|
my only issue with this starbucks thing is not that it's necessarily starbucks, or any notion of "selling out" to a mega corporation, that's all a bunch of high school-esque altruistic fairy-tale nonsense. whatever. any band that goes beyond playing music for their own edification is selling something, right? you make a cd, you have intention of selling or promoting your music, it becomes a product. this goes for any art medium. like i said, whatever. pimpin' ain't easy.
my issue with the sonic starbux is that it's just quite the trend in the music industry of late to offer superior product to one retailer and leave everybody else out in the cold.
examples:
the new smashing pumpkins (target,bestbuy & itunes have superior product to indie retailers)
that new Darfur Lennon tribute benefit shit (itunes has 11 more tracks than the physical cd) (& yes it's a benefit, but there was a lot of pressure from retail coalitions for stores to buy in big before it was announced that itunes had superior product)
fuckin Tesla's new cd-- best buy had a bonus disc exclusive to them.
so why do i not feel right about sonic starbux? it's not specifically them, it's just the trend to favor one retailer over another. eventually, people are gonna want to get up from their computers and go out to an actual store and experince live human contact. the record companies have been trying to fuck over the general public for years, that's no suprise, but they're also trying to fuck over the mom & pop record stores, the independent chain record stores and eventually, because the record companies are just starting to realize that the overhead cost of online business is cheaper than actually making a physical product, the big box stores. they'll still want to charge you a 18.98 or 13.97 list price for a fucking download that they have all that DRM shit attached to & you won't really own it anyway. it's not a level playing field anymore & i don't think artists see this aspect of it.
what kind of record stores were sonic youth records to be found in while they were "struggling" back in the 80's.... where can you find the SYR series, Target? Wal_mart? Starbucks? or the actual record store? who takes chances on upcoming artists of any genre? well, yeah, i could go on, but i gotta mow the lawn, yo. i know record stores are shit, most of 'em. and most of them have shitty attitude enriched employees who could care less. but i'd rather deal with that than the fucking morons at target-mart-buy-tunes who don't know nuthin bout nothin i care about.
i will be buying my sonic starbux anyway.
|