Century Media have removed all their bands from Spotify, including Borknagar. I've made a post about it on the borknagar.com, would apprechiate your views on this guys, preferably on the bork site as the CM "Suits" (as Metalsucks call them) are most likely paying attention to the feedback.
Borknagar removed from Spotify
- Thread starter Jens Fredrik Ryland
- Start date
Alteredmindeath
Wasteland Survivor
KRaEzTaIuRmED
New Metal Member
- Sep 30, 2005
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karpsmom
Member
Alteredmindeath
Wasteland Survivor
When this next generation of spoiled little bastards grow up, this world is going to be fucked up the arsehole.
Agah
Abide
Do you honestly think that the next generation of kids are going to buy physical albums? I would very much like the future to be like that, bu realistically everything is going to be digital.
Alteredmindeath
Wasteland Survivor
I know you want our views on borknagar.com, but I'd like to post this here since I don't really engage your website very often, and I guess the faces are more familiar here.
The move is understandable because Spotify increases the rate of an inevitable trend: almost all music will eventually be delivered via the internet. Physical discs and vinyls will settle to a collector's market, and most fans / casual listeners will not be purchasing physical products. There's a lot of reasons for this, but the main one is that you can instantly buy or pirate music online. Most people have accepted the model where they pay for music via iTunes or a similar service, at least in the sense that everyone knows that downloading without payment is pirating. It's one reason iTunes was able to restore some of the capital flow in developed countries in the Americas and Europe.
I love the record store, as I grew up on a small island in the Caribbean (with a lot of people, but few metalheads). The guy at the record store who brought in discs to our metal altar was our hero. I bought nearly all my music growing up buying through him. And you didn't just go in to buy music. You would go in, talk to him, hear the grapevine. It was information plus music. That relationship is hard to have nowadays. But in a certain way, I'm here and Jens might read my post... I would never have dreamed that in 1998 I would be able to put something online about the Archaic Course and someone from the band would engage with me about it and their future plans.
That being said... the record store is going to be like a comic book store or the hobby shop. Or a music center that primarily sells instruments and other things that have to be acquired physically. That means there also won't be many of them. Online is the future, and the future in that regard is now. Spotify, Pandora, iTunes, even Amazon... music's future is digital. The question is how to protect royalties for musicians.
While I like companies like Century Media that actually record good music, remember that most music sales are fucking trash. I have little sympathy for the garbage that passes for most of pop music nowadays. Or much of rap / "hip-hop," and basically any mass-produced, recording company created bullshit. Ultimately this trend favors people who are serious musicians, because it makes that kind of 1950s recording studio hit model impossible to replicate nowadays. That's why there's so much pressure to have television recoup a lot of these losses by pre-packaging hype for pseudo-musicians using shit like American Idol.
In other words, while there's going to be some legitimate victims early on (sorry, Century Media), I think that the move to digital music on the balance is good. CM should think hard about how they distribute. Their old CD distributing networks are just not going to cut it over the long run. They have to invest in getting your music to earn money online. Part of the issue is protecting intellectual property by getting people to pay, but the other part is having that music ready to be distributed. Can CM cut out the middleman (iTunes? Amazon?) to get everyone the maximum amount of income out of your music, so you can profit and we can get awesome music?
We'll see. I'm sure you guys will be fine. I'm not sure getting your band off Spotify does you good. They're going to have to be pathbreakers in order to survive the way the digital marketplace is changing distribution. Otherwise, they're going to end up like my old record store back home... gone.
The move is understandable because Spotify increases the rate of an inevitable trend: almost all music will eventually be delivered via the internet. Physical discs and vinyls will settle to a collector's market, and most fans / casual listeners will not be purchasing physical products. There's a lot of reasons for this, but the main one is that you can instantly buy or pirate music online. Most people have accepted the model where they pay for music via iTunes or a similar service, at least in the sense that everyone knows that downloading without payment is pirating. It's one reason iTunes was able to restore some of the capital flow in developed countries in the Americas and Europe.
I love the record store, as I grew up on a small island in the Caribbean (with a lot of people, but few metalheads). The guy at the record store who brought in discs to our metal altar was our hero. I bought nearly all my music growing up buying through him. And you didn't just go in to buy music. You would go in, talk to him, hear the grapevine. It was information plus music. That relationship is hard to have nowadays. But in a certain way, I'm here and Jens might read my post... I would never have dreamed that in 1998 I would be able to put something online about the Archaic Course and someone from the band would engage with me about it and their future plans.
That being said... the record store is going to be like a comic book store or the hobby shop. Or a music center that primarily sells instruments and other things that have to be acquired physically. That means there also won't be many of them. Online is the future, and the future in that regard is now. Spotify, Pandora, iTunes, even Amazon... music's future is digital. The question is how to protect royalties for musicians.
While I like companies like Century Media that actually record good music, remember that most music sales are fucking trash. I have little sympathy for the garbage that passes for most of pop music nowadays. Or much of rap / "hip-hop," and basically any mass-produced, recording company created bullshit. Ultimately this trend favors people who are serious musicians, because it makes that kind of 1950s recording studio hit model impossible to replicate nowadays. That's why there's so much pressure to have television recoup a lot of these losses by pre-packaging hype for pseudo-musicians using shit like American Idol.
In other words, while there's going to be some legitimate victims early on (sorry, Century Media), I think that the move to digital music on the balance is good. CM should think hard about how they distribute. Their old CD distributing networks are just not going to cut it over the long run. They have to invest in getting your music to earn money online. Part of the issue is protecting intellectual property by getting people to pay, but the other part is having that music ready to be distributed. Can CM cut out the middleman (iTunes? Amazon?) to get everyone the maximum amount of income out of your music, so you can profit and we can get awesome music?
We'll see. I'm sure you guys will be fine. I'm not sure getting your band off Spotify does you good. They're going to have to be pathbreakers in order to survive the way the digital marketplace is changing distribution. Otherwise, they're going to end up like my old record store back home... gone.
Alteredmindeath
Wasteland Survivor
yeah most record stores will go out. But there will be special retailers for music lovers that like to have the artwork, lyrics, and don't want to have to depend on a computer just to listen to music. Frankly I don't like the internet, and what it's doing but Im forced to adapt. I am not forced to depend on a computer to listen to music.
Kerros
Kerry nooo!
KRaEzTaIuRmED
New Metal Member
- Sep 30, 2005
- 872
- 0
- 0
Kerros
Kerry nooo!
In case my post isn't clear, people would share tapes and home tape stuff back in the day. Did it kill the music industry? No. There was and is always going to be piracy, so why get bent out of shape with a LEGAL digital streaming service? Spotify isn't the issue. Piracy isn't even the issue. Most record labels and their business models in their current form are outdated and refuse to adapt.
AnTz0r
Crimson King
Sigurðr
Nature lover
Actually the most annoying problem is, I CAN'T FIND CD'S OF MY BANDS IN MY CITY....and when i found its something like US$ 120,00 and im not rich to go to a store and spend 500,00 in cd's... here the taxes are way too high even for importation, the price remains the same, so what i'm gonna do if my country don't make things easy? It's easy to have an opinion like 'I support metal! i buy cd's!' if you live in Norway or Sweden for example, you can find almost everything so it's easy to support, but try to support here my friend ;D Most part of the bands I actually know i thanks to the internet because my country is a piece of shit in matters like music, but i go to the shows of course, when the band cames...but that's another matter.
karpsmom
Member
Spotify isn't a bad thing in theory, but they pay an unfair amount of money to artists. There should be a minimum standard for this sort of thing in the same way that there is minimum wage for working.
AnTz0r
Crimson King
how do you determine what's fair or not? and on the base of which facts? the lady gaga story is unfounded.
There is actually only one real music store in this town, and it specializes in older bands and used albums. I mean, Walmart, Kmart, Target, Best Buy and such sell CDs, but nothing I listen to for the most part. At the rate national chains are filing for Chapter 11 and 13, there will not be any left eventually...
Personally, I usually buy direct from the bands or Amazon. Unless there is a really good pre-order, obviously.
Personally, I usually buy direct from the bands or Amazon. Unless there is a really good pre-order, obviously.
insidethefall
somewhere nowhere
Here are some of my thoughts on the future of Music...
1)The move to digital is already proved to be the future of music, there might be physical CD's if the band presses them, not the label why?
2) Labels wont exist or will exist as an exclusive underground phenomena (or a big corporate one). This will have a impact on the band who now has to become the musician, distributer, salesman, manager and every other activity that has to do with recording/producing an album and staging a tour.
3) Because of no label the band now has to come up with funds to record an album. They will also have to find a way to pay for the tour before they get a monetary return. Who knows how this will happen.
4) This could work out though, the band could actually profit - saving on physical CD's and releasing them via mp3's will keep costs at a minimum as well as working with/in smaller studios or home recording devices. Real producers with big studios will be in high demand and costly. Perhaps musicians can readily learn to be more self sufficiant and more in control of their artistic creations.
5) Sadly I just don't see many bands touring the globe. Perhaps on a package deal but even then they would probably break even. As it is today (for most metal bands) bands cannot make a living off their music, but they now have to work harder just to make a small profit.
6) There will always be metal and always be 15 year olds who congregate to drink beer and make metal music together, despite of what format they choose to record to. Thus the essence of metal at that basic level will not fade away BUT the days of the lazy musician are over, to get somewhere you can't just be lucky you'll have to work HARD which means making good music and selling your products by whatever means are most profitable.
1)The move to digital is already proved to be the future of music, there might be physical CD's if the band presses them, not the label why?
2) Labels wont exist or will exist as an exclusive underground phenomena (or a big corporate one). This will have a impact on the band who now has to become the musician, distributer, salesman, manager and every other activity that has to do with recording/producing an album and staging a tour.
3) Because of no label the band now has to come up with funds to record an album. They will also have to find a way to pay for the tour before they get a monetary return. Who knows how this will happen.
4) This could work out though, the band could actually profit - saving on physical CD's and releasing them via mp3's will keep costs at a minimum as well as working with/in smaller studios or home recording devices. Real producers with big studios will be in high demand and costly. Perhaps musicians can readily learn to be more self sufficiant and more in control of their artistic creations.
5) Sadly I just don't see many bands touring the globe. Perhaps on a package deal but even then they would probably break even. As it is today (for most metal bands) bands cannot make a living off their music, but they now have to work harder just to make a small profit.
6) There will always be metal and always be 15 year olds who congregate to drink beer and make metal music together, despite of what format they choose to record to. Thus the essence of metal at that basic level will not fade away BUT the days of the lazy musician are over, to get somewhere you can't just be lucky you'll have to work HARD which means making good music and selling your products by whatever means are most profitable.
