
Courtney Love does the math (2000) - hezekiah
http://www.salon.com/technology/feature/2000/06/14/love/print.html
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api
Generally speaking, the creative industries are full of people and businesses
that operate by screwing over creative people.

They view creative people the way a miner views a resource in the ground: as
something to be strip mined and then discarded. I've encountered raw
contempt... in a sense they are jealous of the ability of creative people to
be creative, and this fuels their desire to co-opt it and take some of that
glory for themselves.

But, part of the reason there's so much of this is that creative types are
often horrible businesspeople and have no desire to learn. Instead, there is
this myth that you get "discovered" and then someone else does the business
for you.

Reality: you get "discovered" by a predator. If you don't want to be prey, you
have to do it yourself.

Edit: this doesn't mean you have to be a 100% indy do-everything-yourself
self-publisher or bootstrapper. But going into things with your eyes open,
reading the fine print, and thinking like a businessperson is part of doing it
yourself. Businesspeople do go into business with other people and other
businesses, but they don't think "wow! I'm getting discovered, now I'm set!"
They think "hmm... what's the value proposition here?" and they run
spreadsheets and they look for hidden places where they might lose value or
not get enough value for their money. Then they push back, and negotiate.
Think like this or you get screwed.

Oh, and if it sounds too good to be true it probably is.

~~~
gaius
This is quite literally true; many organizations even refer to their employees
as _resources_. But strangely, managers aren't _PowerPoint resources_.

~~~
lr
Absolutely! There is even a PeopleSoft module called HCM: Human Capital
Management.

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joejohnson
I can't believe Courtney Love wrote this. I had a low oppinion of her, but
this seems really well written. Also, she's a fan of Neal Stephenson? That
quote almost makes me wonder if this were written by some nerd and attributed
to her...

~~~
yid
...because the wild women of grunge can't possibly have brains too?
Disingenuous, my friend. There are famous rockers with PhDs (the guy from
green day comes to mind).

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joejohnson
First, I don't think anyone in Green Day has a PhD.

Second, I wasn't surprised because she was a women, or a musician, or because
she was part of the grunge scene. I know there are lots of smart women, and
lots of smart women in music. I wasn't saying anything about a correlation
between gender and intelligence or professions and intelligence. I was
suprised because she's Courtney Love, and most of what I've read and seen of
her prior to this makes her seem like an idiot. And this article seemed well-
thought out, thus surprising me.

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yid
My bad about Green Day -- it was the Offspring I was thinking about (can't
blame me, they're almost interchangeable as bands). On the other hand, rockers
with PhDs:

Dexter Holland from Offspring (molecular biology, but dropped out with a
masters)

Greg Gaffin from Bad Religion (zoology, 2007)

Brian May from Queen (astrophysics)

James Lilja from Offspring (medical degree, not PhD)

Sterling Morrison from the Velvet Underground (medieval literature, 80s)

~~~
Tycho
Jeff 'Skunk' Baxter of Steely Dan and the Doobie Brothers has worked for NASA
or the NSA on missile defense systems or something like that.

~~~
jrockway
"Some person worked for some agency on something, or something"? Thanks for
the well-researched comment.

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alanh
Wow, what a read! Thanks!

1\. Related: Michael Jackson calls head of Sony, his record distributor, a
devil. What a video: <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wt6zVypo72E>

2\. Love’s thesis: Through lobbying and collusion, the big labels (she calls
them distributors) essentially own artists, which she calls “slaves” and
“sharecroppers.” Following, an excerpt from the _Sponsorships_ section.

> _When I agreed to allow a large cola company to promote a live show, I
> couldn't have been more miserable. They screwed up every single thing
> imaginable. The venue was empty but sold out. There were thousands of people
> outside who wanted to be there, trying to get tickets. And there were the
> empty seats the company had purchased for a lump sum and failed to market
> because they were clueless about music._

> _It was really dumb. You had to buy the cola. You had to dial a number. You
> had to press a bunch of buttons. You had to do all this crap that nobody
> wanted to do. Why not just bring a can to the [venue] door?_

> _… They were a condescending bunch of little guys. They treated me like I
> was an ungrateful little bitch who should be groveling for the experience to
> play for their damn soda._

> _I ended up playing without my shirt on and ordering a six-pack of the rival
> cola onstage. Also lots of unwholesome cursing and nudity occurred. This way
> I knew that no matter how tempting the cash was, they'd never do business
> with me again._

> _If you want some little obedient slave content provider, then fine. But I
> think most musicians don't want to be responsible for your clean-cut,
> wholesome, all-American, sugar corrosive cancer-causing, all white people,
> no women allowed sodapop images._

> _Nor, on the converse, do we want to be responsible for your vice-inducing,
> liver-rotting, child-labor-law-violating, all white people, no-women-allowed
> booze images._

And that may be the _least_ interesting part of the screed.

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daydream
See also: The Problem With Music by Steve Albini

<http://www.negativland.com/albini.html>

~~~
9999
I came here to link to this. Albini's article is far funnier and far more
relevant to aspiring musicians.

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wtvanhest
I do not disagree with Courtney Love that the system is not great for artists
but the solution is probably not in the distribution method, or the structure
of the financing. It is most likely in solving the cost problem.

If it costs $500,000 to produce a record, like she says it does, that would
create limited room for a great number of bands and artist to record. The
market size ($s of world wide discretionary income) can only support a certain
level of production.

Figuring out how to lowering that number would be far more productive than
trying to create the next huge app which helps starving artists with terrible
recording quality get their music heard or some other distribution method.

(She also fails to add in concert revenue which may be lucrative for artists)

~~~
zinkem
I think the cost problem has largely been solved. Someone can throw together a
DAW for $2 or $3k and start creating really great sounding music following
hours of practice. I think most young musicians know about and go this route
when they are learning.

The world Courtney Love is from is the old world, where you needed a
specialist to do all these different jobs. You needed to pay a producer,
engineers, buy studio time (sometimes these are packaged but the more well
known the pricier, and acts like Hole use well known outfits), this is what
drives costs up. Not to mention marketting, distribution, etc.

In today's world a poor musician who wants to record and distribute his or her
music can, and the best of them will be able to demand a price, or
merchandise.

~~~
wtvanhest
Can you give an example of a band that recorded a CD for $3K? I'm curious what
that sounds like.

~~~
zinkem
What people can do and what they do do are a little different. I can't think
of anyone who stopped building their rig at $3k, but it's possible to produce
demo-quality records with a $600 computer, a nice A/D/A converter and software
like Reason, or Ableton. All of which can be purchased with $3k. I personally
own about $10k of recording gear and instruments, and I've never made a penny
off any of it and don't regret the purchase.

That aside, the guy who recorded the "Owl City" records started out by
releasing tracks from his parent's basement while working at Coca-Cola. Imogen
Heap I think started off on home recording gear and recorded her entire first
album herself. Also check out YouTube for Ronald Jenkies, that will give you
an idea of what you can accomplish with a modern workstation, which will run
you $3k new, decently equipped.

Edit: It has also occurred to me that if you're a band, and you can perform
your music well (everything in 1 take), you can probably buy enough studio
time to get a good sounding album for under $3k. I can't think of any specific
music this applies to, but a great deal of grunge music in the 90s was
recorded in this kind of a scenario.

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zwieback
This piece is interesting to read 11 years later, amazing how much the
distribution question has already changed.

My kids pretty much use Grooveshark, Pandora and iTunes to play music. CDs are
only used in the car and even there we frequently use MP3 players. Even though
we still have a vinyl record player for my old Blue Note records it's not used
very often.

What hasn't changed is the fact that there's a lot more record companies do
than distribute the final product. It's pretty clear that the reason these
companies have so much power is that they produce and market artists. Without
that power the distribution wouldn't be so valuable. Someone still has to pay
for studios, producers, designers, publicists, etc. This is particularly true
for bands that survive not so much on the musical skill of their members but
the overall sound and image.

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viggity
Please don't editorialize in the submission title

"Exactly how record companies screw over successful artists [2000]"

would work just as well.

~~~
plnewman
The submission title is the same as the title of the original Salon article.
Or maybe I'm not picking up on undertone of sarcasm.

~~~
viggity
the original title was different :)

He fixed it, thanks!

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nate_meurer
Be sure to read the part about Mitch Glazier, starting half-way down.

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Luyt
This is one article in a row which describes how the recording industry
exploits creative persons. It looks like you can't earn much as a musician.

Yet, I see many rappers living in multi-million houses and owning Ferrari's
etc, in MTV Cribs. Do they do something different?

~~~
caf
In many cases the houses and Ferraris are probably leased, by the record
company, and fully recoupable. Which means that they're temporary.

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badhairday
Wow, I remember reading this exact article when I was in a middle school music
education class.

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danbmil99
Somewhere, I read a very similar piece by TLC

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ldar15
I have a promising start-up, with several hundred users in specific geographic
locations. I will need "$4.6m" to scale, and I want to take out $1m for the
cofounders.

In our market, 32,000 such companies launch each year, and of those, only 250
generate more than $200,000 in revenue. Only 30 generate $20m.

What is a fair percentage to offer the VCs?

Yes, I appreciate that there are many differences between bands and start-ups,
but if, as she says, only 250 of 32,000 albums sell more than 10,000 units,
then this $10m the record company makes from her band must go, in a large
part, to cover the costs of funding all the bands that dont make it. Maybe
they are still making a handsome profit, but its not as unjust as she makes
out.

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clobber
Reading this reminded me of this story:
[http://gizmodo.com/5417318/my-6247-royalty-statement-how-
maj...](http://gizmodo.com/5417318/my-6247-royalty-statement-how-major-labels-
cook-the-books-with-digital-downloads)

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MostAwesomeDude
From one musician to another: Do not get signed. It will destroy you. :c

