Be Excellent To Each Other

The other day (can't remember what day or time) on the T.V I saw this news debate thinger. Basically some dude from the recording industry was there to tell of all of his evil plans to stop people downloading music (including how he was going to lean on the ISP's to ban people permanently).

It was brilliant. Not because of him, but because of the chick who was challenging him. She was saying how he could not control what people do in their own homes. He persistently said he could (which she picked up on and made him look like the cunt he was) and then got him to show his true colors..

Basically he got all arrogant and said that artists could not make it alone. She pointed out at least three that have, and he then interrupted and said "these people need us. The public need us to pick out the kinds of stuff they like" Which made me *really* fucking angry.

Firstly, people like Cowell play god because they can, because of money. Not because they know what the public wants. I have ears and am fully capable of knowing when someone can't sing for toffee. I also have taste in music and wouldn't buy a shit song that I didn't like (just like Alex Burkes christmas one. I find it depressing).

Social Distortion for example have never needed anyone's help. They aren't the best singers or the best band but they stand for so much more. They have made it by busting their backs and playing gigs (shitty small ones) and climbing the ladder.

Fucking cheek the bloke had. But then, they're supposedly the worst parasites alive.

And then today I read this, which again shows them up even worse for who they are.. I might just download Hallelujah for the sake of it now, just to piss the cunts off.

http://new.uk.music.yahoo.com/blogs/gue ... nimum-wage

Last thing I need in my life is some self appointed cunt who thinks he can pick and choose what I like.

It is impossible to get 90% of people to listen to anything that has a shred of artistic integrity. Joe Public doesn't want to be challenged, moved or influenced by art in any way, beyond certain boundaries of comfort. They like songs that seem sad, seem romantic or seem uplifting.

Everything you say about the industry bods is true, but they are just trying to earn money, same as the hotelier or the candle maker. It is the teeming pigshit-thick masses who enable them that I really take issue with. I've not a shred of sympathy for those x factor no-marks. In fact, i've little sympathy for anyone who makes music for a living but doesn't get by. Sick of whinging bands when there's a thousand times as many people making music for their own benefit when not in their day jobs - if you are then popular enough to get bigger and can go full time, fine. But this shit about starving artistes - they fucking love being starving artistes, it is an image people cultivate in the main. There's half a million unclaimed jobs up for grabs in the UK, many of which are part time, so get one of those and play in the days off.

There's no real room for complaint in what the X-Factor folks get paid, is there? After all, they signed the contracts way in advance.

Of course, people rarely read terms and conditions of anything these days, and just assume that they're going to be entirely excellent. And then they'll complain when they find things in there which they do not find fair, after it's too late.

Tsch, eh?

I should have added this.

NSFW NSFW etc.

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=52TgbJlTOCw

Sums up the recording industry perfectly.

You could argue coercion though - they are being asked to sign a contract that is massively against them should they have any kind of success.

Define success

True, but they sign the contract at the audition stage, don't they? Even if they don't read it properly at the time, they have MONTHS where they can sit down, read through it, decide they don't like it and drop out of the competition.

That they choose to carry on says that they either see the fame as more of a reward than any financial recompense, or that they haven't read the legal agreements, cared only for the fame, assumed that they would be richly rewarded, and are stupid.

[Edit news: I edited this at the same time that a reply was made, not after, though this edit news was added after, natch.]

In an ideal world, yes. In the real world, no.

Basically, these acts get unknowingly shafted from the moment they sign that form. Did you know Girls Aloud were salaried at the start of their contract? Maybe still are. After all, that is how the members of Steps made half a million each over their career, taxed, and the manager made £50 million.

Now, would you sign a performing contract giving you half a million over four years? Probably. Would you sign it if you knew you were generating £100 million in profit in that time?

If it was a job I enjoyed doing, sure.

You do know Sony own the publishing rights to Buckley's version don't you? So all those trying to pull one over on Cowell were in fact indirectly paying his wages.

You sing the songs, you learn the moves, you perform day in, day out in front of thousands of people, you sign thousands of autographs, you move from TV show to studio to radio show to interview doing the smiley happy thing and never being able to have a moments peace from the press.

You get £500k. The bloke next to you does none of these things apart from talk on his phone. He gets £50 million.

Bollocks.

People would like the music you (and I) deem 'worthy', but most people do not have the time and inclination to go out and find it.

Thats the crux. It's not that mainstream shit dominates the charts it is that manages to hide the music with artistic integrity in the process.

I like a lot of good music. Not because I spend my time finding it - because I can not be arsed. It's because I have a friend who does all the hard work and then tells me what to listen too. In return that friend plays good games with artistic integrity rather than just FIFA, because I do the work there. Introducing him to Outrun 2, Rhythm Tengoku, Space Invaders Extreme and so on. If it wasn't for me he wouldn't because he doesn't have the time to hunt for it. If not for me then FIFA would be all he was aware off, and happy for it.

I dislike being challenged by my entertainment. I like comfortable 'pulp' stuff in music, TV, and literature.

It's probably quite a character flaw, but I can't really bring myself to give a toss.

That strikes me as extraordinarily patronising.

I'm not necessarily disagreeing, mind.

I think most of the problem is that 90% of the country are happy to be dictated to.

You know? what to wear, what to eat* and what music we like. Which of course is utter bollocks to anyone with even a partial backbone but ho hum. Most would rather just accept what's being given to them and moan and whine. Me? I like to moan and whine before the commercial industry fucks my arse.

*this is just sooo fucking predictable.

Before I left the U.K we couldn't cook for shit. Lump of beef, some roast spuds and that was about the limit of our culinary expertise. And that was fine, afterall us brits were always way too busy fighting wars to give a shit about food.

Yet all of a sudden the Mockney cunt and his pals showed up and eight years later England has gotten all tarty and fussy about it's food. Crazy.

At least I wasn't here to witness it happening. Can't say I'm complaining like, after living with Italians for 8 years I do give a shit about what I eat, and if it's fresh or not.

I'm quite like that in books. I read the odd classic every know and then, and serious history books quite often, but I also read a lot of penny dreadful thriller types. All I want from them is to keep me diverted on the train to and from work, and I don't want anything that's hard work or requires concentration. I've been doing that all day.

Yup. In any industry in the world it's the poor cunts who actually have to do the real work that get fucked, and the fat cunt who sits in his chair who makes all the money for it.

I truly hope and prey that this recession that's kicking in turns it around. Infact, it already is. My brother called last night to cheerfully tell me that his mortgage was now 300 quid cheaper a month. And that's great, because he stands very little chance of losing his job of a teacher. The nice part is that he's not just a teacher (you know? fat coffee drinking wanker who lets you read books all day) he teaches carpentry and literally crippled himself (his shoulder grew an extra bone from lugging 4x2's up ladders for 20 years and now he can't move his right hand above nipple level) to get where he is today.

Best of all though they can't lower his wages. So this works out very well for him.

It's so lovely to see bank %'s drop. Mostly because it means that fat do nothing cunts firstly either lose or get serious cuts on their 'bonuses' and won't be able to have those 200k luncheons in Austria to discuss how hard they'll fuck homebuyers next year.

Hurrah !

but he doesn't get laid as much as you do

See I think the same thing, but I also think the same thing about the person who got to just sing and dance and explore art and be famous and get the chance to influence millions of people getting £500,000 for the privildge where as the poor cunts who do the real work (like nurses who save 100s of lives a year) get £20,000.

There is a real issue with the dicotomy between someones pay and the worth of their job, but worrying about the pay difference between the star and producer in the music industry is missing the point massively.

Yup I totally agree. Musicians and film stars are paid a disproportionate ammount of money, fact.

The totally gay thing is of course that the fuckers don't put piss into the pockets of those who need it either.

Noone should be lawfully allowed to make sums of money like that without being forced into paying fuckloads of it to hospitals and so on. Infact, a good idea would be to arse fuck anyone who earns over 50k a year because tbh they don't really need any more than that to live a comfortable life.

Well thats kinda what the gov has done:
Income Tax rates and taxable bands 2007-08
Starting rate: 10% £0-£2,230
Basic rate: 22% £2,231-£34,600
Higher rate: 40% Over £34, 600

So that 50m guy just paid 20m in tax. Better than bumming him.

Where the nurse's % is almost half.

I just pity the poor fucks who get paid £34,599 a year, and then get a £2 pay rise.

and back to the real world.. what would be the point in advnacing yourself if you were not going to get paid.

Assuming, of course, that the guy earning 50 million actually pays taxes at that rate. Plenty don't

Why? That's a whole extra £1.58 they can spend.

MR FEELING PRETTY STUPID FACE.

It works like that with Stamp Duty though, doesn't it? You pay 3 times the tax on a $250,001 than on a £250,000 house.

To be fair I'd be feeling sorry for anyone getting a £2 rise per year.

You mean what point would there be in greed?

Someone's never lived in London.

Really? I lived there for 25 years. Born raised and ruined by the fucking place.

Then not recently. There is no way you'd even buy a 1 person flat on 50k a year. Hell, I'm well over half that and I'm in a single rented room in a shared house.

Of course the other reason a tax regime that oppressive wouldn't work is that a very alrge amount of people who pay tax would simply leave the country. I could move to America with my current company, approaching 50k I damn well would do with that tax regime.

If you mean central London then yes, I agree. My family lived in and around Streatham, Brixton and Mitcham (surrey border with London).

Just over a year ago the last member to be living there moved. The house (3 bed semi detatched 98ft back garden) sold for 230k. It was a 2 minute walk to the nearest bus stop and 15 mins from Streatham Common stn.

And that was at the peak of the property 'boom'.

Which does neatly prove £50k isn't going to work. It's not a moneybags wage for a single person, let alone a family.

Jesus Christ I fucking hate Joe Public. I guess my being-excellent on here is some sort of balancing act.

Also, to most else of what you say about starving artists. Music should be about music. You can't bleet about 'integrity' and how the masses don't love you, they never will. The only way genuinely talented musicians can be loved by every music listener is when mass-shared experience goes extinct, showbiz is anhilated and every glossy trapping and gimmick and promotion is stripped away. Basically when civilisation crashes and burns, TV is no more and radio is at most pitifully short-wave and we all return to little isolated pockets where wandering folk live or find a job (or get eaten by zombies) through their own inate talent and hard-work.

Any musician who complains that they don't earn enough or aren't famous enough needs to be bopped on the head. If they're great enough then they'll earn a modest amount - maybe even enough to drop the day job. I've seen lots of little bands that are pretty wonderful and still have to hold jobs, and they don't complain, so don't peddle this bullshit crap about piracy killing music. If anything, the diversity and excellence of music is better than ever if you actually start looking yourself rather than listening to what cunts like whom John Coffey mentioned tell you to. I tend to just buy direct from band's websites and genuine indie labels. Massive record sales just lead to more bands trying to be like Coldplay.

Are your songs excellent? Then you are excellent, and people do love you for it. You have triumphed in the human game. You don't need to sell out an arena, be in a national magazine or even chart. It's supposed to be about the music, man. And giving semi-drunk people a good time. If you become a big success, well and good, but you probably won't because the public usually don't actually like music.

Note, there is music that charts well that I do like. One of my top ten songs is Aqua's Cartoon Heroes. I'm not an idiot who dismisses things that are successes. That way lies the attitude of the failed indie arsehole that Goatboy mentioned. It's just that I recognise that any mass entertainment will be largely rubbish, as according to Theodore Sturgeon's law of 90% of anything being crap.

IN SUMMARY:

People are now downloading for free crap instead of buying it.

If a band is good, enough local people will buy it to earn a nice reward for band. If band are wise people, they will be happy with this. If band is great, enough people will buy direct from them out of loyalty and love for them to be able to commit to touring and recording, and give up the day job.

Lots of great music has been made by people holding regular jobs, and will continue to do so from now till the end of allway. Look at the American depression era bands, they were skint, and they left a catalogue of awesome. There will always be music.

Record companies are largely thieving twats, unless they are proven excellent ones like Nonesuch.

So good riddance to twats like in that debate, and to EMI. Wish I'd watched it now, mind.

Good counter-argument, and I'm tempted to agree because I hate thinking I'm such an elitist. Which I am. But I'm still siding with GovYar. I do think there should be a scientific study done where people are isolated and forced to listen to varying types of quality-vs-fame in music, and complicated stats posted to prove one of us wrong.

And Jesus fuck my hands are freezing.

You could argue a bin man has to work hard and has a pretty tedious job, but the bloke that designed bins or something earns more without leaving the office.

Or something...

Anyway, what I mean is, the performers don't really do much. They are just the meat. The manager organises it all for them. It's the manager that makes it happen. It's the songwriters that write the songs. It's the boardroom of cunts that decide how to distribute their songs, the marketing people decide how to make people buy it. It is tedious for the performers , but I don't think that they deserve more than the manager.

There are exceptions, of course, where artists get screwed over - but that's a different thing to Steps, say.

Yup, but penny dreadfuls can be fun, and some are deceptively great in some way. You can't read classics all the time, I've got a healthy amount of fun 'trash' on my shelf. And anyone who knocks Stephen King can have a bloody nose to my mind. I consider music a bit different though, because a lot that charts is so transparently terrible that the only reason I can see it being bought is because the public are told to and are conditioned into thinking that they must be part of some larger shared experience package. Basically, they don't care about music.

Just like those of whom 'If you only read one book this year!' adverts are directed, probably don't actually like reading books.

Rubbish. I care a lot about music, but I like some chart stuff also.

Have to agree with Itia here. For the world of manufactured bands manager-employee liason read Future Publishing. "We could grab someone just as good off the street!" The difference being that if you've got the ideas you wouldn't be signing such a contract or taking such a path in music in the first place. It is essentially like having a hard working 9-5 job in a busy bank, only with a little more pay, loads more fame, no personal life and the guys at the top still creaming all the money. If you like fame, that's the only job satisfaction you're going to get outside of making people smile.

I probably argued it incompetently, but I like some chart stuff too. Even manufactured acts have killer singles from time to time thanks to very clever song-writers, and I enjoy those when I can get over my elitist stupidity. The point is that the record company system is geared towards selling to people who don't actually care about music. That's why mediocre to shit music gets the most exposure. That's why I'd be happy to see them die and anarchy reign. The music wouldn't get better, and there'd still be packaged deals with advertising and manufactured acts for TV, but twats like that one mentioned in the original post wouldn't be getting a slice of the pie.

Now if mass-communication ended, on all levels, then music would get uniformly better on Darwinian principles. Because there wouldn't be any fame reward in it. Unfortunately it would mean no internet and stuff, so I cannot argue that the good outweighs the bad.

How is it greedy to want to better yourself.. Ther eis no way after doing a degree and working for 17 to just stay on my current wage.

In what does having ridiculously unnecessary amounts of money, as opposed to merely lots of money, make a person better?

I agree, I just think the 50k limit JC suggested is too low

As Kova says, if we're going to have that debate, the level is A LOT more than 50k.

I'm pretty sure that's not true, is it? I got a 210k mortgage on 48 grand 3 years ago, which bought me a two bedroom terraced house in Beckenham. When we found that place we were also looking at two bed flats in Islington which were around the 200k mark. I'm pretty sure if I have a look on findaproperty.co.uk I could find a fair few 1 bedroom flats all over London for considerably less than 200k.

It's not just the multiple of salary on the mortgage calculation these days, anyway - HSBC do it as a percentage of net monthly income.

Even assuming everything you say is right it's hardly the point someone is rich enough hat they should be subject to "How dare you work for a living" level taxes is it?

Abso-bloody-lutely agreed there, matey. 50k isn't a particularly huge salary, especially in london. The secretaries in the US firm I worked at earned around 35k, FFS.

Could you have comfortably paid that mortgage without the wife's salary too though?

Yes - in fact they gave it to us on the basis of my salary alone. I think it worked out at 45% of income. Would have been doable.

I know what they gave it to you based on, but paying the repayments is often different. 45% of combined income is a fuckton.