lot of unnecessary commas in that article. made me think it was written by walk on by.
one gripe i have with the article: it's not the fact that streaming services now exist... it's that they exist, and no one is streaming ESL artists. you can't blame streaming services for a low payout if no one is streaming your music in the first place.
is this really true? i mean there is plenty of anecdotal evidence that unless you are a heavy hitter you really aren't going to make much money with streaming and I find it hard to believe that it doesn't act as a disincentive to purchase...
are all the artists posting their ridiculously low "royalty" statements or whatever you call them from streaming making it up?
you can argue record labels sucked but for many record labels they had an identity and they were run by people who somewhat knew and cared about music..even recent guys.. a guy like cosloy you are going to tell me he knew nothing or cared nothing about music? a lot of the a&r guys were shit but a lot were not..at least they listened to music... the guys who own the streaming services are businessmen who know nothing about music.... you're going to tell me ahmet ertegun screwed over some musicians? sure.. but ahmet understood and lived and breathed music.. and sure he screwed over stax-volt but you know what ahmet when he was a kid was running around SE DC trying to buy 78s cause that was his passion..and when he died many of the musicians who had been on atlantic got together and threw him a tribute concert... even led zep showed up so...
i'm sorry... the old record labels weren't that great..often they took advantage of artists but you know what they also actually you know listened to the music, promoted the music, tried to sell the music, tried to hook up with the artists- sometimes- with the right studio and producer... they were a part of the music business... spotifiy and all these other outfits are not a part of the music business they are a part of the internet business.... do you really want your music controlled by people who don't know anything about music? who don't chip in a penny to its making...is spotify going to pay for the next phil ramone to produce a record..who the fuck is going to pay for it? you tell me the kid will make it on his computer and it will sound great? who's going to pay for the best ears in the business, robert ludwig, to master their music? you don't think robert ludwig made a difference to how great those classic records sounded?
people like that are still around.. guys like steve hoffman too..... they are reduced to working on reissues of old classics when they should be working on the new stuff
there were plenty of great labels and they didn't always screw the artist no matter what they tell you... alfred lion at blue note took care of his peeps..... jak holzman at elektra knew his music and i could go on all day.....
so the "record labels are just evil" cause steve albini wrote about it....well its nice but its a bit simpllistic... and i don't see how having non-music people involved in the music business is going to help much...
