This week we here at TheVine are positing a new column. The idea is that Group Therapy will operate as a semi-random music industry related Q&A, a missive we send out to a great many artists in order to gauge their feedback on any particular issue.
This maiden edition is a good way to start: back in October last year, journalist Andrew McMillen was intimately involved in the One Movement festival in Perth (a festival which, incidentally, has just been
deferred pending a review of the event). McMillen was well placed to engage with a wide array of artists attending the five-day event. Whilst there, he saw fit to ask them all this question:
"Your recorded music is an advertisement for your live show. You should not expect that people will buy your music. Agree/disagree?"
Responses below.
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Agree:
The Jezabels (Sydney, pictured, above left)
The Jezabels - 'Mace Spray'
"I guess so. You can’t stop downloads, and I’d rather people have the music than not. Also I think it’s a pretty healthy thing for a band to view touring as their livelihood. It’s when you contact most of the people who might become real fans."
The Great Spy Experiment (Singapore)
"Do you mean it the other way? That is, if our live show - as an advertisement for our recorded music - sucks then we should not expect people to buy our music? Either way, I probably agree. The best thing about our live sets is our dancing. And you can’t get that on our records. So we understand if you don’t want to buy our CD."
Big Scary (Melbourne)
"I agree. I started realising this switch in the industry a few years back. For most musicians - I don’t think this necessarily applies to super famous and successful artists like Lady Gaga etc - firstly, the live stuff is usually band’s bread and butter. Secondly, people can get their hands on so much free music from downloading and blogs and all the streaming on Myspace that it’s not easy to encourage them to spend on what they can easily get for free. We’ve been giving away our singles all year because we know it’s better to get people to our shows."
Richard In Your Mind (Sydney)
Richard in your Mind - 'Candleabra'
"I agree that recorded music is an advertisement, but it's a product too. That's the great thing about music: it comes in different forms to be enjoyed in different ways. Some people don't like going out to shows, they prefer to sit in their lounge room listening with a cup of tea. Less people are actually buying music because of the internet, I guess, but there will always be those who still pay for it."
The Holidays (Sydney)
"Ha - I don’t want to get in trouble with our label. But yeah, kinda agree. If we were independent then I’d disagree, but with the way things are these days with torrents and all that, we can only hope that our recorded music is an advertisement for our show!"
The Only (Australia)
"I’d like to ask you: With the decline in music sales, should event promoters be expected to pay more for artists to combat the artists' lost income as a result of free downloads? But seeing you asked first...yeah we see our releases as advertising for our live shows, but no less than we see our live shows as advertising for our forthcoming releases. Getting precious about any of it is just stupid, though. Embrace new times and move with them, rather than trying to grasp onto the way things used to be done. What we care about most is that people are listening to our music, regardless of how they get it. We hope they buy it and support us that way. But if they don’t, and instead show it to five friends who like it and they all come to our show, then that’s cool, too."
The Circus (India)
"Definitely. In today’s day and age, music CDs are outdated as a medium for spreading of music and act only as a representative of the band at the particular point of time. [The CD] is now definitely an advertisement as well as an accessory for a complete live performance."
The Lost Souls Club (UK)
"I think the music being an advert for the live show is just a situation we have to deal with as musicians. Ideally it’d not be the case, but if John Lennon couldn’t get people to give peace a chance, how will we get kids to give paying for music a chance?!"
Drawn From Bees (Brisbane)
Drawn From Bees - 'The East Wood Fox'
"I don’t mind if people steal our music, because the only way to connect with a band is to listen to them. However, it really irritates me when people steal one song. If you’re going to steal, take a whole record and really immerse yourself in the band, take time to sit with your “purchases” and really grow to love them. Bands put a lot of work into assembling collections of work and that cannot be captured in a single song. So if you are going to swipe music, take the time to listen to it and appreciate what you have stolen, if you love it then get off the couch and go and see the band. I guarantee you that the band will sound way better live through an amazing PA system then they will in a crappy set of iPhone headphones."
(Continue next page to see who disagrees)