First Radiohead, now Nine Inch Nails. The bandwagon for big league rock acts bucking the record labels in favour of a novel and progressive distribution model is growing. I liked the idea when Radiohead announced it. Now Trent Reznor spews the typical rhetoric about how the traditional record industry model is failing, and about how this is the way forward. And it's bullshit.
It's very easy to pull off such grandiose ideas from a position of strength - namely, hundreds and thousands of fans, an established brand and worldwide critical acclaim. All of which were achieved off the back of record label money and record label advertising. Now, presumably with all outstanding contractual obligations fulfilled, the big acts are remaining label-less and trying to set the world on fire with their own piece of the digital revolution. Bucking the labels which effectively put the bands in the position to throw them over in the first place.
As a business model for made acts to reap maximum reward for the first time in their careers, it's ostensibly a good idea. But all this talk of redefining the way the industry works is horeshit, surely? What of new bands? Are you seriously trying to tell me brand new "unsigned" bands could pull this off, too? I've seen it attempted, long before Radiohead tried it, and it didn't work, because the unsigned bands that tried it weren't Radiohead. They didn't have a fifteen year long career and fifteen years of record label advertising and promotion to establish a big enough fan base for anyone to give a shit.
I personally know two bands, (one of which split into a further two bands, making four bands in total) who have been picked up by independent record labels, still operating under the "old" industry business model, and have turned successful careers. Three of the bands are actively enjoying their success and building it more each day. Their labels put them on tour, put them in studios, release their records - hard copy as well as digital - and advertise the band. With another few years of touring and releases, providing the bands keep the quality control up and the labels keep putting money into plugging and advertising, they might start to build a big enough fan base that they could consider pulling a label-less digital self-release before the next decade.
And what if they do? What then? The website part can be put together quickly and fairly cheaply, but it won't sell itself, which is where advertising comes in. Do that band have enough money to run a deep enough ad campaign to sell the downloads? They'll probably need to pay someone else to handle it for them, so already they're spending money they can't guarantee they'll get back. For a band like Radiohead, it's a easy score. Such is the bands status they don't even need to advertise. But it's absurd at this point to imagine this approach becoming the norm for the hundreds and thousands of lesser bands without comparable fan base or legend.
And how does a band sell a digital download at venues while on tour? Sure, there's a convoluted solution there somewhere, but it's never going to be as immediate or as rewarding as buying a physical record or CD at the show (which you can get signed, no less) to go along with the T-shirt. Or are we going to be digitising t-shirts now, too? I hear analogue fabric is much warmer.
So the assumption is we're still going to be producing physical hard copies anyway. Which means manufacturing costs and possibly also conventional distribution again, assuming there's money to be made selling beyond the confines of a single venue on a given night. Looks like we're back to square one. (Credit to Radiohead for also offering physical copies; their Discbox offer was well conceived and an amazing option for hardcore fans. I can't imagine every band offering as much.)
Aside from Radiohead's "any amount you like", which for me was the real genius of the whole thing, what's really so novel about this idea anyway? Trent Reznor mentioned something about being closer to the fans as a result. Why? Because they're buying from a band-endorsed website instead of a third-party shop website? Yeah, real personal. What are you gonna do? Blow kisses down the broadband connection? Independent labels have been offering their catalogues direct for significantly less money than in the shops (it's less the distro mark-up, see?) for years and years. It used to be called mail order. Now there's a phrase in danger of extinction. Most indie labels still operate like this, only over the internet now as well as by post. Sure, there's a shipping charge, but Radiohead stung me for a "handling charge" for the download anyway, and I had to wait a week to get it, so what's the difference to the consumer?
The idea of cost-effective, no middle-man, direct sales is not new. This particular approach will financially benefit these bands like never before, but that benefit is somewhat limited to huge acts such as Radiohead or perhaps big hype breaking bands like Arctic Monkeys whilst they're hot. The other 98% of bands won't have the media profile or attention to make it worthwhile.
It seems the main body this approach cuts out is the record label. Yeah, it's popular to bash record labels, they suck, we all know, we're punk rock, but fuck that. Those bands I mentioned earlier would be nowhere if their respective labels hadn't thrown them a bone (now, this next bit's going to be quite glib, but a man's gotta try and be succinct, after all). Anyway, they tour the world and elsewhere, release records and generally have a riot, and the label makes it possible. Granted, the label leans on other parties for various things - booking agencies for touring, for example - but it's near impossible for an unknown band to get bookings via an agency. The label personnel have experience and connections, and the label gives a band credibility. Credibility and connections which the likes of Radiohead and NIN have long since attained.
So what's the net result beyond the bolstered bank balances of the bands involved? Bricks and mortar record shops aren't going to close down over this. HMV isn't going anywhere yet. Mostly because a lot of people are content to listen to top 40 radio in their cars on their way to work, and on Saturday they'll pop into town to buy whichever CD this weeks load of shit is on, which will be conveniently placed, all several thousand copies, in 9 foot tall display racks as soon as you walk in. These people don't internet shop, they buy 64bit 4ghz processors from PC World to check their email once or twice a week and absorb whatever lifestyle brainwashing MSN is ramming down the cable at them. The concept of non-major-label-endorsed digital downloads is beyond the pail of Johnny 9 to 5 and Joanie Top 40.
So it's predominantly "music lovers" who this sort of gambit is directed at, hence credible bands like Radiohead and NIN are the forerunners. And that's also another reason to laugh out loud. Music lovers? The slave-to-the-grind saps in the last paragraph are at least buying CDA quality audio but "music lovers" are given - in the case of Radiohead - 160kbps mp3s to enjoy on their iPods. Computer basics say mp3's are a lossy format, folks. Look up the word "loss" then tell me if you're happy paying for something which is less than it should be. Radiohead circumvented this problem by allowing the public to name their own price (again, a masterstroke).
And iPods? Gimmie a fucking break. Diminished bass response, tinny, unsatisfying ear-buzz, and this is what passes as the audio playback system of choice these days? Remember the 70's and 80's? Remember real audiophilia? When's the last time you saw a real home stereo system marketed with even a tenth the enthusiasm of widescreen HD TV or even home cinema? Or even a Big Mac? Somewhere along the line, music moved out of the home and into both cars and tiny headphones, neither of which offers anything approaching an optimum listening experience. People have relegated music to a distraction to help pass time whilst travelling from point A to point B. And in tandem with this relegation, vinyl gave way to CD's which are giving way to mp3's. It's a steady downhill slide on all fronts.
What next? Technology will inevitably improve. Will internet bandwidth get bigger? Remember how once we were all on dial-up and downloading a single mp3 took 30 minutes? Now we're all on broadband, and a whole album takes less than 30 minutes. What next? Maybe we'll be able to do away with lossy formats and offer wav file downloads instead. But won't that be a step backwards, because wav files are available now? Don't you want the future? Isn't this what this is all about, really? Is that what we're going to get for our money further down the line? A new "super-format" so we'll all have to buy our record collections all over again? This happened before with vinyl. And people still buy into it, blindly accepting the advertising. It's better because it says it is. Who says it is? The people who stand to make billions of your money? Gee, do you think they might have some small incentive for duping you like that?
Is this how far we've come? That technology and progression really just amounts to a chartable decline - not improvement, but decline - in quality?
And is this really how far music has come? Aural wallpaper to make the bus journey that little bit more manageable? Does no-one listen to the music anymore? I can't imagine they do, because listening to lossy formats through inferior playback equipment in less than ideal environments is not a state of affairs any "music lover" should find themselves in. What Radiohead and NIN seek to establish is not a new revolution for the record industry, it's the paycheck they are overdue and which they will now receive with gusto from a public low on attention and hungry for sensation. It's a gimmick, albeit a very liberating one. Like the way pop acts used to have gimmicks to help them sell. Back in the 40's or 50's. Or 60's. Maybe things are coming full circle after all.
It's very easy to pull off such grandiose ideas from a position of strength - namely, hundreds and thousands of fans, an established brand and worldwide critical acclaim. All of which were achieved off the back of record label money and record label advertising. Now, presumably with all outstanding contractual obligations fulfilled, the big acts are remaining label-less and trying to set the world on fire with their own piece of the digital revolution. Bucking the labels which effectively put the bands in the position to throw them over in the first place.
As a business model for made acts to reap maximum reward for the first time in their careers, it's ostensibly a good idea. But all this talk of redefining the way the industry works is horeshit, surely? What of new bands? Are you seriously trying to tell me brand new "unsigned" bands could pull this off, too? I've seen it attempted, long before Radiohead tried it, and it didn't work, because the unsigned bands that tried it weren't Radiohead. They didn't have a fifteen year long career and fifteen years of record label advertising and promotion to establish a big enough fan base for anyone to give a shit.
I personally know two bands, (one of which split into a further two bands, making four bands in total) who have been picked up by independent record labels, still operating under the "old" industry business model, and have turned successful careers. Three of the bands are actively enjoying their success and building it more each day. Their labels put them on tour, put them in studios, release their records - hard copy as well as digital - and advertise the band. With another few years of touring and releases, providing the bands keep the quality control up and the labels keep putting money into plugging and advertising, they might start to build a big enough fan base that they could consider pulling a label-less digital self-release before the next decade.
And what if they do? What then? The website part can be put together quickly and fairly cheaply, but it won't sell itself, which is where advertising comes in. Do that band have enough money to run a deep enough ad campaign to sell the downloads? They'll probably need to pay someone else to handle it for them, so already they're spending money they can't guarantee they'll get back. For a band like Radiohead, it's a easy score. Such is the bands status they don't even need to advertise. But it's absurd at this point to imagine this approach becoming the norm for the hundreds and thousands of lesser bands without comparable fan base or legend.
And how does a band sell a digital download at venues while on tour? Sure, there's a convoluted solution there somewhere, but it's never going to be as immediate or as rewarding as buying a physical record or CD at the show (which you can get signed, no less) to go along with the T-shirt. Or are we going to be digitising t-shirts now, too? I hear analogue fabric is much warmer.
So the assumption is we're still going to be producing physical hard copies anyway. Which means manufacturing costs and possibly also conventional distribution again, assuming there's money to be made selling beyond the confines of a single venue on a given night. Looks like we're back to square one. (Credit to Radiohead for also offering physical copies; their Discbox offer was well conceived and an amazing option for hardcore fans. I can't imagine every band offering as much.)
Aside from Radiohead's "any amount you like", which for me was the real genius of the whole thing, what's really so novel about this idea anyway? Trent Reznor mentioned something about being closer to the fans as a result. Why? Because they're buying from a band-endorsed website instead of a third-party shop website? Yeah, real personal. What are you gonna do? Blow kisses down the broadband connection? Independent labels have been offering their catalogues direct for significantly less money than in the shops (it's less the distro mark-up, see?) for years and years. It used to be called mail order. Now there's a phrase in danger of extinction. Most indie labels still operate like this, only over the internet now as well as by post. Sure, there's a shipping charge, but Radiohead stung me for a "handling charge" for the download anyway, and I had to wait a week to get it, so what's the difference to the consumer?
The idea of cost-effective, no middle-man, direct sales is not new. This particular approach will financially benefit these bands like never before, but that benefit is somewhat limited to huge acts such as Radiohead or perhaps big hype breaking bands like Arctic Monkeys whilst they're hot. The other 98% of bands won't have the media profile or attention to make it worthwhile.
It seems the main body this approach cuts out is the record label. Yeah, it's popular to bash record labels, they suck, we all know, we're punk rock, but fuck that. Those bands I mentioned earlier would be nowhere if their respective labels hadn't thrown them a bone (now, this next bit's going to be quite glib, but a man's gotta try and be succinct, after all). Anyway, they tour the world and elsewhere, release records and generally have a riot, and the label makes it possible. Granted, the label leans on other parties for various things - booking agencies for touring, for example - but it's near impossible for an unknown band to get bookings via an agency. The label personnel have experience and connections, and the label gives a band credibility. Credibility and connections which the likes of Radiohead and NIN have long since attained.
So what's the net result beyond the bolstered bank balances of the bands involved? Bricks and mortar record shops aren't going to close down over this. HMV isn't going anywhere yet. Mostly because a lot of people are content to listen to top 40 radio in their cars on their way to work, and on Saturday they'll pop into town to buy whichever CD this weeks load of shit is on, which will be conveniently placed, all several thousand copies, in 9 foot tall display racks as soon as you walk in. These people don't internet shop, they buy 64bit 4ghz processors from PC World to check their email once or twice a week and absorb whatever lifestyle brainwashing MSN is ramming down the cable at them. The concept of non-major-label-endorsed digital downloads is beyond the pail of Johnny 9 to 5 and Joanie Top 40.
So it's predominantly "music lovers" who this sort of gambit is directed at, hence credible bands like Radiohead and NIN are the forerunners. And that's also another reason to laugh out loud. Music lovers? The slave-to-the-grind saps in the last paragraph are at least buying CDA quality audio but "music lovers" are given - in the case of Radiohead - 160kbps mp3s to enjoy on their iPods. Computer basics say mp3's are a lossy format, folks. Look up the word "loss" then tell me if you're happy paying for something which is less than it should be. Radiohead circumvented this problem by allowing the public to name their own price (again, a masterstroke).
And iPods? Gimmie a fucking break. Diminished bass response, tinny, unsatisfying ear-buzz, and this is what passes as the audio playback system of choice these days? Remember the 70's and 80's? Remember real audiophilia? When's the last time you saw a real home stereo system marketed with even a tenth the enthusiasm of widescreen HD TV or even home cinema? Or even a Big Mac? Somewhere along the line, music moved out of the home and into both cars and tiny headphones, neither of which offers anything approaching an optimum listening experience. People have relegated music to a distraction to help pass time whilst travelling from point A to point B. And in tandem with this relegation, vinyl gave way to CD's which are giving way to mp3's. It's a steady downhill slide on all fronts.
What next? Technology will inevitably improve. Will internet bandwidth get bigger? Remember how once we were all on dial-up and downloading a single mp3 took 30 minutes? Now we're all on broadband, and a whole album takes less than 30 minutes. What next? Maybe we'll be able to do away with lossy formats and offer wav file downloads instead. But won't that be a step backwards, because wav files are available now? Don't you want the future? Isn't this what this is all about, really? Is that what we're going to get for our money further down the line? A new "super-format" so we'll all have to buy our record collections all over again? This happened before with vinyl. And people still buy into it, blindly accepting the advertising. It's better because it says it is. Who says it is? The people who stand to make billions of your money? Gee, do you think they might have some small incentive for duping you like that?
Is this how far we've come? That technology and progression really just amounts to a chartable decline - not improvement, but decline - in quality?
And is this really how far music has come? Aural wallpaper to make the bus journey that little bit more manageable? Does no-one listen to the music anymore? I can't imagine they do, because listening to lossy formats through inferior playback equipment in less than ideal environments is not a state of affairs any "music lover" should find themselves in. What Radiohead and NIN seek to establish is not a new revolution for the record industry, it's the paycheck they are overdue and which they will now receive with gusto from a public low on attention and hungry for sensation. It's a gimmick, albeit a very liberating one. Like the way pop acts used to have gimmicks to help them sell. Back in the 40's or 50's. Or 60's. Maybe things are coming full circle after all.