ON MUSIC: RISING PRICE OF FAME IN THE LAND OF THE FREE
Daily Telegraph
20/03/2008
UK
Neil McCormick explains why these are tough times for music industry
hopefuls
The hotel porter studies entertainment law by night.
Assailed by a songwriter: Cyndi Lauper The waiter (sporting an
elaborate ponytail from the dome of his shaven head) moonlights
in an Armenian-Iranian heavy metal band. A taxi driver tells me
a story of blowing two million dollars he didn’t have launching a
"sexy singer". The deal foundered because she wouldn’t get a nose
job. "Big nose," he keeps muttering sadly. I suspect he sees it
everywhere he drives.
Welcome to LA, where everybody is really somebody else. It has long
been the city of dreams, the hub of the entertainment industry,
where hopefuls congregate in the firm belief that they will one day
see their name in lights. But right now those lights are flickering.
The Beauty Bar is a hairdressing salon remodelled as a Hollywood
scenester hang-out, where you can get a beer and a manicure with
people who all look like extras in MTV videos (possibly because most
of them are).
I inhale secondary nail polish fumes with Rick Jude, a manager,
semi-retired, who used to look after Van Halen and Dave Lee Roth. He
tells me about eight bands he has helped to build live audiences,
release independent records, get internet profile and local radio
hits for, but none has been able to secure a major-label deal which
would take them to the next level. "Record companies used to come in
and say, ‘I could make money out of this.’ Now they think, ‘I would
have to spend money on this.’?"
advertisementNobody is signing anything, he believes. Record companies
are exploiting back catalogues. Fear stalks the boardroom. Paranoia
is paralysing the music industry. It all boils down to: how are we
going to get paid?
Chris Anderson is editor-in-chief of Wired magazine, the internet
guru who coined the phrase "the long tail" to explain why the
margins were becoming more significant than the mainstream. His latest
catchphrase is "freeconomics’, the notion that free is the new price of
everything. He proposes how this model can work for various industries,
with revenue generated from advertising, exchange, micro-profits and
cross-subsidising (X is free if you buy Y).
But here, essentially, is what he has to say about the music business:
there are too many people willing to give away their music for it
to be worth anything. This is the "zero marginal cost" model, where
things can be distributed without appreciable cost.
"This is a case where the product has become free because of sheer
economic gravity, with or without a business model. That force is
so powerful that laws, guilt trips, DRM, and every other barrier to
piracy the labels can think of have failed. Some artists give away
their music online as a way of marketing concerts, merchandise,
licensing and other paid fare. But others have accepted that, for
them, music is not a money-making business. It’s something they do
for other reasons, from fun to creative expression."
Jude doesn’t feel quite so magnanimous. He is a veteran of the
dreams circuit, turned over by every record company in the business,
but with enough small scores to keep the dream alive. He works a day
job at a company offering reports on artist-submitted demos. He has
been developing a rock band around a young singer, Nikki. Now big
management are sniffing around, saying all the money is in live and
merchandising. "But, as a songwriter and producer, how do I make a
living out of that?" says Jude.
He is not convinced things have changed so much. "It’s just another
hustle to keep the money out of the hands of musicians and in the
pockets of accountants."
The manager, intent on impressing the young band, trots out anecdotes
about attending the We Are the World session. "I was there," reveals
Jude. All eyes turn to him. What was this perennial wannabe doing
at the most star-studded recording session in history? "I came in
through the food-service window," he confesses. He passed himself off
as a member of Duran Duran and tried to pass Cindy Lauper a tape at
the buffet.
She had him thrown out, then later complained to People magazine
that while saving starving Africans she had been assailed by some
"asshole songwriter trying to pitch me".
Jude still has the clipping. "It was my first press," he says proudly.
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress
