I didn’t go to the “SXSW Dual Conversation: The End of Business As Usual” panel, so I’m commenting on an article on Digital Savant written about the panel. It could be that I missed critical context or tone to the discussion that took place.
It sounds like Billy Corgan has accepted the changed landscape that the digital world and, perhaps more importantly, the fans have imposed on the music industry. He’s accepted it, but it sounds like he still doesn’t get it.
He said the solution to the problem (“problem” was not clearly defined, at least not in the Digital Savant article) was for the fans to support the music they like. Well, duh. But that’s not exactly the whole of it. He’s laying the music industry’s woes entirely at the feet of fans. Bullshit. Everybody had a hand in that pie. We already know how the music industry and, more specifically, the record labels / RIAA fucked things up. No need to rehash that. No, I want to point a finger at the artists themselves for a moment.
And not artists like Metallica who went after their own fans with cops and lawyers. Those douchebags are in the same bucket as the RIAA as far as I’m concerned. Though they did that with the same underlying motive that Billy Corgan alluded to in his SXSW conversation.
I’m pointing a finger at artists like Billy Corgan because what he’s upset about is not that he can’t make a damn good living as a musician, but that he has to work more to make less. And that’s kind of reasonable, unless we’re talking about millions of dollars, in which case, fuck you Billy Corgan. Or, put another way…
Oops, your sense of entitlement is showing.
Or, put a third way…
I think you just stepped on your dick.
Look. I’m sorry you can’t make MEGA millions anymore. I’m sorry that, as a performer, a good chunk of your income in the future will come from, well, performing. If you’re a smart performer, you’ll probably make another huge chunk of change from merchandise. But I get it. It’ll never replace the gold that used to rain down from the sky with each breath you took in the Before Time.
At the end of the day though, you’re going to be a lot happier if you get over that.
