Comments for FatKidOnFire

Comment on The State of the Music Industry pt. III by fatkidonfire

fatkidonfire — Fri, 04 May 2012 16:17:42 +0000

@Legend4ry I talked to dfrnt about this here http://fatkidonfire.com/news/artist-highlight-dfrnt-x-fatkidonfire. I think crowdsourcing will be/ is a fantastic way to fund more indie projects – like labels (or websites…!)

Comment on The State of the Music Industry pt. III by Legend4ry

Legend4ry — Fri, 04 May 2012 16:12:31 +0000

I agree with most of your sentiments but I would like to state some points which I think need to be raised.

“Pointing the finger and pushing the blame on labels for saturating the scene with crap music is ridiculous when taking into consideration the bedroom home studio set-up and the ease of which anyone can write music nowadays. And that’s without even acknowledging the devaluing effects of widespread piracy and theft of music – a practise taken for granted (but one that largely prevents any revenue models from surviving). One look at the struggling grip of major record labels on the music industry and their inability to adapt with the times is enough to exemplify this. I received an email not long ago stating “I don’t like to pay for mp3s but for vinyl it’s the complete opposite”. There’s a perceived lack of value when there’s no physicality; if you could steal a car you would.”

This paragraph troubled me, we live in a age where everyone belt is tight; being a vinyl enthusiast like the articles author – I love a physical product but have seen myself switch to CDs comprising of tracks I get sent from producers in my network out live and only buy vinyl from 2nd hand stores due to budget. I don’t pirate music, nor encourage it but I do understand why people do it. 90% of the people whom pirate do it because its easy, fast and music to them is disposable but I strongly believe there is a good 10% of people who just can’t afford it but can access what they want when a decade or so ago they would just have to wait to hear it on radio.

Other media has cottoned on this though, specifically the gaming industry – they are far more developed when it comes to tackling piracy and giving consumers what they want. Websites like Indiegogo and Kickstarter have seen MASSIVE amounts of sums go into projects that people freely donate however much money they want to the development of the product and the more generosity they have – the better ‘deal’ they get.

The social networking, web culture genius; as well as fantastic producer/label owner DFRNT did this for his newest album : http://www.indiegogo.com/DFRNT-Fading-new-shiny-album-project . This is someone whom has built up a great fan base from his 2 solid label majority net-label ventures and took the ‘pay what you like’ model into the future; if people didn’t like the release, it wouldn’t of got put out (physically) and even exceeded his determined amount meaning that so many people wanted to contribute to the project even once it reached 5 grand.

People are not dumb these days when it comes to money and yes it is the labels fault bad music gets put out – just as much as its the producers fault for not perfecting their craft.

I’m getting a bit side tracked so i’ll sum what I mean up….

My point is – the independent label world is just as behind the times as major labels in the grand scheme of things, if your product is good enough people will buy it. If you don’t want to risk plunging loads of money into something what may not sell; labels should look forth to fund raising websites – if you don’t make the money, you obviously need to build up labels name, your artists names and try again (just not straight away). Yes this is still a VERY new concept to the music world (specifically Bass music) though one can hope we see this thing more because I would easily plow 10-15 into the development of a release for the vinyl, a digital copy and a sticker if I adore the release and i’m sure many other people would too.

P.S – None of this was aimed at Inna Riddim or the Author; just how I feel about that one paragraph.

P.P.S ; I hope my point wasn’t too muffled hah!

Comment on The State of the Music Industry pt. II by The State of the Music Industry pt. III | FatKidOnFire

The State of the Music Industry pt. III | FatKidOnFire — Fri, 04 May 2012 14:12:18 +0000

[...] now most of you seem to have read the two previous (2.1k likes on that post…!) guest posts that I’ve published about the bass music [...]

Comment on The State of the Music Industry by The State of the Music Industry pt. III | FatKidOnFire

The State of the Music Industry pt. III | FatKidOnFire — Fri, 04 May 2012 14:11:59 +0000

[...] now most of you seem to have read the two previous (2.1k likes on that post…!) guest posts that I’ve published about the bass music [...]

Comment on The State of the Music Industry pt. II by fatkidonfire

fatkidonfire — Tue, 01 May 2012 21:31:43 +0000

@DJSashwat thanks for another awesome comment! I kind of agree with you on the majority of your points – arkwright_ pitched the article as more of a follow up/ extension to lolskee ’s rather than a response per se. Maybe I could have worded the intro a bit better! I simply grouped them under the same title for reference (again – that might have been a bit of an error on my judgement). Glad you enjoyed the read though =)

Comment on The State of the Music Industry pt. II by DJSashwat

DJSashwat — Tue, 01 May 2012 21:17:06 +0000

Hmmm, this was an interesting read, but when I began reading the article…

“The music industry has been dying and/or dead for years. For over 50 years in fact – if we are willing to believe what we’ve been told.”…I was under the impression that I was going to be reading a challenge to the first article in the series. I didn’t quite get that from this. From my understanding, the first article was not talking about the death of a genre or music, in general, but rather the flooding of mediocre record labels that put little to no effort in promoting artists properly. It was talking about how many labels are focused on short-term monetary results rather than focused in on the music and building a catalog that will stand the test of time and be something that the label owner, artists, and fans are all proud of. With that said, I believe the title for Article 1 was not very appropriate and should have more narrowly focused on Dubstep/Bass Music and the Record Label/Artist Relationship rather than on Music as a whole and the entire industry.

The article at hand, however, in my opinion does fit the title perfectly and was a nice summary of what various scenes have gone through over the years and leaves us with a nice thought about what will happen to dubstep as it progresses. However, I don’t think anything in this write up really speaks to much said in the previous article nor does it really contradict it (if that was the intention). Again, it seems to me that its just getting at the state of the music industry with a much broader and entirely different perspective.

In a nutshell, I’d just like to say that I think the author of Article 1 still firmly believes in dubstep and bass music as a genre. He doesn’t think it’s come to an end and, despite how much experience he has in the scene, which I saw a lot of people targeting him for, I think he does bring up some valid points about the current scene as it stands. I’ll leave it at that and not get too much into my opinions about Article 1, since I’ve already made them relatively clear in that follow up. Feel free to read my response there if you wish… or don’t.SashwatDANK ‘N’ DIRTY DUBZ

Comment on The State of the Music Industry by The State of the Music Industry pt. II | FatKidOnFire

The State of the Music Industry pt. II | FatKidOnFire — Tue, 01 May 2012 20:36:27 +0000

[...] only is Sunday’s guest post on its way to becoming one of the most popular (if not the most popular) articles ever posted on [...]

Comment on The State of the Music Industry by DJSashwat

DJSashwat — Mon, 30 Apr 2012 15:46:31 +0000

This article completely resonates with me and not just because Lawrence was nice enough to give Dank ‘N’ Dirty Dubz a shout. However, this really is a big problem in the scene, in my opinion, and one of my biggest pet peeves. Labels focusing on quantity rather than quality, putting out 2-3 releases per month, offering no promotion whatsoever for the artists, and thinking that getting their tunes up on Beatport or iTunes is all that is necessary to put out a successful release and run a quality label. Let’s be quite frank, dubstep sales are not something to make a living off of and this is especially the case with smaller labels like mine (especially at the present time, where our budget and following, or rather lack thereof, doesn’t allow us to be pushing vinyl successfully yet. Hopefully, soon it will, but I digress).

The point is, if you aren’t going to put in the effort to support the artist and instead run a label just to support yourself as the label owner, it’s not really something you should waste your time doing. Trust me when I say there are much easier ways to support yourself and make a quick buck than running a label… for example, working at McDonald’s. If you are in it for the money, then you made a mistake when you first thought “maybe I’ll start a dubstep label.” For the hundreds if not thousands of hours I’ve put into this label already, by traditional standards, the rewards have not been justifiable whatsoever when looking at it from a financial perspective. However, it has been more than justifiable when looking at the exposure artists have gotten as a result of our releases and that’s what really puts a smile on my face. In my humble opinion, running a label is all about supporting artists in any way possible, pushing the music in the direction you want to see it go, and creating a catalog of timeless music. That’s why I do it, at least.

DANK ‘N’ DIRTY DUBZ

Comment on The State of the Music Industry by fatkidonfire

fatkidonfire — Mon, 30 Apr 2012 15:16:56 +0000

Another good comment, this time from Killian Dub:

“Some good points made. Labels need to be more like Metalheadz and Swamp etc in that they build a family and the releases are geared around the artists and not the label. In one way it’s excellent that people can form a label to put their own sound out there but efforts need to be consistent and obvious. There are lots out there passionate about the music they are pushing.”

Comment on The State of the Music Industry by fatkidonfire

fatkidonfire — Mon, 30 Apr 2012 15:14:48 +0000

One of the best responses I’ve seen (thanks Matt Sparks )

“Hmmmm. I have very mixed feelings on this article. lolskee does raise some interesting points which I think we can all relate to, but with less than a year’s experience in this industry I’m not personally sure whether he knows enough about it to make such sweeping statements.

There are plenty of dicks out there (this is the same for ALL scenes / industries and isn’t confined to dubstep). You can’t compare the dubstep scene to the poprock scene of the 70s and 80s either, that’s just ridiculous.

Also, the way music is listened to and shared is much different now. I believe the industry needs to change because otherwise consumers will leave them behind. This is never truer than in the dubstep scene which was born out of a new, digital generation. Steve Jobs said himself that the main problem with people thesedays is such a willingness to trade quality for convenience so labels need to recognize that and cater for them.

It is true that almost anyone can setup a label thesedays, but a wasteman is still a wasteman, whether he has a label or not. The best thing to do is to ignore the idiots and carry on doing what you love, with the people you love. The wasteman will fail and you can laugh at him in the future. If you were stupid enough to sign your tracks to a shit label, that says as much about you as it does the label and I would say its your fault for being too naïve. Learn from the mistake and move on.

Hard work, blood sweat and tears still exists (trust me, I know) so I guess what im saying is, whilst anyone can setup and run a digital label, not everyone can do it WELL.

Physical releases is something that takes a lot of respect and capital to get it started. The reason why not everybody is rushing to setup vinyl labels is because if it loses money (which it will) it will lose you A LOT of money. It takes a certain level of hardwork and gaining the respect of your peers before it gets to that stage. Starting out digital is a good way of getting that respect and recognition, assuming you can do it well, and once you’ve gained enough respect and people know who you are, maybe you will be in a better position to launch the physical side.

I guess what im saying is Lawrence, why bother getting caught up in all these politics, its meant to be about the music. Go and get stuck into your own beats and what it is you want to achieve, fuck everything else as its not important. Yes you will make mistakes, we all do, but success is directly linked to how you learn from these mistakes. I bet you wont be put any tunes out with shit labels again will you?

Bigup to all the labels repping physical, and bigup to all the labels doing the digital properly. I know a lot of guys who work very hard to make it a success, so I think its unfair to tar all digital labels with the same brush, especially if you don’t know what its like to run one of these labels and know how hard it is.”