They are actually planning on putting a huge cable under the occeceaaan so we can get better internet :surprised:

i dont see whats wrong with industry types jumping on forums and blogs and flogging their bands.

 

but i think they would be wasting their time doing that. their money would be much better spent on getting exposure through tv, radio, facebook, youtube and the big music mags which reach much bigger numbers than somewhere like CPing or your regular blogs.

 

Ah yes, though labels are recognising the importance of online blogs as a form of promotion, because radio and facebook aren't proving to be that effective at the moment. It's an all-avenues-tried approach at the moment.

i don't see it as unethical because it is up to the people to decide if they like it or not. if they are just the kind of people who listen to other people all the time they deserve to fall for it. there are people who are influencial, but if people agree with them on everything there is something strange going on given how diverse most peoples tastes are becoming thanks to the internet.

 

 

it would only really work on the forums they already post on too. they couldn't really pay them to go on lots of different messageboards because it takes a while to be respected in most music sections.

 

but it's a nice idea.

It will be like those kids whom got paid by Cola-coca to drop sneak mentions to cola-coca (like "I'm currently drinking a nice ice-cold drink" with drink getting replaced by Coke) and getting given rewards for the most mentions

It will be like those kids whom

 

...

Come on Coke, give me some money :P

Awful, awful idea.

 

People only respect forumers taste in music because they've built up over a certain period of time a rapport for finding rare good bands which perfectly suit the other members of the forum. So there's your first problem, the artist would have to find someone who already has that influence, and it can be hard knowing who's the don on these forums (That equals man hours which equals money).

 

Now, if that can be achieved, the forum member would then be a whore, oh and I'd definitely be one of them. I'd gladly take money to say "Suburbs is supurb! Haha Hi Guys!" but that doesn't make it morally right. You could be promoting shit that you absolutely hate (Which is most likely because I think most people hate most music- what a sentence) and lying through your teeth (Or keyboard), how is that ethical? Talking a lot of bullshit and promoting stuff, giving this impression that you have this spiritual connection with a compact disc when really you just have dollar signs in your eyes. In relation to ethics it's a non-starter, and the people who are writing "I think it's a GREAT idea!" really made me WTF-out.

 

It's the worst kind of ethics because it's backhanded, if you're a salesman then people expect you to promote a crappy used car, anything personable to help the sale is also expected. If your just a poster and you know other people on a forum and have their respect, admiration, and maybe you even know many of them on MSN, it's totally sick. Widely it would just be promoting to a forum of people so that wouldn't be personable, but of course these little situations would crop up between people you are particularly close with on said forum, that would make you feel like a real dick. Imagine going over to your friends house, not really giving a shit about how they're doing that day, but just looking for some excuse to put some new music on without blurting out "Wanna listen to this new CD?! :D:D:D" and making it obvious, MSN and VMs would begin to feel like that. And if it's a piece of shit you have to promote, how degrading, talking about how brilliant this CD is when the other persons like "This isn't the kinda stuff you usually would be into.. in fact I remember you used to hate this kindof thing" and then you'd be in deep shit, used-car-salesman mode would come out. "Oh but that was then, this is great now!", oh fuck. Just, fuck. Imagine it.

 

Another problem is that it's totally impractical and a huge waste of time and money for record labels. Do you really think that any person on here has caused 100 sales of any album? And even if so, 100 album sales, who cares? I really think you are over-estimating the value of forums in music, this board happens to be huge but most forums aren't (Couldn't believe how tiny Arcade Fire's forum is, especially as the album's just out now).

 

The only way I could possibly think of this being ethical is if the band search through forums to find influential, respected members (Lots of posts/high rep points whatever) and pay them to go on other forums/chats/facebook to whore them out and promote the CD. At least then you are actually promoting something you like. But from a greedy record labels eyes, if someone's on the internet on different forums (Which most respected members do anyway) then why the hell would you pay them anyway? They're already doing the job you want to employ them for, they're a volunteer. Happy days. Or neutral days, they wouldn't give a fuck.

 

But obviously the problem there is that nobody would care, if some newwwwb came on here promoting some album, like it's been mentioned before, they may as well be a spambot, regardless of whether or not it's a real person with a real passion for the album, it's as good as a spambot and a hell of a lot cheaper then paying a human being. Building respect takes months and even possibly years, some forums can be harsh to break into. I mean how the hell can you instantly build up respect? Posting videos of the Beatles and Pink Floyd? Then yeah everyone loves those, shutup. It's not like you can join a new forum and post your Top 5 bands like:

 

5. The Doors

4. The Rolling Stones

3: Pink Floyd

2: The Beatles

1: Man Man (Who fucking RAWK doodz!)

 

Obvious spam-bot, or spam-person, which relates to my next point.

 

Of course as well as all this, the news that record labels are paying certain people to promote albums would circulate very quickly through forums (I mean direct communication between us petty forum types and a REAL record label?!?! No wai!) and this is what would definitely be the most annoying thing for me (If I was a person who cared about what people suggest as good music on here) we'd all constantly be suspicious of each other being record whores, promoting stuff you don't actually like. So for example if Briggins was to start suddenly popping up with AFI albums and saying "I know this isn't usually what I'm into but the harmony's are amazing! Get Into It! Now!" he may as well be leaving a reference number.

 

That's another problem, how can it be kept on record a forum members influence in relation to actual album sales? In different situations there is a promo code or reference number, which directly relates the business with the advertisement, so they know they are getting a certain percentage of interest from a certain source. There's no way of knowing that in this situation, because if you post an album, say it's great, and tell everyone to go buy it and use my promo code so I get a cut of money my friend, you'll get a great big FUCK YOU. Deservedly so.

 

When in comes to contracts, this makes it totally impossible (Yes Briggs this will NEVER, EVAR, happen, sorry to break it to you) because when it comes to businesses paying employees they need a contract to state what they're actually paying for, and of course it couldn't be done on hours because it's not like you can clock in for 1 minute to reply to a post, the only legal way to be an employee is to be a commission based self employed blogger (Forum member), and if it's commission based then you need to have some way for the record company to know that you deserve the commission that you are entitled to. As well as that, self-employed people and companies are different entities contractually, so basically you could get 10,000 record sales for an album and be the most influential forum member on a range of different forums ever, but you'd have no rights as an employee, and believe me, when you're self-employed you have no cover, so even if you're entitled to thousands of pounds worth of money, the record label basically owns your soul, they have the right to change a contract at any point even with relation to the past, they can, and they don't even need your consent. I've had friends who got screwed out of thousands of pounds doing door to door sales, they got their initial rate for getting the sale, but there was a bond installed which is twice the amount of the sale, over the course of 6 months they were supposed to get that bond. One of them went to a solicitor, and was told that the contract for self-employment they signed into essentially means absolutely nothing, and if you decide to work through a company and be self employed, then they are in charge of your money, the only reason they'll pay you at all is to get money up front from your sales and keep you going, when you leave, you aren't legally entitled to get anything that you are owed. That's because it's not an hourly rate. The only miracle you could hope for here is that several people who've been employed by the company have received compensation or appealed (And no doubt lost) in a court of law, and seeing as court cases can cost thousands of pounds and can take minimum 4 months to actually get to the court room, 100% of people just accept it and bend over.

 

And to be honest, in this sort of situation, fuck yeah! You get screwed and deserved it you bullshitter! L-O-L RAPE RAPE RAPE!!!1

 

Also, there will be competition between artists for forum members, and that's where it would get even more nasty. Let's face it, there's very few forum members on any forum that are influential to make any sort of difference to record sales (As mentioned before, 100 sales is probably the most you could hope for, and 100 sales for any label that has albums widespread in stores internationally isn't even worth thinking about) but in this hypothetical bizarro world we're discussing this in, a top rated forum member would no doubt be harassed by many labels, and there's another problem, how can that person suddenly start LOVING several bands? Surely they won't be influential enough to make 100 people buy 7 albums and future albums from 10 fucking bands or something. The only way to influence other forum members to really think about buying an album is to make a Top 10/50 whatever albums of the year, and putting some undiscovered band as No. 1, that would make everyone reading it instantly think "Wow who are they? This guy knows his shit I better check them out". Now the competition between the different artists whoring the forum member out would mean that they need to make a decision, or there would be some clause about which band will pay the most money to be No. 1.

 

God, thinking about this makes me feel like I'm on acid.

 

And as mentioned, the difference you'll be making won't equal out to much money. Even 100 albums sold by your influence won't happen, in fact that's being over-the-top optimistic, so all this work you'd do and the hours you'd put in writing long reviews and responding to different people on many different forums, would equal out to fuck all money, it wouldn't even be worth it- for you or the record label.

 

Out of all of that, the main reason is the impracticality of the whole thing, in fact I probably could have just posted about that, the rest was just me picking through every aspect of how fucked this idea truly is. To target forumers who can be from anywhere in the world, and for these labels they don't look at sales in terms of hundreds, they look at it in terms of thousands. Everyone should really get it out of their head that just because you may influence a handful of people to like music that it can actually result in money, it's totally crazy.

 

I don't mean to shit all over the idea but the more I think about it the more I can't think of how you couldn't shit all over this idea, and like I said, the guys who think its GREAT, wtf?! The main reason I hate this idea is the thought that everything's a commodity these days, and anything that isn't, people are trying to look for ways to bleed it dry and monopolize off of it, the good thing about forums is that you see people's real opinions, generally I don't give a shit about journalists or popular bloggers because they can be influenced by advertisers. The thought of paying someone to pretend to give positive opinions and look for positive aspects of shit music is horrible and I assumed that attitude would be blatant for any fans of music or even honesty in general, for shame.

I agree with you Reilly, and you're able to say it a lot better than I could and with more words.

 

A. Lot. More. Words. :blank:

 

:P

Yup, I intentionally wrote a lot of words because I expected a lot of replies if I had written a brief explanation about why it can't work. So it's all in there, and it can't work.

I wasn't going to read it until I saw 'L-O-L RAPE RAPE RAPE!!!1'

Then you probably shouldn't have read it.

I wasn't going to read it until I saw 'L-O-L RAPE RAPE RAPE!!!1'

this

It's kindof ouch, I spent 20mins writing that post.

Who buys music anymore anyway? Whenever I see an album being hyped, I download it. I very rarely pay for albums anymore, unless I'm at a bookstore and happen to see an album that I've been wanting to check out or one that I love so much that I feel guilty for having downloaded illegally.

 

:uhoh:

 

But then again, bands do make most of their money from concerts, so paying forum members to advertise a band's album could lead to more fans of said band and therefore more concert ticket sales.

Luckily I stopped caring about music years ago, but unluckily for people who care about music, I think the music industry is fucked. So there will always be internet bands who want to spread the word, but I can see mainstream music dying as a whole within the next few years.

 

It's hard to stomach, but I can't see a mainstream show that broadcasts musicians in 5 years from now.

^^

 

thats funny when i first started getting into music around 2003ish people told me that the music industry was fucked. here we are 7yrs later and only two things have changed. first nobody buys cd's unless they're on sale (in my case at least) or they dont buy them at all. so going platinum is a big achievement and is an accurate measurement of popularity. second, it is near impossible to get tickets to good gigs and festivals, and you have bands who with the talent they possess wouldnt have sold out a club show 10yrs ago now playing small arenas on the other side of the world to massive audiences.

 

so its really been a case of tit for tat. the astronomical album sales we saw at the turn of the century have been replaced with insane ticket sales. i fail to see how thats bad for the industry or how theres anything wrong with music at the moment so i would love to be enlightened.

Luckily I stopped caring about music years ago, but unluckily for people who care about music, I think the music industry is fucked.

 

Oh really? Want to debate? You are seriously wrong.

wooo Alex FTW. go for gold son!!

wooo Alex FTW. go for gold son!!

 

Thanks mate. I'm just sick of the negativity, but sadly that is all that really seems to be reported about the industry. The positives and sources of optimism are neglected because they don't create enough controversy.

What would we be debating? The size of our bollocks? Because you instantly seem to be the kind of **** who would be up for that. I've posted what I think, so why are you delaying 'the debate' with this "Wanna take this outside?"-esque question.

 

But seeing as you asked, no I don't want to converse with you, but if you actually make a point I may feel compelled to respond.

 

Of course most of the reasoning behind why that was so annoying was the masochistic egging-on of your pal there, go for gold?! We're chatting about music on the internet- shut the fuck up! Hahaha

^^

 

thats funny when i first started getting into music around 2003ish people told me that the music industry was fucked. here we are 7yrs later and only two things have changed. first nobody buys cd's unless they're on sale (in my case at least) or they dont buy them at all. so going platinum is a big achievement and is an accurate measurement of popularity. second, it is near impossible to get tickets to good gigs and festivals, and you have bands who with the talent they possess wouldnt have sold out a club show 10yrs ago now playing small arenas on the other side of the world to massive audiences.

 

so its really been a case of tit for tat. the astronomical album sales we saw at the turn of the century have been replaced with insane ticket sales. i fail to see how thats bad for the industry or how theres anything wrong with music at the moment so i would love to be enlightened.

 

Oh I forgot about this, I could be wrong, and like I said, I really don't care. I think the music industry is fucked, because year after year we see a diminishing universal audience, and individuals liking particular bands instead of a genre, there's no way of constraining an audience like that to buy your product.

 

Your post didn't convince me otherwise, but just because people said it in 2003 doesn't mean that it still won't happen. I'm thinking it will be fucked in 10-15 years from now (I think I even wrote that somewhere) so 7 years won't mean a drastic change, still, you're saying NOTHING has changed in the last 7 years? Fucking hell.

 

So yeah I don't care much to debate it, if anyone has a reason to change my mind them I'm always interested to hear it, but I'll always find music I like and I know that won't stop, but the artists and labels making money off it simply won't be making the amounts they have in the past, and I don't give a shit. I don't really understand why someone should be a multi-millionaire with 300 cars for writing Wonderwall in the first place.

What would we be debating? The size of our bollocks? Because you instantly seem to be the kind of **** who would be up for that. I've posted what I think, so why are you delaying 'the debate' with this "Wanna take this outside?"-esque question.

 

But seeing as you asked, no I don't want to converse with you, but if you actually make a point I may feel compelled to respond.

 

Of course most of the reasoning behind why that was so annoying was the masochistic egging-on of your pal there, go for gold?! We're chatting about music on the internet- shut the fuck up! Hahaha

 

With you putting so many words in my mouth I won't even have to speak. It's sad that you have completely missed my point and instead chosen to portray a "keyboard warrior".

And paying for someone to promote an album on another forum gets classed as advertising, and they won't last that long before getting banned.

^^

 

thats funny when i first started getting into music around 2003ish people told me that the music industry was fucked. here we are 7yrs later and only two things have changed. first nobody buys cd's unless they're on sale (in my case at least) or they dont buy them at all. so going platinum is a big achievement and is an accurate measurement of popularity. second, it is near impossible to get tickets to good gigs and festivals, and you have bands who with the talent they possess wouldnt have sold out a club show 10yrs ago now playing small arenas on the other side of the world to massive audiences.

 

so its really been a case of tit for tat. the astronomical album sales we saw at the turn of the century have been replaced with insane ticket sales. i fail to see how thats bad for the industry or how theres anything wrong with music at the moment so i would love to be enlightened.

 

Apart from in America the bubble has burst, you hear tales of bands scraping entire tours, downsizing venues or even giving heavy discounts on tickets just to get bums on seats, they got greedy and now it's time to pay

Oh I forgot about this, I could be wrong, and like I said, I really don't care. I think the music industry is fucked, because year after year we see a diminishing universal audience, and individuals liking particular bands instead of a genre, there's no way of constraining an audience like that to buy your product.

 

I would love to see the evidence proving that there is a diminishing universal audience. The way that the industry has changed has resulted in a larger audience through file sharing and the accessibility of the Internet. The dilemma for labels is that larger fan bases doesn't turn into increased album sales because of the nature of file sharing. However these larger audiences are comprising a key growth area for the industry, of which is live touring and merchandise. The "pie" isn't getting any smaller, it's just being divided up into different segments of the industry. That is the reality.