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Is TuneCore responsible for distributing crap and crowding the lane for serious artists? That is the allegation of Tommy Silverman, and TuneCore CEO Jeff Price couldn't resist the challenge.
And make no mistake, this got really personal, really fast. "This is the same person that runs/owns New Music Seminar," Price stated. "I find it a bit odd that Tommy thinks 80 percent of the people he is trying to get money from (by selling them a ticket to his conference) make music that he thinks is 'crap.' If this is the case, why take their money?"
Tommy was hardly assigning himself as the arbiter of good taste, though Price attacked on those grounds. "But philosophically, I disagree with the concept that one person, ie Tommy, gets to make the decisions for the rest of us," Price noted at one point. And later, the attack turned to Tommy Boy the label. "Even more odd, well over 95 percent of the releases on Tommy’s label, Tommy Boy Records, failed."
Price rifled through a number of other counterarguments, and raised the collective fist of thousands of aspiring artists. Tommy's reliance on a 10,000-album sales threshold remains a critical sticking point for Price, largely because the album itself is an ageing format. "Yes Tommy, 79,000 releases sold less than 100 copies last year, and to make matters worse, not one of them sold a copy of their release on 8-Track," Price continued, part of a larger 'old man' characterization. The more sober point, without caps and yelling, is that consumers increasingly purchase singles - not albums - making the 10,000-album threshold a questionable bright line.
The biggest enemy for Jeff Price, unfortunately, is Jeff Price, and the vitriolic and enraged tone of this latest response is hardly an aberration. That style tends to decrease the potency of his arguments, though there are some solid points underneath the hysteria.
For example, who cares if thousands of hobbyists are releasing fresh content? And who can really say what constitutes good art, or what should be filtered? "Although the sheer volume of music creation does not make it good, the fact that more people are creating it certainly increases the odds," Price expressed.
More here.
Comments Closed
Tonio Wednesday, July 14, 2010
I respect both Tommy and Jeff's point of views. Both have made some valid points.
I agree with Tommy that a lot of the music being created these days is by untalented hobbyists and that their music is clogging up the channels. HOWEVER, that doesn't mean people should stop making music. TuneCore is a necessary service and I'm we have it.
However, I agree with the author of this story in that Tommy's response wasn't as effective as it could've been. He states that Tommy "is trying to get money" from hobbyists via his conference. That doesn't change the fact that the channels are clogged and there's a lot of crappy music being made. If Jeff would've stayed calm (and to argument at hand), I would be more inclined to say this was a good response.
In conclusion, it's not TuneCore's fault (or Nimbit's) that we now have a bunch of crappy musicians clogging the channels. Our culture at large is dumbing down and lowering it's standards. Aside from genres like punk, where musicianship isn't the focus, the quality of musicianship has been gradually declining over the years. Is this TuneCore's fault? No. If anything, it's a reflection of our society.
bydesign Wednesday, July 14, 2010
@tonio I must agree with you on this, there is a real middle ground the meshes both of these opinions. Unfortunately though I think there's a style of yelling through things that has permeated some blogs and Twitter, look no further than "Twitter wars" between celebs, fat Southwest passengers etc. I don't think this is helping Jeff Price or Tunecore in all honesty.
Diggiti Wednesday, July 14, 2010
Without so called Hobbyists, would we ever have the Blues, jazz or even Rock & Roll? Sun records, Motown?
elitists will ruin the world if you give them the chance
Diggiti from BtMkRs.com
trevor Friday, July 16, 2010
...yes, we would. okay, the blues started with guys picking up guitars and singing without formal training, and passing the time. but, they weren't uploading their music onto youtube or tunecore. to get out of the Delta, there were lots of filters, you had to fill halls and be able to dance up an audience. if you were not good, you stayed on the fields. there would still be the blues, because there were lots of filters to produce muddy waters, robert johnton, etc.
cramerbob Thursday, July 15, 2010
What's great about being an artist these days, is that you don't have to rely on someone at a big label to decide for you whether music is good or bad - as a fan, you get to decide for yourself.
And sometimes one person's crap is another person's "musical soulmate."
With the latest wave of direct-to-fan solutions, artists can now easily build a strong web presence, make their music merch tickets and bundles available to fans, and build relationships with those fans in a way that they "have the potential" to support their careers -- so they can do what they love to do, which is make and play music.
Tommy is right - by making it so easy to record, distribute, and market music, the result is there will be music out there that "the masses" (and sometime, even their own mother or best friend) won't care for.
But, if you have a following of less than 50 fans, and you can now move that to more than 1,000 and fill your shows, that can be "success" - and, sometimes it takes a while for you to develop who you are as an artist, your music and sound and brand and performance style, and by enabling the career growth of these non-mass-appeal artists, you may be enabling a future superstar in the making.
And Jeff is right - the "old music business" metrics of success probably aren't relevant to a majority of artists. Probably because success is in the eyes of the beholder (artist), just like music is in the ears of the beholder (fan).
So what if there's great diversity in the music out there, and so what if there's crap out there - fans and free markets will make that determination. But in the end, there will be more music, and more fans listening and passionate about the music, and more musical creativity being encouraged and explored - and isn't that a good thing?
Bob Cramer
Chairman & CEO, Nimbit
Ian Nilsen Friday, July 16, 2010
I agree very much with Bob, and Nimbit and TuneCore are excelent news for many many people, but yes, I do really think people should be more self-critical before they put their things out, probably take a step back and test the waters first. However I think they will after a while. It's all new all this and who can blame all these singers and musicans that have been rejected out of hand by the record industry even without having been heard in the first place.
We have had pretty bad deals in the past and I think the best of times is starting now.
Have started a baby vanity label for nothing,
we try to write good songs and then we take it further.
If people like an artist and his sound, we make more with the reciepts, if not we might change a bit and bounce it back again.
It works for us, and the fanbase grows pretty fast. The bigger sales will come sometime soon.
Could we have done this even a few years back, absolutly not.
Ian, www.britishpopsongs.co.uk
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