I give Nickelback a lot of crap, I know. I also know that 3.7 gazillion people love that band. I hold up acts like Nickelback and Miley Cyrus as shining examples of boring, tepid major label waste product (which they are). Is it because they’re not edgy enough for me? No, there are plenty of bands that are edgy to the point where I can’t listen to them. The entire punk genre, for example, or some of Ben Folds‘ earlier work. Just because something is too misshapen to fit in the focus-group approval box doesn’t mean it’s good either.

I propose that music is like any other recipe; there are main ingredients and there are accents. A plain lump of chicken breast (Nickelback) is not, by itself, a meal. If all you ate were plain chicken breasts your taste buds would most likely atrophy and fall off your tongue. On the other hand, a diet consisting entirely of black peppercorns (punk) would burn your mouth and leave you starving to death.

This, I believe, is an oversight on the part of most major labels and some indie artists. So that mellow, 90-bpm rock song sold 20 million round discs. It’s a good cut of meat, sure, but it’s only one part of the meal. You don’t want the entire album (or the band’s entire catalog) to sound like that one market-ready radio-friendly überhit ’cause the fans will get bored.

Here’s a secret: The artists will too. Most artists (songwriters at least) have a diverse range of output. This is what drives guys like Garth Brooks to become Chris Gaines or George Carlin to be Mr. Conductor. An artist’s output should reflect their humanity as a whole, not just the radio-friendly side or the dirty underground side. An album, especially, should sound like a well-balanced meal tastes.

If you don’t believe me, open up a restaurant that serves only unflavored pasta and chicken. Let me know how that goes for you.

I’m sitting in the Nashville International Airport waiting for a giant metal bird to take me home for Christmas. In the mean time, I caught this gem of a post by my friend Chris Penn. Here’s a clip:

Music industry – the lesson is not that free will always win. EASY will always win. I could rip this track for free by breaking the DRM and converting to an MP3, but that�s 10 minutes of my day I can spend doing something else (like blogging about it). That would be free, but I want easy. I value my time more than my money, because I can always make money, but my lifespan is finite and irreplaceable.
-It’s Not Easy Being Legal

The larger implications of his post are debated on his site (which I recommend you check out, it’s a good read), but that paragraph in particular really resonated. I’m the kind of guy who will look on iTunes for a track, then go steal it if it ain’t there. I don’t buy CD’s unless I’m at a live concert, and if a label is too stupid to get their music on iTunes (especially here in the US), they’ve told me that they don’t want my money.

I also try and live this philosophy- I’ve got all my selling albums on (even though Goodbye Planet Earth isn’t listed yet), on CD Baby as both a disc and MP3 download, and on MySpace. I want to make it as easy as possible for people to buy my music legitimately.

To be honest, I’m kind of glad the major labels aren’t jumping on this with both feet. It puts us independents a step ahead.