5 ms·

Curious why bands dont enter their own lyrics? Isnt this a no-brainer for bands to do, so their lyrics are not mangled in the crowd-sourcing process? Or do they

Curious why bands dont enter their own lyrics? Isnt this a no-brainer for bands to do, so their lyrics are not mangled in the crowd-sourcing process? Or do they want people to struggle and settle upon the lyrics collectively as part of the entertainment process?

jsudi 5y ago
Do the bands have the rights to the lyrics?
- CydeWeys 5y ago
  It's either them or their record company, or maybe a songwriter.
CydeWeys 5y ago
If I were in a band, I'd upload the lyrics to my own site, to help drive traffic. Then once people are seeing your lyrics there, they'll see the upcoming tour schedule and album release date as well. Sure, Genius will then come along and copy-paste those lyrics, but that just means you have no reason to do it yourself.
- iamben 5y ago
  Isn't this a bit like the ecom thing? Like - I want to buy a "Philips Electric Toothbrush". I could go and buy it on their own site. But I'll probably (sorry) go straight to Amazon. Searching and checking out on Amazon is just so much mentally more efficient than navigating and buying from a site I'm not used to. I agree bands should definitely upload their own lyrics, but comparatively, if I'm listening to a record and I want to know song lyrics or (sometimes) check what they're singing about - I'll just go straight to Genius because I know how it's likely to be there and it's easy to use (especially compared to lots of other lyrics sites). Band websites are not what they were in the 90s - if they have them at all.
  - pessimizer 5y ago
    Because it doesn't benefit bands in any way when you read their lyrics on some other site. It benefits them a little bit if you read their lyrics on their site, because you might click around and discover that they're going to play in your town soon and fork out, or buy merch.
    - acjohnson55 5y ago
      Wouldn't that be a reason for Genius to try to drive some more value for the bands?
  - wpietri 5y ago
    This is true only if you are an Amazon/Genius user. If you aren't, it's just another site. After some Amazon anti-worker horribleness a year or two ago, I dropped my Prime subscription and now Amazon is my last resort for shopping. It turns out that as a web experience, it's pretty garbage these days. It's crammed with ads and dubious listings. So I think your "mentally more efficient" is what I'd call "habit". Ordering books from my local bookstore is just as quick and is definitely more pleasant.
    - iamben 5y ago
      Yeah, perhaps. And I'm not really arguing for or against here. But using the Amazon example - a mass of people DO know about it. As a seller it makes sense for me to sell there as well as my own website - I'm likely never to outrank them for generic keywords (I have no idea how well Google ranks lyrics on own band sites over lyric sites, but I assume not as well thanks to aggressive SEO). As a buyer Amazon may be a habit, but they've also spent (probably) tens of millions of dollars on getting that checkout process as frictionless as possible. Dubious listings and ads aside, if you know what you're buying - another site or not - it's pretty easy.
      - wpietri 5y ago
        I still don't think the parallel between Amazon and Genius works. Amazon is hugely dominant, where millions of people use it daily or weekly. I'd expect that the overlap between Amazon users and online shoppers is very high. But given Genius's semi-failure, I'd be hard pressed to believe that Genius has a similar mindshare among music listeners or lyrics looker-uppers. I also don't think Amazon has spent that like you say on "getting that checkout process as frictionless as possible". What they've spent it on is magnifying Amazon's dominance and profitability. And a checkout experience is 25 years old at this point; it's not exactly a hotbed of innovation. My random local bookstore is using some perfectly solid package that does just fine. It's no harder to check out there than Amazon. And as a bonus, shopping is easier and they're always going to send me an authentic copy of the book.
chrisseaton 5y ago
What's in it for them? Why would they care about people mangling their lyrics?
- TuringNYC 5y ago
  I was part of a band (of sorts) in high school. You spent a lot of time on lyrics. You want people to appreciate the art w/o misunderstanding it.
  - pessimizer 5y ago
    I was in touring bands for years, and I didn't care if anyone ever read my lyrics, or if they misunderstood them.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
- res0nat0r 5y ago
  There are artists who supply official annotations and additional insight into their lyrics. Example: https://genius.com/4196571 https://genius.com/4196571?
mhh__ 5y ago
The lyrics are very rarely wrong IME. genius.com is also associated with explaining the lyrics, which I suspect only a minority of bands with lyrics worth explaining would actually do.
- trynewideas 5y ago
  Most of the time I spent on Genius was fixing incorrect lyrics, unfortunately. They'd often be copied from azlyrics or other shoddy predecessors, with errors unique to those third-party sources but not present in liner notes or other official sources. Unlike say, Wikipedia, Genius doesn't require or clearly associate sources with their content, so it's not easy to show your work, check for accuracy, and prove the lyrics are incorrect. Meanwhile, most of Genius's featured content involved artists explaining their own lyrics. It's a minority of artists, to be sure, because curated content isn't going to feature a majority of artists, but it comprised most of their branded work.
squeaky-clean 5y ago
Lorde got asked a similar question on Hot Ones. She basically said that early in her musical career, she cared a lot about that (iirc she did submit things to Genius), but nowadays she thinks it's more fun to see how other people interpret her songs.
notatoad 5y ago
lyrics are copyright, and the owners make money by licencing that content. If you search for song lyrics on google you get official licenced ones, not crowdsourced lyrics. to give them to Genius for free would de-value their licencing deals. if Genius was actually creating more value than the licencing deals, then i'm sure the labels would have been happy to work something out. But what's the value for the content owners to have their lyrics on Genius?

jsudi 5y ago

Do the bands have the rights to the lyrics?

CydeWeys 5y ago
It's either them or their record company, or maybe a songwriter.

CydeWeys 5y ago

If I were in a band, I'd upload the lyrics to my own site, to help drive traffic. Then once people are seeing your lyrics there, they'll see the upcoming tour schedule and album release date as well. Sure, Genius will then come along and copy-paste those lyrics, but that just means you have no reason to do it yourself.

iamben 5y ago
Isn't this a bit like the ecom thing? Like - I want to buy a "Philips Electric Toothbrush". I could go and buy it on their own site. But I'll probably (sorry) go straight to Amazon. Searching and checking out on Amazon is just so much mentally more efficient than navigating and buying from a site I'm not used to. I agree bands should definitely upload their own lyrics, but comparatively, if I'm listening to a record and I want to know song lyrics or (sometimes) check what they're singing about - I'll just go straight to Genius because I know how it's likely to be there and it's easy to use (especially compared to lots of other lyrics sites). Band websites are not what they were in the 90s - if they have them at all.
- pessimizer 5y ago
  Because it doesn't benefit bands in any way when you read their lyrics on some other site. It benefits them a little bit if you read their lyrics on their site, because you might click around and discover that they're going to play in your town soon and fork out, or buy merch.
  - acjohnson55 5y ago
    Wouldn't that be a reason for Genius to try to drive some more value for the bands?
- wpietri 5y ago
  This is true only if you are an Amazon/Genius user. If you aren't, it's just another site. After some Amazon anti-worker horribleness a year or two ago, I dropped my Prime subscription and now Amazon is my last resort for shopping. It turns out that as a web experience, it's pretty garbage these days. It's crammed with ads and dubious listings. So I think your "mentally more efficient" is what I'd call "habit". Ordering books from my local bookstore is just as quick and is definitely more pleasant.
  - iamben 5y ago
    Yeah, perhaps. And I'm not really arguing for or against here. But using the Amazon example - a mass of people DO know about it. As a seller it makes sense for me to sell there as well as my own website - I'm likely never to outrank them for generic keywords (I have no idea how well Google ranks lyrics on own band sites over lyric sites, but I assume not as well thanks to aggressive SEO). As a buyer Amazon may be a habit, but they've also spent (probably) tens of millions of dollars on getting that checkout process as frictionless as possible. Dubious listings and ads aside, if you know what you're buying - another site or not - it's pretty easy.
    - wpietri 5y ago
      I still don't think the parallel between Amazon and Genius works. Amazon is hugely dominant, where millions of people use it daily or weekly. I'd expect that the overlap between Amazon users and online shoppers is very high. But given Genius's semi-failure, I'd be hard pressed to believe that Genius has a similar mindshare among music listeners or lyrics looker-uppers. I also don't think Amazon has spent that like you say on "getting that checkout process as frictionless as possible". What they've spent it on is magnifying Amazon's dominance and profitability. And a checkout experience is 25 years old at this point; it's not exactly a hotbed of innovation. My random local bookstore is using some perfectly solid package that does just fine. It's no harder to check out there than Amazon. And as a bonus, shopping is easier and they're always going to send me an authentic copy of the book.

chrisseaton 5y ago

What's in it for them? Why would they care about people mangling their lyrics?

TuringNYC 5y ago
I was part of a band (of sorts) in high school. You spent a lot of time on lyrics. You want people to appreciate the art w/o misunderstanding it.
- pessimizer 5y ago
  I was in touring bands for years, and I didn't care if anyone ever read my lyrics, or if they misunderstood them.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
res0nat0r 5y ago
There are artists who supply official annotations and additional insight into their lyrics. Example: https://genius.com/4196571 https://genius.com/4196571?

mhh__ 5y ago

The lyrics are very rarely wrong IME. genius.com is also associated with explaining the lyrics, which I suspect only a minority of bands with lyrics worth explaining would actually do.

trynewideas 5y ago
Most of the time I spent on Genius was fixing incorrect lyrics, unfortunately. They'd often be copied from azlyrics or other shoddy predecessors, with errors unique to those third-party sources but not present in liner notes or other official sources. Unlike say, Wikipedia, Genius doesn't require or clearly associate sources with their content, so it's not easy to show your work, check for accuracy, and prove the lyrics are incorrect. Meanwhile, most of Genius's featured content involved artists explaining their own lyrics. It's a minority of artists, to be sure, because curated content isn't going to feature a majority of artists, but it comprised most of their branded work.

squeaky-clean 5y ago

Lorde got asked a similar question on Hot Ones. She basically said that early in her musical career, she cared a lot about that (iirc she did submit things to Genius), but nowadays she thinks it's more fun to see how other people interpret her songs.

notatoad 5y ago

lyrics are copyright, and the owners make money by licencing that content. If you search for song lyrics on google you get official licenced ones, not crowdsourced lyrics. to give them to Genius for free would de-value their licencing deals. if Genius was actually creating more value than the licencing deals, then i'm sure the labels would have been happy to work something out. But what's the value for the content owners to have their lyrics on Genius?