I have a Spotify account, but in the light of these revelations I am going to close it down. In terms of finding new music, I hardly ever bother with Spotify's recommendations anyway. Practically all the "new" bands I listen to were introduced to me by Radio 6 Music, the greatest radio station on the planet. Seriously folks, if you don't want to pay for music, listen to the radio and don't rip off the artists by pirating it.
*Applauds* - exactly. The radio. Who'd have thought! Pomps - the other thing you have to remember (I'm really not having a go by the way, just pointing this out as most people won't realise it) - those artists that you 'discover' on Spotify, you're not discovering by accident - they'll be paying to be discovered (well, their label will) - the acts you mention are already signed to majors (hence why you "stumble across them") and their distributors will have established relationships with the Spotify/iTunes guys whereupon their artist will be the one recommended, or whose album is on the iTunes front page etc. because they're paying £££. It's not like you're discovering a young, unsigned artist here.
And if you want to hear young, unsigned artists, there will be one playing live in your local pub/club/Student Common Room/village hall this weekend. Live music is unique, it's only ever played that way once, so be there when it happens!
Also very true. Speaking of which, I'm a bit nervous about the Bristol show Chilcs as it will be the first show with our deputy keyboard player - we're going to bang in 3 rehearsals (another thing that costs money by the way) in quick succession with him before the gig so I hope it's up to scratch!
I bought all my music I the 00s, now I pretty much only stream. I bought one album last year, Cocaine Piñata by Freddie Gibbs... Album of the year Imo
If there was a clamp down on the options people have to download free music it would become much harder to do it. I save money where I can and IMO it would be foolish to buy music when I can download it for free.
I understand the need to save money Tom, but do you not see you're contributing to the problem (let alone doing something very immoral) by doing so?
I'll give you a little idea here actually, as people often say to me "well it's live where the money is right now". So let's take the example of an up and coming artist like Fable who is playing in Bristol next month. 20 years ago, she'd have been signed on a nice deal by now which would have supported her touring and recording. Because of piracy, nobody will do that yet until it's a complete no brainer, and she's built up enough of a fan base that they know anything she does will sell a certain amount of units/tickets/merchandise. To get to that point, really she needs to be playing live a lot in front of people who don't know her in order to build a fanbase. Normally she/we wouldn't get paid for playing a gig right now, but Bristol is unusual in that we're getting paid £85 in order to play the songs that we have recorded for her debut EP (which we managed to do very cheaply and cost about £6,000). So we're feeling lucky that we're getting paid £85 for this one. Our booking agent will take 15% of that £85. Her manager (me) would normally take 20% of that too (but I won't). We'll have 3 rehearsals before the show at £50 a pop, so that's £150. Then add on to that the cost of getting there and back from Brighton. So you're already looking at the fact it's going to cost us money to play this gig. We're doing a run of 500 pieces of vinyl at the moment in order to sell at these types of gig to help cover costs, and potentially put us in a position where we can get back into the studio to record some more tracks. Those 500 bits of vinyl cost just over £1,000, but I've managed to wangle a deal where we pay the manufacturer back as we sell them, but for us to make anything at all on these, we first need to pay back the £1,000. As I say though, this is unusual to be paid for a gig. We did also get paid £60 for the recent show at The Old Blue Last. Nothing for Shepherd's Bush Empire, nothing for the Prince Albert gig next week. Nothing for Great Escape and nothing for Blissfields Festival. She's also very lucky in that we've been able to cobble together the finance to be able to get this far, but it's (being very honest) getting to be a bit of a struggle right now. She's flipping burgers during the day and I'm having to do external consultancy work in the construction industry to all get by. All in the hope that we can get to the point where the record companies thing she's impossible to ignore. Most young bands won't even get this far - so imagine just HOW much talent and great music is getting lost, because people don't think it's their problem to pay for art right now.... There's a lot more I could put to that example, but I hope that gives at least a little idea on it. You might not like her music, that's cool, but the press are calling her the female Thom Yorke etc, and she's a monstrous talent for a 19 year old (or any age really) but realistically we can't do this for very long because of the circumstances of the industry right now.
All I do is download a song or two onto my phone occasionally so I can listen to music while I walk to work. It's not as if I download hundreds of songs at a time. I don't see what I'm doing as immoral.
A song or two would cost £1.50 or so. Less than a cup of coffee. Now multiply that by the amount of people that "just download a song or two" and can you not see that it has a catastrophic effect?
Sorry to sound a bit preachy, but I'm passionate about this stuff! It's like going to a bakers on the way to work - "Just going to have a couple of buns for the walk to work. Cheers." "Err, they cost money..." "I like them though, I'll just take them. It's not immoral. I might tell my friends about them though, you'll be fine...(although they'll probably just take them too). Good luck with the business..."
The same thing has happened to writers. It's now new writers who have to do the legwork - getting themselves a following, self-publicising, etc. Publishers, as a consequence, are taking on a lot of popular **** (Fifty Shades!) instead of combing through the manuscripts on their desks and taking a risk on the gems. The internet is largely to blame - and Amazon perhaps even more so. On the bright side, music is and always will be fashionable. Reading seems to be increasingly on the decline.
I fully understand where you're coming from and i suppose how piracy affects new talent/potential new talent is often overlooked because the main argument put forward about the money lost in the industry is undermined by the successful artists publicly living a champagne lifestyle and singing about how filthy rich they are. It makes it really hard to sympathize with any claims about lost income etc.
But there's no differential in people's minds when they pirate music, to use the baker analogy again, between stealing a bun from Gregg's or stealing one from the local shop. People who steal music don't just do it from the "big" artists that they perceive can afford it. Even if they did, that's still impacting the labels massively in terms of sales income, which means they don't have the money to invest in new talent. It's just stealing.
Don't apologize. Live through your passion; it's admirable. Your passion for your industry and this artist in particular is great LTL. I really hope she makes it for you and the effort you are putting in. also so I can tell kids and music snobs I know, "Oh Fable? Yeah, I know her manager. First heard her couple of years back"
Music can be listened to freely on Youtube and on the radio, so why can't I do so on my phone? I listen to music that can be accessed for free anyway - that's not stealing in my book.
