The Amanda Palmer Kerfuffle

Musician on musician hate. With a dose of jealousy thrown in.

In case you don't live on the Interwebs, many players are shocked that Amanda Palmer is giving them a chance to play for free. Well, not completely, there's beer and hugs and audience enjoyment too.

They believe she should pay.

Because she raised a million dollars on Kickstarter and they didn't!

Line up the most successful musicians and you've got a slew of players who absolutely despise them, because said musicians made it and they didn't. That musician performed oral sex, their daddy paid, they elbowed out a better player. God, if these people just stopped complaining and put their nose to the grindstone...

They still might not make it.

These same people, especially the non-musicians weighing in, because the Internet is all about piling on, who beg for internships in the music business.

I'm gonna make it very simple. You don't have to!

Many people would salivate at the chance to play with Ms. Palmer. Well, not many people. She's not Paul McCartney, she's certainly not Bob Dylan. But a few.

You see Ms. Palmer is running a club, a gang, she's trying to do it new school, and everybody who believes music should not be free and CDs should rule are using her as a scapegoat.

Amanda ankled her major label deal, she makes money on Twitter, she uses the new technologies to both reach people and profit and they don't like it. They could join in, but then they might fail, and they wouldn't be able to sit at home at bitch.

And these players are the same ones decrying drum machines and synthesizers and every modern innovation that cost a single musician a job. If we had these people rule, we'd truly live in an "Atlas Shrugged" world. One where there's no innovation and the masses are a step behind.

Kind of like all those people bitching Apple changed the connector. Mm... Let me see. Isn't that what killed Microsoft, the refusal to leave legacy computers in the dust? By making everything backwards-compatible, Microsoft missed out on the future.

And yes, people are beating up the iPhone 5. Claiming it's not innovative enough, kind of like BMW switching to all electric vehicles which fly, damn profitability.

But that's the public. Hating on corporations.

And hating on politicians is de rigueur.

But hating on artists?

Well, that happens too.

But when artists themselves start hating on artists you lose the plot. Artists should have solidarity. And know that the future is inevitable. You might not like it, but it's coming.

Now in retrospect, Amanda Palmer made a PR mistake. She should have seen this coming. But does that mean she shouldn't have done it?

That's when the musicians really complain. When you rest on your laurels, when you take no chances, when you give them exactly what they want.

The public doesn't know what it wants. So the greatest artists go in search of their own truth.

I've seen Amanda Palmer live. If you think the additional free players are performing at Philharmonic levels, you're sorely mistaken. It's about a one time event, a happening. Hell, isn't that what we used to love about concerts? Before they were all done by rote, performed to hard drive?

I'm not saying I would make the same choice.

And I'm not telling you to do so.

But I will say Amanda Palmer is trying.

And I will say, with trying, comes mistakes. Not that this is one of them, but that's the nature of trying new things, failing.
She's willing to do this, are you?


WANTED: HORN-Y AND STRING-Y VOLUNTEERS FOR THE GRAND THEFT ORCHESTRA TOUR!!!!: http://www.amandapalmer.net/blog/20120821/


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