Jari's rant about Wintersun, Nuclear Blast, and crowdfunding

[AeonicSlumber]

I don't Facebook, and I haven't even heard Wintersun so I'm mostly just spectating here, but...why doesn't NB just drop this guy for being such an unassailable asshat? Is it because they "lose" in the PR fight or something?

Because Wintersun is one of their biggest sellers. Time did like 4k in the US in one week. I think the s\t is at like 50k.

 

[Mardoch]

And the saddest part is that, come 2020, when Time II is finally released, it'll surely just be another half hearted turd you squeezed out for all your adoring fans to gather around and lick rapturously.

In short, you kind of annoy me.

I lol'd.

Because Wintersun is one of their biggest sellers. Time did like 4k in the US in one week. I think the st is at like 50k.

That's fair enough, but when does the hassle outweigh the profit, I wonder?

 

[General Zod]

That was awesome. I pretty much agree with every word in the rant. Then again, much like the blogger, I feel Wintersun is insanely overrated, so I'm not exactly coming from a sympathetic perspective.

 

[OrionSon]

The problem with BastardHead's rant is that even though he made good points (about Jari just sucking it up and recording a studio like everyone else) is his obvious dislike of the band. I can agree that Jari is too much of a perfectionist, but I also wonder how much of the rant was just coming from his hatred of the band.

 

[Mardoch]

Milton forced me to listen to some Wintersun. I stand unimpressed. Can't win em all, I suppose.

 

[skyrefuge]

I can agree that Jari is too much of a perfectionist, but I also wonder how much of the rant was just coming from his hatred of the band.

Well, reading his reviews (which are shockingly excellent; how does a 21-year-old know how to make a semi-appropriate 'Use Your Illusion' reference?!) his hatred of the band has consistently been driven not by the music, but by what he sees as an overblown ego and the unfulfilled potential hinted at by a brilliant handful of songs. So it all really seems to come from the perspective of wishing Jari would stop being dumb and live up to his potential.

 

[General Zod]

The problem with BastardHead's rant is that even though he made good points (about Jari just sucking it up and recording a studio like everyone else) is his obvious dislike of the band. I can agree that Jari is too much of a perfectionist, but I also wonder how much of the rant was just coming from his hatred of the band.

While it’s true his rant is fueled by a dislike of Jari, his criticisms are dead on. Jari feels he somehow entitled to special treatment from his label, his fans, and even his neighbors. His comments that he’s sitting on five albums worth of amazing material, is quite possibly the dumbest thing a musician has ever said and seems intended to stoke the frustration of his fans. He simply comes across as a douche on every level.

 

[TribunalRecords]

Furthermore, his position sounds greedy. His solution isn't just that his fans should pay for more studio time for the next album, but that they should buy him his own studio. Really? Are fans now suppose to buy every artist their own recording studio?

And not for nothing, when an artist says, "I've got probably 5 long albums worth of new insanely good material! And there´s no filler material at all!", I'm calling bullshit.

Exactly. He is attempting to reap the rewards directly and bypass the company that INVESTED in him. He is onto his third album and depending on his contract the advance should get bigger as each album comes up. That is, if he signed a good contract.

Nuclear Blast is a business and their goal is to make money. Like ANY business in the world.

Honestly, Wintersun is lucky NB didn't drop them for the long delay between albums. That says something about NB's commitment to its artists right there.

 

[PureXul]

Exactly. He is attempting to reap the rewards directly and bypass the company that INVESTED in him. He is onto his third album and depending on his contract the advance should get bigger as each album comes up. That is, if he signed a good contract.

He said in this morning's novel that his manager negotiated a new, better contract after the release of Time I with a bigger advance. So yeah, even though the material was supposedly finished at the same time as Time I, mixing was commencing in early 2013, AND he had a bigger advance, he still can't deliver.

Some of the comments I'm seeing online are downright hilarious, like people wondering why Nightwish gets to spend a few months in a house doing demos, yet NB won't give Jari more money. Apparently, the idea that Nightwish delivers albums and basically prints money never entered their mind, nor did the possibility that Nightwish doesn't even need money from NB to fund that part of the process since their cashflow situation is better than the vast majority of bands at this level.

 

[OrionSon]

While it’s true his rant is fueled by a dislike of Jari, his criticisms are dead on. Jari feels he somehow entitled to special treatment from his label, his fans, and even his neighbors. His comments that he’s sitting on five albums worth of amazing material, is quite possibly the dumbest thing a musician has ever said and seems intended to stoke the frustration of his fans. He simply comes across as a douche on every level.

I don't know, five albums doesn't sound too unreasonable. It has been 10 years since the first Wintersun release, 5 albums in 10 years seems like a normal band's pace. He just happens to record at the pace of a dead arthritic tortise stuck in a tar pit.

I do agree that he just needs to take "less than perfect" from third party studios, if only for the fans. It's almost insulting to the fans who have made him what he is that he'd rather the songs go unheard than be heard at "only" 80% what he wants.

 

[nailz]

Can someone explain to me why NB would have a problem with Jari, individually, or as part of Wintersun, crowdfunding a studio to be built? So what if he records the Wintersun albums there? If he presents the album to NB for sale, I don't get the issue.

I also don't know his contract, but it seems like a pretty straight forward thing. Maybe it's not so simple, but if I'm NB, I'm probably telling him to go ahead and do whatever he wants, but if he wants to give Time II away as a reward, he's doing it from the stockpile he has to buy himself for band cost, then paying full price for the rest.

 

[PureXul]

Can someone explain to me why NB would have a problem with Jari, individually, or as part of Wintersun, crowdfunding a studio to be built? So what if he records the Wintersun albums there? If he presents the album to NB for sale, I don't get the issue.

From this morning's rant:

And I´m pretty sure I would not be able to gather enough finances on my own with just “Jari Mäenpää´s studio crowd funding” without any meaningful perk like TIME II high quality album download for example.

On one hand, he says NB won't allow him to crowdfund, then a few sentences later, he says that. If you read between the lines, it seems like NB has no problem with him doing a crowdfunding campaign to build a studio, it's just limited him on what rewards he can give away, based upon his contract.

I also don't know his contract, but it seems like a pretty straight forward thing. Maybe it's not so simple, but if I'm NB, I'm probably telling him to go ahead and do whatever he wants, but if he wants to give Time II away as a reward, he's doing it from the stockpile he has to buy himself for band cost, then paying full price for the rest.

That's likely what they told him, based on what Aeonic posted earlier in the thread. Or at least the gist of it, I'm sure there are other contractual nuances, but I think the general point is that if Jari wants to crowdfund a studio he's probably free to do so - there are just a lot of things he can't use as perks that he would probably want to use as perks.

Obviously none of us knows every detail but if you read between the lines of what he's saying, it seems like he still wants the benefits of his relationship with NB without being held to the limitations. Human nature I guess, but by the time you're 36 years old, you should be pretty accustomed to working within the structure of a give and take business relationship.

 

[OrionSon]

Can someone explain to me why NB would have a problem with Jari, individually, or as part of Wintersun, crowdfunding a studio to be built? So what if he records the Wintersun albums there? If he presents the album to NB for sale, I don't get the issue.

I also don't know his contract, but it seems like a pretty straight forward thing. Maybe it's not so simple, but if I'm NB, I'm probably telling him to go ahead and do whatever he wants, but if he wants to give Time II away as a reward, he's doing it from the stockpile he has to buy himself for band cost, then paying full price for the rest.

He mentioned in his novel how he couldn't do a crowdfunding campaign without giving away Time II as a reward because he isn't sure fans would donate without getting the album.

 

[TribunalRecords]

Can someone explain to me why NB would have a problem with Jari, individually, or as part of Wintersun, crowdfunding a studio to be built? So what if he records the Wintersun albums there? If he presents the album to NB for sale, I don't get the issue.

I also don't know his contract, but it seems like a pretty straight forward thing. Maybe it's not so simple, but if I'm NB, I'm probably telling him to go ahead and do whatever he wants, but if he wants to give Time II away as a reward, he's doing it from the stockpile he has to buy himself for band cost, then paying full price for the rest.

The issue is he would be offering something to fans that is technically owned by NB. What fan is going to fund a self-absorbed musician without the reward of music? Those recorded works are owned by NB for however many albums he has signed away to NB. Bottom line is NB owns him.

Welcome to the music industry.

 

[nailz]

The issue is he would be offering something to fans that is technically owned by NB.

So what? As long as he buys a copy for whatever cost, let's say, $50 buys you the next CD, so he makes $35 towards his studio, I don't see how NB has a leg to stand on in that argument. This isn't presented as a "fund my record!" It's a "fund my studio!" thought. Not that I'd donate to an obvious business venture, I just don't understand how NB can shut it down that way.

 

[PromisedLand]

So what? As long as he buys a copy for whatever cost, let's say, $50 buys you the next CD, so he makes $35 towards his studio, I don't see how NB has a leg to stand on in that argument. This isn't presented as a "fund my record!" It's a "fund my studio!" thought. Not that I'd donate to an obvious business venture, I just don't understand how NB can shut it down that way.

You're also thinking about this logically. Jari is working on being the second coming of Timo Tolkki right now, so I'm going to guess that at least half of his rant is not based in fact at all.

But yeah.. he said that NB would take a huge percentage of any crowdfunding with a new album as a perk. If he offers Time II as a perk with a $30 contribution and he has to pay NB $15 for the CD, then, in his mind, they just took 50% of what someone donated.

NB never said he couldn't crowdfund - he admitted as much in his initial statement. They ARE going to get their contractual due from him for any album releases, however.

 

[dcowboys311]

There's nothing presented about the extent to which NB 'shut down' the idea. Based on his recent writings it's entirely possible that he's exaggerating, leaving out details, etc. Maybe they prohibit the idea entirely, maybe the only allow it with certain caveats that he does not want to accept. It also might set a precedent that NB doesn't want to set, or piss of some of their other artists.

 

[AeonicSlumber]

So what? As long as he buys a copy for whatever cost, let's say, $50 buys you the next CD, so he makes $35 towards his studio, I don't see how NB has a leg to stand on in that argument. This isn't presented as a "fund my record!" It's a "fund my studio!" thought. Not that I'd donate to an obvious business venture, I just don't understand how NB can shut it down that way.

It might piss off their distributors to lose what I would imagine would be an enormous bulk of the initial sales of that record. It would also piss off the people who handle the mail order side of the label because they lose out there too.

And they would inevitably lose their first week chart positions worldwide as well, which would throw a lot of things into flux. Agents decide tours based on this data, marketing does campaigns based on it, etc.

 

[General Zod]

I don't know, five albums doesn't sound too unreasonable. It has been 10 years since the first Wintersun release, 5 albums in 10 years seems like a normal band's pace. He just happens to record at the pace of a dead arthritic tortise stuck in a tar pit.

The odds that any artist is just sitting on five albums of material, with "no filler", fall between slim and none. First off, how many bands have put out five consecutive albums without a single bad track? Take whatever miniscule number that is, and divide it by the number of bands who didn't actually write any of that material between albums, but rather simply pulled it all out of an old catalog of songs they already completed. Then multiply that by the factor of Jari (a guy whose rantings suggest the mind of an individual completely removed from the realities of the music business) and you have your answer.

 

[PromisedLand]

The odds that any artist is just sitting on five albums of material, with "no filler", fall between slim and none. First off, how many bands have put out five consecutive albums without a single bad track? Take whatever miniscule number that is, and divide it by the number of bands who didn't actually write any of that material between albums, but rather simply pulled it all out of an old catalog of songs they already completed. Then multiply that by the factor of Jari (a guy whose rantings suggest the mind of an individual completely removed from the realities of the music business) and you have your answer.

So, you're saying there's a chance?