Stealing A Mirror In The Mainstream

     Since the great technological advancement known as the internet has come along, the music industry has undergone massive changes.  That is, the major labels have lost a ton of money.  They have blamed their losses on piracy and file sharing.  I beg to differ.

     The major music labels/distributors started hemorrhaging money when they got into bed with Walmart and other department stores and allowed these stores to dictate the price of music.  Walmart said they were going to sell CDs for $9.99 to $12.99, take it or leave it.  The labels buckled like a belt, thinking they'd make the money back in the greater number of units sold.

     Walmart also demanded that records with “objectionable” material or subject matter be censored. The labels caved again which led to changed cover art and lyrics.  Sometimes entire songs were removed from an album or “clean” versions with the naughty words spaced out were sold.  If cover art was not up to Walmart's squeaky clean standards, album covers would be blacked out and made to look like a Spinal Tap album cover.  They made it more difficult to buy a record with the word “fuck” in a song than it is to buy a firearm.

     This deal with department stores is what also led to that really annoying sticker that would go across the top edge of a jewel case.  This sticker, that would never lift off in one piece and left a residue so your CDs would stick together, was made solely so the slack jawed clerk at the department store wouldn't need to know anything about music in order to find something in the inventory.  If Jim Bob, who worked in electronics, got popped for a DUI the night before and missed his shift, Joe Jack from hardware could fill in.

     All of these decisions were made before the internet and the “plague on society” that was Napster. Mom and Pop record stores and chain stores like Tower Records, Sam Goody and National Record Mart bore the brunt of these poor decisions.  Once it was determined that the major labels and distributors were going to be fleeced by Walmart, they decided to jack up the prices on everyone else. Those $9.99 CDs at Walmart could be found at a Mom and Pop store, where employees actually cared and knew something about music, for $19.99.  This very quickly led to empty storefronts all across the country.

     All the while, hubris and greed were being blamed on file sharing.  Copy protection started to be placed on CDs so people couldn't rip them into their computers even though they owned the CD. Album sales plummeted and, with the rise of iTunes, the single became the focus.  Instead of turning out a cohesive, end to end, solid album, artists were pressured into focussing on a single that would crack the iTunes top 10.  The goal was suddenly to get listeners to buy one song for a dollar, not an entire album for $10.

     Now with Spotify, and other streaming services, people can pay $10 a month and listen to however much music they want.  The licensing agreements work out well for the labels but leave the artists with fractions of pennies.  This is why most artists cannot afford to stop touring and partially contributes to skyrocketing ticket prices.  And if you take a look at Spotify's financials, you can see that once again, the major labels backed the wrong horse.

     This is all a very long winded way of saying why I love independent artists and labels.  For the most part, they operate outside of this game of enriching a few executives, and a lot of lawyers, with their art.

     They tour all of the time because they have to.  Most of them sell their records at shows or through mail order out of their homes.  The music is their life and they wouldn't know what to do without it.

There are small labels all over the world that take chances on putting out records in small runs that may or may not sell.  They are certainly not profit motivated but try to put something interesting out into the world and keep the lights on at the same time.

     This is why I get most of my music from Bandcamp of late.  It is a massive sea of music to sift through but it has opened up the world to artists.  Bands from other countries that can't get North American distribution or bands that just can't afford to put out a physical release are able to put their music out there.  I have come across so much good music from Australia and even Icelandic punk rock that if the shipping costs are prohibitive, I can at least get a reasonably priced download.

     Indie bands were never truly beholden to the major label machinery so they aren't really affected by its implosion.  They've always had to tour like crazy and sell t-shirts to put gas in the van to get to the next town.  Their situation doesn't change all that much other than their music getting to more people over the internet which may lead to a new town for them to aim the van towards.

     I saw Dinosaur Jr. three times on their last tour cycle and the Melvins seem to come through town on an annual basis.  They understand that if they want to eat, it'll have to be out on the road.  Larger entertainment acts are now realizing this since no one is buying their music but renting it from a streaming service instead.

     There's always the complaint that new music sucks and bands just aren't as good as they used to be.  That seems to be the argument of the lazy and disinterested that only listens to the radio.  Ever since the nationwide Clear Channel takeover, radio has lost almost every shred of what made it special when stations were owned locally.  The regional hit single is a thing of the past and everything is starting to sound the same.  It now takes more of a nose to the ground approach to find new music.  Labels like Castle Face, In The Red, Drag City and Hardly Art are putting out interesting releases all the time.  Great music is out there but given the consolidation of the media landscape, you have to dig deeper to find it.

     I give a weekly listen to radio shows by Iggy Pop and Henry Rollins to aid in the search for new music.  They both have great musical curiosity but they come at it from different angles.  I might not be into every song they play but there's always something that I'll write down to look into later.

     This is not to say that once a band starts to grow too large and graduates to larger venues that I write them off with shouts of “Sell Out.”  I'd much rather see a band in a cramped club with a few hundred other people than in an arena with 20,000 people.   I'll stay home but I'll still buy the record. European festival season can definitely help bands pay the bills by playing in front of crowds of 100,000 people.  Begrudging a band for their success is something I try not to do and so many others find it way too easy.

     There is always hope in the underground.  The corporate shit show that music has become can be avoided.  You just have to be willing to work for it.