The new forums will be named Coin Return (based on the most recent vote)! You can check on the status and timeline of the transition to the new forums here.
The Guiding Principles and New Rules document is now in effect.
Prince Versus The Net
AngelHedgie
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
As you may have heard, singer Prince has decided to challenge the Internet. And already, the usual suspects are reacting in their usual, thoughtful manner (which is to say that they're tarring him as a greedy, selfish, out of touch megastar who hates his fans.)
That said, I think that if the usual suspects try to use their usual tactics, it's going to blow up in their face. For one, it's going to be hard to make Prince (who actually changed his name legally to a symbol to get out of the grip of a record company) out as if he's best buds with the RIAA. Second, doing so has a chance of showing people exactly how hollow the arguments against him really are.
I'm enjoying watching this one develop.
That said, I think that if the usual suspects try to use their usual tactics, it's going to blow up in their face. For one, it's going to be hard to make Prince (who actually changed his name legally to a symbol to get out of the grip of a record company) out as if he's best buds with the RIAA. Second, doing so has a chance of showing people exactly how hollow the arguments against him really are.
I'm enjoying watching this one develop.
XBL: Nox Aeternum / PSN: NoxAeternum / NN:NoxAeternum / Steam: noxaeternum
AngelHedgie on
0
Posts
Does he think these sites put up the pirated stuff themselves? Or does he expect them to inspect every one of the millions of submissions they get every day?
(I'm talking about youtube and ebay, of course. The pirate bay, well, the name says it all.)
In principle, he's just regurgitating what others have said before regarding the whole "pirating" issue. However, his sudden stance has made it seem that someone (RIAA) is pushing him into this.
Also, I have some problems calling YouTube a common carrier.
That said, the second article you linked kind of nails it. He missed the point, and it makes him seem disconnected, when he was, at one time, one of the most in-touch musicians out there.
I still love the fucker. His ethos, "cover me and do it bad, I'll cover you and make people forget it was ever your song" has led to some really astounding and moving performances.
That said, Prince was also one of the earliest to embrace the internet as a marketing tool. His early fan websites were the avant garde of digital distribution and connecting to fans via the net. He would do promotions, release internet only albums, and a whole slew of other things back in the late '90s, well before anyone was seriously looking at the internet as a viable music marketing tool.
After all that, he is missing the point with Youtube, but from a guy with the history that he has, you can see where he is upset that more of his content is out of his control, especially after he made his best efforts to control it via the net.
And after even all that, Prince is still the single greatest musical figure post-JB or Stevie Wonder.
It was funny when music stores were going "RAAAAH WE'LL STOP SELLING HIS MUSIC".
Yes, they said it'd devalue his music and encourage people to share it.
And they were completely right.
So, what happens if said adaptation causes music to contract in scope. Personally, I see the "information wants to be free crowd to be incredibly short sighted.
Those who REALLY care about it do it so that negatives and original recordings etc don't sit locked away in a basement and get destroyed by mold and thus removed from human culture forever.
I've never really bought the "for the love of music" argument. Also, what I meant be contract is that they make only one model viable, which causes forms of expressions (like, say, concept albums) to wither. For instance, one argument that's usually taken at gospel truth is that musicians make their money playing gigs. nd while I've seen the evidence for that, I don't think it tells the whole story.
- "Proving once again the deadliest animal of all ... is the Zoo Keeper" - Philip J Fry
It pretty much DOES tell the whole story though. I read a very interesting article from the New York Post magazine (or some such) about the guy who made Def Jam records, convinced RHCP to make Under the Bridge, and is now working at Columbia to get them in the fucking game.
Record labels make their money off records. Artists generally don't make shit off records. Thems the breaks. The OLD deal was that this was a fair trade-off because record labels could really push albums and artists to sell the records, and thus give the artist great exposure for their tours.
One of the main problems in the record industry right now is that they can't do that anymore. They don't control the outflow of music, or the method of getting the word out. Comparatively, no one is listening to the radio much, and the old force-sell methods just aren't turning up much.
This Def Jam guy was trying to get Columbia to see the light and try to make a distribution service of some sort. You see, the record companies apparently don't make dick off Itunes. A good quote was "Steve Jobs understood Napster better than the record labels did." And I think that's true.
So, one the artists side you've got guys like this trying to make music labels relevant to today's world, and on the other side you've got RIAA pricks trying to take 50% of the gig money.
That will never die. There will always be some pretentious prog cuntrags (read: Coheed and Cambria) that go around making them.
That's not to say that concept albums are in and of themselves bad things, it's just that the people making them can tend to be terribly self-absorbed "artists."
I remember in the 90's when bands/labels would purposely put out entire albums of crap with maybe one good chart topper, and release an album every year, as opposed to one good harmonious album every couple of years.
MWO: Adamski
Prince has never been much for that, I suppose. I'll just regret the day that the single overtakes the album in popularity. I have bought entire albums for one song before, but I'd still take that if it means I get to keep finding albums like El Oso and Songs for the Deaf.
Also, Wonder Hippie, C&C is amazing. You shut the fuck up about them. Why do you hate freedom?
If they put all of their snappy singles into one album, I would buy that album.
God! I hope it's through a basketball competition and he brings back the revolution.