Re: OT: Radiohead Proudly Adopts The Castro Music Distribution Model- (FREE) or Donations Only


"Ken Dixon" <nsvmiami@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:%buNi.276$a8.131@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Alex W. wrote:

"Ken Dixon" <nsvmiami@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:MZsNi.228$a8.203@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx



The point is music at the professional level is a business and no
business survives by giving it away so if Metallica wanted to cash in on
years of hard work good for them. If that pisses off the "art should be
free" crowd tough shit. They can make their own art and give it away, to
expect others to do so just to please them is ridiculous.


That argument stands and falls with what exactly is meant by "it". If a
band can make more money by using their music as a loss leader and/or
advertising vehicle for other, more profitable items in a band's product
range, it makes sense to "give away" music. It really is not that
revolutuionary a concept -- telephone companies have been giving away
cellphones for years because they discovered that it's a good way of
luring people into highly lucrative contracts. Not to mention that much
of the internet's commercial side is based on giving the customer free
access to services and information because ite ensures eyeballs and
clickthroughs.

By "it" I mean the music. If the music is only being used to sell
T-shirts and the like then they aren't musicians to begin with, just flea
market hucksters and if that works for them fine, give away the "music".

If I am not mistaken, the Grateful Dead operated quite successfully on a
similar principle, even to the point of encouraging bootleg tapes because
this would translate into ticket sales for their live performances. Surely
they are not flea market hucksters?

Distasteful as it may be to us, at a certain point music becomes a
livelihood for the performers. In the next step, it does become a business.
I am not sure there is much wrong with that as it is up to me, the music
lover, to derive pleasure and meaning from their creation. Thus, millions
of people find a great deal of meaning and pleasure from Country and
Western, whereas I would donate money to any al-Qaeda bomb plot targeting
Nashville. That's not the "fault" of the performers or marketeers but my
own decision.

For me, it only crosses the line when music is used to sell a completely
unrelated product. I absolutely refuse to purchase goods thus advertised,
whether it is soap sold with a little help from the Beatles, Dunlop tyres
sold to the tune of the Velvet Underground, or Pink Floyd helping to shift
more Nurofen.


.

Relevant Pages

  • Re: The Future of Art Music
    ... >> indirectly equated vernacular music and art music. ... >> Most performers display a lack of interest in music being written by ... performers should realize that there are many composers ... >> Many of today's composers emphasize intellectualism and innovation ...
    (rec.music.makers.guitar.acoustic)
  • Ready, or not
    ... what's called loosely early Netherlandish art. ... I think the same is true for music (and perhaps performers) for a lot of ... listening. ... I'd be curious about the pieces (or artists), ...
    (rec.music.opera)
  • 9 Chickweed Lane 2 7 12
    ... Spoiler Alert? ... Now I know that performers in the Art tend to be more comfortable with ... their bodies than most people and that they are more likely to take a ...
    (rec.arts.comics.strips)