Illegal Downloading? My Two Cents.

So earlier I had an interesting discussion about people downloading music for free for whatever reason and it's effect on the music industry. It got me thinking. Is it really such a bad thing? I mean it gets the band exposure right? If even half of the kids that download the music for free really get into it and start turning up to the shows, thats more money for the band right? I also read an interesting blog a couple of weeks ago on AP.net. It said, with evidence from numerous bands both small and large, that releasing the music does not actually pay the bills. The respective label gets around 80% of the money, the retailer around 15% and the band only about 5%, sometimes less. This is all off of about £10. Now, surely that makes downloading for free not seem so bad. One of the other ways of making money that was put forward was touring. Now this blog also addressed that. Lets take a band, say Kids In Glass Houses. Now they haven't really 'broke' yet, so are still building up a fan base. If they were to tour for 4 weeks straight, the money they made would be minimal. The tour costs an extortionate amount of money to actually put on. Money has to go to labels, the venue, lawyers, insurance, the bus and fuel, paying support bands etc. Overall, for the set amount of money that they receive from ticket sales, costs can quickly rise. The band members themselves find themselves living on about £3-£5 a day, of their own money. Thats to eat 3 meals a day and for other things that might crop up. A band like KIGH might also get a support slot for a bigger band, say You Me At Six. Now this is probably worse for them. They actually get paid less than it costs to go out on the tour, meaning that they are paying to be on that tour promoting themselves.  So you might now be saying how do bands actually make money? Not off of CD's? Not off of tours? The answer? Merch. A band will have to buy their own merch off of their label,  at a discounted price, but after that all the money they receive is profit. That is how bands make money. Now I've seen bands release music for free. Bands like Angels And Airwaves. Their album cost $500,000 to record, yet they gave it away for free, presumably to drum up support for their movie. As well as this, You, Me & Everyone We Know released 2 free EP's at the start of their career. They were downloaded 75,000 times but this helped the band be signed and they are now making money off of music. I have seen numerous bands call it quits due to lack of fund, most recently Ace Enders. He has since set up a pledge system that lets the fans pay for the album to be recorded and help him to continue recording music. This, in my opinion, is the future of music. If bands cannot make money after releasing the music, then they can at least record an album, then any sales after that is pure profit. This also takes away some of the responsibility of the Label, which literally eats the profit that the bands music makes, meaning there is more profit for the band. Remember I called it first. Haha. One final point though. Just remember, making music is a musicians full time job. You wouldn't go and steal a Coke, because that would be morally wrong, so don't download music. These guys have to make a living and feed their families and releasing music is their way of doing things. And even if you do download the music, just make sure you make the effort to make it down to the shows and buy a t-shirt to help them through it. And if you do download it, and like it afterwards, buy it. Every little helps, as Tesco would say.


Also, here is that AP article. Worth a good 5 minutes read of anyones time - http://www.altpress.com/features/entry/no_money_mo_problems/

Wow. Music.

This week has been a pretty amazing week for music. Infact, it's not even this week. It's the last two days. 3 things which I have waited quite a long time for happened this week. They are:

1)






So this is the new Yellowcard single 'For You And Your Denial'. Don't be put off by the violin solo at the start. This song is actually reasonably heavy for your average pop-punk band. March 22nd will be a good day. Their new album is shaping up to be amazing, and I only wish I was seeing them live in March.

2)






So this is the clip of the new Foo Fighters song. It's untitled at the moment, but it's living up to everything they said it would be. They said it'd be heavier? It definitely is. It's just a much bigger sound than from their last album, and even though this is only a 30 second clip, I could listen to it on repeat until the album comes out quite happily. This is the best 30 seconds of music I have heard since christmas.

3)







So this is the new Panic! At The Disco single clip. Sounds like the good old normal Panic! that we know and love from 'A Fever' days. As well as that, and something that makes me much more excited for the album when it drops, is that it sounds as if they are coping just fine without Ryan and John in the band. Brendon has written some great lyrics, and the music to go along. He also plays almost every instrument on this song, and the album, which shows that they really don't need Ryna and his ego in the band.

Decent shit that happened this week 9/1/11

So this week was a very average week. Nothing particulary good actually happened. Well nothing special anyway. But, I'm going to try to think of 5 things that were good that happened this week.

1) I completed Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood. Scuse me whilst I have a nerdgasm, but that game is completely amazing. It takes everything that was great in the second game, and takes it up a notch. It also adds quite a few great new features, like the ability to recruit Assassins to your Brotherhood and use them in fights. Even though this is only really Assassin's Creed 2.5, so the 3rd won't be released for a couple of years yet, I can't wait for the next one.

2)Blink-182 tracking guitars and drums. This made me pretty excited. Means they are finished writing and can finally get down to business with the album. Looks like drums were tracked in a day as well, which is really great progress, and shows Travis as his usual self. Cannot wait for this album.

3) Details about The Blackout's new album. It's called 'Hope'. They are releasing a new free track on monday. This album should be pretty great, and will show how they have matured as a band from their first album to the third. Judging by the live show they put on in December, it should be pretty great.

4)Random Gaming shit. More information about Motorstorm: Apocalypse and Killzone 3 has been released. I am so stoked for the release of these games it's unreal. Both of them had really awesome predecessors, which will be really hard to beat, but with both of them showing off their amazing graphics in 3D and Killzone featuring Move compatibility, I think it's safe to say that they will surpass them easily.

5) Okay. I lied. I don't have a number 5. This week really was pretty boring. Damn.  

The Beginning...

....

Yep that's it. The Beginning. The Beginning of the end maybe? Of my social life at least. Or maybe of the world? You know with all this 2012 shit? 2011 is the new 2012. I don't buy into that, but it's fun to take the piss out of.

So yeah. This is my outlet to the world. It will contain rants and lyrics. I might even post some of my own every now and then. I will post links to it so my facebook and twitter every now and then, but other than that, I'm only doing it as it's cooler than saying I keep a diary.