AI music overtakes real band its modelled on

[SteveXFR]

21 hours ago, Supernaut said:

Streaming is a cancer. If you stream music, you're part of the problem. 

 

There you go. That looks very much like saying using streaming is wrong

[Supernaut]

Does it benefit the artist? Are they given a fair payout? 

[Cato]

Streaming music has led me down some great rabbit holes.

 

Last year I started researching the earliest recorded guitar music, which led me to some great stuff like Charlie Christian and Django Rheinhart and led eventually to me 'discovering' semi forgotten gems like Lonnie Johnson and Charlie Patton.

 

I get that it's not great for current artists trying to make a living, but it's also an absolute treasure trove for older music that may otherwise only be obtainable through years of browsing old vinyl at record fairs looking for 1960s reissues of the original 1920s and 30s recordings 

 

 

 

 

Edited 3 hours ago by Cato

[tegs07]

5 minutes ago, peteb said:

 It wasn't thirty years or so ago! 

 

I remember even in the late 80s early 90s pubs being rammed to capacity when the most established local bands were playing so can well believe it. It’s not something I witness now but I have limited exposure. It may well still be a ‘thing’?

[tegs07]

5 minutes ago, Supernaut said:

Does it benefit the artist? Are they given a fair payout? 

Not like the good old days! Things have changed though. The music industry has changed. People’s priorities have changed. How people spend money has changed. Their aspirations have changed. 

Taking advantage of these changes is far more constructive than moaning about the good old days. The propensity of the UK moaner is something to behold. No matter how much resistance we have the next generation will see things differently, they will use technology differently and they will spend their money and time differently. Musicians made money from recorded music for a very brief period in the big picture. Probably a couple of decades in hundreds of years. That era is over.

Edited 2 hours ago by tegs07

[Supernaut]

Musicians earning fair payment is now 'moaning'? Okay. Hard to have a discussion with someone who thinks otherwise. 

[tegs07]

6 minutes ago, Supernaut said:

Musicians earning fair payment is now 'moaning'? Okay. Hard to have a discussion with someone who thinks otherwise. 

The key phrase is by recorded music. Musicians made money by selling records and CDs for probably about 40/50 years in several centuries.

Musicians made money before the gramophone. They make money in the digital age. The important part of the debate is how. Not moaning about the change. Embracing the technology that is available to make a living. I would say that even in the glory days getting well known relied on getting a record deal, getting a promoter etc and unless bands were hugely successful they saw very little money. In many ways smaller bands are better off without the good old days.

Edited 2 hours ago by tegs07

[Supernaut]

Do you think musicians have a fair payout for streaming music? 

[BigRedX]

21 hours ago, Supernaut said:

Streaming is a cancer. If you stream music, you're part of the problem. 

 

So how do you suggest that we listen to new bands?

 

There are many bands who only release their music on-line, are you saying that we should ignore all of them? Even if the bands can afford to release their music on a physical medium often the cost of sending them out can make them prohibitively expensive. CDs aren't too band but the postage and packing cost for an album on vinyl can double its price, and if you want it to reach its purchaser you have to package it well and send by a reputable service. Here in the UK it may well preclude sending to most foreign in destinations as I described in a previous post. That limits sales of CDs and vinyl to those at gigs.

 

Download sales on Bandcamp, which is about the main source of legal downloads for most bands these days are generally insignificant for new bands. To give you an idea of how insignificant they are last year my band's Spotify streaming payments alone were far greater than our Bandcamp income. Download sales on Bandcamp are generally good for the first week or two of a new release and then tail off to nothing with the occasional sale of our entire catalogue to someone who has just discovered us. On the other hand our income from Spotify is steady and continuous, and that's just from Spotify and not taking into account any of the other streaming services. Also great as Bandcamp is, the audience is mostly other musicians and a few die-hard music fans. Unfortunately these are are not sufficient for most bands to grow their audience in any meaningful way. To do this you have to be on a streaming service.

[Supernaut]

Go to more gigs and buy directly from the musicians. 

[tegs07]

1 minute ago, Supernaut said:

Do you think musicians have a fair payout for streaming music? 

Do you think that you are missing the point? No is the answer. Do I think people are going to start buying records and CDs again and restricting their social lives to pubs and working man’s clubs? No

 

So we can’t re write history. We can utilise technology. Even in the glory days I have read enough autobiography from people in smaller bands like The Fall, Spacemen 3 etc to know that they earned very very little from sales of recorded music.

[tegs07]

7 minutes ago, Supernaut said:

Go to more gigs and buy directly from the musicians. 

This is getting very circular. How do I find these musicians? Talk to my middle aged IT mates? Ask my kids? How do they find the bands? Streaming and social media, they don’t read the NME or listen avidly to John Peel (largely because he is dead), they don’t join bands by taking the little serated number from the add in the local corner shop. Like it or not the world has changed and it’s digital. I don’t do social media as I genuinely have concerns about the political and social ambitions of the big tech companies so streaming is the least worst option.

Edited 2 hours ago by tegs07

[Supernaut]

Dude, just go to a venue and watch a band. You can live life without the Internet. 😁

[tegs07]

4 minutes ago, Supernaut said:

Dude, just go to a venue and watch a band. You can live life without the Internet. 😁

I do. I just tend not to blindly pay £25+ for tickets, £7+ plus a pint and £15 plus on transport on a whim. Like most people. 

Edited 2 hours ago by tegs07

[SteveXFR]

19 minutes ago, Supernaut said:

Dude, just go to a venue and watch a band. You can live life without the Internet. 😁

 

But without the Internet, how will you tell strangers they don't need the Internet?

Edited 2 hours ago by SteveXFR

[SumOne]

1 minute ago, SteveXFR said:

 

But he without the Internet, how will you tell strangers they don't need the Internet?

[neepheid]

16 minutes ago, tegs07 said:

I do. I just tend not to blindly pay £25+ for tickets, £7+ plus a pint and £15 plus on transport on a whim. Like most people. 

 

Aim lower - at the local level here at least, door tax is less than a tenner, and the pints are £5-6.   Still no effer want to get off their fat one (and their heads out of Instagram's backside...), but that's our fault for not being all "HEY, WE'RE IN A BAND, WE'RE GOOD, YOU SHOULD COME AND SEE US" all over the socials, because it's bloody gross and quite ikky to have the begging bowl out, whoring ourselves to hell and back again just to try to coax a few folk to come and see a band.

[tegs07]

5 minutes ago, neepheid said:

 

Aim lower - at the local level here at least, door tax is less than a tenner, and the pints are £5-6.   Still no effer want to get off their fat one (and their heads out of Instagram's backside...), but that's our fault for not being all "HEY, WE'RE IN A BAND, WE'RE GOOD, YOU SHOULD COME AND SEE US" all over the socials, because it's bloody gross and quite ikky to have the begging bowl out, whoring ourselves to hell and back again just to try to coax a few folk to come and see a band.

 

I am in my mid 50s. The days of frequenting random gigs mid week are 30 years behind me. The generation that you need for that are teenagers to mid twenties and like it or not they get their information from the digital space. 

Edited 2 hours ago by tegs07

[peteb]

56 minutes ago, tegs07 said:

I remember even in the late 80s early 90s pubs being rammed to capacity when the most established local bands were playing so can well believe it. It’s not something I witness now but I have limited exposure. It may well still be a ‘thing’?

 

Even in the 00s, decent cover bands were packing out pubs. These days, if you get anywhere near half full, the landlord will talk about it being 'full' and the best night they've had for months! I was talking more about the 80s / 90s original bands, when if you put on any reasonably credible rock show you would expect a couple of hundred paying customers (more in many places). 

 

Unfortunately, those days are long gone, due to a mixture of changing fashions, more alternative forms of entertainment and (above all) people having less disposable income to spend on going to see bands. You still can get decent attendances in some places (especially in more affluent areas), but it needs to be more of an event and tends to favour certain genres or tribute bands of one kind or another. 

 

[neepheid]

6 minutes ago, tegs07 said:

 

I am in my mid 50s. The days of frequenting random gigs mid week are 30 years behind me. The generation that you need for that are teenagers to mid twenties and like it or not they get their information from the digital space. 

 

You assume I play mid week.  And I'm only 5 or so years behind you...

[tegs07]

41 minutes ago, neepheid said:

 

You assume I play mid week.  And I'm only 5 or so years behind you...

Or weekends. Most of the time I have commitments and strangely enough getting in at gone midnight doesn’t gel well with getting in to work and doing a decent job. Your rant is not for me. If you don’t want to prostitute your self on the socials or want people to use streaming platforms that is up to you but as you said “no effer want to get off their fat one”

 

So I guess it’s everyone else who is at fault for not knowing about you?

 

I will continue going to see relatively unknown artists who I discovered in the digital space. I hope that I contribute in some small way to them making a living.

As I have already said most of these bands have an audience no larger than The Fall in their early days and from what I gather previous members hardly made a fortune from record sales even in the good old days.

 

Edited 1 hour ago by tegs07

[BigRedX]

These days, the only originals bands playing mid-week are well-known ones with a couple of albums out who are on tour and have some sort of financial support from a record label or management company.

 

Here in Nottingham gigs by new bands are on average £10 on the door (and at some venues free).

[Al Krow]

The internet is not going away! Enjoy using it or don't. 

 

Spotify has been a massive blessing to music listeners all over the world. It would be great if it paid bands better, for sure!

 

It seems to me that streaming is to music, what libraries are to books. Don't think anyone is arguing that libraries are evil, and everyone should buy all their own books?

 

It's certainly not either/or: I love listening to music on YT and Spotify. I also love regularly gigging and being by paid decently by venues who know the worth of live music as part of what they offer their customers. 

[SteveXFR]

16 minutes ago, tegs07 said:

 

I am in my mid 50s. The days of frequenting random gigs mid week are 30 years behind me. The generation that you need for that are teenagers to mid twenties and like it or not they get their information from the digital space. 

 

 

Im late 40's and still go to plenty of gigs. Even get involved in the odd most pit. At a lot of the gigs I go to, im far from the oldest.

Gigs aren't just for young whippersnappers

[tegs07]

2 minutes ago, SteveXFR said:

 

 

Im late 40's and still go to plenty of gigs. Even get involved in the odd most pit. At a lot of the gigs I go to, im far from the oldest.

Gigs aren't just for young whippersnappers

It’s not necessarily an age thing. Some middle aged, middle class professionals will go regularly to gigs at random. I would not rely on them randomly stumbling across my band though if I was trying to make a living from music.