The Artist As a Business Start-Up

Radiohead’s manager, Brian Message, appears to be on a mission to restructure the music industry. His ideas on how music should be presented and sold have already caused a mixture of glee and controversy among his peers. The pay-what-you-want model for In Rainbows set a fascinating precedent for the selling of music by major artists, and Message has also voiced his support for Joel Tenenbaum—-the man facing a court case against the RIAA for illegally downloading music files.

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The New T-Shirt Revolution

Most music fans have shelled out hard earned cash for a band T-shirt at some point. Sometimes, a simple band logo will suffice. At others, a tour T-shirt with a great list of dates on the back can work as a great souvenir. The recent(ish) trend for retro designs proves that the lowly band T-shirt is far from dead, and has even sparked a bizarre trend for people sporting clothing bearing the name of artists whose work isn’t familiar to them. How else to explain the abundance of Motorhead T-shirts draped over the skeletal frames of catwalk models a few years back? Lemmy must have had a good laugh about that one (a laugh that took him all the way to the bank).

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The Shock of the New

With MySpace caught up in a downward spiral, the question of where new bands should go to promote their wares online is currently a major issue in the music industry. Nine Inch Nails frontman Trent Reznor has made a thoughtful post on the topic, in which he outlines various strategies for upcoming artists who want to make their mark. Reznor believes that free is the way forward, and encourages new bands to forget about record sales. He proposes that bands build a fanbase by giving away music in exchange for an e-mail address, which can later be utilized for marketing purposes (promotion of live dates, merchandise, and even future record sales once an artist’s name is properly established).

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Tiny Vipers - Life on Earth: Album Review

Vincenzo Natali’s 2003 film Nothing takes its two central figures, Andrew and Dave, and positions them in a characterless white void. The big endless nothing appears to stretch on forever, triggering a peculiar kind of claustrophobia in the two men, who slip into various existential crises as they struggle to adapt to their new surroundings. All that remains of their previous world is the house in which they both lived. Tiny Vipers’ Life On Earth is music that barely exists, that sounds like it was recorded after Jesy Fortino (who is Tiny Vipers) fell into a deep chasm and wasn’t particularly bothered about getting out. There’s almost nothing here. No air, no light. Sometimes there’s hardly any music at all.

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Top of the Pops: Do Charts Still Matter?

Are consumers still aware of the singles and albums that currently stand atop the Billboard singles and album charts? Like many other countries in the world, Billboard welcomed legal digital downloads into its chart gathering statistics back in the mid 2000s. Before then, sales of physical copies were merged with statistics from Broadcast Data Systems, who tracked radio airplay. This system worked fine, until now. With traditional radio outlets battling online competitors, it’s become increasingly apparent that Internet streaming services need to be welcomed into the fold.

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