Page 23 - RYAN'S GIG GUIDE AUGUST 2014

giants being torn apart by
dwarves the prospect of
something genuinely
new and genre shatter
ing coming from one of
the major labels an
unlikely occurrence as
more money is required
getting attention and notice
in a sea of so many Soundclouds and S o c i a l
Media Sites and cookie cutter reality shows
birthing half formed zygotes of misanthropy and
balls but with even fewer guarantees of success
than before
So I'mminded to urge those who call themselves
fans to spend the few pennies each new addition
to your playlist may be asking of you or splash
some cash on an officially endorsed T shirt of the
band who gave you their album for gratis lest
future generations be condemned to pursuing
their scholastic endeavor 'neath a canopy of sadly
dangling iPods and last season’s Beats
HALF FORMED ZYGOTES
Yet even a quick search of the mighty 'Go' of the
'Ogle' will reveal a litany of similar headline grabbing
tales of the industry's upcoming demise at the
cutlasses of pirates and the morally corrupt Once
your hand written track listing on the cardboard
inset of your cassette was a show of both your illegal
act and inscrutable scrawl but wasn't deemed an act
of illegal means by any stretch to most a chance to
question their household income within the
playground to the amusement of one's
contemporaries certainly but no more than a
tongue lashing on the court steps of social conscious
If anything the copying and sharing of music is no
more a threat to the industry now as it as back then
Yes there are far more people able to get their hands
on free versions of tracks and singles originally put
out there to be sold And as noted the ease of
finding free downloads takes only as long as the
speed with which you can type in the title of the
song and hit the big flashing 'download' sign
But as ever it was advances to the artist cost of
studio hire promotional campaigns and meat pie
delivery service that all have to be paid back to the
record label before the artist sees a single dime of
their royalties from album sales The more money
put into making and promoting an album and the
more money needs to be paid back; and with costs
rising faster than a Cowell waistband merchandise
sales have always been the fatted calf for musicians
their 'brand' being wholly their own and thus not
subjected to the labels grabbing of the profits The
label needs music to sell to recoup the costs involved
in recording the songs in the first place and piracy
does nothing but drive the smaller label into
either closing up completely or being eaten up
by a much larger label As more labels
homogenize so too does their output
each new release from the industry bear
ing an uneasy familiarity with the last
and proffering near enough the self
same sound and style as every other
big house borne band or pop chart
tween Even genres normally
thought of as too outre for the
mainstream have seen a wash of
me too metallers turning up in torn
tight jeans a rebellious sneer and
bandanna / back patch sporting
frontmen aplenty
Like videogames the music world is a landscape of
COWELL WAISTBAND
madashellpromotions@gmail com
RGG August 2014 - p.23