The Value of Music Debate Continues - Against Me!
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I'm really diggin this track, and band. I read a review by Rawkiddoh a while ago, and picked it up at my benevolent library.
I wont claim any expertise on the band, but I really like the straightforward nature of the music, smart lyrics, and just good ol' rock n' roll.
So is it ironic that I've uploaded this track, being what it's about? Or is it just stating that of course music has no value, everyone is singing the same song?
Here's a video to go with it. These guys look like they'd be a blast to see live.
Locating MOG account...
Comments (34)
I probably am restless like that guy. But I'm trying to not care. My spouse is really restless because she feels she has a sense of entitlement to music of her generation because she was a teenager in the 80's. I point out that people who were teens in the 70's feel the same way. People are going to copy. It's the nature of the beast. I think if everything is available then bands will be able to make more informed choices about the music they want to make. And lately it seems people are doing that. There's always going to be a ton of copy cat music that sounds the same that's popular. I blame the current music industry set up for that. Good song. I'm for Against Me!.
Oh, indeed, copying is kind of a learning process, or "apeing" but there also must come a point when you define yourself with what you have. I probably would have never learned to draw if I never copied my brother and comic book artists. I think the song makes some interesting points. It definitely echoed my boredom with about 90% of the music vids out there.
Who said "Everything old is new again."?
And I could discuss the notion of restlessness for days on end...seriously.
my foot is tapping out the beat to an unheard song as we speak...
I work in an office with no windows, does not bode well for the restless.
I work in a office with windows and a view and yet still restless....hmmmm!
Someone should have a prescription for feeling restless.
What about restless leg syndrome? I've seen ads for it, maybe I've got it? Of course I think the side effects are something along the lines of farting rainbows, so maybe I'll keep the restless leg...
great song, great lyrics, great question and yeah, the band's great live.
maybe this will make it more complicated.
the old "music industry set up" has definitely contributed in the sense that as executives have looked for their version of something that's already trendy and successful, the public got to hear all that stuff and actually bought much of it. creativity that was heard in offices only got fed to people in doses. once a trend was successful, everything heard by consumers sounded like that until people were so sick of the style they needed something else to buy.
i do believe though, that every artist doesn't need to be Radiohead either. having influences and using them to grow can be great. i happen to love artists that CBW seems to refer to, who use what they love and then define their own directions.
i think FS makes a great point as well, but i also believe it comes down to the public. besides the bands making more informed choices in writing, i think the public can now make amazing choices in who they support. right now it seems that creativity is flourishing, but support is lacking severely.
I've often thought we are in a transitional period - kind of a sifting through all the info. Yes, there's lots of good music right now, but we may just be on the verge of something phenomenol, once said influences are sorted out and people recognise their voices.
Wow this took off. I think the public glomming onto the one thing is sort of the way the hive works. It's a lonely world outside of the box. Not many people like going there and most aren't successful when they do. Clothes work the same way. I'm tired of all the kids walking around my town that look like that girl from Juno. Enough with wacky tights already! (This coming from a guy that longs to look like an old man from the 20's).
FS--i guess that's what i'm hoping will be the major transition here. with access to as much as the public now has, i'm hoping they'll begin to support better music.
i'm hoping they'll begin to support better music.
@Robin- I'd be OK with that. I think the public is overwhelmed by the choices..tastemakers are pretty much relegated to folks like us in blog land. I remember the first time my wife browsed on itunes..she must have previewed 60 songs and bought none. If she was gonna spend money she was gonna get the best song. Maybe its better that the casual customers are rapidly going away, but there was a time when they bought lots of records.
hey Cody. your last sentence is interesting......is less more?
once there was a time when many artists had chances because the casual customers kept the doors open with their purchases. that started dwindling, but now there's a time when many of these artists can record affordably and get heard. my main fear is that the "not-so-casual" customers, of which there are many, are not only buying less but have just about stopped buying altogether.
i don't blame your wife for only buying what she wants, and i think it's great that she can check it out online first. i agree with you that the general public is being overwhelmed and it has an effect on many consumers. i'm just hoping that at least the creative artists that seem to be loved can afford to stick around.
Against Me! has always sounded like the epitome of post-punk/neo-wave to me (which I like very much) - and I'm pretty impressed with the cleverness of how they touch on the current music-biz malaise - in song form! Good one, c.b.w.
I think there has to be a new way to support musicians for sure. A combination of hard goods (especially vinyl) and digital...and most importantly, a way to monetize all the streams and downloads going on. This is the way music gets around. I just don't think the buying is gonna be like it was, but when I see the amount of money being paid to file hosters like rapidshare I wonder if there isn't a way to shift that money to artists. I also think bloggers who cause people to download music should get a piece (a very,very small piece) of the pie. In my perfect world more artists would make more money and bloggers would no longer operate in a grey area.
Cody! Being part of the solution, not the problem. I love it!
i'll come to your party, Cody. judging by the picture, Mike's got the BYOB covered.
You'll all be saying "Arigato!" when you get a taste of that well-crafted Japanese micro-brew.
Great band. How can you not like their lyrics, music and attitude?
Konichiwa Mike! I'll have beer now please. Cody I wonder about the bloggers because a lot of the things I find through the file sharing sites are out of print records that haven't seen the light of day (except at the Goodwill) in years. I bought that one cd recently and when I think about how many albums I could've gotten online for the same price it drives me crazy. My wife's step-dad owns a store that sells fine tobacco smoking products and various other hipster paraphenalia. On Sunday he put out about 3 boxes of records. He was quite surprised he sold about 8 records without provocation or notice. There's been a lot of places around here sticking old records out for sale. It seems to be going well. I'd buy more if I could hook my record player up to something. I'm still not sure if the vinyl market is dead. There's still something fun about buying vinyl. I'd be more than happy if catalogs at places like eMusic or Amazon would just be bigger. It drives me up the wall to look at the foreign iTunes sites and know that I can't purchase what they have in their catalogs. As it is right now i'm getting music in about 5 different ways and none of them are on actual cd's. Except when I buy a stack of used cd's at once on Amazon.
My god, you know how to pull at a guys heart strings dont ya? This band is so incredible, and to see them live is an experience. I think a lot of it has to do with the crowd, and how they make it a point to know every lyric of every song. It saddens me that their days of small gig shows might be over, as far as I am concerned the smaller the venue the better. I have lost track of the amount of times I have seen them live, but in all honesty they do not disappoint. If you are looking for an album to scoop up, look for Re-Inventing Axl Rose. By far my favorite and one that never gets old with me. It is raw and almost impossible not to sing along with. Also, if you get the chance watch the video We Are Never Going Home. It is a documentary of the band and their inner fight on whether to sign with a major label. Between the interviews and the live footage it is something to watch. Oh, gotta throw a video in here just because this post made my night.
Sam, as an ardent buyer of old records and out of print records that are held hostage in vaults of major labels, I think those records and the incredble amount of hand changing that goes on in blogland proves to me that if some kind of fee were attached (very small) many people could get paid. When you see the numbers on hit items changing hands on the web, it is pretty amazing. Back to the old records..I used to think that would have been a great way for the majors to empty their vaults, on their own digital servers and get into business, but they didn't do it. it's up to us.
On the vinyl tip, i think new vinyl sales have been going up for the past 5 or 6 years.
See the problem is a lot of that material is owned by the record companies and not the artists who created it. If there could be a way to get them the money then I'm all for it. Maybe if there was some kind of time limit. Like if you don't make any money anymore whatsoever over a certain time period you gotta give it back to the artist. Or maybe if artists just had paypal buttons for alms. I'm all for buying vinyl. My wife isn't. I've been buying vinyl here and there for the last two years even though I don't have the means to play it. Seems silly to do so. I can't pass up a good record or a deal. Oh boy but when I do get a receiver it's gonna be tune city at my house.
fistula, maybe you could get lucky like me. My friend decided to move to france about two years ago, had no need for his brand new record played and gave it to me for helping him move all his possesions out of his house and into storage. Until then I was listening to all my vinyl on a record player I found in storage at my school.
fistula, maybe you could get lucky like me. My friend decided to move to france about two years ago, had no need for his brand new record played and gave it to me for helping him move all his possesions out of his house and into storage. Until then I was listening to all my vinyl on a record player I found in storage at my school.
I've got a relatively brand new record player. I just have nothing to hook it up to. :(
ahh.........I wish I would have known this back then. It saddened me to watch my best friend and music equal take all his stereo equipment to the goodwill to give away.
Great song, who cares about the copying thing, I doubt theres anything new anymore, if its good for you then that'll do.
Small venues are always a winner, I like the intamate nature of them.
Perhaps the ownership could work like the patent laws, seems it was invented by the writer but Im a writer and I gotta say the engineer/producer/sound tecks have a big part in the end product, only sometimes thats the same person as the writer
Sam, you can get a chaep Radio Shack mixer and do it through your 'puter. If the artist is dead the artists portion of any dough made should go to a central artists fund..
I'm going to check that out. Thanks Cody.
My solution to the "fair pay for fair play" discussion unfolding would be a "micropayment" model. Micropayments are like Paypal, where you use your credit card, but for small amounts, like 25 cents or 50 cents. The person who has to run these basically waits until they have maybe 100 or so of these charges, to make it worth what ever service fees they have to pay. This model is being used for distrubution of online comics - but not necessarily as big a deal as something like pay pal. Perhaps doing this for out of print records and such could be a big boon for artists. Collected revenues go into a slush fund run by independent lawyers and accountants, who find a way to distribute residules. I would model it on a Creative Commons or Shareware model, where it was user dependant, volunteer.
I think you would find more people contributing than not contributing. It's an honor system business model used by roadside veggie stands where no one is attending to the veggies, but leaves a coffee can for you to put the correct amount in. I think if opensource communities and freeware/shareware work, this would to, especially if the price was right (cheap).
Price point doesn't really matter because it's more about availablity over the internet - if an out of print record sells 200,000 copies in 10 years digitally, vs. 2000 in 30 years, than it's a sucessful model. Not all records are going to go gold, but there are a lot of records people would still like to hear.
how about this approach? it's kind of interesting. this site doesn't have much of a catalog, but it's goal is quite interesting and supportive. if bloggers bought, they could share as well. it's an interesting read. at least people are thinking!
here's the url, but just in case, i'm pasting the beginning of the article.
http://www.foxnews.com/wires/2008Sep03/0,4670,PayingMusicBuyers,00.html
NEW YORK — Being a trendsetter can be pricey. As any fashionista or gadget hound knows, the latest frocks and tech toys don't pay for themselves. But a new Web site is trying to make it profitable for music lovers to stay ahead of the curve _ by paying them when other people purchase MP3s they've bought.
Berkeley, Calif.-based Popcuts, which publicly launched its Web site in early August, charges users 99 cents per song. Thereafter, whenever someone else buys the same song, those who have already bought it get paid in credit that can be redeemed for more Popcuts music. The earlier you buy a song, the larger your cut of future sales.
And while credit is currently the payment option, the site's founders hope to eventually pay users in cash, too.
Fascinting thread peeps. Not much to add besides a rare moment to mog.
oh, Against Me! why are we having a discussion instead of shutting up and bobbing our heads? (; enjoyed the post, tune, thread. thanks, T.