Time to change the record

As an artist and a consumer I am very interested in the conversation about Spotify presented in the article via this link: Spotify moved the needle but the record stays scratched

Whilst Spotify is not perfect as a platform it is very good and has potential for intuitive developments that could engage the consumer in a way that would enhance the whole artist / consumer experience.

As an artist it is convenient but pays woefully short. I retired to my bedroom for half an hour on the back of my last royalty payment.

...and whilst I have not earned my living from music for a good number of years it has always been generous to me in terms of pocket money up until about 2 years ago. I now need to generate 300,000 listens to achieve about ￡1,000 in revenue. In my rather obscure niche that's highly unlikely in a reasonable time span but that kind of revenue was possible within a 6 month period less than 5 years ago. The level of engagement hasn't changed between myself and the listeners of the myriad of projects I am involved in, only the revenue has changed.

That said, releasing my music and getting it to market has never been so easy … we have never had it so good. I dreamed of times like this back in the halcyon days of cassette culture.

The tools we have at our fingertips now were a pipe dream in the late 70's and early 80's. In those days we relied on multiple cassette recorders (until the portastudio came along as a game changer) for recording technology. Studio time was prohibitively expensive even in small local recording studios.

Equipped with letraset, our own artistry and photocopying machines for artwork. Our earliest cassette releases had hand drawn covers coloured in with felt tip pens.

A flourishing network of fanzines, student rags, a generous ear from the three mainstream music papers of the day, a disparately connected pirate radio network, the good will of fellow musicians and creative sojourners for our marketing.

Our first cassettes were made to order, painstakingly duplicated in real time using 5 pin din connectors and multiple cassette recorders. Later high speed cassette duplicators were available. We managed eventually shift enough units to outsource it to a copying service that mostly duplicated sermons for churches. My good friend and fellow diy musician Martin Newell of the legendary Cleaners from Venus put me onto them. I am sure that my avant-garde meanderings and the edgy punk rock vitality of Frenzid Melon and later the insane picnic must have been a huge culture shock for those involved in the duplication process. I sometimes wondered if our cultural exegesis was incorrectly delivered to people expecting Biblical exegesis and what they may have made of that.

...and not forgetting the good old British postal service for distribution!

All of this was underpinned by a passion and zeal for our craft and a spirit of helping and encouraging each other. Such was the case that the insane picnic's debut cassette only e.p. clocked up 750 direct mail sales (helped by a glowing review courtesy of Ian Pye in Melody Maker) and we managed to get distribution of our cassettes via Backs of Norwich and the cartel network with some cassette releases passing the 1000 units mark.

Cassette culture was a game changer in it's day. The possibility of releasing our own music at a very low cost became a reality. For the first time we didn't need expensive studio time, we didn't need a record label, we didn't have to generate a minimum run of 1000 copies wondering if we would sell enough to break even. We could record an album over the weekend and get it into the hands of influencers and loyal fans within a week.

Halcyon days indeed but it was hard work compared to being able to record an album on a mobile phone and get it instantly out there into the marketplace.

I am not complaining. There has been a radical shift in the way music is being consumed over the last 20 years. The music business has had to cope with monumental change which has not been an easy shift for those at the creative end or those involved in delivering music as a product. I was there in the Oxford Street HMV, 1992 partnering in the controversial and sentimentally difficult decision to get rid of vinyl and make way for Super Nintendo. I know how it feels.

Like most musicians I am not involved for money. I never was involved in music for money and when I worked in the music business as a label manager, working in publishing and as a store manager for the number one music retailer I found it difficult to engage with as a commodity. Most of my collaborators and other musicians that I know are involved in this work for the purposes of expression and connection. We do it because we love to create, we can express ourselves in a way that words cannot fully convey. If this was about earning a living I would have given up 30 years ago.

So, this is not a complaint. I am merely curious and looking for an opportunity for small time artists to get a fair bite of the cherry again. I like the King Crimson business model but they are iconic and have a long standing, immensely loyal and sizeable fan base. My total mailing list is about equal to the number of daily unique visitors that the King Crimson website gets.

The gulf between the mainstream and the underground is greater than ever. There was a time when a good record that was independently released and marketed was within touching distance of the mainstream at least, even the pop music charts were exciting for a while and it was possible for obscure musicians such as myself to touch the outer echelons of such dizzy heights. I have seen and heard some great bands in recent years who back in those halcyon days at at least a fighting chance. They are now stuck the wrong side of the chasm.

The data available online has ripped the heart and soul out of the music industry. A&R no longer exists to search for, nurture and develop talent but they are looking for the next finished package. They have become fat and lazy. The independent musician's marketing expertise has to outshine their musical creativity before they can get any attention at all.

I realize that this article is not the whole story, it's merely a sketchpad of observations and thoughts. There are many conflicting and converging factors in this complex world where artistic creativity and business become thorny bedfellows but I am just wondering if there is a hope out there for a music industry with a heartbeat, looking for music that is gritty, passionate and edgy instead of marketing a commodity that is insipid, spineless and has about as much edge as a bag of marshmallows.

If anybody out there has the aspiration to develop a platform and a business model that provides what the consumers want and gives good value to independent and emerging artists as well as an opportunity to engage and grow their audience I am more than happy to give some time and insight into that.