Copyright Law

Sonic Youth: Radiohead?s ?In Rainbows? Made Other Artists Look Bad

By soulxtc

Criticizes pay what you want model for making less popular musician brothers and sisters look bad for “not offering their music for whatever.”

Alternative rock band Sonic Youth recently sat down with the UK’s Guardian to discuss the state of music and their band’s latest album “The Eternal.” In it they they make some observations and comments that makes one wonder if they’re having a hard time adapting to the realities of a digital music world.

It recently left Geffen Records for Indie Rock label Matador Records because “[Geffen] weren’t doing much for us besides putting the records out,” says guitarist Thurston Moore.”

The band contemplated going the Radiohead’s “In Rainbows” route where fans could pay as much or as little as they choose for a digital download of an album, but said it would’ve taken too much time and effort and would’ve been insulting to their less popular “musician brothers and sisters.”

“I don’t really think they did it by themselves,” continues bassist Kim Gordon. “They did a marketing ploy by themselves and then got someone else to put it out. It seemed really community-oriented, but it wasn’t catered towards their musician brothers and sisters, who don’t sell as many records as them. It makes everyone else look bad for not offering their music for whatever.”

“It was a good marketing ploy and I wish I’d thought of it! But we’re not in that position either. We might not have been able to put out a record for another couple of years if we’d done it ourselves: it’s a lot of work. And it takes away from the actual making music,” she adds.

Pretty startling right? I’m not sure if it’s the fact that she thinks it would take too much time to do, or the fact that she thinks it would make less popular artists look bad that I find more puzzling.

It would only take a few hours to get a site up and running, and only perhaps a few more after that to really get the word out about the album’s release.

So why the angst?

Digital music puts control of distribution back in the hands of artists where it belongs. Record labels thereby become little more than financing and marketing arms that could just as easily be circumvented with a little creativity and hard work. Surely this is all good for Radiohead’s ” their musician brothers and sisters, who don’t sell as many records as them.”

Just ask Sir Paul McCartney who lamented the “boring approach” of EMI and the fact that it took 6 months to release an album he could write and finish in 6 days.

?I?d started saying to them: ?Look, we could write a thing and have it released the next week.? And they would say: ?You can?t do that these days.? So I would say: ?Well, how much time do you need?? And they?d say six months. I said: ?Why do you need that long?? And do you know what they said? ?To figure out how to market it.? I said: ?Wait a minute, are you sure you need six months for that? Couldn?t some bright people do that in two days?? Jesus Christ. I said: ?Look boys, I?m sorry, I?m digging a new furrow.?

He too was among the millions who downloaded ?In Rainbows,? paying ?something reasonable.?

?This was how we used to operate,? he noted. ?I remember John [Lennon], for instance, writing Instant Karma and demanding it was released the following week.?

EMI, on the other hand, wasn?t able to perform such a ?miraculous? task and he lamented that music artists there ?had become a part of the furniture.?

Contrast that with Paul McGuiness, band manager of U2, and anti-P2P crusader, who said that Radiohead’s experiment “backfired.”

“We should all be aware that Radiohead?s honesty box release of their album to some extent backfired,” he told a group of music execs last June. “Even though it was available on their own website for no money at all, if that was what you preferred to pay - 60 to 70% of the people who downloaded the record stole it anyway even though it was available for free.”

Which of the two is more on the side of musician brothers and sisters than the other?

All told, “In Rainbows” sold some 3 million copies, including downloads from their site, and sales of digital albums from other retailers, CDs, and a box set. So by all accounts the experimentation with the pay what you want model was a fairly resounding success, and oh, the album was pretty good too, garnering a Grammy for Best Alternative Music Album.

The only entity really making musicians look bad are the record labels that represent them. I can’t really knock Sonic Youth’s current label, Matador Records, for I know nothing of it, but labels like Geffen, it’s previous one, have done far more to harm musicians and the music biz as a whole than Radiohead ever could or will.

For Sonic Youth to criticize Radiohead for daring to think outside the box makes me wonder what kind of an artist the band really is. Isn’t music an art form characterized by creativity and free expression?

Music should ultimately be about the music, and reaching the fans who appreciate it. Anything a band can do to reach them in new and exciting ways should be encouraged not condemned.

Techdirt?s Michael Masnick said it best last year when doing a case study about Trent Reznor, an artist who’s been even more experimental than Radiohead in trying to reach fans.

He argued that future of music lies in the following equation:

Connect With Fans (CwF) + Reason To Buy (RtB) = The Business Model ($$$$)

Masnick notes that buying an album is a voluntary transaction, and that it?s nonsensical for artists to think to ?think that there is some sort of obligation to buy.?

Trent Reznor has connected with fans (CwF) time and time again, having offered things like free album downloads, one of which became Amazon.com’s top-selling album of 2008 by the way, a fan remix contest with the winners becoming part of an offical compilation CD (again FREE), and other EXPERIMENTAL ideas.

?I can give you free music, and in my opinion, it may contribute to more people showing up to a show,? Reznor said a few months back. ?It?s not up to me to give you free music, it?s free anyway, you know for anybody that wants to admit it. Pretty much any piece of music you want is free on the Internet anyway.?

Exactly. Radiohead is only guilty of sort of mainstreaming what’s already taking place, oftentimes weeks or even months before an official release date, and without the option of allowing people to pay what they think is reasonable.

?We?re in between business models,? he continued. ?You know, the old record labels are dead, and the new thing hasn?t really come out yet. So, I?m hoping that whatever gets established puts a lot more power in the hands of artists and more revenue.?

In fact, he mentions that he?s been talking to some artists about building an infrastructure, which is still “in it?s infancy,? that would allow artists to distribute their music without having a percentage taken from them. He says it?s needed so long as record labels refuse to adapt.

Reznor also noted that the problem with record labels, though perhaps not Sonic Youth’s current label, Matador Records, is that all a record label is concerned with is profits, they only see an artist as a ?means to make revenue.?

?At every fork in the road that’s what will be what?s put first,? he adds. “Not your longevity, not your vision. How can we make money from you.?

So for Sonic Youth to say that experimenting with a platform that is more equiatble for artists, where they can distribute music on their own terms and without a substantial cut being taken by record labels, “makes everyone else look bad” is utterly shortsighted and self-defeating.

In short, record labels don?t make music Sonic Youth, musicians do. As long as you make good music you’ll have fans, and as long as you have fans it’s critical that you connect with them and give them a reason to buy.

jared@zeropaid.com

[Hat Tip]

Full post as published by ZeroPaid on June 10, 2009 (boomark / email).