The author should distinguish between the concepts of gatekeeper and curator.
Is a music magazine or a radio station a gatekeeper because they can only showcase a limited number of artists, or are they a curator because they help the end user sort through thousands of bands to find the ones they would like to know about?
Even record labels have a role to play in the curation game. Smaller independent labels like 4AD, Wax Trax, Factory, SST, and Alternative Tentacles became valuable to fans in the '80s and '90s because their labels each created a "sound" of their own. You could confidently buy a record from a band you'd never heard of and know that if you liked the other bands on that label, you'd probably like this new one.
Curators provide significant value, and earn their keep. It's only when the curator turns into a gatekeeper and becomes a hindrance instead of a help that the problem arises.
I think you still see the old spirit of 4AD in labels like Bella Union, but those labels have adapted and become more involved in promotion and management, as well as providing a general aesthetic credibility with a certain community, like SST, Alternative Tentacles, Touch and Go, Dischord used to, and still do to some extent.
I think if you look at SST, Touch and Go and Dischord in particular you see a business model a lot closer to what needs to happen now: keep recording costs low, cultivate solid distribution relationships, network like mad and treat the artists fairly and transparently.
What you mean actually adhere to good business practices?
Another option is more of a co-op model where multiple bands get together and share resources between them. Many bands in Canada operate this way. They tour together, give each other recording time in their own studios, work as studio musicians on each others albums and work with the same suppliers etc.
Depends on the radio station. Most radio stations are gatekeepers because they pay what they are paid (directly or indirectly) to play. Late night low-audience-count shows are curators.
Smaller indie labels are still gatekeepers. In this age, the benefit you describe is gone because there is no longer any reason to be buying music without first listening to it.
That's not really true. There are time constraints and filtering out the good music can be a difficult proposition in 1 in 100 kind of scenario at best.. it's fatiguing.
Many djs, for example, rely heavily on labels to curate their offerings and once they find a label they like, they pay more attention to whatever they release than random discoveries.
But what's the reason to be listening to the music you never heard before?
There is something like 20 milion different tracks in the wild. Why listen this unknown band with icky name (they all are) and not to something other in those 20 millions?
You still need to be pitched with the band to make you try listening to it.
Steve Albini, 2010, GQ interview: This is a terrific time to be in a band. Every band has access to the entire world by default. I know quite a few bands that have been able to establish themselves internationally based on nothing other their web presence. It's an incredible tool. It's also revived the careers of a lot of bands that came before the Internet era and never had enough penetration to find their natural audience. But because the music survived, some people were interested in disseminating it for no other reason than because they like it. People put stuff on YouTube or torrent clients or whatever, not because they're going to make money off of it, which is the only reason the mainstream industry would do something, but because they think it's good. It's a like a worldwide mix tape. An awful lot of bands that had no audience in their first incarnation were able to revive their careers and have a second lap. It's so exceedingly rare that somebody gets more than one bite at an apple like that. I think it's fantastic.
Tunecore is among the few, liberating services that provides true value for unsigned artists and I agree with a lot that's in this article. That being said, it's leaving out of the discussion the biggest things that labels and management still do for artists, and that's marketing, operations and financing.
It is simply a very small group of artists who can not only write phenomenal music and perform on successful tours, but manage their own online presence, market their releases and shows effectively, and do them in such a way that they either need no capital to do it or generate enough revenue to invest in future promotion. Most artists, even the best ones, still need someone to manage their promotions, help them understand the state of being online, setup their tours, and fund the up front costs associated with promoting a band at significant scale. Say what you want about record labels being a gatekeeper, they are also an enabler.
Take my favorite band, Tool, for instance. They record highly complex albums that take years to write, they do it in state of the art studios, and then they promote them with massive tours that have some of the most amazing light shows and animation of any live event today. Even at their size and their success level, fronting the costs of an operation like that would be near impossible for them, and just like so many entrepreneurs who start their 4th company but still raise money from good investors, it's better to risk someone else's money than your own, and leverage their network to get things done.
The shape and responsibilities of labels may change. But most artists do not know how, or even want to know how, to market their own music, or figure out how to finance an extraordinary product/experience. That's assuming they could even get financing for something like a Tool tour. If someone is willing to do that for them, there will always be a place for them and artists willing to give them a percentage of ownership to have it done well and at less risk to them.
Thanks Joey for being the voice of reason on this. Though you certainly
nailed the main point, there is an additional supporting point,
namely, the "easy factor."
The tech-centric view is now, and has always been, completely
unrealistic for everyone except skilled, tech-centric people. It can be
pushed to absurdity very easily...
"You don't know how to program well enough write your own web server?"
"You don't know enough assembly to write your own compiler?"
"You don't know enough VHDL to write your own instruction set?"
"You don't know enough about fabrication to build your own processor
(ASIC)?"
Another way to look at the same "easy factor" issue is imagine you need
to run a multi-million dollar online advertising/marketing campaign and
companies like Google and Facebook with easy advertising platforms don't
exist. Without "other" companies providing easy ways to run campaigns,
the typical advertising/marketing person is essentially stuffed. They
don't know how to do it on their own.
Even if your favorite band, Tool, had the money to finance their
operation, they would most likely be worse musicians if they were
forced to learn all the other stuff they need to know. In other words,
the thing they are good at, music, would suffer due to the need to
invest vast swaths of their time and effort in learning everything else
they would need to know.
As always, specialization has many advantages, but also, preventing the
need for specialization by making things easy can be very profitable.
Yeah, the same thing is said in music all of the time. You should be using social media, leveraging every possible distribution model, putting your music out there, giving it away for free, engaging your audience, designing your own shirts, crowdfunding this and that, and and blah blah. Who has time to do all of that and still practice their instrument, write new music, and carry on some semblance of a life?
Tool lets someone else manage their social media and they use it almost exclusively to promote other peoples' art that they like, because they couldn't care less to promote themselves with it. They're not available on nearly any streaming service. Their best form of marketing is putting out a product that is eons ahead of other bands and they're only able to do that because a label, manager, tour manager and everybody else help them stay focused on what they do best. Everybody likes to hate on labels but the truth is that they are a resource just like anything else, and when properly aligned, can provide the necessary resources and time to focus on the music itself. I far prefer that to a world with no labels and every artist tweeting their sanity away.
I don't think that only the artist and the bands will be the ones who survive in this new media ecosystem.
We need to fix the problem of getting tens of thousands of bands to the potential millions of customers. If every band's expected to do their own marketing and music spreading then we'll end up with stuff like Soulja Boy and the Chocolate Rain kid. I seriously doubt you'll stumble upon the next Rush in a random YouTube video.
I wish we could say that Pandora and other online services are fixing the problems but I can't believe this is all we can do about it. I also wish I could provide a solution to this problem and cash in millions in the process :)
I'd say if all you're seeing is Soulja Boy and Chocolate Rain, you need to get around the net more and seek out some of the great independent music that's out there. Even on YouTube there's plenty of good music that has become really popular, like Pomplamoose. To me those guys typify a group that gets it. They've adapted their strengths to thrive in the new era. It's good, fun music that never would have survived in the old system but does now:
The idea of simply being creative with your music and relying on some system of promotion and distribution to hold your hand through an album-tour-radio-album-tour-radio cycle is dead.
It's unfortunate, but artists have to do things they're not used to doing: manage and promote, social media, new creative expressions that go beyond simple videos for songs. They'll have to learn to leverage the full range of visual content possible, create more 'meta' content that their audiences can stay engaged with.
That's the tradeoff: those old industry dinosaurs will die off, but the artists that survive in the new era will have to do things they didn't have to previously, or find someone else that can.
I'd say if all you're seeing is Soulja Boy and Chocolate Rain, you need to get around the net more and seek out some of the great independent music that's out there
That's exactly the problem. If I have to out of my way looking for it then I see a possibility of disruption. I personally might do this (because I love music) but I understand most people is not willing to do something more than open a YouTube video or take a quick look at a Wikipedia page.
I brought the specific cases of Soulja Boy and Chocolate Rain because people can relate to them (they know who they are). Pomplamoose might be great but I don't think they're anywhere near mainstream (that might be a feature instead of a bug but I'm not entirely sure yet).
Edit: I don't know why you're being downvoted but I think the idea of artists doing their own marketing is interesting. Stuff like this is what's making a living for people like Jonathan Coulton, but I still don't think every musician can (or wants) to do this.
Who can tell the vagaries of HN voting habits? It usually evens out.
I think the notion of "mainstream" is just as dead as the old industry models. Music audiences are more fragmented than they've ever been, and are learning to be more and more proactive in how they discover music.
Local live music scenes are thriving, even while most of the artists will never make a splash beyond their communities. Sites like http://one-track-mind.com and http://www.indabamusic.com, countless blogs like http://www.brooklynvegan.com have become popular destinations for music fans that want to find something new and more interesting than what passes for mainstream.
I suppose the new challenges that face artists also face music fans. Just as artists can no longer rely on industry hand-holding, music fans that want more than gagabeiberidolglee will have to be more proactive than they're used to being.
The good news is that there's a vast amount of talent out there and they're making high quality recordings cheaper than ever.
Man, I want to like Pomplamoose's music, but there's so little drive to the background :(
Maybe that's because the background seems to be built around the vocals, which is opposite what I'm used to- the vocals built on top of the background.
Yeah, I get they're not for everybody, and it's definitely on the fun and frivolous side. Not sure they have a Kid A or Yankee Hotel Foxtrot in them.
But I do admire the unique way they've carved out a business niche for themselves and completely adapted to the new realities. Artists should take note.
I think you're right, and I think labels are helpful to certain artists (they provide a lot of capital, for a start), but they're not the only way for bands to get exposure.
Triple J Unearthed, for instance, is an Australian website (and digital radio station) attached to the Triple J radio station. Any unsigned Australian band can upload their music and have it listened to by someone from the radio station (as well as being freely available online for the public to stream or, optionally, download), and the good stuff gets played on Triple J. It's not a huge radio station - it has about 6% marketshare Australia wide (with I would guess 95% of that being in the 15-30 market), but it has massive market influence and has launched many massive Australian bands.
I don't think Youtube is (generally) a practical way for people to find new music either, but I also think that labels as we know it will soon be extinct, and that the music industry, for consumers and for artists, is in the best shape we've ever seen it.
I think I should clarify that I'm opposed to most record labels on principle. I think what Triple J Unearthed is doing is awesome and that's where I think a new player can come in, hopefully someone unrelated to the established industry.
I think this article has it's heart in the right place but I don't see labels or music management going away. The services that labels and managers provide are still useful to get exposure, it's just the terms have traditionally been vary unfavorable towards the artist. Distribution isn't the only key to success - now more than ever since anybody can distribute on their own.
I'd like to see the industry head in a direction where the artists retain control over their art and finances. All of these the industry companies like labels and managers will become more like service providers, hired by the artist.
I happen to work in the music industry and I can tell you that management companies are busier than ever and they are happy to have use of all these services that are supposedly "disrupting" their business. The artists are not usually disgruntled with their services because they are doing a lot of work that the artists have no interest in. It may be a different story for labels.
I think management and PR firms can definitely thrive in the new era if they adapt and match their efforts to new avenues of income that don't go through ASCAP, etc.
But labels? Why?? They came into existence for two reasons: recording was expensive and distribution was hard and required retail deals, physical storage and transport. None of those things are true any more.
A few will be around I suppose but only serving a narrow band of "mainstream" artists that live in a rarified world of High Media Royalty (Taylor Swift, et. al.) that has little to do with the vast majority of working musicians and writers. Those artists will find new ways of building followings and already are not chained to the old production/distribution models.
You left marketing and radio promotion off of the things that labels did and still do for their artists. Both require relationships, money and expertise, and are still very valuable things they have to offer good artists.
Sure, but the system for doing this has been essentially rigged against the artist for years. Very few see fair royalties after the very expensive radio promoter has been paid, and the advertising budget has been tallied, all of which comes straight out of the artist's bottom line -- essentially the money for this promotion was loaned.
And even fewer of them have the resources to pay the accountants and lawyers it takes to make sure they're not getting ripped off.
It's partly the immense dissatisfaction that artists have with this system that motivates them to find other ways to make money.
You're confusing the big labels with a heavy marketing presence with the wide swath of medium sized labels that used to exist but no longer do.
Now the situation is big labels pushing, mostly pre-internet era, artists with enough clout to penetrate global markets and extremely small niche labels with no market penetration.
In typical anarchaic fashion, digital evangelists diss the old way completely in a damn them all mentality, without really addressing the other half of the equation.
Recording music is labour intensive and great music is difficult. It takes entire teams of producers, coaches, engineers and songwriters to help a band polish an album to sufficiently high quality. Yet more people are needed for marketing, sales, pr, distribution, design, business development and so on. None of these people can be marked to zero. Great content is expensive.
Art is also high risk. For every 100 ideas, 99 of them are bad and 1 will strike a chord with the public and go big. That's just the way art works. It's not a bug, it's a feature. Art is taking a risk, despite the odds. But someone has to pay for that risk. The bigger the project, the bigger the risk.
To say that a label offers "nothing" is completely disingenuous and totally ignorant. Labels are not the enemy. Go out and talk to the owners.. most of them are very humble and genuine people who really do want to help artists succeed. I've talked them, that's how I know.
You want to know what happens when you put 500 musicians in a room with platinum award winning artists and label reps and lawyers? I can tell you since I've been there.. the musicians don't ask the artists much, but they ask the reps and lawyers a thousand questions about how they can make a living doing what they love in a world hell bent on devaluing their work.
Well, of course TuneCore declares labels obsolete - Is anyone really surprised? However it's not that easy - given that there's so much mediocrity available I'd argue that curators absolutely have their place. Don't mix up major labels with smaller indie labels, who are passionate about what they are doing - in my opinion they are still important.
To be clear, I love where the modern music industry is moving. It's awesome. The fact that artist control their own destiny and copyright is amazing.
That said...
> In the digital world, all artists can be on infinite digital shelves with infinite inventory waiting to be discovered, heard, shared and bought.
Awesome, the problem is discovery. Is social media the answer? If so, that doesn't necessarily mean good music -- good music being a relative term, of course -- gets discovered. It means bands and artists that do the most leg work get discovered.
The old guard in the music industry exists to solve a very pressing problem: actually marketing music. We're at a weird point in the industry right now where an artist can certainly "make it" on their own. The cost to sell and promote music as an independent artist is very close to nothing, monetarily speaking, and the technological hurdles of distribution and connection and licensing are no more.
But the cost of promoting yourself is time. Time that could be spent practicing or improving your craft. Is that worth it? Is it worth it for a musician to spend time away from her craft in the hopes of appeasing the new consumer gatekeepers: bloggers, redditors, hacker news folk? Or maybe they should spend time away from their craft producing a funny video to win the "going viral" lottery?
I think this is correct, but it's a bit like watching the centuries-long decline of Rome: the idea of "just a matter of time" is a relative concept. How long will it really take for inefficient dinosaurs like ASCAP and the RIAA to finally die off?
I have believed this for a long time, however there is a big issue thats been nagging me for a while.
If labels truly do provide no value, and artists can gain more by being in direct contact with music fans, why hasnt it happened already?
As much as I love spotify (which is lots) it is still controlled (and owned) by labels, there are lots of things like cdnow which has helped the situation, and I dont doubt that a lot of truly independent direct artists to fans site + apps exist, but even as quite a large music fan pretty much all the music I am exposed to goes through labels, the internet has been around quite a while now, so if this is going to be disrupted, why hasnt it already?
This is why Google Music's artist hub was by far the most interesting feature of the service to me. If Google is serious about this, it will do a lot to decentralize this whole system and help artists bypass the labels and go directly to the fans.
Is a music magazine or a radio station a gatekeeper because they can only showcase a limited number of artists, or are they a curator because they help the end user sort through thousands of bands to find the ones they would like to know about?
Even record labels have a role to play in the curation game. Smaller independent labels like 4AD, Wax Trax, Factory, SST, and Alternative Tentacles became valuable to fans in the '80s and '90s because their labels each created a "sound" of their own. You could confidently buy a record from a band you'd never heard of and know that if you liked the other bands on that label, you'd probably like this new one.
Curators provide significant value, and earn their keep. It's only when the curator turns into a gatekeeper and becomes a hindrance instead of a help that the problem arises.