Comments on: The Songs That Saved Your Life – The 00s: What Now?

By: extremelisteningmode

extremelisteningmode — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 13:25:17 +0000

They all sound very young. And we all seem very old.

By: howlinwhippet

howlinwhippet — Sun, 08 Nov 2009 00:34:56 +0000

NEWS FLASH. Just saw the (possibly) future of Glasgow rock and roll. A teenage band called The Celestians just blew away the (admittedly pish) competition at Ivory Blacks tonight. Great songs, terrific and totally Gleswegian gallus-ness and a wonderfully don’t give a fuck attitude. They’ve got a myspace with some poorly recorded versions of Russell Ferguson’s songs on, but trust me, if you can bear going to an “unders” gig, these guys (who have, incidentally, a big following) are well worth checking out.

By: howlinwhippet

howlinwhippet — Sat, 07 Nov 2009 13:45:44 +0000

Oh fucking Hell…………………please!

By: Good god, man!

Good god, man! — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 15:43:25 +0000

Copyright is implicit – technically, by the terms of the law it needs no formal declaration, as by publishing, the author effectively states copyright. In practice, I sort of see your point, but I do think it’s the least of the owner’s worries.

I’m not even going to start on the literary theory of death of the author (mostly because it’s dead boring and pretentious).

By: extremelisteningmode

extremelisteningmode — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 15:29:17 +0000

Not to be too Lib Dem here, but I agree with both of you.

By: bertrand d'oyle carte

bertrand d'oyle carte — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 15:26:51 +0000

Basically file sharing is indeed a wonderful tool for bands…and is here to stay. But as a songwriter I am dead against a further drift to songs becoming ‘anonymous’ and open to be grabbed, mixed, stolen and reworked. Would it be so hard to build credits into the shared file as I described above? That way every file of every song would have in its directory details of who wrote it and the copywrite they own. Sound fair enough?

By: Good god, man!

Good god, man! — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 14:05:07 +0000

The “everyone’s a winner” comment was a leetle joke, aimed more at the fact they’ve got to tour their arses off to make money, thus spend rainy cold nights in Glasgow.

My main point is really that the “music belongs to everyone” attitude is not that new (home taping with ruin the world! and so on and so forth), and it smacks a wee bit too much of record company propaganda for my liking.

By: bertrand d'oyle carte

bertrand d'oyle carte — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 13:52:31 +0000

If that appeared rude it through frustration at seeing this ‘everyone is a winner’ comment….lots of smaller performers and artists are open to file sharing but not one article or any anecdotal evidence I have heard points to artists liking or supporting the attitude amongst some younger music fans where music ‘appears’ as if by magic and ‘belongs to everyone’. All artists want their name by their song.

By: Good god, man!

Good god, man! — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 13:51:00 +0000

Writing songs isn’t really the issue, Bert, it’s having them recorded, widely distributed , and actually in demand that is the crux of your point. Until that happens, who wrote it is a bit of a moot point, surely?

By: bertrand d'oyle carte

bertrand d'oyle carte — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 13:27:40 +0000

Facile.

Clearly you’ve never written a song.

But hey…..

By: Good god, man!

Good god, man! — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 11:43:25 +0000

Erm, I’m not sure that’s really what anyone gives a fuck about, to be honest. Do you think the wee dude that helped write all the good Lemonheads songs gives a fuck that no-one knows his name? Naw, because he got a big fat fuck-off cheque.

I am a bit tired of the whole “downloaders are screwing artists” argument. Two fundamental truths:

Artists have been getting bent over one way or another since time began, so no big shakes there. At least it’s not by a record company now.

In consuming the music, whether downloaded for free, bought once and passed around, or taped off the fucking radio, a market for all the actual revenue making channels is being created. I’ve seen 4 bands this month, and I bet they made more off these gigs than they ever did off of the music bought by the audience that attended, before or after downloading took over the distribution market. And they get to see Glasgow on a rainy Tuesday in November. See? everyone wins.

By: bertrand d'oyle carte

bertrand d'oyle carte — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 09:13:07 +0000

That’s a shame as 99% of song writers would forego income for recognition and songs simply popping out of the ether is morally wrong and a real shame. But how to do anything about it is a mystery…..one idea might be to imbed songwriting details in files so that they come up along with artist/title/album on ipods and MP3 players….as a songwriter myself I deeply resent the idea that ‘songs just exist and are really owned by all of us’ but what to do about is indeed the problem….

By: extremelisteningmode

extremelisteningmode — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 11:44:22 +0000

I think it’s passed that now Bert. It is what it is.

I think the genie is out of the bottle with it.

By: bertrand d'oyle carte

bertrand d'oyle carte — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 11:43:12 +0000

Interesting.

My worry about downloading remains that music is not ‘free’ and so shouldn’t be consumed as such. How can bands possibly sustain any sort of career if they are unpaid? It also destroys albums as a concept.

On the other hand it opens artists to people who maybe wouldn’t have bought an album in the same way ‘mix tapes’ once did…they didn’t kill music and neither will downloads but it must be more strictly policed to ensure people are recognised as the writers and performers.