to add in concert revenue which may be lucrative for artists)
I think the cost problem has largely been solved. Someone can throw together a DAW for $2 or $3k and start creating really great sounding music following hours of practice. I think most young musicians know about and go this route when they are learning.
The world Courtney Love is from is the old world, where you needed a specialist to do all these different jobs. You needed to pay a producer, engineers, buy studio time (sometimes these are packaged but the more well known the pricier, and acts like Hole use well known outfits), this is what drives costs up. Not to mention marketting, distribution, etc.
In today's world a poor musician who wants to record and distribute his or her music can, and the best of them will be able to demand a price, or merchandise.
This piece is interesting to read 11 years later, amazing how much the distribution question has already changed.
My kids pretty much use Grooveshark, Pandora and iTunes to play music. CDs are only used in the car and even there we frequently use MP3 players. Even though we still have a vinyl record player for my old Blue Note records it's not used very often.
What hasn't changed is the fact that there's a lot more record companies do than distribute the final product. It's pretty clear that the reason these companies have so much power is that they produce and market artists. Without that power the distribution wouldn't be so valuable. Someone still has to pay for studios, producers, designers, publicists, etc. This is particularly true for bands that survive not so much on the musical skill of their members but the overall sound and image.
I have a promising start-up, with several hundred users in specific geographic locations. I will need "$4.6m" to scale, and I want to take out $1m for the cofounders.
In our market, 32,000 such companies launch each year, and of those, only 250 generate more than $200,000 in revenue. Only 30 generate $20m.
What is a fair percentage to offer the VCs?
Yes, I appreciate that there are many differences between bands and start-ups, but if, as she says, only 250 of 32,000 albums sell more than 10,000 units, then this $10m the record company makes from her band must go, in a large part, to cover the costs of funding all the bands that dont make it. Maybe they are still making a handsome profit, but its not as unjust as she makes out.
[+] [-] api|14 years ago|reply
They view creative people the way a miner views a resource in the ground: as something to be strip mined and then discarded. I've encountered raw contempt... in a sense they are jealous of the ability of creative people to be creative, and this fuels their desire to co-opt it and take some of that glory for themselves.
But, part of the reason there's so much of this is that creative types are often horrible businesspeople and have no desire to learn. Instead, there is this myth that you get "discovered" and then someone else does the business for you.
Reality: you get "discovered" by a predator. If you don't want to be prey, you have to do it yourself.
Edit: this doesn't mean you have to be a 100% indy do-everything-yourself self-publisher or bootstrapper. But going into things with your eyes open, reading the fine print, and thinking like a businessperson is part of doing it yourself. Businesspeople do go into business with other people and other businesses, but they don't think "wow! I'm getting discovered, now I'm set!" They think "hmm... what's the value proposition here?" and they run spreadsheets and they look for hidden places where they might lose value or not get enough value for their money. Then they push back, and negotiate. Think like this or you get screwed.
Oh, and if it sounds too good to be true it probably is.
[+] [-] gaius|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] runjake|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] joejohnson|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] WalterBright|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] yid|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] strmpnk|14 years ago|reply
I'm convinced that she knows the record label situation well but it was probably after having the same conversation many times with many other folks in the industry. Still, none of that is necessarily a bad thing nor does it make this a poor piece of writing (regardless of any editors).
[+] [-] rms|14 years ago|reply
(I still find it really satisfying when I google for something I know is true and find myself as the #1 advocate of it on Google -- in this case the search "steve albini courtney love plagiarism")
[+] [-] hezekiah|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] nohat|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] igorgue|14 years ago|reply
[1] I dated a girl who Coutney Love might as well be her role model... a total disaster, the girl read piles of books, had tons of great ideas, learned math for fun, etc etc etc.
[+] [-] alanh|14 years ago|reply
1. Related: Michael Jackson calls head of Sony, his record distributor, a devil. What a video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wt6zVypo72E
2. Love’s thesis: Through lobbying and collusion, the big labels (she calls them distributors) essentially own artists, which she calls “slaves” and “sharecroppers.” Following, an excerpt from the Sponsorships section.
> When I agreed to allow a large cola company to promote a live show, I couldn't have been more miserable. They screwed up every single thing imaginable. The venue was empty but sold out. There were thousands of people outside who wanted to be there, trying to get tickets. And there were the empty seats the company had purchased for a lump sum and failed to market because they were clueless about music.
> It was really dumb. You had to buy the cola. You had to dial a number. You had to press a bunch of buttons. You had to do all this crap that nobody wanted to do. Why not just bring a can to the [venue] door?
> … They were a condescending bunch of little guys. They treated me like I was an ungrateful little bitch who should be groveling for the experience to play for their damn soda.
> I ended up playing without my shirt on and ordering a six-pack of the rival cola onstage. Also lots of unwholesome cursing and nudity occurred. This way I knew that no matter how tempting the cash was, they'd never do business with me again.
> If you want some little obedient slave content provider, then fine. But I think most musicians don't want to be responsible for your clean-cut, wholesome, all-American, sugar corrosive cancer-causing, all white people, no women allowed sodapop images.
> Nor, on the converse, do we want to be responsible for your vice-inducing, liver-rotting, child-labor-law-violating, all white people, no-women-allowed booze images.
And that may be the least interesting part of the screed.
[+] [-] daydream|14 years ago|reply
http://www.negativland.com/albini.html
[+] [-] 9999|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] JacobAldridge|14 years ago|reply
(including a terribly pithy remark from yours truly - who was I 583 days ago??)
[+] [-] wtvanhest|14 years ago|reply
If it costs $500,000 to produce a record, like she says it does, that would create limited room for a great number of bands and artist to record. The market size ($s of world wide discretionary income) can only support a certain level of production.
Figuring out how to lowering that number would be far more productive than trying to create the next huge app which helps starving artists with terrible recording quality get their music heard or some other distribution method.
(She also fails to add in concert revenue which may be lucrative for artists)
[+] [-] zinkem|14 years ago|reply
The world Courtney Love is from is the old world, where you needed a specialist to do all these different jobs. You needed to pay a producer, engineers, buy studio time (sometimes these are packaged but the more well known the pricier, and acts like Hole use well known outfits), this is what drives costs up. Not to mention marketting, distribution, etc.
In today's world a poor musician who wants to record and distribute his or her music can, and the best of them will be able to demand a price, or merchandise.
[+] [-] steve-howard|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] zwieback|14 years ago|reply
My kids pretty much use Grooveshark, Pandora and iTunes to play music. CDs are only used in the car and even there we frequently use MP3 players. Even though we still have a vinyl record player for my old Blue Note records it's not used very often.
What hasn't changed is the fact that there's a lot more record companies do than distribute the final product. It's pretty clear that the reason these companies have so much power is that they produce and market artists. Without that power the distribution wouldn't be so valuable. Someone still has to pay for studios, producers, designers, publicists, etc. This is particularly true for bands that survive not so much on the musical skill of their members but the overall sound and image.
[+] [-] viggity|14 years ago|reply
"Exactly how record companies screw over successful artists [2000]"
would work just as well.
[+] [-] plnewman|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] nate_meurer|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Luyt|14 years ago|reply
Yet, I see many rappers living in multi-million houses and owning Ferrari's etc, in MTV Cribs. Do they do something different?
[+] [-] caf|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] badhairday|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|14 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] danbmil99|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ldar15|14 years ago|reply
In our market, 32,000 such companies launch each year, and of those, only 250 generate more than $200,000 in revenue. Only 30 generate $20m.
What is a fair percentage to offer the VCs?
Yes, I appreciate that there are many differences between bands and start-ups, but if, as she says, only 250 of 32,000 albums sell more than 10,000 units, then this $10m the record company makes from her band must go, in a large part, to cover the costs of funding all the bands that dont make it. Maybe they are still making a handsome profit, but its not as unjust as she makes out.
[+] [-] clobber|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] MostAwesomeDude|14 years ago|reply