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Had this emailed to me from a mate that works in Tower Records, California –
“Tower Records is closing 4 stores next month, and possibly up to 25 this year. There's supposed to be a big "financial announcement" on January 31st.
They sold off all of the Japanese franchises, they pulled out of London (sold off the store leases to Virgin), and are probably pulling out of Ireland. Half of the main office was laid off, including employees that had been with the company since day 1.
HMV is most likely not renewing any of their U.S. leases this year, and is closing one of their NYC stores.
Virgin is in trouble, they have this new Boston store which is sucking them dry, and they have put off all plans of expansion this year.
Best Buy is pulling out of the business, for the most part, killing 110 of their Musicland/Sam Goody/Suncoast stores.
Sony, Warner, and BMG all just had another round of layoffs.
Industy insiders warn of a decline in music sales in 2003.”
And as per usual, what’s to blame?
Peer-to-peer sharing. Yup, good ol’ Napster is still haunting the vaunted hallways of corporate music and rattling it’s chains of woe and ill-gotten gains.
All the men in suits are circling the wagons and firing off missives and frighteners to anybody even considering downloaded tracks from the internet because “it’s killing music”.
No it’s not. They said the same thing about cassettes when they were released, they even came with a sticker saying “Home Recording is killing music”.
What seems strange is that you and I both know what is to blame for the decline in record sales and it’s nothing to do with downloading music on your PC.
What is killing music?
Stagnant, clichéd music being pumped into restaurants, shopping centers and children’s ears day after day after day from Radio 1, Top of The Pops and all those other joyless little exercises in performing monkeys.
Vile tv shows like Pop Idol that value a pretty face and “X factor” above someone with actual musical ability.
You know these insects: Gareth Gates, Will Young, Boyzone, Britney Spears, Shakira, Girls Aloud blah blah blah.
One-hit, 15 minutes wannabes that scurry for the ££ whilst their 9yr old fanbase decide it’s cool to like them this week.
“Oh but it’s just harmless pop” is your usual excuse, along with “It’s chart-crap, don’t worry about it”.
If that’s all it was then fine, we could just enjoy the bands we like and leave kids and retarded adults to buy pop crap. But it *is* damaging the music industry. Labels are only interested in signing someone to a 2 single deal, hit hard and fast – make the money and get out.
This is why labels are sinking. This is why they are losing money hand over fist, because they are treating you and I with contempt and disinterest. A kid has a tiny attention span and lose interest in a band faster than you can take your pants off the 1st time you get a woman naked. They have concentrated on hooking kids and moron adults with meaningless dirge and ignored bands out there that could possibly write a song that would change your life.
I don’t like Coldplay, but I respect them for actually writing songs and gigging. I have zero respect for people like Blue or Busted or any other flavour-of-the-week. They do not belong in the music industry for one simple reason – it is only fame and money for them.
It has *nothing* to do with musical love or ability, otherwise they would be too ashamed to show their face around musicians.
The fact that labels are putting out 98 different versions of the same band/song is harming the industry a lot more than you downloading a couple of songs from the web. But they wont admit it, they wont admit they’re money-hungry, soul-less demons that don’t give a hoot whether you’ll ever discover a band you may love.
Look back at the 70s with bands like Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd, Creedence Clearwater, The Eagles, Lyrnyrd Skynyrd etc. They have careers, they have albums that still stand today.
Why? Because it wasn’t singles-based. It wasn’t just about the immediate profit on sales from a 3 week stint in the chart. It’s so goddam rare to find a band breaking through these days.
Why?
Because bands write songs that mean something to them. A genuine band writes something that affects them and, hopefully, will reach others. It’s a passion, it’s heart and soul. Creating music for the simple love of it. And that comes across to the listener, whether you like that song or not.
But then steps in Mr Big Label with his hundreds of middle-men and A&R and distribution sniffers and pluggers and liggers and giggers and hangers on and WHOMP!, suddenly there are 25 people taking a bite out of any money before the band that wrote the music gets a sniff.
The big labels are bloated dinosaurs with so many parasites it’s unbelievable.
This is why independent labels and stores like Rough Trade survive and flourish whilst mega-turds like AOL and Warner are sinking beneath the surface.
It’s blind stupidity and arrogance on the part of major-labels that underestimate what you and I listen to or like.
It’s high-time they stopped giving £15 million advances to people like Avril Levigne, because the market for that generic pop crap is fickle and album sales will never recoup that money.
Instead of spending that kind of money on an Alanis-lite, they should be investing in 100 smaller bands and offering them £100,000 a piece to sign a 2 album deal.
If out of those 100, say 5 make it then they’ll recoup their money a lot easier than trying to hope one cashcow will bring in a monstrous payload.
By doing that, you would go into HMV and find 100 new albums on the shelf instead of 100 copies of the same artist gathering dust because the kids moved on that week.
This ignorance of simple methods means that these companies will sink to the bottom with a lazy grace and cry about peer-to-peer – leaving behind them tear-stained pretty boys who are now trying to make a living playing La Taverna evenings whilst you eat your pasta and laugh at them.
Peer-to-Peer is free advertising and name-spreading, not a vile money sucking operation by net-thieves. Hell, I’d gladly put my material on there because it would mean people can hear what I do, and that’s why I play in a band in the 1st place.
And hell, I don’t make any money now from it so it’s not like I’m concerned about losing any.
Stupidity, bad business sense, no real-world ideas and an utter lack of respect for good music is killing CD sales. Anything else is a guilty excuse.
“Tower Records is closing 4 stores next month, and possibly up to 25 this year. There's supposed to be a big "financial announcement" on January 31st.
They sold off all of the Japanese franchises, they pulled out of London (sold off the store leases to Virgin), and are probably pulling out of Ireland. Half of the main office was laid off, including employees that had been with the company since day 1.
HMV is most likely not renewing any of their U.S. leases this year, and is closing one of their NYC stores.
Virgin is in trouble, they have this new Boston store which is sucking them dry, and they have put off all plans of expansion this year.
Best Buy is pulling out of the business, for the most part, killing 110 of their Musicland/Sam Goody/Suncoast stores.
Sony, Warner, and BMG all just had another round of layoffs.
Industy insiders warn of a decline in music sales in 2003.”
And as per usual, what’s to blame?
Peer-to-peer sharing. Yup, good ol’ Napster is still haunting the vaunted hallways of corporate music and rattling it’s chains of woe and ill-gotten gains.
All the men in suits are circling the wagons and firing off missives and frighteners to anybody even considering downloaded tracks from the internet because “it’s killing music”.
No it’s not. They said the same thing about cassettes when they were released, they even came with a sticker saying “Home Recording is killing music”.
What seems strange is that you and I both know what is to blame for the decline in record sales and it’s nothing to do with downloading music on your PC.
What is killing music?
Stagnant, clichéd music being pumped into restaurants, shopping centers and children’s ears day after day after day from Radio 1, Top of The Pops and all those other joyless little exercises in performing monkeys.
Vile tv shows like Pop Idol that value a pretty face and “X factor” above someone with actual musical ability.
You know these insects: Gareth Gates, Will Young, Boyzone, Britney Spears, Shakira, Girls Aloud blah blah blah.
One-hit, 15 minutes wannabes that scurry for the ££ whilst their 9yr old fanbase decide it’s cool to like them this week.
“Oh but it’s just harmless pop” is your usual excuse, along with “It’s chart-crap, don’t worry about it”.
If that’s all it was then fine, we could just enjoy the bands we like and leave kids and retarded adults to buy pop crap. But it *is* damaging the music industry. Labels are only interested in signing someone to a 2 single deal, hit hard and fast – make the money and get out.
This is why labels are sinking. This is why they are losing money hand over fist, because they are treating you and I with contempt and disinterest. A kid has a tiny attention span and lose interest in a band faster than you can take your pants off the 1st time you get a woman naked. They have concentrated on hooking kids and moron adults with meaningless dirge and ignored bands out there that could possibly write a song that would change your life.
I don’t like Coldplay, but I respect them for actually writing songs and gigging. I have zero respect for people like Blue or Busted or any other flavour-of-the-week. They do not belong in the music industry for one simple reason – it is only fame and money for them.
It has *nothing* to do with musical love or ability, otherwise they would be too ashamed to show their face around musicians.
The fact that labels are putting out 98 different versions of the same band/song is harming the industry a lot more than you downloading a couple of songs from the web. But they wont admit it, they wont admit they’re money-hungry, soul-less demons that don’t give a hoot whether you’ll ever discover a band you may love.
Look back at the 70s with bands like Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd, Creedence Clearwater, The Eagles, Lyrnyrd Skynyrd etc. They have careers, they have albums that still stand today.
Why? Because it wasn’t singles-based. It wasn’t just about the immediate profit on sales from a 3 week stint in the chart. It’s so goddam rare to find a band breaking through these days.
Why?
Because bands write songs that mean something to them. A genuine band writes something that affects them and, hopefully, will reach others. It’s a passion, it’s heart and soul. Creating music for the simple love of it. And that comes across to the listener, whether you like that song or not.
But then steps in Mr Big Label with his hundreds of middle-men and A&R and distribution sniffers and pluggers and liggers and giggers and hangers on and WHOMP!, suddenly there are 25 people taking a bite out of any money before the band that wrote the music gets a sniff.
The big labels are bloated dinosaurs with so many parasites it’s unbelievable.
This is why independent labels and stores like Rough Trade survive and flourish whilst mega-turds like AOL and Warner are sinking beneath the surface.
It’s blind stupidity and arrogance on the part of major-labels that underestimate what you and I listen to or like.
It’s high-time they stopped giving £15 million advances to people like Avril Levigne, because the market for that generic pop crap is fickle and album sales will never recoup that money.
Instead of spending that kind of money on an Alanis-lite, they should be investing in 100 smaller bands and offering them £100,000 a piece to sign a 2 album deal.
If out of those 100, say 5 make it then they’ll recoup their money a lot easier than trying to hope one cashcow will bring in a monstrous payload.
By doing that, you would go into HMV and find 100 new albums on the shelf instead of 100 copies of the same artist gathering dust because the kids moved on that week.
This ignorance of simple methods means that these companies will sink to the bottom with a lazy grace and cry about peer-to-peer – leaving behind them tear-stained pretty boys who are now trying to make a living playing La Taverna evenings whilst you eat your pasta and laugh at them.
Peer-to-Peer is free advertising and name-spreading, not a vile money sucking operation by net-thieves. Hell, I’d gladly put my material on there because it would mean people can hear what I do, and that’s why I play in a band in the 1st place.
And hell, I don’t make any money now from it so it’s not like I’m concerned about losing any.
Stupidity, bad business sense, no real-world ideas and an utter lack of respect for good music is killing CD sales. Anything else is a guilty excuse.
Page:
I don't really care anymore
Had this emailed to me from a mate that works in Tower Records, California –
“Tower Records is closing 4 stores next month, and possibly up to 25 this year. There's supposed to be a big "financial announcement" on January 31st.
They sold off all of the Japanese franchises, they pulled out of London (sold off the store leases to Virgin), and are probably pulling out of Ireland. Half of the main office was laid off, including employees that had been with the company since day 1.
HMV is most likely not renewing any of their U.S. leases this year, and is closing one of their NYC stores.
Virgin is in trouble, they have this new Boston store which is sucking them dry, and they have put off all plans of expansion this year.
Best Buy is pulling out of the business, for the most part, killing 110 of their Musicland/Sam Goody/Suncoast stores.
Sony, Warner, and BMG all just had another round of layoffs.
Industy insiders warn of a decline in music sales in 2003.”
And as per usual, what’s to blame?
Peer-to-peer sharing. Yup, good ol’ Napster is still haunting the vaunted hallways of corporate music and rattling it’s chains of woe and ill-gotten gains.
All the men in suits are circling the wagons and firing off missives and frighteners to anybody even considering downloaded tracks from the internet because “it’s killing music”.
No it’s not. They said the same thing about cassettes when they were released, they even came with a sticker saying “Home Recording is killing music”.
What seems strange is that you and I both know what is to blame for the decline in record sales and it’s nothing to do with downloading music on your PC.
What is killing music?
Stagnant, clichéd music being pumped into restaurants, shopping centers and children’s ears day after day after day from Radio 1, Top of The Pops and all those other joyless little exercises in performing monkeys.
Vile tv shows like Pop Idol that value a pretty face and “X factor” above someone with actual musical ability.
You know these insects: Gareth Gates, Will Young, Boyzone, Britney Spears, Shakira, Girls Aloud blah blah blah.
One-hit, 15 minutes wannabes that scurry for the ££ whilst their 9yr old fanbase decide it’s cool to like them this week.
“Oh but it’s just harmless pop” is your usual excuse, along with “It’s chart-crap, don’t worry about it”.
If that’s all it was then fine, we could just enjoy the bands we like and leave kids and retarded adults to buy pop crap. But it *is* damaging the music industry. Labels are only interested in signing someone to a 2 single deal, hit hard and fast – make the money and get out.
This is why labels are sinking. This is why they are losing money hand over fist, because they are treating you and I with contempt and disinterest. A kid has a tiny attention span and lose interest in a band faster than you can take your pants off the 1st time you get a woman naked. They have concentrated on hooking kids and moron adults with meaningless dirge and ignored bands out there that could possibly write a song that would change your life.
I don’t like Coldplay, but I respect them for actually writing songs and gigging. I have zero respect for people like Blue or Busted or any other flavour-of-the-week. They do not belong in the music industry for one simple reason – it is only fame and money for them.
It has *nothing* to do with musical love or ability, otherwise they would be too ashamed to show their face around musicians.
The fact that labels are putting out 98 different versions of the same band/song is harming the industry a lot more than you downloading a couple of songs from the web. But they wont admit it, they wont admit they’re money-hungry, soul-less demons that don’t give a hoot whether you’ll ever discover a band you may love.
Look back at the 70s with bands like Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd, Creedence Clearwater, The Eagles, Lyrnyrd Skynyrd etc. They have careers, they have albums that still stand today.
Why? Because it wasn’t singles-based. It wasn’t just about the immediate profit on sales from a 3 week stint in the chart. It’s so goddam rare to find a band breaking through these days.
Why?
Because bands write songs that mean something to them. A genuine band writes something that affects them and, hopefully, will reach others. It’s a passion, it’s heart and soul. Creating music for the simple love of it. And that comes across to the listener, whether you like that song or not.
But then steps in Mr Big Label with his hundreds of middle-men and A&R and distribution sniffers and pluggers and liggers and giggers and hangers on and WHOMP!, suddenly there are 25 people taking a bite out of any money before the band that wrote the music gets a sniff.
The big labels are bloated dinosaurs with so many parasites it’s unbelievable.
This is why independent labels and stores like Rough Trade survive and flourish whilst mega-turds like AOL and Warner are sinking beneath the surface.
It’s blind stupidity and arrogance on the part of major-labels that underestimate what you and I listen to or like.
It’s high-time they stopped giving £15 million advances to people like Avril Levigne, because the market for that generic pop crap is fickle and album sales will never recoup that money.
Instead of spending that kind of money on an Alanis-lite, they should be investing in 100 smaller bands and offering them £100,000 a piece to sign a 2 album deal.
If out of those 100, say 5 make it then they’ll recoup their money a lot easier than trying to hope one cashcow will bring in a monstrous payload.
By doing that, you would go into HMV and find 100 new albums on the shelf instead of 100 copies of the same artist gathering dust because the kids moved on that week.
This ignorance of simple methods means that these companies will sink to the bottom with a lazy grace and cry about peer-to-peer – leaving behind them tear-stained pretty boys who are now trying to make a living playing La Taverna evenings whilst you eat your pasta and laugh at them.
Peer-to-Peer is free advertising and name-spreading, not a vile money sucking operation by net-thieves. Hell, I’d gladly put my material on there because it would mean people can hear what I do, and that’s why I play in a band in the 1st place.
And hell, I don’t make any money now from it so it’s not like I’m concerned about losing any.
Stupidity, bad business sense, no real-world ideas and an utter lack of respect for good music is killing CD sales. Anything else is a guilty excuse.
“Tower Records is closing 4 stores next month, and possibly up to 25 this year. There's supposed to be a big "financial announcement" on January 31st.
They sold off all of the Japanese franchises, they pulled out of London (sold off the store leases to Virgin), and are probably pulling out of Ireland. Half of the main office was laid off, including employees that had been with the company since day 1.
HMV is most likely not renewing any of their U.S. leases this year, and is closing one of their NYC stores.
Virgin is in trouble, they have this new Boston store which is sucking them dry, and they have put off all plans of expansion this year.
Best Buy is pulling out of the business, for the most part, killing 110 of their Musicland/Sam Goody/Suncoast stores.
Sony, Warner, and BMG all just had another round of layoffs.
Industy insiders warn of a decline in music sales in 2003.”
And as per usual, what’s to blame?
Peer-to-peer sharing. Yup, good ol’ Napster is still haunting the vaunted hallways of corporate music and rattling it’s chains of woe and ill-gotten gains.
All the men in suits are circling the wagons and firing off missives and frighteners to anybody even considering downloaded tracks from the internet because “it’s killing music”.
No it’s not. They said the same thing about cassettes when they were released, they even came with a sticker saying “Home Recording is killing music”.
What seems strange is that you and I both know what is to blame for the decline in record sales and it’s nothing to do with downloading music on your PC.
What is killing music?
Stagnant, clichéd music being pumped into restaurants, shopping centers and children’s ears day after day after day from Radio 1, Top of The Pops and all those other joyless little exercises in performing monkeys.
Vile tv shows like Pop Idol that value a pretty face and “X factor” above someone with actual musical ability.
You know these insects: Gareth Gates, Will Young, Boyzone, Britney Spears, Shakira, Girls Aloud blah blah blah.
One-hit, 15 minutes wannabes that scurry for the ££ whilst their 9yr old fanbase decide it’s cool to like them this week.
“Oh but it’s just harmless pop” is your usual excuse, along with “It’s chart-crap, don’t worry about it”.
If that’s all it was then fine, we could just enjoy the bands we like and leave kids and retarded adults to buy pop crap. But it *is* damaging the music industry. Labels are only interested in signing someone to a 2 single deal, hit hard and fast – make the money and get out.
This is why labels are sinking. This is why they are losing money hand over fist, because they are treating you and I with contempt and disinterest. A kid has a tiny attention span and lose interest in a band faster than you can take your pants off the 1st time you get a woman naked. They have concentrated on hooking kids and moron adults with meaningless dirge and ignored bands out there that could possibly write a song that would change your life.
I don’t like Coldplay, but I respect them for actually writing songs and gigging. I have zero respect for people like Blue or Busted or any other flavour-of-the-week. They do not belong in the music industry for one simple reason – it is only fame and money for them.
It has *nothing* to do with musical love or ability, otherwise they would be too ashamed to show their face around musicians.
The fact that labels are putting out 98 different versions of the same band/song is harming the industry a lot more than you downloading a couple of songs from the web. But they wont admit it, they wont admit they’re money-hungry, soul-less demons that don’t give a hoot whether you’ll ever discover a band you may love.
Look back at the 70s with bands like Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd, Creedence Clearwater, The Eagles, Lyrnyrd Skynyrd etc. They have careers, they have albums that still stand today.
Why? Because it wasn’t singles-based. It wasn’t just about the immediate profit on sales from a 3 week stint in the chart. It’s so goddam rare to find a band breaking through these days.
Why?
Because bands write songs that mean something to them. A genuine band writes something that affects them and, hopefully, will reach others. It’s a passion, it’s heart and soul. Creating music for the simple love of it. And that comes across to the listener, whether you like that song or not.
But then steps in Mr Big Label with his hundreds of middle-men and A&R and distribution sniffers and pluggers and liggers and giggers and hangers on and WHOMP!, suddenly there are 25 people taking a bite out of any money before the band that wrote the music gets a sniff.
The big labels are bloated dinosaurs with so many parasites it’s unbelievable.
This is why independent labels and stores like Rough Trade survive and flourish whilst mega-turds like AOL and Warner are sinking beneath the surface.
It’s blind stupidity and arrogance on the part of major-labels that underestimate what you and I listen to or like.
It’s high-time they stopped giving £15 million advances to people like Avril Levigne, because the market for that generic pop crap is fickle and album sales will never recoup that money.
Instead of spending that kind of money on an Alanis-lite, they should be investing in 100 smaller bands and offering them £100,000 a piece to sign a 2 album deal.
If out of those 100, say 5 make it then they’ll recoup their money a lot easier than trying to hope one cashcow will bring in a monstrous payload.
By doing that, you would go into HMV and find 100 new albums on the shelf instead of 100 copies of the same artist gathering dust because the kids moved on that week.
This ignorance of simple methods means that these companies will sink to the bottom with a lazy grace and cry about peer-to-peer – leaving behind them tear-stained pretty boys who are now trying to make a living playing La Taverna evenings whilst you eat your pasta and laugh at them.
Peer-to-Peer is free advertising and name-spreading, not a vile money sucking operation by net-thieves. Hell, I’d gladly put my material on there because it would mean people can hear what I do, and that’s why I play in a band in the 1st place.
And hell, I don’t make any money now from it so it’s not like I’m concerned about losing any.
Stupidity, bad business sense, no real-world ideas and an utter lack of respect for good music is killing CD sales. Anything else is a guilty excuse.
Page: