The Pelican’s Perch

I recently found a copy of the Spider Man 3 soundtrack in my mail box at home and forgot why in the world I would have requested that. One look at the tracklist reminded me; Rogue Wave had a new song on it. I popped it into my computer and it froze my computer. That’s weird, I thought, then rebooted and tried again. Frozen again. Slightly pissed off at this, I got in my car to run an errand and put the soundtrack into my car stereo. It read “Error 3″, which I looked up in anger in my car stereo’s manual and it meant the format was incompatible. Are you kidding me? So this major label promo didn’t work on computers, in fact it froze a computer once inserted, and it didn’t work in car cd players. How about my Playstation? Nope. The DVD player? Nope. Ah, our good old fashioned Aiwa home stereo? Yes. That’s right. This promo, the highly coveted Spider Man 3 soundtrack, is so secret I can only play it on a conventional home stereo unit. As Kyle from South Park would say in a high pitched voice…Really?

This post was always intended to be one showcasing Rogue Wave’s new song since I love everything that band does, but it’s quickly morphed into my mini-thesis report on why major labels still don’t get it. I’ve been studying the music business for the last two years in school and plan on trying to start my own little record label/production company this summer (more details when we actually get it off the ground I swear), but one thing both myself and the two other guys in it with me know for sure is the music business is dying for a reason. Greed and money have dominated the industry for so long that those business models have become law and deviating from those models would be corporate suicide. Well guess what, innovative companies such as Magnatune, and bands like The Crimea and Lights.On, are finding new ways to have success in a music industry that finds the fan gaining more and more power over the success of bands and refuse to be force fed crap music anymore.

The picture below of the promo cd I received illustrates the major label’s complete stubbornness to change their old ways perfectly. Not only did it come in a bright yellow cd sleeve with “restricted release: watermark disc!” written all over it, but they even went as far as to waste money having a company watermark a specific cd just for me and print “this cd belongs to: Kevin Ehlers, Perch Music” on the cd. I know when I was at Sub Pop we would send hundreds upon hundreds of promos out every week. I can’t imagine how many Spider Man 3 promos were sent out, but it had to easily trump Sub Pop’s numbers. And the fact that they spent money to print my name and blog baffles me. The problem doesn’t lie in the fact that I’m a tiny, tiny blog and they’re wasting money personalizing a cd just so I won’t leak it. The real problem is that I’m an mp3 blogger. How hard is that to understand? What I do is act as a voice for bands and labels to spread the good news about their great music THROUGH MP3’s!

(click for full size picture)

If you give me a promo that has warnings literally all over it saying, “you can listen to this, but if you share any of this, the watermark will tell us it’s you and we will destroy you”. Obviously I’m exaggerating, but it’s to make a point. Do you really think preventing me from listening to this cd wherever I go (which is the main way I really connect with cd’s by putting them on my ipod for the walk to class, listening to them while driving, playing them on my computer while writing posts, etc.), and making my computer freeze if I even attempt to put it on my computer will result in me thinking anything postively about the very album you’re trying to promote to me in order to get me to promote it to my readers? Pretend for a second it wasn’t the Spider Man 3 soundtrack and was something relatively decent. The very fact you went to this much trouble to prevent me from listening to it rather than telling me why it’s great and thanks for helping me share it just shoots you in the foot and makes me never want to post about it.

Music is art and business should only be there to help make sure musicians can make a living with their music. Of course, it’s human nature to survive and money = survival, so business will do whatever it can to survive, even if they destroy the beauty of music in the process. I even wrote a paper about this in my Commercial Music class.

So, like I said before, this post started out with me excited to hear some new Rogue Wave and other pretty good songs off this soundtrack like the Flaming Lips, The Walkman, Yeah Yeah Yeahs, and Wolfmother, but ended up with a rant that may or may not get me cut off the promo mailing list. Most the people I deal with receiving promos, like Torr and Marni, are awesome and know how bloggers work. But it’s when they send promos from major labels that I get the unpleasant yellow restricted ones. I’ve found the Rogue Wave song at a few other sites, so I’ll stream it below for you to at least hear it, and the soundtrack does get at least one thumb up from me (even though I have to walk upstairs anytime I want to listen to it). Check out the track list below and make up your own mind whether you want to check it out or not, but I’m not exactly that enthusiastic about it anymore after this whole debacle.

If our little record label things takes off, then all the music from our bands will be available free to download, including my own album once we get it recorded this summer. This is how it should be, because the music serves as an introduction to a band, and gets people talking. This thought of all free music probably scares the hell out of labels, but it’s where the industry’s headed, and I hope when we get things going people take notice. Music is about the interaction between a band and their fans and it’s the ability to build an ever-growing community around a band that’s key, not how many albums they sell. That’ll be our goal with our label, and hopefully people prove me right once we get forums up and set up shows.

If you’ve made it this far, I’m actually quite surprised. Sorry about the rant, but it’s been brewing inside me for quite some time as I’ve volunteered at two big conventions this last year through my major’s association and heard countless clueless record execs proclaim the death of the industry while providing no solutions. The answer is simple. The change in the industry is inevitable, let’s face it, and the cause and the solution lie in one source: the internet. This rant, however pointless is may seem, will have reached somewhere between 500-1000 people by tomorrow depending on how many people decide to check in today. All I do is talk about music. Just think if I had an album, a great live show, and interesting merch. People would start to take notice and if I had my music free on the net, no one would have to ask to post specific songs on their blog. People would hear the whole album, stop by my site out of curiosity to hear it all, join my forum and chat with other fans, then possibly check my live show out. All without selling a single cd. Give the power back to the bands and their fans and be creative. THAT is how survival will ultimately work in music industry of the future. Or you can just ignore it like we have been and continue complaining. Your choice.

Spider-Man 3 Tracklist
01 Snow Patrol – “Signal Fire”
02 The Killers – “Move Away”
03 Yeah Yeah Yeahs – “Sealings”
04 Wolfmother – “Pleased To Meet You”
05 The Walkmen – “Red River”
06 Black Mountain – “Stay Free”
07 The Flaming Lips – “The Supreme Being Teaches Spiderman How To Be In Love”
08 Simon Dawes – “Scared Of Myself”
09 Chubby Checker – “The Twist”
10 Rogue Wave – “Sight Lines”
11 Coconut Records (aka Jason Schwartzman) – “Summer Day”
12 Jet – “Falling Star”
13 Sounds Under Radio – “Portrait Of A Summer Thief”
14 Wasted Youth Orchestra – “A Letter To St. Jude”
15 The Oohlas – “Small Parts”

Rogue Wave – Sight Lines (streamed)

Stream the whole album through AOL Spinner / Buy

(no rants tomorrow, I swear. As always, comment away if you agree or disagree. I’d like to hear feedback)