8Sided Blog

the scene celebrates itself

  • 8sided About
  • memora8ilia

An Amazing BBC ‘Bootleg Report’ from 1971

04.10.2019 by M Donaldson // Leave a Comment

I previously wrote about bootleg culture in the age of streaming and reminisced on the simple days of CD bootlegs sold in my own record shop. Now my pal Kenn Richards — via his essential Research {Curation} Reduction newsletter — alerted me to this 14-minute BBC documentary from 1971 examining the bootleg scene in London at the time. Holy cats, this is wonderful.

The video features incredible quotes and contributions from Led Zeppelin manager Peter ‘no one heavier than me’ Grant, ‘The’ Pink Floyd, Yoko Ono, and John Lennon who prefers to be in a bag. Also, it’s so quaint how the guy who manufactures bootlegs and the other guy who sells them (at a Virgin Records, no less) are so open and casual and like ¯_(ツ)_/¯ about it.

Here’s some bonus content from the same year: Neil Young discovering bootlegs of his own work in a Los Angeles record store. Watch the guy behind the counter — his uncomfortable body language as Young starts flipping through the bins is priceless.

Categories // Items of Note Tags // Bootlegs, Documentary, Email Newsletters, London, Los Angeles, Pink Floyd

‘Best Of’ Lists Revisted

01.06.2019 by M Donaldson // Leave a Comment

I recently wrote about ‘Best Of’ lists and the practice of using them as a guide to finding acclaimed albums one might have missed over the past year. Since writing that post, I’ve decided that playing catch up on the previous year — which might take all year! — only ensures that I’m always catching up. I’ve started the year, as part of my ‘album a day’ routine, looking to the present with the goal of my own ‘Best Of’ or ‘Favorites’ list at the end of 2019. I’ll be a better music-listener if I stay current.

But these end-of-year lists remain a fascinating study. They reveal trends, changing attitudes, and clues to where the mainstream is going.

Rob Mitchum has been aggregating many year-end charts to create a mother-of-all-lists. He’s been doing this since 2013 so comparing his results over the last five years is starting to reveal swings and transitions. This year is marked by diversity, increased critical acceptance of popular artists, and the lack of a clear breakout winner for the number one spot.

The Outline:

When asked about why there isn’t a breakout pick for best album of 2018, Mitchum pointed to a paradigmatic shift in music writing that’s led to better representation and coverage of music genres across the board, with more albums thus vying for preferential treatment. “Music writing has become a lot less indie rock-focused, and there’s a better diversity of music opinion, which levels the playing field a lot for albums …” he said. “You can see in 2013 already how critics have been broadening out to other genres. If I had started the project fifteen years ago, it’d be more apparent how music writing has changed.” […]

Mitchum stressed that it’s good for music when critics move towards a wider variety of genres, and more consideration of the popular and the mainstream. “There’s a lot of alarmist writing on algorithms and streaming, but data-driven music discovery can be good… and I guess that [my] project is another way of saying that,” he said.

These results also show how much the mainstream has changed in the past several years. The sound of popular music has been affected by unlimited access to emerging sounds and cross-pollination of genres that previously would have stayed in tight niches. There hasn’t been an obvious new musical movement or style since perhaps the ‘90s, but I’d argue that a lot of current popular music would sound downright experimental to someone listening ten or fifteen years ago. It’s good to see critics supporting this.

However, for a ‘Best Of’ list reality check here’s some straight talk from book publisher Anna Trubek from her always enlightening Notes from a Small Press newsletter:

… I feel a fool for falling for [Best Of] lists, which are really “favorite books read by critics, who must read the must buzzed-about books for their jobs, so much-buzzed-about books are a large percentage of the books they read, so they often end up on the Best of lists, which are really just their favorites, and a tiny percentage of the total number of books published in a year, and so these lists are all a bit of a self-fulfilling prophesy.”

Categories // Commentary Tags // Best-Of Lists, Email Newsletters, Popular Music, Trends

Don’t Let Music Become Software

12.29.2018 by M Donaldson // 1 Comment

Above: another pic from the sticks, hope I don’t get ticks. I’m hiding out in this remote location for a couple more days.

I’m a fan of email newsletters — I subscribe to way too many — and one of my favorites is Cherie Hu’s Water & Music. Even outside of the newsletter Hu is one of my favorite music industry writers/pundits, and she seems to reserve her most thought-provoking opinions for the newsletter. And 2018’s final edition of Water & Music, titled ‘The Music Industry’s Inconvenient Truths,’ is a corker.

The premise revolves around answers to the question, “What is one truth about the music industry that very few people agree with you on?” I can’t say I strongly disagree with any of the responses Hu received, and this one bolsters the direction of my consulting work. But it’s Hu’s two answers to the question that elicit the most thought — this newsletter’s been reeling in my head since I read it a few days ago.

Hu’s first answer has familiarity as she’s dropping some Seth Godin knowledge and I just finished his latest book, This Is Marketing. The concept of the ‘smallest viable audience’ is emphasized, which states that an artist should only seek to please his die-hard fans. Musicianship and ‘honing the craft’ remain important, but not at the expense of serving the needs of those who support you. Says Hu:

Let’s put it this way: as long as music can be materialized as an item or activity whose purchase generates revenue for somebody, music is a product. People who buy or engage with a musical product are referred to by the industry as “fans,” so “fan” is just another word for “customer.” Customers buy the products that best satisfy their own needs and desires. So, like in any other industry, the best music products most effectively address customers’ needs and satisfy clearly-defined gaps in the market that other products haven’t filled.

In This Is Marketing, Godin argues that we are all marketers as individuals seeking to make a change in others. For the recording artist, that change is as simple (or complex) as convincing a listener to check out her album rather than someone else’s. Godin then challenges us to think of ourselves as something more than marketers — also as teachers, delivering value and reward to our customers/fans. With a teacher mindset, we’re encouraged to produce meaningful content for those who are paying the most attention.

I could go on and on about this but I’ll save it for a future post. I’m cutting myself short as I can’t wait to get to Hu’s next proclamation: “The word ‘creator’ does more harm than good:”

I understand that the word “creator” might be the simplest, most easily accessible term for addressing all possible users releasing content on a given platform. And don’t get me wrong: democratizing creativity is undeniably a force for good, and the last thing the world should do is give fewer people access to tools for making art and expressing themselves. But who owns and profits from that creativity is an entirely separate debate, in danger of being obfuscated by the widespread adoption and promotion of “creator” as a job title.

It may seem like semantics, but the way we adopt and use language rewires our thinking (hello, George). Hu’s point— which I never considered — is that the more we refer to ourselves as ‘creators,’ the easier it is to submit to the notion that our creations are in fealty to others. Notice how the services almost all use ‘creator’ — a sampling of examples Hu points out include YouTube Creators, Facebook for Creators, Spotify’s “Creator Marketing.’ So when a platform sneakily claims ownership of our work — as Spotify did with its #PraiseV campaign (see Hu’s newsletter) — we’re desensitized against protest. Hu again:

Throughout history, the democratization of creativity has coincided with a dilution of clarity around ownership […] [and] the mechanisms by which other companies can claim IP ownership in a world of democratized creation are becoming much swifter than reading through tens of pages of a record contract.

I feel like the tech platforms — Spotify, Apple, Amazon, et al. — would like us to start thinking of music as software. That is, we’ve ‘created’ something that’s inseparable from their technologies. Just as Omnifocus, my to-do app of choice, won’t run and can’t exist without my iMac, a song can’t exist without Spotify. Then we start thinking of our music as dependent on the platform when, of course, it’s the other way around. 

That’s one thing I love about music publishing. Its framework forces us to think of compositions as separate from the recordings and undetachable from the songwriter. A song isn’t a creation, per se, but an idea tied to an individual (or individuals, if there are co-writers). The tech platforms have had their problems with music publishing, showing that the intimacy of composition may help protect against music becoming software.  But, as Cherie Hu points out, the real battle may be fought through language and how a shift in simple phrasing affects the ownership mindset of future songwriters. Let’s hold on to our ideas and understand that songs are breathing things that exist on their own, platform be damned. Don’t let your music become software.

P.S. — I realize this last bit may seem in contradiction to the first, where it appears I’m referring to songs as product. But it’s not in opposition at all if you understand the type of marketing we’re doing as artists. Godin’s This Is Marketing will help you understand and I recommend it. 

P.P.S.— There’s no disrespect intended to software and software makers. But I feel programmers have a better understanding of their IP rights in the milieu of platform-dependence than songwriters and artists do.

Categories // Commentary Tags // Cherie Hu, Email Newsletters, Marketing, Rights Management, Seth Godin, The State Of The Music Industry, Thinking About Music

  • « Previous Page
  • 1
  • 2

8sided.blog

 
 
 
 
 
 
8sided.blog is an online admiration of modernist sound and niche culture. We believe in the inherent optimism of creating art as a form of resistance and aim to broadcast those who experiment not just in name but also through action.

It's also the online home of Michael Donaldson, a curious fellow trying his best within the limits of his time. He once competed under the name Q-Burns Abstract Message and was the widely disputed king of sandcastles until his voluntary exile from the music industry.

"More than machinery, we need humanity."

Learn More →

featured

How a Factory Fire Underscores Vinyl’s Fragile Future

A factory fire in California has us asking broad questions about vinyl records — why do we love it, what are its alternatives, and do we really need it?

Why a Tip Jar on Spotify is a Bad Idea

Yes, recording artists need to make a living, and streaming payouts are awful. But digital tip jars are not the answer.

Commodifying Coziness and the Rise of Chill-Out Capitalism

Ambient music sits in the ambiance, politely ignored as we go about our lives. And marketers can brand it as an antidote for a hectic life.

Mastodon

Mastodon logo

Listening

If you dig 8sided.blog
you're gonna dig-dug the
Spotlight On Podcast

Check it out!

Exploring

Roll The Dice

For a random blog post

Click here

or for something cool to listen to
(refresh this page for another selection)

Linking

Blogroll
A Closer Listen
Austin Kleon
Atlas Minor
blissblog
Craig Mod
Disquiet
feuilleton
Headpone Commute
Jay Springett
Kottke
Metafilter
One Foot Tsunami
1000 Cuts
1001 Other Albums
Parenthetical Recluse
Robin Sloan
Seth Godin
The Creative Independent
The Red Hand Files
The Tonearm
Sonic Wasteland
Things Magazine
Warren Ellis LTD
 
TRANSLATE with x
English
Arabic Hebrew Polish
Bulgarian Hindi Portuguese
Catalan Hmong Daw Romanian
Chinese Simplified Hungarian Russian
Chinese Traditional Indonesian Slovak
Czech Italian Slovenian
Danish Japanese Spanish
Dutch Klingon Swedish
English Korean Thai
Estonian Latvian Turkish
Finnish Lithuanian Ukrainian
French Malay Urdu
German Maltese Vietnamese
Greek Norwegian Welsh
Haitian Creole Persian
TRANSLATE with
COPY THE URL BELOW
Back
EMBED THE SNIPPET BELOW IN YOUR SITE
Enable collaborative features and customize widget: Bing Webmaster Portal
Back
Newsroll
Dada Drummer
Deep Voices
Dense Discovery
Dirt
Erratic Aesthetic
First Floor
Flaming Hydra
Futurism Restated
Garbage Day
Herb Sundays
Kneeling Bus
Orbital Operations
Sasha Frere-Jones
The Browser
The Honest Broker
The Maven Game
The Voice of Energy
Today In Tabs
Tone Glow
Why Is This Interesting?
 
TRANSLATE with x
English
Arabic Hebrew Polish
Bulgarian Hindi Portuguese
Catalan Hmong Daw Romanian
Chinese Simplified Hungarian Russian
Chinese Traditional Indonesian Slovak
Czech Italian Slovenian
Danish Japanese Spanish
Dutch Klingon Swedish
English Korean Thai
Estonian Latvian Turkish
Finnish Lithuanian Ukrainian
French Malay Urdu
German Maltese Vietnamese
Greek Norwegian Welsh
Haitian Creole Persian
TRANSLATE with
COPY THE URL BELOW
Back
EMBED THE SNIPPET BELOW IN YOUR SITE
Enable collaborative features and customize widget: Bing Webmaster Portal
Back

ACT

Support Ukraine
+
Ideas for Taking Action
+
Climate Action Resources
+
Carbon Dots
+
LGBTQ+ Education Resources
+
National Network of Abortion Funds
+
Animal Save Movement
+
Plant Based Treaty
+
The Opt Out Project
+
Trustworthy Media
+
Union of Musicians and Allied Workers

Here's what I'm doing

/now

Copyright © 2025 · 8D Industries, LLC · Log in