One of the most important voices is usually missing from any of the ongoing debates about the music business. Be it the chatter around streaming royalties, the death of the album or anything to do with the live sector, musicians themselves are rarely heard from, even though they’re the ones most affected by these discussions.
Yes, you get Thom Yorke or David Byrne chipping in on occasion, but surely there are more musicians willing and able to talk than just those two?
You could argue that the artists are at the table in the form of lobby groups, managers or other representatives. Some would also point out that many musicians just want to make music and not bother unduly about anything other than having a few quid in their back-pocket.
Yet these arguments don’t ring true. The aforementioned reps have their own interests to protect when the going gets tough.
If a musician is serious about what they’re doing – that they view their music as more than a hobby or sideline to get them out of the house – then they should know what’s actually going on around them and not abdicate responsibility to someone else. Acts are often quick to get stuck in about the business letting them down, but are less willing to do something to prevent this from re-occurring.
It’s actually quite easy to get musicians involved in the discourse: just ask them. For the past few years, I’ve chaired a panel at the Hard Working Class Heroes convention in Dublin featuring a clatter of artists talking candidly about the business stuff we rarely hear them discuss. For me, it’s easily the most enjoyable hour of the weekend, as you get a strong context for everything else that happens from the point of view of the creators.
But such involvement is the exception rather than the rule. Most music-leaning conferences seem to have taken the decision to confine the artist to a performance space. Occasionally, you’ll find someone like Bono or Neil Young giving a keynote speech and rolling out the usual anecdotes, but there is typically little input from those at the coalface.
It might be illuminating, for instance, to tap a couple of local musicians to participate in panels at next week’s Web Summit in Dublin and give their opinion on analytics, fan engagement and music video innovation. After all, you need the artists to get to those topics in the first place.
The problem is that the vast majority of artists are viewed as an easy touch by the industry, and especially the tech side of the house. Of course, you won’t find anyone messing with acts who have strong management or big audiences, but it’s a different matter with musicians further down the ladder.
The only way this will change is for the acts themselves to step up and have their say – in real life and not just behind closed doors online.
YOU’VE GOT TO HEAR THIS
Goat
Commune
(Sub Pop)
Meet Goat, a bunch of exotically masked Swedes playing a hypnotic and idiosyncratic brew of Afrobeat, drone, psychedelia, reverb and fuzz. Like the superb debut
World Music
from a few years ago, the groove throughout the record has the capacity to go to infinity and beyond.
ETC
Killer Mike and El-P are coming to town before Christmas. The Run the Jewels duo, whose very fine second album has just gone on release, play Dublin's Opium Rooms on December 21st. We might even hear Meow the Jewels, the duo's album recreated with cat sounds, by then too.
