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December 18, 2009

Musicians to Pundits: Hey Assholes We're Trying, and We've Heard of the Internet...

Music Think Tank | Read Full Story >


Music Think Tank:

I have had my hackles raised all week by an essay from one Dave Allen – the provocatively, excellently titled ‘Musicians: Please Be Brilliant Or Get Out Of The Way’. It’s a long essay, and I think he’s somewhat wrong in various respects, although here I’ll try not to engage with with the essay itself; rather my concern at the tendency I’ve seen on many ‘industry’ blogs recently, of which I think this particular post is an example.

Dave concludes, “Musicians, please embrace the web”.

Embrace the web! It’s the same mantra that we hear day in, day out, from various sources; always those who have a vested interest in convincing us that artists are not doing so. These people seem to be the pundits, or people who want music to be free, and artists to make money in other ways – either by touring or by ‘monetising their experiential awareness’. Are these people the only people in the world who don’t receive a thousand spams a day from bands on Myspace, from people on Facebook suggesting that they become a fan, from dullards on twitter? Are they the only people who can’t seem to visit a music website without tripping over a free download from this producer or that band?



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