DJ Shadow: classic or dud?

Cut him a ton of slack for his music but I am intrigued by this "music relies on market forces waaah market forces are killing music" argument.

It's not market forces that are killing music, it's a sudden, rapid, and radical change in distribution methods that labels and artists, for the most part, haven't been able to keep up with. Market forces haven't quite adapted yet either.

Em's just read the Alex James autobio and there's a bit towards the end where Alex meets the drummer or bassist or guitarist from Coldplay, one of the ones who looks like a potato, in a bar or at an aftershow or something, and says that he seems like a nice guy but very earnest and all he can offer conversation-wise is talk about how they've just developed a new strategy for expanding North American markets blah blah business speak. And my inference is that Alex James thought he was an alien for not leaving that side of things for someone else to worry about and concentrating on playing music / hanging out in The Groucho / making cheese / etc etc etc.

Not sure why I posted that, tbh.

Also this morning there was something on the radio about album covers being made into stamps and they played clips from a song off each album that's been stampified, and it was, like, You can't Always Get What You Want, and London Calling, and Starman, and they all sounded like great, classic, well-written pop songs for the ages, and then they played a big of the instrumental piano line from Clocks and it sounded like incidental BBC music rather than like a pop song for the ages.

Not sure why I posted that, tbh.

big = bit

funny that shadow wrote that bit about coldplay though as the outsider had quite a few mock-chris martin sounding songs on it.

Why hop-hop sucks in 2010; it's the lack of money.

"It's not market forces that are killing music, it's a sudden, rapid, and radical change in distribution methods that labels and artists, for the most part, haven't been able to keep up with. Market forces haven't quite adapted yet either"

This, and the fact that (for several reasons) music isn't at the moment perceived as something with an inherent economic value. With some interesting consequences, like bands giving away their music for free while sell through their site t-shirts and mugs.

eternal respect to The Shad, but that was a pretty boring rant I've read a thousand times before

"At this rate, we’ll be stuck with Coldplay for decades (no offense intended)."

Really, no offense intended? None?

Overall, I'm with Blueski - this article could have been posted 5 years ago. Or, replace 'internet' with 'tv' and just post it anytime in the past 50 years.

"20 years from now, it will be interesting to see what hindsight reveals. I predict a flag on the time-line: when we moved closer to becoming a passionless, listless, hollowed-out society, one in which art and nature could no longer provide the psychological shock to the system required to endure another harrowing day of terror alerts and super-bugs."

Yep, 20 years from now they're going to put a flag on 2010 to say 'this is when we became listless, and disinterested in art'. Because right up until that point, everyone was on board. They were giddy, exciting times the 00's, or 90's, anon

Why hop-hop sucks in 2010; it's the lack of money.

― exploding angel vagina (Scik Mouthy), Thursday, January 7, 2010 4:01 AM (Yesterday) Bookmark

!

What utter nonsense.

"the central thrust is still pretty true: if people don't pay for music then a lot less music is going to get made"

There seems be a real lack of music being made in the last decade, doesn't there. . . oh wait there is still a lot of music out there isn't there.

Sorry your old business model is fucked, Shadow, but it was a pretty fucked model for the most part anyway so whatever.

I don't really understand what people mean by "the old business model" - as though every label followed the same business model. Not every label is some sleazeball conglomerate - in fact in the years just before the internet we were seeing plenty of alternate business models springing up and doing quite well. The way things are going now hurt those too. But whatever helps you feel morally sanctified in getting everything for free.

"“When I started getting in touch with people who’d made the records it gave me a bit of a conscience,” he admits. “As a result I have no problem clearing big uses. But I feel that I’m a collage artist and if I use 60 songs on a record I can’t have 60 different lawyers claiming 75 per cent...... They can chuck me in jail if they want"

Shadown on sample clearance.

Now, I don't usually care two jots about sample clearance, but I also don't write 2 page long diatribes about the crumbling music industry all being the consumers fault. I do find it a little odd that a man who makes music from other peoples music, and doesn't think it would be at all realistic to pay everyone for their music, doesn't consider that this might make him look a little foolish as he's typing up his little blog post.

There seems be a real lack of music being made in the last decade, doesn't there. . . oh wait there is still a lot of music out there isn't there.

haha yeah, and how can there be climate shange if it still snowing in winter amirite

how about "an activity that human beings have always engaged in isn't going to disappear because 1 mode of production/distribution disappears" lol death to the music industry

"haha yeah, and how can there be climate shange if it still snowing in winter amirite"

I'm sure when all music ceases to be produced we'll all look back and regret not listening more to Al Gore.

Sorry your old business model is fucked, Shadow, but it was a pretty fucked model for the most part anyway so whatever.

― Fig On A Plate Cart (Alex in SF), Saturday, January 9, 2010 3:43 AM (11 hours ago) Bookmark

yeah, it sucked! all that terrible, terrible music put out over the last 60 years, god.

Too bad that terrible music didn't stopped getting produced in 1999.

Anyway I'm sure there will be a clever solution at some point to this conundrum of the 00s and we'll all look back on these diatribes and laugh. Or maybe not and music will just 'oh the horror' cease to exist.

Conventional wisdom amongst my peers has been remarkably short-sided over the last decade: “Yeah, CD sales are down, but all the money is in licensing.” Not anymore. “Yeah, licensing money is down, but the video game industry is killing it.” Less so these days, according to recent data. “Well, the real money is in touring.” Really? When was the last time you saw a ‘new,’ post-record company artist headline a major music festival?

I think this bit is true. There's still tons of "new model" "gurus" a line that folks will make all their money form merch/touring/ads that ignores all sense.

Not every label is some sleazeball conglomerate - in fact in the years just before the internet we were seeing plenty of alternate business models springing up and doing quite well. The way things are going now hurt those too.

this.

But whatever helps you feel morally sanctified in getting everything for free.

this too.

"if I use 60 songs on a record I can’t have 60 different lawyers claiming 75 per cent...... They can chuck me in jail if they want"

this too?

Boo hoo. Life sucks for lots of people. Musicians don't have a monopoly on that (hello newspaper reporters and autoworkers!) and frankly the out-sized sense of entitlement of a dude like DJ Shadow has doesn't make me remotely inclined to want to spend money on his music any more than the equivalent hand-wringing makes me want to buy a newspaper (which I occasionally "steal" by reading online OH NOES or a Chevy which you couldn't pay me to drive). Hey but if it stokes the righteous indignation of you dudes who only ever buy new albums or pay for your downloads then hey good on you.

reading online isn't stealing because its offered for free, downloading stuff that isn't free *is "stealing" sorry if you can't figure that one out

but yeah life sucks for a lot of people so fuck musicians, why should i pay to hear their music rite? this is just like when coal miners were all put out of work by market forces but we still expected them to deliver us coal regardless.

and other analogies that don't fit

I'm trying to work out if that means Bono is either Arthur Scargill or Margaret Thatcher.

Ned I think you have something of a point on sample clearance, but at the same time I think the law on sampling could be a lot more nuanced and do more to differentiate uses - some of Shadow's sample uses are so transformative that they are kind of beyond recognition and at that point I agree it's ridiculous to make him pay each rights holder as though he were P. Diddy doing "I'll Be Missing You". Maybe the solution to that is just some kind of mandatory licensing scheme with much much lower rates. But I don't think it precludes him from thinking that people ought to pay for the music he makes.

Anyway, yeah of course music is still going to be made. It's just going to get made on lower budgets and probably with fewer acts that stick around for the long haul, and probably also with less national touring, that is unless some new model comes along, which I still don't think it has.

I know firsthand and from friends that money DOES affect people's drive to make music and get it to people. I'm not claiming that I or any of my friends are entitled to that money or entitled to get our music out there. I'm just saying that the less money is available from music, the more you have to work, the more you have to reconsider whether you can tour, the less energy and time you have to work on your album, etc. That's to say nothing of label resources - so many albums were made on large advances that let bands take time off to focus creatively, gave them a budget for equipment, production, etc.

Of course you can make albums in your bedroom on a small budget, and a handful of people can even make great albums doing that, but they're not going to be the same kinds of albums, and not every great artist is cut out for that. And then of course you can release your little bedroom album over the internet and market it yourself, but it's most likely not going to reach as many people.

this tired argument depends on what's pretty clearly an empty threat - mp3s have been around for a decade and there hasn't been some universal musician strike. rather, today there's more music being recorded than ever before in history. combine that with distribution costs going down to zero and we have a glut. if billions of oranges were suddenly available everywhere and anywhere and there were oranges on every corner of the street...the price would drop down to zero...and I wouldn't have pity for anyone who then decided to go plant an orange orchard w/ the intention of making money.

if the government could suddenly start effectively policing illegal music downloads, I doubt that people would actually buy that much more music. there's too much (legally) free music out there on myspace etc. and hundreds of thousands of radio stations to listen to.

And then of course you can release your little bedroom album over the internet and market it yourself, but it's most likely not going to reach as many people.

if people like it, it's gonna reach a whole lot more people than it would have 20 years ago.

I know firsthand and from friends that money DOES affect people's drive to make music and get it to people. I'm not claiming that I or any of my friends are entitled to that money or entitled to get our music out there. I'm just saying that the less money is available from music, the more you have to work, the more you have to reconsider whether you can tour, the less energy and time you have to work on your album, etc.

i think this is very true. i mean of course music will still be made if artists aren't making money, but, you know... its an investment of time and effort from the artist, and besides the fact of whether or not that DESERVES renumeration (hint: it does), after a while doing this stuff for little or no money gets wearing. i'm nostalgic for people like blast first's paul smith, for example, who pressed up the Walls HAve Ears Sonic Youth 'bootleg' because he believed that Thurston Moore shouldn't have to work a day job between making music, that he should be able to make a living from music.

scout, the samples question is an interesting one, and the holes in shadow's logic are pretty obvious, but i don't think its completely analogous and i don't think it invalidates shadow's point on this specific issue.

music is kind of boring anyway

not as boring as comedy

if only there was some way of stopping stand-ups from getting paid

its an investment of time and effort from the artist, and besides the fact of whether or not that DESERVES renumeration (hint: it does)

does every investment of time and effort from every artist in the world deserve remuneration? does every garage band deserve to earn money? where does this 'deserve' come from?

if i invest time and money in making a cake, and you consume that cake then i deserve remuneration, don't really see why it should be different with a song?

better question - why do people 'deserve' to be able to download peoples' music for free?

* music that hasn't already been offered by the artist for free, obvs

And then of course you can release your little bedroom album over the internet and market it yourself, but it's most likely not going to reach as many people.

if people like it, it's gonna reach a whole lot more people than it would have 20 years ago.

― iatee, Saturday, January 9, 2010 12:35 PM Bookmark

Is there any evidence of this? Every wildfire internet phenomenon seems to turn out to have paid publicity people behind it.

Stevie, no, agreed, it doesn't make his points invalid, just slightly hypocritical. "I want to be paid for my music, but I've decided by my own reasoning that it's ok not to pay others for theirs.". Further on in that interview he talks about the birth of sample clearance, and clearly enjoys the "fuck the man" mentality of it, the fact that it shook things up. He now just looks a little like your Dad telling you that this is just noise, not like back when he listened to Elvis. It's ok to rail against the man when the man's making you, a poor aspiring dj, pay to use someone elses work. But it's totally NOT ok to rail against the man when the man wants you, some poor kid who can't afford $20 per cd you want, to stop downloading music. I now he has a fair point somewhere in there, but he just sounds very much like the wrong man to be (added to the list of millionaire musicians) making it.

"I’ve been keeping up with the whole sample legalities, and I’ve always been very pro-sampling. You know, back when it was really cool for all the rook fixtures and the pillars of the of the industry to diss it…I’ll never forget this MTV report on sampling in, like, ’89, when all the things were going down with De La Soul and the Turtles. It was just so hip-hop. They were the underdogs going up against these bloated rock and roll mindstates. And as a result, I got really rebellious, and just sort of took the stance of, "Fuck it. I’m just gonna use it.""

Is there any evidence of this? Every wildfire internet phenomenon seems to turn out to have paid publicity people behind it.

I dunno I'm sure you can find plenty of ilx/pitchfork favorites that didn't

Even so, attacking his own hypocrisy is kind of an easy way out of the issue. (xpost)

I dunno I'm sure you can find plenty of ilx/pitchfork favorites that didn't

― iatee, Saturday, January 9, 2010 12:51 PM Bookmark

I'll bet you can't. Pitchfork isn't just going to listen to everything that comes across their desk, and they're certainly not going to say "Wow, here's some dude in his bedroom with no label and no distribution. Let's put it on "best new music" even though he doesn't tour and the only way you can get it is from his myspace page."

better question - why do people 'deserve' to be able to download peoples' music for free?

because there are a lot of 010101010s out there and author of a certain portion of those 010101010s would only be harmed by download X if you come in with the assumption that somebody would otherwise be giving them money - which I think is a pretty naive assumption in 2010.

today there's more music being recorded than ever before in history. combine that with distribution costs going down to zero and we have a glut. if billions of oranges were suddenly available everywhere and anywhere and there were oranges on every corner of the street...the price would drop down to zero...and I wouldn't have pity for anyone who then decided to go plant an orange orchard w/ the intention of making money.

an orange is pretty much like other oranges. if/when newspapers all die out, we'll still have bloggers. just almost all of them will be shit, or otherwise won't have the resources to do the job.

but hey it's a "new business model" granddad.

does every investment of time and effort from every artist in the world deserve remuneration? does every garage band deserve to earn money? where does this 'deserve' come from?

― iatee, Saturday, January 9, 2010 5:43 PM (6 minutes ago) Bookmark

um, well, yes, if people are listening to their music.

cf your other post:

if people like it, it's gonna reach a whole lot more people than it would have 20 years ago.

this "deserve" comes from a pretty well-established custom that you shouldn't get something for nothing.

I'll bet you can't. Pitchfork isn't just going to listen to everything that comes across their desk, and they're certainly not going to say "Wow, here's some dude in his bedroom with no label and no distribution. Let's put it on "best new music" even though he doesn't tour and the only way you can get it is from his myspace page."

a quick google suggests 'clap you hands say yeah' as a pretty clear example of this.

because there are a lot of 010101010s out there and author of a certain portion of those 010101010s would only be harmed by download X if you come in with the assumption that somebody would otherwise be giving them money - which I think is a pretty naive assumption in 2010.

so your argument is, because you wouldn't be willing to pay for the physical item anyway, you should be allowed to download the 0101010s for free because the artist can't lose a sale that wouldn't have happened in the first place??

yeah that sums it up pretty well actually