Week 4 - Fight The Power like Public Enemy.

My neighbors and I started our first band when we were 11. 14 years later, we're still playing, and we've made a total of like zero dollars. We played a show as recently as last night, and I'll have you know that we probably lost money. I guess the pipe-dream of making a living off of my music has always followed me, but it's certainly not something I ever anticipate happening. I've come to terms with that. I'll live out the rest of my days working jobs I don't really care that much about because my real "career" path will eventually lead to a life (or early death) as a musician. Now, why can't I really ever make a career for myself as a musician?

Let's take a look at the record. I started making music around the same time that digital recording became super easy for any idiot--myself, included-- to use. Soon, any asshole could grab his Dad's Macbook, record a miserably mediocre and really just awful sounding collection of songs in Garageband, and create a Myspace page for his cool new band. Without the need for expensive studios or production or someone to physically edit your stuff--like, actually cut the tape of what you just recorded and glue it back together so it sounds good--digital recording and the internet let you almost instantly bypass the checks and balances of the last 20 years that had kept so much bad music from reaching the public domain. This, according to John Buckman, is just one reason why it's so damn hard for musicians to make any money.

Today, if a musician wants to achieve commercial success--strictly in terms of making as much money as someone with probably a real career who went to a lot of school-- they need either to be unbelievably lucky, or have a fat wad of income they can use to try to propel themselves to a moderate, tepid success. If you are of the one in 1,000,000 who happens to be lucky (or talented, but not necessarily) enough to gain the support of a major record label, then sit back and let the music industry fulfill your every want and need until they run out of ways to squeeze money out of your popularity. The other 999,999 of us, though, continue to piss away our hard-earned income, trying to do, ourselves, what the industry could do with its toilet paper budget.

This situation creates desperate musicians, willing to give almost anything for a chance to have their music reach an audience that they couldn't by their own broke-ass means. Too often these dumb, desperate sonsofbitches gloss over the fine print in their contract with Joe Bigshot Records and end up signing over the rights to their material along with it.    

Magnatune, however, will not rape or pillage your musical dreams. They are a much-needed, benevolent force in the dark and scary music world. Now, just because John Buckman created Magnatune doesn't necessarily guarantee your discovery and fame, but your chances have sure as hell gone up--maybe from one in 1,000,000 to like 112 in 1,000,000 (That statement is by no means supported by any factual or scientific findings, btw.)