The big news is out of Webster City and the closing of Electrolux, the makers of vaccum cleaners and carpet cleaners as they take more business across the boulder to Mexico and paying them 50 pesos an hour to make vaccum cleaners. Fucking bastards, so I will not buy any Electrolux, nor should you. Recession is over eh? Not where I'm at.
In terms of recession and music, ole Garth Brooks has come crawling out of retirement to play at Wynn's in Vegas at 125 bucks to see him and his guitar. And he calls that a bargain. I personally don't care about Garth, he ruined country music as we used to know it and put it as glitzy as a rock show. And then reissues his albums all over again, on a "limited time only". Now in a interview with CMT he has decided he's going to fight privacy and unauthorized downloading and Itunes for that matter. Listen to Sir Garth tell it to you from this interview.
"The thing I haven't liked about the last 10 years is that we have allowed the creator and the owner of the content to bow down to the retailer. We've allowed them to stand by while piracy runs rampant without our government stepping in.
"Now, politics is a funny thing. If there are millions of illegal downloaders out there -- which is millions of voters -- and there's 50,000 people in the industry to protect that, it doesn't make it right to turn a blind eye because there's millions of them. They wouldn't do the same thing with McDonald's or whoever. They would have police, they would bust 'em. Our government has not stood up to protect us. I think film and music should join hand in hand and put the brakes on entertainment until ... all it would take is half a day of silence. And people would say, 'Well, what the hell is going on here?' Well, you didn't take care of it, and that's your job. We can create, but we need help protecting ourselves."
Crabby-Bow down to what retailer?!? You took your damn masters to Wally World and Best Buy Fuckface. People buy your cds, they can do what they want. CD's are a problem since the major labels stuck them down our throats. People are pissed at the Majors and the MPAA with all this sueing that they do, our government has got two fucking shit wars created by Bush/Cheney that we can't get out of, we got drug cartels from Mexico killing people for drugs and all your worried about is your cut in the music biz. You are the best selling country artist in history for fuck's sake. Where did all your money go?
Now Garth tell us about Itunes then..
Brooks also pointedly referred to iTunes' policy of selling only singles as a huge mistake.
"They are nice guys and they love music," Brooks said. "But they are businessmen and they are not going to say, 'Yeah, we'll put albums out there at the price that you tell me.' Because they don't have to. Right now, they're running the music business. And I have told them this: They might not be the last guys that should be running the business, but they're close.
"But, to us, as music people, if you're just gonna stand there and bitch, nothing's going to happen. We need to start getting active. We need to find a way that music can unify. Unionize. And turn it off."
CRABBY-people want the singles since the albums of today suck. One good songs, 10 songs of shit. Music can unify, but if you decided to turn it off, people will turn you off. Music today isn't the same as it was 20/30 years ago. The major labels do not promote a band or artist anymore, they live for the single and the flavor of the moment. Why do you think that people still listen to George Jones or John Cash or Waylon, or Led Zep or The Beatles? The labels back then develop the acts and let them grow. The Brad Paisleys and Keith Urbans of the world give their fans a good show and let them be part of the action. Garth, charging folks 125 bucks for a hour show isn't the same thing at all. Sad to be behind the times and sad to know that your time has past must suck to you.
Garth..."Somebody's got to step up and do it. I'm sticking my whole body back into the business again. Because I feel great that I am doing something to try to protect the songwriters. ...
"I'm not a record label fan, but on this one, I have to stand up for the record labels and say that they can't afford development anymore. Because if you think you can live on 99 cents a single, I can guarantee you one of two things: You're wrong, or you're working for Apple."
CRABBY-um Garth, Capitol made you what you are today. Without Capitol and luck you'd be playing old George Strait covers in a Ada honky tonk. Labels don't do development anymore dumbass. It's one and done for the majority of stars and the lucky ones tour tour tour and keep in touch with their fans. Like Taylor Swift, Like Keith Urban, unlike you. You're so fucking out of touch with music today it's ridiculous.
So, would he personally issue a call for a day or half-day of musical silence to make the point?
"I would hate to see it get that far," Brooks said. "What I would much rather do is see the government stand up for us and give us the right to make that happen if we're not happy. That would be enough, trust me, because the people that you have problems with can't make their living without music.
CRABBY-Well call for a day of musical silence and see if you get away with it. Piss enuff people off Garth and you'll be nothing more than the greedy bastards who head these labels that got to be where they are today with endless mergers and less memorable music then. As somebody said it's supply and demand Garth, and if you supply people with crappy cliche country music, there will not be any demand for it. Unless you're the 5 of Hearts band.
In closing, the problem of CDs is that we don't get the old record format at around 38 to 40 minites of music, everything has ballooned up to over 50 minites. The majority of Cds out there if you think about it amounts to a old two album set on one CD. 15 songs can be too much to sit through and if your a music collector like me, you not going to have all that time to sit and listen like we used to do years ago. It's impossible, you can't do it, so people rely on the single which used to be called 45s in my younger days. The days of making big ass money from records are over, one has to tour, unless your Garth Brooks and can book Vegas for a 125 bucks not including Ticketmaster's inflated service charges. It's one thing to sell your CDs cheap at Wally World but if your going to rag on ITunes, then your doing your usual double standard Mr Brooks and that makes you a big assed greedy hypocrite.
You might be Country's best selling artist in history but Mr Brooks, your not a very likeable fellow. And I never did care much for your Friends In Low Places anyway.
From Texas Singer....They should make the best albums they possibly can. With all the great writers here in Nashville there is no excuse for putting a bad song on a record. If things keep going the way they are, artists may stop making whole albums and just make singles. It's hard enough for us songwriters to get our songs cut when artists have to find 10 or 12 songs for an album, if they went to just singles they would only be looking for one song at a time, which would make it a whole lot harder to get a cut. And Garth makes another great point. If you had to buy the whole album, then the record labels would have more money for artist development. That means new artists trying to break into the business would have a better shot at getting a record deal because the labels would have the money to invest in them, which in turn would provide more great music for the public and make more money for the artists, songwriters, publishers and everybody else in the business. It's a win/win. Music fans get more great music and the industry makes more money. I don't care what anybody says, besides being an incredible singer, songwriter and entertainer, Garth is a marketing genius and he is good for the music business. He saved country music in the 90's and he's about to save it again.
CRABBY-More bullshit. Nobody has time to listen to more than 12 songs per cd dumbass. Record Labels DO NOT care about artist Development. As for buying the whole album, that didn't work every well with LEN who made a great song (steal my sunshine) but the rest of that album sucked. You forgot a word about Garth, he's a great marketing manipulator but I don't think he saved country music in the 90s. This is not the 90s anymore Texas Singer, learn to sing live or get a realtime job.
counterpoint
From Cyn...
It's
called supply and demand, Garth. If every album was worth buying, this
would have never been an issue. Perhaps you should start by asking the
government to regulate sloppy intellectual work?
From Horsefuture.... Many people can not afford to buy album after album. Music helps so many get through their days and stressful (or happy) situations. We have purchased albums before that we have been very disappointed in. It was a pure waste of money. This all boils down to balance and not greed. I love Garth Brooks and will continue to love his music, however, he is going to make people very upset and he will lose support from the public who pay all the bills. Whether it is one song or a whole album... at least people are buying what they can afford. Taylor Swift never forgets to let her fans know how grateful she is... and maybe that is what more of the older artists need
to do! If it weren't for us, some artists wouldn't have the life they have.
And
now a final thought from Hooder....Garth is a great singer and
entertainer, but he needs to stick to music. He is playing both sides of
the fence with his politics. Cheap at Wal-Mart is ok but not at Itunes.
Uhoh. And being a fan of the corrupt Obama administration makes him
totally unbelievable. Just sing music, Garth, not politics.
