Sunday Times and CDs

PaulBrewer

Rockshamrover wrote: »

There's probably a very high proportion of people under a certain age who have never listened to a complete album.

That's a good point too.

Rockshamrover

madtheory wrote: »

Elbow were always making money. Cottage industry. They're just making a lot more now than before they won the award. Plenty of other bands in the UK doing that- Ozric Tentacles, XTC/ Any Partridge, Marillion, etc. etc.

That's great to see but again I doubt that making money is the main motivator for most of these guys.

Rockshamrover

PaulBrewer wrote: »

And our own Bell X1 and the Frames were making cash in the US and Australia touring ....

Speaking of Cottage Industries the Cranberries Tour will pay for their shopping next year .

Flock was an excellent album by any standard.

PaulBrewer

Rockshamrover wrote: »

madtheory wrote: »

Elbow were always making money. Cottage industry. They're just making a lot more now than before they won the award. Plenty of other bands in the UK doing that- Ozric Tentacles, XTC/ Any Partridge, Marillion, etc. etc.

That's great to see but again I doubt that making money is the main motivator for most of these guys.

No, but everything stops if you can't pay the rent.

Rockshamrover

PaulBrewer wrote: »

Rockshamrover wrote: »

No, but everything stops if you can't pay the rent.

You can always sleep in the van or busk:D

Ah no, I take your point Paul but if people are serious about their music they will make tough choices and walk a very hard road.

Anyway real musicians don't pay rent, they live with their parents.

madtheory

Sorry Rockshamrover, but IMHO you're verging on mythology there. For example, all the members of Elbow have families, so that approach is not only unprofessional but irresponsible and unrealistic... and you simply can't keep making music without a source of income anyway.

Rockshamrover

Hi Madtheory,

Sorry to be harping on about this. It's just my opinion on the money making side of the business, not necessarily right or wrong so no offense intended.

All I'm saying is for me, music creation doesn't have to be about making money. That happens very rarely and not always to those who deserve it. If it does happen that's great.

By the same token, I am not saying there's anything wrong in making money if you can do it with your music. I'm just saying it should be a few steps down on the priority list.

I agree with you about being responsible and putting the needs of your family first (after you've bought all the gear of course:D).

Rock.

madtheory

OK, I see what you're saying. But I doubt that any of the acts I've mentioned are doing it for money. They probably feel very lucky that they can earn a living doing something they love. Although I'm sure they must get sick of it occasionally!

I don't think money necessarily interferes with art. For example, Mozart was a very good businessman, and a musicial genius. Berlioz was an excellent organiser and promoter of the very large orchestral gigs he needed to do for his symphonies. In neither case did the music suffer. There are plenty of other examples too.

I guess in the pop world there is a lot of profit motivated activity, but that doesn't apply to Elbow, Marillion, etc. etc.

telecaster

madtheory wrote: »

Mozart was a very good businessman,

I take your point generally, but dude....do a little google on ''Mozart poverty'' and see what you come up with!

ZV Yoda

madtheory wrote: »

OK, I see what you're saying. But I doubt that any of the acts I've mentioned are doing it for money. They probably feel very lucky that they can earn a living doing something they love. Although I'm sure they must get sick of it occasionally!

I don't think money necessarily interferes with art. For example, Mozart was a very good businessman, and a musicial genius. Berlioz was an excellent organiser and promoter of the very large orchestral gigs he needed to do for his symphonies. In neither case did the music suffer. There are plenty of other examples too.

I guess in the pop world there is a lot of profit motivated activity, but that doesn't apply to Elbow, Marillion, etc. etc.

Interesting thread...

... for me, the ideal is to make music because it's what you love to do. To have a passion for it & always strive to make the very best music you can. Then (or so my theory goes) that passion & drive pushes you to create great music. People hear your music & beat down a path to your door wanting to hear more. Because you're in demand, "the man" pays to you to record even more music. People buy this great new music... "the man" makes money from it, you make money from it...and the rest as they say...

The only minor problem with my theory is that it assumes you live in a utopian world where you don't need to pay mortgage/rent or feed kids, budgies, goldfish or spouses. I haven't figured that part out yet, so I've had to take "a proper job" until my music career kicks off. I've been doing this job for 40-50 hours / week since about 1992. I'm not sure how much money I've made from "my proper job". But I do know what I've made from my music career... it was £17.53 (yes - "£""... it was in old Irish money). The door receipts from a gig in "The Rock Garden" in about 1993.

(.. actually, £17.53 was gross profit... after expenses related to gear acquisition since I started playing music in 1989, I believe my operating loss is in currently the region of €10,000)

Having said all of that, I’m probably more passionate about music today than ever. I don’t know I’d feel the same way if I had to make a living from it.

Rockshamrover

Yoda, You made 7 more than me:D

PaulBrewer

ZV Yoda wrote: »

Interesting thread...

I don’t know I’d feel the same way if I had to make a living from it.

I bet you would ....

madtheory

ZV Yoda wrote: »

People hear your music & beat down a path to your door wanting to hear more. Because you're in demand, "the man" pays to you to record even more music.

Yep. We're back to the Lotto again... the notion of easy money.

ZV Yoda

madtheory wrote: »

Yep. We're back to the Lotto again... the notion of easy money.

... I assume you're intentionally missing my point so?

madtheory

I don't think so, but maybe I am... but it's just the notion that people will, as you put it, "beat a path to your door" if the music is good. It doesn't make sense. If you were making jam, you would still have to go out and sell it to make a living from it. Same with music. Product needs advertising.

PaulBrewer

madtheory wrote: »

I don't think so, but maybe I am... but it's just the notion that people will, as you put it, "beat a path to your door" if the music is good.

I think there was an element of humour there ...

ZV Yoda

Just in case anybody misinterprets my post & gets the impression I'm deluded enough to believe anybody will beat a path to anybody else's door & pay them to write music, the 2 key points in my "theory" are these...

"the ideal is to make music because it's what you love to do...."
"it assumes you live in a utopian world where you don't need to pay mortgage/rent or feed kids, budgies, goldfish or spouses."

madtheory

Oh that's what you meant. Right! Silly me

krd

There's an old saying from the UK record biz that I really like "Art for Art sake... A hit record, for ****sake"

Bands wasting their time and money on producing albums of material, that even the producer has to compel themselves to listen to is a complete waste of time.

The whole album 'thing' only became a staple between the mid 70s and died somewhere in the early noughties.

I don't know - there are maybe literally hundreds of very polished sounding but mediocre albums produced in Ireland each year.

The old style method of doing albums in the 60s, was to take the band and concentrate nearly all the work on maybe two songs off the album.

It's like Mundy's 'July' - I have a Polish friend, who told me he learned to play guitar just because of that one song. At any party where there's a guitar - he takes it and does Mundy's July - the room bursts into song - everyone get emotional (and nearly in tune) - With a bit of a push on that one song - Mundy could probably turn up in an obscure Polish city and have 30,000 polaks going 'my my my my, my my my my, my my my, July'

Production skills as opposed to engineering skills - A great piece of work is something people want to hear again and again and again. - Which should be a far greater concern than the eq on the hi-hats.

PaulBrewer

krd wrote: »

Production skills as opposed to engineering skills - A great piece of work is something people want to hear again and again and again. - Which should be a far greater concern than the eq on the hi-hats.

I hear ya

old gregg

not enough CONCEPT albums, there's your problem
(he says, only half joking after revisiting his early teens at the Yes gig last night)
(also aware that his 6th album {also another Concept album [following on from the last 2 of the series]} is in the middle of mixing at the moment)

albums make no busines sense to me as an artist in 09 but as a music fan I'm still a sucker for a good album and forever hope that every first listen is going to mean as much as the ones that have inspired me most.
*wells up with emotion and a sudden desire to wear a cape*

madtheory

old gregg wrote: »

*wells up with emotion and a sudden desire to wear a cape*

You'll be needing one of these also gregg...

old gregg

madtheory wrote: »

You'll be needing one of these also gregg...

hell yea, I'd go one of those puppies, maybe even two just to fill up some space and give me that early Tangerine Dream look when I'm on stage with my lappy and portable midi keyboard (it's kind of hard to look epic and emotive when you're moving a mouse)

krd

Bands that no one has really heard of, outside their families and friends - who trek down from Coolock to pack out vanity album launch nights, with neighbours and school friends - are doing themselves no favours by recording albums - before there's anyone there who wants to listen to 50 minutes of them.

I would set about the task of producing, as absolutely separate from engineering.

Producing meaning - get the band to pick one or two of their best songs, then work in preproduction - Asking questions like (And I'm deadly serious) Is the singers voice as memorable as Freddy Mercury, or Kurt Cobain - What needs to be done to get it anywhere near having that emotional effect on people. (I believe **** can be turned into shinola - give me a room with a padlocked door, an electric cattle prod, and exemption from prosecution for cruel, depraved and inhuman treatment - And I believe I can turn the most ineffectual, mediocre vocalist - into someone who sounds like they're singing for their life)


The other very serious questions - is there a radio show we can get this on - If there is - what do we have to do to cultivate the radio programmer so they play the ****ing record - Or can this record be made to be played in Indie discos - what do we need to create that's going to work there.

The cruel reality - many people who are recording these "albums" have the personalities of wet cardboard. (the cardboard is wet from a chain of dogs pissing on it)

If people are paying money and keeping Paul Brewer in business all very well. But having a record that actually gets played on the radio across the frontiers - would do so much more to raise everyone's fortunes.

I mean really - **** art - **** sales - This is rock and roll - What's this **** about 13 songs about bed wetting.


The role of the producer I believe: Is to coax the best performance from the artist - and to ruthlessly cut the **** out. (and to act as a buffer between the mechanics of recording.)

jtsuited

i think that people forget that the whole 'album' idea was really born out of the whole 'concept album' idea.

Nowadays 99.9999999999% of bands don't have the intellectual depth to even 'get' the idea of one concept, let alone turning that into a concept album.

PaulBrewer

Incorrect -

The 'album' was initially driven by technology, namely the arrival of the 33.3 rpm Long Playing Disc, the LP.

krd

PaulBrewer wrote: »

Incorrect -

The 'album' was initially driven by technology, namely the arrival of the 33.3 rpm Long Playing Disc, the LP.

And what is the driving technology right now?

the same could be said for song lengths - Shellac could only reasonably take 3 to 2 minute songs

So song length was effected by the technology.

The beatles also had a problem - records coming from Motown in the early 60s had massive bass on them - When the beatles tried to reproduce the same bass levels, the needle would hop off the groove



There is no technical reason these days, not to produce an album that's ten hours long.

krd

PaulBrewer wrote: »

Incorrect -

The 'album' was initially driven by technology, namely the arrival of the 33.3 rpm Long Playing Disc, the LP.

There so many other reasons.

A 33 LP (As in long player), was less has then getting up every two minutes to flip the disc - and price.

Any of you ever see those record players that could flip the disc - usually when they'd start to malfunction with age - the robot would start smashing and cracking the records.

PaulBrewer

krd wrote: »

And what is the driving technology right now?

the same could be said for song lengths - Shellac could only reasonably take 3 to 2 minute songs

So song length was effected by the technology.

The beatles also had a problem - records coming from Motown in the early 60s had massive bass on them - When the beatles tried to reproduce the same bass levels, the needle would hop off the groove



There is no technical reason these days, not to produce an album that's ten hours long.

One could suggest Internet speed plays it's part in quality- at least of the delivery medium. If the universe had infinite speed broadband file size would be irrelevant and a higher quality would be the default setting.

krd

PaulBrewer wrote: »

One could suggest Internet speed plays it's part in quality- at least of the delivery medium. If the universe had infinite speed broadband file size would be irrelevant and a higher quality would be the default setting.

Yes, ten years time compression won't be such a big deal, as gigspeed connections are coming(If you're a Finish student you'll have one already) - But for the minute that's not the case - most of the MP3s people are listening to, have not been created by careful MP3 mastering by the record companies - they've been whacked up by 12 year kids who hit the 'MP3orize your music collection' - It can be a shock sometimes to hear the original CD.

There's also the factor of what people are listening to their music on - Laptop speakers, i-pods.

And who is listening to what - Bob Dylan can hit the American top ten because the people buying his music are a little older and expect to pay for music - same with Katie Melua - the middle aged bank managers **** fantasy

A guy I saw complain recently on another bat channel "I've been recording music for the last 30 years - the only new music I can bear to listen to, is the new Katie Melua record - everything else sounds like ****"

madtheory

PaulBrewer wrote: »

Incorrect -

The 'album' was initially driven by technology, namely the arrival of the 33.3 rpm Long Playing Disc, the LP.

More specifically, the word comes from "Album" meaning a collection of things- in the early days, 78 rpm discs were not long enough to hold a complete opera, so 10 or more discs were presented in a nice package, just like it was fashionable to do with photographs at the time.

tweeky

krd wrote: »

most of the MP3s people are listening to, have not been created by careful MP3 mastering by the record companies

Most record company product is not generally mastered specifically for mp3 but is compressed free using the iTunes or equivalent process. Jesus it's hard to get them to pay for proper mastering for CD as it is The CD master is then processed into the many compressed formats by whatever company does the upload for them.
A well mastered track should translate. Obviously certain codecs and bitrates are more superior.

kfoltman

Apologies for making this (kind of stinking) thread resurface, but have you read this little thingie?

http://www.thestar.com/business/article/735096--geist-record-industry-faces-liability-over-infringement

madtheory

kfoltman wrote: »

Apologies for making this (kind of stinking) thread resurface, but have you read this little thingie?

http://www.thestar.com/business/article/735096--geist-record-industry-faces-liability-over-infringement

I don't see how it's relevant to the thread, but it's interesting nonetheless. Timely, I was discussing this morning how IMRO/ MCPS is a very small operation. But at least they're never going to make a mess that bad! They are very careful about licensing for CD. But I think they're having difficulty with the modern age of virtual copying.