The term was never mentioned when it came to signing an artist to create content. It became a thing, when the corporations had to find a legal loophole to use against the creators trying to get their rights back, even though Copyright law states they can get their rights back after a certain period.
A work made for hire, is a piece of copyrightable work created by employees as part of their job or as part of a limited type of commissioned work for a flat fee. In the United States and certain other copyright jurisdictions, if a work is “made for hire,” the employer, not the employee, is considered the legal author. In other words, the creator of the work gives up all ownership and administration rights for a flat fee.
The earliest use of “Work For Hire” was in the arts industry like comic books and artists who designed album covers. Marvel is no stranger to these kind of cases. Stan Lee (creator of most things Marvel), Gary Friedrich (creator of Ghost Rider), Joe Simon (Captain America creator) and Jack Kirby (illustrator/artist on the Stan Lee projects) are a few names that had litigation cases brought against Marvel.
The Superman creators wrote an article hoping that the original Christopher Reeve movies bomb at the box office because they weren’t fairly compensated. The movies did the exact opposite.
Read this Billboard interview with Don Henley, who is very interested in artists rights. While I agree and also disagree with Henley’s views on a wide range of topics, one thing is certain; Henley cares. As a member of The Eagles, and after being a Copyright rookie, he schooled himself on what his entitlements are as a creator. Don Henley owns his post 1978 work as a member of The Eagles and as a solo artist. He knows that his pre-1978 works can be reclaimed from 2028 due to another sneaky Copyright addition for pre-78 works.
If you don’t want to click on the Billboard link, here is the question from Billboard and Henley’s answer.
QUESTION:
The first issue you were known for being active on was the effort by the labels to have recordings considered “works for hire” — which I think was the origin of the Recording Artists Coalition. How important was the coalition in stopping that? And you learn anything from it?
In 1999, the lobbying group for the major labels, the RIAA, buried a fundamental change to the Copyright Act in a completely unrelated bill, the Satellite Home Viewer Improvement Act of 1999.
Without input from the artists, they amended the definition of ‘work for hire’ in the Copyright Act to include ‘sound recordings.’
The consequence of this amendment would have been devastating for recording artists. It would have effectively eliminated artists’ ability to regain ownership of their sound recordings in the United States.
The ability of the RIAA to pass a bill which amended the Copyright Act without opposition from the creative community was a direct result of the labels being organized and the artists not having a coalition to represent their voices.
So, a group of artists and artist representatives mobilized and formed the Recording Artists Coalition (RAC). Thanks to the many artists who spoke up, and the support of Congressman Howard Berman, sound recordings were stricken from the definition of ‘work for hire’ in the Work Made for Hire and Copyright Corrections Act of 2000. The only reason that recording artists can now regain control of their copyrights from the labels in the U.S. as Congress intended is because the RAC organized and artists spoke up.
I am all for the creators getting proper compensation for their works. There is no way that a corporation told a creator what to create.
Can you imagine the absurdity of it all?
A Publishing House is going to tell Steven King or George Martin or Paulo Coelho what to write. Yeah, right.
Or a Music company is going to tell an artists what kind of song to create.
Those same music companies including Capital Records, Warner Bros. and Sony Music have been falsely registering songs as “made for hire” in order to send takedown notices to the various ISP’s and YouTube.
I’m sure that’s gonna work out well in the long run especially when the artists don’t know that the label is doing that.
Then again, it doesn’t always work out well. This is just one of many.
The cover to Aqualung from Jethro Tull was created by Burton Silverman. The artwork was commissioned and purchased by Chrysalis Records head Terry Ellis in 1971.
Silverman was paid a flat fee of $1,500 for the painting and there was no written contract.
The artist says the art was only licensed for use as an album cover, and not for merchandising; he approached the band seeking remuneration for the additional uses, such as printing it on T-shirts and coffee mugs.
I got a call from a person called William, with an offer to invest $100 dollars into this unbelievable trading platform called Trade Centre and watch it make money.
I was in a mood and I thought let’s play.
I already had crypto monies in another wallet so I moved $100 of it to their trading platform.
Red flags started to appear already when William told me, he will be making the trades for me. I asked him why is that.
He told me that he’s “super experienced” and I might make mistakes which would lose me money.
He told me I need to trust in him.
Fantastic.
Now the website I must say, was state of the art and confusing. It had real time data of all the different stock exchanges, currency movements and hundreds of other types of investments. There was charts and everything else.
Now I do trade on stocks so the exchanges are something I can follow but on this case, their exchange was something I could not follow.
So I Googled the trading platform name and there are hundreds of web pages of people’s testimony telling any reader how great the platform is and how easy it is to make money on it.
I was suspicious because the websites all have the same look and feel. At the time I was still putting together my case to assess of it is a scam, which shows how sophisticated it all is.
William called me the next day and told me the good news that the $100 investment made $20. Mmm, a 20% increase for a 24 hour period was and is too good to be true.
I asked William, “how is that possible, as I watched the trades all day and it was at $100, then after he calls me it went up to $120.”
I then asked for a withdrawal of the money and I was met with another offer from William to invest $1000 dollars and to make some serious money. He kept telling me how I need to trust him and he will make me a lot of money. Red Flags.
But, I was still in a playful mood, so I kept asking him questions like where is he from, is he married, does he have kids, etc. He was hesitant and deflective and I said to him, hey, if you want me to trust you, I need to know you.
He told me, he is from London. No wife and no kids because he is too busy making millions for himself and people. It was all crap to me.
“Where is the office in London and on what street?”, I asked him. He never gave me an answer on that one, and he asked me a question on what I do. I reverted back to my question and re-iterated to him if you want me to trust you, then you need to tell me some information. He never did on this. I had Google Street View ready to check the address but I never got one.
“What did you do on the weekend?”, I kept on probing. He told me he jumped on his private jet and caught up with a mate who also has a private jet. An image of the DiCaprio movie “The Wolf Of Wall Street” came to mind, when they were doing that penny stock cold calling scam.
I could go on with all the crap conversation that happened, but in the end, William and his crew are investment scammers in the Crypto World and I can see how these kind of investment scammers capture people.
If you don’t know much about investments and trades then it’s easy to be sucked in by them, because you are always making money on their trades. But when I look at my normal trades and the markets in general, how can they pay 20% when the market is in the red for both shares and crypto.
And man, those websites and that trading platform are very sophisticated. William and his syndicate of scammers manipulate the data. A person looking at the trading platforms believes it is legit. But what’s really happening is that they are stealing people’s money.
And like Ponzi Scheme’s they do pay people money so they can get those people to trust them and invest a bit more. So I did get back my $100 money, with William saying, as a sign of trust for me to invest even more with him, like $10,000.
I’m not sure if any of the stories of Australian companies getting hacked have made it to the U.S.
Optus is the second largest telco in Australia. I have my mobile plans and internet plans with them. They got hacked about six weeks ago and I’ve been told my details got swiped.
Then I was told the information that got swiped is not enough for any person to steal my identity so I don’t need to do anything.
Then VINOMOFO got hacked, an online site i buy wine from. It was a test database that had all the information of their customers. And I’ve heard nothing from them since.
Then the big one.
Medibank.
Yep, the private medical insurer got hacked and all of their customer data, past and present members was taken along with medical histories. At the moment I’m a current member.
I would like to say “sucked in” to Medibank. About six weeks before the hack they wouldn’t allow me to get a report on how much dollars my 17 year old son had left on his physiotherapy.
Their response was “due to privacy and because he is over the age of 16, he needs to access this information himself”. And they kept re-iterating that they take “privacy seriously”.
But, I’m the one paying the insurance premiums, plus the gap payments and he’s under my policy but they told me I have no rights to ask questions about him.
Where is the privacy now?
The privacy they take so seriously.
The hackers then asked Medibank to pay $1USD for each member record which totaled about $9.2 million.
Medibank refused.
The data started to get released.
Then the text messages started.
Hi Dad, I lost my phone and I’m using this phone. Call me on this number?
And then the phone calls started from mobile numbers which are not masked so when I answered them I was greeted by silence and then they would hang up.
I’m pretty sure the text messages and phone calls are from previous hacks as the Medibank hack is too recent.
Police enforcement doesn’t care because the hackers are not in Australia and while the politicians say they are doing something about it, they actually do nothing except talk about it and try to get voting points.
Once upon a time I felt like hackers kept governments, companies and politicians honest, by leaking information which showed these institutions abusing their power. But leaking information from innocent citizens for profit is not cool.
If the style of the artwork looks familiar, it should. Its Ken Kelly doing the cover. If you have “Destroyer” and “Love Gun” from Kiss, “Rising” by Rainbow, “Space Invader” by Ace and other albums by Manowar like “Fighting The World” and “The Triumph Of Steel”, then you would have been exposed to Ken Kelly.
Should be called “Duller Than Hell” and Motley Crue also want their title back. Or they should have used their war cry “Death To False Metal” as the album title as the songs themselves are too derivative of earlier Manowar and could be classed as false.
It’s their eighth album, released on October 1, 1996. After the expiration of their contract with Atlantic, the band did a big money move to Geffen Records and this is their first offering. For an album on Geffen Records, the production is lifeless. Stale. Which is strange as the album was anticipated. And it was a running joke, if the album would ever get released as they approached four years from the previous studio album. Back then four years was a long time. These days bands go decades without releasing anything new.
Formed in 1980, Joey DeMaio on bass, keyboards is still the head honcho and main songwriter. Eric Adams is still the vocalist. It is the first album to feature guitarist Karl Logan, as well as the return of drummer Scott Columbus.
Dee Snider once posted on Twitter, if people should listen to an artist if they did a crime that doesn’t sit well with you.
Guitarist Karl Logan was arrested in 2019 for child pornography offenses. I questioned myself if I should review this album or not review it. I decided to review it, since all the songs are written by kingpin DeMaio.
My opinion of the album still hasn’t changed.
It’s a parody of their former albums, like “Fighting The World”. The guitar playing is boring.
While former guitarist Ross The Boss played riffs, the new guy plays chords. They might as well have gotten Richie Sambora to play chords. He would have done a more livelier job. And maybe introduced a talk box into their sound.
I was always a Ross The Boss fan anyway and was pretty bummed when he was asked to leave the band he formed with Joey DeMaio by DeMaio himself circa 1988. At first, Ross the Boss was replaced by David Shankle, who left in ’94 after playing on “The Triumph of Steel”. I didn’t want to even listen to the album, but my cousin is a massive fan and he kept playing their new albums for me to check out.
Return of the Warlord
It’s very Judas Priest like. Think “You’ve Got Another Thing Coming” and “Heading Out The Highway”. Each song has a dedication in the CD liner notes, and this one is dedicated to Mary Hooton for all the years and all the tears.
Lyrically, its dumb and simple. While the musical climate in the 90’s started to get more introspective and introverted, Manowar was the opposite. They stayed big, bombast, epic and aloof.
Check-out lines like, “I got no money or big house just got life, I don’t like to save it’s more fun to spend, If you like metal you’re my friend, And that bike out in the yard well that’s my wife”.
Yep, I know the 90’s were hard on 80’s metal, yet Manowar survived writing stuff like this.
Brothers of Metal Pt. 1
It’s from 1986, so they must have had writers block. The lyrical themes of “Fighting for metal, that is real, brothers of metal standing together with hands in the air” was a running joke in 1996. The song is dedicated to Jeff Bova.
More lyrical Shakespeare with “Our hearts are filled with metal and masters we have none, and we will die for metal, metal heals, my son
The Gods Made Heavy Metal
Judas Priest again comes to mind, circa “Screaming For Vengeance” era. With lyrics that will either make you take up the fight for Heavy Metal or laugh at the parody of Heavy Metal.
We are treated to biblical lines like “the gods made heavy metal and they saw that is was good, they said to play it louder than Hell, we promised that we would”.
It’s dedicated to a person called Rainer Haensel, for always being ready for anything crazy and for never letting the band down.
Courage
Another song that was demoed in 1986, it’s a piano ballad in a major key. Very Queen like and on this album it is in memory of Anthony John Columbus III.
But it’s a skip for me.
Number 1
One more song that was demoed in 1986 which is dedicated to Tom Miller for believing in the band no matter how crazy it seemed.
And Sylvester Stallone should of used lines like these in a “Rocky” or “Creed” movie. “Today is the day all the training through, we have come for the number one not the number two, let the contest begin play hard fight to win, immortality victory and fame”.
Outlaw
More of the same like the previous songs, the song is for the Manowar fans around the world who stand, shout, live and breathe MANOWAR METAL. I wouldn’t be surprised if “Manowar Metal” becomes a new genre in the years to come.
King
It’s another piano major key ballad for the first 90 seconds before it kicks in to more of the same. “Fighting The World” comes to mind here.
It’s dedicated to John Kalodner, their friend, brother and King. And they do him proud, with the lyrics, “Fight for the crown, fight for the ring, We’re fighting the world, we fight for the king”.
And if you grew up in the 80s you would have seen John
Today Is a Good Day to Die
A 9 minute instrumental that could belong in a Clint Eastwood Western.
They pull no punches in the CD notes when they say this song is dedicated to all the losers in the world who have tried to put Manowar and the Manowar fans down. As the Indians fought and died for their way of life, so shall Manowar. Great Spirit, they only wish to live long enough to urinate on the graves of their enemies.
The Power
Probably the best song on the album as it’s pace is frantic. And the Power is dedicated to artist Ken Kelly.
Manowar’s style is 80bpm chugging along rhythms. Most of their music is the key of Em. They celebrate heavy metal the way we knew it in the early 80’s, before it splintered into so many different categories. They make no apologies for it either. They do it their way, they have their core audience who are devoted to them and sustain them.
“Back In Black” from AC/DC is simple and it keeps you interested. “Louder Than Hell” is simple but it doesn’t keep me interested. Not like the earlier albums from Manowar.
Eric Adams on vocals is underrated and never spoken about when it comes to great vocalists. But they should talk about him a bit more. If you talk about Ronnie James Dio, Ian Gillian, Bruce Dickinson and Rob Halford, then Eric Adams should be in the same conversation. This album doesn’t do him justice, but check out the 80’s material.
Check it out if you want to hear a band carrying on the flag of 80’s Heavy Metal in the wastelands of Grunge, Alternative and Industrial.
WILL IT EVER BE FIXED TO REWARD THE CREATOR MORE THAN THE ORGANISATION?
I thought Stallone owned the “Rocky” franchises. Otherwise why would he be involved (by writing, directing and acting) in six movies and three spin offs. He did get paid to write the script but the power balance equation back in the 70’s meant Stallone had to keep his mouth shut or never work again. MGM created movies, and when they did so, it also created work for agents, lawyers and managers. No one wanted to upset anybody.
And just like that, a song from an artist is taken down on Spotify without any repercussions to the person making the false claim. And there is no counter notice. As the Torrentfreak article states; “The problem with Spotify’s system is that it’s relatively easy to flag a track and have it removed. However, there is no official option for the accused party to appeal the takedown. Instead, they have to resolve the matter with the accuser directly. If the accuser doesn’t respond, the artist is simply out of luck”.
And this puts the power back into the big labels who would find it easier to address wrongful takedowns than smaller independent artists, which creates an unfair situation.
I’m not sure if people remember Hipgnosis Songs Fund. They had a pretty big acquisition period in the first six months of 2021, which led them to acquire a lot of music catalogues. Well, by the end of March 2022, their 65000 song catalogue was worth almost $2.7bn. In one year, their revenues grew by $200m, on the back of streaming revenues.
While the artists cashed in once when they sold their rights, Hipgnosis is cashing in, over and over and over again. And since the Copyright Term in the U.S, lasts for the life of the creator plus 70 years after their death, this will be a long time return as long as the music is still listened to. And our neighbours New Zealand just extended their terms by 20 years to make it 70 years from release date otherwise their free trade agreement with the EU couldn’t happen.
One artist who still controls their copyright is Kate Bush. And if you have watched “Stranger Things”, you will know that her song “Running Up That Hill” is back in the charts and getting streamed a lot, earning her over $2.3 million in music streaming royalties alone. And that number will keep on rising.
And of course, Metallica’s “Master of Puppets” is also enjoying a nice wave of streaming revenue, courtesy of “Stranger Things”. And they also own their copyrights.
Those who own valuable copyrights will be banking.
A magazine article from 1983, inspired the original “Top Gun” movie.
The author, Ehud Yonay, transferred the copyright to Paramount for a fee. There is a Copyright law that allows him to terminate this transfer after 35 years.
But he died in 2012, so his widow and son filed a termination notice in 2018 which was approved and in effect from 2020.
I don’t agree with Copyrights lasting 70 to 90 years after the death of the creator, but it’s a law that’s in effect and it will not change anytime soon. This law was designed to benefit the Corporations originally as they are the ones who lobbied hard to get it passed, but as a by product, it also benefited the heirs of very valuable works. Much to the hatred of the movie studios and labels.
So “Top Gun: Maverick” comes out and it starts making some serious coin, the author’s heirs sued Paramount Pictures. They claim that the sequel never should have been made as the Movie Studio does not hold the rights to the magazine story.
Expect a decent settlement before it gets to the courts. Because all the heirs want is a payday.
Her 1994 song “All I Want For Christmas Is You” has been streamed over a billion times earning Carey over $60 million in royalties.
And now an artist is suing for Copyright Infringement because they had a song with the same title out a few years before that.
Yep, they are suing because of the song title which has been used 177 times in the U.S by different artists. It’s no so original is it.
Imagine Judas Priest suing Def Leppard and Halestorm for “Love Bites”.
But the mind boggling Copyright action at the moment comes from Mary Bono, the widow of Sonny Bono and a former Republican U.S. Representative. She was instrumental in getting a law passed called “The Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act” in 1998 which extending the terms of copyrights for another 20 years for any works created in 1923 and after. This meant the Public Domain in the US got nothing from 1998, until 1 January 2019.
And now she has filed termination notices to several corporations to get back the rights to Sonny’s works (as he was the writer) and remove Cher from those rights as well which Cher is suing for.
Because Cher’s royalties came because of the divorce agreement she had with Sonny when they agreed to split the royalties equally. I never knew that dead people still had to pay monies post divorce.
And that’s what Mary Bono is arguing. That copyright law supersedes divorce agreements.
And the RIAA and MPAA still argue that we need longer Copyright terms to benefit the creators.
“Slowhand” is the fifth full-length studio album by Eric Clapton, released on 25 November 1977 by RSO Records.
Clapton is in the news these days for the wrong reasons. I was even called a racist at my place of work for listening to his music.
I suppose it’s the age old question.
Do you stop listening to an artists for things they’ve said or done that you don’t agree with?
I have three vaccines in me so I don’t really care if artists I enjoy listening to sprout anti vaccine bullshit. The racist rant he went on in a 1976 concert was bizarre to say the least, especially how he is influenced by black musicians. And I’m a foreigners son but I didn’t care much either way.
It gave rise a Rock Against Racism movement back then and then he dropped “Slowhand” which became a massive seller for him.
And coincidence or not his band is white.
Eric Clapton is on lead vocals and guitars. Dick Sims is on keyboards, George Terry on guitars, Carl Radle on bass, Jamie Oldaker on drums/percussion and Mel Collins is on saxophones. Yvonne Elliman does the excellent harmony and backing vocals. Marcy Levy is also on the harmony and backing vocals, and duets with Clapton on “The Core”.
Glyn Johns expertely captures the sounds as engineer and producer. Clapton really wanted to work with Johns, because of his work with The Rolling Stones and The Eagles, however while in the studio, Johns ran a disciplined ship which discouraged jamming. According to Johns, why take away precious time from recording to jam. Since Clapton and his band were drunk most of the time, Johns had no other choice but to run a tight recording schedule.
Cocaine
Written by J.J. Cale who it seems like was getting covered by everyone. The riff is straight from the songbook of “Sunshine Of Your Love”.
At 333.6 million streams on Spotify, it’s one of his most played. And I don’t care how Clapton spins it, the song is about taking the drug,
Lay Down Sally
Written by Eric Clapton, George Terry and Marcy Levy, I like the 12 bar bluegrass shuffle on this. It reminds me of Dire Straits even though this was written before.
Wonderful Tonight
On Spotify it has 309 million streams but press play for the lead breaks which make up for the lyrics which could be classed as silly.
A live song written by Eric Clapton for his then wife.
Next Time You See Her
Another track written by Eric Clapton which could pass for the embryo of the Hootie And The Blowfish sound.
There is anger here at losing his lover.
We’re All the Way
Written by country artist Don Williams. It’s a slower song with shimmering acoustic lines, a soft brush drum beat and baritone vocals.
And it is this style which dominates the album.
The Core
Written by Eric Clapton and Marcy Levy. At almost 9 minutes long, Clapton is trying to re-create “Crossroads” from Robert Johnson in certain sections however there are lot of riffs to unpack here and all of them are a fun to play.
May You Never
Written by John Martyn.
Clapton breaks out the acoustic guitar here, with a kind of Eagles-style tune that doesn’t disappoint and is one that I enjoyed quite a bit.
Mean Old Frisco
Written by Arthur Crudup
Clapton brings a gangster attitude to this as the song reminds me of something that The Black Crowes would do in the 90’s.
Peaches and Diesel
Written by Eric Clapton and Albhy Galuten.
It’s an instrumental with a guitar hero like solo. Musically it shares elements to “Wonderful Tonight”.
And the album did great business all around the world with various certifications from different regions.
The thing I like about Clapton is that he takes on covers and re-invent those songs for the modern market. In a way, making em his songs.
Investment funds are purchasing licenses to music catalogues that make money. Streaming services have shown how much money they pay to the copyright holders which in most cases are the labels, the publishers, the few artists who own their rights and now, Hedge Funds and Investment Funds.
The three major music labels jointly brought in over $25 billion in revenue last year, with $12.5 billion coming from streaming recorded revenue alone. Spotify payments represent around a third of that streaming total. Major label profits combined in 2021 exceeded $4 billion.
Furthermore, social media services like Facebook, Tik Tok, Snapchat and the like also pay a lot of license fees to the copyright holders. Even games like Roblox had to settle a $200 million suit around licensing fees to the publishers and labels. There is a lot of money going out to copyright holders which isn’t filtering to the actual people who make those copyrights valuable.
The artists.
Then again, a lot of those people are dead and their copyrights are unfortunately held by corporations (instead of being in the Public Domain) who might pay a few million or a few thousands to the artists heirs. Sort of like a lifetime pension that reverts to the spouse and then to the kids.
From a Metal point of view, investment fund, Tempo Music acquired a majority stake in some of Korn’s recordings and compositions. And another investment fund called, Round Hill Music did a deal with members of Supertramp.
David Bowie’s catalogue went for a lot and he’s not even alive to spend it. So did Bob Dylan to Universal Music Group, who is figuring out how to spend his $400 million at his age. And Neil Young sold 50% of his stake in his song to Hipgnosis for $150 million.
81 year old Tina Turner also sold her rights to BMG (a music publishing company) along with her image and likeness. “Chanisaw Charlie” from WASP comes to mind and how “Charlie” the label boss in the song, whores the image of the dead rock stars.
And the cases for plagiarism in music just keep coming.
You see, I find it hard to believe that an artist is so original and free from influence. And yes, some songs might sound the same or have similarities. Hell the whole Southern Rock genre sounded the same in the 70’s and so did the Blues Rock genre from the same period. They actually both sounded the same.
Listen to progressive music like Yes, ELP and Rush and you would start to hear a lot of similarities. It’s just how creativity works. Nothing is created in a vacuum, free from influences. Creativity is a sum of our influences and experiences.
Plagiarism cases don’t happen much in metal and hard rock circles these days, but if any of the artists have a hit song right now, well, where there is a hit, there is a writ.
Drake and Chris Brown are in court over copyright infringement. Kate Perry just won her suit. Bad Bunny is also sued for infringement. Ed Sheeran has a special team that constantly fights plagiarism court battles.
And Taylor Swift is almost done re-recording her old songs to get away from a restrictive contract in which her copyrights are owned by her original label and for some reason they had the right to sell those rights on to anyone, which they already did.
In other words, they used Taylor Swift as a bargaining chip, sold the copyrights they held in her music and took the money with no compensation to the artist.
Brilliant.
“Frontiers” from Italy is constantly putting money out there to get famous artists from the 80’s and 90’s to record new music for them and to re-record their old songs for the label.
From looking at the metal and rock genre, “Frontiers” have the highest releases from any label that I am aware off. I guess the Frontiers execs are aware that having assets like “copyright” under their control, makes good business sense.
Those copyright assets will never go down to zero. Because streaming pays those who hold the copyrights and the money is in holding the copyrights for the life of the artist plus 70 years after death. In some countries its 90 years after death.
In other words, music is a better investment than anything else. If you buy physical property, you would need to maintain it, renovate it and keep paying bills for utilities, however music just scales. And artists will keep on creating.
AI can create new songs from Elvis Presley, Frank Sinatra or Michael Jackson. A company called OpenAI can generate new pop songs in the style of these artists. It’s not studio quality, more like garage demo’s as the AI creates derivative versions of music they’ve already released and new lyrics based on the songs the artist previously released.
But the biggest issue always facing artists is payments.
The streaming services have secret licensing agreements with the music publishers and the labels. These black box deals are worth a lot to the labels and publishers.
But the music publishers and labels are in these positions of negotiating power because of the works that the artists have created, however those licensing monies do not filter down to the artists.
Then again, these kinds of black box creative accounting from the labels is engrained in their system. It’s nothing new.
But I’ll sign my contract baby, and I won’t you people to know Every penny that I make, I’ve got to see where my money goes
From “Working For MCA” by Lynyrd Skynyrd
But artists don’t see where their money goes and they haven’t seen for a very long time.
And when the labels had the power and control of the distribution chain before Napster, they could sign artists to the most crappiest deals ever. Which they still enforce today.
Machine Head had been leading up to a demo release for the song “Killers and Kings” since February. In the lead up, Robb Flynn talked about his youth, the San Francisco thrash scene and how bands used to release demo’s of songs before the album and how the fans would go away and debate it.
Then the marketing started. Machine Head (along with Nuclear Blast) started releasing the different single covers on a weekly basis (which look great by the way) and they got into partnership with the Record Store Day event.
To put it in simply pseudocode;
Where an audience exists and if an artist has new material, release it.
They are no more and according to the internet, they barely existed.
Faktion’s self-titled release hit the streets in 2006. I came across it in 2014. It was up against some stiff competition for listener’s attention. The audience that could have gravitated towards Faktion had already devoted their ears to other bands.
Like Breaking Benjamin released “Phobia”, Skillet released “Comatose”, Stone Sour released “Come What(ever) May”, Daughtry released his self-titled debut, 10 Years released “Autumn’s Dream”, Crossfade released “Falling Away”, Pillar released “The Reckoning”, Red released “End Of Silence” and Papa Roach released “The Paramour Sessions”. Already it is a pretty crowded marketplace.
BUT it gets worse.
They had a deal with Roadrunner Records who didn’t know how to promote them in a crowded modern rock scene.
Should Dave Mustaine been inducted with Metallica into the RNR Hall of Fame?
Jason Newsted and Rob Trujilio got inducted however there contribution pales to what Mustaine brought to the band. If you make an assessment of early Metallica, the evidence is there for Dave Mustaine to be inducted. The style of technical thrash that Mustaine brought to Metallica would end up influencing their first four albums. Otherwise they were just another NWOBHM copycat.
The induction criteria does state that the committee looks “at the influence and significance of the artists’ contributions to the development and perpetuation of rock and roll” on an official recording, but as you know, the first album was written while Mustaine was in the band. He just didn’t play on it.
Niches
Metal and hard rock are niches. Accept it and focus on it. It can be a lucrative business for you if you do. It will not bring back the glory days of the Seventies and Eighties, however it will give you a career.
Virality
A song takes off because fans start to spread the word. They share links to it, they talk about it, they blog about it. A marketing campaign can never achieve this. Only great music can.
Queensryche
Back in 2014 I wrote, “when are the people involved going to realise that Queensryhce is no more. Move on, forge a new career and a new identity.”
And I still stand by that.
Vinyl, CD’s, Digital Downloads
Streaming has won. The rest of us that actually purchase any music in physical form do it because we are collectors.
I listen to most of my music on Spotify however I still purchase physical product of bands that I like. BUT I haven’t even opened the shrink wrapping as yet. I have no need to.
MONEY IN MUSIC
Back in 2014, I wrote that “there is still a lot of money in the business. Streaming pays the labels well. It’s just doesn’t filter down to the artists. Revenues from streaming services such as Spotify, Pandora and YouTube surpassed the $1bn mark.”
Streaming Revenue is at $22bn in 2022.
ENTERTAINMENT LOBBY GROUPS ASKING GOOGLE TO DO MORE TO PROTECT THEIR BUSINESS MODELS
23 years post Napster we are still hearing about this. It is the usual b.s. about how Google “could do so much more” or that Google has “not been effective” in preventing illegal music downloading.
If you never experienced the Seventies, then this album from a super group of melodic death metal bands recaptures it all.
From the “Immigrant Song/Achilles Last Stand” references in “Siberian Queen” to the “I Was Made For Loving You” references in “West Ruth Avenue” or the “Play That Funky Music/ Stevie Wonder’s Superstitious in “Internal Affairs”.
Play it loud.
Adrenaline Mob – Omerta
It is a balls to the wall metal classic in the style of Accept, Scorpions, Dio merged with the metal stylings of Disturbed and Godsmack. “Undaunted”, “All On The Line”, “Angel Sky”, “Indifferent” and “Hit The Wall” are worthy additions to any metal bands setlist.
The cover of Duran Duran’s “Come Undone” is also a fitting metal tribute to a pop number one hit.
So put aside all of your views on the members that make up the band and from what bands they come from and embrace a great balls to the wall metal project.
Digital Summer – Breaking Point
DIY band from Phonenix, Arizona, getting stronger with each release. “Breaking Point” was a Kickstarter funded project and it didn’t disappoint. The lead single “Forget You” has racked up 1,027,533 views on YouTube. They are great numbers for an independent band, that also manage themselves, record and release their own music and hold down day jobs.
If you like modern rock, then you will like this band.
Richie Sambora – Aftermath Of The Lowdown
The good old Richie Sambora released a great modern rock album that didn’t get the recognition it deserved because at that point in time he was still in Bon Jovi and Bon Jovi (the band) needed him to start the promotional interviews for the “What About Now” album.
Check out “Seven Years Gone”, “Nowadays”, “Every Road Leads Home To You”. Hell, the whole album is good. Give it your time.
Lizzard – Out Of Reach
This band is definitely under the radar for what they do. Think of Earshot meets Tool meets 10 Years meets modern rock. Vocalist, Mathieu Ricou has a voice that crosses between Chad Kroeger, Aaron Lewis and Maynard James Keenan.
There is a feel of Progressive Metal, TOOL, Hard Rock, Trance & hypnotic music, DEFTONES, YES and PINK FLOYD. It’s a potent mix.
Vaudeville – Vendetta
Vaudeville is one band that deserves more recognition for what they do. They merge the styles of Muse and Radiohead with Hard Rock. It sounds beautiful and original.
Check out the song “Restless Souls”.
Hell Or Highwater – Begin Again
The new band from Atreyu drummer Brandon Saller. Hell or Highwater finds Saller stepping away from his drum kit and taking the mic to be the band’s lead vocalist. It’s hard rock people and it rocks real good and it doesn’t sound generic.
One Less Reason – A Blueprint For Writhing
This EP was my first introduction to One Less Reason. I knew nothing about them and when I heard “All Beauty Fades”, I was left speechless. And they are another DIY band. It’s six songs and there is no filler. A very smart decision to release the best.
Corroded – State Of Disgrace
Corroded have a decent following in their own country of Sweden. They are a skilful band that create groove based hard rock. Stand out songs are “Let them Hate As Long As They Fear”, “I Will Not”, and “Believe In Me”.
You know Copyright is all wrong, when you have a composer of several Motown hits combining copyright law with divorce law. Seriously, how much more distorted can copyright get.
Smokey Robinson is seeking a declaratory judgement against his ex-wife. You see, Robinson is reclaiming the rights to his pre-1978 songs from Jobete Music Co. Robinson’s main problem is that his ex-wife (since 1985) believes she should be entitled to 50% of whatever income these songs generate and she has filed suit to ensure that happens.
The labels claim that all pre-1978 songs are “works of hire”.
Smokey Robinson claims that his ex-wife isn’t entitled to his profits but his heirs are.
Remember Copyright’s meaning. To give the creator a monopoly on their works for a limited period of time, so they could create more works. Something looks a miss here.
The smarter acts started building their Ark’s. They saw the warnings while the rest all drowned in the flood. Castle Donnington in August had AC/DC, Metallica, Queensryche, Motley Crue and Black Crowes. All of those bands survived the flood, however Queensryche managed to commit hara-kiri many years after.
But from a hard rock point of view, 1991 had a lot of guitar heroes looking for work.
Jimmy Page announced that he was working with David Coverdale. The media reported it as White Zeppelin and Led Snake. The band was filled out with Denny Carmassi (Heart) on drums, Ricky Phillips (Bad English) on bass with Johnny and Joe Gioeli from the band Brunette rounding out the band. Fast forward to March 1993, “Coverdale/Page” finally came out. The wheels of motion in the recording business travel slowly.
Neal Schon along with Deen Castronovo signed an unnamed band to MCA which also featured Johnny and Joe Gioeli (who apart from being in the band Brunette, had a gig with Coverdale/Page) whom Schon discovered when he started dating their sister. The bands line up was completed by Todd Jensen (DLR) on bass. And that project would become “Hardline”.
Vinnie Vincent was writing songs with Gene and Paul. Most of those songs would end up 1992’s “Revenge” including the excellent “Unholy”.
John Sykes was rumored that he joined Def Leppard to replace Steve Clark and those rumours started to earn some credibility when Carmine Appice and Tony Franklin quit Blue Murder.
Adrian Vandenberg was out of a gig after David Coverdale disbanded Whitesnake. Rumours started circulating that he was forming a project with John Waite as Bad English was done.
Then he had a solo deal with Victory Records. Then rumours persisted that he was tapped to join House Of Lords who also had a deal with Victory.
Adrian Vandenberg went on to be involved in the supergroup “Manic Eden” that had Rudy Sarzo, Tommy Aldridge as well as Little Caesar vocalist Ron Young. The House Of Lords connection was there in the early incarnation of the band, as James Christian was the original vocalist.
Steve Stevens was also between employers. He was also on the radar to fill the guitarist slot with House Of Lords and then he was working on a solo record and then he was announcing plans to work with Michael Monroe which became Jerusalem Slim. And a few years later he would be the guitarist on Vince Neil’s rocking debut album.
Randy Jackson spent 5 years working on the “China Rain” project, assembling a brilliant band that included Brian Tichy on Drums, Ronnie Snow supporting Randy on guitar and Teddy Cook on Bass. Then the label decided to not release it.
Vivian Campbell was in a new hard rock band called Shadow King, with Lou Gramm of Foreigner, Bruce Turgon on bass and Kevin Valentine on drums.
Vito Bratta at that point in time had a solo deal with Atlantic. And then nothing.
Jeff Watson was rumoured to be in a project with Carmine Appice, Bob Daisley and Derek St Holmes. That project ended up becoming “Mother’s Army” and the final line up consisted of vocalist Joe Lynn Turner, guitarist Jeff Watson, bassist Bob Daisley and drummer Carmine Appice.
Richie Sambora didn’t know if Bon Jovi would continue and released a solo album based on the blues infused with a little bit of pop and rock. He never achieved the platinum sales that he got with Bon Jovi, however he got to show a side of himself that could never have been shown in Bon Jovi.
destroyerofharmony 