Ostriches and Chickens
September, 2000

The world is changing fast; musicians are being pulled into the struggle to adapt to that change whether they want to or not, and, unfortunately, too many of us seem to be caught looking for the same old solutions to very new problems. We are hiding our heads like ostriches, hoping that we can keep doing things the way we've always done them when we look up again, or we are running around like chickens with our heads lopped off, keeping busy to avoid acknowledging our terminal condition. To survive in the 21st Century, quite literally in the months and years ahead, musicians and all who love music have to pull our heads out, take a good look around and figure out just what all this change amounts to and how we can make the most of it to keep doing what we do best.

Amy Kover's story in the June 26, 2000 issue of Fortune, "Napster: The Hot Idea of the Year," may as well be called "Why the Music Industry is a Dinosaur." In great detail, it discusses the morphing of new technologies such as Gnutella that places musical file sharing "beyond the control of any central entity." It's a must reality check for anyone fighting the need to come to grips with the new technologies. In its first ten months of operation, Napster attracted 10 million users; its offspring, Gnutella ("a technology, not a company, it can't be sued and it can't be closed down") already exists in "30 different versions" with "countless numbers of users."

The article closes with a focus on a recording artist at the top of the world, Lance Bass of 'N Sync,' contemplating how he can cut out the middle and market directly to consumers. Jay Marose of TransContinental Records, 'N 'Sync's label, states, "An awful lot of established bands out there are looking at their digital strategy and looking at record companies and saying, 'Why do I need you?'"

He doesn't, and you don't. As Rock & Rap Confidential (RRC) [www.rockrap.com] has continuously reported in a column, "Just Exactly Why Do We Need A Music Industry," the case against the music industry grows all the time. Chuck D, Tom Morello of Rage Against the Machine, and Matt Johnson of The The have all been very outspoken about the joke that major labels protect a musician's interests. Roger McGuinn and Lester Chambers of the Chambers Brothers ("Time Has Come Today") have both joined voice with hundreds of other musicians who have never seen royalty payments for their music. Courtney Love, who offers over 50 MP3 tracks as free downloads at www.holemusic.com, stated, "Recording artists have essentially been giving their music away for free under the old system, so new technology that exposes our music to a larger audience can only be a good thing."

As a result of a decade and a half of government threats, industry-wide censorship mechanisms are in place and are used, particularly against rap music. CD price fixing has received fresh legal justification. The country's largest promoter, SFX entertainment, has been found to be in bed with ticket scalpers. Meanwhile, a new law that makes sound recordings "works for hire," jeopardizing artists' rights to their own music, has drawn the ire of Prince, Don Henley, Sheryl Crow, Billy Joel, Deborah Harry and James Taylor, among others. According to a Bill Holland article in Billboard, "U.S. Register of Copyrights Marybeth Peters characterizes U.S. recording artists as 'the most unprotected' group of creators in the U.S. copyright community."

And independent record companies don't offer solutions. Reported "good guys" Rounder Records offered a friend of RRC editor Dave Marsh (who has 31 years of experience with the industry) a contract that required the label's approval for all material contained on each album, while taking, in Marsh's words, "no responsibility for providing a producer, or guidance on material, or anything else truly creative. Just the veto. On the other end, it obliged itself to do nothing substantial to market the recordings. No advertising or radio promotion guarantees were included . . . . The option on whether to continue the business relationship lay entirely with the company. The royalty was chintzy, and stayed that way no matter how many records the artist sold. The song publishing royalties were paid under what is known as a 'controlled composition' clause, which basically means that the full statutory rate would never be paid the songwriter artist, and that she'd pay a heavy price for recording a song written by anybody else."

Marsh summed up, "In every meaningful respect, the Rounder contract is exactly as bad as a poorly negotiated contract with Sony, Time-Warner, Universal, or any of the other major labels that such independents are supposed to be so different from." Recently, Rounder has shown its ugly face more clearly, trumping up charges to fire 23 year employee Glenn Jones, the senior union steward in its SEIU (Service Employees International Union) local. [For more information about this case, contact Jones at gkjones@mediaone.net.]

Since I started writing about music in 1986, my friends who have been signed to labels, major and minor, have rarely been offered a better deal, and the promotions they have received have been the thoughtful equivalent of throwing spaghetti against the wall to see if it sticks. This should be no surprise. After all, just as in all business, big labels and small labels are playing the same game. In the Internet world, this is more apparent than ever. For the most part, all labels are competing to market to the same diversified formats. In the past four years, the majors have refocused in two crucial ways--they've placed more attention than ever on teenagers and even "tweens" (9-12) to get at the pockets of their parents, and they have channeled more of their energy into increasingly narrowly-targeted markets.

Those narrowed playing fields, historically occupied by independents, cannot escape the characteristics of the major markets. Writer Peter Spellman describes those anti-art characteristics in vivid detail in his article, "The Real Reason Major Record Companies Suck (For Artists) [http://musicdish.com/mag/?id=1413]. Spellman convincingly argues that the rules of business dictate that these industries are driven by the profit imperative, the growth imperative, competition and aggression, amorality, hierarchy, the quantification and homogenization of product. An independent competes in the same system, so how can we expect even a reportedly "high-minded, collectively run" corporation like Rounder to work any differently than its increasingly ground-level competitors?

Sure the old options sound bleak, as bleak as the two party ticket. There are very few existing (and the existing ones are typically dwindling) paths by which a musician can make a living with his or her music. But with the technological revolution that is working these barbaric tendencies to a frenzy, there is a technological and social upheaval that brings opportunity to those willing to be visionaries, those willing to analyze the constantly changing situation surrounding them and make educated judgments about which path to take next. Getting signed is a less promising answer than winning the lottery would be, and as long as we think in those terms, we'll get nowhere.

What we have here on the Zone is an often grumpy (often wonderfully supportive) community of musicians and music fans who are working together, outside of the system, to make sure that their music gets heard by the audience it deserves. But while we are a community, we are not, as yet, a collective with much hope of using its shared experience and varied viewpoints to find solutions that work. While the competitive music industry is eating its own tail and doing little-to-nothing for artists, I think our solutions must counter the barbaric conventional wisdom. We should join together in serious collective discussion that would involve music and music business history, an assessment of the lessons it has taught us, and the real world basis for solutions. Running against the grain of the dog-eat-dog market, we will be forced to work together cooperatively if we want any chance at success, and I think we will ultimately have to join our work with others who have no quality of life in this system.

I started writing "Move the Crowd" a while back in the hope of starting this sort of discussion. We have to take the time to educate each other before we can strategize a way of taking control of our lives and our careers. I've heard back from a few of you at times, but the urgent dialogue necessary has not developed. That is largely my fault because I have not always been clear about how I might present my ideas in a way that could counter the frustration that typifies a Forum bitch session. I still don't know the answers, but I do know that I need others to find those answers, and strategizing (really strategizing, not just throwing out ideas and running around like headless chickens) for change is the only real way to kill frustration-and have a chance at winning.

With genuinely collective goals (and that takes time to develop a genuinely collective vision), we can work together, and, even when we fail (and we will fail many times), we can learn from that experience and modify our approach. If anyone would like to be a part of such a music collective-for that matter, if you know of any serious-minded, functional music collective that exists here in the Kansas City area--write and let me know. Or call my home (913) 371-0703 any time day or night. If the best of our music is to meaningfully survive the revolution we are experiencing, those who care have to find each other and come together, thinking calmly and clearly with our eyes and ears wide open.

--Danny Alexander
danny@thezone.org