I think American Idol is a perfect example of how fickle the music fans are. Only a few of the winners of that show have gone on to have big careers. A handful of them have had decent careers, but most of them just disappear. You would think that being on the highest rated TV show out there for several weeks during which time they collect potentially hundreds of thousands of Twitter followers and Facebook fans would help launch your career, but by the time the show ends and they put out an album most of the fans have either moved on to the next show, listen to the first single and don't like it so they move on or just download the album and be done with it and those people fade away.

maynard put the music industry into perspective best with this song



really though, the music industry has to reinvent itself somehow. the internet is a double edged sword. it gives so much easier access to discovering new bands and getting exposure for new bands very cheaply but at the same time record sales become more and more a thing of the past. the album is now just another promotional tool to sell merch and concert tickets but is that really enough? it doesn't seem so by what artists are saying.

as for the physical disconnect. i totally agree. in highschool when i'd buy an album i'd spend all kinds of time looking at every bit of the booklet, the artwork, etc. tool was one of the bands who really put a lot into it. i think bands need to create websites or apps or something for albums to replace that experience. imagine what you can do with that over a booklet, the possibilities are endless.

to me Rick Rubin said it best. He is angry because the record industry used to be in the business of selling art then they changed and now they sell a product. They need to get back to selling art again. These days people are as worried about buying a pop stars clothes from their clothing line or their perfume or other crap and it no longer about the music.

What's the name of the band??

its a good point but there have always been shitty sell out pop music purely made to sell loads of crap to people. i guess the difference now is that bands who are only interested in the music are now suffering because record sales aren't cutting it anymore and the suits of the music industry don't want to invest in these types anymore since shitty pop music has so many more venues to sell stuff than bands like tool. its about the music for these bands but they also want to make a 'living' (which is far beyond a living for you or me). ok, sure but will it stop artists from wanting to make art if they make only one million instead of ten? ideally, it shouldn't.

God, i love this track.. Love TOOL!

Quoted for truth. And they did so many great albums after, but had they not had their "Dark Side" they wouldn't even be a footnote in rock history.

Granted, the Dead may not have had albums that were commercial, or music you didn't like, but so what? That isn't the point. The point is they figured out how to make money in spite of it and outside the control of what the labels did. They owned their music. They worked community. They made money. It was not just working because of "the times".

Tim Armstrong from Rancid told me himself how he admired their biz model and sought to emulate it, and he explained how Fat records drew inspiration from the Dead biz model. He said a lot of old school American punks liked the Dead for their "fuck you" approach to the record industry.

Perry Farrell and Eddie Vetter both drew upon it and acknowledged the biz model as a source of inspiration. Pearl Jam hasn't done a hit song in years but they continue to sell out shows and thrive on selling their live stuff. Phish - don't even get me started. I don't like any of the tunes they write yet they figured it out. Vampire Weekend... and the list goes on...

Can you go to a Tool show and walk out with a live recording of it?

Unless it was a board mix I wouldn't want one. It's true, there are ways to game the game. Looks a Fat Mike and NOFX. I have a lot of respect for them. They beat the system, but I'm sure they wouldn't back digital piracy.

In any industry there are always those that survive and thrive outside of the industry standard. They do things differently and are successful at it. The Dead struck a chord with certain people and were able to create a counterculture movement around themselves. Other bands have followed that idea with varying degrees of success. An example would be Blues Traveler. They built a fan base touring and putting out records on an indie label for years before they ever had a hit song.

You could make the argument that Pearl Jam doesn't really fall into the same category. They didn't build slowly from the ground up, they did it in reverse. They exploded on the scene and went from being an unknown band to the biggest band in the world almost overnight. They then worked hard to develop a grass roots fan base and treat those fans well. They used the less is more tactic. Instead of inundating their fans with products to buy they offered next to nothing. Instead of trying to sell fan club members a dozen different things they gave them free music and the ability to get concert tickets early and at reduced prices. When the huge fame disappeared those core fans stuck around. It also doesn't hurt that they are one of the best live bands you will ever see.

What I am getting at is that for every Grateful Dead, Phish, Blues Traveler etc out there there are dozens, if not hundreds of bands who have tried to do the same thing and failed. Large scale success in the music business is something that is nearly impossible. Just because a marketing tactic worked for one band does not mean it will work for all of them. Think of it like this. McDonald's is one of the biggest companies in the world. They got there by selling burgers and serving the food to you quickly. Does this mean if I open a place that sells burgers and I serve them to you quickly that I will have success? Not at all. Often times it is as simple as being in the right place at the right time with the right song.

Good chance Louis CK would disagree with Mr. Tool

People care what Louis CK says? You can say things as loud as you want and still nobody will care.

But Louis CK has spent 15 years building up an audience and has one of the most highly regarded comedy shows on TV. There are dozens of comics out there who have tried exactly what he has recently done and had very little success.

And can you imagine the kind of fan loyalty a band like Tool can monetize through direct digital distribution. My guess is they would cash in. I know I'd rather buy their stuff direct.

I have no doubt they could. I think what he was saying is that pirating, torrents and digital downloading as a whole is not great for cultivating fans and building the music industry in general. That doesn't mean that there aren't acts who could cash in big time.

To me it is one of those things where for every big success story of some band or person utilizing online tools to strike it big, there are hundreds that fail miserably so it isn't the great equalizer that a lot of people believe it to be.

So many untalented / sucky bands make it huge too. So what is your point?

I know Danny pretty well. He's living good. He's 50, one of the best drummers in the world, and has put his whole life into it. They are under contract for one more album (which is almost finished), after that I wouldn't be surprised if they went that route. Funny thing is they have to do an album every 5 years, they are into year 6, and Maynard is the one holding it up. I've never met Maynard, but I know the rest of the guys pretty well....they are super fun and unpretentious guys.

BUT, shouldn't that be up to Mr. Tool to decide.

He was saying that Louis CK cashed in using digital downloading directly from his site and cutting out everyone else. I was pointing out that the reason for that success is that Louis CK has spent the last 15 years building up an audience and he has a very successful TV show both of which are things that aided him greatly in that success.

It isn't like he is some unknown comic who decided to sell a recording of his act and made millions from it.

Most of those bands fail due to follow through, not any measure of talent.

Pearl Jam literally came and studied the Dead to figure it out. They succeeded because they created a community, which is what the Dead did, and that had nothing to do with being a 60s hippie act. The Dead were small fries in the 60s compared to their peers from SF. Sure Pearl Jam started at a place with chart success the Dead didn't hit for 30 years on the same charts, but they finished in the same space almost 30 years later - playing their hearts out to their live audience and cultivating their community.

NOFX/Fat Mike took his inspiration of label and ownership from the Dead and created community too; albeit in an entirely different niche of music.

Louis CK, while I can't say he was inspired by the Dead's model, he sure has cultivated a similar approach.

Most bands want a big label to come in and pay the bill for looking cool. They don't really care about their fan base. They make music hoping someone will come along but they don't work to build a live, real connection with their audience, which is at the center of what all those I listed above have done.

Think Insane Clown Posse. Most people HATE their music, their style, everything about them, yet they continue to have one of the most devoted followings out there.

This whole thing is comparable to the adult web biz. Everyone bemoans that things are not as good as it was in the halcyon days gone by but forget how much those days sucked too. They want to blame everything but their own lack of foresight into building, maintaining, and sustaining an ever greater fan base.

As I learned playing hockey, the old adage "Hard work beats talent when talent doesn't work hard" plays true here too.


"Once in a while you can get shown the light in the strangest of places if you look at it right" - Robert Hunter

The quote about hard work says it all. Also a willingness to learn. In the early 90's I wrote for a music magazine the worked for a small record label. Most bands that label signed had no idea how to promote themselves or how to build a audience and they had no interest in learning. They just thought if they put out good music and played good shows they would grow an audience when the reality is having talent and putting out good music is only part of the larger equation.

Speaking about "hard work," reminds of an article about Nickelback and their rise:

It's an interesting piece, worth reading: http://www.businessweek.com/articles...ckelback-story

Just read the article. It is interesting. It really goes to show that if you know how to market yourself and can get some breaks anything can happen.

Says the attention whore who started off working with consumption junction-Funny you don't see latona or wormack whining like a bitch. Money off "cough cough-ganked content was OK when going into your pocked".

Apparently, you have the morals you can afford. You can re-write history seeing as most of these halfwits' parents had parental controls set up to keep them from cj.

Send some more traffic to AFF and play wanna be rockstar.

First off Kurt Cobain shot himself in the head to prevent himself from turning into Nickelback.

There are two types of Musicians, entertainers and artist

An entertainer just wants to be famous and has chose music as their path. I remember seeing Nickelback at a small event at a record store in BC in 1995. They looked like Nirvana (same hair, same clothes, even the same mannerisms) and sounded just like Nirvana. Over the span of thier career they have made nothing but radio friendly shit and their music will never stand the test of time.

Same thing with Lady Gaga, she played a small club in my city before she became famous. She looked like Madonna, sounded like Madonna, her show was a slut fest just like Madonna's. Now you can take pretty much anyone of her songs and substitute Madonna's music and it fits perfectly, its all the same shit re done.

The thing with Nickelback and Lady Gaga is that they were willing to whore themselves to be famous, change their music to radio friendly formats, change their look to suit trends, and basically sell out as hard as they can to be famous with making great music an after thought.

The problem is that leaves actual artists who want to create new music or try a whole new approach basically on their own. Record companies are looking for a Nickelback that they can control and make them put out the same BS until it stops selling then its on to the next whore.

The hope for artists is that recording gear is getting better and is now somewhat affordable for home recording. The advancements in this gear have been phenomenal and myself and a lot of my friends are doing all of our own recording. With the ability to get music distribution world wide on the net is has opened new channels of fan aquisition instead of the whore channels (ripping of the look and sound of major artists to get gigs at local shitty establishments).

Maynard is right, music in the future will be done by people who do it for the love of doing it. A musician just needs to ask himself am I an artist or a fame whore.

Quoted for truth.

Good post! :thumbsup - I remember hearing Nickleback in 95/96 and thought wow. Then made mistake of buying a cd a few years back without hearing it, just a whim...Aural Vomit.:Oh crap

Weren't there studies linking downloading music to actually INCREASING sales?

There have been a few studies that show that those who pirate music and movies actually buy more music and movies than those who do not. My issue with those studies is that I think these are people who would buy anyway even if pirating wasn't available.

For example, let's say one of these people pirates 100 songs per month and buys 10 songs per month. Nobody asks them how many they would buy without pirating so for all we know they might buy 7 songs per month if there were no way to pirate/download for free so now the industry is trading 100 free songs to sell three more to this person.

I want to see that study before I fully buy into it.

Ah, the "music of today" sucks comments. My great grandma hated my grandma's music, my grandma hated my mom's music and I will hate my kids music.

Nothing changes except people getting older.

Great article music sure isn't what it use to be.

Yes, I'm sure the Pirate Bay study is very accurate.