Money & Music: Who should pay?

This is the big blog of my self-righteous rant/expression-of-my-probably-biased-but-I-hope-not views that I’ve been dreading to write because it divides people and makes someone the bad guy. I know not everyone will see it the same way I do, but I must get it off my chest.

That said, I must admit, that when it comes to this debate about music, file-sharing and copyright, I lose heart. I understand the poor kid that wants to hear everyone’s music, but can’t afford to pay for the songs. I’m that kid. On the other hand, I also understand the poor artist that wants everyone to hear his music, but can’t afford to give away his songs. I’m also that kid. It hurts to shell out $15 bucks for a CD of an artist you really like, but it’s your choice to pay or not. Likewise, it also hurts to give away (or to have taken away) the sale of music that cost you so much time to write, arrange, record, replicate, distribute and promote. You’re powerless. If someone wants to take it, they can just take it and the artist doesn’t have to be compensated.

I’ve heard many of the arguments from both sides and recognize that yesterday’s music business model is going the way of the buffalo. To be honest, I’m more than happy to see most of it go. There’s a lot of jacked up stuff that gets in the way of good music, but the uncertainty of the future and the attitudes of some of the more vocal spokesmen on both sides, leave me quite nervous. There are many thoughts I would like to articulate, but I’ll attempt to provide you (free of charge!) an overview of my views regarding this complicated industry.

First, the monsters that most everyone would like to see slaughtered: the record labels. I am not signed and from what I’ve found out, I don’t believe I want to be signed unless the Right Deal* comes along. I’ve read enough about labels to know they truly are offering the musician a credit card at 70% interest which he/she has no control over the spending. It rarely ever works out for the signed artist, so it’s nice to see “the machine” (that Pink Floyd so appropriately villianized on their “Wish You Were Here” album) being dismantled. “Getting signed” to a typical “record deal” means waiving your rights to ownership of your songs, control over your image, and hope for your future unless you somehow manage to reach the elusive and rare “superstar” status. If and when you reach that point, you may be able to negotiate a deal in which you buy your songs, rights and freedoms back from the label at ridiculous rates. Does this remind anyone of slavery?

There are those valiant consumers of music, who, in good conscience, cannot stand to see another artist screwed over by the same old tricks of the label and want to do something about it. Who wouldn’t want to stick it to such a deserving man? And so the “good conscience consumer” gets his jab at “the man,” while still “showing support for the artist,” by ripping their friends’ CD’s and freely sharing their iTunes library. The problem is, it’s hard, if not nearly impossible, to screw the label and not hurt the artist. If the artist doesn’t sell albums and songs, the label will drop the artist – or worse yet – bind them indefinitely to a contract and force them to alter their sound to something that promises a better financial return (read: sell out / lose focus / turn the “suck” knob up).

So labels are all bad, right?

Sort of. But the flip side of this coin is that without a label, most artists (save for the spoiled little rich brat for whom daddy foots the bill) are not able to survive the tumultuous years of touring for little-to-no money (and sometimes even paying to play), nor ante up the cash for promotions and exposure, nor give away their music for free because it cost thousands of dollars to record and produce.

I recently spent several grand to record and replicate my first solo EP called “Somewhere Between Nicaragua & New York.” I’ll repeat that – several grand. That’s thousands of dollars for an EP, of which a good majority of them will be given away as promotion. Those I do sell are must be priced so that people are encouraged to buy instead of rip, so there’s very little hope of recouping what it cost me to make them. I did manage to cut my costs tremendously by doing my own producing, design work, website, playing almost all of the instruments myself and trading my design services. I figure that I saved myself somewhere around $3-5K on my project. For those independent artists that must outsource everything, the cost of making a CD racks up quickly and much higher. It’s expensive to make a CD – a good one at least!

There is no option to not record, as songs are the wheels of the music vehicle. So, to offset expenses, most artists – indie and signed alike – must have multiple streams of revenue (merch sales, ticket sales, tips, other jobs and on rare occasion royalties), of which merchandise is usually the largest stream. Most venues, while not willing to put up with your “original crap,” thus forcing you to sneak your songs in between tired covers of Brown Eyed Girl and Freebird, pay you squat to entertain their patrons and some even charge you to play their venue, as if it’s a hardship for them to have you bring your fans in and buy beer from their fine establishment. As Metallica put it: “Sad but true.” Most bands merely hope to impress just a few rare souls enough to sell them a CD and maybe a tee shirt or two to help pay for gas to get to the next venue. Many run out of cash while on the road. And things aren’t getting any better, in fact, the many streams of income are running dry.

“Big deal!” some people are saying. “You’ve sold your recordings for a long time, but times are changing and that’s not going to work for you anymore.” They propose that musicians find new ways to bring in revenue. They cite examples of how actors, athletes and other public figures are turning to endorsements and marketing campaigns to supplement their incomes and suggest that we, the musicians, must do the same, because consumers no longer want to pay for our work.

Stop right there.

The proposal is to stop selling what you actually sell, whore yourself out to media and marketing companies to sell unrelated products, so that you may give away what you intended to sell in the first place. Now, I may be wrong, but as a society of honest folk, haven’t we established that we hate that? Don’t we buy our TiVo’s so we can skip the commercials – the very things that are paying for us to be able to view the content we really love? Don’t we hate when our celebs lower their ethical standards and emblazon a new perfume, clothing line, car, or widget with their name? Aren’t we, the democratically-minded citizens of a new and better world opposed to the exploitation of true art by big business? Don’t we lose faith in the noble pursuit of original expression and the artistic credibility of our creative minds when such “partnering” occurs? Or is it just me? Am I the only one disappointed by this? Because if not, we’re essentially asking for more areas of our lives to be inundated with advertising, marketing and branding.

So anyway… All of these difficult decisions are what musicians face every day. Granted, this mountain of challenging problems does help to root out the weak, the less talented, and those not fully committed to their craft; hardship separates the men from the boys, so to speak. But when survival is on the line, no amount of musical skill will put bread on the table without connections and resources to exploit that talent.

Thus, the dilemma.

Sell out or stay true? Keep going or give up? Believe in your gift or admit your delusion? Forsake food, family and friends or resign your talent for a life more certain? Pursue honorable avenues to release your music or lie, cheat and steal your way to the top? This is the internal debate of every musician; the struggle within ourselves. In the end, only the rich, ruthless, compromising and lucky survive for anyone to hear the their music.

“All across America, and increasingly, the world, people stand in line at their local Starbuck’s and happily pay anywhere from $1.70 for a shot of espresso to four bucks for the more complex caramel frappawhatever thingies. It’s not uncommon to fork out fifty bucks a month for high speed internet access, and around the same amount for cable TV. People pay four bucks to rent a new release DVD at the local Blockbuster or Hollywood Video. A pack of cigarettes can go anywhere from four to nine dollars, depending on where you live.

Yet, increasingly, no one wants to pay for music, especially the recorded kind. CDs are quickly becoming relics destined to join cassettes, eight-tracks and vinyl in the tech museum. I don’t listen to CDs much anymore, my iPod is much easier; everything is already there, ready to listen to on the slightest whim.”

– quote from mamborama.com

Currently, iTunes tells me that I have 1.6 days of music on my laptop. This is not my entire collection of music. I have hundreds of CD’s at home that I haven’t loaded onto my computer yet, which I estimate would put me somewhere in the 10.5 days ballpark. But even without all that, the nearly 2 solid days of music that’s on my laptop is more than I really listen to on a regular basis. I know people, several in fact, that are actively downloading as many songs (and now movies) as possible; it’s what they do in their free time. They don’t listen to much of what they download, or really any of it, because they’re too preoccupied with downloading more. The music merely serves as background tracks to the more important task at hand: acquisition of more 3-6mb files. I know not everyone is this addicted to their peer-to-peer network, but most people have more music than they’ll ever listen to. An appropriate analogy here might look like this:

You’re hungry. You need groceries. You go to the grocery store, pick up the few items you need for the week and can reasonably eat before it goes bad. As you get to the checkout line, you realize that instead of paying for it, you could instead go around back to the loading dock, load up a semi trailer full of food and drive home without paying for any of your truckload of groceries. Theft. Overkill. Waste.

My point is, don’t feel like you have to own every song on every album from every artist that’s ever lived. I know there’s pressure to be hip musically, to stay “in the know” about every new artist, to be the first to hear of that great new upandcomer, but the pressure is peer pressure (which is just #*@%ing stupid) and the pursuit is in vain. The truth is I have a limited budget for music and I’m assuming you do too. There’s no shame in that. Pick your battles. Buy the albums that you really want. Support the artists you really love. If you can’t afford the whole album, go online and buy just the song or songs you really want as you can afford them – that’s so easy now with things like iTunes. This way you get the songs you want and the artists still get paid, thus continuing the sustainable cycle of production and consumption. (Which btw, this is a very “green” and responsible concept. Really quite trendy too.) It may take time to get what you want, but so does everything that’s worth having. Learn to value – nay, treasure – the intellectual property that’s so readily available to you (never has there been more accessible to you in all of history!), instead of becoming a virtual warehouse for lo-grade mp3′s. Classic Quality vs. Quantity.

I know all of this is very messed up right now and, believe me, I want to find a better way, a way in which the artist and the listener are both satisfied. I wish that in reality it could cost less to buy instruments, to record songs, to replicate cds, to distribute music, to tour, to promote, to survive. I wish I could give away all my music all the time, but I can’t afford to – literally. I wish money were not part of the equation. But the equation still stands stiff and true, for both the artist and the listener: No money = no music. It costs somebody, somewhere, something. Ain’t no meal for free.

Support your favorite artists. If you want to hear covers, support the actual guy who wrote it, not the guy who’s forced to play it. Support that “original crap” – in fact, demand it. Buy their records. Buy copies to give to your friends. Buy the t-shirts too. Wear them. Pay to see shows. Buy drinks while at the show (if you don’t drink, soda and appetizers count too). Tell the venue you loved having the artist there and want to see them back. Promote the artist on your MySpace/Facebook/Blog. Every little thing you do makes a big difference to the artist. Without your support, your favorite artists won’t make it.

I want to thank you for taking the time to read my thoughts. I’d love to hear yours.

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*So you caught the asterisk! Good eye. Here is my idea of the Right Deal: I’m the artist. You’re the label. We coexist in a rewarding and beautiful symbiosis. I write the songs and provide the vision for my music. You provide insight, resources, connections, distribution and promotion. If I need something, I ask you. If you need something, you ask me. We talk. No demands, threats, backstabbing, or undercutting. No lying, cheating, stealing, or underhandedness. No mind games, power trips, raw deals, legal battles, or switch and bait tactics. Everyone behaves honorably and with respect to one another. We all benefit – emotionally, socially, musically, and financially – and through our hard work, the world becomes a better place. It’s all a very nice thing. That’s the deal I’m looking for. In the mean time, I’ll can be found playing music out there on the road with the much needed and even more appreciated help of my family, friends and fans. Thank you!

Currently listening:

Steal This Album By System of a Down
Release date: 26 November, 2002

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