To Everyone blaming GNR for lack of New Album

[sailaway]

"A whole lot of artists" is Generic and nonstatistical.

You can't deny that the industry has some major issues.

And I do not fault GNR for not being specific,Some people here took the "Tentative" statement to excessive extremes,and flooded the internet with Drama.

I'm not denying the industry is changing, it always has been, and albums have always been able to be released despite these changes.

But sure, if it wasn't for the UMG EMI merger the follow up to Chinese Democracy would be on shelves already... believe that all you want

Please do not put words in my mouth that I did not say,Thank You.

My point is that the industry is going though a huge upheaval and fighting change all the way.Other Artists have organized to fight for their rights legally,So the industry is undergoing a complete climate change.

As I mentioned before the poles have reversed,bands make more off touring/merch than feeding a dying dinosaur.

If Axl wants to put an album out, he'd put it out. He doesn't. I'm not entirely convinced he wanted to put out Chinese democracy. He doesn't have to go through the label, he could put his stuff out for free. How could do a radio head name your price deal. There are plenty of ways to get music out.

The buck stops with Axl. You don't even get a chance to deal with the label putting out the music until there is music to put out. It would seem the music isn't quite finished.

Or maybe Axl doesn't even want to put out an album. It's whatever. All I want to hear is the rest of the bucket head and finck cd songs and then I'm done with this incarnation unless they find some way to wow me.

GN'R CANNOT put stuff out "for free" as you say. It just can't happen. They are under contract with UMG. Radiohead was able to do what they did because they were not under contract with a label.

It is that simple.

Ali

It is Ali,I honestly cannot see why people cannot or will not comprehend simple facts

Differing opinions is one thing, but in order to make valid points that contribute to a discussion, you have to know some of the basic parameters being dealt with. In this situation, one parameter is a contractual obligation to UMG.

Ali

Exactly,that can't be debated,and I have posted specific accounts of other artists having trouble with UMG,but you can't lead a blind horse to water.

[sweetness]

As I mentioned before the poles have reversed,bands make more off touring/merch than feeding a dying dinosaur.

This is nothing new at all and its certainly no excuse for not putting out records, what other artists are having such a hard time getting their albums out??

[sailaway]

Hrs what are you talking about.

Axl is not to blame for the lack of a new album. It is all the label's fault.

Look what they did to him last time. A lot of unfair expectations. Those greedy bastards kept trying to put deadlines on Axl to finish CD. They kept trying to force him to work with various producers. And they stopped giving him money. And then they expected Axl to actually go out and promote the album?

Jeez. That label is clearly in the wrong n

ow by not going out of their way to cater to Axl. What the label experienced with Axl on CD is the industry norm for all bands. All bands get over a decade and over 10 million dollars, are allowed to go through producers like water, and don't have to meet the deadlines of the people supplying the money.

Sure. Some bands are willing to play the label's game. And the end result is being able to share their music with their fans. But to some bands the "fans, music" aspect is a little lower on their importance scales. Bands operate differently.

If you have no knowledge of the topic at hand,kindly stay out of it and stuff the attempt at snarky sarcasm.

nice try sailaway, but it's obvious axl is the main reason for the lack of new music. greedy labels may be the devil for you, but every major band i know have a pretty good relationship with their labels.

You have no idea what you are talking about,do some research-talk less,read more.

Anyone heard of Tom Waits??

** Point: 'Corporations don't have feelings'**

"The record companies are like cartels, like countries, for God's sake," singer/songwriter Tom Waits says. "It's a nightmare to be trapped in one. I'm on a good label (Epitaph) now that's not part of the plantation system. But all the old records I did for Island have been swallowed up and spit out in whatever form they choose. These corporations don't have feelings, and they don't see themselves as the stewards of the work. They are making shoes, and then they want to go to the Bahamas and get a suntan."

He advises new artists to "get a good lawyer and don't ever sign away your publishing rights. Most people are so anxious to record, they'll sign anything. It's like going across the river on the back of an alligator."

Waits joined the artists' coalition in hopes of exposing the industry's shadowy business practices.

"Artists really do need to communicate and organize," he says. "Don Henley is willing to get a haircut and go to Washington. I'm all for that."

Rock veteran Henley, an RAC founder, is confident the movement will lead to significant change, despite reluctance by some artists to get involved.

"Newer artists don't want to rock the boat," he says. "They're still starry-eyed idealists and haven't been around long enough to be mistreated. Other artists simply don't understand the issues or are too self-absorbed."

A new artist's limited avenues fuel apprehension, says Marks, noting that such midlevel acts as Aimee Mann and Ani DiFranco are content to toil outside the empire, but "most artists want to hear their song on the radio, see their big-budget video on MTV and be on stage in front of 50,000 people. The major labels have access to radio and TV. If push comes to shove, you're being shoved off a fairly steep cliff

And keep your juvenile petty grudges to the attitude section.

A couple of internet searches doesn't make you an expert on the music industry.

Bottom line - Axl doesn't get love from the label becuase of his past history. Guys like you simply choose not to mention that. Rather than dismissing people's points soley based on your own immature behavior does not make their points less relevant. And cherry picking a few veteran acts bashing the music industry doesn't mean the system is somehow against GnR.

Weird how guys like you think that everybody is out to screw GnR. You people think that there is a huge consipiracy against Axl, ranging from media to labels to promoters to fans on a forum. Are you capable of looking at ANY situation without throwing in your creepy Axl bias?

How many bands have gotten the backing that CD received?

How many bands were given the leeway of a decade to fork over a CD, that the label invested over 10 million dollars into?

How many bands were able to take that decade of support and more than 10 million dollars and NOT follow through on multiple deadlines? And to also constantly fire people that the label sent over to help?

And then when the album does come out, the major player decides to NOT do any publicity or promotion??????

But in your little world, the record company is wrong and Axl is right? HHmmm. OK, sure.

You don't dictate my behavior,if you have an issue w/me,report me.

I am citing specific internet sources and using quotes so people won't say I am pulling this out of my ass.

Unlike you,I stay informed and do routine research on subject matter I want/need to know.

Go get your attention fix elsewhere

Lol, typical Sailway.

Refuses to answer simple questions. Instead just insults.

Only sees the world thru Axl Rose coverered glasses. Only agrees with those who praise Axl's every move. (Because lots of 50 year old men's lives are dictated by a rock singer!)

***************************

So questions for those of you who actually come here to talk about GnR and specific topics.

How many bands have gotten the financial backing that CD did?

How many bands were given the leeway of a decade to fork over a CD, that the label also invested over 10 million dollars into?

How many bands were able to take that decade of support and more than 10 million dollars and NOT follow through on multiple deadlines? And to also constantly fire people that the label sent over to help?

What more should the label have done? A couple more years, a few million more dollars, let them miss more deadlines, etc?

And then when the album does come out, the major player decides to NOT do any publicity or promotion??????

Please explain to me how those things aren't a MAJOR reason that Axl isn't his label's main priority?

I am posting facts,you are attempting to garner attention to yourself with your assumptions and opinions.

[TeeJay410]

If Axl wants to put an album out, he'd put it out. He doesn't. I'm not entirely convinced he wanted to put out Chinese democracy. He doesn't have to go through the label, he could put his stuff out for free. How could do a radio head name your price deal. There are plenty of ways to get music out.

The buck stops with Axl. You don't even get a chance to deal with the label putting out the music until there is music to put out. It would seem the music isn't quite finished.

Or maybe Axl doesn't even want to put out an album. It's whatever. All I want to hear is the rest of the bucket head and finck cd songs and then I'm done with this incarnation unless they find some way to wow me.

GN'R CANNOT put stuff out "for free" as you say. It just can't happen. They are under contract with UMG. Radiohead was able to do what they did because they were not under contract with a label.

It is that simple.

Ali

Kanye West has been puting out music for free that ended up on his albums and he is on a label. His album "My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy" featured 4 songs previously released entirely for free in their final form and one remix of the lead single. One of his biggest hits "Can't Tell Me Nothin'" was put out for free before the albums release. Nine Inch Nails also has purposefully released songs that ended up on albums for free.

The fact is it can be done. The label didn't sue Kanye. Many artists have picked up on this model. If Axl really wanted to put out music he could.

[sailaway]

As I mentioned before the poles have reversed,bands make more off touring/merch than feeding a dying dinosaur.

This is nothing new at all and its certainly no excuse for not putting out records, what other artists are having such a hard time getting their albums out??

This is indeed a crisis situation for the recording Industry,and at this time it is more beneficial to a band to tour and sell merch.

Statistics don't lie.

Where before you'd be happy only at gold and platinum levels, soon you'll be grateful if you have a release that sells 30,000 or 40,000 units --that will be your bread and butter. You'll sweat every sale and dollar. Other aspects of the business will also contract -- most of the perks and largesse and extravagance will dry up completely. The glamour, the influence, the youth, the hipness, the hookers, the drugs --gone. Instead, it will be a low-margin, consolidated, quaintly anachronistic business, catering to an aging clientele, without much impact on an otherwise thriving culture awash in music that only incidentally will come from the music industry.

This glum (if also quite funny) fate is surely the result of compounded management errors -- the know-nothingness and foolishness and acting-out that, for instance, just recently resulted in what seems to be the final death of Napster.

But it's way larger, too. Management solutions in the music business have, rightly, given way to a pure, no-exit kind of fatalism.

It's all pain. It's all breakdown. Music-business people, heretofore among the most self-satisfied and self-absorbed people of the age, are suddenly interesting, informed, even ennobled, as they become fully engaged in the subject of their own demise. Producers, musicians, marketing people, agents. . . they'll talk you through what's happened to their business -- it's part B-school case study and part Pilgrim's Progress.

Start with radio.

Radio and rock and roll have had the most remarkable symbiotic relationship in media --the synergy that everybody has tried to re-create in media conglomerates. Radio got free content; music labels got free promotion.

Radio's almost effortless cash flow, and mom-and-pop organization (there were once 5,133 owners of U.S. radio stations), made it ripe for consolidation, which began in the mid-eighties and was mostly completed as soon as Congress removed virtually all ownership limits in 1996. A handful of companies now control nearly the entirety of U.S. radio, with Clear Channel and its more than 1,200 stations being the undisputed Death Star. (Clear Channel is also one of the nation's major live promoters, and uses its airtime leverage to force performers to use its concert services, as Britney Spears and others have charged.)

Radio, heretofore ad hoc and eccentric and local, underwent a transformation in which it became formatted, rational, and centralized. Its single imperative was to keep people from moving the dial -- seamlessness became the science of radio.

The music business suddenly had to start producing music according to very stringent (if unwritten) commercial guidelines (it could have objected or rebelled -- but it rolled over instead; what's more, in a complicated middleman strategy of music brokers and independent promoters, labels have, in effect, been forced to pay to have their boring music aired). Format became law. Everything had to sound the way it was supposed to sound. Fungibility was king. Familiarity was the greatest virtue.

Once Sheryl Crow was an established hit, the music business was compelled to offer up an endless number of Sheryl Crow imitators. Then when the Sheryl Crow imitators became a reliable radio genre, Sheryl Crow was compelled to imitate them. (Entertainment Weekly, without irony, recently praised the new Moby album for sounding like his last.)

But then, just as radio playlists become closely regulated, the Internet appears.

"Suddenly there was another distribution avenue offering far greater product range," notes my friend Bob Thiele, who's been producing, writing, performing, and doing A&R work in L.A. for twenty years (and whose father was Buddy Holly's producer), and who, in my memory, never before talked about avenues of distribution. "And then, before anyone was quite aware of what was happening, file-sharing replaced radio as the engine of music culture."

It wasn't just that it was free music -- radio offered free music. But whatever you wanted was free (whenever you wanted it). The Internet is music consumerism run amok, resulting not only in billions of dollars of lost sales but in an endless bifurcation of taste. The universe fragmented into sub-universes, and then sub-sub-universes. The music industry, which depends on large numbers of people with similar interests for its profit margins, now had to deal with an ever-growing numbers of fans with increasingly diverse and eccentric interests.

[Apollo]

Sailway. Seriously. Leave your petty grudges to the Attitude section. Trying to garner attention? Ha, dude. Step away from the keyboard for a few hours. Not everybody takes the internet as seriously as you do.

We get it. You idolize Axl Rose and have a problem with anybody who doesn't. We get it. In your eyes, the world revolves around Axl Rose. WE GET IT. Axl Rose is GOD and does no wrong. Ever. And the entire world is involved in a huge conspiracy to make him look bad. WE GET IT.

If you aren't going to address the POINTS that I make, please stop responding to my posts. Pretty simply. Insulting people you disagree with doesn't prove their points are wrong or that your opinions are correct. It just shows that you aren't capable of responding with logic and intelligence.

I posted very legitimate questions.

If you cannot answer them, please stop responding, and save your typical insults for the attitude section.

Thanks.

[sweetness]

As I mentioned before the poles have reversed,bands make more off touring/merch than feeding a dying dinosaur.

This is nothing new at all and its certainly no excuse for not putting out records, what other artists are having such a hard time getting their albums out??

This is indeed a crisis situation for the recording Industry,and at this time it is more beneficial to a band to tour and sell merch.

Statistics don't lie.

You're blowing this "crisis" way out of proportion, just because bands make more money from touring and merchandise doesn't make it impossible for them to record and put out records, it has been that way for almost a decade. GNR hasn't put out an album because there is no album for them to put out, and if there is it isn't ready yet and problem wont be for another 3 years at least

[dalsh327]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2011/jun/23/prince-interview-adele-internet

"The industry changed," he says. "We made money [online] before piracy was real crazy. Nobody's making money now except phone companies, Apple and Google. I'm supposed to go to the White House to talk about copyright protection. It's like the gold rush out there. Or a carjacking. There's no boundaries. I've been in meetings and they'll tell you, Prince, you don't understand, it's dog-eat-dog out there. So I'll just hold off on recording."

[Ali]

If Axl wants to put an album out, he'd put it out. He doesn't. I'm not entirely convinced he wanted to put out Chinese democracy. He doesn't have to go through the label, he could put his stuff out for free. How could do a radio head name your price deal. There are plenty of ways to get music out.

The buck stops with Axl. You don't even get a chance to deal with the label putting out the music until there is music to put out. It would seem the music isn't quite finished.

Or maybe Axl doesn't even want to put out an album. It's whatever. All I want to hear is the rest of the bucket head and finck cd songs and then I'm done with this incarnation unless they find some way to wow me.

GN'R CANNOT put stuff out "for free" as you say. It just can't happen. They are under contract with UMG. Radiohead was able to do what they did because they were not under contract with a label.

It is that simple.

Ali

Kanye West has been puting out music for free that ended up on his albums and he is on a label. His album "My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy" featured 4 songs previously released entirely for free in their final form and one remix of the lead single. One of his biggest hits "Can't Tell Me Nothin'" was put out for free before the albums release. Nine Inch Nails also has purposefully released songs that ended up on albums for free.

The fact is it can be done. The label didn't sue Kanye. Many artists have picked up on this model. If Axl really wanted to put out music he could.

If you're talking about the GOOD Fridays program you're missing one very crucial point: it was through Kanye West's own label.

Nine Inch Nails are not on a label.

So, those examples are not applicable to GN'R. Try again.

Ali

[sailaway]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2011/jun/23/prince-interview-adele-internet

"The industry changed," he says. "We made money [online] before piracy was real crazy. Nobody's making money now except phone companies, Apple and Google. I'm supposed to go to the White House to talk about copyright protection. It's like the gold rush out there. Or a carjacking. There's no boundaries. I've been in meetings and they'll tell you, Prince, you don't understand, it's dog-eat-dog out there. So I'll just hold off on recording."

Thank you Dalsh,yet another Artist confirms this basic fact.

(sorry I was late in responding,I'm faxxing docs in )

[axl8302]

If Axl wants to put an album out, he'd put it out. He doesn't. I'm not entirely convinced he wanted to put out Chinese democracy. He doesn't have to go through the label, he could put his stuff out for free. How could do a radio head name your price deal. There are plenty of ways to get music out.

The buck stops with Axl. You don't even get a chance to deal with the label putting out the music until there is music to put out. It would seem the music isn't quite finished.

Or maybe Axl doesn't even want to put out an album. It's whatever. All I want to hear is the rest of the bucket head and finck cd songs and then I'm done with this incarnation unless they find some way to wow me.

GN'R CANNOT put stuff out "for free" as you say. It just can't happen. They are under contract with UMG. Radiohead was able to do what they did because they were not under contract with a label.

It is that simple.

Ali

Kanye West has been puting out music for free that ended up on his albums and he is on a label. His album "My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy" featured 4 songs previously released entirely for free in their final form and one remix of the lead single. One of his biggest hits "Can't Tell Me Nothin'" was put out for free before the albums release. Nine Inch Nails also has purposefully released songs that ended up on albums for free.

The fact is it can be done. The label didn't sue Kanye. Many artists have picked up on this model. If Axl really wanted to put out music he could.

If you're talking about the GOOD Fridays program you're missing one very crucial point: it was through Kanye West's own label.

Nine Inch Nails are not on a label.

So, those examples are not applicable to GN'R. Try again.

Ali

TeeJay410 destroyed again!

[vaida]

Don't kid yourself,and assume the rest of us are clueless. It's easy to Blame GNR for all the faults of the Current state of the Music Industry but that is an inaccurate

picture,Look instead at the bigger picture and realize where we are in 2012

Excerpt from "the money sponge"

The record industry treats its suppliers, customers and the public with contempt. What will they do when they run out of new ways to chisel points? Perhaps they will have to find real talent that stands on its own feet. For thousands of years musicians made money without making records. It doesn’t make sense pouring so much effort into a handful of here-today-gone-tomorrow artists who barely break even on record sales. TV, film and games musicians earn far more than the old-fashioned record pushers.

Every big label artist has to carry an army of label middlemen. In the long history of music, the record industry is just a tick of the clock. No business has a right to live in the past.

The music industry is not the world

Middlemen made the record industry complex but it’s really very simple under all the mumbo-jumbo. In a thousand ways their elaborate network of mutual self-interest will break down as the money runs out. Musicians and their agents could easily negotiate non-exclusive, one-off deals. Today’s musicians are much more savvy about their rights, licenses, publishing, packaging, distribution, and of course new media. Left to their own devices indies can often manage the business and the connection with their fans more effectively. They don’t need the all-or-nothing corporate label nanny. With so many other ways to reach their market they don’t want a premium price PR service that is bloated, devious and ineffective.

Axl has the money and resources to fund the creation of a new album. Should he and the others come up with something good, then there should be no problem finding a record company willing to release it. Even if they come up with something awful, the name Guns N'Roses should get them a deal, as x amount of sales are guaranteed. The original (1st) post is ridiculous. Don't blame anyone but Axl for lack of new material.

..and I doubt Axl will get another Best Buy deal offered to him

I am not interested in uninformed opinions that erroneously blame one person for an entire industry at odds with the public,and grasping at straws to stay afloat.

Where are the songs?

Media saturation and playlist power prop up a celebrity production line that has forgotten how to find and use great music. Instead, they invest in the same pop formula for the next wave of 10 year olds, the same sub-porn for adolescents and the same faux-punk for college. Music in the rest of the world has a million different flavours and real passion.

Technology, fashion and ideas change but the music industry invents nothing. A billion and one genres (jazz, swing, bluegrass, rock and roll, progressive, punk, rap, hip-hop, etc., etc.) have been created by the man in the street. The music industry always arrives just in time to fire up mass production. It never leads.

Fashion defies control and prediction. There are no absolute genres, just changing shades of taste. The tradition of music is bigger than the product-driven, culture-lite, post-modern, low-attention-span industry hype. I don’t think the next generation is stupid or that all the good songs have been written. Why is the UK generally exiled from the US charts (6)? It’s simple—all style and no substance. No decent songs. And why can’t we sell the UK number one record to more than 0.1% of our population? The same reason.

Making the Internet work

Somehow, the music industry always has a crisis with new technology—first printing, then recording and broadcasting, and now the Internet. Major labels can’t seem to make the Internet work but independents can. While the Majors fumble with overwrought delivery systems, music on the Internet is growing steadily.

Editorial, zines, blogs, forums, communities, social networks and fan sites. Internet radio, streaming and podcasts with DIY and independent tracks. Artists selling CDs directly online and selling downloads through independent aggregators. New record labels, publishers, and artist sites. DIY CDs, download communities and merchandise retail sites. Fan funding and support for tours and recordings. Music hubs Topspin, ReverbNation, Nimbit and others track web activity in detail.

The Majors, through the RIAA and BPI, are doing their best to strangle all this at birth. They would rather meet the future on their own terms with albums of filler tracks at high prices, and without a middleman like iTunes or Amazon. They particularly fear truly independent radio and distribution. Their own artists are kept on a short leash until their contracts run out, renewals are no longer automatic, artists have options.

Meanwhile DIY, independent and ex-Major artists make their own records. Small labels make single album and distribution deals. Online retailers no longer dare demand the rights to recordings and songs (as they tried in 2002). Indie acts frequently manage their rights through publishing administration and licensing. Hordes of music fans, unrepresented by the chart monoculture, are finding and evaluating what’s really out there. The music industry is not the world.

The old players think sales are dropping because of piracy but now people try before they buy and avoid filler tracks and dud albums. The falling cost of recording and distribution increases diversity. Major labels have lost their grip on the throat of commercial music, they simply aren’t up to the job. They currently burn more than 95% of the turnover and at 100% they’re bankrupt.

Of course, I could be wrong.

(2011 edit: so far, 9 years later,they are proving me right.)

The songs are in the vault marked 'lyrics required'

[sailaway]

If Axl wants to put an album out, he'd put it out. He doesn't. I'm not entirely convinced he wanted to put out Chinese democracy. He doesn't have to go through the label, he could put his stuff out for free. How could do a radio head name your price deal. There are plenty of ways to get music out.

The buck stops with Axl. You don't even get a chance to deal with the label putting out the music until there is music to put out. It would seem the music isn't quite finished.

Or maybe Axl doesn't even want to put out an album. It's whatever. All I want to hear is the rest of the bucket head and finck cd songs and then I'm done with this incarnation unless they find some way to wow me.

GN'R CANNOT put stuff out "for free" as you say. It just can't happen. They are under contract with UMG. Radiohead was able to do what they did because they were not under contract with a label.

It is that simple.

Ali

Kanye West has been puting out music for free that ended up on his albums and he is on a label. His album "My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy" featured 4 songs previously released entirely for free in their final form and one remix of the lead single. One of his biggest hits "Can't Tell Me Nothin'" was put out for free before the albums release. Nine Inch Nails also has purposefully released songs that ended up on albums for free.

The fact is it can be done. The label didn't sue Kanye. Many artists have picked up on this model. If Axl really wanted to put out music he could.

If you're talking about the GOOD Fridays program you're missing one very crucial point: it was through Kanye West's own label.

Nine Inch Nails are not on a label.

So, those examples are not applicable to GN'R. Try again.

Ali

Exactly right friend

[Ali]

Ali,

Are you able to agree that the label investing over a decade and almost 14 million dollars into CD - along with Axl missing deadlines, firing multiple people, and refusing to promote the ablum - has a little bit to do with the label being leary on going through the process again with Axl? If you don't think that is a factor, are you aware of any other band, in the history of rock music, that had a similar story to the making/releasing of Chinese Democracy?

Or - do you think GnR would be in the same boat if CD had cost $2 million, taken two years and Axl had promoted it?

Or is it a big conspiracy against Axl, as Duff, Izzy, Slash, Adler, and even DJ are all able to put out albums whenever they want.

What does any of this have to do with the simple fact that GN'R is under contract with UMG and simply cannot just put out music for free, or otherwise, at their discretion?

Ali

[sailaway]

Don't kid yourself,and assume the rest of us are clueless. It's easy to Blame GNR for all the faults of the Current state of the Music Industry but that is an inaccurate

picture,Look instead at the bigger picture and realize where we are in 2012

Excerpt from "the money sponge"

The record industry treats its suppliers, customers and the public with contempt. What will they do when they run out of new ways to chisel points? Perhaps they will have to find real talent that stands on its own feet. For thousands of years musicians made money without making records. It doesn’t make sense pouring so much effort into a handful of here-today-gone-tomorrow artists who barely break even on record sales. TV, film and games musicians earn far more than the old-fashioned record pushers.

Every big label artist has to carry an army of label middlemen. In the long history of music, the record industry is just a tick of the clock. No business has a right to live in the past.

The music industry is not the world

Middlemen made the record industry complex but it’s really very simple under all the mumbo-jumbo. In a thousand ways their elaborate network of mutual self-interest will break down as the money runs out. Musicians and their agents could easily negotiate non-exclusive, one-off deals. Today’s musicians are much more savvy about their rights, licenses, publishing, packaging, distribution, and of course new media. Left to their own devices indies can often manage the business and the connection with their fans more effectively. They don’t need the all-or-nothing corporate label nanny. With so many other ways to reach their market they don’t want a premium price PR service that is bloated, devious and ineffective.

Axl has the money and resources to fund the creation of a new album. Should he and the others come up with something good, then there should be no problem finding a record company willing to release it. Even if they come up with something awful, the name Guns N'Roses should get them a deal, as x amount of sales are guaranteed. The original (1st) post is ridiculous. Don't blame anyone but Axl for lack of new material.

..and I doubt Axl will get another Best Buy deal offered to him

I am not interested in uninformed opinions that erroneously blame one person for an entire industry at odds with the public,and grasping at straws to stay afloat.

Where are the songs?

Media saturation and playlist power prop up a celebrity production line that has forgotten how to find and use great music. Instead, they invest in the same pop formula for the next wave of 10 year olds, the same sub-porn for adolescents and the same faux-punk for college. Music in the rest of the world has a million different flavours and real passion.

Technology, fashion and ideas change but the music industry invents nothing. A billion and one genres (jazz, swing, bluegrass, rock and roll, progressive, punk, rap, hip-hop, etc., etc.) have been created by the man in the street. The music industry always arrives just in time to fire up mass production. It never leads.

Fashion defies control and prediction. There are no absolute genres, just changing shades of taste. The tradition of music is bigger than the product-driven, culture-lite, post-modern, low-attention-span industry hype. I don’t think the next generation is stupid or that all the good songs have been written. Why is the UK generally exiled from the US charts (6)? It’s simple—all style and no substance. No decent songs. And why can’t we sell the UK number one record to more than 0.1% of our population? The same reason.

Making the Internet work

Somehow, the music industry always has a crisis with new technology—first printing, then recording and broadcasting, and now the Internet. Major labels can’t seem to make the Internet work but independents can. While the Majors fumble with overwrought delivery systems, music on the Internet is growing steadily.

Editorial, zines, blogs, forums, communities, social networks and fan sites. Internet radio, streaming and podcasts with DIY and independent tracks. Artists selling CDs directly online and selling downloads through independent aggregators. New record labels, publishers, and artist sites. DIY CDs, download communities and merchandise retail sites. Fan funding and support for tours and recordings. Music hubs Topspin, ReverbNation, Nimbit and others track web activity in detail.

The Majors, through the RIAA and BPI, are doing their best to strangle all this at birth. They would rather meet the future on their own terms with albums of filler tracks at high prices, and without a middleman like iTunes or Amazon. They particularly fear truly independent radio and distribution. Their own artists are kept on a short leash until their contracts run out, renewals are no longer automatic, artists have options.

Meanwhile DIY, independent and ex-Major artists make their own records. Small labels make single album and distribution deals. Online retailers no longer dare demand the rights to recordings and songs (as they tried in 2002). Indie acts frequently manage their rights through publishing administration and licensing. Hordes of music fans, unrepresented by the chart monoculture, are finding and evaluating what’s really out there. The music industry is not the world.

The old players think sales are dropping because of piracy but now people try before they buy and avoid filler tracks and dud albums. The falling cost of recording and distribution increases diversity. Major labels have lost their grip on the throat of commercial music, they simply aren’t up to the job. They currently burn more than 95% of the turnover and at 100% they’re bankrupt.

Of course, I could be wrong.

(2011 edit: so far, 9 years later,they are proving me right.)

The songs are in the vault marked 'lyrics required'

It is crystal clear that you are addicted to assumptions and drama,even at the cost of supplanting the truth when it stares you in the face.

[Kapitch_77]

Slash released a great album in 2010, another album in 2012, and an new album in due in 2014

Rock n roll !

Edited September 26, 2012 by Kapitch_77

[sailaway]

Has music been de-valued?

In the late 1990s high street CD albums were heading for a full retail price of £15.99. This is the BPI target, anything less means (to them) music has been de-valued. The price of an album has never returned to that level.

Music is not a tin of beans. Let’s consider the "value of music". Pat Boone's Greatest Hits or Led Zeppelin II… can we nail the value of music? Lady Gaga’s Born This Way launched for 99 cents on Amazon while a $160 9 picture-disc box was on sale. The MP3 album is now $7.99 and the deluxe CD $15.99, does that help? And it is free elsewhere. The Beatles In Mono box sells for $193, mostly to people who already own those albums (and anyone can download them). Can you see evidence of music being devalued? Some people do nick stuff (hold the front page!) but others buy. That’s life.

Those 2002/3 numbers tell us exactly what the problem is. From 1895 to 2000 the recorded music business grew every decade and from 1970 to 2000 the Major labels got bigger and made more money. After 2000 they had to work harder—they had to sell more records for less and still they lost money. They had to cut rosters, cut head office staff, expenses and budgets. This is what they see as the “devaluation of music”, the loss of their birthright. It is an adjustment every technology business eventually has to make when their time runs out.

File-sharing was always free, whether swapping vinyl singles, taping the Top Forty on cassette or using LimeWire. But music still sells and has value as any indie band with CDs at their gigs will tell you. Big Music is losing money because CDs no longer sell in quantity but that doesn't mean music has lost value. Live revenues are up over the past decade… that’s music too. The massive discounting of Born This Way was Amazon promotion for its cloud product. When Major labels talk about the devaluation of music they are simply pleading for a return to the £15.99 CD.

From another angle: Topspin, ReverbNation, Nimbit and a hundred other big startups are investing a lot of money in the future of the music industry (about a billion dollars a year). We don’t hear them bemoaning the dearth of new megastars or the devaluation of music. Their businesses feature support for the thriving independent “cottage industry” music sector.

[sailaway]

I have to “engage my fans”

This is just one example from about a hundred quack remedies that plague my browser every day. There’s a handy trick I learned sitting through dull corporate presentations by self-important bores who had just read a book. Every supposed momentous insight can be tested for mumbo-jumbo by reversing it. If the opposite is blindingly obvious the original is clearly not worth saying. So, how about: “you don’t have to engage your fans”? Nonsense? Of course it is. Did Gilbert and Sullivan set out to provoke indifference? Beethoven? Mozart? Bach? Pat Boone? I think not. Who on Earth thinks these platitudes are worth repeating? Or even writing down in the first place? For thousands of years the point of entertainment has been… entertainment. That is page one, line one. It is not new. If it’s too deep for you please leave the music business now before you find yourself attending a seminar called “The Seven Profound Lessons Of Social Media Networks Every Viral Artist Must Know.” You’ll thank me for this warning. But if you really can’t see my point there’s a promising career for you in corporate communications. Either way, you win.

If people are indifferent to your act you can’t solve the problem by “engaging your fans”. Fans are fans. You either have them or you don’t. If you want more fans do better stuff, get it to new places that are relevant to what you’re doing. As Yoda might say “there is no engage”.

Slash released a great album in 2010, another album in 2012, and an new album in due in 2014

Rock n roll !

Ha! Amusing,glad you enjoy mediocre music.

[sailaway]

Ali,

Are you able to agree that the label investing over a decade and almost 14 million dollars into CD - along with Axl missing deadlines, firing multiple people, and refusing to promote the ablum - has a little bit to do with the label being leary on going through the process again with Axl? If you don't think that is a factor, are you aware of any other band, in the history of rock music, that had a similar story to the making/releasing of Chinese Democracy?

Or - do you think GnR would be in the same boat if CD had cost $2 million, taken two years and Axl had promoted it?

Or is it a big conspiracy against Axl, as Duff, Izzy, Slash, Adler, and even DJ are all able to put out albums whenever they want.

What does any of this have to do with the simple fact that GN'R is under contract with UMG and simply cannot just put out music for free, or otherwise, at their discretion?

Ali

Some still haven't gleaned or comprehended any of this,Why am I not surprised?

[sailaway]

Courtney Love does the Math**

Today I want to talk about piracy and music. What is piracy? Piracy is the act of stealing an artist’s work without any intention of paying for it. I’m not talking about Napster-type software.

I’m talking about major label recording contracts.

I want to start with a story about rock bands and record companies, and do some recording-contract math:

This story is about a bidding-war band that gets a huge deal with a 20 percent royalty rate and a million-dollar advance. (No bidding-war band ever got a 20 percent royalty, but whatever.) This is my “funny” math based on some reality and I just want to qualify it by saying I’m positive it’s better math than what Edgar Bronfman Jr. [the president and CEO of Seagram, which owns Polygram] would provide.

What happens to that million dollars?

They spend half a million to record their album. That leaves the band with $500,000. They pay $100,000 to their manager for 20 percent commission. They pay $25,000 each to their lawyer and business manager.

That leaves $350,000 for the four band members to split. After $170,000 in taxes, there’s $180,000 left. That comes out to $45,000 per person.

That’s $45,000 to live on for a year until the record gets released.

The record is a big hit and sells a million copies. (How a bidding-war band sells a million copies of its debut record is another rant entirely, but it’s based on any basic civics-class knowledge that any of us have about cartels. Put simply, the antitrust laws in this country are basically a joke, protecting us just enough to not have to re-name our park service the Phillip Morris National Park Service.)

So, this band releases two singles and makes two videos. The two videos cost a million dollars to make and 50 percent of the video production costs are recouped out of the band’s royalties.

The band gets $200,000 in tour support, which is 100 percent recoupable.

The record company spends $300,000 on independent radio promotion. You have to pay independent promotion to get your song on the radio; independent promotion is a system where the record companies use middlemen so they can pretend not to know that radio stations —the unified broadcast system —are getting paid to play their records.

All of those independent promotion costs are charged to the band.

Since the original million-dollar advance is also recoupable, the band owes $2 million to the record company.

[Kapitch_77]

The band doesn't even care for a new album, except maybe Bumblefoot and Ashba. All the other are there for the paycheck. If the band doesn't care why should you?

[sailaway]

GNR appears to be wrapping up the touring cycle for Chinese. I'm sure we'll get another album at some point. I can understand many of the hardcore fans being anxious for a new record since Chinese took so long to come out and many of us had heard live and demo previews of the album for so long that by the time the album was released, it didn't keep us satisfied for long.

But the vast majority of GNR fans have either never heard Chinese, or have slowly been discovering it over the last couple of years. Axl has publicly stated multiple times the next album will come out eventually, but that he wanted to work Chinese for a while. The album's four year anniversary is coming up and the band was only active for two of those four years.

People who have grown impatient are free to find other things to do with their lives. Maybe in a year or two we'll have a new album and then everyone can celebrate? Or maybe not. Life goes on.

Thank you,last paragraph says it all.

[sailaway]

The band doesn't even care for a new album, except maybe Bumblefoot and Ashba. All the other are there for the paycheck. If the band doesn't care why should you?

Because you have indisputable evidence of this,Right

[AxlRose14]

If Axl wants to put an album out, he'd put it out. He doesn't. I'm not entirely convinced he wanted to put out Chinese democracy. He doesn't have to go through the label, he could put his stuff out for free. How could do a radio head name your price deal. There are plenty of ways to get music out.

The buck stops with Axl. You don't even get a chance to deal with the label putting out the music until there is music to put out. It would seem the music isn't quite finished.

Or maybe Axl doesn't even want to put out an album. It's whatever. All I want to hear is the rest of the bucket head and finck cd songs and then I'm done with this incarnation unless they find some way to wow me.

GN'R CANNOT put stuff out "for free" as you say. It just can't happen. They are under contract with UMG. Radiohead was able to do what they did because they were not under contract with a label.

It is that simple.

Ali

Kanye West has been puting out music for free that ended up on his albums and he is on a label. His album "My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy" featured 4 songs previously released entirely for free in their final form and one remix of the lead single. One of his biggest hits "Can't Tell Me Nothin'" was put out for free before the albums release. Nine Inch Nails also has purposefully released songs that ended up on albums for free.

The fact is it can be done. The label didn't sue Kanye. Many artists have picked up on this model. If Axl really wanted to put out music he could.

Because Axl doesn't care. It doesnt take this long to release a fucking album.

This is a cover band thats a joke!

[Kapitch_77]

Kapitch -

That logic is incredibly flawed. Completely ridiculous. The band made multiple records. So far, one has been released. Even if some members are in GNR primarily for the financial compensation (isn't that why most people work?), I'm sure they'd be eager for another record to be released as they'd be entitled to royalties.

And even in your flawed and incorrect hypothetical situation where the band doesn't care, why should that have any effect whatsoever on whether fans care? I like basketball. Maybe Pitman doesn't. Should that matter to me at all? No.

You're so smart, you must be an engineer at NASA. The band doesn't care, I don't care.