Where Are The Musicians?

Tue, 11/13/2007 at 4:09 pm | Comment Feed | Trackback | Leave A Comment...

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A lot of people are talking about how the music industry will survive, implode, reinvent itself, or give in to oppressive overlords (RIAA anyone?). This is great, I’m glad so many people care about us entertainers and the people that represent us. Just one problem… Where the hell are the musicians?

I’ve noticed a disturbing trend (no, not that disturbing trend, another one) in discussions of where the music industry is headed: Seldom does anyone bother to ask the musicians. You would think that if people were discussing the future of agriculture, they’d have a farmer or two on their panel. It just makes sense when discussing the industry and the business to involve the people actually making the product.

A few specific examples…

Culprit #1: Leo Laporte. Or, more specifically, This Week in Tech (TWiT). I am a regular listener to both TWiT and MacBreak Weekly, tuning in to every episode. For months now I’ve been listening to Leo and friends talk about how “CD’s are dead” and how the recording industry is spiraling out of control… yet not once have they ever brought an actual musician onto either show for some perspective.

Hello, Leo? It’s Matthew. I’m a new media geek, a Mac user, and a musician. Call me.

Culprit #2: The “Podcasting and the Music Industry” panel at PodCamp Boston 2. The panel lineup from the official schedule:

Ariel Hyatt of Ariel Publicity. Other panelists will include Adam Lewis of the Planetary Group, Kevin Greenstein of Bandletter, Matthew Wilkening of What Are Records.

My pal CC Chapman also got drafted onto that panel as well. Looks like an impressive lineup… except for no musicians whatsoever. I sat in the back and bit my tongue through most of the panel since I knew if I started talking I’d take up most of the panel’s time. They seemed like really earnest people committed to the music business, but not one of them was a touring act. I even heard them give the “CD’s are dead” argument as well.

Clue-by-four, people… Fans will always want something autographed at a concert. If not CD’s, then what? You can’t sign an iPod, and people aren’t as likely to buy an 8×10 photo.

Culprit #3: SLCC. Old story, but if they’d have involved actual musicians in the pre-game process, they could’ve avoided the PR nightmare they got themselves into.

The moral of this story is simple: Don’t purport to cover the music industry unless you’re involving the people actually making the product. We’ve got valid viewpoints, and we see things that the rest of the music industry doesn’t. Invite us to the conversation, otherwise you’re not covering the complete story.

Note: Leo, I’m serious. You don’t answer email, so I tagged your name about fifty times in this post so you’d catch it. Call me next time you plan on talking about the music industry.

Matthew Ebel

Matthew W-

Thanks for joining the discussion! As was mentioned earlier, this isn't a discussion only about CD's but about perspective. I, as an environmentalist and a geek, am happy to see round pieces of plastic take the back seat to downloaded media. You must have read someone else's blog if you think anyone was advocating going "back to CD's".

Can you, however, come up with another means of selling music in a bar? Something the artist can put her name on?

However- and this is where the discussion was intended to be -not one of these panels I've seen so far has ever asked a real working musician for their input. Labels, PR, podcasters, radio, etc, but not one musician so far has been invited.

You didn't form the panel at PCB2, so don't take this personally, but hopefully if you have the opportunity to host one in the future, you'll remember someone who's actually making the stuff people are buying! :)

Matthew Wilkening

I'm not decreeing that CDs must go. I'm stating that we're selling more and more digital downloads and less CDs, and that the cost of getting those CDs into stores is harder and harder to afford for smaller labels as stores disappear or reduce shelf space. Where would you spend your energy? Telling people they're wrong and they need to go back to CDs?

Tora Kiyoshi

I have no iTunes. I use quicktime only with reluctance. And I had a nightmare the other night about using an iPhone. I'll take the CDs, thankyouverymuch.

But seriously, the greatest benefit of CDs is that they survive random EMPs (like a power surge) and have a sort of permanence that iTunes and other mp3 formats do not. Sure, it's a lot easier to load up my playlist and listen to a hundred different artists at once, but CDs have a portability that my hard drive does not, and why would I want to spend hundreds of dollars on a player, when everyone has a CD player and I can take my disks with me just as easily?

Besides, in three or four days, I'm going to have not one, but TWO albums signed by none other than Matthew Ebel! Have you heard of him? He's a great artist.... *Grins*

Have the best

-=Kiyoshi

Matthew Ebel

Christopher-

Well I can actually foresee music stores offering HIGHER quality downloads than CD's in the near future. As digital music does take a larger role, people will look beyond the 44.1khz 16-bit quality.

Heck, even Garage Band records in 24-bit now, assuming the hardware can handle it. So the digital distribution may someday be a better product than the CD's we know today... but replace that with the next physical medium (DVD? HD-DVD? Keychain?) and you've got yourself the same problem at 96khz, 24-bit.

Christopher S. Penn

Well, you -can- sign an iPod, it's just not the same. Fans will continue to buy CDs for two reasons:

1. The ardent fans buy them as tangible symbols of their support and love for the musician. I think either you or Mitch Joel called them totems of support.

2. The data nerds like me will always buy CDs because hard drives crash, backups fail, and that round piece of plastic usually comes at a higher quality bit rate than a download from X Music Store.

coke

... don't worry: while the music industry is busy with itself, the musicians have enough time to leave the sinking ship...

;-)
- Coke

reader

I'm glad some people are talking about this.
The Industry is going to HAVE to change. For better or worse. It has only really existed for the last century. I'm worried a bit for musicians and writers, but they will likely adapt. Distribution and Management is what is chan ging the most.

A century ago, to make money in music you had to write or perform. Management and Distribution goods bearing music allowed the Industry to exist. Now that (unfortunately) most people no longer care about a physical product, chances are that music will return to something very near to its previous historical state, where performers make money for performing (in person) and from some avenues of distribution where people can be trusted to offfer money for a copy of their performance. And writers will still make money for their services.

But there will be far less room for chaff, like heavy management and related services (like RIAA). So RIAA and the like are furiously flapping their arms to stay afloat and scam all the funds they can for themselves before their inevitable death.

It isn't a very happy thing in the big picture, especially coming to grips with the reality about what people think about music itself. There will be less money to go around than in the last century, ....but I guess at least one comforting thing is that (hopefully) more will go to the performers and writers again, which is essentially what music is about as a true industry.

At the root of it, we need to find a way to inculcate society of the value of music, and remind people what is important.. that people should appreciate the source of music they love by letting the artists reap the income of their works. There is a terrific article in a recent Newsweek (October 29th issue, page 20) called "How much is music worth?" The most painful yet true quotes in the article are, "Music is the source of incalculable pleasure for millions of people, but yet many have concluded that one needn't pay for it. Musicians have worked hard to craft tunes people love, yet hundreds of thousands have looked their musical heroes in the eye, snatched the goods and left the collection plate empty."

It's heartbreaking, but we can't let it beat us down. We have to remember that there ARE good and appreciative people out there. We can still give, and hopefully the amount of appreciation we get back will be enough to keep us inspired, and fed.

Zack "The Mothman" Daggy

Ok, I'm pulling the nostalgia card. I don't know about you but I love the feeling of going through a family members old record/tape/CD collection. For some this family member is a parent or grandparent. For me it was my older siblings. Being able to see their albums, ticket stubs, and autographs allowed us to pickup the conversation about these bands years after the events they represented had past. They created a bridge between a generation gap. During family get togethers we're always talking about the latest artists we're listening to. Music and the history of our tastes has been one of the was we've bonded as brothers and sisters. (Cue violin music)

So I suppose I'm a bit worried for the "iPod Generation." Individuals like myself and many others are able connect to family members through these plastic and vinyl relics of music from yesteryear. I simply cannot see how the same feelings invoked by this could be recaptured in digital form. Call me a sentimentalist, but generations from now I want to hear the sound of grandchildren going through Papa Mothman's plastic collection.

Matthew Ebel

Bear in mind, of course, that this isn't just about the future of CD's. I used that as an example- Jim cited a few more examples (many of which I've run into... a set of Bose computer speakers is NOT a PA system).

What needs to happen isn't emailing a bunch of people on specific issues, just reminding them to involve the musicians in the conversation. The musicians, after all, are the people most closely connected with the fans whose technology and taste drive the market.

Rich

Matt says things out loud that I sometimes think about. And then, I've shouted my comments time and again to people that step on the soapbox stating they are "supporting musicians". They often don't have a clue about what it is the proclaim to be supporting. Or... they don't have a clue about what it is they claim to be "reporting."

I agree with Jim. Let's ALL (musicians) get together and start messaging/communicating to those persons that are doing what Matthew has identified. Perhaps if we build a "coalition of concern" we can get them to start asking us what we want/think.