Distracted from title composition by melancholy Italo synth

[alexsarll]

Is anybody aware of any musicians making public complaint or comment about Spotify? They're all happy to sound off for or against filesharing, after all, and any of the complaints about filesharing (except, obviously, 'I'm not getting paid') surely apply to Spotify too. Plus, the obvious extra one of the ads - yesterday I realised that I should probably have heard Public Image Limited's Metal Box and used Spotify to rectify the situation, but the main result was that I have the Ladyhawke song from that beer ad stuck in my head. Now, OK, complaining about Spotify which *is* paying would be biting the hand that feeds...but since when were pop stars averse to doing that? Patrick Wolf slags off MP3s while expecting fans to invest in his new album in exchange for an MP3 copy of it. And admittedly he's a bit of a berk these days, but he's hardly alone in that. I might just have missed the relevant quotes, though it seems like something CMU would cover - if so, please enlighten me. Vague recollections are as welcome as links.

Saw a fashionable young persons' band play their first show outside North America last night, but in spite of the self-parodically indie name (or is it knowingly self-parodically indie? Who can keep track anymore) I rather enjoyed Natalie Portman's Shaved Head. Bouncy electro-indie, fun rather than trying to be cool, and an audience to match. And the great thing about the Flowerpot is that if you're not a fashionable young person who wants to be grooving down the front, you can still find a seat with a decent view. Back of the net.

The main reason I took any notice of Kim Stanley Robinson asking why no science fiction has won the Booker was the letter he quotes from Virginia Woolf to Olaf Stapledon, in which she quite correctly admits "you are grasping ideas that I have tried to express, much more fumblingly, in fiction. But you have gone much further and I can't help envying you - as one does those who reach what one has aimed at". Robinson himself has never been much to my taste, and none of the SF novels he advocates as worthy Booker winners are ones I've read, though I could certainly name a few other candidates. Beyond that, he wasn't saying anything new, and seemed to have missed the point that whatever its original intent, the Booker is a prize for middlebrow book-group literary fiction, which is a genre like any other - even to the extent of very occasionally throwing up a good book (The Line of Beauty may be Alan Hollinghurst's weakest but it's still well worth a read, sub-Brideshead TV adaptation notwithstanding). Even when Booker judge John Mullan's rebuttal presented himself as a convenient example of a species of straw man we might have hoped extinct, bullish about his ignorance rather than simply complacent (he 'said that he "was not aware of science fiction," arguing that science fiction has become a "self-enclosed world...it is in a special room in book shops, bought by a special kind of person who has special weird things they go to and meet each other." Must have missed the bit where it's all over the cinema and TV screens, but then he probably still believes neither of those is a proper artform either, the dessicated fool)...well, his loss. But the point where I finally got annoyed was when another judge, Lucasta Miller, said in the October 10th 'Week in Books' feature puzzlingly absent from the archive that "When I reread the six, the one I felt had the highest chance of still being read in 100 years time was Summertime by Coetzee...In the event, the majority vote did not go to the book most likely to be read in the far future".
It says so much that a Booker judge, even one less wilfully stupid than Mullan, could consider a hundred years hence "the far future". Even if we assume - as literary fiction by default assumes - that things carry on much as before, that the coming century brings no ascent into posthumanity, then there are children alive today who will be around then. Only if we take the line - but this is again the province of science fiction - that catastrophe is coming, can we expect everyone now living to be dead then.
This is the smallness of scale, the littleness of thought, which defines modern literary fiction. People who would kill their own children to be Woolf but don't even see that Woolf knew she was no Stapledon. I've long said that in the 21st century, you can only write historical fiction or science fiction, because by the time your book hits the presses, 'now' is over. Things change too fast. The Booker shortlist, if nothing else, has confirmed my point for me.
(Yes, I know that's a slight oversimplification - you can write historical science fiction, such as Arthur C Clarke's wonderful The Fountains of Paradise, which I'm reading at the moment. Slipping between a thinly-veiled Sri Lanka two millennia past and a hundred years hence, evocative and visionary, it's exactly the sort of thing the Booker would have loved if it had only limited its scope and intelligence a little)

Comments

[myfirstkitchen.livejournal.com]

"I'm not getting paid" can apply to Spotify too for artists who are on there c/o their label rather than independent distribution - there's an awful lot of black box accounting to the labels going on, which the majors are perfectly happy about given that they were given a big chunk of money as part of the service's start-up costs.

I've only heard private moans, though - including from independent bands hit by the legitimacy of the service, of all things. Mainstreamish fans of theirs who wouldn't dream of downloading their albums illegally or really not know how to do it have told them with pride that they haven't bought the new record but have listened to it over and over on Spotify because they feel OK about it knowing it's legal and the bands are "getting paid". This is a pain for said independent bands, who would have got at least a fiver out of the CD sale since they sell most copies directly at gigs or from their website, and at least 40% of the iTunes price, but will be lucky to see 5p in a year from all the streaming of the album combined. See also: "you shouldn't mind not being on the radio if people are listening to you on Spotify and YouTube", failing to realise the latter pay fuck all but the PRS income from mainstream radio play, however slight and even at 2 in the morning, can be the only real money a lot of songwriters see from their art.

[barrysarll.livejournal.com]

Small bands, particularly mates, are the one case where I still really make a point of buying CDs, for just that reason.

It's terrible the way that the brave new era of the internet democratising music has if anything entrenched the major/indie divide - see also the discrepancy in terms on Myspace Music.

[stoopidbird.livejournal.com]

No there are major artists complaining too because the amount they actually receive is still a total pittance compared to CD sales, which *is* slightly biting the hand that feeds them a bit. In fact a couple of our biggies (whose hardcore fanbase would always buy physical anyway - and what they're doing by having their content on Spotify is increasing their audience, dur) have pulled their entire catalogues from all streaming/ad funded DSPs as a result of seeing the royalty rate breakdown.

I totally see the problem for the independents though.

[myfirstkitchen.livejournal.com]

It's a mess, and the more that self-appointed music strategy experts (I'm sure you know the internet idiots I'm talking about) talk as if there is some kind of sustainable new way of doing all of this, the messier it gets. Live income isn't the solution. Merch isn't the solution. Broadcasting your entire life, giving all your music away for free and putting up a tip jar isn't a solution. Nor is streaming income or "pay what you like", or doing an Amanda Palmer and spending more time flogging used underwear and posting naked pictures for cash than doing anything creative. Even combined it comes to not very much unless you're right at the top, where the costs are so high it's unsustainable anyway and artists will struggle to get up that high and maintain that position in the future.

[barrysarll.livejournal.com]

Aside from the top percentile, I think the people who could maybe carry it off are the ones with a certain cultish audience. Nine Inch Nails being one band who are already doing so with what I believe to be some success, but at a smaller scale I bet, say, Half Man Half Biscuit could do very well if they played the net right. Of course, part of the reason people love them is that it's precisely the sort of thing they'll probably never do.

But yeah, still not an answer for all the other bands, even ones like the Indelicates who inspire rapturous devotion in not quite enough people.

[myfirstkitchen.livejournal.com]

NIN and HMHB can only do that because of years of sustained investment and support through the old model. No use to anyone new.

[myfirstkitchen.livejournal.com]

Hence HMHB being able to get away with a few gigs a year and driving home afterwards, carefully picking which towns they play in which year to maximise turnout and merch income.

[barrysarll.livejournal.com]

OK: Enter Shikari. Sold out the Astoria unsigned, all courtesy of the web. I have no idea how well off they are, but I think they do the band full time.

[myfirstkitchen.livejournal.com]

They had a) massive parental investment b) a massive publishing advance c) top PR, live agents and pluggers on board thanks to a) and b) and d) a distribution deal - so effectively a record deal just in different bits and with their own name on it rather than a label's. They also now have a major deal with Warners in the US and are doing very nicely, thank you, nice big fat advance there. They did not come completely from nothing, they just used the money and contacts at their disposal early on sensibly instead of to buy drugs and new guitars like most stupid bands.

[barrysarll.livejournal.com]

Fair enough, I suspected a) or similar (and hence c)) but was unaware of b). How come publishers are still doing that now record companies have realised it's a relic of the old era? Because they still get money from film soundtracks, online plays, ringtones and whatever?

[myfirstkitchen.livejournal.com]

Well, they're not doing it so much now, but they were then - it's a fair few years ago now. But yeah, the major source of income for a lot of artists now is syncs - adverts, films, TV, games, ringtones etc. Lily Allen recouped a lot faster on her publishing (thanks to syncs and radio play) than she did on her record deal advance (based on sales). She's only just recouped the latter for her two albums, her earned money before that came mostly from syncs, PRS, merch sales and endorsements (not so much live income, because of the cost of putting her on the road).

[steve586.livejournal.com]

For what it's worth, Rags & Tags is on Spotify and I haven't seen a penny! I have no idea how it got there either. It's quite funny, as my previous two singles - the ones that actually did any business - aren't.

[myfirstkitchen.livejournal.com]

That'll be a distribution thing - it'll be up there because the distributor put up their catalogue at a given time, accounted to the distributor and then the distributor will eventually pass any income on to the label and then they to you after taking their respective cuts. Except it will probably never make it to you because who can be bothered accounting at any level for less than 2p per quarter for a given track? It'll end up in the distributor's black box after "rolling over" for quarter after quarter and then end up in their back pocket or divvied up between their top earners. Unless they're very, very diligent.

[barrysarll.livejournal.com]

Which then leads to a further problem for streaming services - people talk about the decline of ownership and how the future is streaming, but for as long as that sort of legal issue can make something disappear from streaming services, there's still a reason to own things.
(Similar instance of self-defeating pulling of music - I've had times where stuff I legitimately bought from Emusic has disappeared from my computer, and I've gone to redownload it and found that Emusic no longer offers that album. So I source it elsewhere with a clear conscience - and frequently the only way to do that is by getting the entire discography. Which, if the act's work had still been on Emusic, I might well have bought in the end)

[myfirstkitchen.livejournal.com]

Spotify pay out 1p per stream including royalties to artist and songwriter, if I recall correctly, and obviously cuts are taken out of that by the distributor, the publisher, PRS, the artist's manager and anyone else with a claim to the income. Fun.

It's also unsustainable even at those rates, they don't want to pay per play at all and think it's stupid, because they only take 14p per user per month in advertising revenue if they're not a premium user. So if Joe Pepfan plays 15 songs a month, he has already lost Spotify 1p. Many "free" users play more than 15 songs a day. It's not hard if you listen to whole albums or playlists. Just as Emusic will stop working as soon as it becomes properly successful as in more people using it and using it to its full - they've already dramatically reduced how many songs new users get for their cash per month.

Whereas last time I got played on Radio 1, it netted me about £90 per play. £7 for 6 Music, about £2 or less for local BBC radio. My Last.fm account has paid nothing.

[myfirstkitchen.livejournal.com]

The Register printed the figures a while ago. Advertising supported models are not sustainable for many things, they are mostly surviving on venture capital (which is also what allowed them to throw cash at the labels in the first place to get the major catalogue). As are Twitter. The cash will run out before they make a profit, YouTube is yet to, but probably not before they are bought by a massive conglomerate (maybe even the likes of Vivendi might fancy controlling the lot) or superseded (if Apple decided to do their own version for less per month and more catalogue, for example).

[myfirstkitchen.livejournal.com]

Aye, those with a tidy income (or parents with same), those who can make records at home alongside a day job that doesn't kill them and don't mind that only five people listen and those who are priority acts for majors will be alright. Everyone else can go hang...(including those who think house shows are a solution for more than a handful of musicians).

[myfirstkitchen.livejournal.com]

Oh and of course push versus pull - the music played by bigger names in radio and telly is pushed at many many consumers who have it on in the background or between other things or for all sorts of reasons. Streaming audio is pull, people have to seek it out. Of course if they do they probably pay more attention, but they have more things grabbing for their attention.

[barrysarll.livejournal.com]

There's a list of five at the top of every artist page, surely? And it normally seems to be reasonably sensible recommendations, where even Amazon (who have had a lot longer to sort their algorithms) have given me some real howlers before now - Nickelback derived from NIN was a particular low.

[barrysarll.livejournal.com]

OK, yeah - I was on Two Gallants at the time and they had recommendations, but clicking on the stuff I'd been listening to before, Foetus didn't, and that's an act with quite a cult following. And yeah, a self-generating one would make sense, though that could also be the sort of system which gave me Nickelback (yes, I'm still shocked and appalled, does it show?)

Incidentally, CMU seem fairly certain that yes, Spotify's aim is to push everyone towards subscriptions as the revenue model, and also fairly uncertain as to how exactly they're planning to drive that.

[barrysarll.livejournal.com]

I've never had that one. Mainly Argumental lately, though the one for the blood donation service right next to a deeply homosexual song was the most impressive for AdFail.

[barrysarll.livejournal.com]

That's interesting about Emusic - makes one wonder if, like the mustard-maker who didn't make his millions from the mustard people ate but from the mustard they left on the side of the plate, Emusic themselves make their money from the downloads people allow to expire.

[boyofbadgers.livejournal.com]

Blimey, have you really not read Signs Of Life?

[barrysarll.livejournal.com]

No, I only know Viriconium and his Jerry Cornelius contributions. I will get round to more someday, but there are just So. Many. Books. Even once you do rule out the sort of timewasters who make the Booker shortlist.

[sbp.livejournal.com]

I've not read it either. Must correct.

I have read a whole stack of KSR though. A bunch of his earlyish stuff was out at the same time as cyberpunk was getting big, so it got swept up with that. Although I can't think of a favourite right now.

[barrysarll.livejournal.com]

The last thing I read of his was about how men were apes and women were dolphins and the former raping the latter in the shallows was how humanity started and, frankly, it was a bit icky.

[stu-n.livejournal.com]

No defence for John Mullan's ignorance, but the most important sentence in his comment was 'The Booker judges depend on what the publishers send us.'

[barrysarll.livejournal.com]

It's a vicious circle, though - if the Booker always rewards middlebrow realism, then why waste one of your two (iirc) submissions making a brave gesture in favour of SF when you know it's likely to be facing cocks like him who'll dismiss it within ten pages?

Nonfamous Musicians

[beingjdc.livejournal.com]

They will have to go offshore if they can't make a living from live. It's sad and upsetting, but lots of things are - factories have closed all over England for the last few decades because people don't want to pay the price it costs to make things here. I'm not entirely clear why, if it's to be a full-time income, we expect music to be qualitatively different from shoes, clothes, or toys. No, that's all there is to it, it's bhangra beats for us from now on. Making music that brings in an income of £150 a month? That's the national average income in Georgia, or enough to live an upper middle class lifestyle in NewcastleNigeria.

Re: Nonfamous Musicians

[barrysarll.livejournal.com]

Or, just have to keep up the day jobs. Which means it would be nice if there were still some day jobs, but there you go.

[burkesworks.livejournal.com]

The Booker is judged by, and aimed at, the kind of people who buy their books at a rate of six per year from one of those mail-order book clubs with mailing addresses in Swindon whose bumf you'll find bundled along with the Sunday Telegraph next to the Innovations catalogue and some irrelevant 8-page advertorial about skiing in Klosters. You know the sort I mean - the Merchant Ivory audience. Not exactly your traditional SF readers, despite future Booker winner Margaret Atwood making the shortlist in 1986 with The Handmaid's Tale. God only knows what they'd have made of the earlier output of nominees such as Burgess and (especially) Ballard.

[barrysarll.livejournal.com]

I'm not so sure. I think those people go more for Richard & Judy-nominated stuff, whereas Booker readers think they're cultured and make a point of patronising (in both senses) their local independent bookshop, or failing that Waterstones over Borders, for no very clear reason.
Merchant Ivory is dead right, though.

[tintintin.livejournal.com]

John Mullan was actually one of my tutors at university, although his particular literary period of choice was the Restoration and early novel - populist things like post-modern novels and SF were left up to slightly embarrassingly wannabe-trendy old men like John Sutherland (who was wearing the white-soled Vans that were ubiquitous in the late '90s before most of his students, despite being over 60). You may be horrified to learn that Mullan was one of my better tutors, as well... But yeah, that's a retarded and myopic statement that he's made there. It's like saying that the Morte D'Arthur is not valid as a piece of literature because it shares themes with trash like Terry Cooke's Shannara potboilers or something.

[tintintin.livejournal.com]

And, ironically enough, I've just remembered him during a seminar waxing fairly lyrical about some HG Wells.

[barrysarll.livejournal.com]

Oh, well that's different, that's not SF, that's classics! We had a teacher I used to delight in taunting with all the fantasy elements in Shakespeare, Dickens and indeed most anything written before the current consensus reality was enshrined. But yes, similarly he was a very good teacher, at least within the area where he had fortified himself against everything else.

Sutherland's the one does those books of 'How many children has Lady Macbeth?' and the like, right?

[tintintin.livejournal.com]

Yeah, tedious and pointless pedantry of works of literature ranging from great to obscure. The one I remember was his postulation from Dracula that the rate of vampiric conversion meant that the entire population of the world should be vampires by the time Jonathan Harker even goes to Castle Dracula. The sort of dick-swinging academia that adds nothing to anyone's study of the books; it's just him showing how many books he's read and then acting like the annoying person who whines during a film about how unrealistic it is.

[barrysarll.livejournal.com]

Indeed. I read a couple where he seemed to not even have an answer he was happy with and instead veered off into bluster about how he hoped he'd helped us appreciate the book for its various other qualities. Well, no, not so much, you pointless man.

[verlaine.livejournal.com]

Natalie Portman's Shaved Head was fairly ubiquitous in Seattle last year when I was there - I was at or somewhere near two of their shows. Separated by oceans, maybe we should start using bands as carrier pigeons for messages... if the internet explodes it might be the only remaining way.

[barrysarll.livejournal.com]

If the internet explodes, I think one of the less-noted consequences would be a significant lessening of the global reach of Natalie Portman's Shaved Head.