Please Self-Release Me, Let Me Go - Progressive Rock Music Forum

stefolof wrote:

Dean wrote:

stefolof wrote:

1. Hasn't it always been this way (and worse)? Was it easier for Bach 300 years ago to make his works stand the test of time?

Well, since we know his works some 300 years later I would answer yes to that. The recording medium he used was not as volatile - the written manuscripts have survived and the Well-Tempered Clavier is still in print (ISBN-13: 978-1854726544). Also, even though his music (and Baroque in general) went out of favour soon after his death, but less than 50 years later the composers of the Classical period (Mozart, Beethoven, Mendelssohn etc) were all "fans" because his manuscripts were still accessible to them.

Just because a medium itself is less volatile doesn't necessarily allow for better persistence of information. Digital has the obvious advantages of near instant, non-degrading and free replication and distribution. What if someone had accidentally burned the original manuscripts for Well-Tempered Clavier before they were copied? If Bach had been living today he could just have upload backups of it to three different servers and with almost no effort be very safe.

I'm pretty sure that, over the centuries, there are a few great works that have vanished forever because there were no backups.

I'm sure there are too, but I think we are wandering away from the topic a little and delving into the realms of pure speculation (interesting though it is). However, "off-site" backup storage isn't that safe, nor is it guaranteed. As we have discussed, the internet is in a state of continual flux and ever evolving, servers and services disappear overnight and electronic media is not future-proof. We can still read 300 year old manuscripts and we can still read the Rosetta Stone and Egyptian hieroglyphs - no one can make that claim for electronic media - if all Prog albums of the 70s were only ever recorded on 8-track cartridge this forum would not exist today, so relying on multi-server backups to save today's music is risky to say the least.

stefolof wrote:

Dean wrote:

stefolof wrote:

2. So what if music disappears. If no one is interested, is that such a bad thing? Isn't this cleansing mechanism, in fact, an answer to your first post?

This cleansing method would be arbitrary and non-selective and not quite what I had in mind. Having no one is interested in the music does not mean it is poor music, we could lose the world's greatest album of all time by that method simply because the artist was not very good at promoting himself and still praise the most generic piece of rubbish ever produced as being magnificent just because we believed the word-of-mouth hype, much of which was fabricated by payola, fake street teams, spamming and clever marketting.

I hear you. But instead of attributing this problem to technology - digital distribution - I attribute it to economy - the current monetary system - where "loudest is king". I've said it before, take away the money from this business and you take away the noise.

Or do you? If you are giving your music away for free don't you still want to reach as many people as you possibly can? You still have to promote your album - you still have to create a noise. Word-of-mouth is a promotional tool, it is social engineering, just as hyping the album on a public forum is - several levels down the line people will not be able to tell the difference between a genuine buzz and a fabricated one because they will look, taste and smell the same. The only way we can tell the difference at the moment is because the professionals do it better than the amateurs. Even without the lure of cash - the loudest will still be king.

If you take away the money from the direct product then the "industry" will make its money from indirect products, from merchandise and from ticket sales. The album is then reduced to being a mere advertisement - just another promotional item.

stefolof wrote:

Dean wrote:

stefolof wrote:

Sometime ago, I saw an interesting talk by Jimmy Wales who's the founder of Wikipedia. WP is run by a number of enthusiast. He often gets asked how they maintain the integrity of the site when practically anyone can edit it. The answer is that there's enough users who are serious and active in keeping it clean. They believe in it. The analogy to what we're discussing here is that, I think if music is good enough, it will stand the test of time because it will be kept alive by people. The media it is stored on is less important.

Wikipedia is unique in that poor articles, plagiarisms and acts of vandalism disappear very quickly because of the way in which the hierarchy of editors work within the system. The method forces a professional approach in the writers and an acceptable quality standard in both how they write and factual accuracy of what they write. Entries get constantly amended, updated and re-written - each wikipedia entry is a work in progress.

... in self-released music you don't get that - the music is presented as a finished work, and is accepted or discarded "as is" - there is no peer review or team of editors correcting and amending it. If some of the album is good and some is bad then that is how it stays.

And that's why music craves voluntarism. We're currently watching an industry that is milking the last drops of a musical landscape that is so watered down it's not even funny. The only way forward, in my opinion, is to rid music of business.

It sounds ideal and I would certainly support it, as a socialist I can think of nothing better than removing the entire entertainment industry from the economic environment and seeing all those who derive a living from it getting proper jobs. After all, it's not as if writing music is difficult or even hard work, in fact of all the "arts" I've dabbled in it's by far the easiest thing I've ever done, though being any good at it is another issue...

and that's the crunch... we are willing to pay for what we think is good, we are happy to buy a piece of music that has value to us personally and is by an artist we admire, that's why music sells and that's why the industry exists.

However, I do not believe that is possible to rid music of business, nor do I believe it is the true desire of all artists. I think many artists like their lifestyles, they like their fame and they crave the recognition and adulation that goes with it, and there are many more aspiring artist behind them who want that. The industry will exist to feed those egos and to feed off of them, they will profit from the changing landscape that the digital age creates by one means or another. If they cannot control access to the material then they will control some other aspect and profit from that instead.

Sony entered into the "software" end of the music industry by buying CBS, ATV, BMG, UA etc. because they lost the VHS/BetaMax "hardware" war and had no intention of losing the CD, DVD and Blu-ray wars - Apple could not do this due to a legal restriction imposed on them by Apple Corps so they created iTunes to ensure that the iPod had a ready supply of "software" - if the Entertainment Industry wants to control the distribution and access of their products via the Internet then they will find a way - if I was a Multinational Corporation I would not target piffling little dot-coms and ISPs, or go for anything that could be bypassed or overcome by smart programmers (such as DRM) or employ any legal restrictions that required an army of lawyers to manage - I would go for the underlying infrastructure that the whole Internet is reliant upon - the Internet backbone and the Tier 1/Tier 2 networks, and I would not need to buy into all of it - just key areas - because regardless of the format the internet takes in the future it will still have to go through the backbone.

What we could end up with is a two tier system - the professional and the amateur - and the demarcation between them will be far wider than anything we have ever seen in the past - no more semi-pros, no more pro-am - getting an unsigned band on even one gig of a pro tour was extremely difficult in the past, in the future it will be completely impossible - the pro circuit will be a closed shop. The division between signed and unsigned will be so wide it will be difficult to see them as being the same art-form. This could be "a good thing", I'm not convinced, but it could be.

Edited by Dean - February 15 2010 at 18:48

What?

The consequence of this is simple - if something costs more it must be worth more, if you have to pay more it must be better. People buy bottled water because they think that by paying extra for something they are getting a better product, however the value of that water does not diminish if they can get a two-for-one deal. That's a win-win deal - the same worth for less bucks.

The problems start with something like Dasani ...

If you've never heard of the marketting disaster of this Coca Cola branded bottled water in the UK, you have to read this >here<

People buy bottled water, but they are not mugs - they know what things are worth and are willing to pay the price, but if the product is bogus it is actually worth less to them than tap water and they won't buy it.

Edited by Dean - February 15 2010 at 16:10

What?

*chuckles* or let the bottled water vendors sell music ;-)

Hmmm....would advertising -on- bottled water bottles be a concept?

Edited by Windhawk - February 15 2010 at 15:41

Websites I work with:

http://www.progressor.net
http://www.houseofprog.com

My profile on Mixcloud:
https://www.mixcloud.com/haukevind/

Any more calls for the sale of bottled water (in recent years) as a luxury phenomenon similar to selling ice to the eskimoes as a controversial opinion?

If not - return to the topic at hand ;-)

Edited by Windhawk - February 15 2010 at 14:49

Websites I work with:

http://www.progressor.net
http://www.houseofprog.com

My profile on Mixcloud:
https://www.mixcloud.com/haukevind/

To add to the sidetrack - from Wikipedia on bottled water: "The global bottled water market valuation grew by 7% in 2006 to reach a value of $60,938.1 million. The volume of bottled water grew by 8.1% in 2006 to 115,393.5 million liters. In 2011, the market is forecast to have a value of $86,421.2 million, an increase of 41.8% since 2006. In 2011, the market is forecast to have a volume of 174,286.6 million liters, an increase of 51% since 2006"

Two articles - here and here - might be worth reading.

Websites I work with:

http://www.progressor.net
http://www.houseofprog.com

My profile on Mixcloud:
https://www.mixcloud.com/haukevind/

harmonium.ro wrote:

Windhawk wrote:

Well, there are people making millions out of selling bottled water, which is a proff that just about anything is possible. When people are willing to pay for a commodity they can get for free in their own homes, it should be possible to sell people something they can't get for free as well.

Why do you assume that? Do you think everybody has great tasting water at home?

Our water tastes like stale flowers.

Seriously, the water in central Florida has such a distinct aroma it even permeates homes.

https://epignosis.bandcamp.com/album/a-month-of-sundays

Well, there are people making millions out of selling bottled water, which is a proff that just about anything is possible. When people are willing to pay for a commodity they can get for free in their own homes, it should be possible to sell people something they can't get for free as well.

It's a matter of finding the right channel though. The right way to market it, the right place to market it, the right people to market it too.

Of course - in the music business there is that additional factor called competition to add to the formula.

A concept that might be worthwhile pursuing by someone, is some kind of subscription system. Let's say that you paid 15 bucks plus a fixed postage each month to get a CD in the post. You get an email monthly with links to - say - 5 mp3's by 5 different artists. Monthly selected choices. You can listen to 30 seconds samples or complete songs, and make a purchasing decision after listening. Direct link in the email. Also with links to MySpace pages, for those who'd like to check out further before deciding.

If none of them are to your liking, you can log in to a website and make a selection from a catalogue there instead.

Those that don't make any choice will be sent one specific highlighted CD.

Is that something that people might find interesting I wonder?

It's an age old concept, but by using emails and direct links - as well as a webpage and being approachable on various social networks like Facebook, Twitter etc. for eace of accesibility - could this ancient way of doing business be viable?

Of course - in this day and age there wouldn't be a need for a central unit to have all CDs and stuff there and then. Individual artists could sign up to become a part of this system, paying a fixed amount (1 dollar perhaps) on each sale they get through this system. And send out any ordered CDs themselves or through whatever cooperating partners they have set up to handle the biz part of their affairs.

Oh - signing up for a digital only system should be an option as well in such a system. The CD is fast approaching the end of it's life cycle after all.

Just an idea - perhaps a tad out of place inside this discussion - but thought to get it out now before the teflon in my brain covered it again ;-)

Websites I work with:

http://www.progressor.net
http://www.houseofprog.com

My profile on Mixcloud:
https://www.mixcloud.com/haukevind/

^ But if we rid music of business, then what will happen to those of us who make our living through music. Is it wrong to want to make your living through music?
Should the local symphony orchestra play for free and not pay their musicians?
Should Jeff Beck fix cars for a living?
Should the store where I pick up sheet music for students repent and give away all of their music and confess that they used to expect something in return for their work?

In the case of the orchestra, once the musicians who were expecting to be paid quit, we can replace them with musicians who will play for free, I'm sure there will be a huge improvement in performance skills.

Edited by Easy Money - February 15 2010 at 10:42

^ I remember when I was kid growing up in tropical Florida, you could roam through woods, swamps and fields for miles in any direction and hunt for snakes or whatever, (brushes back one tear), but all that's gone now.

Good point Dean, I'll try to enjoy it while it lasts. Ebay sure was fun when it first opened, scored some amazing stuff for cheap, I wouldn't touch it now except as a reference to look up prices on completed items.

P.S. on a related subject: Keep paper money alive and use it as much as possible.
Demand non-electronic voting that produces a traceable paper trail.
Sorry to change the subject and sound paranoid, but it is somewhat related to things mentioned earlier.

Edited by Easy Money - February 13 2010 at 16:56

Dean wrote:

In the past 20 years we have seen the number of TV channels increase but the actual original content decrease. Bandwidth is increasing but pot of cash to fund it and the revenue to sustain it is not increasing by the same ratio. In the world of TV shows get cancelled because they don't achieve the right Nielsen ratings which means they are not pulling in enough viewers to please the advertisers. The same thing will happen to the Internet, just by a different mechanism and route. There is no reason to advertise something if no one is buying.

But those channels run such wonderful informercials when you're up late at night and can't sleep. Tongue

(Thank God for Cartoon Network's Adult Swim.)

With regards to advertising, it seems more about trying to influence people's buying than to reach those who already are. Case in point, the Snuggie, Consumer Reports says it's a piece of crap and why can't you just put your robe on backwards for crying out loud?

Back to the topic of self releasing, that sounds a little bit too much like a euphemism for masturbating. And maybe that gets back to original point, it may feel good, but ultimately you'll usually just be enjoying yourself alone.

To harmonium's point above, I couldn't agree with you more. The internet took off like it did precisely because it didn't have those kind of monetary constrictions on what you could access.

Edited by Slartibartfast - February 13 2010 at 07:16

Released date are often when it it impacted you but recorded dates are when it really happened...