Search Results for: the decemberists

This is one helluva list.  There are 449 artists on this list and all of them are screwed.  Here’s why.

Like the house in Vegas, the advantage in a recording contract goes to the label.  For every dollar an album brings in the door, the label gets the lion’s share with pennies (and even fractions of a penny) going to the artist.  It’s always been this way.

After some lobbying, the US Congress changed copyright law so that artists could reclaim full ownership of their work from their record label after 35 years.  The starting point for this law is 1978, so next year–2013–is when a ton of artists will demand that they get their songs back.

This, naturally, has the recording industry extremely spooked because, of course, they stand to lose a tremendous amount of revenue in a time when they’re already having trouble making money.

Which brings me to the “artists that are forever screwed” list.

My wife is completely addicted to Suzanne Collins’ Hunger Games series.  She’s ingesting it via audio books, which means I can’t go anywhere in the house without being exposed to the tournament tribulations

Actually, there’s an argument to be made that indie music had its breakthrough year in 2011–or maybe in 2010.  

Justin Go points out in the National Post today that in the last year, The Decemberists debuted at #1 on the Billboard album charts and bands like The National and the Black Keys seemed to be everywhere, even headlining arena shows.

Consider:

If you’re reading this blog, chances are you know the Grammys are essentially a big joke, a first-quarter commercial for the music industry to wring the last bit of profit out of the previous year’s releases during the slowest time of the fiscal.

Still, people will be paying attention, so it’s probably best that we know what’s going on, right?  Here are some highlights and some uncalled-for comments.