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I owned a SMALL Record Label and Studio. I was (still?) good at picking out talent in bands. The Whole Industry Sucks I had two bands that ended up on Major L

by baldfat 11y ago

I owned a SMALL Record Label and Studio. I was (still?) good at picking out talent in bands. The Whole Industry Sucks I had two bands that ended up on Major Labels and Toured the World. I met a kid on the street wearing one of my Bands shirts and struck up a conversation. They still love the band 10 years later. These guys per person made at the TOP $7,000 in profit after expenses were paid. One band did a KickStarter and pulled in $40,000. It was their biggest pay day ever. I knwo a band (Zao) who has the a Label's (Solid State) biggest selling album ever and the band never saw a dime. PS That band was drama and the drummer was the biggest jerk ever BUT they still deserved to get paid.

at-fates-hands 11y ago
I used to work in a record shop and found out first hand how much promotion a band needs just to sell a few CD's. I can't tell you how many insanely good bands died because either the label didn't promote them, or they just ran out of cash and quit. The only problem I see nowadays is there's virtually no vetting process. It used to be the good bands would eventually rise to the top and the shitty garage bands would be relegated to small venues. Today, there's such an over saturation of music. Artists have thousands of avenues to get their music out. As a huge music fan, how do I sort through all the noise to find a truly good band, and not some guy programming the guitars, drums tracks and bass and then does the vocals himself? Today, I just stick with a small handful of bands that I can support and just keep an eye out for new bands. There's just way too much noise to signal ratio for me to sit and search for hours on end to find one decent band, only to find out they broke up five years ago.
- slouch 11y ago
  For me, it's still primarily http://last.fm/ http://last.fm/ 's similar artist feature.
  - deleted 11y ago
    [deleted]
  - Declanomous 11y ago
    I've had the opposite experience with Last.fm. I actually realized last week that my scrobbling was broken, and I wasn't particularly disappointed. Last.fm used to be a place where I could check out bands I had never heard of. It was like the website equivalent of the friend who spends all day listening to new music, and will recommend music that is eerily perfect for you. I feel like the "similar artists" function has changed to prioritize artists that are already extremely popular, even if a much less popular artists is much more similar to the band you are currently listening to. It's plausible I know a lot more bands than I used to, and that new bands are inherently less novel to me. However, I believe this is a trend that can be followed across almost all websites. As evidence, you only need to look at the changes Facebook made in the same time period. They study the interactions their users make as much as any company, and they've ensured that their users spend the most time on Facebook and provide them with as much data as possible. Facebook used to show every update on the new feed. Now I rarely see posts from anyone I disagree with. I used to get a lot of my information about bands from their Facebook groups. Now the only updates I get are from the major companies I've liked, because they can pay to send a message. I totally understand why large websites are doing this. These services are most profitable as an advertising platform. In the case of Last.fm, the people listening to John Doe and the Backup Band aren't going to make them money. This 'cultivation' has an extremely chilling effect on the variety and depth of news, viewpoints, etc. that allowed the internet to foster an explosion in creative expression.
    - Jenya_ 11y ago
      there is some new music on http://www.thesixtyone.com/ http://www.thesixtyone.com/, the site came back to life again at the beginning of this year.
  - CuriouslyC 11y ago
    The problem with last.fm (and almost all similar music services) is that a lot of the similarity they encapsulate is chronological and social similarity, rather than musical similarity. For example, a search for Nirvana pulls up Hole (social similarity, the Courtney Love connection) and Pearl Jam (social & chronological similarity) quite high on the list, even though neither really sounds that much like Nirvana. On the other hand, The Pixies, which are musically much closer to Nirvana aren't even on the list.
    - btilly 11y ago
      How do you measure similarity to capture what you want? The obvious approach is that you look for "people who like this, like that". This is easy to measure and understand. And when you're faced with a person who liked this, it is usually the right answer. The problem is that you don't know WHY people who like this, like that. Often it is simply, "Heard both at an impressionable age." What you want it to be is, "On the musical criteria that I can recognize, this music is similar." But that's a complex piece of logic, and it is not clear how to do so. Which makes the tools really good for rediscovering all of the stuff from your childhood, and really bad for discovering new music that is similar to stuff you like.
      - Grishnakh 11y ago
        You do it by objectively analyzing the music from a technical standpoint. That's how last.fm started; it was someone's research project to look for "musical DNA" and then use that "signature" to find similar music. It actually worked well.
        dublinben 11y ago
        Pandora is actually the site that was borne out of the music DNA project.
- moron4hire 11y ago
  The old ways of playing local and building a following are still available. Maybe you won't see the same crazy success numbers a teenage girl dancing around with a violin on YouTube can get, but that's the fuggin lottery anyway.
  - duderific 11y ago
    The old ways of building a following are still available, but much, much less so than say in the 90's. Many of the local clubs have gone out of business, as you're more likely to make more money in a commercial space doing almost anything other than staging live music. There are of course exceptions, as in music hubs like LA and Austin, but around the Bay Area for example, I'd say 50% or more of the local clubs have shut down. Edit: typo.
- DannoHung 11y ago
  > As a huge music fan, how do I sort through all the noise to find a truly good band, and not some guy programming the guitars, drums tracks and bass and then does the vocals himself? Eh? Do you mean you don't like it unless you know the band is full of good instrumentalists or that you find too much stuff that's not done well?
  - 6stringmerc 11y ago
    Not my comment but I had to read that a couple times too - I think it's more a reference to the latter part, as in, things not done well. A one-person shop might make a lot of excuses and not have the ability to reach quality production to the point of hiding the fact it's just a one-person shop. Fundamentally I don't disagree; it takes a lot to 'sound pro' and a lot falls short...it's been a multi-year learning process on my end and I'm still nowhere near 'pro' engineer level, though some tracks might fool ears here and there.
- 20after4 11y ago
  This guy does it all alone, never gets hardly any recognition and yet he's still pumping out great songs after a bunch of years: https://soundcloud.com/plastic-pieces https://soundcloud.com/plastic-pieces
  - partisan 11y ago
    I see what you did there. The question is a good one. How does one differentiate themselves from the pack. The same goes for just about any art form today. There are so many artists and so many works, many of them good enough to tickle your fancy and yet the majority of them will only get a tiny fraction of the consideration they deserve. I would love to publish music or books, but I know that given my dysfunctional relationship with social media, that I am just about wasting my time doing any of the above, even if I had a shred of talent.
    - theseatoms 11y ago
      What does your dysfunctional relationship with social media have to do with producing works of art? I honestly just didn't follow your train of thought. The arts have to be their own reward. If you're making art for money, and not the love, it's probably not worth doing. For better or worse, the marketplace is finally realizing this.
      - Le_SDT 11y ago
        I do not agree with that. When I produce music of coarse I feel good with what I did and of coarse I enjoy listening to it. The art is what makes me happy. But god I would have loved to make money with my passion. Some people are passionated by numbers, some by art. In the end it's a product and if you want to make money with it it is fine.
        theseatoms 11y ago
        I'm not saying that it's wrong to want to make money off of art. I'm happy for those who can. I'm saying that if money is the dominant motivating factor in producing art, expect to be disappointed. Technology has reduced many costs of artistic production and has led to an oversupply of "content." To the cold, uncaring marketplace, you're effectively being compensated by those good feelings involved in the process of imagining, producing, and sharing art. Even so, I draw and record music for my own enjoyment, and to collaborate with friends.
- user_0001 11y ago
  >>It used to be the good bands would eventually rise to the top and the shitty garage bands would be relegated to small venues. really? Are you sure? Plenty of big bands did not deserve it but were well marketed and plenty of smaller toilet stop tour bands deserved it and never made it.
- robenkleene 11y ago
  > not some guy programming the guitars, drums tracks and bass and then does the vocals himself? Some highly regarded albums that use that exact process, all are five stars on Allmusic: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/There%27s_a_Riot_Goin%27_On https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/There%27s_a_Riot_Goin%27_On https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dirty_Mind https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dirty_Mind https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pretty_Hate_Machine https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pretty_Hate_Machine Another that legend has it was recording the same way, albeit under different circumstances: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siamese_Dream https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siamese_Dream Another recent one that the verdict is still out on: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Currents_(Tame_Impala_album) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Currents_(Tame_Impala_album)
  - 6stringmerc 11y ago
    Though I'm not sure if it meets critical acclaim standards, Tom Scholz basically recorded the debut Boston album in his basement[1] and that thing sold 25 million. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tom_Scholz https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tom_Scholz Also I grew up playing with his Rockman device and it was sincerely one of the coolest guitar innovations a kid could have access to early on. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rockman_%28amplifier%29 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rockman_%28amplifier%29
  - johnchristopher 11y ago
    > Another that legend has it was recording the same way, albeit under different circumstances: > https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siamese_Dream https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siamese_Dream I read the wikipedia entry and it's quite a stretch :].
    - robenkleene 11y ago
      Yeah, I agree 100%, especially with respect to Wikipedia's description of it. It's just something I've always heard around, but I definitely don't have an even remotely reliable source. Here's what Allmusic says about it: "Corgan eventually played almost all the instruments himself (except for percussion)." http://www.allmusic.com/album/siamese-dream-mw0000099414 http://www.allmusic.com/album/siamese-dream-mw0000099414
- baldfat 11y ago
  > There's just way too much noise to signal ratio for me to sit and search for hours on end to find one decent band I find Podcasts on Music AWESOME for discovery: http://www.npr.org/podcasts/510019/all-songs-considered http://www.npr.org/podcasts/510019/all-songs-considered
  - pakled_engineer 11y ago
    Or University radio stations, they're still around and have charts http://www.earshot-online.com/charts/citr.cfm http://www.earshot-online.com/charts/citr.cfm
jdietrich 11y ago
Steve Albini's essay The Problem With Music is essential reading. It explains in detail the catastrophically bad financial outlook for most musicians. http://www.negativland.com/news/?page_id=17 http://www.negativland.com/news/?page_id=17
- robbyking 11y ago
  Steve Albini's essay really illustrates how labels blaming streaming for declining album revenue is akin to the top 1% of income earnings blaming the poor for the middle class's economic problems. The labels always come out ahead, and streaming has become an easy way for the labels to refocus musicians' attention away from the actual source of the problem.
  - ArkyBeagle 11y ago
    The labels that didn't come out ahead don't exist any more. Nobody says this: In the 1980s, you could establish the sort of relationships to get priority at CD plants and resell back catalog that was already universally known. So the people who won did that instead of so much trying to break new acts. The last gasp of a flood of new acts actually getting on radio was the SubPop ... thing in the 1990s. After that, nothing unless you followed R&B or "indie." That monoculture ended than. But to be fair, it only started in the first place because radio transitioned from being mainstream to being a "youth" market.
    - robbyking 11y ago
      The labels that didn't come out ahead don't exist any more. Just one point of clarification, when I wrote “the labels,” I meant the big three major labels and their subsidiaries. As both a life long musician and avid music fan, I don't count truly independent labels as part of the "industry."
    - sneak 11y ago
      Literally anyone can put a streaming app into the major app stores these days and bypass all of this. Why are the Big 3 still in this chokehold position? Is the market failing, or do they actually provide valuable services that can't be obtained elsewhere? In either case: why is that?
collias 11y ago
Just chiming in to say it's fun to see someone mention Zao. As it turns out, I was just listening to them yesterday after not listening to them for years. I used to be a huge fan. I love that band, and they absolutely deserve to get paid. As someone who works in/with the music industry, it really pains me to see bands put out great work despite so much pain (and drama) to themselves, only to get underpaid.
- steveklabnik 11y ago
  I had the same reaction. Where Blood and Fire Bring Rest and Peace was so incredibly influential to me. I even liked Self Titled...
Dwolb 11y ago
Just a side note, I saw the founder of Pandora speak and he said their mission is to create a middle class for musicians by making it easier to discover, listen, and support non-hit artists. I'm not sure if their plan had a broader strategy, but I felt the vision was at least admirable due to its mission beyond just firm profits.
- pink_dinner 11y ago
  How do you create a 'middle class' when there is no money left in the industry for smaller artists? Pandora pays the superstars well and if you aren't getting millions of plays, you aren't making enough to even provide for yourself. This all started with file sharing 15 years ago. Everyone thought they were helping out the independent artists, but in reality, it made it so they could no longer compete without a huge corporation backing them. File sharing has only helped big labels by increasing the barrier to entry. I know so many independent artists that were making a decent living (not rich, but enough to support themselves instead of having to get a job) selling music online. File sharing changed all of this. The value of music (CD/MP3s) slowly approached 0 and now that we have streaming, copyright infringement still hasn't gotten any better, it's worse. Live shows, the profit model so many people tried to use as justification for sharing, don't really pay much unless you are doing huge venues and have big label connections. A small gig might get you a couple hundred bucks in a night. With gas, time, and splitting it with everyone in the band, there isn't much to be passed around. This also puts many of these artists in completely desperate situations, where they will sign pretty much any contract. The big labels know this and use it to their full advantage. The big corporations with tons of cash reserves will always be able to survive the slaughtering of an industry's profits...and we still have all of the major music labels. What we don't have is many of the independent artists and labels.
  - baldfat 11y ago
    > Everyone thought they were helping out the independent artists, but in reality, it made it so they could no longer compete without a huge corporation backing them. File sharing has only helped big labels by increasing the barrier to entry. Speaking about Indie Music I'm the SMALL Record Label. The money comes in through sales of Merch, Gigs and selling CD/MP3. I think there has never been a time better for Indie Music. There are more people making a "living" in music and not being a big label band or a cover band, but they are all fighting for a very small pot. Blame 1) Music Fans. The vast majority of people will never give Indie bands a listen and have the listening pallet of a 6 year old. 2) Indie population is high majority college age kids. I would love to see this expand. I am in my 40s and I don't know anyone my age that is into Indie Music. Heck when I was in my late 20s and early 30 I was "Old Man" to everyone. 3) Bands - Don't have enough money sense (Including myself as a studio/label owner). They have a TON of survivor instincts and the tenacity to keep going but they can't figure out how to turn things into money. 4) Streaming - People actively seeking out certain music pays the same as mindless random steams. I think if people search and specifically pick your music it should pay more.
chx 11y ago
I really like Patreon. https://patreon.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/204606315-What-is-Patreon- https://patreon.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/204606315-What... it's continuous crowdfunding.
- williamcotton 11y ago
  It's just that Patreon is financial agnostic. We need to treat these investments like fungible capital goods. And we need to invest in the intellectual property that artists make, not the artists themselves. Why should we do that? Because it works and its a foundational element of a market economy. We're capable of much more than a simplistic patron model. That's how things were financed in the middle ages. We've got a few hundred years of modern finance to learn from.
  - kiba 11y ago
    We need to...why? That's how things were financed in the middle ages In the middle ages, can you get thousand of people to essentially send you a small paycheck every month on an ongoing basis? And what exactly is wrong with that model?
    - williamcotton 11y ago
      It's not as productive as it could be if people were instead engaged in the commercial activities of investing in intellectual property. Financial assets and intellectual property are not something I can teach you in a comment box. I recommend reading these two books and then we can start the conversation back up again. http://www.amazon.com/The-Mystery-Capital-Capitalism-Everywhere/dp/0465016154 http://www.amazon.com/The-Mystery-Capital-Capitalism-Everywh... http://www.amazon.com/Praise-Commercial-Culture-Tyler-Cowen/dp/0674001885 http://www.amazon.com/Praise-Commercial-Culture-Tyler-Cowen/... Tyler Cowen and Hernando de Soto are two economists that are held in incredibly high regard and have done a wonderful job explaining the core concepts of both what constitutes finance and how it applies to intellectual creativity in a market economy. Cue the knee-jerk rebuttal in 3... 2... 1... "But the internet changed everything!" Uh huh, ok, sure, whatever you say... yawn
mt3ck 11y ago
This reminds me of a clip from Vinyl. Vinyl 1x01 - Zak Yankovich "We practically break even on all the flops." https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3PU3DHiXZ-8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3PU3DHiXZ-8
matt_morgan 11y ago
You mean Jesse Smith? Jeff Gretz (current drummer) is the nicest/coolest/most talented drummer ever.
- russnewcomer 11y ago
  He has to mean Jesse. Gretz didn't play any of the Solid State albums, if I remember correctly. I'm also fairly sure that Underoath's Define The Great Line has since outsold any of Zao's albums (I'm guessing either Liberate or Blood and Fire were the top seller that bald_fat mentioned).
jmacd 11y ago
I loved Zao! That disappoints me
542458 11y ago
So maybe I'm misunderstanding something, but how is Zao Solid's biggest selling album? None of Zao's albums lasted longer than a week on the billboard 200. They've had much bigger bands signed - ABR, Demon Hunter, Underoath... http://www.billboard.com/biz/search/charts?f[0]=tm_imprintlabel%3A%2ASolid%20State%2A&f[1]=ss_bb_type%3Achart_item&type=1&label=Solid%20State http://www.billboard.com/biz/search/charts?f[0]=tm_imprintla...
- russnewcomer 11y ago
  Long tail. I feel like I remember hearing that in 2003, Where Blood and Fire Bring Rest was still selling around 200 copies a week, five year after release. That's around 100,000 a year, and if it's selling that five years after release, that's pretty good. Plus, Billboard charts were notoriously inaccurate for Christian bookstore sales in the late 90's, early 2000s time frame, which is where a lot of Solid State distribution was.
f1nch3r 11y ago
Never thought I'd see a post involving Zao on HN. That's sad to hear that Solid State did them wrong, regardless of the jerkiness of (I'm assuming you're referring to) Jesse Smith.
vogt 11y ago
I have to know, simply because you're the only one I've known who has mentioned Zao on HN: which small record label did you own?

by baldfat 11y ago

at-fates-hands 11y ago

I used to work in a record shop and found out first hand how much promotion a band needs just to sell a few CD's. I can't tell you how many insanely good bands died because either the label didn't promote them, or they just ran out of cash and quit. The only problem I see nowadays is there's virtually no vetting process. It used to be the good bands would eventually rise to the top and the shitty garage bands would be relegated to small venues. Today, there's such an over saturation of music. Artists have thousands of avenues to get their music out. As a huge music fan, how do I sort through all the noise to find a truly good band, and not some guy programming the guitars, drums tracks and bass and then does the vocals himself? Today, I just stick with a small handful of bands that I can support and just keep an eye out for new bands. There's just way too much noise to signal ratio for me to sit and search for hours on end to find one decent band, only to find out they broke up five years ago.

slouch 11y ago
For me, it's still primarily http://last.fm/ http://last.fm/ 's similar artist feature.
- deleted 11y ago
  [deleted]
- Declanomous 11y ago
  I've had the opposite experience with Last.fm. I actually realized last week that my scrobbling was broken, and I wasn't particularly disappointed. Last.fm used to be a place where I could check out bands I had never heard of. It was like the website equivalent of the friend who spends all day listening to new music, and will recommend music that is eerily perfect for you. I feel like the "similar artists" function has changed to prioritize artists that are already extremely popular, even if a much less popular artists is much more similar to the band you are currently listening to. It's plausible I know a lot more bands than I used to, and that new bands are inherently less novel to me. However, I believe this is a trend that can be followed across almost all websites. As evidence, you only need to look at the changes Facebook made in the same time period. They study the interactions their users make as much as any company, and they've ensured that their users spend the most time on Facebook and provide them with as much data as possible. Facebook used to show every update on the new feed. Now I rarely see posts from anyone I disagree with. I used to get a lot of my information about bands from their Facebook groups. Now the only updates I get are from the major companies I've liked, because they can pay to send a message. I totally understand why large websites are doing this. These services are most profitable as an advertising platform. In the case of Last.fm, the people listening to John Doe and the Backup Band aren't going to make them money. This 'cultivation' has an extremely chilling effect on the variety and depth of news, viewpoints, etc. that allowed the internet to foster an explosion in creative expression.
  - Jenya_ 11y ago
    there is some new music on http://www.thesixtyone.com/ http://www.thesixtyone.com/, the site came back to life again at the beginning of this year.
- CuriouslyC 11y ago
  The problem with last.fm (and almost all similar music services) is that a lot of the similarity they encapsulate is chronological and social similarity, rather than musical similarity. For example, a search for Nirvana pulls up Hole (social similarity, the Courtney Love connection) and Pearl Jam (social & chronological similarity) quite high on the list, even though neither really sounds that much like Nirvana. On the other hand, The Pixies, which are musically much closer to Nirvana aren't even on the list.
  - btilly 11y ago
    How do you measure similarity to capture what you want? The obvious approach is that you look for "people who like this, like that". This is easy to measure and understand. And when you're faced with a person who liked this, it is usually the right answer. The problem is that you don't know WHY people who like this, like that. Often it is simply, "Heard both at an impressionable age." What you want it to be is, "On the musical criteria that I can recognize, this music is similar." But that's a complex piece of logic, and it is not clear how to do so. Which makes the tools really good for rediscovering all of the stuff from your childhood, and really bad for discovering new music that is similar to stuff you like.
    - Grishnakh 11y ago
      You do it by objectively analyzing the music from a technical standpoint. That's how last.fm started; it was someone's research project to look for "musical DNA" and then use that "signature" to find similar music. It actually worked well.
      - dublinben 11y ago
        Pandora is actually the site that was borne out of the music DNA project.
moron4hire 11y ago
The old ways of playing local and building a following are still available. Maybe you won't see the same crazy success numbers a teenage girl dancing around with a violin on YouTube can get, but that's the fuggin lottery anyway.
- duderific 11y ago
  The old ways of building a following are still available, but much, much less so than say in the 90's. Many of the local clubs have gone out of business, as you're more likely to make more money in a commercial space doing almost anything other than staging live music. There are of course exceptions, as in music hubs like LA and Austin, but around the Bay Area for example, I'd say 50% or more of the local clubs have shut down. Edit: typo.
DannoHung 11y ago
> As a huge music fan, how do I sort through all the noise to find a truly good band, and not some guy programming the guitars, drums tracks and bass and then does the vocals himself? Eh? Do you mean you don't like it unless you know the band is full of good instrumentalists or that you find too much stuff that's not done well?
- 6stringmerc 11y ago
  Not my comment but I had to read that a couple times too - I think it's more a reference to the latter part, as in, things not done well. A one-person shop might make a lot of excuses and not have the ability to reach quality production to the point of hiding the fact it's just a one-person shop. Fundamentally I don't disagree; it takes a lot to 'sound pro' and a lot falls short...it's been a multi-year learning process on my end and I'm still nowhere near 'pro' engineer level, though some tracks might fool ears here and there.
20after4 11y ago
This guy does it all alone, never gets hardly any recognition and yet he's still pumping out great songs after a bunch of years: https://soundcloud.com/plastic-pieces https://soundcloud.com/plastic-pieces
- partisan 11y ago
  I see what you did there. The question is a good one. How does one differentiate themselves from the pack. The same goes for just about any art form today. There are so many artists and so many works, many of them good enough to tickle your fancy and yet the majority of them will only get a tiny fraction of the consideration they deserve. I would love to publish music or books, but I know that given my dysfunctional relationship with social media, that I am just about wasting my time doing any of the above, even if I had a shred of talent.
  - theseatoms 11y ago
    What does your dysfunctional relationship with social media have to do with producing works of art? I honestly just didn't follow your train of thought. The arts have to be their own reward. If you're making art for money, and not the love, it's probably not worth doing. For better or worse, the marketplace is finally realizing this.
    - Le_SDT 11y ago
      I do not agree with that. When I produce music of coarse I feel good with what I did and of coarse I enjoy listening to it. The art is what makes me happy. But god I would have loved to make money with my passion. Some people are passionated by numbers, some by art. In the end it's a product and if you want to make money with it it is fine.
      - theseatoms 11y ago
        I'm not saying that it's wrong to want to make money off of art. I'm happy for those who can. I'm saying that if money is the dominant motivating factor in producing art, expect to be disappointed. Technology has reduced many costs of artistic production and has led to an oversupply of "content." To the cold, uncaring marketplace, you're effectively being compensated by those good feelings involved in the process of imagining, producing, and sharing art. Even so, I draw and record music for my own enjoyment, and to collaborate with friends.
user_0001 11y ago
>>It used to be the good bands would eventually rise to the top and the shitty garage bands would be relegated to small venues. really? Are you sure? Plenty of big bands did not deserve it but were well marketed and plenty of smaller toilet stop tour bands deserved it and never made it.
robenkleene 11y ago
> not some guy programming the guitars, drums tracks and bass and then does the vocals himself? Some highly regarded albums that use that exact process, all are five stars on Allmusic: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/There%27s_a_Riot_Goin%27_On https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/There%27s_a_Riot_Goin%27_On https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dirty_Mind https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dirty_Mind https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pretty_Hate_Machine https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pretty_Hate_Machine Another that legend has it was recording the same way, albeit under different circumstances: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siamese_Dream https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siamese_Dream Another recent one that the verdict is still out on: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Currents_(Tame_Impala_album) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Currents_(Tame_Impala_album)
- 6stringmerc 11y ago
  Though I'm not sure if it meets critical acclaim standards, Tom Scholz basically recorded the debut Boston album in his basement[1] and that thing sold 25 million. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tom_Scholz https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tom_Scholz Also I grew up playing with his Rockman device and it was sincerely one of the coolest guitar innovations a kid could have access to early on. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rockman_%28amplifier%29 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rockman_%28amplifier%29
- johnchristopher 11y ago
  > Another that legend has it was recording the same way, albeit under different circumstances: > https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siamese_Dream https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siamese_Dream I read the wikipedia entry and it's quite a stretch :].
  - robenkleene 11y ago
    Yeah, I agree 100%, especially with respect to Wikipedia's description of it. It's just something I've always heard around, but I definitely don't have an even remotely reliable source. Here's what Allmusic says about it: "Corgan eventually played almost all the instruments himself (except for percussion)." http://www.allmusic.com/album/siamese-dream-mw0000099414 http://www.allmusic.com/album/siamese-dream-mw0000099414
baldfat 11y ago
> There's just way too much noise to signal ratio for me to sit and search for hours on end to find one decent band I find Podcasts on Music AWESOME for discovery: http://www.npr.org/podcasts/510019/all-songs-considered http://www.npr.org/podcasts/510019/all-songs-considered
- pakled_engineer 11y ago
  Or University radio stations, they're still around and have charts http://www.earshot-online.com/charts/citr.cfm http://www.earshot-online.com/charts/citr.cfm

jdietrich 11y ago

Steve Albini's essay The Problem With Music is essential reading. It explains in detail the catastrophically bad financial outlook for most musicians. http://www.negativland.com/news/?page_id=17 http://www.negativland.com/news/?page_id=17

robbyking 11y ago
Steve Albini's essay really illustrates how labels blaming streaming for declining album revenue is akin to the top 1% of income earnings blaming the poor for the middle class's economic problems. The labels always come out ahead, and streaming has become an easy way for the labels to refocus musicians' attention away from the actual source of the problem.
- ArkyBeagle 11y ago
  The labels that didn't come out ahead don't exist any more. Nobody says this: In the 1980s, you could establish the sort of relationships to get priority at CD plants and resell back catalog that was already universally known. So the people who won did that instead of so much trying to break new acts. The last gasp of a flood of new acts actually getting on radio was the SubPop ... thing in the 1990s. After that, nothing unless you followed R&B or "indie." That monoculture ended than. But to be fair, it only started in the first place because radio transitioned from being mainstream to being a "youth" market.
  - robbyking 11y ago
    The labels that didn't come out ahead don't exist any more. Just one point of clarification, when I wrote “the labels,” I meant the big three major labels and their subsidiaries. As both a life long musician and avid music fan, I don't count truly independent labels as part of the "industry."
  - sneak 11y ago
    Literally anyone can put a streaming app into the major app stores these days and bypass all of this. Why are the Big 3 still in this chokehold position? Is the market failing, or do they actually provide valuable services that can't be obtained elsewhere? In either case: why is that?

collias 11y ago

Just chiming in to say it's fun to see someone mention Zao. As it turns out, I was just listening to them yesterday after not listening to them for years. I used to be a huge fan. I love that band, and they absolutely deserve to get paid. As someone who works in/with the music industry, it really pains me to see bands put out great work despite so much pain (and drama) to themselves, only to get underpaid.

steveklabnik 11y ago
I had the same reaction. Where Blood and Fire Bring Rest and Peace was so incredibly influential to me. I even liked Self Titled...

Dwolb 11y ago

Just a side note, I saw the founder of Pandora speak and he said their mission is to create a middle class for musicians by making it easier to discover, listen, and support non-hit artists. I'm not sure if their plan had a broader strategy, but I felt the vision was at least admirable due to its mission beyond just firm profits.

pink_dinner 11y ago
How do you create a 'middle class' when there is no money left in the industry for smaller artists? Pandora pays the superstars well and if you aren't getting millions of plays, you aren't making enough to even provide for yourself. This all started with file sharing 15 years ago. Everyone thought they were helping out the independent artists, but in reality, it made it so they could no longer compete without a huge corporation backing them. File sharing has only helped big labels by increasing the barrier to entry. I know so many independent artists that were making a decent living (not rich, but enough to support themselves instead of having to get a job) selling music online. File sharing changed all of this. The value of music (CD/MP3s) slowly approached 0 and now that we have streaming, copyright infringement still hasn't gotten any better, it's worse. Live shows, the profit model so many people tried to use as justification for sharing, don't really pay much unless you are doing huge venues and have big label connections. A small gig might get you a couple hundred bucks in a night. With gas, time, and splitting it with everyone in the band, there isn't much to be passed around. This also puts many of these artists in completely desperate situations, where they will sign pretty much any contract. The big labels know this and use it to their full advantage. The big corporations with tons of cash reserves will always be able to survive the slaughtering of an industry's profits...and we still have all of the major music labels. What we don't have is many of the independent artists and labels.
- baldfat 11y ago
  > Everyone thought they were helping out the independent artists, but in reality, it made it so they could no longer compete without a huge corporation backing them. File sharing has only helped big labels by increasing the barrier to entry. Speaking about Indie Music I'm the SMALL Record Label. The money comes in through sales of Merch, Gigs and selling CD/MP3. I think there has never been a time better for Indie Music. There are more people making a "living" in music and not being a big label band or a cover band, but they are all fighting for a very small pot. Blame 1) Music Fans. The vast majority of people will never give Indie bands a listen and have the listening pallet of a 6 year old. 2) Indie population is high majority college age kids. I would love to see this expand. I am in my 40s and I don't know anyone my age that is into Indie Music. Heck when I was in my late 20s and early 30 I was "Old Man" to everyone. 3) Bands - Don't have enough money sense (Including myself as a studio/label owner). They have a TON of survivor instincts and the tenacity to keep going but they can't figure out how to turn things into money. 4) Streaming - People actively seeking out certain music pays the same as mindless random steams. I think if people search and specifically pick your music it should pay more.

chx 11y ago

I really like Patreon. https://patreon.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/204606315-What-is-Patreon- https://patreon.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/204606315-What... it's continuous crowdfunding.

williamcotton 11y ago
It's just that Patreon is financial agnostic. We need to treat these investments like fungible capital goods. And we need to invest in the intellectual property that artists make, not the artists themselves. Why should we do that? Because it works and its a foundational element of a market economy. We're capable of much more than a simplistic patron model. That's how things were financed in the middle ages. We've got a few hundred years of modern finance to learn from.
- kiba 11y ago
  We need to...why? That's how things were financed in the middle ages In the middle ages, can you get thousand of people to essentially send you a small paycheck every month on an ongoing basis? And what exactly is wrong with that model?
  - williamcotton 11y ago
    It's not as productive as it could be if people were instead engaged in the commercial activities of investing in intellectual property. Financial assets and intellectual property are not something I can teach you in a comment box. I recommend reading these two books and then we can start the conversation back up again. http://www.amazon.com/The-Mystery-Capital-Capitalism-Everywhere/dp/0465016154 http://www.amazon.com/The-Mystery-Capital-Capitalism-Everywh... http://www.amazon.com/Praise-Commercial-Culture-Tyler-Cowen/dp/0674001885 http://www.amazon.com/Praise-Commercial-Culture-Tyler-Cowen/... Tyler Cowen and Hernando de Soto are two economists that are held in incredibly high regard and have done a wonderful job explaining the core concepts of both what constitutes finance and how it applies to intellectual creativity in a market economy. Cue the knee-jerk rebuttal in 3... 2... 1... "But the internet changed everything!" Uh huh, ok, sure, whatever you say... yawn

mt3ck 11y ago

This reminds me of a clip from Vinyl. Vinyl 1x01 - Zak Yankovich "We practically break even on all the flops." https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3PU3DHiXZ-8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3PU3DHiXZ-8

matt_morgan 11y ago

You mean Jesse Smith? Jeff Gretz (current drummer) is the nicest/coolest/most talented drummer ever.

russnewcomer 11y ago
He has to mean Jesse. Gretz didn't play any of the Solid State albums, if I remember correctly. I'm also fairly sure that Underoath's Define The Great Line has since outsold any of Zao's albums (I'm guessing either Liberate or Blood and Fire were the top seller that bald_fat mentioned).

jmacd 11y ago

I loved Zao! That disappoints me

542458 11y ago

So maybe I'm misunderstanding something, but how is Zao Solid's biggest selling album? None of Zao's albums lasted longer than a week on the billboard 200. They've had much bigger bands signed - ABR, Demon Hunter, Underoath... http://www.billboard.com/biz/search/charts?f[0]=tm_imprintlabel%3A%2ASolid%20State%2A&f[1]=ss_bb_type%3Achart_item&type=1&label=Solid%20State http://www.billboard.com/biz/search/charts?f[0]=tm_imprintla...

russnewcomer 11y ago
Long tail. I feel like I remember hearing that in 2003, Where Blood and Fire Bring Rest was still selling around 200 copies a week, five year after release. That's around 100,000 a year, and if it's selling that five years after release, that's pretty good. Plus, Billboard charts were notoriously inaccurate for Christian bookstore sales in the late 90's, early 2000s time frame, which is where a lot of Solid State distribution was.

f1nch3r 11y ago

Never thought I'd see a post involving Zao on HN. That's sad to hear that Solid State did them wrong, regardless of the jerkiness of (I'm assuming you're referring to) Jesse Smith.

vogt 11y ago

I have to know, simply because you're the only one I've known who has mentioned Zao on HN: which small record label did you own?