Hail to the Thief
Yes, I am listening to the entire new Radiohead album, “Hail to the Thief”. Right now. March 30th. It’s very good. And yes, I will buy it when it does finally come out. The single won’t be out until May 26th. The album won’t be out until June 9th. Practically three months earlier and it’s out on the net. Record labels are doomed. Expect this to become a fairly large story over the new few weeks.
March 30th, 2003 at 6:43 pm
When they tour i’ll pay for overpriced tickets, and pay the service charge, and I’ll even buy a overpriced tour t-shirt. The music is not doomed. The crappy artists are though. The musicians that i listen to will continue to get my support.
March 30th, 2003 at 7:18 pm
That’s far too simplistic a view. It’s not just “crappy” artists that will die given the current situation; it’s really good artists that aren’t necessarily mainstream. Curve can’t survive in this marketplace and they’re brilliant. Until the record labels are moved completely out of the equation (which isn’t all that far off) and artists can survive by creating their own niche and true internet distribution (and the willingness to pay small amounts rather than just download and burn) come into play in a big way, we’re going to be stuck with mass market bland crap like Creed.
And you can’t use tours / merch as the only possible revenue stream for artists to survive. What about FSOL and the hundreds of other artists that don’t tour? People who create should be compensated for their creations in and of themselves, not just through secondary means.
Home studio costs and down; artists no longer need the $100,000 advance from the label to make an album. However, distribution is still the bottleneck - you need record label clout and money to get on the radio or video networks; you need them to get into the CD stores. But that should go away soon.
March 31st, 2003 at 10:25 pm
I agree, Brian, get rid of the damn record companies (which clearly are eating up almost all of any profits made from record sales), and then everything will be ok. However, things are probably gonna get worse before they get better, and some good bands may fall by the wayside. But as Tyler Durden (and many others) said: “If you wanna make an omlette, you gotta break some eggs.”