Tag: music

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Divas about Divas

Join us for SIX: The Musical, a 90-minute extravaganza inspired by the queens of pop – Beyoncé, Ariana Grande, Taylor Swift, Nicki Minaj, Cardi B, Jennifer Lopez, and Rihanna.

I don’t think I’ve ever heard a less promising enticement.  I’m impressed though at the remarkable collection of seven of the most inconsequential talents in the pop universe, seven of the singers I would least likely want to hear, all of them making extensive use of Autotune, all of them products, all of them narcissists of the highest order.

On the same day, someone else on Facebook posted a photo of Taylor Swift at some football game with the comment that she did not “ask” to be on TV at the football game.

On the contrary, all she does is “ask” to be on TV.

 

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Paying the Artist

“The chart linked to the left gives you a rather dramatic picture of the state of the art in terms of artist’s earnings from recorded music. As you can see, the picture is rather dismal. It appears that an artist’s best chance of making any kind of living at all from his own recorded songs is to sell the CD directly to the public, at gigs or online.

Music Industry – the Chart!

You can’t ignore an omission (forgivable– that’s not what the page is about): the chart doesn’t account for the role of publicity and promotion in CD sales. But it does make it clear that the trade-off, for the artist, is absurd. In exchange for access to the “star-making-machinery” of Sony or BMG, you sell a gazillion units, and then get to turn over pretty well all of your earnings to the record company. No– you don’t even “turn over” the profits– you will never even see them, for the music industry skims off almost everything– and I mean that literally– almost everything– before turning over a pittance to the artist. But then, you get to be on TV. You get promoted. You get fame. You get the girls. You get broke.

I have said this before and I’ll say it again: I believe the government should step in and set standards for contracts between musicians and record companies which guarantee that the artist receives a “reasonable” portion of royalties for every unit sold. It also needs to regulate how much the recording industry can deduct from an artists royalties for the cost of “promotion”. To me, those charges have always seemed like General Motors deducting money from the wages of assembly line workers to cover “advertising”. Why the hell should the assembly line workers pay for the cost of doing business? Especially when you find that a lot of these expenses are fees paid to shadow entities that are actually owned by the record company itself– like “image consultants”, market researchers, arrangers, and so on.

The most compelling paradox of the music industry remains this: would any artist be happy to know that his music is not being pirated? Yes, nobody’s stealing your music. You are so lucky.

So what’s a young recording artist/singer/songwriter to do? Would they really want to go back to the pre-internet lottery system: if you get chosen (by a record company) and you’re lucky and you get a contract, you get rich? And everyone else has absolutely no way to reach a potential audience.

I suspect that the current reality is what is going to work as well as anything can work in this world. New artists practice and play when they can, record their own CD’s cheaply with newly accessible technology, and sell them online and at their performances.

The music industry has never, probably, been so democratic: anybody can reach a large potential audience via the internet, post a video on Youtube, post their music at iTunes, and keep their fan base informed via Facebook.

But without the machinery of the music industry establishment, their prospects are dismal.

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The Artist is Ripped Off

“In the role-playing activity Starving Artist, for example, groups of students are encouraged to come up with an idea for a musical act, write lyrics and design a CD cover only to be told by a volunteer teacher their work can be downloaded free. According to the lesson, the volunteer would then “ask them how they felt when they realized that their work was stolen and that they would not get anything for their efforts.” NY Times, Sep 25, 2003

What is hilarious about this little scenario, of course, is that it is a complete fantasy. It is a comic fantasy. The most hilarious part is where they convince the students that they would actually have received any of the money that should have been paid for the CDs.

A real world scenario would run thusly: the students come up with an idea for a musical act, write lyrics and music and create a CD cover, and get signed by a major record label.

While in the recording studio, the producer, assigned by the record label, makes some suggestions for the arrangement of their best songs.  Then, of course, he convinces them to give him a co-writing credit.

Their CD sells very well because it is played on the radio– for free– and they perform on television promoting the CD– for free. They have a big advance from the record company and sign a complicated contract they don’t understand. They spend all their money in one year.

The next year, their accountants –played by a volunteer teacher, if you will– tell them they are broke.

They find out that the record company has been deducting all the expenses of recording, packaging, shipping, and promoting their CD against all their royalties. They find out that a whopping bill came from an image consultant hired by the record company on their behalf and at their expense. Then they find out that the image consultant actually works for the record company for a pittance.  They find out that the image consultant, sound engineer, label designer, photographer, and graphic artist all did the same work for several other artists signed to the same record label but who didn’t sell very many CDs at all.

They find out that they owe the record company millions of dollars.  They find out that the producer has collected a huge chunk of their song-writing royalties.

They write and compose a follow-up CD.  This time, the producer brings in a “rhythm consultant” who also takes a co-writing credit.  A record company executive doesn’t like it and demands changes. He wants it to be more pop, less art. The students don’t like the changes at all and demand artistic freedom. The record company tells them that they must change their music or they will not be allowed to release the record. Nor will they be released from their contract and allowed to switch labels to work with a producer who understands what they are trying to do.

Their CD is released on Spotify.  It is downloaded 100,000 times.  They receive a payment from Spotify of $12.53.

They find out that their work was stolen and they would not get anything for their efforts.

Now they know what it feels like to have their hard work stolen from them.

You may now resume downloading.