Dubstepforum.com

Steve Albini wrote:I reject the term "piracy." It's people listening to music and sharing it with other people, and it's good for musicians because it widens the audience for music. The record industry doesn't like trading music because they see it as lost sales, but that's nonsense. Sales have declined because physical discs are no longer the distribution medium for mass-appeal pop music, and expecting people to treat files as physical objects to be inventoried and bought individually is absurd.

The downtrend in sales has hurt the recording business, obviously, but not us specifically because we never relied on the mainstream record industry for our clientele. Bands are always going to want to record themselves, and there will always be a market among serious music fans for well-made record albums. I'll point to the success of the Chicago label Numero Group as an example.

There won't ever be a mass-market record industry again, and that's fine with me because that industry didn't operate for the benefit of the musicians or the audience, the only classes of people I care about.

Free distribution of music has created a huge growth in the audience for live music performance, where most bands spend most of their time and energy anyway. Ticket prices have risen to the point that even club-level touring bands can earn a middle-class income if they keep their s*** together, and every band now has access to a world-wide audience at no cost of acquisition. That's fantastic.

Additionally, places poorly-served by the old-school record business (small or isolate towns, third-world and non-english-speaking countries) now have access to everything instead of a small sampling of music controlled by a hidebound local industry. When my band toured Eastern Europe a couple of years ago we had full houses despite having sold literally no records in most of those countries. Thank you internets.

- Steve Albini

volcanogeorge wrote:very well put.

does this mean in his opinion that you can't be a producer without being a DJ (for much longer at least)? I think that's pretty much the point we're at now anyway.

magma wrote:

volcanogeorge wrote:very well put.

does this mean in his opinion that you can't be a producer without being a DJ (for much longer at least)? I think that's pretty much the point we're at now anyway.

I don't think he'll have considered the producer/DJ thing too much... he's always been pretty rooted in guitar bands who are obviously more used to playing/recording live.

As a producer IMHO you either need to be a DJ, be friendly with a DJ or produce EP/Album length stuff that reviewers/bloggers/the market can't ignore so that tracks filter to DJs. But it's a dancefloor led industry, certainly..

kidshuffle wrote:but in this new fandangled age, how will steve send condoms with his records?

Today wrote:to me the files always had that value, and i think he's totally full of shit. but y'all already kow that about me ;]
This hasn't persuaded me one bit, and lacks any novel ideas to bring to the debate

Today wrote:people were buying it before they could steal it. And no, i'm not going to stop using the word "steal"