you explain how In_Rainbows sold so many copies online?

and also, a great deal was actually paid for by wealthy elites, and donated to Churchs in memorium or penance etc etc

most paid near to nothing for it.

rennaissance wealthy elite = the catholic church man!
they all were preators or deacons or had their children ordained into the chur ch. it was aall bouts the MONEY and still is.

churches fooled everyone into paying for their shit, and you know this. the vatican sits atop a pile of the world's money, much of it pilaged from south and central america. they rule because they have the money to back up their shit. it all feeds the godhead.

It's funny when people in the UK talk about America's most popular sports. They're basically macho derivations of UK sports.

Netball = Basketball.
Rounders = Baseball.
Rugby League = American Football.

I call religion the true opiate because it is all lies. it is al lies fed to sheep to make them think that they have earned eternal life, that the cares and concerns over this current (and ONLY, in my opinion) world are just a pr4eclude, a segue into eternal life sucking at some deity's teat.

THAT is the true opiate. the fastest growing religion worldwide is pentecostal. a religion that preaches the end times as coming soon, that preaches that life as we live it now is worthles and the real life is the afterlife. this is growing fastest ion the nations that have the most poor the most needy the most people who need actual real help, instead of platitudes and fucking lies, ouright LIES told to them t let the accept theirstate in life.

instruments/pedals/studio time/recording costs etc. all cost money. i think that music should be something which is accessible to all - both to create and consume. didn't sonic youth rely on the money of a couple of wealthy scene ppl in nyc to get their stuff recorded at first? not everybody can afford to take out loans. and music should not be hierarchical (with only the stuff that the rich like being produced...the competitive nature of capitalism makes it so that people have to compete to get the $$$ approval of a relatively select few)

also yeah, i'm talking about ppl who download music for free from their favorite artists but dont ever support their tours/merch etc.

anywho, i think that we can all agree that the problem rests in the music industry

What's any of this got to do with sport?

I'm also convinced that they have (enough) money...however, the youth seem pretty open about the fact that the record industry has been one giant headache...and that they have had to consciously make some decisions that many of us call "selling out" in order to be able to afford to support their children/pay their bills

also, lots of artists are just trying to cut it even by touring...

music being accessible to all does not equal being FREE

if CD's were sold at a reasonable cost, which it is not now, as the markup on a $16.99 CD is around $10.00, it wopuld be fine. a person working a minimum wage job could afford to bvuy two or three CD's a paycheck.
that is the way to go.

giving it away for free accomplishes nothing. people just do not take care of, or truly appreciate, that which they did not have to sacrifice for, wether that is in terms of work, or money, or a trade of some kind.
they just DON'T. the one exception I can think of is in gifts, and even those are easily disposed of or re-gifted by people.

music costs money to make. rehearsal studios cost money. equipment costs money. pressing your own CD-R's to give away at shows costs MONEY.
to ask that someone recompnese you for the LP you are selling them is a small thing.

fuckers who steal and download everything their hard drive can stand can go fuck themselves. they are thieves flat out, outright. they deny this to fiurther their own self-delusion.

while most bands in record contracts do not make money for themselves through record sales, what they DO make money for is t pay their tours off, their advertising, the cost of presing CD's and making t shirts and posters and of paying promoters to make sure the local radio station interviews you when you are in town, etc etc etc. the more a CD makes the more of a chance the band will get a longer contract, and be able to function as a touring act for the next decade or so.


BIZ-NASS.

Frisbee and Hacky-sac are my favorite 'sports.'

Edit: oh, what? we're talking about piracy now? thats a fun sport too

yup. let's not forget how many in the music industry are also thieves. it's total bs that somebody such as patti smith is still in debt...

Do you play conkers in the States? :)

No. I've never seen anyone play it, but it sounds fun.

'Mother May I,' anyone?

except for that when you listen to it on youtube you don't own it/can't put it on yr ipod...or maybe im incorrect & computer illiterate.

I buy music when I can afford it. There, you happy? I'm not talking about sports and games anymore.

I think music is competitive and it's a sad thing.
The interest in watching athletes lay in that they're better in their category than most human beings. (or faster, stronger etc.)
Some people expect the same from musicians, they want the BEST, objectively.
Satriani, Hendrix, Steve Vai, few people can play like them, therefore they' re the best.
It also apply in classical: there are piano contests, and the winner is the one who plays the fastest, without fawls.
Also in jazz.

In that context, I find The Ramones and The Fall very refreshing.

ahh, but if the contest were to play the most raw shit, the Fall or the Ramones or Unsane would undoubtedly win right?

all human endeavor is competetive, and only thsoe who are coddled or who have never had to work for jack shit in their lives would think otherwise.

There's a World Conker Championships that's been going for the past 45 years. :)

http://www.worldconkerchampionships.com/

No. Because it can't be measured, gauged.
The volume can be measured ("everyone's deaf for life, you win" :D )

ahh, but how many people fill a venue and pay the cover CAN be measured!

Yep.
So Madonna, Britney Spears, Tokio Hotel etc. are the best artists?
Is that it?

nope. but in terms of SUCCESS (meaning money in yr pocket here), they are winning currently.


I was referring to a given town, or scene. the band that draw the mopst will get the best gigs, yes, even if they SUCK. that's life.

To elaborate a bit on what Rob's saying - there are definite criteria for a band being 'good' or not, in much the same way that a fan of sport claims their team is 'the best'. These criteria are always contingent and rarely have any bearing on reality - for instance, England are a large margin away from being the best cricket team, but I swear they've got more spirit than the rest of them.

Where people get confused is that criteria doesn't mean empirical, or scientific criteria - you can no more put a band on a bit of litmus paper than you could fit an American Football side in a test-tube.

I've gotten many, many high-profile or desirable gigs (of the kind I want, at least), and a TON of opening slots for bands I worship or enjoy without feeling like I "competed" for the slot against other bands.
Also, most of my bands have had a mid-level draw at best. A loyal, but by no means super-enormous audience.
Sometimes it's just about being a "musically compatible" choice for a particular bill.

Rob, you talk about being in a band like someone who works in a law office.

I drink beer but I'd choose a Paris Hilton movie over sports any day.

there's no feeling of competition because yr band is better than most opening acts.

and by most, I mean, all of them.


do you WANT super-enormous?

I'll have my imp draw up the documents...

you don't mind signing in blood, do you?

it's much more...permanent.

Are you hitting on me?

calm down, thats only the record company thieves talking, they have convinced you, but its ok, you will see the light soon my brother! The record company doesn't pay artists shit on individual album sales or loss of sales, they get advances and up front deals, and royalties are small change unless you are MJ or Nirvana or Bob Marley big, and even then, if you are that big there are that many more parasites.. from your local band at the bar to the $100 million gross a show Rolling Stones, the real money is in the gigs and the tours.

Only the record company makes money of record sales. Destroy the bogus capitalist record company scheme. DOWNLOAD=FREEDOM my friends..

no. I'm trying to offload some Extenza.

if I'm able to then say "I listened to them before they were super-enormous", so be it.

I don't want you to take this the wrong way, but can you even conceive of the fact that some people might find statements like 'that's only the record company theieves talking, they have convinced you...' patronising? I mean, you're saying the counterpart of Rob's (equally patronising, and hereby paraphrased) 'all religions dupe people into giving them money when they should be getting stoned and failing to approach physics in the appropriate academic fashion'.

Having said all that, if I read this in my own voice there's no way it wouldn't sound patronising. But then, I am all your fathers. So suck it up yo.

Nope. I talk like someone who has very close friends trying to make a LIVING playing music, one as a composer/performer, one as a jazz drummer, one in a metal band out in LA, etc. I guess I speak more from a band manager standpoint than just a dude trying to make tunes with buddies. .
I was referring to the similarities between being on a sports team and being in a band.

both playing sports and being in a band require teamwork, practice and skill.

enough said?

I thought about that yes, but it remains true does it not? Is not all the that big money in album sales going to the record companies? How much money do people who sell thousands of copies an album make, even if they get high industry standards such as a dollar an album divided amongst like 4-5 bandmates, the promoters, the managers, the studio technical folks etc etc? The money is in tours, I am sorry if the truth comes across as condescending, but it remains the truth. I only used that tone cuz Rob was insinuating that people who do not buy albums are terrible, which is wrong.

further, what difference is downloading from tape trading or passing out CD-Rs? Am I stealing if I ask a friend to give me a copy of a really good album I hear at his house? Am I hurting the artist? Where do we draw the line?

i said people who download albums are STEALING.
people download albums from every label, small, indie, to large corpo. they do not make distinctions. they fuck over whoever. that is terrible to me.

most young bands do not make $$$ off their record sales but they finance a lot of what is pre-paid, lik I mentioned earlier, recording studios, marketing, promo items, cdpressing, LP pressing,. distribution, etc., with those record sales.

if they do not sell they get dropped. simple as that. people downloading their shit illegally does not help the bands at all.

The facts of an argument do not stop its tone being patronising. Obviously, this is the internet, we're all using rhetoric to a degree. I just find the force of desire to impart an argument seems to overtake the articulation of the argument itself.

tl; dr - learn2Schopenhaeur.

and what about tape-trading? is that too much a slippery slope for you to take the same argument against? I believe that downloading for personal use is the same as tape-trading. It is those who SELL downloads and bootlegs that are fucking thieves, and it is those who BUY bootlegs and PAY for illegal downloads that are depriving artists of $$$. Free downloads for personal enjoyment is called promotion Rob.

did you not notice that I said I only used that tone to MATCH Rob's INSINUATION? i resent his accusations of en masse stealing of albums by downloading, that is bullshit! Stealing is to go and take something that was for sale. Hacking into iTunes to download is stealing, getting an MP3 copy of an album from a website or friend online is not stealing. Perhaps stream-capturing (which I am guilty of) or recording streams using and audio program is stealing, but not simply downloading a music file that you did not pay for. Rob's argument is a red herring, designed to make the supposed thieves SMELL SO BAD to the artists we don't actually investigate the details and degree of downloading and its definitions as stealing ;)

stealing is taking that which does not belong to you, and has nothing to do with whether the item is for sale or not.