Was reading a couple of blog posts on music piracy recently, and the same tired old threads kept coming up. “Music tracks are just advertisements for the artist – they should make their money selling T-shirts and tickets to live shows.”
I’ve contributed this rebuttal, as have others – “what about music that can’t be performed live, or wasn’t intended to be? Beatles’ Sgt Pepper being a prime example, but even most of Revolver couldn’t have been done justice ‘live’”. Rebuttals to that rebuttal inevitably come back with “technology is so great now – anyone can do it. Phish redid the White Album live, etc”. Not trying to be Beatle-centric here, just some points of reference that make most sense to me. Substitute Zappa or Pink Floyd or whatever to suit your taste.
The “sell tshirts and tickets” has always bothered me, but not until today could I put my finger on why. There are two separate reasons, really.
Point one: I don’t need that many tshirts. Really – I like dozens of bands and hundreds of albums – I do NOT need more clothes or trinkets to memorialize them. This adds to clutter/waste, enriches the Chinese companies that manufacture this stuff, and is wasteful (did I mention it’s wasteful?)
Point two: You can *not* replicate the range of experiences people can have with music at a live concert. I don’t enjoy much live music because there’s so much *other* stuff going on around, and usually I can’t afford front row seats for larger shows (Stones, etc.) And for smaller shows, well – I’ve been to a few, and they were enjoyable, but were poor substitutes for the sonic brilliance and subtle textures I get listening to the artist’s CD. Live concerts are just *one* experience – a very short lived one for most people – that you can have with an artist’s music. There’ve been plenty of times I’ve cried at music tracks while riding in the car, or sitting at home being reflective of life, while listening to music from artists that were able to articulate my exact feelings for that moment. I find myself reconnecting with old music on long trips that bring a new perspective to how I used to see certain issues, or help me to reframe my thoughts on old friendships.
In short, the music on an artist’s album can often become the soundtrack for many chapters of your life, for years to come. Marginalizing that power by implying that artist’s music should be given away simply as a marketing tool to attract people to live shows (expecting them to buy shirts to ‘support’ the artist) is narrow-minded, short-sighted, and dare I say insulting to the many bands and artists that strive to achieve something more permanent.
