COMMENT: The Decline of the Music Business.

In a recent Rolling Stone report, the magazine looked at the ever declining Record business, and how industry experts are proposing the new era of the music industry should look. They have five or so suggestions for the record labels to help them succeed in the digital age. And although they had some great suggestions, I would like to offer my insight to the conundrum.

First and Foremost - Rolling Stone had a suggestion that all music should be offered "ad-supported". This meant that music downloads should basically be free for the consumer while generating advertising revenue at all of the free music outlets. While this might seem like a good idea there are a few flaws to the logic, and I don't see it being the savior of the dying labels. The ad-revenue will just not be enough, and what's to say once person A gets the music for free he won't just email the .mp3 file to all his friends who will never even see the advertising, or visit the outlet.

Essentially the problem is the value of music in the digital age has become nearer and nearer to zero all the time. Prior to the CD and the .mp3, recorded music had value if only because it was the highest quality recording. Every time a consumer made a copy of a recorded piece of music - the quality was worse, and worse so the original had an intrinsic value. Not so today - any Joe Schmoe with a computer can created the highest quality lossless copy of original recordings and give them away essentially de-valuing the original. Why would I pay for the CD when the only thing of real value anymore is the artwork? The simple answer to this: Make all music free to the consumer. It is the only answer.

Think of it in these terms, if music has no monetary value anymore, why must I keep "selling it"? Instead, why not find some other value for it? I could see giving away music as a huge marketing campaign supporting all the other offerings an artist has at their disposal. Licensing, product endorsements, live performance; these are all things that can and do support artists everyday without ever selling records. It means that instead of trying to market and sell an item that has no value (recorded music), the artists would market and sell something else that does have value, themselves. They would become their own brand, and generate revenue from this source. And what better way to make sure everyone in the world knew who you were, than to give something away for free?

What do you think is the answer for the music business? Leave a comment and discuss...

Read the Original Story here.

Artist Spotlight: the Matches

I must first admit, that the inspiration for this post came from watching the following video for the Matches video "Salty Eyes".

The video, is inspired by the Bob Dylan film clip for "Subterranean Homesick Blues" which is a classic video of him flipping through keywords of the song all written on poster board. The Matches take on the video, as you can see, has them heaving various decrepit analog TV's displaying them in front of a steady cam before dropping them gloriously on the floor. It truly is a work of art.

Thus I decided to look into the band a bit more, and discover all I could about them in our first artist spotlight!

The matches are comprised of Shawn Harris on vocals and guitar, Matt Whalenon the drums, Justin San Souci on the Bass and Vocals, and lastly Jon Devoto on Guitar and Vocals. The band hails Oakland, CA as their home turf, similar to bands like Green Day and Rancid, and musicians like Elvis Costello and Joe Jackson. Originally calling themselves the Locals, the band members diligently promoted themselves at rock concerts and other venue's where music fans could be found. After a run in with another band titled "the Locals" out of Chicago - they changed their name to "the Matches", and kept blazing their rock music.

DISCOGRAPHY:

E. Von Dahl Killed the Locals


The first album cut by "the Matches" after their name change. The title cleverly poke's at having to change the band's name. They first released this album sans record label, after having recorded much of it in their garage, bedroom, or wherever they could find room. After being picked up on Epitaph records, the tracks were remastered, and re-released with the new label's mark on the album.

Decomposer


The sophomore effort by the matches fully released under their label Epitaph. The album features a full fledged mick of rock-saviour punk, as well as power pop ballads. It has quickly risen to popularity amongst the California music scene. The band went crazy during production of the album, and had nine separate producers each produce a track from the album. According to the albums wiki page, "John Feldmann of the band Goldfinger, Mark Hoppus of +44, Tim Armstrong of Rancid and Brett Gurewitz of Bad Religion and owner of the label Epitaph Records are among the A-list production team".

For More Info:
the Matches Website
the Matches MySpace
the Matches on Wikipedia

What do you think of the Matches? Leave your comment below!

American Idol Contestant Scares, Children, Elderly

ALL OVER AMERICA, In an unprecedented case tonight, American Idol contestant Sanjaya Malakar was reported to have frightened 50% of the viewers of the popular prime time contest with his "Utterly awful" performance. The frightened individuals responded in a survey taken by the National Couch Potato's of America, and were comprised mostly of women, children and elderly. It has been highly suspected that the remaining 50% were simply trying to act tough.

"It was really scary!", one smaller viewer was quoted. "His Hair looks like a monster!". Other people interviewed after the contestant's performances Tuesday night compared the mangy-maned singer to a wookie, a stalker, a creepy individual, and most uniquely to a fuzz-brained-half-witted-explative. "I just don't like it when he stares at the camera like that", exclaimed Jane D. from Texas. "It just gives me the Heebie Jeebies! I would not want to cross him in a supermarket at all!"

Mrs. D, a sweet old lady from the great state has been an avid follower of the American knock off show. It hasn't been until this season that she has seen the show decline. "If it weren't for the bingo night being on Monday's, I wouldn't watch it at all. I do like watching Paula dance when the boy's sing though."

American Idol, in it's sixth season this year, has drawn record numbers of fans over it's short past, and has made the careers of such great artists such as William Hung, and of course the all time great - Ruben Studdard. Other honorable mentions have included Carey Underwood, who's fledgling career has started to gain the attention of Nashville.

This season however has been plagued with controversy. Many fans find the contestants to be mediocre in comparison, and downright awful. "What's up with that no-neck woman", claimed B.J. Icanovichomeister. "I could do better than her!" In fact of the survey respondents in the N.C.P.A survey, an overwhelming majority were disappointed with the talent represented this year.




***Note: In case you haven't already figured it out, the above story is a parody of the ridiculous phenomenon that is American Idol, and should be taken as such.