The Echo Chamber

I'm sick and fucking tired of all you musicians and musos who believe your viewpoint is the only one that counts, who live in a bubble of your own device, loyal to the past and mad at anybody who strays from your viewpoint. Furthermore, you just keep digging your hole deeper, especially with your hour plus albums.

What the internet has allowed is for the consumer to gain control of the music experience. And it turns out these listeners and fans don't want to do it your way, and you just can't fathom that.

You want them to listen to albums.

You want them to pay a lot.

You want them to be concerned with your concerns even though you're not concerned with theirs. That's right, the consumer has his own bills, his own challenges, but yours are so much more important, because you're an artist with the weight of the world upon your shoulders, HORSESHIT!

I didn't make streaming the default, the fans did. They embraced YouTube as the definitive music service. To deny this is equivalent to denying P2P in 2000. The labels did that, to their great disadvantage. But now the labels are trying to live in the future, investing in these new services, and all you can do is bitch that they're making bank. Meanwhile, you complain that your royalties for streaming are a pittance when the truth is you can go independent and you don't, you want Big Daddy to take care of you, you're forever living in your parents' basement.

And we've got to be soft on Jack Conte because his heart is in the right place.

BULLSHIT!

If that were the determining factor we'd have to support terrorists, hell, they believe in what they have to say!

But the truth is online ideas are dissected, torn apart and put back together again. But somehow artists see themselves as immune. No one can say shit about their stuff. Hell, people give me shit all day long, it goes with the territory. There's no crying in baseball and there's no crying on the internet.

So please rid yourself of your loyalty. Please stop the knee-jerk defense of your musician brethren. Please start looking outward as opposed to inward.

Well, inward when you're creating, but when it comes to business...

You're not entitled to earn a living.

You're not entitled to attention.

The public determines the price of goods, not you.

Don't tell me the value of something, it's irrelevant if no one wants to pay that. Jimmy Iovine agitates for lower streaming subscription prices, to enhance adoption, and you keep stating they should be higher because of all the work you put in. You know nothing of scale, I wonder if you even know how milk and bread get to your counter.

But Jimmy won't talk to you. Everything he does is behind closed doors with people who count.

Because that's the modern America. Where those with education and power want nothing to do with the rabble-rousers, because the public is ignorant. Leave it to the musicians and there'd be no recorded music business. They'd be too busy arguing amongst themselves. That's why business people are needed, to add order.

So rant all you want. About the inequities of music.

But somehow those who succeed are making more money than ever before. And if you think you were screwed you're unaware your music isn't good enough or your personality sucks. Getting along is paramount, no one wants to deal with a prick.

Labels are scouring the world for that which they can sell. They'd sign you if they thought they could make money.

And if you make niche music, too bad. People have been talking about the death of classical for eons, orchestras are challenged, but somehow you need to survive. At least write a symphony as good as Mozart, okay?

And stop clinging to the way it used to be.

Albums were cardboard collections of 78s.

The Beatles created the modern album paradigm. Because all the songs hung together. And their albums were way under an hour.

And music was cheap.

As were concert tickets.

But MTV blew up acts and the CD rained down coin and somehow you expect it be the same as it ever was. Sprint lowers prices for switchers but you want to raise them. T-Mobile changes the paradigm, having people buy their handsets, but you want everybody to jet back to the past.

Get out of the echo chamber. Stop talking to your fellow musicians and start talking to the fans. And know if you want to be rich you've got to appeal to casual fans.

And that most musicians are not gonna make it.

And that the way you see it is not the way most people do.

But if something contradicts with your world view you can't handle it. Whoop-de-doo! Have a good ride on the rails to irrelevance!


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