blue christmas
Remember how Sony did a really bad thing to you beautiful people out there who like to support artists by buying their cds? Well, this Christmas, why not tell Sony how much you appreciate their unsolicited early holiday gifts, by joining me (and many others) in boycotting all their products. Now, regardless of how crappy a record deal an artist may find themselves in, I'm still quite a supporter of buying their record if you enjoy it. But, in this case, may I humbly suggest that if you were planning to buy (for example) the latest My Morning Jacket or Fiona Apple album, you download the damn thing. May I also humbly suggest, that if you do so, you buy a t-shirt (or other piece of merch) from them or go see them on tour (musicians make way more money off of those things anyhow).
Speaking of downloading, I finally got around to checking out the Jenny Lewis "solo" record, that has been floating around for about a month. I'm not that huge on Rilo Kiley, but I've listened to this album about 5-6 times today, whilst procrastinating from studying for final exams. Everyone is talking about the help Jenny gets from Conor (yeah, just Conor - he's like the emo Madonna), Ben Gibbard, and M. Ward on the record's cover of "Handle With Care" (originally by the Travelling Wilburys), but it's The Watson Twins that are the real supporting cast. I have no idea who handled all the instrumentation duties, but the ladies backup harmonies are deal makers on many of the tracks. If you're looking for tracks, they've already been posted all over (so if you look, you'll find them). The record is out officialy on January 24th, and I highly reccomend picking up a copy.
Last, but most certainly not least, How to pose like a guitar god.
now playing: Jenny Lewis with the Watson Twins - Happy
3 Comments:
I'm not sure if I agree with your boycott, in the sense that artists shouldn't be punished for the poor decisions of their record label (whether it be putting a trojan on certain CDs, undermarketing an album, dropping the band from the label, etc). If you like the new Fiona Apple album and you want to support her career in that regard, why not buy the CD? It's not a simple as "she makes more money off of t-shirts any way" as album sales do dictate how much money and promotional resources an artist gets for their subsequent album(s). T-shirt sales, and most likely touring revenue (especially for Fiona, who's not even headlining her own tour yet), are not factors in the label's decisions.
In short, the boycott you're advocating actually hurts the artists more than it does the label.
By 
, at
2:17 p.m.
1) With Fiona as a case in point, sales have little to do with how much promo some bands get. Fiona has two multiplatinum albums under he belt, and the promo for EM has been pretty piss poor, not including the free promo they got do to the hype around the delay. Also, artists don't just get most promotional material, videos, etc paid for. The label fronts the money and the artist has to recoup.
2) Sales also don't ensure that an artist isn't going to get dropped. Big business and art simply do not mix. There are only a handful of bands that shift the kind of units that actually protect them from being dropped from a major label.
3) Sony makes more than just cds.
4)Fiona is currently headlining her own tour. She played NYC a couple of days ago.
1. If the label doesn't advance the money to the artist for their promotional materials, the artist simply won't get promoted by the label. Since when have you heard of a major label band/artist funding their own music video? I suspect it's very rare.
2. Sales are the primary factor to labels. It shouldn't be that way, and surely only big bands like Coldplay, Metallica, U2, etc. are a guaranteed good investment for their labels, but having Fiona's album sell 10,000 copies versus 100,000 (I'm just choosing random numbers) will have a huge effect on her future opportunities within Sony, including the size of her advance for recording her next album.
3. You're right. Should we boycott buying Sony TVs too?
4. I meant the Coldplay tour, which is obviously going to generate a lot of revenue, but is hardly a reflection of Fiona's own popularity. If she were selling out stadiums herself it wouldn't be an issue.
By , at
12:42 p.m.
