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In the eighties and nineties I lived in London and throughout that time, London Underground put buskers on a par with the small, grey, dusty mice running between the rails. That is, vermin ripe for extermination. Okay, maybe not extermination, but certainly eviction. Signs and notices festooned every station, threatening fines, arrests and stern words for anyone who tuned up within earshot of passengers.
The connection between punk’s pop cultural movement and the political ideology of ‘anarchy’ stems from the 1976 debut single from Sex Pistols: ‘Anarchy In The UK’. The Pistols weren’t actually a political or anarchist band, more of an art statement, and their reference to ‘anarchy’ was a statement of provocation and disgust rather than a manifesto. They did, after all, sign to three major record labels and fought tooth and nail for the money they earned.
Being born Colin Fulcher in Middlesex, halfway through the Second World War, was a rather inauspicious start for one of the most progressive and impressive graphic designers of the 20th century. Perhaps that’s why he changed his name to Barney Bubbles.
Trained as a retail display designer in the art school of Twickenham College of Technology, Colin began his professional career at Michael Tucker Associates, which he described as ‘very Swiss; very hard; unjustified; very grey’. It wasn’t an insult because he also asserted that it was here he learned ‘everything about typography’. But he had to wait until 1965 for his big leap forward – a position as senior graphic designer at The Conran Group. It’s amusing to note that Colin – who became so associated with the counter culture and new wave – actually created items for the utterly middle class Habitat store and a logo for Strongbow cider, while in this role.
You’ll have noticed more than a little disruption in UK cities this week. And, as a blog for the creative industries, this isn’t the platform to conduct a post mortem into its causes and consequences. That said, it seems obvious there are substantial fractures in some of the communities where rioting and looting has taken place. I have no doubt it will take a whole lot more than local radio stations to fix this depressing scenario, but I am equally certain they have a role to play.
“As things stand now, digital music has failed.”
So says Forrester Research analyst Mark Mulligan. Of course he doesn’t mean digital music isn’t being consumed – just glance around any train carriage – what he’s pointing to is an abiding anxiety that the MP3 revolution is almost over and the record companies still aren’t across it. Not that you’d find many industry executives echoing this sentiment. Most will tell you that, as long as they can continue to bear down on piracy and intervene to make it almost impossible to download music illegally, their fortunes will rally.
The problem isn’t losing, it’s winning. Losing attracts back-slaps of commiseration and sympathetic platitudes. Losing brings assurances of injustice and judges with poor taste. Winning, on the other hand, gives rise to accusations of undeserved spoils, notions of being overrated and, above all, great expectations. Such is the curse on the Mercury Music Prize.
Who’s your favourite band? Older readers may well pick some old guitar slingers who are no longer together. Younger coves will perhaps be saying ‘Band? Don’t you mean DJ, granddad?’ But either way, my next question is the same: how do you imagine they get paid? You’d be forgiven for thinking they make recordings, people buy them and the artists receive the money. If only.
The record label / management / star, three-way division of fortunes raked from CD sales is not only an archaic model, it’s a dead one. An enormous amount of music is now consumed through free or nearly free outlets, legal (Spotify, Grooveshark) or otherwise (torrents, ripped files). This gives the listener access to far more material but leaves the artists very light on revenue.
Alternatives must be found.
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One of my first jobs in the creative business was one of the most enjoyable: writing and producing radio ads. At the time, almost all advertising platforms relied on the combined skills of an art director and a copywriter, but radio was the sole preserve of the writer. It was our moment in the sun. It also gave me the opportunity to work with some fairly famous folk like Christopher Lee (Dracula) and John Hannah (now the voice of the Co-Op).
Sunday night often sees me sitting at my laptop trying to rustle up some inspiration for my weekly blog post. Sometimes inspiration comes easily – trying my luck (successfully) at getting an interview with Ben Eine last week was a no-brainer, given that he was all over the news for the past week due to his instrumental role in the Cameron/Obama painting exchange.
Sometimes, though, coming up with the idea takes as much or more effort as writing the post itself. I have resources aplenty: magazines, television, radio, the Internet, cinema. But sometimes the creative juices dry up like creative glue.
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Land of the free. Has charging for things become taboo?
Thursday, April 19th, 2012Of course, once the giant grocer (and plenty others) realised the shocking damage slave labour would inflict on their brand, they retreated quicker than a worm from a hungry blackbird. But I can’t help thinking the whole escapade was symptomatic of a much larger trend. The closer I look, the more I notice the concept of paying for stuff being treated with contempt.
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Tags: BBC, careers, downloads, employees, employers, free, Games, interns, internships, jobs, money, Movies, music, payments, Pirate Bay, wages
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