5 ms·

1942–1944 Musicians' Strike

63 points by samclemens 4y ago

winternett 4y ago
It's hard to understand why to this day royalty, listening stats, and distribution payments take so long with all the technology around. The real truth is music should really only cost about 50 cents or less per song to download, and streaming royalties should be much higher than they are now. It's pretty crazy that the current industry has a crippling stranglehold on modern music, and that radio is still stuck on playing the very same 1990's music into infinity, but it is what it is... There is always a flood of optimistic musicians willing to give their work away for free while also spamming the entire Internet with it even if it's guaranteed to be an unsuccessful venture. The best music is not found by trusting the algorithms... It's found where no one is looking or listening... Just like the old record shop days, but now on the Internet.
- paskozdilar 4y ago
  Never let a businessman control art.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  - _carbyau_ 4y ago
    Or engineering. Or the environment. Or pretty much anything? Clearly they have a role in society but once they gain dominance things go for the worse. It's the "complete control" that is the issue.
- atoav 4y ago
  This is actually the biggest axe I have to grind with spotify et al.: Even if I would naively assume their recommendation algorithm is serving me and not the big distributors they have exclusive deals with — who guarantuees me that it would stay like this in the future? Music is too important for me to be left in the hands of some app that giveth and taketh away, that sends me onto some path that is ultimately trying to manipulating me into liking certain things based on financial interest. I like to have a collection of music and look at it, even if the company I got it from goes down the drain, or is purchased by some hedge fund. You don't have this decoupling with streaming services. I'd rather go search myself and own a physical and/or digital record.
  - ushakov 4y ago
    Spotify gives preference to big and wealthy artists like Drake and Ed Sheeran, they get more marketing and more $ per play
    - deleted 4y ago
      [deleted]
  - tzs 4y ago
    Why not do both? There's nothing that disallows buying records if you use a streaming service.
    - atoav 4y ago
      Oh I do both, one of those just not voluntarily as someone who does not live alone : )
  - winternett 4y ago
    Agreed, but search results are manipulated by posters a lot now, totally spammed with wildly inaccurate clickbait. It's getting a lot harder to find authentic music by original creators. It wouldn't surprise me if the people making the most money off of the music content we see have nothing to do with the original music involved in posts... Sites like YouTube do pretty much nothing effective to stop it.
- yesenadam 4y ago
  > The real truth is music should really only cost about 50 cents or less per song to download How is that a "real truth"?! Surely it "should" cost whatever a musician wants to charge for it. (Musician here) If you'd said "In my opinion", well, that's better, but I'd disagree with your opinion. I just put out an album with 6 songs on it. I spent pretty much a year working on it. It "should really only cost" $3 or less? On-topic: thanks for this story, I'd heard there was a "recording ban" in the early 40s but knew nothing more about it.
  - paskozdilar 4y ago
    I think the point is not that musicians charge too much, but rather that music industry takes too much for themselves. The cost of infrastructure, amortized by the number of artists, is very low. It's nothing new, really. People have been singing about it since Pink Floyd.
    - TheOtherHobbes 4y ago
      Actually since the sheet music boom of the 19th century, which is how a lot of 19th century composers made money. (There's still some money in sheet music, but not much compared to other income sources.) What's changed over time are the economies of scale involved in distribution. Engraving, printing, distributing, and selling paper sheet music was fairly labour intensive. Pressing and distributing vinyl/CDs was also non-trivial, but the marketing leverage provided by radio made it a more profitable business. Streaming is a low overhead business in comparison. There's some up front cost for the infrastructure and UI, and small continuing costs for hosting, but it pretty much runs itself. As a de facto monopoly there's a limited need for marketing. Instead marketing costs have been outsourced to the artists - which is a fairly new thing. It's often said that it's never been easier to make and sell music. In fact it's never been harder to market music. Having a home studio is irrelevant if you can't create exposure and convert it into sales. The big record labels can do that, viral breakout artists can do it (but often not for long), but the big money still goes to artists with a mass media profile. (For example Kate Bush becoming a top seller again after placing a single on Stranger Things.)
- RC_ITR 4y ago
  There’s a song who’s lyrics I suggest you look up. No point to be made, I bet you’d just vibe with it. https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-features/gillian-welch-everything-is-free-courtney-barnett-father-john-misty-725135/ https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-features/gillian-we...
boomboomsubban 4y ago
God Roosevelt's quote is ridiculous. "Because you love democracy you should do what we tell you too, even if harms you." And fun to hear they considered this strike something that might hurt the war effort. Soldiers won't fight to old Sinatra sings after all.
TomMasz 4y ago
Regarding the birth of Bebop, there are live recordings from after-hours sessions at Minton's jazz club of Monk, Dizzy Gillespie, and Charlie Christian among others (some available on archive.org). They're really the only record of the transition from Swing's riff-based solos to the longer lines of Bebop. Definitely worth seeking out if want to see what it was like in the early 40s.
- yesenadam 4y ago
  Did you mean these? https://archive.org/details/tntvillage_483933 https://archive.org/details/tntvillage_483933 Monk https://archive.org/details/tntvillage_484094 https://archive.org/details/tntvillage_484094 Dizzy I'm finding it a little hard to work out which tracks are Minton's!
  - TomMasz 4y ago
    I was looking for Charlie Christian and found this: https://archive.org/details/78_charlies-choice-part-1_charlie-christian-mintons-house-band-joe-guy-thelonius-m_gbia0082792a https://archive.org/details/78_charlies-choice-part-1_charli... It's part of series of 78s cut live at Minton's. I also have an LP somewhere that supposedly was recorded by someone in the audience with a recorder in their lap. It includes Charlie, Monk, and Teddy Hill's band. The cuts are longer since they're not limited by what fits on one side of a 78. You can find them on eBay and other places.
    - yesenadam 4y ago
      Interesting, thanks. I imagined the guitar solo with Lester Young's sound and it sounds pretty much exactly like Lester. I can't hear much bebop really. Sounds great though! edit: from Christian's wikipedia page "Christian stated he wanted his guitar to sound like a tenor saxophone." Wow, died age 25. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charlie_Christian https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charlie_Christian
drpgq 4y ago
Interesting that the big band era may have lasted longer without the strike.

63 points by samclemens 4y ago

It's hard to understand why to this day royalty, listening stats, and distribution payments take so long with all the technology around. The real truth is music should really only cost about 50 cents or less per song to download, and streaming royalties should be much higher than they are now. It's pretty crazy that the current industry has a crippling stranglehold on modern music, and that radio is still stuck on playing the very same 1990's music into infinity, but it is what it is... There is always a flood of optimistic musicians willing to give their work away for free while also spamming the entire Internet with it even if it's guaranteed to be an unsuccessful venture. The best music is not found by trusting the algorithms... It's found where no one is looking or listening... Just like the old record shop days, but now on the Internet.

paskozdilar 4y ago
Never let a businessman control art.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- _carbyau_ 4y ago
  Or engineering. Or the environment. Or pretty much anything? Clearly they have a role in society but once they gain dominance things go for the worse. It's the "complete control" that is the issue.
atoav 4y ago
This is actually the biggest axe I have to grind with spotify et al.: Even if I would naively assume their recommendation algorithm is serving me and not the big distributors they have exclusive deals with — who guarantuees me that it would stay like this in the future? Music is too important for me to be left in the hands of some app that giveth and taketh away, that sends me onto some path that is ultimately trying to manipulating me into liking certain things based on financial interest. I like to have a collection of music and look at it, even if the company I got it from goes down the drain, or is purchased by some hedge fund. You don't have this decoupling with streaming services. I'd rather go search myself and own a physical and/or digital record.
- ushakov 4y ago
  Spotify gives preference to big and wealthy artists like Drake and Ed Sheeran, they get more marketing and more $ per play
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
- tzs 4y ago
  Why not do both? There's nothing that disallows buying records if you use a streaming service.
  - atoav 4y ago
    Oh I do both, one of those just not voluntarily as someone who does not live alone : )
- winternett 4y ago
  Agreed, but search results are manipulated by posters a lot now, totally spammed with wildly inaccurate clickbait. It's getting a lot harder to find authentic music by original creators. It wouldn't surprise me if the people making the most money off of the music content we see have nothing to do with the original music involved in posts... Sites like YouTube do pretty much nothing effective to stop it.
yesenadam 4y ago
> The real truth is music should really only cost about 50 cents or less per song to download How is that a "real truth"?! Surely it "should" cost whatever a musician wants to charge for it. (Musician here) If you'd said "In my opinion", well, that's better, but I'd disagree with your opinion. I just put out an album with 6 songs on it. I spent pretty much a year working on it. It "should really only cost" $3 or less? On-topic: thanks for this story, I'd heard there was a "recording ban" in the early 40s but knew nothing more about it.
- paskozdilar 4y ago
  I think the point is not that musicians charge too much, but rather that music industry takes too much for themselves. The cost of infrastructure, amortized by the number of artists, is very low. It's nothing new, really. People have been singing about it since Pink Floyd.
  - TheOtherHobbes 4y ago
    Actually since the sheet music boom of the 19th century, which is how a lot of 19th century composers made money. (There's still some money in sheet music, but not much compared to other income sources.) What's changed over time are the economies of scale involved in distribution. Engraving, printing, distributing, and selling paper sheet music was fairly labour intensive. Pressing and distributing vinyl/CDs was also non-trivial, but the marketing leverage provided by radio made it a more profitable business. Streaming is a low overhead business in comparison. There's some up front cost for the infrastructure and UI, and small continuing costs for hosting, but it pretty much runs itself. As a de facto monopoly there's a limited need for marketing. Instead marketing costs have been outsourced to the artists - which is a fairly new thing. It's often said that it's never been easier to make and sell music. In fact it's never been harder to market music. Having a home studio is irrelevant if you can't create exposure and convert it into sales. The big record labels can do that, viral breakout artists can do it (but often not for long), but the big money still goes to artists with a mass media profile. (For example Kate Bush becoming a top seller again after placing a single on Stranger Things.)
RC_ITR 4y ago
There’s a song who’s lyrics I suggest you look up. No point to be made, I bet you’d just vibe with it. https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-features/gillian-welch-everything-is-free-courtney-barnett-father-john-misty-725135/ https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-features/gillian-we...

boomboomsubban 4y ago

God Roosevelt's quote is ridiculous. "Because you love democracy you should do what we tell you too, even if harms you." And fun to hear they considered this strike something that might hurt the war effort. Soldiers won't fight to old Sinatra sings after all.

TomMasz 4y ago

Regarding the birth of Bebop, there are live recordings from after-hours sessions at Minton's jazz club of Monk, Dizzy Gillespie, and Charlie Christian among others (some available on archive.org). They're really the only record of the transition from Swing's riff-based solos to the longer lines of Bebop. Definitely worth seeking out if want to see what it was like in the early 40s.

yesenadam 4y ago
Did you mean these? https://archive.org/details/tntvillage_483933 https://archive.org/details/tntvillage_483933 Monk https://archive.org/details/tntvillage_484094 https://archive.org/details/tntvillage_484094 Dizzy I'm finding it a little hard to work out which tracks are Minton's!
- TomMasz 4y ago
  I was looking for Charlie Christian and found this: https://archive.org/details/78_charlies-choice-part-1_charlie-christian-mintons-house-band-joe-guy-thelonius-m_gbia0082792a https://archive.org/details/78_charlies-choice-part-1_charli... It's part of series of 78s cut live at Minton's. I also have an LP somewhere that supposedly was recorded by someone in the audience with a recorder in their lap. It includes Charlie, Monk, and Teddy Hill's band. The cuts are longer since they're not limited by what fits on one side of a 78. You can find them on eBay and other places.
  - yesenadam 4y ago
    Interesting, thanks. I imagined the guitar solo with Lester Young's sound and it sounds pretty much exactly like Lester. I can't hear much bebop really. Sounds great though! edit: from Christian's wikipedia page "Christian stated he wanted his guitar to sound like a tenor saxophone." Wow, died age 25. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charlie_Christian https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charlie_Christian

drpgq 4y ago

Interesting that the big band era may have lasted longer without the strike.