Tuesday, September 15, 2009

Allen rails at the filesharers

Lily Allen doesn't have any time for filesharers:

Referring to FAC and its comments, Allen said: "These guys from huge bands said file-sharing music is fine. It probably is fine for them - they do sell-out arena tours and have the biggest Ferrari collections in the world. For new talent though, file-sharing is a disaster.

"The more difficult it is for new artists to make it, the less new artists you'll see and the more British music will be nothing but puppets paid for by Simon Cowell."

The idea that record labels reliance for twenty years on the CD back catalogue bonanza, demands for quick returns leading to bands being dropped after one album and collusion with the likes of Cowell and Fuller might have wrecked chart music all without the help of filesharing doesn't seem to have occurred.

The possibility that new acts are finding different ways to find audiences, and measuring success in other ways than the singles chart, doesn't seem to have occurred.

Lily explains that this isn't like home taping killing music:
"The Featured Artists Coalition say that file sharing's 'like a sampler, like taping your mate's music', but mix tapes and recording from the radio are actually very different to the file sharing that happens today.

"Mix tapes were rubbish quality - you bought the real music, because you liked the track and wanted to hear it without the DJ cutting off the end of each song. In digital land pirated tracks are as good quality as bought tracks, so there's not a need to buy for better quality."

It might be better if Lily had decided to deal either with the taping off the radio analogy, or the mix tape analogy, or the borrowing music to tape off your mates analogy, rather than stirring all three together in a 'that's totally different'.

Peter D - to whom, thanks for the link - pointed out that Lily shouldn't worry too much. After all, there's one artist who made a name for themselves by releasing digital mixtapes through their MySpace page - using the ability to make unlicensed copies of other artist's work as a way of attracting attention to their own music. And they did alright for themselves - didn't you, Lily Allen?


2 comments:

Anonymous said...

So it's safe to say we can just add Lily as another one in the growing list of musicians who don't understand that art and money are two separate things. Where did this "everyone who makes music needs to make money from that music" attitude come from? It's especially surprising coming from someone who's never had to worry about the stuff in her entire life. It's also surprising that somebody who grew up was around these sorts of people believes that they have "the biggest Ferrari collections in the world" They may well be wealthy but I'm confident the vast majority aren't quite that opulent. I'm presuming her attacks on FAC are pointed at people like Radiohead and Blur... oh wait a second... who once worked with the latter's members in videos and please-don't-force-me-to-listen-to-them side-projects? Oh... Perhaps this is where her attitude comes from. She's so used to the people around her in the music community being well-off recording artists that she doesn't quite understand that the vast majority of musicians (as opposed to that 0.000000001% of artists that makes up that minority that most people seem to believe is the entire industry because they happen to be popular) aren't any better off than the rest of us. I don't know. I guess I'm making a lot of unfair presumptions about the girl but her comments show a glaring misunderstanding of the industry she works in.


Disclaimer: Percentages in this rant may only be exaggerated figures that I just made up.

Anonymous said...

She used to drop off mix tapes at Rough Trade before her debut album was released...

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