David Byrne of Talking Heads is having another go at Spotify and streaming services: http://www.theguardian.com/music/201...-content-world
It's a complicated argument, and I do agree that the middle men are getting rich while the artists suffer and the fans get screwed over, but I don't see how there's any other solution. I also don't see the rich successful musicians who are bemoaning Spotify, the Radioheads, the Black Keys etc are actually helping the poor unsigned musicians they purport to be so concerned about.
I stopped using Spotify a few years back, and decided that I'd spend the £10 a month on buying music directly from the artists (if possible, or at least buy music again), but work has given me a free Rdio account and it's very tempting to use it...
I also wrote a website that scraped music blogs for soundcloud links and presented them, but because no-one ever uses it, I don't feel like I'm contributing to the death of music too much.
The whole record label system is fucked up, and is the root of many of the evils in today's industry, and instead of spitting the dummy at Spotify while still being complacent in the broken label system... I dunno, it seems to be the wrong battle to fight.
I could go on a rant about how fans are getting shafted by the myriad "remastered" (the Loveless remaster: two different remasters that sounded identical) or "10th anniversary bonus editions" (All the tracks you already have, and lots of shit we didn't think was good enough to be released 10 years ago...)
But I've often said that the internet is the snake eating its own tail, and for every advance it brings, it leaves a trail of destruction in its wake and some days I feel like I'd be happier if it all went down, but then I'd be unemployed and unable to do anything so look at me being a hypocrite. It's ok, we are all hypocrites in our own little ways.
Bet you're glad that I've returned from a busy few weeks in work and travelling with an incoherent angry rant :biggrin: - it's a tricky situation that I don't quite know how I feel. :uh:
It's a complicated argument, and I do agree that the middle men are getting rich while the artists suffer and the fans get screwed over, but I don't see how there's any other solution. I also don't see the rich successful musicians who are bemoaning Spotify, the Radioheads, the Black Keys etc are actually helping the poor unsigned musicians they purport to be so concerned about.
I stopped using Spotify a few years back, and decided that I'd spend the £10 a month on buying music directly from the artists (if possible, or at least buy music again), but work has given me a free Rdio account and it's very tempting to use it...
I also wrote a website that scraped music blogs for soundcloud links and presented them, but because no-one ever uses it, I don't feel like I'm contributing to the death of music too much.
The whole record label system is fucked up, and is the root of many of the evils in today's industry, and instead of spitting the dummy at Spotify while still being complacent in the broken label system... I dunno, it seems to be the wrong battle to fight.
I could go on a rant about how fans are getting shafted by the myriad "remastered" (the Loveless remaster: two different remasters that sounded identical) or "10th anniversary bonus editions" (All the tracks you already have, and lots of shit we didn't think was good enough to be released 10 years ago...)
But I've often said that the internet is the snake eating its own tail, and for every advance it brings, it leaves a trail of destruction in its wake and some days I feel like I'd be happier if it all went down, but then I'd be unemployed and unable to do anything so look at me being a hypocrite. It's ok, we are all hypocrites in our own little ways.
Bet you're glad that I've returned from a busy few weeks in work and travelling with an incoherent angry rant :biggrin: - it's a tricky situation that I don't quite know how I feel. :uh:
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