WOEBOT

congrats on the liner note writing gig! I'm dying to know who it's for--email me if you're not allowed to say so in public yet, please . . . !

Hey Matos!

Sorry blud, been sworn to secrecy. You'll be the first to know.

oooh! unfair! still--exciting, and congrats again!

i've always thought the "try then buy" argument was facile. unless, ofcourse, the mp3s are at a band's web site. the intent of users on slsk seems to be to share whole albums and that, obviously, obviates the need to go out and buy the product. (unless you're of the completely hi-fi bent where you want to experience those sub base and ultra high frequencies that mp3 encoding removes).

i still download and cut the albums to cd and my only reason for doing this is monetary - my adsl connection at home is paid for by work and i have 5gig a month to play with. i can honestly say i've only purchased 10 cds in the past year but have added > 100 to my collection. and that really is wrong.

I think the thing with mp3s is that there is just no good way of figuring out how many people are "trying then buying." I wish I had numbers that let me know how many people are going on to buy records/concert tickets for the music I post on Fluxblog, but there's been enough anecdotal evidence to suggest that yeah, at least some people are doing it. I've downloaded lots of music over the past few years, and bought only a small percentage of it, but that's a lot more to do with the fact that I've been mostly unemployed for that period of time. I still like to buy records, I just can't afford to do much of that right now. I suspect that goes for a lot of people.

I'm not totally convinced that the same percentage of people who would buy a record after hearing a song on tv/radio/an artist's website isn't about the same as if they first found the song on an mp3 blog.

i think there is another thing people are missing in all this.

SPACE!

all those records take up a lot of room! all mine are at my parents now, and most of my cds also, i only have about 20 or 30 with me here in london, i'll probably take those back with me next time i go also. so, you know, when it comes to buying a new cd, its like, well, do i really want this, its only going to go and sit on a shelf in another house. and i think THATS a big problem for the industry

(yes, yes, you can talk about the cd/record as 'tangible artifact' etc etc, but so many cds/records have mediocre design, or are those horrible digipaks, who wants those?)

i remember, when cds first came out, i was all, "oh no!", didnt want records to vanish, but really, underneath, i was relieved, much as i love some of the vinyl i had, i didnt want any more of it. its become the same with cds.

Even though I'm enjoying running an MP3 blog I know what you mean Matt - we encode at 64kbps mono mostly for space reasons but also because that means the files are shonky enough that there is a quality gap should you want to buy it.

I agree that 'try-before-buy' is a bogus argument in specific cases - people don't *usually* repurchase records they've got as MP3s, I do it occasionally but not at all consistently. Offering one or two MP3s as an example of something - a style, a band's work, etc etc - is what I try to do. But of course all that then happens is people who like it can download everything else free on a P2P anyway.

Oh, and can I just allay my paranoia here about the naughty MP3 robbers you mention up top? I hope one of them wasn't me! Unlikely as it may sound the "Tickle Tune" we put on PopNose came (via a birthday CD he handed out) from Tim H's own vinyl copy (I have the 160kbps version as proof!) - repackaging MP3s without acknowledgement of the source would be 'bad etiquette' even among the low-down thieving world of the Interweb pirate, I think.

to Matt
a survey like that would be good. maybe we should run one? i dont think it's "wrong" to offer up mp3s in good faith, i just think the punters have to download them in good faith.

to tom
ah well i had thought that tickle tune mp3 had come via twanboc, so i'm pleased that it didnt. there were other "thefts" (thinks, what the hell am i talking bout?) me, i never retag, but even that's a hokey screwed up petty moralism. sorry to be all grouchy.

i have been checking the realplayer out on a pc today, and think it performs really well. streaming straight out the gate i LOVE! it might be a bit of a nuisance but i'm going to stick with it....

one other thing i've found that only one of these promotional cds i'm sitting on has fucked-up sound, so maybe there are other factors. still i know the recording industry have started to dole out promos as c90s...

Phew! Glad to have cleared that up.

A survey would be a good idea, organised by someone with a blog and made anonymous it might attract more honest answers. When the question's come up on ILM there's been a split between people who buy even more music than before and people who buy almost nothing, and Matt's right in that there's an age gap going on with that.

I think anonymous or not, people in the music blog audience are all too aware of the implications of admitting that you don't use MP3 downloading as a tryout method for CD purchase, so I'm not sure you'd really get anything like an honest answer. But I could be wrong.

That said, and props to folks for admitting their MP3 reliance, I for one buy about 2/3 of the CDs I do as a result of hearing an MP3, and I usually try and purchase at least half of the CDs I download off SLSK, as I currently have the resources to do so (and I'm a music nerd to boot). And I can say with some confidence that with Matthew's audience and format, any sane indie publicist would shit their metaphorical pants to have an MP3 of one of their bands posted there; the focus of two tracks a day, every day, make it a kind of combination of endorsement and implied focus, rather than it being simply one track amongst many on the radio or a promo compilation.

This makes me think that it would be nice to set up some sort of central MP3 blog organization where we could attempt to get blanket licenses from indie labels to post MP3s, should the need (and legal pressure) arise. I don't think it would be too hard, given the current network of interlocking MP3 downloading service agreements. (iTunes, Lunchbox, etc.) I have some experience in this area, and I imagine others do too, so folks should feel free to contact me if they're interested in talking about it.

This would work mainly only for in-print artists, however; the other thing folks seem to post, i.e. obscure, out-of-print stuff, would have a wholly different legal and moral justification. But I do honestly think that many MP3 blogs serve the record industry far more than they do damage to it, however. P2P's a different story, though.

note no-one is attempting a robin hood moral defence of ripping off the people who rip off the people (& artists)...as a non-total nerd (no moral implication) i mostly use mp3 at work as aural wallpaper & tend to buy what i want as a result of having heard it...this is particularly the case with my friend woebot's musical kit which is otherwise lost to me & i suspect many others...how else would i know about les vampyrettes...however...realplayer really is the devil...buffering

a bit of a shock that no one is dropping in the whole "the music industry is a collapsing model" argument... which is the TRUTH as far as i'm concerned.

i work at one of the best record stores in the world, and they've been getting a lot of press lately, what with Tower and Wherehouse slowly falling apart and the whole big new WEA buy-out and lay offs and stuff... and their quote to the press is always "we're not worried. people are still in here buying records"... but talk to a 14 year old who discovered music via mp3 and they have ZERO attachment to the artifact. CD's mean nothing. Vinyl only means something if you're trying to be extra hip or a DJ (or both).

I guess this is me with the Robin Hood defense, but the music industry is FUCKED and that's the best news i've ever heard. Let the illegal file sharing continue until they've fired all the dead-weight middle men and lowered prices to something reasonable (or start paying the artists).

Every month some major music company is merging, or laying off thousands of people. When the dust settles, it's guaranteed to be a better system than it is now, but illegal file sharing is neccessary to stimulate the process.

I'm attached to the records. I need them, but music as an intangible thing on a computer or iPod is really the future... i just wish they'd realize that mp3's are already ridiculously small files and that they should move for a cd-or-better quality format.

...and yes, artists are getting the shaft through some of this, but i guarantee that a smaller music industry business model is a better thing for artists.

it would help the record industry a great deal if

labels we'ren't taxed with mcps everytime a a record or cd is pressed up .

the stuff wasn't taxed as luxury goods for export within the eec etc - fucking over distributors ,consumers and record labels .

the majors gave up and left music to people that actually care about it and the welfare of artists etc - BUT -
i think now is one of those times where more interesting music and music from independents is getting through the blockades- ie franz ferdinand is a start .. dizzie rascal was a start - great artists may be able to get thru without reducing themselves to celebrity tactics and signing to a label that would n't necessarily have their interests at heart .

it's worrying that people are beginning to attach no significance to the fact that music is made by people who, like everyone else need to earn a living - and who may belive the myth presented by the press that people who make music for a living are stinking rich.

mp3's are just data to alot of people - this is worrying because they might stop believing music can enrich and change their lives - or they can share moments with other people enjoying it socially .

I live in a city and a country where it is NOT possible to purchase most of the music that is posted or mentioned on woebot, fluxblog, gabba, gramaphone, etc. Buying over the internet means prohibitively high shipping costs. MP3s through Fluxblog and the rest are a lifeline to good music, new music, music that I would not be able to listen to any other way. I think the kicker for me here is that these are single, isolated songs being offered on these blogs, not whole albums like on the P2P networks. MP3s play different roles for different people...

to Eppy
Eppy if you say one more nice thing about me I'll strangle you.

to Rewch (aka Doobie Hell)
Stop whingeing Doobie. I know RealPlayer is ugly as sin under OS9 but I'm well impressed by it's sonic performance. You getting buffering problems? It's encoded for a 56k modem so you should be OK...

Ben (aka Kid Hood)
...riding through the glen...i sorta hear you, but not all record company employees/major record store employees/journalists/music magazine proprieters are the devil. thats a lot of jobs going to the wall! also unless we get an ethical way of dealing with mp3 filesharing (like the iStore for instance) then we'll NEVER have even a small business model.

to mms
"it's worrying that people are beginning to attach no significance to the fact that music is made by people who, like everyone else need to earn a living - and who may belive the myth presented by the press that people who make music for a living are stinking rich."

i hear you blud.

to gokhan
"shipping costs" hmmph. not with you on this bro.
http://www.independance-records.co.uk/
http://www.juno.co.uk/

and if you get really stuck drop me a line and i'll burn you a cd. anyway you shouldn't be too "impressed" by "us." at the end of the day (while yes, i do dig hot sounds) you can find music *we* would be fascinated by right on your doorstep.

gokhan - take advantage of the us exchange rate at the moment ..
www.forcedexposure.com has a wide selection of records of all styles at reasnable prices .

either that or you can order over the counter at most shops.

one of the things that has happened recently in the US is that the falling value of the dollar has had a knock on effect for smaller labels, ie that they're often having to move to smaller distributors as the older systems that made more economic sense when the dollar was stronger don't work anymore.
it may mean having to cut dealer prices which is better for the consumer, not so good for the labels but it also means the chainstores, which bigger distributors essentially deal with don't send back half the cd's they've ordered because they don't sell at the overpriced import prices they're being charged at - basically the consumer has said no to overpriced cds, the chains are falling apart and things are getting smaller - but it feels in a lot of ways a very positive thing

of course i know there are tons of wonderful people being laid off in the music in music industry... and that sucks. but this is an industry (and i speak here of the big 5-and-shrinking) that has grown unchecked for like... 45 years. It's a machine that continues to throw SO MUCH money away on outdated marketing ideas and records that are just plain garbage. I'm not trying to get all survival-of-the-fittest on you and I don't want anyone to go hungry, but it's a bloated model sustained by inflated prices and now the shit's hitting the fan and it's about time.

...and meanwhile the indies are doing alright. No sweeping lay offs reported yet at Touch & Go or Drag City. Matador just put most of their catalogue up on iTunes and seem to be having a good year. I want artists and industry folk who genuinely care to continue to make a living, but the notion that being successful in the music industry = being filthy rich is a notion that ought to die.

and yes, of course i'm standing on this soap box talking about change, but I have no idea what the model ought to be.

Gokhan is exactly the kind of person I want my blog to reach - for me, it's not at all a "Robin Hood" sort of thing, I'm genuinely interested in getting other people to hear the music that I'm excited about, and hopefully get those artists more exposure/album sales/ticket sales/international distribution/record contracts/critical reevaluation/whatever. I don't want to see the record industry fall apart, and I'd rather work with record companies than against them. I think MP3 blogs can be a valuable way of promoting records on a volunteer, grassroots level. Think of it like street-teaming, but with mp3s.

to Matt Perpetua

I can see that with the type of tracks you're posting you're being pretty responsible (like you give a shit what i think, grin)

Recent Grime CDs which I've mailed to interested parties all had "NO FILESHARING" written on them in big red letters, cos I see this as a scene which definitely can do without being sucked involuntarily onto the net, though im not sure what the artists opinions would be, maybe they'd favour it? with lethal b going on about his colt 45 i'm not taking any chances ;-)

i say go for it, and i this is reflected in the tone i adopted above (if a little ambiguously). mp3s are certainly are more seductive propostion than .rm files. i'm just happier to be incrementally more legal....

...i realize i'm being a bit overly anti-everything here. It's easy to get swept up in revolutionary grandstanding. It's just that every day i see how much is WASTED by the major labels and i feel like their implosion and the shuffle being caused by filesharing is only going to help level the playing field and make things better for music makers and music lovers. y'know?

Wait, who's going to strangle me? This seems important.

But just to cover my ass: you all suck like an angry drunken zombie Ambrose Bierce. Wait, that's good. Damn.

I try not to have "the MP3 argument" anymore, but I'll just throw out the idea that the artists are going to continue to be fucked over as long as they are dealing with companies. Companies aren't supposed to act in the artists' interests; they're supposed to act on their own. If this is really a concern (and honestly I don't think it is--artists hardly know what their own best interests are half the time) either artists need to farm out their marketing and distribution to individual for-hire companies which are explicitly there to carry out their wishes--which, given mosts artists' skill at dealing with distribution and marketing, might not go so well, frankly--or they need to be subsidized by the government, because then the profit motive would be removed and you could just deal with the music, man. But the problem with reverting to indies is that for every nice indie label, there's 5 shady ones and 10 outright fradulent ones, and Touch & Go and Matador can only afford to sign so many bands. The majors' business model might suck--no disagreement there--but at least they'll be in business long enough for you to sue them if they don't pay your mechanical royalties.

yeah, i know all about, forcedexposure, tunes.co.uk, juno.co.uk... check it, i live in ISTANBUL, TURKEY...you know how much these cats charge for shipping to Turkey...i'll put it this way...why would i pay an extra 30-40% on a record for a piece of music that i could download for free or preferrably sold directly over the internet for a a $1 or so. i have respect for the artists who produce this stuff, i want to PAY but i don't see anybody rushing to produce a system to sell the newer dance, independent, alternatve tracks via the internet. fluxblog etc. are sort of a life line for me...and i make it a point to download only the stuff that fits into my sets...a

i have a long & personal antipathy to the hell of realplayer & its proprietorial tendencies & i will whinge!

the robin hood model was intended only to summarize a certain (usually self-) justification for copyright violation i.e. record companies are so evil and profitable that any offence against them can be morally justified...whether they are evil or not they will have to adapt to the emerging markets & their forces or die...using the law in an attempt to stop that is just canute-like

keep rocking doobie

I think we've only just scraped the surface of musicblogging. Already there are too many sites posting on the regular for me to LISTEN to all the interesting stuff that gets up and I listen almost 24-7 to music. Ultimately space considerations for hard drive and storage management along with time constraints are going to make a "keep the big fish throw back everything else" mentality prime.

This may not sound important but it DRASTICALLY changes the fundamentals of music geeking. Traditionally, it's always been about accumulation, but I don't think it'll be that way much longer. Now form is entirely secondary to information; i don't WANT that unwieldy box set (the Herbie Hancock box comes to mind... and that thing won a grammy for packaging, didn't it?); I want the MUSIC.

So once we drop the obsession with packaging and start to focus almost exclusively on content, quality starts running the show.

Time to start looking to the future. Today's generation of thirteen year olds are going to see a computer to be as necessary an appliance as a television and internet service to be as basic as a telephone line. Any voice will have the potential to sway popular taste if the QUALITY is there.

With my own blog, I'm excited about the potential of disseminating "lost" music to britney youth. Smart labels will recognize that potential and start hiring people to run "official" musicblogs. I can't believe that this isn't the right way to sell your content: WITH content.

Having said all that, I understand what you're getting at RE: blatant ugly artist-disrespecting piracy, but lumping Sean and Matt into those that practice that kind of behaviour is counterproductive. Obviously, that's not their (or my) tactic. It's important that we don't throw the baby out with the bathwater.