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Dear RIAA, We Love You!

October 12, 2007 in "Rant" by Kyle Brady [Shortened URL]
Tags: America, Music, RIAA, Technology, The Internet

As you may have noticed, the music industry has been shaking up lately thanks to Radiohead, Madonna, Jamiroqai, and Oasis… along with The Pirate Bay and TorrentSpy, of course.

When will this end? When will the RIAA realize it’s performing an exercise in futility, cut losses, turn tail, and go home (metaphorically speaking… or am I being serious…)? There’s a couple answers in this “perplexalation” (I just made that word up, and I’m going to use it daily).

Big Names

For the recording industry to truly fall apart, there needs to be bigger artists to sign on to this. I don’t have a link to it, but Nine Inch Nails did all of this months ago. Now Radiohead and Madonna, two artists who are in very different genres and speak to different people, have jumped on the bandwagon. Who’s next? It’s hard to say. Many up-and-coming bands already do the online album “thing” from their MySpace pages, and (as I wrote about a few days ago) Prince gave away his latest album as well.

So let’s do the tallying of the artists’ categories:

(1) Pop Music [Madonna]
(1) “Alternative” [Radiohead]
(1) Goth Rock/Alternative/Synth Rock/Whoknowswhat [Nine Inch Nails]
(1) College Frat Boy and Teenage Females Music [Oasis]
(1) Obscure R&B/Funk [Jamiroqai]

Notice anything? Two of the most popular genres in the country are missing: Rap/Hip-Hop and Country.

Rap

I honestly believe that for the recording industry to fall, it will have to be a fight across all fronts. That being said, I have a hard time believing that artists within this specific circle will give away their albums for free, or resort to some other non-label methods. Why? Maybe I’m wrong, but when the songs you make are typically about how much money you have, how you spend it, how hardcore you are, and how you are “legit” now that you’re on a label… that doesn’t exactly scream “I’m progressive”.

Artists that are respected by those outside the rap community have a large sway in both directions, and so there is a chance this can happen. Jay-Z, Kanye West, 50Cent, and Eminem are the few handful of names known in households around the country… they are the ones who will have to innovate (Jay-Z is notorious for being creative and innovative, so I fully expect his participation soon).

Country

I don’t know much about country, but something tells me if one artist starts on the RIAA destructowagon, they all will. Perhaps that’s just my predjudice against music that sounds the same no matter who it comes from, and a lack of change or innovation in the genre for the last 25 years, but who knows. Maybe they’re all secretly geniuses waiting to spring their supreme intelligence on the world.

Why The RIAA Is Retarded

Seriously? Suing your clientbase for being interested in your products? Didn’t the MPAA give that up years ago, and let the movie pirating market over in Asia take it’s course? And I seem to recall reading somewhere that movies like Spider-Man and Harry Potter have had the greatest box office sales in history?

The RIAA needs to give up. I haven’t bought a hand-on-plastic CD in at least 6 years. This all started with Napster, and will not be ending any time soon, no matter how many people have an illegal lawsuit brought against them via spying and something akin to wiretapping. Apple realized that the market for digital music sales was huge, waiting to be discovered… look at where iTunes has gone. Amazon just got in the game. Smaller bands/artists now sell their songs individually through their websites.

Do you really need any more evidence?

Goodbye, Cruel World

I’m hoping that the lawsuits The Pirate Bay has filed in Sweden against the major labels gets traction. When companies are illegally mining for your personal data through networks, and then suing you based on it… yeah, that needs to be stopped. Just because you have alot of money doesn’t mean you can stomp on the face of a 9 year old girl who may not know exactly what’s going on.

Metallica has a new album coming out in the Spring (supposedly). Wouldn’t it be the greatest irony of all time if it were released through the internet, and not a label… repenting for their past sins of attacking their fans? I hope so.

Fran

I agree with you, but there is one category you don't mention... electronic. I don't know if you know much about it, but a lot of people write it off because its not mainstream at all in the states. The past year or so I've come to really immerse myself in it, and the funny thing is that there are even more subcategories of electronic music as there are categories of other music.
The funniest part is that the majority of people seem to have this view that it is all just called techno...but in reality techno is just a small part of the whole electronic music world. There is everything from trance(for the drug goers) to drum n base, to electro-house. Its a huge and ever expanding world, and often gets underestimated because they think its all for gay bars and pill poppers.
My theory, electronic is where music is headed and growing. The scene is exploding in Europe like never before, and slowly but surely its seeping its way here.
Basically... i think it needs to be taken into consideration when discussing a topic like this, because the electronic music world works in a very different way. People don't sell albums, they sell individual tracks. And people buy them off sites like www.beatport.com. There are tons of sites like that, where individuals are getting huge, and small labels are getting big names. Check it out lol.

Kyle Brady

Hmm... good point. Maybe electronic music will be a crucial factor in Europe, but I doubt that it will have immense impact here in the States.

That being said, I do know "they" have been distributing "their" music online since I've been on the Internet, I'll give you that. It just hasn't made a large impact outside of that community.

Dear RIAA, We Love You!

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