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Triquatra
Moderator
United Kingdom
12,640 posts
Joined: Nov, 2003
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 Posted - 2009/05/04 : 17:22:37
theres an argument about vinyl and mp3? lol these things get old
people are stupid sometimes...well..all the time ;)
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TRIQUATRA
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Nav
New Member
United States
76 posts
Joined: Nov, 2008
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Posted - 2009/05/04 : 19:23:24
quote:
Originally posted by Torpex:
@Nav: as a "conscious filesharing supporter", can you please list your suggestions for improving the sales and the amount of money producers / labels receive? You already mentioned one - timely, complete and accessible paid digital downloads. I agree. What else?
I'm going to preface this by saying that if you're in the Hardcore industry to make money, then you should leave and go get a job that doesn't involve producing art.
Also, as I said before, the paradigm of music distribution that existed back in the 70s-90s is over: it is significantly more difficult to make a living off of music in today's society, as there is so much more of it and it it much cheaper (as well as easier to share).
One idea I would recommend is putting more effort into vinyl releases. I still buy vinyl, and I'm sure that many people would appreciate a well-mastered/pressed vinyl over a digital download. However, I'm aware of the risk involved in pressing it, so I guess this is only an option to those who can afford it. It might be cool to have certain tracks only available on vinyl, as a reward to those who buy it. You can even do it Luna-C style, by distributing little goodies with the records.
Another idea is to simply have free music. I don't mean to release your whole label or back catalog for free, just a few songs, so people can get to know your production and your "style" in general. I know that Joey Riot is a supporter of this idea, as shown by his LTRFREE series of tracks, which I have enjoyed.
A final idea, one that people should support, is to not sell out. Make music for the sake of making music. Spend time on the releases. If it takes another month to put out, in order to get it sounding perfect, then do it. In this day and age, people don't want MORE music, they want BETTER music. Quality > Quantity, and god knows the quantity of music out today. Don't be AATW.
However, I'm not a label owner: I'm still technically a baby to hardcore. I haven't been around for a long time, and I guess I joined right at a time when huge amounts of mayhem are happening all around the scene. I missed the 90s, but I have done a lot of reading, and everything today seems so similar to the things happening in the late 90s and early 00s. I fear a break in the scene. I guess I just have to wait until everything irons itself out before I can make any true suggestions about what the future of hardcore should be.
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Triquatra
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United Kingdom
12,640 posts
Joined: Nov, 2003
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Posted - 2009/05/04 : 19:55:13
the end of the 90's and 2000's for hardcore was because the scene was in decline, nobody was buying or releaseing it anymore, and even fewer making it.
we have the complete perfect opposite to that right now.
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Torpex
Advanced Member
Poland
824 posts
Joined: Nov, 2005
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Posted - 2009/05/04 : 20:29:47
@Nav:
See, this is the confusing part. What your suggestions essentially come down to is better quality: better music, better produced, more satisfying as a piece of art, more satisfying in terms of release quality. Well, OK. The problem is that to get better quality you need to invest either or both of these two things: work and money. If you expect anyone - and I mean anyone - to invest these and not demand a decent return then you're going totally against basic human nature. You see, professional sounding music requires professional tools, professional knowledge, professional effort. None of these can be achieved without a serious input of a combination of work and money. Leading artists must be able to make decent money from hardcore or else they're soon gone and the quality suffers even further. Of course there are exceptions, but we need to operate on averages here.
Of course trying to fight piracy is another attempt to go against basic human nature. Sure, vinyls can't be pirated - they're tangible collectibles - but they also have a limited target market of collectors and DJs (decreasingly). In order to improve the situation people have to be persuaded to buy DIGITAL music. Ouch. It's just a click away for free.
Actually the only way forward I see for niche underground music - which most of UK hardcore certainly is - is to build communities around ideas. An idea can be an artist, a label, an album. Communities must include sizeable percentages of people who wish to give financial support directly to what they love and believe in. Luna C is doing this right now, CLSM is doing something similar. The crews of Next Generation and Hardcore Underground have also been making moves in this general direction.
The ideal situation (very simplified) if you're an artist? You release a digital single independently and there's always 100 people who happily pay for it because they want to support you. Release several good tracks per month and you can make a living. Possible? Sure, if you manage to build a strongly supportive community like that. Doable in UK hardcore? I don't know. Worth a try.
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Nav
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United States
76 posts
Joined: Nov, 2008
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Posted - 2009/05/04 : 23:14:13
quote:
Originally posted by Torpex:
Worth a try.
You've basically hit the proverbial nail on the head, with one other thing I can say about it...
There are many different reasons people pirate music. This poll was conducted to figure out why people decide to pirate music. Oddly enough, less than half of the people did it "because it was free." Mostly, it was Try before you buy, or because it's more convenient to pirate it.
So, what are the solutions to this?
1. As we said earlier, full previews.
2. Make it easier to buy the music. I have personal experience here. I recently bought ~10 digital tracks off of the Next Gen site. However, the process was terrible. The first time I thought I had compiled my cart, it turned out that it erases your cart after you close the browser/delete cookies. So, I had to figure out which songs I wanted again. The next time I was able to complete the transaction. From there, I was sent an email with a hash number for every track, that I was to paste into a bar, let the track download completely before putting the next code in, and repeat for each track.
It's hassles like that, as well as price, that defer me from purchasing music.
If I look at the download statistics for the Best of Bonkers CD on Demonoid, which represents a microcosm of the internet world, I see that it has been downloaded 25915 times.
Supposing each one represented a lost purchase (which it obviously didn't), and supposing that the poll was accurate, I can calculate how much more React would have made had there been (a) previews, and (b) an easier way to buy it.
Math time. 100-43% = 57%
25915*.57 = ~14772 lost purchases.
Assuming the lowest price I could find on google shopping, approx. 6 GBP, that's ~88,600 which React/Central Station could have earned.
While I know this is grossly inaccurate, it does illustrate a point. If it was easier to obtain and easier to preview, then React might not have gone under in the first place, and Bonkers would have been saved.
You can't blame filesharing, as people have been doing that since the cassette tape was invented: it's just a new use of technology. Arguing about it is the same as when the heavy plow was invented, and some farmers were unable to work: new technology renders things obsolete... all there is to do is adapt, not bitch and moan as I see many people doing.
Niche underground music has never been a method of making a living. When House was invented in the mid 80s, in Chicago, was it about money? No, it was about self-expression, and those innovators simply did not care about making money. Maybe if the monetary element was removed, at least for a while, then the people who are truly in it for the music would step up to the plate, and the ones simply there to make a quick buck would leave.
Not much left to say. =\
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Samination
Advanced Member
Sweden
13,279 posts
Joined: Jul, 2004
195 hardcore releases
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Posted - 2009/05/05 : 04:31:40
I dont know how people can calculate lost sales in any way.
a. you don't know how many would have bought it in the first place
b. you don't know how many would have bought it if they could
c. you don't know how many wouldn't have bought it at all
House was underground, once. But if you havent noticed House is larger than the Hardcore scene :P
I can't say how Happy/Hardcore was from the beginning, but it feels like it has turned over to the money
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Happy, UK Hardcore, Freeform, Makina and Gabber
http://samination.se/
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Nav
New Member
United States
76 posts
Joined: Nov, 2008
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Posted - 2009/05/05 : 17:04:57
quote:
Originally posted by Samination:
I dont know how people can calculate lost sales in any way.
a. you don't know how many would have bought it in the first place
b. you don't know how many would have bought it if they could
c. you don't know how many wouldn't have bought it at all
House was underground, once. But if you havent noticed House is larger than the Hardcore scene :P
I can't say how Happy/Hardcore was from the beginning, but it feels like it has turned over to the money
Hence the "grossly inaccurate" part of my post. However, it was more accurate than any RIAA/MPAA calculation, since it's based off of poll data in addition to download data.
House got larger for different reasons, but they had the same origins: acid house came to the UK, as well as huge amounts of MDMA (Ecstasy) from the USA. The group of people listening to acid house grew massive, and traveling sound systems emerged, as well as superclubs (Ministry of Sound) which helped to popularize the sound.
Hardcore emerged from the underground breakbeat house, later known as Jungle, fused with the Belgian New Beat sound and even a bit of the Dutch sounds too. They took the pianos from classic house, the breakbeats from jungle, and the heavy beats from New Beat, and made oldskool hardcore. Give the kicks more precedence, lower the breakbeats down a little bit, and add some distortion... ta daa... Happy Hardcore.
Happy Hardcore, similarly to House, was heavily associated with the MDMA scene, however, during that time, the backlash of acid house was causing a massive anti-drug movement, keeping Happy Hardcore underground. House was taking off at this time, so Happy Hardcore got overshadowed, which is why it was not popular then.
However, after the 00s, the Trance influences added to Hardcore made the music extremely media and kid-friendly, which caused the mass marketing and a recent increase in the popularity of the music. It's being marketed to teens and children now, with Clubland X-Treme and the "New" Bonkers, and that is a damn shame. Even though I am a teenager myself (who uses the internet way too much), I think that it is exploitation of my easily-influenced pop-loving peers. Then again, this has gone on for the past... long time, so when pop music starts drawing inspiration from underground music, the genre dies.
I've heard electrohouse on the radio as of late, and I live in the USA. It was then that I realized electrohouse was dead. When underground genres water themselves down enough to sell to the fickle pop radio stations, then the genre doesn't have enough defining characteristics/purity to continue being an underground genre. The nature of the mass media causes any genre to die within a few years, and hardcore will probably do the same. The only enigma is Hip Hop, which has been pop domain music for the past 20 years, and shows no signs of slowing. However, I think that is only due to the volatile lyrics, and underground genres of it (aka turntablism) do exist. It's all we can do to hope that Hardcore has a similar fate, or I can see a huge crash in the future.
Anyway, I'm going off topic. Hopefully more people have some sort of insight on filesharing, but also understand that filesharing doesn't equate to the "death" of the musical genre.
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