An open letter:
Dear Music Industry,
Seriously, fuck you too. I don't know if it's idiotic artists or (my personal guess) marketing divisions trying to exploit a handful of overzealous fanboys, but you're pissing everyone off and driving people TO piracy, not away from it. I'm talking, of course, of this ridiculous trend you have of putting out multiple versions of the same album, each with one or two bonus tracks. Do you honestly make enough money from people buying it multiple times to compensate for the ill will you are generating towards your record label? Is it really worth it, artists, to make people want to download your records instead of paying for them? Two songs here, a song or two there, all the preorder tracks you can get -- they're all being swapped online by now, I'm sure. And really, you brought this down upon yourselves. But maybe you don't care. Maybe this is the kind of thing your record label is forcing upon you, and you don't give a shit. In fact, maybe you're hoping people are downloading all of these bonus tracks, just so people hear this music you worked so hard on. I mean, if I could, I'd give you a dollar a song for them on iTunes, but they're "Target exclusives" or "Best Buy exclusives" or, god help us, "Starbucks exclusives!" Give me a fucking break. Who buys a CD from Starbucks? Are we that stupid as a culture that we need to buy our music with our fucking coffee? And you're wondering why record sales are down. Record sales are down because of stupid shit like this! (Oh, and the "new album, same as the last album" we're getting on a shitload of albums coming out. And the "me too, me too!" of so many bands, trying to sound like someone else. Sound like yourselves, for the luvva God.) You want to make us buy CDs? Give us good music, one version, lots of songs, available any way we want it, anywhere we want it, not this compartmentalized, marginalized, half-baked bullshit.
Sincerely yours,
~c.
Cliff Hicks
Dear Music Industry,
Seriously, fuck you too. I don't know if it's idiotic artists or (my personal guess) marketing divisions trying to exploit a handful of overzealous fanboys, but you're pissing everyone off and driving people TO piracy, not away from it. I'm talking, of course, of this ridiculous trend you have of putting out multiple versions of the same album, each with one or two bonus tracks. Do you honestly make enough money from people buying it multiple times to compensate for the ill will you are generating towards your record label? Is it really worth it, artists, to make people want to download your records instead of paying for them? Two songs here, a song or two there, all the preorder tracks you can get -- they're all being swapped online by now, I'm sure. And really, you brought this down upon yourselves. But maybe you don't care. Maybe this is the kind of thing your record label is forcing upon you, and you don't give a shit. In fact, maybe you're hoping people are downloading all of these bonus tracks, just so people hear this music you worked so hard on. I mean, if I could, I'd give you a dollar a song for them on iTunes, but they're "Target exclusives" or "Best Buy exclusives" or, god help us, "Starbucks exclusives!" Give me a fucking break. Who buys a CD from Starbucks? Are we that stupid as a culture that we need to buy our music with our fucking coffee? And you're wondering why record sales are down. Record sales are down because of stupid shit like this! (Oh, and the "new album, same as the last album" we're getting on a shitload of albums coming out. And the "me too, me too!" of so many bands, trying to sound like someone else. Sound like yourselves, for the luvva God.) You want to make us buy CDs? Give us good music, one version, lots of songs, available any way we want it, anywhere we want it, not this compartmentalized, marginalized, half-baked bullshit.
Sincerely yours,
~c.
Cliff Hicks
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