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Dedication, digital labels, and barriers to entry
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| MrJiveBoJingles |
I've seen a lot of complaints that the abundance of digital labels leads to producers with no talent or very little talent being signed in droves. I guess this may be part of a more general tendency: if you lower the cost of production and difficulty of "entry" for any activity, you will automatically get an abundance of people not quite as dedicated to and knowledgeable about their craft as those who came before, since the new conditions make "success" possible for people who would have either given up on production before they tried to release anything or been turned away by established labels in earlier days. But if this is in fact a trend, I don't really see any way to reverse it. Can't put the horse back in the barn, so to speak.
Thoughts? |
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| MrJiveBoJingles |
Hmm.
Your reply could mean any number of things, but unless you clarify, I'm not sure which meaning to pick. |
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| UWM |
| quote: |
I've seen a lot of complaints that the abundance of digital labels leads to producers with no talent or very little talent being signed in droves.
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I should've quoted that to clarify. |
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| MrJiveBoJingles |
Another thought: we can look at this in terms of a "bell curve." Consider a quantity Z, which indicates the combination (or combinations) of talent plus dedication plus spare time plus money plus whatever else that it takes to make "good" tracks.
In a "normal distribution," there will be very few people who possess lots and lots of Z -- ones who consistently make great tracks. Then there will be a whole bunch that possess "mediocre" levels of Z -- ones who can make decent tracks and maybe a single really good one, but have no realistic chance of being in the "top tier." Then there will be a few people who possess very little Z -- people who are tone-deaf or who hate music or are too lazy or plain unlucky to save up enough money for production or just have other interests that completely override any potential for them to make music.
In a time when production equipment is expensive and labels more cautious about signing new artists, the "cutoff" will be near the right end of the bell curve and the average required Z to "make it" in the EDM biz will be higher. What cheaper production costs and more abundant labels do is shift the cutoff nearer to the left side of the bell curve. Shift it far enough left, and you have people who aren't really even interested in EDM making a track as a lark and actually getting it realeased. Shift it far enough right, and you have very few people releasing tracks or even bothering with production at all. |
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| MrJiveBoJingles |
| quote: | Originally posted by UWM
I should've quoted that to clarify. |
Maybe I'm being obtuse, but I'm still not quite sure what you're getting at. Are you saying that digital labels aren't releasing real music? Or that they are? Or something else? |
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| UWM |
| I'm saying that REAL MUSIC is one of the labels that is responsible for the influx of waterer-down talent in the digital market. |
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| MrJiveBoJingles |
| Ahh, okay. I didn't know that "REAL MUSIC" was the name of a label. :p |
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| Ian |
| quote: | Originally posted by MrJiveBoJingles
Ahh, okay. I didn't know that "REAL MUSIC" was the name of a label. :p |
yeah. run by a bit of an ass too :p
I do agree that it is hurting. I know a lot of labels still releasing good quality stuff but when you hear a lot, it's instantly mediocre & forgettable. |
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| THE_Chris |
Theres a lot of rubbish out there, but its keeping the genre as a whole alive and bringing more people in by the sheer abundance of it.
All you have to do is hunt through the crap to find the gems :) |
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| thoughtlessjex |
| I don't think it can be reversed, moreover it shouldn't be. For who knows how long, the notion of what is good music and what is not has been decided by people who care more about the saleability of the music than its actual quality, with a few exceptions. Now it's entirely up to the consumer what quality and what is not. This won't necessarily lead to more high quality music, but the crux is that it will make sure the customer gets exactly what he or she wants without having it filtered by labels. |
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| Aquarian |
| That stuff gets signed because there's a big market for bad music. I don't think that's gonna change any time soon. |
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