Heads up, Jenn Wasner apparently did a Flock Of Dimes set at Baltimore Airport's baggage claim last month, and you can hear a few of the new tunes. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-KSHq34wsXo here and the rest of the channel. There's a few other new tunes from the past 6 years floating around YouTube.
Warning: it all REALLY rules.
I get a really unnerving feeling every year. It seems like chaotic incidents seem to increase in in severity and frequency every SXSW. The growing popularity of Austin and the festival combined with its loose structure (free for all throughout the city at multiple venues as opposed to contained within a festival ground etc) has potential for things to get really really bad if the trend continues.
You're focusing on the wrong part of the comment. That was an aside to illustrate among the other points how solitary band sometimes difficult being a POP ETC fan right after the change was. More of a "I fear they may have all been right all along."
Forgetting everyone else and liking it just because you like it was pretty much the whole reason for POP ETC's sound shift and required the same from anyone that was going to like it.
I really, really, really loved their debut LP, and even went to their premiere show as POP ETC at a word-of-mouth only RSVP event. I hunted that shit down I loved them so much. I have an autographed LP on my shelf. But I really can't get behind this album. I am feeling the weight of everyone telling me how foolish I am for rooting for the POP ETC change beginning to bear down on my shoulders. I'm really happy that they're creating what they truly want to now, but I really don't think this is good.
I agree, it is the nature of our consumption of the media, at least in the days since Napster. It's all very tricky and I think both artists and services are still trying to figure it out. I too am a Spotify user (paid subscription) because it honestly feels like a great solution to the modern demands of music. From the information that Spotify has released, it does look like the pay outs for paid subscriptions are fair. It gets tied up in major label contracts and stuff like that, but that's always been a problem. I'm an independent artist on Spotify and the money I've received is comparable to iTunes and I've been paid for every stream. Not much, but it's there.
Though, I think their pay outs for free users was much lower. It's been a while since I read about it so I could be wrong, this conversation makes me want to double check. But I seem to remember something about free streams being paid as if they were a radio listen, which is much lower than if somebody were to purchase the music (which is closer to what paid subscription revenue is). The problem with this is that there is an enormous number of users that just download the free program and app and work around its limitations to listen to the songs and artists they want to on demand, as they would if they had purchased the record or paid for Spotify. I think that's the real problem with the service and the issue that these artists that are against Spotify have with it, and it gets mixed up a bit with their feelings on major labels and streaming music in general.
If it continues to be such a problem, I honestly wouldn't mind paying up to $20/mo for how often I use the service. I listen to all my music on there, all day everyday, and the streaming quality is fantastic. If getting rid of the free service and upping the subscription fee was better for all of the artists involved, I would definitely be on board for that as a user. Again though, a lot of that gets tied in with artists' individual contracts with their labels which can sometimes be kind of a raw deal for them. But that's not all artists, some artists have totally fair deals with their labels.
It's a pretty dense issue for everyone involved.
I think the point she's trying to make though (to be clear I don't fully agree with her either), is that the free service is not being provided to bring music to people who can't afford it and otherwise would not be able to experience it. It's that Spotify is collecting revenue from the ads (and subscriptions, but this is a different bullet point that gets mixed up in her statement a bit) to fill their own pockets and pay their own bills as opposed to fairly distribute it to the artists who are, by nature of the service, bringing in that revenue. Effectively extorting the artists and taking advantage of the fact that streaming music is quickly becoming the new norm and artists are going to have to adapt if they want to survive.
It's a complicated issue because she is a successful musician with probably a lot of money, married to a successful actor with for sure a lot of money, so it sometimes comes out as "why do you get to tell me how to listen to your music? It's not like you need the money, I do." The problem with this is incidentally you're saying "I have more of a right to my money than she does to hers because I have less of it." Isn't Joanna deserving of all of the income that should be rightfully hers for being a successful musician? Do we get a free pass for ripping people off because we are part of the struggling middle-class? If she was getting low-balled from every direction of the music industry like artists do with Spotify, she wouldn't make the money to continue producing beautiful music for us.
Like I said, it's a complicated issue and I don't necessarily disagree with you. The whole thing is kind of telling of the country's current economic and social state.
That's not really true. Most music sessions in the studio are made at 16 bit for this exact reason. 24 and 32 are usually saved for sound design stuff and big movie sessions.
Is it just me or do "Do I Wanna Know" and "R U Mine" sound nearly identical? I can't imagine these two will be very exciting right next together at the beginning of the album.
Although I was never the biggest fan, actually disliked most I heard by them, I wish I hadn't turned down the opportunity to go see them. I'm sure his solo stuff will be great.
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