Please help me get put of this hole!

MissyC

Hello all!

I'm hoping that one of you computer wizards will be able to point me in the right direction.

I'm trying to do a college paper on Digital Audio Advancements and it's effect on the music industry, I can find loads of papers, articles and websites saying its fab, but I can't seem to find anything against it. I knd of need something that says technology takes away from the creativity etc.

Does anyone know of anyone or anything with such a view?


Please help!

RicardoSmith

MissyC wrote:

Hello all!

I'm hoping that one of you computer wizards will be able to point me in the right direction.

I'm trying to do a college paper on Digital Audio Advancements and it's effect on the music industry, I can find loads of papers, articles and websites saying its fab, but I can't seem to find anything against it. I knd of need something that says technology takes away from the creativity etc.

Does anyone know of anyone or anything with such a view?


Please help!

Anyone with such a view probably doesn't believe in the internet either.

Chalk

google for riaa and induce

Hobbes

and manufactured music.

jessy

This might not be entirely related but, Metallica probably would have something to say about this as technology has made piracy much easier (They Shut Down the original Napster). Maybe you could use that as an argument.

Capt'n Midnight

The musid "industry" is what seperates musicians and listeners.
The internet can cut out the middleman.
If a planned merger goes ahead 80% of the "industry" will be controlled by only four companies. Ask any artist about the generosity of big label record companies or ask any punter who uses play.com or cdwow what they think of the markup on media...

The used to be "record" companies, they used to sell records, in those days it was the only way of getting a copy of a song, nowadays that ain't the case. It's about like stage coaches complaining about aeroplanes instead of remembering what thier core business is. If your core business is transporting people from A to B then you need to move with the times. If your core business is making stage coaches - you went bust about 80 years ago.

If your core business is selling records and people aren't buying records you will go bust. If your core business is distributing music and you are charging extortionate prices and using restrictive practices like banning grey imports and someone comes along with a legal method of selling the equilivant of 4 albums for a tenner (1GB for $10) then you had better wake up and smell the coffee.

The Artists don't get hit by grey imports because people buy more CD's (because they are cheaper) and less money goes to the middle men. Also with only four mega-corps dominating the "industry" only those Artists who get choosen can have their works distributed through channels.. The internet allows then an opportunity to bypass all of this..

CD sales are increasing BTW..

Fenster

I agree with everyone else. You'll have to turn over a fair few obscure stones to find an internet user who disagrees with this.

Perhaps you should try searching technology, music and general geek websites such as Slashdot. They usually cover any RIAA and similarly related news.

Capt'n Midnight

You get CD's free with magazines and newspapers so they can't cost that much to make ...
Even without the economy of scale open to big business you could backup your entire collection of records on to a few DVD's, for a minority of people broadband is available, cost of distributing music has never been lower, judging by the reaction from the music industry demand has never been higher.
But have the industry tried to pass on thier cost savings ?
Have they tried to tap into the huge market that is price-sensitive ?

Fewer people have record players now. The industry should remember that formats become obsolete. You can buy online, retail outlets may well decline and distribution channels can become obsolete, eg: door to door encyclopaedia salesmen Vs. getting the 2004 Britanica delux edition on CD for €20 in Aldi yesterday
I also got the whole 100 years of National Geographic on CD a while back.
So other big players with a monopoly on thier intellectual property have issued thier entire back catologues for about the same price as a handful of what the music industry considers to be "Bargin" CD would cost you.

stevenmu

Capt'n Midnight wrote:

The Artists don't get hit by grey imports because people buy more CD's (because they are cheaper) and less money goes to the middle men. Also with only four mega-corps dominating the "industry" only those Artists who get choosen can have their works distributed through channels.. The internet allows then an opportunity to bypass all of this..

CD sales are increasing BTW..

I'm not 100% on this but I think the artists usually only get paid a fixed amount per cd anyway so the difference in prices between here and say Hong Kong all goes to the record companies pockets

Capt'n Midnight

http://www.grantyoung.com/randrmarketingcool.html

I was watching a special on TV the other night about how big businesses market products to the youth market.

I found this part of particular interest.

It was how the whole "Boy Band" scene was marketed to the youth.

Lou Pearlman, (the guy behind Backstreet Boys and NSYNC), was curious about how the New Kids On The Block could afford to rent his planes. He saw a business opportunity in music and jumped on it. He proved how to "market" cool. Look at what he did. He had a marketing scheme and successfully accomplished his business agenda.

Here is what is so hilarious about the whole boy band scene. Use it as a blue print for yourself on how to market cool if you wish.

Put an ad in the paper for good looking teens. Hire the prettiest 4 or 5. Buy songs from songwriters, hire real musicians to play the instruments, hire vocal coaches to teach the boys to sing, hire choreographers to teach them how to dance and then spend around $1 million on advertising, (videos and print), to convince the ever "gullible" youth market that they are cool. Wolla! Instant $ millions! Woo Hoo!!

Seriously, Look at a typical boy band structure:


*

They don't write their own songs. (They buy songs from songwriters)
*

They don't play their own instruments. (They hire the talented back-up/studio musicians)
*

They don't do their own dance moves. (They hire choreographers teach them the dance moves/routines)
*

They can't even sing on their own. (They hire the vocal coaches to teach them the notes to hit)
*

They lip-sync in concert (Can't they sing on key for a whole song or what?)
*

They even use vocal harmonizers in the studio to correct off pitch notes!



I don't recall, Myles Davis, Chic Corea, Bob Dylan, Led Zeppelin or even The Beatles having this kind of management or marketing behind them. I really don't recall them having all of these publicists, choreographers or vocal coaches either!

The more I see what is going on in today's pop culture "music scene", the more it makes me laugh. Sometimes I don't know who to laugh at though. The gullible teen market or the bands themselves.

The more I despise the way modern pop culture works, the more I admire the Jazz and Blues genres of artists who have no videos, no airplay or publicity and yet STILL go out there and make music for the soul of it "Not" the fame or fortune or shallow recognition popularity gives you. It's not about the fame or fortune. It's all about the music, baby!

Vocal Harmonizers - this means that you don't need Artists any more, cf. the spice girls , they would do 20 (80?) takes of each song and litterly piece the best attempts to together (litterly word by word if necessary) and then run the harmoniser on it to get them all in tune & in synch.
Also about 70-80% of the what sells singles is the Video - not the music. So you could do a project oh how digital airbrushing & special effects are of more use to the music industry than talent.

For anyone who respects singer-songwriter and can remember the originals of the innumerable cover versions the way the music industry are using technology to push eye-candy instead of talent is just insulting.

Oh Stevemu IIRC from another thread, artists are only paid half for foreign sales, it is one of MANY ways of skimming back money off them. Since foreign sales are about half price for us to buy it balances out. nowadays places like cdwow have to buy local cd so the artist should be getting thier full cut. (can anyone confirm they do indeed)

BloodBath

This might not be entirely related but, Metallica probably would have something to say about this as technology has made piracy much easier (They Shut Down the original Napster). Maybe you could use that as an argument.

Metallica are such fags. Woooo metallica rule and all that ****e :rolleyes:


BloodBath

Capt'n Midnight

Which have you seen
- Simarik by Tarkan ? Ringtone
Rough Translation
- Or the similar cover by a certain Aussie soap actress, wearing flesh coloured bikini that was then digitally airbrushed out to make her look naked ?

Most pop videos could be easily be classified as soft porn especially if you consider the ages at the lower end of the likley target audiance.

A.S.H. wrote:

To quote the Late Great Bill Hicks

"Supreme Court says pornography is anything without artistic merit that causes sexual thoughts, that's their definition, essentially. No artistic merit, causes sexual thoughts. Hmm... Sounds like...every commercial on television, doesn't it? You know, when I see those two twins on that Doublemint commercial? I'm not thinking of gum. I am thinking of chewing, so maybe that's the connection they're trying to make. "

http://library.lp.findlaw.com/articles/file/00982/008860/title/Subject/topic/Constitutional%20Law_First%20Amendment%20%20%20Freedom%20of%20Speech/filename/constitutionallaw_1_86

Thus, in 1973, in Miller v. California, Justice Burger announced the second definition of obscenity - the majority position of the Court, and the definition, which, more or less, is still in effect today. It is as follows:

"(a) whether the 'average person, applying contemporary community standards' would find that the work, taken as a whole, appeals to the prurient interest,

(b) whether the work depicts or describes, in a patently offensive way, sexual conduct specifically defined by the applicable state law, and

(c) whether the work, taken as a whole, lacks serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value."