It's likely that a good portion of you have read this before, but for the benefit of those who haven't, check out Steve Albini's take on the financial aspect of the popular music recording industry:

Some of your friends are probably already this fucked.

(For those of you out of the loop on such things, Steve Albini, music producer/engineer extraordinaire, is probably most popularly known for producing Nirvana's In Utero.)

Excellent read!

I feel like I need to take a shower after reading that.

A great read indeed! Just wow...

I was friends at one time with a few guys in a Christian band (for those of you who wouldn't know, while the Christian scene isn't is large as other stuff, it's still pretty big and I'm fairly sure that all of the Christian labels are owned by the Majors, so it's business as usual). Anyway, this particular band produced two CD's of their own and held out for a long time against signing with any label. They made quite a decent (if demanding) living off of their music, though they were traveling every weekend to play somewhere else. Still, every place they played was packed (we're talking about very large churches here; they were doing very well). I even had a chance to open up for them once and I've never quite played a gig like it (fans screaming so loud you can't hear your monitor mix).

Then they finally buckled in to the record companies. They got an excellent producer, a tour bus, and all of the other trappings. The CD came out and was really good, though I still waver between it and their self-released CDs. It didn't sound like the other Christian music out there, the lyrics were great and everyone who knew the band was really excited because finally some decent Christian music was coming out.

Fast forward a few years: the band has changed members drastically, the original songwriter (who wasn't a member of the band, but was good friends with the leader) has written one song on the last three albums, only four of the original members remain, and their stuff, while still unique in some respects, sounds more like other Christian music than it does their own style. I also know that the money has not been rolling in (though they've done all right, and who really expects it to in Christian music anyway?), though they are one of the biggest Christian bands out right now.

I don't blame these guys or even really think they've "sold out". Clearly they've been influenced by the record companies and the industry in general, it would be impossible not to be. Still it's disappointing to hear their new CD and think: "it's allright, but I won't listen to it much," when I listened to their independent releases several times over before I'd let anything else grace my CD player.

I know this doesn't squarely deal with the article you referenced, but it has illustrated to me how a great band can be brought down to mediocrity by this industry. I also know that they've had to do "what sells" to make ends meet, though I have to assume (based on what I know of my friend), that they do feel what they're doing now is "from the heart." Honestly though, I feel a great loss whenever I put on one of the independent CDs or even their first studio produced one.

P.S. If anyone here can guess the band, please don't post it. This isn't about me trying to judge a particular group; I'm merely sharing my experiences with the recording industry.