March On .. And Support Artists

I don't buy much music these days, my collection is huge and I am selling a lot of CDs I bought on Discogs. I've written previously that I have bought albums because I think I should have them . The good thing about this is that the artist get's supported from the initial sale , although subsequent resales don't actually benefit the artist although often money I get from Discogs sales does by music. This week, although I don't need it I have ordered an album by Deodato and singles by The KLF and Roger Williams on vinyl. 

The albums I have for sale I have in a stack next to my desk and I actually listen to them to see if they are worth keeping. I think one or two have made me think "Why the hell did I buy that?" but most ate worth listening to. I am currently listening to a five disc budget reggae compilation called "The A To Zion" and it is rather good but it's still for sale.

Other's like "Meet The Humans" by Steve Mason (ex of the Beta Band) were so good that I pulled it from the store. I have the attitude that if you put something in a box or drawer that that's it , it's not going to be played, but yesterday I was listening to a Randy Newman box and after the five excellent discs of his Americana I remember I had a couple in the "N" box , and next to those two was an NWA compilation , so three discs for that box actually got played yesterday.

The main reason I am writing this is that I got a missive from Jordan Reyne on Bandcamp about her new album Chapter Zero  . Jordan does not put her music on leech like streaming services like Spotify or Apple Music that make a fortune for their owners but pay the artist a pittance. I cannot see how the model can properly work, but for almost all artists it doesn't so if you share a Spotify playlist with me you go down in my estimation.

Ever since I saw her opening for The Men That Will Not Be Blamed For Nothing at Think Tank? (see here) six years ago she has remained the most impressively original artist I have ever seen or heard. She is also a very approachable person , and her set that day was so stunning that I bought three CDs on the spot. So a new album is always an essential purchase , and buying from Bandcamp ensures that artist gets fair recompense for their work.

I am looking forward to hearing the new album and you gat a digital copy of all her work here for about thirty quid. Not only is she a musician she puts together videos for her songs on her YouTube channel here. You will be impressed.

Though it's the opener from here last album "Bardo" , "Then They Came For You" shows her video creation skills off, and is a song for our times.

Streams

On twitter I keep seeing a poll for what is the best streaming app, Spotify , Amazon or Apple Music (or whatever it's called this week). There are lots of other similar more genre specific apps like Pandora, and people often want to share their Spotify playlists with me.

I don't do Spotify or any other music streaming service. Someone makes a lot of money from streaming and, unless you're Ed Sheeran or Adele, it's not  the artist. Daft Punk's "Random Access Memory" was the biggest selling album of that year and they made about £13K from streaming which might have paid for a lunch break.

People often like the "if you like that you'll like this" option, but that is so open to abuse, and let's face it payola has been around since records were first sold.

Most people listen on mobile devices and the unseen cost for that is streaming uses data, so if you are not on free or unlimited wifi you network provider can start coining it.

Also if you expect your streaming service why not listen to a radio station and trusted DJs and shows. The last I heard artists got paid £50 if their song is played on the radio. I don't know if it's the same now or the same on all stations but it's a damned sight better than streaming rates.

Also given that often today's youth can't listen to more than 20 seconds of a song how do you remunerate for part streams? Many years ago Peter Gabriel was involved with a company call "WE" who's plan was to set of a system where you paid a nominal small fee to listen to a song. I objected to this as if I like music I want to buy a single or album and play it in perpetuity.

Youtube seems to be OK, it's generally free with on ads, and I don't hear artists complaining about it so they must be getting adequate recompense or you would see music being continually pulled. However video uses a lot more data than music does so this can be another money spinner for mobile phone companies.

I done several posts related to this (click on the first Spotify link to see) but this is my own history of recorded music and this talks on how music should be rewarded.

Last week I heard Sam Fender for the first time, yesterday I ordered his debut album and this is about how I heard it on the radio.

If streaming is your bag that's fine but I will stay with radio, visiting record shops , gigs and enjoying music I buy.

Turtle Power

Switched on 6Music this morning and Chris Hawkins was playing "Gravel-Pit" by Wu-Tang Clan which for some reason reminded me of  "Turtle Power" the theme from the first Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles film, which was a surprisingly excellent song and the film wasn't that bad either.

My daughters Juliet and Kirsty were huge fans and the action figures were very difficult to get hold of, but I remember walking into Asda at Boldon just before Christmas and there were two huge baskets filled with the figures. Christmas was sorted, sometimes things do unexpectedly drop into your lap.

So it's Friday and this is effectively my diary entry to fine the Partners In Kryme song should ever want to listen to it, so just a very short post before I get off to work wondering if I've got that record, it's probably somewhere in my digital collection and that has just reminded me of a couple of streaming service surveys that i've seen.

Basically streaming music is being pushed in many forms , including podcasts and the like. The thing is when you stream music or video you have to remember that if you are not on wifi then you are using up or paying for your data and this is what the various communications companies are pushing. From an artists point of view the Spotify business model doesn't work but most of my friends are aghast when I say I don't have Spotify. Apple Music, Amazon and the rest will all devour your data.

I had a chuckle at the latest EE 5G advert advertising "Hannah" from Amazon Prime where Kevin Bacon says you can download it in seconds when the girl says she hasn't got time. If the network is that good why not stream, the data use would be the same. Also while you can download something in seconds it still takes 90 minutes to watch and generally it's better to watch on a big TV that a relatively little phone, I'd rather watch on a fifty inch screen than a five inch screen.

So now it's time for work.

I am not sure if you are aware of my writing on Vocal but these are a few of my stories if you would like to sample them:

1. The Never Ending Story - My Directory
2. The Never Ending Music - My Music Directory
3. The Never Ending Poetry - My Poetry Directory
4. An Owl In A Towel - A Beautiful Book by Lesley and Cheryl
5. Three Reasons Why I Love Settle - Scaleber Force, The Hoffman Kiln and Castlebergh Crag