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Are you a music fan?


davewarden

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A bit of an extreme point of view, which I only agree with in part, but when there's so many bands willingly giving their music away for free in a climate where sales are down, I'm not fully convinced. A lot of bands are willing to document their thoughts on the digital age, and a lot of bands (the ones I tend to listen anyway) are fine with free music, and are more keen to see more people go to their shows and by their merch etc.

I still buy music anyway, and as a result, because of the try-before-you-buy nature of file sharing, I buy way more music than I would do if I couldn't sample something first. Reacting against it is counter productive if anything.

There's a growing number of communities online which are focussing on (legitimately) free music downloads which pretty much proves that this particular bloggers point isn't as black and white as it used to be.

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If i want to listen to something before i buy it, i'll go on Spotify. I don't download music unless the artist responsible for said music is giving it away for free and even then if it's available to buy, i'll buy it. I try and get to gigs if money will allow as well and i would rather buy straight from the band themselves than from a cd shop if possible.

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A bit of an extreme point of view, which I only agree with in part, but when there's so many bands willingly giving their music away for free in a climate where sales are down, I'm not fully convinced. A lot of bands are willing to document their thoughts on the digital age, and a lot of bands (the ones I tend to listen anyway) are fine with free music, and are more keen to see more people go to their shows and by their merch etc.

I still buy music anyway, and as a result, because of the try-before-you-buy nature of file sharing, I buy way more music than I would do if I couldn't sample something first. Reacting against it is counter productive if anything.

There's a growing number of communities online which are focussing on (legitimately) free music downloads which pretty much proves that this particular bloggers point isn't as black and white as it used to be.

I don't think I can think of one band who are 'more keen' for people to go to their shows and buy merch than pay for their records, being that it's not really either/or. Totally different revenue streams that go towards covering totally different expenses, for the most part. For touring bands up to a certain level, neither form of income will be going into their own pocket.

Also, there's a HUGE difference between legitimately free music - which nobody can really have a problem with seeing as it's sanctioned by those who make it, or are responsible for it - and taking it upon yourself to take someone else's work, compress it and give it away without so much as asking.

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If i want to listen to something before i buy it, i'll go on Spotify. I don't download music unless the artist responsible for said music is giving it away for free and even then if it's available to buy, i'll buy it. I try and get to gigs if money will allow as well and i would rather buy straight from the band themselves than from a cd shop if possible.

This. Really hate this inherent right that many believe they have to do whatever they like with music, simply because they're a 'fan'. And I use that word very lightly.

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This is an interesting discussion.

Here is a picture that was taken today in New York. It shows Roger McGuinn the co-founder of The Byrds with Forfar's Kyle Esplin.

http://www.aberdeen-music.com/galleries/showimage.php?i=16705&catid=member&imageuser=5210

Both musicians were talking about royalties and Roger remarked that he never got any royalties from his big multi million sellings hits with the Byrds - songs like Turn, Turn, Turn and Mr Tambourine Man. He did say he likes the download site MP3.COM as they pay him regularly.

This is a link to Roger playing Turn, Turn Turn with Shaki's favorite - Bruce Springsteen.

Dailymotion - Turn! Turn! Turn! - bruce springsteen with Roger McGuin - a Music video

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I don't think I can think of one band who are 'more keen' for people to go to their shows and buy merch than pay for their records

Huge amounts of DIY bands release their music for free and tour off the back of it. Especially in punk rock circles, where alot of bands seem to go to the effort of releasing their music as cheaply or as free as possible, and tour. The kind of bands that aren't striving to make a living off their music, but will quit their job to go on tour, then come back and get another job etc. It happens. Because you're not aware of it doesn't mean it doesn't...

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I found the article annoying very early on so I didn't bother finishing it.

Same :up:

I did finish it later though.

This is the best/worst bit for me;

"So-called digital evangelists and social media guru fucktards"

Who is he on about? and who calls them so?

He's got his pants all twisted over one statistic... for which I'd like to point him towards the great Ebbe Skovdahl.

Here's a stat: 99.9% of music is not worth paying for. Fact.

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Just the preachy holier than thou tone of it.

Yeah, I think the tone was a bit sanctamonious when he was talking about the mind numbing American entertainment industry. I still agree with the points he was making though. 'Mon extremism!

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Huge amounts of DIY bands release their music for free and tour off the back of it. Especially in punk rock circles, where alot of bands seem to go to the effort of releasing their music as cheaply or as free as possible, and tour. The kind of bands that aren't striving to make a living off their music, but will quit their job to go on tour, then come back and get another job etc. It happens. Because you're not aware of it doesn't mean it doesn't...

Oh absolutely, my badly worded reply was actually trying to make the point that I couldn't think of one band that does this ie. it only really happens in and works for - what is a fairly niche area of music (and that's not saying anything negative about it in the slightest). However it's not a working model that'd last or work at all for the majority of bands - for a start it's expensive to finance recordings releases and tours, in addition to other expenses that occur as a result of being in a band, especially if the whole band is working presumably p/t jobs between tours as you suggest. A lot of bands do this anyway, obviously, but are able to put more money towards covering these expenses through charging for recordings, however small that figure is.

It's unfair to suggest that bands that don't give away their music for free are striving to make a living off their music. As I said above and in a previous reply, any and all income for bands up to a certain level will go towards simply keeping the band afloat, not towards paying rent or buying Christmas presents.

Basically, you can't really argue against a band giving away their music for free - it's their music. But when people start to justify taking what hasn't been given...

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This is an interesting discussion.

Here is a picture that was taken today in New York. It shows Roger McGuinn the co-founder of The Byrds with Forfar's Kyle Esplin.

http://www.aberdeen-music.com/galleries/showimage.php?i=16705&catid=member&imageuser=5210

Both musicians were talking about royalties and Roger remarked that he never got any royalties from his big multi million sellings hits with the Byrds - songs like Turn, Turn, Turn and Mr Tambourine Man. He did say he likes the download site MP3.COM as they pay him regularly.

This is a link to Roger playing Turn, Turn Turn with Shaki's favorite - Bruce Springsteen.

Dailymotion - Turn! Turn! Turn! - bruce springsteen with Roger McGuin - a Music video

Nice one. I love The Byrds. Saw Roger at the Music Hall a few years back, great show. Wish he would come back to Aberdeen.

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Basically, you can't really argue against a band giving away their music for free - it's their music. But when people start to justify taking what hasn't been given...

I understand that, of course. I was merely pointing out that communities of bands do take on the ideal that their music should be free/cheap and push for people to go to their shows and buy their merch etc, which is the point you questioned.

Of course it's wrong to just take something in the way that it is being doing, but it's not so black and white to label it as theft or whatever. Yeah, I read blogs that share music, and I download music from them, based on the description the blogger has given to spur my interest. If I dig it, I buy it. Everytime. If it wasn't for these blogs, I wouldn't even know about any of these bands that I'd never heard of, and I would buy significantly less music, and that is a fact. It's all well and good for the author of the article saying "that's what Myspace is for", but how would I search for a band I'd never heard of? Also, some of these bands that bloggers are sharing are obscure bands from the 80's and 90's. They're rarely even on Myspace or Spotify. Myspace is also shite, riddled with adverts, the player is buggy as fuck, and I avoid it like a turd in a swimming pool.

I understand blogs/file sharing is abused to high heaven, but it honestly is the best way of discovering music for my personal circumstances, and if listeners, like me, are buying the records that they enjoy, I personally don't see a problem. I got into punk rock because of Napster when I was 13. I downloaded 4 or 5 Bad Religion songs, and subsequently bought the first 5 albums. I'm sure Greg Graffin didn't mind, especially since Bad Religion so heavily advocated the merits of Napster/file sharing, as did an astronomical amount of punk rock bands did at the time. If Napster hadn't have happened, I'd still be listening to Jazzy Jeff and the Fresh Prince on cassette. It's the same now. If I couldn't discover new music on the handful of blogs I subscribe to, my music collection would just hit a brick wall. File sharing is exploited by those who don't value music, but I honestly believe file sharing is doing as much as good as it is bad by unearthing records and bands people may not ever know about, and urging them to listen to them and subsequently go buy them.

I could stop subscribing to blogs, but then I would listen to and buy a whole lot less music as a result. Would that be better for the music 'industry'? I really don't think it would.

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I understand that, of course. I was merely pointing out that communities of bands do take on the ideal that their music should be free/cheap and push for people to go to their shows and buy their merch etc, which is the point you questioned.

Of course it's wrong to just take something in the way that it is being doing, but it's not so black and white to label it as theft or whatever. Yeah, I read blogs that share music, and I download music from them, based on the description the blogger has given to spur my interest. If I dig it, I buy it. Everytime. If it wasn't for these blogs, I wouldn't even know about any of these bands that I'd never heard of, and I would buy significantly less music, and that is a fact. It's all well and good for the author of the article saying "that's what Myspace is for", but how would I search for a band I'd never heard of? Also, some of these bands that bloggers are sharing are obscure bands from the 80's and 90's. They're rarely even on Myspace or Spotify. Myspace is also shite, riddled with adverts, the player is buggy as fuck, and I avoid it like a turd in a swimming pool.

I understand blogs/file sharing is abused to high heaven, but it honestly is the best way of discovering music for my personal circumstances, and if listeners, like me, are buying the records that they enjoy, I personally don't see a problem. I got into punk rock because of Napster when I was 13. I downloaded 4 or 5 Bad Religion songs, and subsequently bought the first 5 albums. I'm sure Greg Graffin didn't mind, especially since Bad Religion so heavily advocated the merits of Napster/file sharing, as did an astronomical amount of punk rock bands did at the time. If Napster hadn't have happened, I'd still be listening to Jazzy Jeff and the Fresh Prince on cassette. It's the same now. If I couldn't discover new music on the handful of blogs I subscribe to, my music collection would just hit a brick wall. File sharing is exploited by those who don't value music, but I honestly believe file sharing is doing as much as good as it is bad by unearthing records and bands people may not ever know about, and urging them to listen to them and subsequently go buy them.

I could stop subscribing to blogs, but then I would listen to and buy a whole lot less music as a result. Would that be better for the music 'industry'? I really don't think it would.

Here here.

You're 100% correct when you say it's not as black and white as is made out.

I'd also like to add a point about band websites becoming more and more a part of the whole commercial aspect of making music. Well, that's pretty much the point. I like the fact that web/graphic design is being used to market music. The Arcade Fire HTML5 thing ( The Wilderness Downtown ) being an example. There are now inventive, and relatively inexpensive ways for a band to put across an identity that doesn't rely on traditional 'exposure' (getting on TV, getting a deal, etc). Am I stealing because I've given a hit to websites like this and listened to a few tracks? I might not personally buy the record but I'll share the link with much more people than I would if all there was was a basic advert. So yeah, the point being that the whole industry is fragmented and we can no longer think of it in terms of record sale revenue + Merch + gig tickets = profit/loss. I think.

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Interesting. Can see where he's coming from, but I reckon the people he is aiming this at are the type of people who got fed up of shelling out 12-15 for a CD in HMV or Virgin 12-15 years back (pre-internet/Tesco/etc) and still feel some sense of injustice at the amount record companies were coining in, so keep downloading illegally regardless of how much the climate has changed....

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It sounds pretty black and white to me. No file sharing = black jazzy jeff. File sharing = white bad religion.

good point well made. Soda Jerk is racist. I knew it!

If it wasn't for Napster I wouldn't have the Football Italia and California Dreams theme tunes in my music library so to argue it has had a damaging effect is futile.

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I understand that, of course. I was merely pointing out that communities of bands do take on the ideal that their music should be free/cheap and push for people to go to their shows and buy their merch etc, which is the point you questioned.

Of course it's wrong to just take something in the way that it is being doing, but it's not so black and white to label it as theft or whatever. Yeah, I read blogs that share music, and I download music from them, based on the description the blogger has given to spur my interest. If I dig it, I buy it. Everytime. If it wasn't for these blogs, I wouldn't even know about any of these bands that I'd never heard of, and I would buy significantly less music, and that is a fact. It's all well and good for the author of the article saying "that's what Myspace is for", but how would I search for a band I'd never heard of? Also, some of these bands that bloggers are sharing are obscure bands from the 80's and 90's. They're rarely even on Myspace or Spotify. Myspace is also shite, riddled with adverts, the player is buggy as fuck, and I avoid it like a turd in a swimming pool.

I understand blogs/file sharing is abused to high heaven, but it honestly is the best way of discovering music for my personal circumstances, and if listeners, like me, are buying the records that they enjoy, I personally don't see a problem. I got into punk rock because of Napster when I was 13. I downloaded 4 or 5 Bad Religion songs, and subsequently bought the first 5 albums. I'm sure Greg Graffin didn't mind, especially since Bad Religion so heavily advocated the merits of Napster/file sharing, as did an astronomical amount of punk rock bands did at the time. If Napster hadn't have happened, I'd still be listening to Jazzy Jeff and the Fresh Prince on cassette. It's the same now. If I couldn't discover new music on the handful of blogs I subscribe to, my music collection would just hit a brick wall. File sharing is exploited by those who don't value music, but I honestly believe file sharing is doing as much as good as it is bad by unearthing records and bands people may not ever know about, and urging them to listen to them and subsequently go buy them.

I could stop subscribing to blogs, but then I would listen to and buy a whole lot less music as a result. Would that be better for the music 'industry'? I really don't think it would.

I agree with the vast majority of this - though I would argue that it's really easy, to the point where I'm sure my grandparents could master it given enough time, to hear/sample most, if not all of a release before buying, legally. Whether that's through the now one minute long samples of each track provided on iTunes (which I think is a good length, the previous thirty seconds was taking the piss a little), a stream of the full album on the band's website or a website they've provided a stream to, etc. There's a vast difference between those who upload music and those who download music, I find. By going to unauthorised uploads of works instead of those provided by the artists, it's legitimising something that I can't understand people think is OK: taking someone else's work and giving it away without permission. It's not just about finances, it's about having control about what you make and how you put it out into the world. If I found someone to have uploaded and made available my work(and it's happened quite a bit), especially ahead of release, in a format and manner which I've had no say in whatsoever, I'd be angry if it was a release which was being put up for sale, or a release that was being given away.

I read a lot of music blogs/websites, and am constantly listening to and buying new music, without the need to download or support methods that the artist(s) hasn't/haven't sanctioned/provided themselves. The Napster comparison doesn't really hold any ground these days as far as I'm concerned, given how easy it is to access and hear music legally now. Last.fm, Spotify, Myspace (ugh!), et al weren't around then.

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Spotify and whatnot are good for hearing new music, but I personally don't really have much interest in new music, and in most cases, I have much more of an interest in discovering bands that have been and gone over the past 10 or 20 years, therefore they are mostly not online in other formats other than being uploaded by the bloggers who are sharing them. I disagree about the Napster comparison not holding any ground because it's the exact same circumstances, without it I wouldn't have gotten into the music I did back then, and without file sharing which is available today, I wouldn't have gotten into the music I am into now.

As I said though, Last.fm and Spotify are great resources, and I use them a fair bit, but it's not all that great for discovering unheard music. The recommendations and artists radio on last.fm are very limited, and end up cycling the same stuff, despite whether or not I have said artists in my library anyway. Spotify displays related artists at the top, but it's very rare I've stumbled across something that way, as some of the artists that are linked to each other is nonsensical. Compare that to a blogger who is raving about what his favourite album is, and why, and then sharing it, then I am just more urged to listen to it, than last.fm playing bands that sound like other bands I like. Perhaps I don't want a band that sounds like something else, otherwise I'm just overkilling what I already have.

I can understand completely why you'd be angry with a blogger uploading your work, especially ahead of schedule, because it will be abused. I'm not denying that. But, there is every opportunity someone will stumble across it who may never have done in the first place, which is pretty much how I've decided to buy just about every record I've bought in the past 3 years.

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