Why music DOES cost

This was going to be a simple video post originally but I decided it required more than that as I started writing. So instead it’s a full post with a video attached.

My video choice today is Billy Bragg, New England. This is partly because I like Billy Bragg and his direct, political musical style and also because he’s in the tech news again.

Billy has been interviewed by The Register about comments made by Michael Arrington who suggests that musicians should be paying the big Web2.0 companies who promote their music.

Billy clearly doesn’t agree. Instead of re-creating the whole thing here I’ll let you go and read it for youself - or just listen to the audio. Billy Bragg is always good value and really knows his stuff.

His basic argument is - we as musicians deserve to be paid for the content we create and I completely agree although some of the commenters don’t - some seem to think that all music should be free regardless and that the musicians creating it shouldn’t be paid for the work they actually do or at least shouldn’t be paid by the person listening to it.

My argument against that sort of logic has always been thus: If we all stop paying for media to be created then the only media that WILL be created will either be by focused grouped corporate clones who know for sure they’ll make money through merchandising and tours OR by people working out of their garage in their spare time.

I’ve got no problem with the spare time approach, some of the best music I’ve ever heard has been by bands making music in their spare time BUT all of those bands, the good ones, eventually want to move towards making money from their music - they want to create music full time and not have to work.

If we don’t pay for the songs we own (DRM is bollocks) then none of these great musicians of the future will be able to enjoy making music without the hindrence of work.

Back to Billy ”

“But a) not everybody can do it, and b) without recordings to go ahead of you, and spread the word, you end up never getting to that stage that all of us crave - where we give up our fucking day jobs that we fucking hate.

“And by cutting the legs off from the next generation of musicians, you are condemning them to never really give up their day job. What will happen is that the music that will be wildly popular will be the stuff that is coming from the corporations. It will be Hannah Montana. Which I can assure you was focus-grouped to death.”

As part of my day job I’ve had the pleasure and sometimes dissapointment of interviewing a number of bands and musicians at various points in their career.

I always ask them about digital music and sites like My Space, I ask them about iTunes and about CDs and they all feel that, although My Space is great - they still need to be paid for what they create.

Another area I’ve spent time looking at, and produced a five minute package on last year, is alternative distrobution models and ways of getting out of the ‘have to work to make music’ rut mentioned above.

Sites like My Space and Virb are great for getting your music heard and for letting people know what you sound like before a gig BUT they’re not so great for getting you the money needed to take yourself up a level.

The big challenge now, with iTunes overtaking WalMart in the US as the biggest music retailer, is to get your music on Apple’s download store.

Sites like Artists without a label and in a different way SellaBand make that possible. Both take up the role of the traditional label but in a much less capitalist way.

You can listen to my package that looks at a lot of the above (from an unsigned band perspective) on the BBC Jersey website. It’s called Getting heard (stream).

You can also download the MP3 if that’s easier for you. After all the link above IS Real Media so it probably will be. I’m trying to find the interviews with Sella Band and AWAL, as well as a couple I’ve done with bands to post here in full - but I’m struggling at the moment.

Getting Heard (mp3)

The message in that, the message from the bands and the message from most honest music fans is a simple one and summed up by this quote from Billy Bragg.

“It’s up to the artists to step forward and say - the record industry sucks a big one. And we have been complicit with that. And we can’t go back to the £15.99 CD. But we want to make a living doing this - help us to convince big business to cut us in.”

Oh and just for fun - here’s another video - this time of the brilliant Bill Bailey singing his spoof track, Unisex Chipshop with Billy Bragg.

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