I was going to spend some of this weekend focusing on more movie/music related topics, but this
blog Alan has composed made me change my mind and focus on the angry Scotsman's out of touch point of view.
For those of you to lazy to read the article yourself, I will quickly sum it up for you because I care that much and being one of the lazy people myself, I understand your plight.
Basically, EMI - the last big British record label who own the rights to The Beatles, Coldplay....erghm, Robbie Williams - has been bought out by US bank Citigroup. They will take the reigns, and the labels £1.2 billion debt, until a new buyer is found. It was originally bought out in 2007 by some bloke called Guy Hands who splashed a couple of billion quid to land the deal. His timing was horrifically beautiful because after splashing the cash, the market crashed. "Moneygeddon" (as in the credit crunch) happened and the world went mental. He lost a shit load of coin and saw his prize artists such as Radiohead and Macca up and leave the label in protest of what had become of it.
It was a mess, and so Citigroup have come in as a stop gap to try and clean some of it up.
Yes, Citigroup. The same Citigroup that went bust during the credit crunch and is now limping along on federal funds. Hilarious.
Does all that make sense? Basically EMI are in serious debt and dieing (as with most of record labels), to solve the problem they have been bought out by venture capitalists who borrowed money from banks.
Thats basically the situation EMI are in.
Alan Mcgee blames illegal downloading for this.
"EMI’s problems should be a wake-up call. How did they get into this mess? It all comes back to the impact of illegal downloading. We have to change the legislation in this country and come down much harder on piracy. Otherwise guys in little bands starting out now are never going to be the next Rolling Stones. When you download an album illegally, it’s not the record company guys that get fucked – those people are still on massive salaries – it’s 19-year-old kids, it’s guys in bands making £100 a gig."
Jesus Alan, what decade is it? First things first, illegal downloading isn't killing the music business. The record company's are killing themselves. They've dug there grave, tied the noose and loaded the gun themselves.
The music industry has changed so much over the years.
In the 60's you had record companies being set up and ran by fans of music. If someone liked a band, they would sign them. For the most part the people involved within the industry were in it for the music. Of course they royally fucked up along the way, but they were the first ones so I guess they re entitled to make a few mistakes.
Into the 70's but especially the 80's the music industry became a business. It became about making money and not about the music. Corporate executives were now in charge of what was being released. Do you think they gave a fuck about the music they were putting out? Of course not, they just wanted to know if it would make money and vast amounts of money were thrown at acts to hit certain demographics to ensure they made a profit.
This carried on into the 90's but as we approached the millennium the Internet had started to rear its gigantic swinging cock to fuck everything up for the men in suits.
People were all of a sudden given a choice of downloading an album for free online, or going into a shop and spending £15 (or if it was a Beatles album, £20 and upwards). What do you think people are going to do?
The record companies simply didnt evolve with the times. They had 20-30 years of dominance within the industry. They were in charge of not only there artists, but also the music buying public.
Labels could sign a band, demand a hit and if one was not forthcoming the band would be dropped in an instant, not giving people a chance to experience what these bands could potentially achieve.
The labels said what went, and that was that.
And they thought it would last forever - at least that's how it appears. Record labels simply didn't move with the times. You cant stop technology having an impact on people. If people start downloading songs online and find that they can not only get what they want but have whole new scenes and artists opened up to them and readily available, thats what they are going to do.
The Internet is so huge and so powerful now, some cunt in a suit on the 50th floor of some tower in some city aint gonna have the same power they had 15-20 years ago.
But yet they still try. These people are so arrogant and blinkered they cant see what is happening to there business.
And its sad that the once anti capitalist rebel leader of creation records is one of these people.
"We have to change the legislation in this country and come down much harder on piracy"
That is such backwards old school thinking. The times have changed Alan, get fuckin used to it. The Internet is readily available to millions and millions of people. Do you honestly think by "cracking down" on piracy is going to work? Is it fuck. Its not going to stop anyone.
Take Americas war on drugs.
"We are in a war with drugs, we need to stop people taking drugs cos its destroying our country and our economy and it makes me sad and I dont like people taking drugs so Im going to start a war with drugs blah blah hudhfviudnhvciucudn...." is what some American politician probably said.
Its a stupid, stupid policy that will never work. Drugs are available, they always will be because people like taking drugs - its human nature. Thats just the way it is, and your not going to stop that.
Its the same as piracy within music, its there and people are going to do it no matter what.
The record labels havent moved on from the 80's. They are stuck in a time warp that will eventually kill them off. There are a few indie labels knocking about who are getting the gist and they should be able to survive, but the likes of EMI are on there last legs and they only have themselves to blame, not illegal downloading.
Alan also argues that new bands arent going to get a chance to become the next Rolling Stones and that bands wont be given chance to evolve the same way they could do back in the 80's.
Utter shite again.
If anything, downloading has opened up doors for new bands to get there music heard. they no longer have to pander to the whim of a prick in a suit who could drop them at any given moment because they didnt make a quarterly profit.
Bands can now easily set up there own sites and stream there music online which in turn will enable them to build up a fan base (providing they are any good). Then the money comes in by gigging and selling merchandise. The public arent going to stop going to concerts. New music festivals are always popping up and are attended by millions of people across the world. this is where people spend there money now, by going to live gigs, not forking out ridiculous amounts of money on a CD whose profits line the pockets of record label execs.
Alans argument centres around making money when he used to be about the music.
And thats why his, and many other labels have gone bust.
To quote the mighty Noel Gallagher (one of Alans bezzy mates) "Its not about you, its not about me, its not about Oasis........Its about music". Maybe Noel should remind him of this?
Watch this video from about 5.25min. Its only a 20 second snippet but it sums it up
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