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Courtney Love does the math (2000)
- joejohnson 15y agoI can't believe Courtney Love wrote this. I had a low oppinion of her, but this seems really well written. Also, she's a fan of Neal Stephenson? That quote almost makes me wonder if this were written by some nerd and attributed to her...
- hezekiah 15y agoSeems hard to believe, but cool if true.
- yid 15y ago...because the wild women of grunge can't possibly have brains too? Disingenuous, my friend. There are famous rockers with PhDs (the guy from green day comes to mind).
- joejohnson 15y agoFirst, I don't think anyone in Green Day has a PhD. Second, I wasn't surprised because she was a women, or a musician, or because she was part of the grunge scene. I know there are lots of smart women, and lots of smart women in music. I wasn't saying anything about a correlation between gender and intelligence or professions and intelligence. I was suprised because she's Courtney Love, and most of what I've read and seen of her prior to this makes her seem like an idiot. And this article seemed well-thought out, thus surprising me.
- yid 15y agoMy bad about Green Day -- it was the Offspring I was thinking about (can't blame me, they're almost interchangeable as bands). On the other hand, rockers with PhDs: Dexter Holland from Offspring (molecular biology, but dropped out with a masters) Greg Gaffin from Bad Religion (zoology, 2007) Brian May from Queen (astrophysics) James Lilja from Offspring (medical degree, not PhD) Sterling Morrison from the Velvet Underground (medieval literature, 80s)
- deleted 15y ago[deleted]
- Tycho 15y agoJeff 'Skunk' Baxter of Steely Dan and the Doobie Brothers has worked for NASA or the NSA on missile defense systems or something like that.
- jrockway 15y ago"Some person worked for some agency on something, or something"? Thanks for the well-researched comment.
- davesims 15y agoTom Sholz, guitarist from Boston -- MS in Engineering from MIT. Guitar Hero and Nerd. The only one in captivity?
- MaysonL 15y agoJuli Crockett of the Evangenitals is only an overdue (philosophy) dissertation away (and now that she's pregnant she may never get the damn thing finished).
- HunterLM 15y agoI've done a lot of work for Dexter Holland in the past (and a little for Bad Religion but I never met Graffin) and I can vouch for him being a seriously smart guy. Accomplished pilot, small business owner and inventor (several patents on LBS stuff from early 90s).
- johnarleyburns 15y agoANYTIME a female quotes Neal Stephenson in passing, I'm surprised. Pleasantly surprised, but surprised nonetheless.
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- harshpotatoes 15y agoI don't think the issue is that she's a wild woman from the era of grunge, but rather she was addicted to heroine and cocaine for a while.
- WalterBright 15y agoI have a friend who knows Courtney. He says that people routinely underestimate her - she's very smart.
- ethank 15y agoSeconded. She's wickedly smart. and completely crazy.
- larrywright 15y agoThat's a very frequent combination. I wonder if there's a reason why?
- ethank 15y agoNo clue. I know a lot of smart people who aren't crazy though. I think with Courtney (who I have a mutual friend with), she's been isolated just enough to let the crazy foster and the smarts carry her through. I admire her, not without caveats.
- larrywright 15y agoI've often wondered if famous people tend to go off the deep end more than the rest of us because they're constantly surrounded by people who tell the what they want to hear.
- lionelhutz 15y agoReportedly the genes for intelligence and schizophrenia are linked: http://www.schizophrenia.com/sznews/archives/003341.html http://www.schizophrenia.com/sznews/archives/003341.html
- OnesimusUnbound 15y agoAfter I've read her article, I would say I have high regards with her.
- igorgue 15y agoI think it's incredible how wild woman [1], with so many issues are also very smart, I guess they have too much time in hands to thinker about so many things. [1] I dated a girl who Coutney Love might as well be her role model... a total disaster, the girl read piles of books, had tons of great ideas, learned math for fun, etc etc etc.
- nohat 15y agoIt's from Salon, and claims to be a transcript of a speech, so I doubt they could have been easily deceived regarding its authorship.
- strmpnk 15y agoI've managed a couple passing conversations while she was staying in SoHo NYC and she definitely has an idea of what she wants out of things but I can't say there wasn't an amount of fakeness to the whole situation (recalling the defamation lawsuit in this case). To her credit, she explains things very well and certainly doesn't give in lightly to things. I guess it takes an extremely determined personality to live her life. I'm convinced that she knows the record label situation well but it was probably after having the same conversation many times with many other folks in the industry. Still, none of that is necessarily a bad thing nor does it make this a poor piece of writing (regardless of any editors).
- rms 15y agoDon't worry, she basically plagiarized it from Steve Albini. http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=79162 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=79162 (I still find it really satisfying when I google for something I know is true and find myself as the #1 advocate of it on Google -- in this case the search "steve albini courtney love plagiarism")
- jmmcd 15y agoNonsense. The Albini article covers a lot less ground and has far fewer ideas. In particular it says nothing about alternative distribution models or the internet.
- rms 15y agoOK. I retract the plagiarism accusation. My belief was that Courtney Love had been influenced by the Albini document (which might have originated as a speech that Courney Love heard) but she brings enough in the way of sufficient new ideas to the table that it doesn't really matter that she doesn't cite her source.
- blackboxxx 15y agoAfter reading both articles I'm left wondering what wacko liberal definition of plagiarism are you going with anyway?
- nate_meurer 15y agoBe sure to read the part about Mitch Glazier, starting half-way down.
- daydream 15y agoSee also: The Problem With Music by Steve Albini http://www.negativland.com/albini.html http://www.negativland.com/albini.html
- 9999 15y agoI came here to link to this. Albini's article is far funnier and far more relevant to aspiring musicians.
- JacobAldridge 15y agoSome good previous discussion about a few of these articles from a previous HN binge on them - http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=971509 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=971509 (including a terribly pithy remark from yours truly - who was I 583 days ago??)
- api 15y agoGenerally speaking, the creative industries are full of people and businesses that operate by screwing over creative people. They view creative people the way a miner views a resource in the ground: as something to be strip mined and then discarded. I've encountered raw contempt... in a sense they are jealous of the ability of creative people to be creative, and this fuels their desire to co-opt it and take some of that glory for themselves. But, part of the reason there's so much of this is that creative types are often horrible businesspeople and have no desire to learn. Instead, there is this myth that you get "discovered" and then someone else does the business for you. Reality: you get "discovered" by a predator. If you don't want to be prey, you have to do it yourself. Edit: this doesn't mean you have to be a 100% indy do-everything-yourself self-publisher or bootstrapper. But going into things with your eyes open, reading the fine print, and thinking like a businessperson is part of doing it yourself. Businesspeople do go into business with other people and other businesses, but they don't think "wow! I'm getting discovered, now I'm set!" They think "hmm... what's the value proposition here?" and they run spreadsheets and they look for hidden places where they might lose value or not get enough value for their money. Then they push back, and negotiate. Think like this or you get screwed. Oh, and if it sounds too good to be true it probably is.
- runjake 15y agoWhat $random industry doesn't operate by exploiting $random people? It's the same for programmers and rock stars, unless you go the DIY/startup route.
- dasil003 15y agoProgrammers are creative people.
- runjake 15y agoThat was my point exactly.
- michaelpinto 15y agoThe best programmers are creative in their work, but that's different than being a creative professional. The programming equivalent of a creative (not the verb but a noun) is the person who comes up with the next big thing, or at least tries to do this. Woz, Bill Gates, Zuck, etc. all fall into this category -- but the person slinging .net code to keep an insurance database isn't in the same category. And those in that later group are engineers, and there's nothing wrong with being an engineer -- but that's different than being an architect or a product designer if you know what I mean.
- viggity 15y agoPlease don't editorialize in the submission title "Exactly how record companies screw over successful artists [2000]" would work just as well.
- MostAwesomeDude 15y agoFrom one musician to another: Do not get signed. It will destroy you. :c
- wtvanhest 15y agoI do not disagree with Courtney Love that the system is not great for artists but the solution is probably not in the distribution method, or the structure of the financing. It is most likely in solving the cost problem. If it costs $500,000 to produce a record, like she says it does, that would create limited room for a great number of bands and artist to record. The market size ($s of world wide discretionary income) can only support a certain level of production. Figuring out how to lowering that number would be far more productive than trying to create the next huge app which helps starving artists with terrible recording quality get their music heard or some other distribution method. (She also fails to add in concert revenue which may be lucrative for artists)
- steve-howard 15y agoI would not be surprised if the recording costs have dropped precipitously since 2000.
- zinkem 15y agoI think the cost problem has largely been solved. Someone can throw together a DAW for $2 or $3k and start creating really great sounding music following hours of practice. I think most young musicians know about and go this route when they are learning. The world Courtney Love is from is the old world, where you needed a specialist to do all these different jobs. You needed to pay a producer, engineers, buy studio time (sometimes these are packaged but the more well known the pricier, and acts like Hole use well known outfits), this is what drives costs up. Not to mention marketting, distribution, etc. In today's world a poor musician who wants to record and distribute his or her music can, and the best of them will be able to demand a price, or merchandise.
- badhairday 15y agoWow, I remember reading this exact article when I was in a middle school music education class.
- ldar15 15y agoI have a promising start-up, with several hundred users in specific geographic locations. I will need "$4.6m" to scale, and I want to take out $1m for the cofounders. In our market, 32,000 such companies launch each year, and of those, only 250 generate more than $200,000 in revenue. Only 30 generate $20m. What is a fair percentage to offer the VCs? Yes, I appreciate that there are many differences between bands and start-ups, but if, as she says, only 250 of 32,000 albums sell more than 10,000 units, then this $10m the record company makes from her band must go, in a large part, to cover the costs of funding all the bands that dont make it. Maybe they are still making a handsome profit, but its not as unjust as she makes out.
- alanh 15y agoWow, what a read! Thanks! 1. Related: Michael Jackson calls head of Sony, his record distributor, a devil. What a video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wt6zVypo72E http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wt6zVypo72E 2. Love’s thesis: Through lobbying and collusion, the big labels (she calls them distributors) essentially own artists, which she calls “slaves” and “sharecroppers.” Following, an excerpt from the Sponsorships section. > When I agreed to allow a large cola company to promote a live show, I couldn't have been more miserable. They screwed up every single thing imaginable. The venue was empty but sold out. There were thousands of people outside who wanted to be there, trying to get tickets. And there were the empty seats the company had purchased for a lump sum and failed to market because they were clueless about music. > It was really dumb. You had to buy the cola. You had to dial a number. You had to press a bunch of buttons. You had to do all this crap that nobody wanted to do. Why not just bring a can to the [venue] door? > … They were a condescending bunch of little guys. They treated me like I was an ungrateful little bitch who should be groveling for the experience to play for their damn soda. > I ended up playing without my shirt on and ordering a six-pack of the rival cola onstage. Also lots of unwholesome cursing and nudity occurred. This way I knew that no matter how tempting the cash was, they'd never do business with me again. > If you want some little obedient slave content provider, then fine. But I think most musicians don't want to be responsible for your clean-cut, wholesome, all-American, sugar corrosive cancer-causing, all white people, no women allowed sodapop images. > Nor, on the converse, do we want to be responsible for your vice-inducing, liver-rotting, child-labor-law-violating, all white people, no-women-allowed booze images. And that may be the least interesting part of the screed.
- clobber 15y agoReading this reminded me of this story: http://gizmodo.com/5417318/my-6247-royalty-statement-how-major-labels-cook-the-books-with-digital-downloads http://gizmodo.com/5417318/my-6247-royalty-statement-how-maj...
- Luyt 15y agoThis is one article in a row which describes how the recording industry exploits creative persons. It looks like you can't earn much as a musician. Yet, I see many rappers living in multi-million houses and owning Ferrari's etc, in MTV Cribs. Do they do something different?
- caf 15y agoIn many cases the houses and Ferraris are probably leased, by the record company, and fully recoupable. Which means that they're temporary.
- danbmil99 15y agoSomewhere, I read a very similar piece by TLC
- zwieback 15y agoThis piece is interesting to read 11 years later, amazing how much the distribution question has already changed. My kids pretty much use Grooveshark, Pandora and iTunes to play music. CDs are only used in the car and even there we frequently use MP3 players. Even though we still have a vinyl record player for my old Blue Note records it's not used very often. What hasn't changed is the fact that there's a lot more record companies do than distribute the final product. It's pretty clear that the reason these companies have so much power is that they produce and market artists. Without that power the distribution wouldn't be so valuable. Someone still has to pay for studios, producers, designers, publicists, etc. This is particularly true for bands that survive not so much on the musical skill of their members but the overall sound and image.
- deleted 15y ago[deleted]