Everyone:

I find it head-scratchingly mind-boggling that Mr. Laskow would say to a major media outlet, as recently as this month, that his model would appeal to majors "...by giving them a way to make thousands of small investments in thousands of songs versus a few huge investments in a few artists", AT THE VERY MOMENT THAT THE ENTIRE MAJOR INDUSTRY is DE-STAFFING, LAYING-OFF, SHUTTERING the windows, FOLDING BIG-NAME LABELS like dryer-hot jeans!

Arista gone, Dreamworks gone, mergers aplenty! The beat goes on. (Hey Graham, you have my blessing to write a lyric outa that, no strings attached!).

Working with "thousands of songs" means dealing with, having signed legal relations with and obligations to, and day-to-day involvement with thousands of bands AND their managers AND publicists, WHICH REQUIRES MORE STAFF THAN THEY MIGHT HAVE HAD BEFORE THE DOWNSIZING!

So where are these major labels going to see any advantage in 'signing' "thousands of songs"? Too much freaking overhead!

There will be small-labels and indies that may be able to cherry-pick those thousands of songs, if they see a quick buck to be made, BUT then, BACK TO SQUARE ONE AS MR. LASKOW DEFINES IT:

"The small, independent labels those artists are signed to now can't afford to market them globally because their return on investment would be too small."

The fact is there are TONS of filters all over the place. Garageband has a list of its best songs, by genre, as voted on by thousands of listeners!

Every internet station at Shoutcast.com, Live365.com, VH1.com are filters. XM and Sirius channels. Genre-specific, some ranked by their listeners. There are plenty of filters for those who seek them.

Best filter in history: good word-of-mouth! And e-mail.

Aside: I sampled the first 200 on the pop/rock list at GB a few months ago and DLed the ones I liked. This took several hours on cable (mostly listening time), AND TO THIS DAY I'VE NEVER LISTENED TO THOSE SONGS AGAIN.

Which brings up the issue of human behavior.

Once I've accumulated a 'playlist' of hundreds, if not thousands of songs, from my 78s and LPs and 45s and 8-tracks and cassettes and CDs that span the years and memories of my life, that I can listen to whenever I wish, how hungry am I gonna be for fresh meat by the kilo?

The profitability of the streaming on-demand model, which pays only the merest of pittances to the artists that create the raw material that it relies on, can only be acheived, forget sustained, by the voracious enthusiasm of the young and inexperienced (read: NEW SUBS=CASHFLOW) whose lives are too short, and whose cavernous memory banks and red-hot sensory receptors are screaming for, as Johnny 5 chirped in "Short Circuit" (how apropos!), "MORE INPUT".

And old-fogey subscribers who listen to fewer than a thousand songs a month (a penny per listen times 1000 pennies equalling ten bucks. Where's yer profitability there, PressPlay, er, Napster, whatever-the-latest-VC-outfit-that-bought-you-on-the-cheap-because-you're-bargain-basement-until-you-get-into-the-black-after-how-many-years-is-it-now calls you?).

You can expert-up your 'well what do you see happening in five years' question all you want, it makes no difference this minute, today, to the currently-active independent artists whose musical interest and pursuits MAY WELL SURRENDER to the demands of real life long before then!

The power of the potential of the Internet is to REMOVE THE MIDDLEMAN, allowing the artist to expose and deliver his/her art DIRECTLY to the GLOBAL audience. Some folks are just looking for a new way to 'middleman' their way into a paycheck. You'll pay to get 'screened', pay to get 'approved', pay to get 'forwarded', pay to get 'listed'. It's called pay-for-play. Same as it ever was.

Making music and getting it onto the radar of gazillions of people who'll want to hear it over and over again don't come cheap. And unless you the artist make THAT kind of music, you'll be stuck in the coal-mine slamming your pick into the ground at A PENNY PER LISTEN UNTIL your life keels over and they carry your carcass out on a stretcher.

Better for YOU and your bank balance, YOU should define your audience, research it, cultivate it, sell it downloads at 99 cents each, or whatever price blows yer skirt up.

If you the artist are one of the neo-Socialists that seems to think that music ought to be SO CHEAP as to allow everyone all-they-can-eat so they won't steal it (hey, Messrs. Griffin and Laskow, why not FREE? Saves having all that computer tabulation/monthly check nuisance and investment!), find yer happy price-place!

Have a nice future!

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EdX.iuma.com www.soundclick.com/40LOVE www.soundclick.com/EdX


[This message has been edited by ed323 (edited 03-08-2004).]

EdX.iuma.com http://www.soundclick.com/40LOVE http://www.soundclick.com/EdX