
The saddest, stupidest sentence I've ever read - davidw
http://www.roughtype.com/archives/2008/03/the_saddest_stu.php
======
bmaier
He mistakes a mistaken analogy. The poets that he names are not selling out
live readings and the sculptors are not putting on live creation events.

When it comes to music, yes, a concert tour is more profitable for the artist
than their recorded music is. This is the one difference between musicians and
other artists.

While I don't completely agree with Arrington, I do believe that this blog
post calling it the saddest stupidest sentence ever is guilty of the same
sensationalism that Arrington is.

~~~
aston
The number of recording artists/groups making money--that is, a profit--on
tour is dwarfed by the ones trying to scrape by any other way they can ('real'
jobs, selling cd's and other merch at shows, bar mitzvahs, etc.). Even a lot
of the top-of-the-charts artists don't draw a big enough crowd to make their
tour their livelihood.

~~~
bmaier
Ah but even so they're selling most of that merchandise at shows that people
are coming to, even if the ticket sales aren't raking in the cash for them

------
pg
It's embarrassing to see this story at the top of News.YC. Think of all the
sentences in history (in recent history) that have sent streams of people to
their deaths, and _this_ is the saddest and stupidest he's ever read?
Honestly, this is at worst a bike shed painted slightly the wrong shade of
green.

~~~
razorburn
Ever heard of hyperbole?

~~~
falsestprophet
The literary device he used it irrelevant. It is simply not tasteful writing.

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jsjenkins168
That sentence is taken out of context.

Reading the whole post, it is clear that Arrington is referring the importance
of recorded music in monetary terms, not artistic.

~~~
SirWart
Given that the Beatles' best albums came after they stopped touring, it would
be a real shame if we didn't try and preserve the monetary reward of recorded
music, because we would be doing everyone a disservice if bands were forced to
tour to support their recording career.

~~~
davidw
Also harking back to that era, Brian Wilson also comes to mind as much more of
a studio guy than a touring guy.

It's a tricky problem...

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petercooper
Carr obviously didn't read Free! Why $0.00 Is the Future of Business
(<http://www.wired.com/techbiz/it/magazine/16-03/ff_free>) by Chris Anderson,
the "Long Tail" guy. All sorts of things are just marketing material to drive
awareness and sales of other items nowadays. It's not dumb of Arrington to
consider music as a loss leader for artists.

~~~
aggieben
Agreed. It's not an unserious view of intellectual property to say that some
creative works aren't valuable in and of themselves (or shouldn't be), but may
help drive the value of something else that _is_.

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nothingHappens
Hi, could we try debating the content rather than the title?

The sentence in question, "Recorded music is nothing but marketing material to
drive awareness of an artist," as spoken by Arrington, is pretty sad. The
author has a good point. As a sometime musician, it makes me very sad.

But this sort of devaluation attitude toward music is well known about
already. Ironically, it is usually blamed on those dang kids and their crazy
Internet making it easy to download lots of recorded music without paying
anything for it.

Ironically though, I think it's more the fault of the music business, who for
decades have treated music as nothing but marketing material to drive sales of
flat round pieces of plastic.

------
pius
Mike Arrington seems like a nice enough guy, but the quoted sentence does have
a certain, rather chilling, Ellsworth Toohey flavor to it.

~~~
xlnt
Can you give an example of something Toohey said that you think has a
similarity?

~~~
pius
I don't have a specific quote I can think of, but the sentence evoked the
character in my mind instantly because of how it (out of context, at least)
forsakes substance for popularity and generally trashes the value of an
artist's work in favor of the buzz around it.

Toohey was a prominent architectural critic who could make or break an
architect by a yea or nay in his column. The guy's statements always forwarded
an agenda of diminishing the value of individual excellence and achievements
in favor of fitting into the popular mode. If a talented architect not under
his sanction dared to showcase his work, Toohey would use his influence to
shut him down. In context, what he said always sounded insightful, but when
you stepped back, you realized how scary his statements were. A quick search
yielded this Toohey quote, for example, that falls in line with the theme:

"Artistic value is achieved collectively by each man subordinating himself to
the standards of the majority."

The Arrington quote was so evocative because Toohey could personally create
popularity and buzz, so he'd literally say something as self-serving as "the
supposed greatness of an architect's building is irrelevant . . . the question
is, are people [like me] talking about it?"

To be absolutely clear: _I am not comparing Mike Arrington to Ellsworth
Toohey._ What I am saying is that the sentence, as worded, could definitely be
a line from one of the latter's monologues.

~~~
ojbyrne
That last quote reminded me of something I just read on gigaom:

"Seesmic is a video startup I’ve shied away from writing about too often,
because I’m not sure I really get it. But I figure if so many smart people
think there’s something good going on here, I should keep an eye on what the
company is doing."

That's everything I disliked about silicon valley right there.

~~~
xlnt
good point. it's very weird to not trust your own judgment about whether a
startup is interesting, but to trust your own judgment of whether others see
something in it. understanding what others see is actually harder than just
looking at it yourself.

------
dejb
I think it ranks up there with 'Ideas are worthless'. You could just as well
say the 'Air is worthless' or 'Air is nothing more than medium that can be
used for commercial flight'.

The ability to monetize something is not the only measure of its value - the
benefit that it causes the world is another important measure if value (this
could be measured economically or otherwise). In an ideal economy, total
'value' would be maximized when the 'benefit' and 'monetization' metrics of
value were closely aligned as it would lead to the best allocation of
resources. Or to put it another way - things would be best if people were
rewarded for doing good, useful things.

Of course the practicalities of the world don't always make this possible. But
to try to cut someone down like Arrington did for suggesting that it would be
better if musicians could received compensation for the enjoyment their
recordings provide is in my view incorrect and immoral.

------
sage_joch
He obviously hasn't read this sentence: <http://ubersite.com/m/44213>

~~~
kajecounterhack
I lol'ed

That was indeed the silliest sentence I've ever read. I don't know if its the
saddest and stupidest though.

------
dmoney
> "Recorded music is nothing but marketing material to drive awareness of an
> artist."

In a world where there was no way to enforce copyright laws or prevent
copying, that would be the case. Artists would make their money by playing
gigs and merchandising, and "buying" a song or an album would be just a way of
tipping them.

------
dkokelley
Suggested revision: A significant function of recorded music is to provide
marketing material to drive awareness of the recorded music.

Basically it means it's supposed to promote itself. It's also a final product,
and it has a very measurable value.

------
stcredzero
He's right. Anyone who's been a true musician or a true artist eventually
realizes that the "products" are just messages. They are not exclusively an
end in themselves. They are messages about awareness. They are communications
from one life to another. Really, the important thing is the life lived, and
the inner life shared.

This is why museums are nothing but directories or a table of contents. This
is why "intellectual property" is so absurd.

A musician's "product" is as much a message as someone's blog post. One hopes
that the message is understood and absorbed and possibly re-transmitted with
elaborations and new insights.

~~~
tim2
I hate when artists try to sell me on some philosophical message. I could care
less what some guy high on coke who has never demonstrated his analytical
ability has to say.

Yeah I'm one of those guys who listens because he appreciates music and its
fascinating properties in and of itself, not for sung poetry or any other
nonsense.

~~~
derefr
My grandparents can't feed their dog dry kibble; it just doesn't eat it.
However, not only can't they afford to feed it purely the sausages and other
such meats that it will eat, it's completely unhealthy for the dog. So,
instead, they try to package the kibble _into_ the sausage, sliding it in
where the dog might not realize until too late that it has consumed something
nutritious. If the dog realizes, it eats around the kibble, leaving it in the
bowl. (I know there's a similar story somewhere about how the dog is
enlightened for doing this, but don't buy it--the dog is slowly dying from its
"enlightenment." My point is different.)

My grandparents are artists. Like any artist, they package something important
(a message) into something desirable (a work of art). If you realize the
message is there at all, they have failed; if you absorb the message
subconsciously without ever noticing it, they have done their jobs.

------
theantidote
The RIAA sees it the same way as Arrington and it's how musicians have always
been considered for compensation. Record labels make money off album sales,
not musicians. The musicians will really make their money from tours,
promotions, and merchandise.

------
henning
When you start sounding like Patrick Bateman from American Psycho, you know
something is wrong. <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O-hUkO13Fy8>

------
cturner
What about "If I'd known it was harmless I would have killed it myself"? I
think the small furry creatures deserve more sympathy than musicians who want
government to guarantee a business model.

------
wumi
did anyone read the list of comments on TC?

Interesting comparison between MA's argument and the argument that anything
digitally reproduced should also be enjoyed free (the issue of Software
repeatedly came up)

------
sabat
I suppose a song is a physical object, then. I get it now.

