Al Teller on This Week in Music
For those of you who care at all about the actual business of music, as well as the art of music, which I suppose mightn’t be that many of you, this makes for absolutely fascinating viewing/listening.
As much as anything the candid nature of the chat, as well as the fact that it comes from an insider make this compelling. Interesting, too, to hear that the music business was struggling massively up until the advent of the CD. Just as it has been since.
It’s also interesting that he pinpoints mass exposure on commercial radio as the one thing which keeps the balance of power tilting towards the old entertainment behemoths.
More here.
Thanks for posting this really enjoyed it. A couple of thoughts
1) be sure to switch off before his daughter takes the mic or you may be tempted to throw stuff at your computer screen.
2) Linking back to the Mercury Music Prize discussion, why on earth would they still insist on a bar coded old style distribution for an album to even be considered. I don’t know what the numbers are but if the internet is now the major distribution channel why throw up an irrelevant barrier
3) I particularly enjoyed his clear reasoning for becoming involved in the industry and then it’s dissolution over the course of the interview into ‘oh fuck it, it’s all about the music’.
1) YES!
2) I think the relevance is more to provide some sort of cutoff point, and some sort of guarantee that the label or band can handle the increase in profile of the nomination. So yes, I think it’s arbitrary, but at the same time I do kind of reckon they probably still need it.
3) Yeah, that was quite nice towards the end, I thought.
‘What would your advice be to someone starting a label nowadays?’
‘Give a fuck about music.’