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by fabbari
2007 days ago
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A bit of a tangent here. I remember the TV commercials by music labels in the early days of online piracy telling people: "If you download music you're killing the little music shops in your neighborhood!".
The moment labels moved to online streaming, the little shops in your neighborhood could go and f*** off.
The irony was never lost on me.
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As mentioned I came from a music scene that incidentally has its roots from pirate radio, literately guys climbing towers and hi-jacking frequencies in London to broadcast locally as well as online streaming, illegal underground raves so it was typical to see how this very same group of artists and DJs had their own labels to bypass the gatekeepers/middlemen as the sound was too 'strange,' but would eventually get coprorate backing after it became profitable and Red Bull even dcreated an academy for many of the pioneers.
I really thought we would have done away with large labels and middlemen in this Industry by now, because while I only know this 2nd hand touring catches up to you; especially as many went from being teenagers/20-somethings with no responsibilities to middle aged parents so touring becomes impractical and often detrimental to any chance of any work-life balance.
But, yeah it was clear they never cared about the mom and pop and it was always about protecting thier archiac business model. And I really think our DNB and Dubstep scene kept many independent shops and mastering/pressing afloat and it was a big part of the resurgence in vinyl in the 2000s we saw. Even now I get a chuckle of seeing the limited color pressing offers/pre-buys on Bandcamp as almost no one who DJs is on vinyl anymore, unless it's their gimmick, so when it sells out you know its just fans buying them up. So why do we need these people now that distribution and fees can be reduced to what they are now on bandcamp and PR/booking tours is no longer the only thing that made those relationships remotely tolerable?
If you haven't already done so, check out Grimes interview with Andrew Yang. It was kind of interesting hearing her view on things as Canada promotes its local talent and the State gives them grants, which is incredibly odd but kind of novel way of doing things if it generates local demand for events and record sales which they benefit from in tax revenue.