The Chatterbox, Random Music Discussion

That's a bit of a gross generalization... Even if it is 90 per cent shit, there's a lot of good albums in the remaining 10 per cent.

That list is by no means comprehensive though. There are plenty of albums released this year that Wikipedia seems to be blind to...

"I thought Djent was just a band" -Physical Stamina

That's because it's Wikipedia is a common project. More obscure things are less likely to get noted there. If you think something significant is missing, improve the list by adding them. That's how all the others got there.

Is there some sort of rule on Wikipedia for when an album becomes considered notable enough for one to add it? Like, would it be considered incorrect for me to add an album from some unsigned Bandcamp?

"I thought Djent was just a band" -Physical Stamina

The Wikipedia Hive Mind will totally delete articles about albums for not being "notable" enough. And their standards of "notability" for music basically boil down to: Is it released by a notable record label? Did a notable news source write about it or review it?

I think it's enough if you just add sources. Like a link to the actual bandcamp page showing the release date of the particular album.

Unlikely.

Like said above, if it hasn't been released on a major label or if it hasn't been reviewed somewhere somehow, it won't be on wikipedia.

Also I may be generalizing, but like you said it's still 90% crap. At that point, it's not like I feel bad about generalizing.

You are standing in an open field west of a white house, with a boarded front door. There is a small mailbox here.

And besides, three of my favorite albums of last year are in the mainstream.

@Alucard: So, no.

Thanks for the suggestions though.

Mache dich, mein Herze, rein...

So, I was listening to music on youtube (Sam the Sham's greatest hits, specifically) and I got a suggestion for an album from a band called "The Klan". Even stranger, the album is called "Join Us". Has anyone else gotten any really strange music suggestions from youtube? (Edit: Preferably strange band/song/album names.)

(Curiosity got the better of me and it appears to be just a Belgian band that had an unfortunate name.)

edited 19th Oct '14 4:08:05 PM by ColonelCathcart

I was browsing surf rock one time when I got a recommendation for "Guajira Sicodelica" by Los Destellos—a Peruvian cumbia band. Though their style was rather reminiscent of surf and early garage rock, it's not a comparison I've seen anywhere else.

http://www.theguardian.com/music/2014/oct/20/platinum-album-sales-2014-expected-us-frozen

Interesting.

I feel like that artists and labels need to fight for higher streaming royalties, if they want to financially survived in this current state.

Bleh. On the very, very, very slight chance I ever become an even mildly successful musician, that's what I have to look forward to.

Oh no! Very rich people who have what most would consider a leisure activity (playing music) as a job don't have quite as much money as they used to because people who can't afford to buy their albums anyway are digitally replicating them rather than purchasing them!

I really wish that musicians and the 'music industry,' particularly rich ones, would stop bitching about internet piracy. Money is never why somebody should be playing music, and if a musician wants a normal boring job with a paycheck at the end of each week, they can easily do that instead of playing music.

Seriously, if a musician complains about internet piracy, I go out of my way to never support them.

edited 20th Oct '14 3:35:06 PM by CardsOfWar

"I thought Djent was just a band" -Physical Stamina

I disagree with the mindset that music — or any art, in fact — shouldn't be a full-time job. Many artists are held back because they have to work a job out of necessity, leaving less time and energy for creativity. Why should singers have to turn tables and work in an office (a fate that I personally want to avoid) when they can easily make art their full-time job and eventually earn a livable wage?

Money shouldn't be the *primary reason* for going into art/entertainment. I agree with that, since it's less reliable than most industries. *But* I think an artist should be allowed to at least support themselves through their preferred profession, as opposed to falling back to a job.

Try walking up to a full-time musician who's feeding kids with their money.

So while I feel that the top artists can survive some financial cutbacks, I don't want decreasing profits to discourage potential artists and hurt the music industry, just because they have to devote time funding their music instead of letting their music fund themselves.

edited 20th Oct '14 3:45:54 PM by chihuahua0

I don't think it's necessarily wrong to want money for your art, but the impact piracy has is overblown.

Big musicians generally make most of their money by live performances.

I heard in some cases, digital sales are written off as "advertising" and the artists don't even get royalties.

Put me in motion, drink the potion, use the lotion, drain the ocean, cause commotion, fake devotion, entertain a notion, be Nova Scotian

Album sales aren't really relevant to the discussion of whether artists can support themselves. This mostly affects the label suits.

I say that as someone who is completely and totally for supporting artists. I buy most of my music new (some of it used).

Now if ticket sales are ever on the downturn is when we can start crying about the sky falling.

edited 20th Oct '14 3:57:48 PM by Alucard

@Cards Of War That article doesn't even mention illegal downloading so dragging the internet piracy debate into the discussion was kind of unnecessary IMO.

I think that these days the decline in album sales has less to do with piracy and more to do with the renewed emphasis on buying singles thanks to iTunes, and the rising popularity of music streaming services, both of which are legal and compensate the artist.

From what I've heard, royalties from streaming are chump change.

Yeah, fair enough. It just sort of seemed like people were taking the "MUSICIANS WILL STOP WORKING IF WE STOP PAYING RECORD EXECS TO SIT ON THEIR ASSES!1!!1!" argument, despite the fact that there are plenty of non-commercial artists (and even some of the bigger ones) completely happy to give their music away for free. I dunno though, maybe I misread things.

I completely agree. I actually think that the whole stigma around internet piracy is actually largely spawned out of fearmongering and propaganda from the record labels. (That's not to say that I won't purchase an album from a band that I really like/an unsigned band.)

I actually disagree. If an artist wants a normal life of checks and balances, then they can quite easily do that rather than making music. I'm not particularly worried about that, there are way too many bands anyway. Further to that, I think that great music, historically, has been born out of adversity and difficult circumstances. (not always financially difficult) I actually think that with artists making less money, while we may not get more music, we will get more good music.

Also, the premise of less musicians playing because there's not as much money in it is largely a myth in everything but commercial pop music. At the moment there are 54154 active bands on the metal archives, very few of which have any chance of commercial success at all, and that's just one genre. If that's not enough music for you, then you're some kind of lunatic.

With the rise of internet piracy, artists who play their music for pleasure have been able to incorporate influences into their music (sometimes even inadvertently) from all around the world, without it worrying about hurting the 'bottom line,' and the country-town living kid who would previously only have access to the commercial albums his local supermarket got in, now has access to every musical sound recorded in human history. (The same goes for those who want to be able to listen to music, but aren't that well-off.) So far, it looks to me that internet piracy has done good for musicians, music listeners, and the world in general, but time will tell I suppose. (The only people that seem hurt by it seem to be whiny millionaires.)

On a vaguely related note, does anybody know what percentage of the sale the artist gets if I buy something on Bandcamp?

I apologise if this post is poorly written, rambling, or Tl;dr.

edited 20th Oct '14 5:45:47 PM by CardsOfWar

"I thought Djent was just a band" -Physical Stamina

Last I heard, the artist gets about half of the money from sales. In terms of money per purchase reaching the artist, it's second only to buying stuff directly from the artist.

Why does bandcamp give just half, when places like Humble and Steam and GOG are reportedly offering 70% return to game developers whose games sell on those storefronts?

[/possibly ignorant question?]

Do Humble et al. enable people to preview the games online before buying? Because Bandcamp allows anyone to stream individual tracks or whole albums, completely for free. And a lot of musicians put out albums on Bandcamp as completely free downloads, or as "pay what you want" downloads. So BC has to eat the server costs for all those free services, and I suspect they need to take a bigger cut of the actual sales in order to make up for it.

edited 21st Oct '14 6:09:58 AM by MetaFour

Trying really hard to stay diplomatic at some of the incredibly misinformed stuff posted above...

I'll just post this : http://www.contentcreatorscoalition.org/

You may not think that hugely successful artists (speaking of really really big artists here. Like, I don't know, Beyoncé ?) need to combat piracy, and in that, you're right, they really don't. But only if they're big. Period.

edited 21st Oct '14 6:14:13 AM by Akalabth

You are standing in an open field west of a white house, with a boarded front door. There is a small mailbox here.

^^ Ah. That makes sense.