Comments on CD Burning/Unauthorized Duplication etc.
Most of my burned cds are cds I would probably never have bought anyway (mostly for financial resons I guess, but not always). I try to never copy independant releases. I do it once in a while and I think this can be good because the artists will then be known and as some of you said, then people might go see the shows, buy the new releases, etc. As for used cds, many of them I've paid ridiculously low prices. There's a lot of these I've paid 10$ or less and I would have never paid 20$ for those. If I don't listen to a cd and I sell it to a used store, I say to myself the same thing as burned cds. Someone might see the shows, buy the new cd's, etc. I sometimes download major record company releases. Most of the time it is by curiosity. I like to listen to new releases by bands I've onced liked but don't like that much anymore (I'm thinking of the red hot chili peppers for example). All in all, if I don't plan to buy the cd, who cares. At least, I've listen to the damn thing. And I have absolutely have no remorse to rip a Beatles cd. Half of them are dead, and the other half has got enough money. I prefer to give my money to independants. Also, what about those music clubs? The artists don't get the same thing as when we buy the cds in a store. Finally, there is also an ecological rational behind buying and selling used cd's. They just pick up dust at home. So why not help someone take pleasure in listening to it. It is also a way to help the misfortunate to listen to music they can't get their hands on. I don't know, but I don't feel bad in all of this. If we are not to consider music in the same way as a big mac or a gap t-shirt, we must then accept to promote it in ways wich do not follow the rules of the market. It is sad for some, but I think the ones who are paying the price are not the independants but the major record labels. Is it me or this list is less and less of a Zorn list? (But hey, I'm playing the game to) Do people still buy Zorn cd's out there? I have seen so little comments on his latest filmworks releases for example. Does anyone know if the guy is selling less and less cds? In this case, I think it would have more to do with the high quantity of releases than because we copy is cds. No?
Is it me or this list is less and less of a Zorn list? (But hey, I'm playing the game to) Do people still buy Zorn cd's out there? I have seen so little comments on his latest filmworks releases for example. Does anyone know if the guy is selling less and less cds? In this case, I think it would have more to do with the high quantity of releases than because we copy is cds. No?
It seems to me that even in the short time I've been on the list--3 years--there has been a marked decrease in zorn talk. This could be attributed to the "we've exhausted everything worthy of discussion" syndrome, but there seems to be growing discontentment with Zorn's present output. This goes far beyond complaints about volume. There probably have been enough Masada releases and people have become frustrated by their continued release. I really dig Invitation to a Suicide, btw. Though departures from that (notably Hermetic Theatre and IAO) have generated little interest; panned as not being "radical enough." I don't know if Zorn's fans are ready for his mature artist period where we see him honing his music relentlessly and documenting it with the same intensity. We should be lucky to have him documenting everything, even the missteps. It's tantamount to us enjoying the countless Coltrane or Miles live recordings that are very much the same tunes with not even different instrumentation. The release that stirred up the most excitement recently was the Naked City live album, which is interesting in that it is far from radical (at least to our ears). I'll end this with questions: Where do list members want Zorn to go? What should he be doing to stay relevant? What could top or expand upon his previous achievements? Do list members really seek radical music or do they just not want more Masada (ie they would be content with the man returning to Naked City and Painkiller type work)? Zach
Hello Pierre, Saturday, November 30, 2002, you wrote: PT> Is it me or this list is less and less of a Zorn list? (But hey, I'm playing PT> the game to) Do people still buy Zorn cd's out there? I have seen so little PT> comments on his latest filmworks releases for example. Does anyone know if PT> the guy is selling less and less cds? In this case, I think it would have PT> more to do with the high quantity of releases than because we copy is cds. PT> No? I think people like me, who came here several years ago looking for somebody to share their opinions about Zorn's music, simply went farther and now are interested in much wider things than just John Zorn. Many things were discussed so many times that mostly people don't want to talk about it again. And I also think that we are very lucky, that this list is not going into common popular discussion group problem, when new members are asking the same questions and old members are tired of answering them over and over again and simply refer people to FAQ or something. NP: Yma Sumac "Fuego Del Ande" (CD) -- Best regards, Peter Gannushkin e-mail: shkin@shkin.com URL: http://www.downtownmusic.net/
on 11/30/02 8:38 AM, Peter Gannushkin at shkin@shkin.com wrote:
I think people like me, who came here several years ago looking for somebody to share their opinions about Zorn's music, simply went farther and now are interested in much wider things than just John Zorn. Many things were discussed so many times that mostly people don't want to talk about it again. And I also think that we are very lucky, that this list is not going into common popular discussion group problem, when new members are asking the same questions and old members are tired of answering them over and over again and simply refer people to FAQ or something.
NP: Yma Sumac "Fuego Del Ande" (CD)
I think it's interesting that Zorn's scope (which has gone past artist and into record label curator) encompasses more than just the music of Zorn and how other people's music becomes part of the Zorn canon. And the focus of this group has branched out right alongside him in that respect. BTW -- "Fuego Del Ande" is the Yma album that gets the least regard as an LP, but, live, the FDA tunes were the ones that got the biggest hand and the encore would always be "La Molina". skip h
On Sat, 30 Nov 2002 08:13:20 -0500 "Pierre Toussaint" <pierrecharlestoussaint@yahoo.ca> wrote:
I try to never copy independant releases.
I'm seeing this opinion a lot in this discussion, but it seems not to consider fully the issue of what a truly "independent" CD is. Granted, we can pretty much agree that a Britney Spears CD isn't what we'd call "independent". And a CD-R release with artist-only distribution is independent. But what about Tzadik CDs? They, after all have rather good distribution and show up in record stores pretty much indistinguishably from megalabel stuff. And what about independent labels that have distribution deals with major labels? Or tiny labels such as OgreOgress that get into stores often by the arduous store-by-store effort of the label owners? Or obscure or import labels where it's very hard to tell who owns them and how much of the purchase price gets back to the artist? Or the small labels where the artist gets paid in copies of the disc, regardless of how many of the full run are sold or for what price? I think there's a lot of grey area here that would beneft from more careful consideration. -- | jzitt@josephzitt.com http://www.josephzitt.com/ | | GPG: A4224EFA http://www.mp3.com/josephzitt/ | | == New book: Surprise Me with Beauty: the Music of Human Systems == | | Comma / Gray Code / VoiceWAVE Silence: the John Cage Discussion List |
participants (5)
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Joseph Zitt -
Peter Gannushkin -
Pierre Toussaint -
skip Heller -
Zachary Steiner