Interesting comments from Curt Smith, Tears for Fears

[Greeny]

I thought these were very sound, interesting words on the state of the music industry from Curt Smith.

.......

I got my first record deal when I was 18 years old—next year that will be about 30 years ago, so I have been doing it for quite a while. The industry when I first started was very much one-sided in the sense that it favored the industry and not the musicians. We would sign deals when we were quite young that were pretty bad across the board: from record deals to publishing deals, even management deals and touring. You just didn't make as high of a percentage as you would now. But of course that has changed over the years, especially in the last few years with the internet and sharing your music with people.

Technology has changed so much that now, people are quite capable of making records themselves. It used to be a very expensive process, but its not anymore. In the past, the industry controlled how your music got out there, so if you didn't have a record deal it would never be on shelves; there was no Amazon, there was no iTunes. There was basically just radio, and the record companies controlled that as well. Now, with the freedom of the internet, people can go and discover your stuff.

The down side is that there is now so much music, some form of filtering tool is required. That's starting to happen more with sites where people vote on music—you can breeze through a site, listen to different genres of music, and see which songs are being appreciated the most. But I think one of the big challenges is finding a good system of filtering so you can far more easily find music you may be interested in.
A bigger challenge, from the perspective of the artist, is how to get yourself seen. How do you stand out from X-million people on MySpace or however many there are now? Some of it you can get through hard work—live work, for example, is far more important than is has been in a long time, because that's something you can't replicate online. So building up a live following holds the value that it used to do, only now the word of mouth will spread more quickly due to the internet.

Artists have always created things with the goal of sharing them with people, and that idea goes way back. If you wrote music, you would go out and perform it on the street corner or you would perform it in a club; you wanted to be heard and share it with people. So I think the primary reason to make art is to share it with people. I don't primarily make music just for me, I want it to be listened to by other people, I want people to take it apart, I want people to delve into it and get the different textures and different meanings of lyrics. That kind of stuff I find fascinating. I like to delve into music or any form of art; then I actually feel like I'm involved in it. The difficulty right now lies with how we monetize that. Without sounding completely cold, unless we find a consistent way of monetizing it, then we can't do it any more. We love the stories of the starving artist, but there is only so long you can starve before you are actually going to have to go out and find a job. Those are the problems we have yet to completely solve.

[SdC]

I think getting your music out by playing live would be the best way to grow a reputation. Overhere in the Netherlands in the early nineties, most venues were eliminated by environmental laws ("noise pollution"). Only a few major ones in the big cities had enough money to insulate the walls and continue to offer a podium. But a most cafe's just stopped offering live music. This resulted in the demise of the beginner band circuit. Any investments by the brewers into new venues went to "dance halls"; cheap, simple, profitable and popular. I don't see a thriving musicians community that was around in the 80's/90's. All decent bands still around are from that era. Only if you design your band and music to have the commercial appeal to fill a stadium or play festivals ("Kane", "Marco Borsato", "Anouk") there's just no point, no one will ever hear you.
The dutch booking agengy (Mojo) controls all venues and ticketing, and they are in cahoots with the radio stations. The new style mafia!

[launched]

I think getting your music out by playing live would be the best way to grow a reputation. Overhere in the Netherlands in the early nineties, most venues were eliminated by environmental laws ("noise pollution"). Only a few major ones in the big cities had enough money to insulate the walls and continue to offer a podium.

It's interesting to see how new laws affect the general public. The excessive noise laws that exist over here are not adhered to, and not actively enforced for that matter. There has to be a late night complaint in order to get a reaction from law enforcement.

To stick to the point, I agree that live music is the way to go - garage/house parties are the most fun and the most basic. But, alas, usually by midnight you start seeing flashlights in the window...

Mark

[Davo]

He makes some great points.  I dont think all the reprocussions of the internet and affordible digital recording have been felt yet, but clearly it has a profound effect on music.

We live in a great time to be artists.