We Don't Want Your Record

I don't care that you made it.

I don't care that your mother and girlfriend like it.

I don't care that you funded it through Kickstarter.

Why does everybody think just because you did it I should be interested?

Parents are interested in their kids' Little League games, but I don't want to go. I loved playing ball, but even my parents didn't show up. In other words, if you're having fun recording, here's to you! But don't make me listen.

Even worse, you want me to spin it five or ten times in order to get it...

While you're at it, why don't I make you sit in a corner listening to Wayne Newton for four hours straight. Get back to me when you think that's a good idea.

How did this happen? Is it the no one gets cut from the soccer team and everybody gets a trophy paradigm?

The reason you're making no money in the music business is because you're just not good enough.

There, I said it.

This doesn't only apply to wannabes and never-made-its, but all the once successful who think since they hit the airwaves yesterday they're entitled to attention today.

Come on, name the band that cut an album as good as their seventies work.

I love Led Zeppelin, but everything Jimmy Page has done since, from David Coverdale to the Black Crowes to teaming back up with Robert Plan, is worthy of checking out...if that.

And now we get to try before we buy.

Whether it be on YouTube or Spotify, we get our curiosity satiated, and after one listen, usually just a sampling, we move on.

Is this our fault? Do you want us to marry someone without dating them first?

Oh, the music industry complaints.

Studios went out of business.

So now we're supposed to go back to a grand plus a day so the wannabes can't record at home? Is that what you really want? A barrier to entry? Because that probably means you can't play the game at all. You can't record unless you've got a record deal or a rich parent. That's the gatekeeper syndrome. Do you really want that to come back?

And record stores!

Yup, do you want to pay ten plus bucks to buy an album to get it home to find out it's substandard and you want your money back but can't get it? That's the way it used to be, there was no sampling at any record store I ever went to. You broke the shrinkwrap, you owned it. Furthermore, there were great records that you never heard because you could not afford them, now everything's available cheaply online to sample and you want to eviscerate this because all the wannabes and has-beens above are crying in their beer that they just can't make the money they used to? Tell that to print shops! Kill the laser printer! Sue Adobe's page layout software out of existence! And get HP to disable the copying function in every home printer while you're at it.

We've got to want YOU!

And if we do, there's plenty of money to be made.

But you don't know this. Because nobody wants you. You keep shelling out dough to make it and get nothing in return and you think it's the system, but really it's your music, we don't want it.

If your music is good, there's a ton of money to be made. Not all of it on recorded music. Hell, do you know that prior to the mid-nineties most of the money was still in recordings? This is before Napster. Tour guarantees and ticket prices didn't soar until Bob Sillerman rolled up the concert promoters. Why don't we jet back to that era and insist that prices go down. Oh, you don't want that. Hell, you just want to raise prices and scalp tickets. Unless no one wants to see you, then you complain about prices. Sure, there's the occasional act utilizing paperless to keep ticket prices down, but most love the soaring revenue, because they like to fly private and live a life of luxury.

New acts?

Let's make it so you've got to get on radio to hear them. Or do you want MTV to play music again too? Putting them out of business, because no advertiser will pay when everybody's flipping the channel when a video they don't like comes on.

But no, everyone's got to sacrifice so wannabe musicians and crybaby oldsters can continue to play by the old rules.

I like the new rules. I used to charge for this newsletter. Now I give it away for free online and I make a lot more money. Because many more people know my name.

But that's because I'm damn good. There, I said it. I've been doing this for decades. I've got no children, own no house and drive an almost nine year old car. I'm driven and dedicated and I'm not complaining. Because I realize life is tough and you're owed nothing.

So if you wanna bitch know that I'm not listening.

Spotify pays 70% of revenue to rights holders.

You can't get a ticket to a hit show.

And One Direction got a quarterly royalty of 150k for duct tape. FOR DUCT TAPE!

There's tons of money if you're good and want to take it.

If you're poor, it's your fault.

P.S. No one's entitled to make it in the music business. That's art. I don't think that anybody should starve, I don't think that anybody should go without health care, but I categorically do not believe that everybody should be entitled to make a living in music. Food stamps and Medicaid are a SAFETY NET! Those people aren't getting rich, they're just getting by. And if you can get by at all in music, you're lucky. If you can't, do something else. They're not lining up to dig ditches, an honorable job, but they are to be pop stars. Ever wonder why it's so hard?


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