There is a lot of good music coming out that needs hands-on promotion, but the industry’s business model is outdated and no longer applies in this digital age. The sooner we all wake up and realize no one wants to pay $15+ for a circular piece of plastic, the sooner we can find alternative sources of income. Radiohead, IMO, has done wonders in tearing down the wall between artist and consumer, and their business model is one to replicate in times to come.

All very well to say to new bands “your recordings are going to be free, just get used to it”, best to put yourself in a new un-established band’s shoes then Mr O’Brien, and starve for your art alongside them.

Hmmm? C’mon Radiohead, pull all your albums from record stores and just make them free from now…

LOL

You freetards don’t understand when you’re being used in a marketing ploy.

Most of you are completely clueless about music and life in general. ACTA is going to ruin your life. LOL

THAT was a concise, well-expressed argument.

Required reading for the “I deserve all music for free” gang.

Sadly it will most likely go ignored because you’re not aping sound bites like “yeah man, death to the fat cat labels”.

This dialogue NEEDS balance. There are more sides to the story than Major Labels Vs P2P Filesharers.

Small and Mid-level artists are caught between a recording industry which largely ignores them because they aren’t huge money spinners and fed-up consumers who lump them into the same “They can all afford to live off the vast sums of money that they make from playing live” bracket as U2 or Madonna.

Sadly if you try and introduce a few real-life scenarios into this dialogue you get either ignored (eg no-one has responded to the scenario at bottom of Post 83 or ALL of the points raised in Post 77) or howled down with ill-informed ‘counter arguments’ (if you can call them that) like Post 109.

‘no wonder orchestras are dying you can even do a Enya like without the need to hire one single musician’

It doesn’t seem like Mr ‘Music Hound’ here even LIKES musicians…

And… whew! ENYA?!? Mate, you REALLY need to let the 1980′s go!

The Beatles an example of a synth act with simulated instruments??? LOL!!

And ALL of this ignoes the value of the actual CONTENT. So even IF it were true that any band in the world can make a world class recording with a laptop and one mic as you seem to think they can (which is not true), then you’re implying that the actual MUSIC is of no value.
Extraordinary stuff froma ‘Music Hound’ such as yourself!
All the hours learning how to play, write decent songs, all worth naught.
It really doesn’t sound like you have much respect for the bands at all.

Saying that everyone should make the records any old how (as you said earlier ‘there’s such a thing as good enough), that the audience can’t tell the difference (ie ‘theyre stupid’ NOT MY OPINION just going by comments YOU made like ‘they can’t tell, never could tell and don’t care’), and let ME have it for free starts to add up to a very greedy and un-music friendly mindset.

If bands need to realise as you put it that they will make money from ‘live performances, merch, special offers, and vinyl collectors’, then you should accept that recordings are part of the subcategory MERCH.

If you think bands should put more effort into their line of clothing than their music, well I seriously doubt that we’d be at the same shows is all I can say…

But then again Duran Duran… Never been one of MY faves mate. ;-)

Go to youtube and search LMMS classic and see how bad it is, no wonder orchestras are dying you can even do a Enya like without the need to hire one single musician.

Techno is easy to make and is all the rage on clubs across the globe.