I don't know why you got to rag on Taylor Swift. At least she is out there and selling something.

99% of the fault has to fall on the labels. They are barely trying anymore!

January is always the off month but now it is becoming the absolutely nothing month! Who knows when good releases will start coming out. It's really depressing. Hopefully young and inventive people that paid some attention to how the business should be run and who always actually like music will become the future and help turn things around.

this would be the perfect time for Prince to drop his new disc(s).

Graycap23 said:

Word up.

It's gonna be a challenge for artists just to reach gold status.

of course mainstream music went down as a whole since puffy was everywhere, I lived through it and many others did too

Also, I watched some American Idol last night out of boredom cause I needed Simon to crack me up, and all these girls think they're whitney but suck at it! She killed music too

alphastreet said:

Blame Clive Davis for that.

It think the primary reason sales are at an all time low is because of the economic conditions. People are either buying used CDs for half the price on amazon, half.com and ebay or people are getting burned copies of CDs from their family and friends.

People have been hoping for "real" artists to come back for the last 20 years and it hasn't really happened. When "real" artists do release CDs, they usually don't sell so I don't think "real" artists and "real" music is the issue. People just don't have the type of $$$ they used to have to spend on luxury items like music CDs.

kitbradley said:

Fairly accurate.
I purchase every single CD that I like.....but probably most don't.

but "real" artists become flavours of the moment and disappear. Norah Jones sold a shitload, as did Alicia Keys this decade, and people aren't talking about them everywhere.

It looks like the record industry has been stolen out of business.

how will albums ever sell huge numbers again? Maybe going back to singles is a good idea, but non-album tracks are always highlights too and very underrated.

SCNDLS said:

IstenSzek said:

As an artist--that works for me!

Uh....excuse me, but who the hell are you? You don't know a damn thing about who I am or the reasons that I'm all for the bootlegger getting the money rather than the artist. And it has absolutely nothing to do with screwing over "the man" or the artist. I would never want to screw over an artist. An artist is someone like Prince, Rick James, Cameo, Lakeside, The Barkays, and so many other countless artists of the past. An artist has talent and has worked hard to make their music. Now, how many of those artists have been screwed over by illegal downloading? None of them, except for maybe Prince because he's the only one still making music and the others no longer make music. Why, because they can't get a record deal because they make real music and record labels would rather have shit hoppers who don't have any instruments (or talent for that matter) because their music is cheap as hell to make. And if they do somehow slip through the cracks and get on an independent record label, then monopolized radio stations cover the monopolized record labels' asses by not giving them any airplay.

So.....other than Prince, what artist is being screwed over by illegal downloading or copying? No artists are being screwed because no artists exist any more in the music business. The only thing that exists are shit hoppers and a shit hopper is not an artist. A shit hopper is a no talent piece of trash who only has a record deal because he or she makes the cheapest music possible for the biggest profit possible and that's why it dominates everything and the music business refuses to have a style change in over 15 damn years. Because a bigger force is keeping it in style. So if illegal downloading is the only way to either kill shit hop or drive it underground, I'm all for it one hundred and fifty percent.

vainandy said:

Come on vainandy....don't be shy, don't hold back. Tell us how you really feel. Stand up for yourself!!!! Get off the fence and form an opinion!

I can't stand for somebody to come in talking shit in a disrespectful way that don't know a damn thing about my motives. Screwing over an artist, my ass. How the hell can you screw over something that don't exist anymore. That motherfucker done got my blood pressure up.

vainandy said:

I know exactly how you feel. I came up at the same time as you with the same artists like Prince, Rick James, Bar Kays, Cameo, etc, hell I even met the Gap Band once...and long for the day when ARTISTS will once again release good quality music that you can shake your ass to!!!!!


On a side note....did you see that "Jam the Box" by Bill Summers and Summers heat is being released on CD next Tuesday, Feb 3?
[Edited 1/30/09 14:34pm]

vainandy said:

Any artist who has ever released music, suffers from illegal downloading. It ranges from your despised "shit hoppers" to "real" artists (another term that doesn't mean anything). One way recording artists make money is from album sales. Yeah, major execs are probably stucturing deals that cheat said artist, but even Prince himself loses money any time someone illegally downloads Purple Rain.

Also, I think the argument that "real" artists can't get record deals anymore because the industry is inundated with crap music is groundless. New albums, released by thousands of varying record labels, are being released more than EVER! Look it up - it's a fact! Besides, it's getting to the point that you don't even NEED a record label anymore! This is the best time ever for ANYBODY - talented tunesmiths, dilettantes or fake ass wannabes - to get heard. Methinks that's a grand scheme. Now, invitations to the big music party aren't exclusive anymore, you dig? Second of all, if you want beef with "shit hoppers" - take it to the folks who buy "shit hop." Last time I checked, there wasn't a market for gilded dog shit. Why? Cos nobody, despite the fact that gilded dog shit is covered in gold, wants dog shit! But strangely, there's a viable market for that music, like it or not. Somebody's buying that shit!




Andy, I totally disagree. You've just relegated the Van Hunts, Kate Bushes, Bjorks, Antony Hegartys, Roy Hargroves, Rufus Wainwrights, Shogu Tokumarus, Anthony Hamiltons, {insert your favorite obscure musician here} to the very same artistic stratosphere of your despised "shit hoppers!" Tsk,tsk. There are thousands of musicians today, making music because of artistic integrity. God did not bless only purple midgets from Minneapolis with the muse of Euterpe.

Seriously though, to surmise that some machine is prying open society's mouth and force feeding them atrocious music is insane. My local Stop & Shop grocery store doesn't cater to my vegetarian lifestyle. They sell shitty foods at cheap prices and are always looking for a deal:cough:steal:cough. But! - they are not the only grocer in town! So instead, I shop at Whole Foods. It costs a little more sometimes but they cater to my diet and I eat more wholesome and healthy meals in turn.

Catch my drift?

vainandy said:

You don't realise that you're advocating the stealing of music, do you? With your stupid generalised statements (i.e. "no artists exists any more in the music business"), you're being pathetic. ALL acts suffer from illegal downloading. Prince can easily afford not to be overly affected by it having risen up in an era where it wasn't so easy to distribute copies of music. The man is loaded...

And they are soooo far underground that they can feel the heat from the nearby fires of hell. I'm not for screwing over talented underground artists, I'm for seeing this bullshit in the mainstream overthrown and if any great artists do exist underground, they are the ones that belong in the mainstream....not the in the underground. And before you say that all the good artists of the past were underground, no they weren't. They were all over the radio.

Oh, and I forgot, if there are so many great artists underground, why aren't they being played in the clubs. The great underground artists always had a club following. And clubs are probably my main concern because that's where you go to meet new people for either shaking ass together or having sex later. As I've said before, buying something great that no one else has ever heard of and shaking ass to it at home don't get you no new dick that way. It's gotta be in the mainstream if it's going to be the soundtrack behind getting some new dick.



I'm all for it. Whatever it takes to overthrow what is in the mainstream these days.



That's like hating a person for buying a hamburger when hamburgers was all he was raised on for his entire life and he doesn't even know what steak tastes like. It's not his fault. It's the fault of the people who fed him the hamburgers, which was fine, but the people feeding him made damn sure that a steak never came in his presence because if he tasted it, he might like it and steak costs more.




Obscure is the word. As I said before, you can't get no new dick listening to an obscure artist at home alone. It's gotta be well known enough to be played in clubs if you wanna have a good time while trying to get lucky rather than being bored and having a wasted night out if you don't get lucky. If the music's good, at least you had a good time shaking ass all night long on the dancefloor. You can't do that home alone listening to someone that no one else has ever heard of.



And I've shopped everywhere and when it comes to good new music, it is extremely rare. And no, I don't buy artists that make slow to midtempo music only. If the artist don't jam, his CD can sit right there in the record store collecting dust before I buy it and I don't care if it is the most talented artist in the world. If he doesn't make jams, I'm not buying it because I don't like artists that don't jam. They bore the hell out of me.
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[Edited 1/30/09 15:13pm]

Stealing what music? Music has to exist before it can be stolen. The last time I turned on the radio, I didn't hear any music. What I heard was a bunch of bullshit and I'm all for people stealing bullshit if they are crazy and tasteless enough to want it. At least if they are stealing it, the people that are making the bullshit can't make money from it. Since they are the ones that are the reason that music doesn't exist anymore, hell yeah, they need to go broke as hell.
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[Edited 1/30/09 15:21pm]

I find it seriously hard to believe that you hear NO new music at all that you like.

And what's with all this club bollocks? Not all types of music work in a club.

Yes, you don't need a label anymore. The trouble is, without being able to procure marketing/PR, no matter how good your music is, no sizeable amount of people will ever hear of you.

You also fail to understand the influence a label (especially the bigger they are) has over an artist they've signed. I've known many an artist whose demos were much better than what was released. All of a sudden, another producer's brought on board and the label wants to have their say. Most of the time, the album sounds the way it does because you're catering for the label owner's pathetic musical tastes. A friend of mine works as a producer and he's sick of having tracks being sent back and having to change them specifically for this reason. What started off as sounding good all of a sudden is shit. But don't blame him...don't blame the artist...blame the labels.
[Edited 1/30/09 16:07pm]

vainandy said:

Stop thinking in terms of "underground" or "above-ground." Everything nowadays is "niche." If you want Mexican Post-Punk music, there is a market, culture, blogosphere, et al that will cater to that particular musical taste. All you have to do is look for it. Futhermore, radio in 1959, 1969, 1979, 1989, and even 1999 is an entirely different looking business model than what exists in 2009. And who the hell listens to radio anyways? My friends and I use Pandora, Last.fm, and whatever application Apple's iPhone has just released that lets us choose what we want to hear. Payola-corporate-RIAA-Billboard radio is a joke and has been for almost six years.



Well, maybe the clubs near Vainandyville need to get their heads out of their arses. I know that in NYC and Boston - clubs always have the new remix or some music I've never heard playing.



You're my favorite poster...and you're the craziest too. That's insane - one can only assume from that post that if the music isn't uptempo so that you can fuck to it, it isn't worth your time. Egads.



Psst!

Let me let you in on a military secret:


Use:

pandora
iLike
Last.fm

And if you're hip to helping unsigned bands catch a break, dig this -

Sellaband
[Edited 1/30/09 16:29pm]

Chuckaducci & Andy,,,,,intersting conversation

First to clear up a few mis-conceptions. There is just as much shit circulating the internet than what is "signed" to a label. This belief that the internet and myspace and things like that are a well of "seamless" talent, is wrong, its there, but just as much shit is there by % than what a label is throwing at you and that is signed. Alot of people forget that most "indie" artists are signed and go through labels, so what you may think is indie, if you do the research and connect the dots, the whole thing is being controlled by a big parent company.

What has changed is what is "filtered" and put out there, right now and for the last 15 years at least or more, basically since soundscan came into play, you have "business models" taking over your mainstream, and you didnt have this through your other decades because the focuse wasnt "bottom line", now you have to sell day one, then you could have 5-6 albums to build your following, now you have artists that will NEVER record 5-6 albums.

Harlepolis said:

I think I read 4 references to "new dick".....just on this page alone

this is stupid. i swear you brits exaggerate the shit out of everything.

That's the problem, you have to look for it. You didn't have to look for good music in the past because it was all over the radio and in the mainstream. And I have looked for good music and there is very little out there to find from what I've seen. But as for underground or above-ground music, as I said before, it does no good to stay home and shake ass to something that no one else has heard. It has to be fairly well known to be played in clubs and clubs are where you meet new people.



People who don't have the money for, or could care less, about every new gadget that comes out or the monthly fee that goes along with them. Grown folks don't have mommy and daddy to buy them all these new gadgets and many grown folks have a lot more important and urgent things to buy other some monthly high speed internet service, cable service, satellite service, or anything else that is going to have a monthly fee.

And if you don't believe it, just look at how many people aren't ready for the rediculous new switch to digital television this month. There were over 6 million people that weren't ready. And as far as postponing it to June, hell they need to postpone it for another five years or so when those digital TVs are affordable. Lots of people don't have hundreds of dollars to shell out for a new TV when they have a perfectly fine old one at home. Same with all these other new gadgets that spoiled people just assume that everyone either has or can afford.



Hell, it's been a joke since the early 1990s.



Well, I guess so in major cities like New York or Boston that have multiple clubs that cater to every type of person out there in every age group. Try bringing your ass down to Jackson, Mississippi and finding a gay club that plays jams anymore. You will find two gay clubs, one black and one white, both of which used to jam their asses off but now play only midtempo shit hop because that is what is the mainstream and their is no gay underground anymore except for that dull ass trance music..



You totally misunderstood me. I didn't say that you fuck to the uptempo music. I said that it takes uptempo music to be in a club (if you want an enjoyable club) and clubs are the meeting places to find new dick. Yeah, you can play other music in clubs (and they do) but it sure as hell isn't an enjoyable evening which makes it a total waste if you don't get lucky that night.

Clubs are the meeting grounds to meet new sex partners. Hell, I'm not straight. I can't just go up to someone in a grocery store or on the street and try to talk to them. My only meeting grounds are specific clubs that cater to my sexual preference, and dammitt, I want the clubs to be an enjoyable evening like they used to be. Not just sitting at a damn table bored to death while some shit hop plays through the speakers.


[/quote]

I still buy physical copies of albums - and I always will. I just like that experience (especially if it's vinyl).

But I can't remember the last time I bought a release from a major studio.