1000 True Fans

[petekelly]

1000 True Fans

Very interesting blog on Robert Rich's MySpace page:

http://blog.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=blog.view&friendID=99331142&blogID=381649882

cheers
Pete

[jkn]

Interesting - thanks for pointing that out.   I read Robert's post, but not the actual article yet.

[APK]

An informative read.
Thanks for pointing it out Pete.

[Mark Mushet]

Nicely put. It is very much time that artists/practitioners come out and reveal the hard realities of creating work these days. If nothing else it serves as a reminder to ask the hard questions about the truth of why people create in such hostile environs.

From an "indie pop" POV I recommend Dean Wareham's new memoir "Black Postcards" to see how the machine works to keep itself going and how people willingly thrash about in its maw until its time to be spat out.

I love his accounts of the industry's "accounting" practices and his making the necessary point that independents have not broken the cycle of abuse of artists by the majors through their own behaviour. Sooner or later one is reduced to being the "sole proprietor" of a creative enterprise...and that's maybe not such a bad thing.

[APK]

Robert's blog post should remind everyone that even the most well-known artists in our genera are not at all making a living from their albums. And the less well-known are making a pittance (if anything). This is why we have trouble with the huge amount of free file sharing that is going on, and also why we very much appreciate what loyal fans and paying customers we do get.

[LNerell]

I have to agree, Robert is a best case scenario and does not represent the average artist in this genre which I think shows just how hard it is to make a living these days as a recording artist.

[mgriffin]

An interesting read, and as Loren says, the experience of guys like Robert Rich and Steve Roach should not indicate to the rest of us that if we emulate what they're doing right now, we will have the same success they have.  Even Robert admits that he wouldn't have this number of dedicated fans, if he'd always been doing things the DIY, self-released.  His work was exposed to a very large number of people due to the efforts of Hearts of Space.

In the same way, Radiohead and Nine Inch Nails have managed to flourish with very self-released recordings recently, but there's no way they could have done this without having already played the mainstream, mass-market game for a decade or more.  A new, indie rock band could not start right up from where Radiohead is, do the same thing Radiohead is doing now, and enjoy the same success.

[nuun]

I do agree too.
I would mention another good example, with David Sylvian's own label Samadhisound.
DS has been able to raise Samadhisound and to get a total artistic autonomy with the strong promotion and mass-marketing tools from Virgin.