Thanks - I'll see if it gets past the filters tomorrow.

I don't think it's sad. Radio stations, like newspapers, are outdated. There's no reason to listed to a music station anymore when you can own all the music you like and play/shuffle your own playlists without commercials. If you want to be exposed to new music, you have Pandora.

The death of indie radio stations doesn't mean the death of indie music. It just spreads out through other means. Look at Arctic Monkeys.

Jack White has his own independent label which blunderbuss was published on.

But it was released in association with Columbia records. Whatever that means.

@ghug: "Who actually likes Green Day?"

These people. Plus many, many more. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zxSUQKJ_Gx8

Ah yes, judging other people's taste in music. I've seen that. "You're not cool because you listen to ..." One of the reasons why I don't actively participate in this (otherwise great) threat, I saw that coming... :(
Keep up the good work though guys, I enjoyed you tubing some of these! :-)

My guess is that the independent label handles the production/manufacture, but it has a deal with Columbia for distribution and/or marketing.

C'mon, Red. Post some of your Europop. We can't possibly judge you anymore than we already do. ; )
But, really, I enjoy this shit. Give us something to listen to.

Ow I'm a seventies/eighties man Yonni, I'm not up to speed. I'll get back to you on it.

Post some Jean-Jacques Goldman for us...

My independent radio station promotes local bands and brings in great concerts. Stream music screws over independent musicians.

I'm not sure what the difference is between listening to the station in your radio or streaming it... In fact, I would have thought the latter would be more easily monetized by the station.

Streaming your local station is different than streaming in general. When the feed is the same (say you rlocal stations web feed and on air broadcast) it really makes no difference, but when streaming through something like Pandora or Slacker or the non-broadcast internet radio stations, the fee structure is completely different and many of those services allow the listener to tailor how they get music, restricting the artist list and even song popularity such that new artists may never get heard and never receive any of the residuals. For small non-air/inet only broadcasters, the fees they pay due to negotiation and their smaller listening base (it's easier to scan the radio dial and find a local indie station that suits your taste than to hunt down one on the web where there is much more competition) means the indie artist gets a lot less out of the deal.

Never actually used pandora etc. so I must have completely misinterpreted what Putin was talking about.
At any rate, I imagine payments from radio stations make up such an insignificant amount of their income that the primary goal is exposure for merch sales/concerts that any broadcast is good broadcast for the indie bands. However, I don't really know the finances so I'm just speculating.

You have to listen to a song on pandora thousands of times before the royalties add up to the sale of a single LP.

http://pitchfork.com/features/articles/8993-the-cloud/

Right. But you're suggesting that listening to your local station pays them better?!

Yes, it does. You see, the local station has to report their average listenership based on the time of day and, based on that time of day, has to pay fees for the song. So if they have a listener base of 20,000 people during the time that song is aired, then the artist gets 20 times the amount than if you love the song so much you listen to it repeatedly until you have heard it 1000 times.

...the local station has no idea if I'm listening.
Regardless, do you have any idea what sort of royalties the station pays? Do they amount to jack shit compared to merch and concert tickets?

@Yonni - They pay based on surveyed and reported listener base for the time frame the song is played. It doesn't matter if you specifically are listening at that exact moment. By virtue of the fact that you often listen during that time frame (say 5-6 PM, rush hour) then they radio stations pay for they aggregate listener count which would often times include you. Streamed services like Pandora pay per individual play - 1 listener x 1 playback = 1 listening fee. 20,000 listeners x 1 platback = 20,000 listening fees, even if at that exact moment the reality is 5 people happen to be listening or 50,000 are. Aggregate averages rule radio fees.

And yes, they do amount to significant income.

Radios do not transmit back to the station so it doesn't mean shit if I'm listening or not. Still, the question is if we're talking about a drop in the bucket or not. Is anyone making their living off of radio royalties?

Putin is spewing some holier than though bs that, because I don't listen to radio, I'm hurting the artists. I'm suggesting that he's full of shit.

Django Django "Default"

whrrrlgrlbrll

http://blog.pandora.com/pandora/archives/2012/10/pandora-and-art.html

This does a good job of laying out what just Pandora pays to the artists. Now, this isn't broadcast radio, but broadcast radio collectively pays even more and if Pandora, Slacker, Rhapsody, XM/Sirius, and broadcast radio all pay 10,000 per year to an indie artist then that is a significant income. Concert tickets don't pay much of anythign to the artist because the venue gets its fees and the union roadies and the transportation costs of doing concerts have a high over head. Merchandise has a relatively high overhead compared to streamed or broadcast music as well. They don't geth the t-shirts for free and the cost of printing posters and the CD media has to be deducted form the merchandising.

@Yonni - Again you seem to be confused. TVs don't either, yet Nielsen manages to collect aggregate numbers of how many people watched a TV show on a given nioght. The same type of surveying infrastructure exists for radio so market share and a typiocal listener count can be computed. Aggregate information. Do you know what thew term means? I suggest you go look it up.

Oh, and if you want a specific band who made their name because of radio/internet play and not concerts, go look up Fisher.http://fishertheband.com/. They were signed because of their download counts on MP3.com back before its shutdown, buy out, and relaunch.

http://www.digitalmusicnews.com/permalink/2012/120319indie

Page 3 shows that early in this particular indie composer and musician's career, Royalties paid more than toruing and merchandising in gross revenue but as he has gotten more famous (which wouldn;t have happened without the exposure of radio in regions where he couldn't travel too) and his name better known, gross revenue has increased from toruing and merchandising. But at the same time, page 6 shows that while 46.1% of his income is from concerts and merchandising, more than 50% of his expenses has been in travel, merchandise overhead, booking commissions, and toruing musician salaries.

I know what a god damn Nielsen meter is and I know how aggregate information is gathered. *Me* listening to the radio has no bearing on jack shit. I'm not sure how Pandora etc. entered the equation. I actually had never heard of Pandora nor have I ever used it or it's competitors. Also, from the people I've spoken to, I've been told that the majority of income is from ticket and merch sales. Could be different for different folks though.

I'm not really sure what point you're trying to make here or if you're just picking up stompies. I've never heard of Fisher but I know Clap Your Hands as a similar story. There is definitely success to be had from exposure on the radio/internet. I don't think I've every suggested otherwise.

I really didn't mean to get worked up on this. I just took exception to Putin coming in here with his trademark condescension and shitting on people for how they consume music. I can understand his cynicism and bile when it comes to politics and whatnot but I was just hoping to have a friendly chat about new music.

Also, the numbers from the two articles don't add up. The Pitchfork article suggests they're getting paid peanuts but your (Pandora authored) article suggests otherwise.

But. Fuck it.

Rancher, that Django Django tune is damn cool. I'll need to check out more.
Keep 'em coming. Love this time of year for hearing about stuff I've missed.

I completely forgot that Boys & Girls came out this year. Alabama Shakes - "Hold On" certainly deserves mention.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Le-3MIBxQTw

Other good tunes from this year:

Grizzly Bear - "Yet Again"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AuG9i5cwGW0

Felice Brothers - "Lincoln Continental"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=od_3UkO_3vY
It's a bit of a slapped together album with Ian (I think) doing his best Dylan but The Felice Brothers are always awesome so I can't complain.

Also, maybe my favourite video of the year:
Danny Brown - "Grown Up"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NHfWY0is3rE

Actually, the two do align if you consider the numbers from early in the artists career. Once they make it, then the concerts and merchandising take over (althought he point still stands that those two have *much* greater overhead than radio play).

And you don't have to get so upset. I agree Putin was pushing it a bit. But without broadcast, satellite, and internet radio, it would be nigh on impossible for artists to make it big.

But OK, so music from this year... Um... I am sort of a classic rock, cool/west coast jazz, and some alt guy so really really recent stuff I don't know so well. Sorry.

That wasn't Putin's point at all though. He said "Stream music screws over independent musicians."

It's OK Draug. If I knew an old fart like you was listening to the same music as me, I'd have to start listening to something else. ; )