http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s5cwDwJELYA

I mostly agree with larue. I’m a consumer, with eclectic tastes. The best music store in Halifax, Sam the Record Man, closed recently, and the chain is mostly shut down across the country. I used to drop in every few weeks, but when my taste became too specialized, Sam’s couldn’t respond. I’d order a CD thru Sam’s, and four months later, they’d get it in. I went to Amazon, and I’d typically have it within a week or two. While the stores were in the process of dying, the price of CDs dropped by about 1/3. I think you’ll agree, the consumer was being ripped off – buy three, get one free? Never heard of it.

Anyone with any thoughts on used CD sellers?

I love internet radio, but I haven’t found the variety of stations – yet – that meet my interests. Just yesterday, I bought my first MP3 player, a 30GB iPod, and I suspect I should have gone 80GB.

I can’t get all my music through concerts, because Halifax/Nova Scotia is too far off the beaten path. How often does e.g. Chava Alberstein come to N America, let alone Canada, and NS never. And Kate Rusby doesn’t fly, and, and, and…

I could buy through the artist websites, but jeez, we’re paying a lot for shipping, and I suspect it’s labour intensive at the artist’s end. However, I’ll do that for special artists, e.g. Kimmie Rhodes.

I suggest an Amazon equivalent, let’s call it Euterpe. Euterpe deals with the artists and the customers, using a model like Amazon’s. I’d suggest though, that they develop a browse environment experience for the customer, 5 parts internet radio, 5 parts the old record store, 3 parts Amazon.

Let’s face it, the buying market largely consists of people who have computers, so they have access to Amazon, internet radio, and P2P sites if they’re so inclined. The artists are similarly situated. However the market develops, this is the reality, and I hope things evolve towards more accessible customer choice. For the consumer and artist’s sake, let’s save internet radio.

PS Trivia question. Name an album where the tracks are sequenced alphabetically. Just noticed my answer today.

. . . I support buying cd’s as directly from the artist as possible and word of mouth marketing. I have as little to do with the “music industry” as possible. I don’t support the celebrity part of it at all.

That’s were my music money goes these days.

MYRTLE!!! IN DAH HOUSE!!!
Before I showed up!

Nice rant gal . . . works for me.

You need to shout out more in here. *G*

“people who give artists like lars ulrich shit for condemning napster don’t get what should be completely obvious. . . . . . .
if ten thousand people download it for free and five hundred buy a copy over a few months, am i really worse off than if nobody has access to it except through obscure college radio and gigging, but i sell five hundred copies over a few years? i’m looking forward to see what comes down the toobs next. cheers donita!

PRETTY SHAVED APE JOHNSON IS RIGHT!!!

Seriously, nice to hear from a player about a player’s issues . . . yer way is the way I hear all my indie favs speak about at the merc booths at every fest I go to . . . and sometimes, they would rather speak off the side and take TIME to do that with me . . I care about them, and then, they care about me and want me to understand where they come from . . . I’m always humbled by the artists . . . purely humbled. They travel, and gig, and are on the road always . . . and they still care for the integrity of their art, and fight for it, and hope we the people, know they do . . . and they get up tomorrow, and do it all over again.

They don’t do it to get rich . . . but man, they sure love what they do. And we do too. *G*

Rayne @ 28

…a generation of music lovers has grown up thinking that one merely downloads tunes…we need to nip this and reeducate the public.

I’m a huge proponent of digital downloading of PAID content, so I don’t think this is the problem. It’s the use of peer to peer technology that allows people to download FOR FREE that is the problem. Programs like Ares, BitTorrent, BearShare and others like those are the problem. One caveat here, BitTorrent is actually trying to legalize itself and is working with the entire entertainment industry to work out a solution.

I think its a complex problem at this point and in many ways the barn doors being wide open for so long means those horses are running wild now and we are not gonna get most of them back. Its up to artists themselves now to figure out what works for them. Prince, for example, is giving his new CD away this weekend to subscribers of one of the newspapers in Britain. Up and coming bands do not even try to release CDs anymore and simply put their music on their websites and MySpace pages for free download. In both cases, the hope is that folks will enjoy the music and buy tickets to shows and tshirts through the website.

Its a valid business model I suppose, but imagine if Chrysler started giving you the car in hopes you would buy the rims for the wheels and the upgraded stereo system from the dealership. How many auto plants would close, how many thousands of now out of work autoworkers would be applying at WalMart?

LIVE SHOWS SHOULD BE P TO P FREE!
Any artist or band is NUTS not to agree to it.
Best marketing tool they ever had . . sells dates, sells products.

But them artists SHOULD have something to drive a consumer to BUY the product they need to SELL, from these live shows!

I love bittorrent, and I love dimeadozen, cuz it’s all live shows, and it’s all artist consent, and I’ve learnt about all KINDS of stuff, that drove me to BUY artist product from having heard it on dimeadozen . .

From Django and Stephane, to Dave Alvin, Jack Elliott (I have 20 of his vinyl’s of old), Country Gentlemen, Kentucky Colonels, Seldom Scene, Joe Ely, Butch Hancock, Jimmie Dale Gilmore, Robert Earl Keen, and a whole world of newgrass folks like Tim O’Brien, The Bluegrass Album Band (Tony Rice, Jerry FLux D, Doyle Lawson, JD Crowe, and a host of others on and on in the genre’s I like . . .

Uh, what was I sayin? Oh yeah, screw the labels and RIAA. Harumph . . . ;-)

*poof*

(A ragged, limping, barely visible scrap of ectoplasm appears, wavering….)

Just a brief hello from Al The Spook with three very heartfelt comments about life, the universe, and everything:

1) Do NOT, repeat NOT try to play frisbee with your grandkid and her friends on a lawn which has just absorbed 10 inches of rain. Reason: slip slidin away. I was lucky, no broken bones but a bad sprained wrist and bruises all over. Ech.

2) Under no circumstances believe that when you need to sleep, any vagrant piece of construction machinery in the continental US won’t waft its way to the street outside your home and begin performing unnatural acts on the concrete and any other machine within range. I sweartaghod I was looking for my MANPAD by about noon…

3) For my sins, I have tried to answer all the questions in the comments on my blog. Clicking on the comments links should display them. There won’t be a post until monday, because I have to let my left wrist heal.

And to all of you, particularly the professionals who have rendered me such high praise, thank you. I deserve it. Yes! Recognized at last! Now my hordes of….oh, wrong script, sorry! Seriously, my blushes and my thanks. All I promise is the best analysis I can deliver, until we are safely out of this mess, or until we are in the furball. If the latter, the rethugs will learn the hard way that I am not a nice man. If they break the constitutional covenant of our nation, and they are dayam close right now. the wrath of heaven is going to land right between their eyes. The August Emperor of Jade has had enough of this crap. And so have I.

I will lurk later in the comments, and may post if I can get the pain easy. Otherwise, be excellent to each other.

Note to self. QUIT WRITING WAR AND PIECE IN THE COMMENTS. Dweeb.

I LOVE THIS MAN!!! *G*

In a purely worshipful and spiritual way. Of Course. Like a deity. For a guy with an orange crate, he’s pretty special on MY street corner.

But hoss, I love ya, and we need ya amongst the proletariat, we need yas bad . . .

(/endgush)

I hope this is not off topic, but all the the talk of record shops set me to remembering the first one that got to know me as a customer as a wee lad in the late 60’s, and over the years they got to know my tastes rather well. So well in fact that when my Mom would come in to the shop for a gift, I never had to worry about how embarrass I was going to be when I opened the gift in front of my friends and she later became a fan of Fleetwood Mac due to the fine folks at that shop. Was it the times and the love of music that made these places special, or something else?

God I HOPE that Fleetwood Mac was before Stevie Nookie and Lindsay Buckinfutz . . . cuz they were a HELL of a series of bands and artists before that pop schlock took center stage. Gag me with a shovel . . . .

Rayne @ 28

Perhaps users for a long time didn’t feel they were getting the full value they wanted for their money, and it was being leaked to the record labels.

One of the big busters for the public was finding out how much a CD (pressed, labeled, inserted, and shrinkwrapped) cost to manufacture, vs. how much it was sold for at the retail level.

Someone was getting all that extra moolah, and it wasn’t the artists…Most, if not all of them were signed to contracts that based personal renumeration on the price of a vinyl record.

Factor in the defenestration of most major’s A & R departments, guaranteeing stillborn talent development in favor of an ‘all-in-one-basket’ marketing model, and…

Dude, can we talk about artists being signed, and then, losing money on EVERY contracted product they produce, despite concert tours, sales, and such? How’s THAT happen, hoss? I wonder? Huh . . . laughable . . .

Can we talk about how artists are screwed from start to finish, with the present business model? And how that business model is trying to KILL any threats to it?

And how INTERNET music and streaming is enabling NON LABEL indie artists to make an HONEST living with exposure, and direct sales from artist websites?

Harumph.

darkblack @ 20

One of the biggest current issues that I see (and Donita touched on this in her piece) is the devaluation of the music purchasing experience…A generation has gone from preteen to early adulthood not having to exert themselves whatsoever to obtain recorded product…And they don’t even have to pay for it.

Exactly.

Let’s look at another industry that will be faced with a very similar challenge inside the next ten years.

MIT’s OpenCourseWare program means that ANYBODY ANYWHERE can attend and take MIT courses. In theory, someone could launch a college somewhere else in the world based upon coursework offered through MIT OpenCourseWare, and obtain an MIT-quality education. Look at the cost savings, not having to hunt for or create the caliber of educators that MIT pays for…

But what continues to make MIT more valuable than the clone-university in Hyderbad, India?

The experience of MIT, which includes individualized interaction with its educators.

How can that model be used in the music industry, so that consumers continue to pay for a particular experience rather than a generic copy of music?

[I have argued with educators who think the model I’ve just described using MIT is never going to happen. Sounds just like the arguments I used to hear from software executives…]

Conjecture, based on false premises of musicians getting screwed by the public MORE than they are getting screwed by the INDUSTRY!

And, you offer NO solutions.

Music in the future as I’d like to see it, so artists get paid?

Break the backs of Corporate Radio, the recording industry, the labels and the present distribution channels.

Artists have the web stations to promote for free, fests and gigs to play live and sell tix and product at, and then, WE THE PUBLIC, get to buy from them direct.

Studio’s and mixing houses with their talents and genious and experience are now operating OUTSIDE the constrictions of Cashville and such.

And they are kept busy because regional bands can GET studio time at affordable rates . . .

I admit, I have NO idea what to do with copyright and royalty issues, but I sure as shit know, the present system don’t serve artist except those in the 1% catagory . . . like lords and masters, even the slaves of the industry are one percenters . . . . the rest are SO screwed.

Harumph.

The recording industry had been screwing artists since the very beginning.

ANY thoughts about this issue costing artists money for internet streams that people get for free is horseshit. Pure horseshit.

The RECORDING industry has SO screwed the artists, for SO long, this is all laughable.

Royalty payments are a phreakin LUXURY to any published artist, and INDIE artists DON’T SEE THEM, cuz they are not owned by a label, who GOVERNS AND OVERSEES every single dime and penny that comes in from royalties.

CD sales are down cuz music that’s BOUGHT AND MANAGED by labels is SHIT!!! PURE SHIT!

And the radio biz, and the Clear Channels, and the ad dollars that are failing cuz OVER THE AIR RADIO IS DEAD from it’s own watered down shit, it’s all a dinasaur.

And so is the recording industry.

I haven’t bought a cd from a store in years.

I buy at festivals, and I buy from artist websites.

N that’s how it is, and it’s pissin off the people who OWNED the process from studio to distribution points, and are the people who CONTROL royalty payments.

If the RIAA goes thru with the Copyright Royalty Board (come on, go LOOK at who these people are who serve and work for these companies) decision as of July 15 . . . internet radio and indie artists are dead meat.

Streaming radio will be dead meat, except for the biggies . . . and yer community college statins, community sponsored stations, and all them internet music sources, will all be silent fast.

Welcome to Clear Channel Radio, with Big Brother The Sponsor, 24/7.

At this point, the House SubCommittee today ruled NOTHING. NOTHING. Government has been asked, and has agreed to, stay out of it.

So there’s yer congress krits in action.

Sold out, again.

On BOTH sides of the aisle, as expected.

So you PHOOLS don’t be POSTING about the artists getting hosed because ‘the people’ want music for free . . it’s a jive assed premise and one put forth by Big Bro And His Hacks.

And it’s as shrill as Ann Coulter’s unwashed black dress stinks, and as ignorant as the SCOTUS rulings recently (bhudda help us for Roe v. Wade and Brown v. Board).

I pray the meteor comes soon, to waste these insidious dinasaurs of our lives.

Harumph.