The Gadjo Playboys- le jazz hot Robert Bobby- folkie fun Willie Marble- grits 'n blues Joe Ellis- eclectic guitar Old Time Liberation Front- fun with strings And there is much more. But what's more important than getting those songs is that by sponsoring the studio you are taking part in a real music-making revolution... (begin rant) I think I've figured out what's wrong with the music business. It isn't greedy record companies or pampered superstars or pirates. It's bigger than any of those things. The underlying problem is the notion of unit sales. Unit Sales- an idea so basic to our way of life that it's very hard to see why it's a problem. Think about how it works. Think about widgets. Widgets are things that are manufactured, transported, sold, and consumed. More widgets are always needed. There is competition to produce cheaper widgets, and/or better widgets. Market pressures are supposed to provide profits for the manufacturer and value for the consumer. Now, think about music. Music is not a widget. It doesn't get consumed the way a case of beer gets consumed. There isn't one best song that comes along and makes all the other songs unnecessary. But the music business is based on the notion of treating music like a widget. Each record sold generates a few cents of profit. Sell more records, make more money. What could possibly be wrong with that? I can explain what's wrong very simply- you will pay the same price for a record that sucks as for one that you will love for the rest of your life. The cost of the package has nothing to do with the value of the music inside. The second thing wrong with the unit sales model is that it doesn't scale down to those of us who live in the real world. Sure, it's easier and cheaper than ever for us musicians to make music and put it in packages and offer it for sale. But even if it cost nothing to do it, we couldn't make a living at it because the price people are used to paying for music is so low. If a solo performer could make $5 clear profit on every CD they sold, how many would they have to sell to make a living wage? I'd say they must sell 7,000 to 10,000 CDs every year, depending- and a band would have to sell many times that amount. That's a lot of widgets! There is a much better way to support music- sponsorships! Let's get back to the idea of value of music. If the value of a song isn't set by the price of the package, what is it set by? Well, it's set by you and me- it's how much that music means to each one of us. The very best music is priceless, yet record companies stupidly sell it for the same amount as worthless trash. Good deal for us listeners, right? It's a good deal until you ask why some of the most awful performers make the most money, and why so many great performers have to take a "real" job to survive, or give up making music altogether. The answer? Unit sales! Because the money is in quantity of units sold, not quality of music, we get the most warmed-over, dumbed-down drivel that can go on the radio and keep people from switching the channel. And people will buy this stuff, because it's all they get to hear. After all, radio works by repetition. Radio works by repetition. Now, some of us looked at the internet and said that this was going to revolutionize the music industry. We thought that this easy path of distribution was going to allow us all to find fans and make a living doing what we love doing. But we were wrong, because even though it's easier than ever to reach people with our music, we are still stuck with the unit sales model of the world, where at most, a devoted fan will buy a CD (and maybe a t-shirt). This doesn't pay the rent. Again, look at the numbers. It's really hard to convince 7,000 to 10,000 people to buy your CD every year. Independent performers have to compete with thousands of others, some with huge company budgets. But music shouldn't be about competition. Music should be about the music, not all the bull that goes along with marketing a product. So here's the deal. If you like what we do here, sponsor the work. It's simple, it's direct, and it really, really works. (/rant) Steam Powered Studio is entirely supported through sponsorships- none of the performers get charged for recording here. Your sponsorship pays for our work- past, present, and future. This is the music revolution that other people only talk about while they continue to operate by the old-fashioned notion of unit sales. Thanks for being part of the real revolution! -Jeff Coleman, AKA Liv Pooleside  How Will the Artist Get Paid? A Full, Fair And Feasible Solution To The Dilemma of Online Music Licensing Thomas Edison, Intellectual Property and the Recording Industry Fixing Compulsory Licensing Beyond the Commons Donating to Open Source Projects with Advertiser-funded Micropayments gnomoradio.org Bitpass William W. Fisher III p2pfund.com/ Audioscrobbler PledgeBank QuidMusic RIAA an undemocratic, unelected, overpowerful regime |
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