A few weeks ago I met up with Seba and Ulrich Schnauss, (yeah I know, like an old folks home right?), and, triggered by a comment from Seba about filesharing, we ended up speaking long into the night about the ‘state of music’ and what the future might hold for people like us.
I’ve been wanting to write something about this for ages but it’s been hard to articulate my thoughts without inviting inevitable poison from people on both sides of the filesharing / music industry debate.

For the record, despite being on the sharp end of all the things happening to people who make music, I’m still undecided about almost all of it. Filesharing bothers me much less than the fallacious leaps of logic made by people who have never made a track, never released a record, never run a label, never played a gig, who’s sole experience of music is listening to it and yet feel they they’re qualified to pronounce to those of us who do all that on what we’re supposed to do to ‘make things work’.

Are they sometimes right? Yes, sometimes they have really good ideas.
Are they sometimes wrong? Yes, loads, but the problem is that they’re often so good at making apparently sound arguments that their speculation becomes ingrained and exists as received wisdom, when the reality is so much more complex and different from their simplistic point of view.

Anyway, I wouldn’t normally quote other people’s writing wholesale but this article went up a couple of days ago and does a really good job of expressing many of the things I’ve thought about and, from my own experience, know to be true. It also covers many of the things I spoke about with Seba and Ulrich. Feel free to post your own thoughts in the comments section below.

I’ve quoted a few of the more relevant paragraphs but you can read the full article here:

How The Music Industry Is Killing Music And Blaming The Fans

…while fans have been warned that without traditional income streams investment in new acts will be harder, musicians have at the same time been told by the wider industry that there are still plenty of opportunities for them to make a living if they reverse long held principles: touring is now where the money is and records, cheap or even free, should be used to promote live performance. In addition, licensing music to TV, film and advertising, the prevailing opinions insist, is no longer a dirty business and can provide significant opportunities to claw back income while social networking allows direct to fan marketing that cuts out the middle men who previously took their cut…

…if the industry wants to talk money, let’s talk money, albeit the ways that developing musicians are encouraged to make up the loss of sales income in order to ply their trade. Someone’s got to bring this up, because it’s not a pretty picture. Consider, first, direct-to-fan marketing and social networking, said to involve fans so that they’re more inclined to attend shows, invest in ‘product’, and help market it. In practise this is a time-consuming affair that reaps rewards for only the few. Even the simple act of posting updates on Facebook, tweeting and whatever else is hip this week requires time, effort and imagination, and while any sales margins subsequently provoked might initially seem higher, the ratio of exertion to remuneration remains low for most. It’s also an illusion that such sales cut out the middlemen, thereby increasing income, except at the very lowest rung of the ladder: the moment that sales start to pick up, middlemen start to encroach upon the artist’s territory, if in new disguises. People are needed to provide the structure through which such activities can function, and few will work for free – and nor should they – even though musicians are now expected to….

…efficient websites need to be paid for and marketed, and the companies designed to provide exactly this service usually take their cut. Bandwidth also needs to be paid for if up- and downloading become significantly active, product needs to be manufactured and sent out on time, and that’s only after it’s been created, meaning music first needs to be recorded and merchandise designed. If new artists can’t find the readies for all this, then they need to find investors. So with music itself often available for free, the musician is reduced to little more than a merchandise broker. Records become just an advert and, consequently, either take longer to be written and recorded, or are otherwise made available without the attention and care that was once devoted to the process….

…if an act can find time to do these things, or has the necessary capital to allow others to take care of them on their behalf, then they can hit the road. Touring’s where the money is, the mantra goes, and that’s the best way to sell merchandise too. But this is a similarly hollow promise. For starters, the sheer volume of artists now touring has saturated the market. Ticket prices have gone through the roof for established acts, while those starting out are competing for shows, splitting audiences spoilt for choice, driving down fees paid by promoters nervous about attendance figures. There’s also a finite amount of money that can be spent by most music fans, so if they’re coughing up huge wads of cash for stadium acts then that’s less money available to spend on developing artists. And for every extra show that a reputable artist takes on in order to make up his losses, that’s one show less that a new name might have won.
Touring is also expensive. That’s why record labels offered new artists financial backing, albeit in the form of a glorified loan known as ‘tour support’. Transport needs to be paid for, as do fuel, accommodation, food, equipment, tour managers and sound engineers. These costs can mount up very fast, and if each night you’re being paid a small guarantee, or in fact only a cut of the door, then losses incurred can be vast, rarely compensated for by merchandising sales. Again, financial backing of some sort is vital, but these days labels are struggling to provide it. In the past, income from record sales could be offset against these debts, but with that increasingly impossible, new artists will soon find it very hard to tour. Everyone’s a loser, baby….

Furthermore, touring, especially in the early stages of a career, is exhausting. It might be fun, but as anyone who’s been on the road will admit, it can be a far from glamorous grind that leaves musicians drained, incapacitated and far from creative. It also seems off kilter that those gifted at writing and working in the studio should be sent out on the road rather than rewarded for just that, especially since records, in whatever format, are the ties that help bind fans to artists. There are also those for whom it’s not viable, or at the very least a challenge: those suffering from stage fright; those – mothers, for example – whose family situation requires them to remain at home; those skilled at writing songs but not so adept at performing them. (It’s notable that the likes of Jimmy Webb, who once made a comfortable living writing songs for others to perform, are now touring in a way that they never used to, largely out of financial necessity.)
Of course touring has always been a next to obligatory part of the job for most musicians. Some are even inspired by the experience, while many improve their craft by playing in front of audiences. But the daily rigmarole of playing the same songs over and over again can also render the process joyless for both musician and fan, and increased touring again means reduced time spent working on new material, conjuring up bewitching sounds, expressing the inarticulate speech of the heart. The romantic vision of the musician in their bus writing new songs is rose-tinted, to say the least. Most are simply too worn out from the tedium to do anything other than talk shit, watch films, listen to music and sleep. Insisting that artists earn their keep by performing the role of wandering minstrel keeps them from exercising the talent that brought them attention in the first place, rendering music valuable only when it’s performed live….

…there’s another well-publicised method of working around lost sales income. It’s called synchronisation, and that’s the licensing of music to TV, film and commercials. It was once a badge of honour to find one’s music selected for a soundtrack, but these days everyone’s at it so the benefits are fewer. It’s interesting to watch films like Francis Ford Coppola’s The Conversation or Nic Roeg’s Don’t Look Now from the early 1970s and compare their relative silence – interrupted effectively but only occasionally by bursts of music used to heighten tension or enhance a mood – with the extended music videos that pass for Hollywood movies nowadays. The same could be said for TV, where shows like Skins are so song-saturated that numerous websites exist listing each track included in an episode (though notably these are not listed in credits). Apart from anything else, so much music often dilutes the drama by distracting from it, but more importantly it makes it harder for an impressive song to stand out, especially a new one dwarfed by others more recognisable, while those that do rise above the noise are often forever associated with a particular scene, rendering their own emotional substance next to mute in comparison.

More worrying too is the manner in which old school values with regards to the licensing of music to advertising have been eroded. To be tainted by association with a product, to ‘sell out’ one’s art to benefit a corporation, was once seen as an evil undertaken only by the desperate, the immoral or – on the off chance that the brand was ethically sound – those fortunate enough to claim that they remained very selective. Yet in record company and music publishing meetings around the world there are now hip young things declaring that, instead of a single, they can’t hear a ‘synch’. Many have whole departments devoted to the placement of music wherever possible, and acts are expected to accept the offers. Often they’re in such a financial hole that they simply can’t say no. This has led not only to a complicit integration of music with product marketing, but also to lower and lower fees: agencies have realised that acts remain convinced that the exposure gained is in itself almost adequate compensation for the use of their music, and there’s always someone else willing to accept a lower payment if the first choice demands too much. But whatever the financial reward, the price paid is always the same: permanent association with a product. How tragic is it that the man behind ‘Anarchy In The UK’ will now be forever tied in the collective imagination with Country Life Butter, even though he used the cash to help fund the reformation of PiL? The argument that he has taken money from a corporation doesn’t wash: the situation should never have arisen….

And if that’s not compromise enough, what about the songs reduced to half minute edits, the songs that are used instrumentally, or the songs that are provided by soundalikes, thus debasing the art of those who first imagined the originals? What about the acts tailoring their music for use in these ways rather than focussing on their original intent, that of expressing something memorable? Is this good for our music? Is this how the magic should be rewarded?
It’s debatable, too, how easy it is to secure such breaks, given that everyone and their sister is now after their small slice of the action. The growth of music supervision as a profession has meant that many brands turn to those who represent established acts and, if they fail to secure their music, take recommendations from these same people about others they represent in order to save time. It’s an almost closed shop, and for a new act it’s next to impossible to get a foot in the door. Moreover, those who are successful, but for whom it’s their first public exposure, rarely make it beyond, tainted as they are by the connection. Simultaneously, the question arises once more as to whether acts should be devoting time to the pursuit of synchs at the expense of refining their craft, and whether they should only be receiving payment for the public use of their music as opposed to the private use….

The first people to give up will be those with the least money. This, some argue, will sort the wheat out from the chaff: serious musicians don’t give up that easily. But this is clearly nonsense. Serious musicians might not give up, and some may thrive – if the cliché is true – because they have suffered. But if they can’t afford to tour, record, build a website and pay those required to supervise their business, let alone pay their rent, then they won’t make music their priority and potential stars will be lost to us. Their guitars will gather dust, picked up to fill quiet time or, perhaps, to be strummed for friends in small bars. Maybe they’ll win fans, but most won’t be able to do anything with that fact. A developing act can’t tour anywhere unless it can afford to get there, and its products won’t be bought unless it can tour, because these days that’s one of the few ways to gain attention amidst the shrill shriek of marketing. The first hurdle any musician must now leap is financial: can they afford to pursue the dream?
The majority that succeed will be those well connected enough to receive funding, or those from financially comfortable backgrounds. This might explain the number of upper middle class artists that have made their mark recently, something which Quietus contributor Simon Price pointed to in an article for The Word in late 2010 about the ‘Toff Takeover’, where he highlighted the rise of artists like Eliza Dolittle, Florence Welch and Mumford & Sons who have all benefited from exclusive educations. Price suggested that those who ”didn’t go to a private school are no longer getting a fair shot at success”, and went on to state that, “it’s bad for pop. If music – along with sport, the traditional ‘escape route’ for the poor – is shut off, where is the next Johnny Rotten or Jarvis Cocker going to come from?”
It’s a point well made, if provoked a little by inverse snobbery, and there’s one further concern: those whose voices most need to be heard are often the ones least powerful, and musicians have frequently done far more than provide us with music. They’ve articulated thoughts that need to be heard. They’ve drawn our attention to injustices in the world just as they’ve highlighted the beauty of life. They have helped bring together communities and given them a common voice. They have spoken out and stood up for their principles, demanded change and sometimes achieved it. Our failure to find a satisfactory method in which their privileged situation – as commentators – can be protected could be very damaging. Though it inevitably sounds like a conspiracy theory, it may be more than coincidence that governments have taken so long to address the problems that the music business is facing. Music has provided a voice of dissent, and governments don’t like that. By failing to ensure that musicians have the same right to be paid for their work as anyone else, they’re helping to ensure that only the least controversial acts survive: those of independent wealth, often tied to the establishment; the ones that are happy to prop up the capitalist system with their advertising music; the ones who are happy to pander to the masses; the ones for whom business is their main drive and music simply a means to make their fortune. Failure to compensate those whose work is more specialist, more confrontational, more subtle, more challenging, is an act of complicity in the silencing of social and political debate. Though democracy won’t allow for musicians to be gagged, it can still price them out of the market….

If a world can be created where most musicians simply can’t afford to exist from their work, then that’ll leave the ones who do exactly what they’re told thanks to the promise of fame and fortune. It’s already happening on TV (especially talent shows), in movies, even in bookstores: the slow, pernicious silencing of alternative perspectives buried beneath a storm of loud, obnoxious yelling about nothing. When Bill Hicks berated the anaesthetising effects of cultural deterioration in the USA twenty years ago, the only thing he failed to warn us was that this would spread across the globe. “Go back to bed, America, your government is in control. Watch this, shut up, go back to bed, America. Here is American Gladiators, here’s 56 channels of it! Watch these pituitary retards bang their fucking skulls together and congratulate yourself on living in the land of freedom. Here you go, America – you are free to do what we tell you!” Except next up, it’s The Black Eyed Peas, Rebecca Black and – oh, let us briefly titillate you – Lady Fucking Gaga.
“When you’re in Hollywood and you’re a comedian,” another tragically deceased stand-up, Mitch Hedberg, joked, perhaps bitterly, “everybody wants you to do things besides comedy. They say, ‘OK, you’re a stand-up comedian. Can you act? Can you write? Write us a script?’ It’s as though if I were a cook and I worked my ass off to become a good cook, they said, ‘All right, you’re a cook. Can you farm?’” This is the position in which our musicians now find themselves. They’re expected to multitask in order to succeed. Their time is now demanded in so many different realms that music is no longer their business. What we can increasingly expect is a conveyor belt of smug accountants living a pop star’s dream, performing aggressively marketed, lowest common denominator, unchallenging dross….

The problem is, it’s not really the industry that is being cheated. It’s the artists and their fans. People get what they pay for, but – whatever the industry claims – most fans know that. They just don’t want to hear the businessmen fiddle while the musicians are being burnt. Revenues are unlikely ever again to reach the levels of the business’ formerly lucrative glory days, but in its stubborn refusal to recognise that both the playing field and the rules themselves have been irreversibly redefined without their permission, the industry is holding out for something that is no longer viable. Lower income is better than no income, and the industry has surely watched the money dwindling for long enough. Musicians, meanwhile, are being asked to make more and more compromises as they’re forced to put money ahead of their art on a previously unprecedented scale.

So seeing as it’s a slow Wednesday, and in the interests of sharing great music, below are my top-ten musical moments in film.

It’s not an exhaustive list, obviously, and it’s in no particular order so if you have a favourite of your own feel free to post a link in the comments at the end of this article.

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1 – Betty Blue (1986)

A French film released in 1986 under the original title ‘37°2 le Matin‘ starring a young Béatrice Dalle as the firestorm siren ‘Betty’, described by her lover Zorg as “like a flower with translucent antennae and a mauve plastic heart. Few girls could dress as casually as she did.”

The film charts Betty’s descent into madness and was beautifully, succinctly and accurately summed up by Mark from Peep Show as “a great sex-and-suicide flick that turned a whole generation of men onto girls with mental illness”.

The film was scored by Gabriel Yared and is haunting and eccentric in equal measure. I must have bought it at least five times over the years and still love it to this day.

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2 – Billy Liar (1968)

Based on a novel by Keith Waterhouse Billy Liar is the story of a young man in a fictional Northern town who harbours dreams of scriptwriting for a famous comedian. Often lost in a fantasy world, Billy constantly constructs fictions and lies which, almost without exception, get him into trouble. Ostensibly a comedy, the film contains a strong streak of tragedy encapsulated in Billy’s relationship with Liz (Julie Christie).

The film’s music is a mix of melancholy Northern brass, Rock & Roll and jaunty jazz.
The scene where we first see Liz is one of my favourites in cinema, especially the moment where the thundering, distorted jazz drums mimic the building demolition.

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3 – Alien (1979)

Easily the best film in the franchise, Alien features a Jerry Goldsmith score that ranks amongst some of the creepiest music ever written.

Keening high violas mixed with what sounds like a thousand pizzicato violins and cellos brilliantly summon up the primal horror of the scuttling facehuggers

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4 – The Godfather (1972)

The king of mafia flicks features a score from Nino Rota and Carmine Coppola. The central motifs of the music, even when upbeat, are mournful and full of regret, reflecting Michael Corleone’s reluctant ascent to the head of his family and his corresponding moral decline over the course of the Godfather Trilogy.

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5 – Solaris (2002)

A remake of Tarkovsky’s 1972 classic, Solaris stars George Clooney in space, but is not really a sci-fi, (at least I never thought so). It’s a thoughtful piece on love, loss and reality and is both sad and euphoric at the same time.
When I first saw Solaris I thought it was terrible but was struck at how good the soundtrack was. I listened to it endlessly and then went back to the film some years later to find that I now liked it quite a lot.

The music is by Cliff Martinez and revolves around two or three main motifs, looping and evolving in deeply attractive ways. At points the score is reminiscent of Steve Reich’s Drumming.

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6 – American Beauty (1999)

Yes, possibly a massive cliche including this but the legion of inferior imitators spawned by Thomas Newman’s profoundly beautiful score still can’t detract from it’s delicate brilliance. Deceptively simple, the soundtrack revolves around naively basic note switches played across a range of instruments that give an impression of complexity.

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7 – House of Flying Daggers (2004)

One of the wave of hyper-romantic martial art films from around ten years ago (see also Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon & Hero), House of Flying Daggers worked much less successfully than some of its contemporaries, beset by schmaltz and cliche as it was. However, aside from some stunning cinematography and colour-work, the sound design and scoring was second to none.
Created by Shigeru Umebayashi, who also scored Wong Kar-wai’s outstanding ‘In the Mood For Love‘ and ’2046′, the House of Flying Daggers soundtrack wobbles between amazingly 3-dimensional percussion and ‘lovers themes’ played across a range of Chinese instruments and a Hans Zimmer-esque traditional orchestra.

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8 – Fire Walk With Me (1992)

I went to see this three times when it was released in cinemas and must have bought the VHS & DVDs at least five times. David Lynch’s oppressively psychotic prequel to the Twin Peaks TV series was soundtracked by Angelo Badalamenti who, (although I don’t think is always brilliant), really nailed it with this one. His mix of drones, faux-classical and drugged out rock works perfectly along with ever-mutating versions of the leitmotifs to savagely amplify the dislocation created by Lynch’s visuals.

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9 – Taxi Driver (1976)

Taxi Driver is a firm favourite in our studio, with whole chunks of dialogue being repeated from memory on a regular basis. Bernard Hermann’s sleazy score lurches between sweet romanticism and looming darkness, and does a great job of mirroring Travis Bickle’s volatile and swiftly changing moods.

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10 – Paris Texas (1984)

Wim Wender’s vision of the desert is brilliantly supported by Ry Cooder’s ultra-minimal music, which has now become virtually synonymous with that type of landscape. The whole soundtrack is punctuated with vast tracts of silence and is a great lesson in the craft of artistic restraint.

I’ve set up a brand new channel for this, twitter.com/BluMarTenTunes, and what you see there is what Leo and I are listening to on our various players…(Michael’s grumpy and refuses to play). I set up a new channel to avoid flooding the main Blu Mar Ten Twitter with tracks, which can be really annoying. This way people can dip in and out if they feel like it.

How is it done?
Take the RSS of your Last FM ‘Recently Listened Tracks’ and pass it to a friendfeed account, then sync your Twitter channel with your friendfeed account and push the stream out to Twitter from there. I also set up Tweekly to collate our top artists for the week and post the result every Monday

This song of mine will wind its music around you,
like the fond arms of love.

The song of mine will touch your forehead
like a kiss of blessing.

When you are alone it will sit by your side and
whisper in your ear, when you are in the crowd
it will fence you about with aloofness.

My song will be like a pair of wings to your dreams,
it will transport your heart to the verge of the unknown.

It will be like the faithful star overhead
when dark night is over your road.

My song will sit in the pupils of your eyes,
and will carry your sight into the heart of things.

And when my voice is silenced in death,
my song will speak in your living heart.

- Tagore