Music Is Dead

[alanp]

I didn't want to bomb CJ's thread, so here are two articles by Steve Albini (the Harmonic Percolator guy).

http://thebaffler.com/salvos/the-problem-with-music
This one is from 1993, and shows it. Tape is a Big Deal, to give an example, and Minor Threat is a known band.

https://www.theguardian.com/music/2014/nov/17/steve-albinis-keynote-address-at-face-the-music-in-full
This one is from 2014, and one hell of a lot more optimistic.

[lincolnic]

It's worth noting that in response to that keynote address, Marc Ribot publicly asked Steve Albini to put all of his music in the public domain, since "... the intellectual construct of copyright and intellectual property ownership is not realistic...That old copyright model of the person who wrote something down owns it and anyone else who wants to use it or see it has to pay him, I think that model has expired."

Albini has not responded, nor has he given up his copyright claims.

I agree with Marc Ribot -- copyright is still necessary for working artists and musicians to attempt to make a living off of their music. (I say "attempt" because nobody's really getting paid anymore. It's awful.)

[samhay]

>This one is from 2014, and one hell of a lot more optimistic.
Thanks - I enjoyed that. He is more erudite than I was expecting.

>It's worth noting that in response to that keynote address, Marc Ribot publicly asked Steve Albini to put all of his music in the public domain, ...
Well he may have taken some baby steps towards this - he gained some notoriety for allowing his work to be sampled sans royalties, etc.
See: https://www.theguardian.com/music/2015/sep/30/steve-albini-rant-about-dance-music-turned-into-billboard

[peAk]

I didn't want to bomb CJ's thread, so here are two articles by Steve Albini (the Harmonic Percolator guy).

http://thebaffler.com/salvos/the-problem-with-music
This one is from 1993, and shows it. Tape is a Big Deal, to give an example, and Minor Threat is a known band.

https://www.theguardian.com/music/2014/nov/17/steve-albinis-keynote-address-at-face-the-music-in-full
This one is from 2014, and one hell of a lot more optimistic.

interesting read

[Bret608]

I've always loved that old Baffler article. The "warm and punchy" diatribe summed up a lot of what I was feeling during the alterna-boom of the late- to mid-'90s.

Albini has mellowed with age, getting more nuanced in his views while remaining prickly. I think we need people like that around.

[EBRAddict]

Am I the only one here old enough to have seen Albini / Big Black play live? It was in a tiny coffee shop in a central Illinois college town. It was sometime between Atomizer and Songs About F***ing

[Bret608]

I am just a few years too young to have seen them during that time. Late '80s/early '90s is when I started seeing bands play live. Wish I had though!

[alanp]

Albini has not responded, nor has he given up his copyright claims.

I agree with Marc Ribot -- copyright is still necessary for working artists and musicians to attempt to make a living off of their music. (I say "attempt" because nobody's really getting paid anymore. It's awful.)

I'm somewhat of Vetinari's opinion -- you don't throw people you don't like in the dungeon, because you don't like them. If nothing else, you need a devil's advocate in arguments.

I'm increasingly of the mind that in future, revenue for bands and performers will rely on a patron-type system (like Bach), or patreon in this age, with the relationship between band and paying audience being far more important than it was in the 90s, when everyone KNEW that Big Band X lived in mansions, drove ferrari's, and you were NEVER, EVER going to breathe the same air. (These days, I'm given to understand that they live in ghettos, wear a kilogram of gold jewellery, and drive USAian cars the size of Hummers.)

[pickdropper]

Albini has not responded, nor has he given up his copyright claims.

I agree with Marc Ribot -- copyright is still necessary for working artists and musicians to attempt to make a living off of their music. (I say "attempt" because nobody's really getting paid anymore. It's awful.)

I'm somewhat of Vetinari's opinion -- you don't throw people you don't like in the dungeon, because you don't like them. If nothing else, you need a devil's advocate in arguments.

He may not have thrown them in the dungeon, but he did encourage them to leave via his special door.