Why I'll Never Understand The Music Industry
Bit of an overreaction.
One of the reasons the music industry is so angry all the time is that, during their tenure as the gatekeepers of what we listen to, they found a way to make money from literally every possible music-related thing in the world.
I didn’t realise this until my music started getting more exposure, but:
-When my song gets played on the radio, they pay me money.
-When my song gets played on Spotify, they pay me money.
-When my song gets played on YouTube, they pay me money (in addition to my adsense).
-If someone plays a gig at a pub and does a freaking COVER of my song, the pub has to pay me money!!
This is all through music licensing - you have to have a license to play songs publicly, which includes streaming sites and live airings of the song (even if it’s not by me). Even when you play a 30-second preview stream on iTunes, I get paid for that. Cos all these companies paid the license so they have to pay me something.
I don’t understand how they ever got away with this! Bear in mind it’s something like 0.1 pennies per play, but still, it adds up - I can’t explain how unreasonable it feels that people on Spotify have listened to my music (which is, bear in mind, exactly what I want them to do with it, it’s not something I need payment for) and somehow this morning I got given £40 for it! Surely that money could be put to better use?
It’s such an odd industry. Book publishing doesn’t have this. When someone re-reads one of the Harry Potter books, or a chapter is read aloud in a school somewhere, JK Rowling doesn’t get a notification saying “you’ve received reading royalties!” - how would you police that?!
Of course, “how would you police that” is exactly the reason the major labels are trying to shut down half the internet right now. The internet fucked it all up because the internet places a value on things that’s bigger than money: exposure. Online, attention is currency. People don’t write Tumblr posts to get paid, they do it to reach people, and that’s enough. If my song gets played on Radio 1, it goes out to a MILLION PEOPLE, a few of which will probably buy the song - and that’s payment enough! Money for attention seems ridiculous, which I think must be why the moment people stopped having to do it, they did. So now the corporates complain that “Spotify don’t pay enough! Lady Gaga only earns £100 from Spotify!” - where I’m sitting here thinking “Spotify pay you AS WELL as all the other stuff!?”
I love you, music industry. I hope you find a place for me one day. But although I love you and want to share in your world, I wonder if I’ll ever really understand you. x
- Girl on twitter: I think that Justin & the Bieber Crew are the most hardworking people in the whole entire music industry.
- Me: Are you kidding? Justin and "the Bieber Crew" get anything they want handed to them. What about all the small bands? The bands that aren't recognized by the whole entire world? These are the most hardworking people in the music industry because they actually have to work. I'm not saying that Justin Bieber doesn't work hard at what he does, but he is not the most hardworking person in the music industry. These bands do all their own work. They have to carry all the sound, stage, and other stuff into the venue themselves. These bands work from paycheck to paycheck. They play real music and you can hear the passion from their voice. They would do anything for their fans - anything. These bands wait outside in the freezing cold for hours just so fans can get a couple pictures. These bands are the people who are the hardest working people in the entire music industry. And don't tell me otherwise.
I am so grateful. For our career path, for my siblings, for our new music, for how things have worked out…. You don’t understand how much I appreciate the last three years right now. To fail, to be proven wrong, to NOT have anyone hyping you or pushing you as the “next big thing”, to be left on your own to just figure it out and do your thing, to learn how to do it all on your own because you don’t have a choice, to be given enough time by God to REALLY get it right….. I honestly couldn’t ask for more. These past few years, so much could’ve been different but I wouldn’t change a thing. I AM SO GRATEFUL :’))) in February, we decided we were tired of waiting around for someone to make our dreams come true and that we were gonna find our single and make things happen. We didn’t know how, when or where but we were DETERMINED to succeed. In March, we wrote like 25 songs/pieces of songs. We found a TOTALLY new direction and went back to our roots a bit. We spent too much time in the past letting people tell us what’s cool, what people wanna hear, what we should do, how we should sing, what we should sing about…. We finally realized that our lives have never been lived before and there are no preset rules. There is no “right” way to do this! This has never been done before! If we want our story to be told, WE NEED TO TELL IT. Haha it’s that simple! So yeah, we really took our fate into our own hands and took off all the limits and dumb rules some people tried to put on us before. I am SOOOO HAPPY with how everything is working out and sounding and coming together. This stuff is real, honest and from the heart. I hope you guys will connect with it as much as we do. We really do want to set good examples and be good role models. We never wanna abuse the position we’re in or lead anybody astray. We hope that over the next few years, we can be as bright of a light as possible while we make music we love, share our story and connect with as many of you as possible. THANK YOU FOR MAKING THIS POSSIBLE. THANK YOU FOE GIVING US A CHANCE. THANK YOU FOR EVER CLICKING ON OUR VIDEOS. YOU ARE THE REASON WE ARE SO HAPPY ALL THE TIME :)))) thank you all SOOOOO much for changing our lives. We will never be able to thank you enough :’)) and btw, sharing our music with y’all and getting to meet you guys face to face is by FAR the best part of all this. Like going to fancy events and parties, meeting “important people”, being around industry kids and all that is actually super lame hahaha. People are so fake and have the worst priorities, I hate being around all that. I always get excited the morning of thinking it might be different this time but it’s always the same. I always end up sitting there wishing I could be home in my sweatpants and uggs or in the studio (my fav place) creating new stuff for you guys OR out meeting you guys. That’s where our hearts are. Everything else is whatever. WE LOVE YOU GUYS SOOOO MUCH. THANK YOU FOR EVERYTHING. THANK YOU FOR BEING REAL. THANK YOU FOR BELIEVING IN US. WE NEVER WANNA LET YOU DOWN. TRULY, YOU ARE THE BEST FAMILY WE COULD EVER ASK FOR :)))) here’s to the Summer of CIMORELLI :) :) :) :)
Ya'll? Can we have a conversation about the disrespect the Flaming Lips showed Erykah Badu?
OKP News: The First time I saw your face video
OKP News: Erykah Badu’s Statement On “First Time Ever I Saw Your Face” Video by Eddie “STATS” on June 6, 2012 NEWS 8 Comments Erykah Badu apparently being devoured by Wayne Coyne of The Flaming Lips A few minutes ago we received the following statement from Erykah Badu via SMS, a duplicate of a statement she linked to from her twitter just about an hour ago, and time-stamped 3:33pm CST today–for clarity, some hours after Wayne Coyne of The Flaming Lips released a statement of apology for leaking the video for their collaboration “First Time Ever I Saw Your Face,” apparently without approval from Ms. Badoula or her little sister Nayrok, who also appears in the video. For the benefit of Badu fans, we reprint it here in full without comment or edits. Read after the jump:
3:33pm dallas @waynecoyne then… perhaps, next time u get an occasion to work with an artist who respects your mind/art, you should send at least a ROUGh version of the video u PLAN to release b4 u manipulate or compromise the artist’s brand by desperately releasing a poor excuse for shock and nudity that sends a convoluted message that passes as art( to some).
Even with Window Seat there was a method and thought process involved. I have not one need for publicity . I just love artistic dialogue . And just because an image is shocking does not make it art.
You obviously have a misconception of who I am artistically. I don’t mind that but…
By the way you are an ass. Yu did everything wrong from the on set . First: You showed me a concept of beautiful tasteful imagery( by way of vid text messages) . I trusted that. I was mistaken. Then u release an unedited, unapproved version within the next few days. That all spells 1 thing , Self Serving . When asked what the concept meant after u explained it , u replied ,”it doesn’t mean anything , I just want to make a great video that everyone is going to watch. ”
I understood , because as an artist we all desire that. But we don’t all do it at another artist’s expense . I attempted to resolve this respectfully by having conversations with u after the release but that too proved to be a poor excuse for art. From jump, You begged me to sit in a tub of that other shit and I said naw. I refused to sit in any liquid that was not water. But Out of RESPECT for you and the artist you ‘appear’ to be, I Didn’t wanna kill your concept , wanted u to at least get it out of your head . After all, u spent your dough on studio , trip to Dallas etc..
Sooo, I invited Nayrok , my lil sis and artist, who is much more liberal ,to be subject of those other disturbing (to me ) scenes . I told u from jump that I believed your concept to be disturbing. But would give your edit a chance. You then said u would take my shots ( in clear water/ fully covered parts -seemed harmless enough) and Nayrok’s part ( which I was not present for but saw the photos and a sample scene of cornstarch dripping ) and edit them together along with cosmic, green screen images ( which no one saw) then would show me the edit.
. Instead, U disrespected me by releasing pics and rough vid on the internet without my approval. (Contract breech ) That is equivalent to putting out a security camera’s images of me changing in the fitting room. I never would have approved that tasteless, meaningless, shock motivated video . Our art is a reflection of who we are . I have no connection to those images shot in their raw version. I was interested in seeing an amazing edit that would perhaps change or alter my thoughts . Never happened .
Like, can we have a convo about the history of Black generosity is used and abused by white people who have no fucking manners and respect at all (and here I think of reggae and how Jamaicans go we offer this to you, its a world music thing, and yet the way some white people consume it you feel like grabbing it back from them and going oh HELL NAW; plus the way rock was taken away from African Americans and redefined as a white male middle class rebellion thing in the US and god knows what in Europe; and blues is now apparently Adele and Joss Stone and all the white girls white run music papers can crown), how sexuality is exploited (cause I damn well saw a HUGE difference in The First Time I Saw Your Face and Window Seat, The three levels of fuckery going on here, first to Roberta Flack and to Erykah and her sister, three black women being disrespected by white men; to how white appropriators and exploiters have no fucking respect and yet are considered legends because the power to write the canon is on their side?! What the fuck is this?
“He was... in so many ways was unfit to live in the world. He had a very difficult time in the world, but completely submerged himself in art. He honestly seemed happy in that balance. It’s like he created his own world outside of the normal world, and lived there, I think, happily.”
—Music producer and co-founder of Def Jam Records Rick Rubin remembers hip-hop video director Ric Menello: http://nyr.kr/165BT5b
The music industry generated 2 billion fake video views on YouTube
— YouTube Kills Billions of Video Views Faked By Music IndustrySony/BMG’s was hit the hardest with views dropping from a total of more than 850 million to just 2.3 million. RCA declined by 159 million views to a total of 120 million. Universal lost more than 1 billion views and now stands below 6 billion. Google confirmed that the companies violated its terms of services, which prohibits users from artificially inflating video views. Google noted that the view stripping was “an enforcement of [the company’s] viewcount policy”.
