15 ms·
Courtney Love does the math (2000)
- retroafroman 16y agoThis is spot on, and it is appalling that so little has changed in 10 years since. Luckily, things are slowly changing.
- deleted 16y ago[deleted]
- jfb 16y agoA direct rip of Albini's much better "The Problem With Music" (1993 in MRR, IIRC): http://www.negativland.com/albini.html http://www.negativland.com/albini.html
- wyclif 16y agoYou beat me to it. However, to give Courtney Love her due I would simply add that it's not really a direct rip. She was certainly influenced and inspired by Steve Albini's rant, but she expanded upon it and added a lot of material.
- kree10 16y agoI saw this in MRR, though it's only one part of a longer piece from The Baffler published around the same time. The Baffler version had more ranting on the aesthetic side (rather than business side). Lots on production/producers and vintage microphones (alluded to in this part where he uses "punchy" and "warm"). EDIT: found a link to the whole thing: http://www.mercenary.com/probwitmusby.html http://www.mercenary.com/probwitmusby.html
- docgnome 16y agoMaybe I'm a little confused but... 'Writing and recording "Hey Jude" is now the same thing as writing an English textbook, writing standardized tests, translating a novel from one language to another or making a map. These are the types of things addressed in the "work for hire" act. And writing a standardized test is a work for hire. Not making a record.' In what way is this not a work for hire? (I mean legally it or this would not be an issue) In what way is writing and recording a song some how magically different from creating a map? Or writing some program? Not that I disagree that Big Record is probably raking it in hand over fist while the content creators receive a comparitivly small amount, but I fail to see why music should be in it's own category separate from other works as she stated.
- deleted 16y ago[deleted]
- makmanalp 16y agoWhen you write a standardised test, you're working for the test company. When you translate a novel, you're working for the publisher. When you write "Hey Jude", you're working for yourself. You created the song by yourself, and it's your song, and the record company is providing a service for you. The power dynamic is backwards. They should be serving the artist, not the other way round. If record companies go around hiring artists to make music for them, we should fear for the quality of music.
- Qz 16y agoIf record companies go around hiring artists to make music for them, we should fear for the quality of music. They already do that...
- wikyd 16y agoNo, they don't. The record companies enter into a contract with the recording artist to promote and distribute their next album or X albums. It's more like the artist is hiring the record company. It may seem like the record company is paying the artist, but really they are paying an advance on royalties. This is much the same as how an author may get an advance for agreeing to allow a publisher to publish their next book. The advance is in some respects like an investment in a startup; the record label fronts some money to the artist to help pay for recording, living expenses, promotional expenses, etc. in exchange for a large percentage of the profits from record sales. If the record doesn't sell well, the artist isn't under obligation to pay the advance back (although it might carry over on the ledger if they owe more albums to the label). The size of the advance is based on the popularity and expected likelihood of success of the record. To continue the analogy with authors, I think Sarah Palin was advanced $7 million on her last book; most tech books authors receive an advance of 4 or 5 figures. This makes sense based on just the size of the market for each book alone. Anyways, that was a long digression, but the record companies certainly do not hire artists to make music for them. The artists hire the labels to promote and distribute their music. Most artists have already written and created demo recordings of the songs before they even sign with a label.
- devin 16y ago10 points just for mentioning David Foster Wallace. Long read, but worth it... I don't have much comment -- it sounds pretty much spot on.
- mitjak 16y agoNot to aim at the credibility or truthfulness of her words, but I'm rather surprised Courtney was able to write something that long, let alone with such proper grammatical and vocabulary choices. I thought she's always on crack. EDIT: I just watched the video of herself getting another tattoo while smoking and miming the lyrics to her new single "Skinny Little Bitch". I stand by my words.
- InfinityX0 16y agoCourtney Love is ridiculously smart. She definitely has done a shit ton of drugs, though - and this fact alone rips apart a bit of her argument. But the ridiculous smart part then reconstructs it - leaving us at some stanza where we need a substantiated second opinion for this to really have any credence.
- mitjak 16y agoSources? Every interview and video I've seen of her has her talk in the vocabulary of a fifteen-year-old high school dropout.
- InfinityX0 16y agoI'm trying to find some citation but I really can't - all I know is that I've heard her speak before and been impressed by her immense vocabulary. Similarly, this speech reinforces that former impression. Looking at her Twitter stream, though, reinforces the drug use - and also, her very unique personality: http://twitter.com/courtneyloveuk http://twitter.com/courtneyloveuk
- InfinityX0 16y agoCan someone explain, then, how the transient scale period happens where an artist goes from not being able to eat to being worth 400 million dollars, like 50 Cent? Is that when they suddenly become successful enough to create demand -- that it creates some kind of wealth atom bomb? Or is it not that simple?
- nostromo 16y agoEndorsements. He made a big chunk of that from getting a share of Vitamin Water when they were trying to appeal to more men. Ironically, he probably made more from that than any of his records.
- loewenskind 16y agoIronically? Have you actually heard his "music"?
- borism 16y agono, I haven't heard it. However what is "music" for you might be The Music for many other people.
- loewenskind 16y agoTaste is subjective, sure. But he just talks. No emotion or interesting tempos like other rappers. Even the music is like a 30 second sample repeated for 3 minutes. Painful to listen to.
- rossriley 16y agoThe other big earner which wasn't mentioned here is publishing income. Now this only works if you're the songwriter but having an enduringly popular back catalogue can be worth a lot of money. David Bowie famously sold bonds on a ten year income that was worth $55 Million. On a smaller scale, I can't find a source right now, but I remember the NME carrying an article about Lee Mavers who wrote 'There She Goes' and that single song earned him yearly royalties of around $50,000. So you can imagine, all you need is a small back catalogue of well known and well played songs and the residual income can be pretty good.
- Tichy 16y agoOne other thing this reminds me of: it is possibly to royally screw up your life by simply signing the wrong contract. Seems to be very common, too. I've had it happen, too (not life-screwing, but bad contracts): back in the day a publisher sold my J2ME app and I decided I wanted royalty shares instead of a fixed sum. The app sold 20000 times for 5€ each - I got 1000€. The thing is, they didn't actually sell the app. They gave it to a TV company for almost nothing in exchange for free advertising. So my royalties weren't a percentage of 5€, they were a percentage of maybe 30 cents... For the publisher, it was a way to promote themselves. On the other hand, I see it relaxed: I had been toying with the idea of that app for years, and only when the publisher got interested did I really kick into gear and finish it. So at least I have to thank them for one published/finished project. Also, who knows what the sales would have been like without the TV advertising. And, I almost expected something to go wrong the first time I did something like this, so I chalked it up as a learning experience.
- WalterBright 16y agoThis kind of thing happens a lot. A favorite trick is to "bundle" your app with some useless add-on, and then split the revenue between your app and the add-on, halving your royalty. The way to get past that is to have a minimum royalty per unit, and a minimum aggregate royalty per quarter.
- Tichy 16y agoI was even vaguely aware of this possibility, but of course the publisher refused to agree on a minimum royalty per unit. Somehow I still agreed on the contract - engineers and negotiation... They actually mentioned the bundling option as an argument, but it was supposed to be a long tail thing for later on. At least I insisted on having a fixed share (percentage) of the actual sale price, because I had read before that it is common to have so much losses by accounting that there is nothing left to have a share from. It didn't occur to me that they would give away the app for free. Of course it is almost impossible to disentangle: they could have given the app away for free to some other company, but actually have some shares in that company. Maybe I should have evaluated the value of the advertising they received and demand a share of that.
- deleted 16y ago[deleted]
- Tyrannosaurs 16y agoIt's getting worse. Record companies are beginning to add clauses into contracts entitling them to a percentage of all future live performance revenues. They won't just own the recordings, they'll own a share of every time you play the songs.
- jacquesm 16y agoA much better piece about the same issues: http://www.janisian.com/reading/internet.php http://www.janisian.com/reading/internet.php
- brc 16y agoIt's interesting - but nobody saw anyone like Apple or MySpace coming along and getting involved in it all. The future back in 2000 looked very fuzzy indeed for all involved in music. They knew it as changing, but had no idea how. However, you'd have to bet against the record industry going forwards. They no longer have an iron grip over the distribution, which was their great monopoly.
- dualboot 16y agoI think everyone pretty much saw that distribution was going to become digital. It was easier to steal music than buy it legally. That itch (instant gratification) would be scratched sooner or later.
- efsavage 16y agoThe system is obviously flawed, but the example is not very convincing. $85k a year to do what you love, for alot less hours than a regular job (it doesn't take 2000 hours to make a record), whether the record is a dud or not? That seems pretty good to me. So give me 85k salary, a half million dollar budget to spend on production, and tell me I need to make a website of my choosing sometime within the next year, which you'll then spend potentially millions of dollars promoting. I don't have much upside in this unless it's a mega-success, but I have no downside and can choose to shoot for the stars or make something important and useful. Is it me or does this sound like a far better deal than most developers have? Perhaps musicians should stop feeling that being able to sing or play is a golden ticket and anything that blocks them from being a member of the idle rich is the acme of economic injustice.
- gwern 16y ago> $85k a year to do what you love, for alot less hours than a regular job (it doesn't take 2000 hours to make a record), whether the record is a dud or not? If it takes that little time to make a good record, why aren't there artists or bands churning out dozens of records a year? Surely they can't all be libertine sybarites. > "It is known that Whistler when asked how long it took him to paint one of his 'nocturnes' answered: 'All of my life.'" --Jorge Luis Borges, "Gauchesque Poetry", <i>Discussion</i> (1932)
- efsavage 16y agoI'd guess that there are strongly diminishing returns on putting out albums frequently. And who said anything about good? By Borges' logic, the hibernate mapping file I just wrote took me "my whole career" to write.
- gwern 16y agoBorges then goes on to point out exactly that; but his philosophical point, as valid as it was, is not the point of interest in this discussion.
- aplusbi 16y ago
- SeanLuke 16y agoThis is HackerNews is it not? Land of VC opportunity? Hunter S. Thompson was dead-right when he said "The music business is a cruel and shallow money trench, a long plastic hallway where thieves and pimps run free, and good men die like dogs. There's also a negative side." It seems to me the jet-black reputation held by the music industry provides a business opportunity for an enterprising person on HN. It seems to me that the fundamental problem is that no one has set up a distribution clearinghouse for artists which is paid for services rendered rather than treating artists as work for hire. Someone should set up a record company which provides services and maintains a meticulously honest and above-board reputation: 1. The Artist owns his own work. 2. The Artist is presented with various options, none of which are permanent. For example, he can enter into a limited-time exclusive distribution agreement with the company in return for studio time to produce the work and a fixed rate of return on proceeds. No advances are provided. If the artist has produced the work himself, the amount of exclusive time may be decreased or the return may be increased to compensate. 3. The company does not require managers, lawyers, or engineers. However it may make recommendations to the artist as to how to find good ones on his own. If the artist wishes, the company can provide them for him, again for a cut of the rate of return. 4. The company also can also arrange for the artist to go on tour but again does not require it: it's an option available. The artist has an up-front negotiated rate on the proceeds. 5. All contracts are simple, honest, temporary, modular, and cover exactly and only the particular item the Artist is essentially purchasing from the company (record distribution and studio time, touring, etc.). Obviously the hairiest issue would be dealing with distribution firms. But that particular business is changing very quickly, and indeed distributors may be entirely gone in ten years. The time is ripe, gentlemen.
- agentultra 16y agoI started a business in my early twenties to address everything she mentioned in this speech. It failed. If artists are slaves to the system, then it's a very good system. In my experience there's still a strong Stockholm Syndrome between artists and "the industry." Many young musicians still think they will sign a deal, get fronted a million dollars, and go right on tour across the country. It's a real shame, but I couldn't convince them to sign with a small company focused on leveraging the Internet and file sharing. I came close, but they all ended up wanting that "shot." I still have ideas after some years about how to do it now... but it's a matter of hearts and minds. The idea of the mythical "record label," is still deeply ingrained in our culture. If you can convince the artists to go grass-roots rather than over-night success then you might have something. If there are any artists (or interested parties) reading, get in touch.
- nerme 16y agoHow much did you know about the industry? Did your company know any promoters or booking agents? Could you get a band that signed up to do business with your company an opening slot on a tour? Could you get them a write-up in a music magazine? Did you know where to send them when they got kicked out of their practice space? See, that's the thing. Music isn't just distribution of content on the Internet. There's a lot of other shit going on.
- agentultra 16y agoI do know a lot about the industry. I was an audio engineer and session musician at the time myself. I knew people and had lots of friends in various places. That wasn't the problem. I said "levaraging the Internet and file sharing." That's an intentionally simplistic description of what I was up to. There was much more to it that I just didn't feel the need to go into to make my point.
- MrRage 16y agoI'm curious if you know anything about the band Fugazi. They've remained independent of the industry but have had a lot of success.