The antithesis of music - Hendrix for sale, to you and you only

[planetgeli]

Well, probably not you. Or me. What rich scum do with their money part 272.

Newly found Jimi Hendrix tapes give fans chance to own song only they can listen to

Four never-before-heard demos will be sold at auction along with documents rescued by former PA to the star’s manager

www.theguardian.com

Music is all about sharing, community. This surely is the opposite.

These people have no soul. Hendrix spinning in his grave.

 

[ska invita]

Hard to top this

Martin Shkreli Made Copies of His $2 Million Wu-Tang Album—and Hid Them in ‘Safes All Around the World’

The one-of-a-kind album is apparently now anything but.

www.wired.com

 

[Steel Icarus]

Hard to top this

Martin Shkreli Made Copies of His $2 Million Wu-Tang Album—and Hid Them in ‘Safes All Around the World’

The one-of-a-kind album is apparently now anything but.

www.wired.com

I read this - at least tried - and realised there are huge swathes of human activity I feel completely cut off from understanding, let alone participating in. Even if I had a mind to.

 

[skyscraper101]

So this PA to Hendrix's manager has held onto this stuff since 1973? 51 years? Wow.

OK I have questions. First, why wait so long? Second, is it legally hers to sell? How does it become her property unless it was hers to begin with, unless willed, which I'm guessing it wasn't in both cases. And therefore how does it become hers if it was found in his office. Just because she found it? Maybe it was their office but still does that make her the beneficiary by default?

I'd need one of those expert lawyers to explain this to me.

 

[maomao]

The recorded music business has become so unprofitable for most artists, and the distribution of wealth in society so unequal, that it has become more profitable to sell a rare recording like this to individual wealthy collectors than to put it on Spotify (and spend money publicising it) and wait for it to get a few hundred million listens. Foxey Lady has earned about 344,000 off Spotify but that's over the lifespan of Spotify so far, plus the new songs would be up against Foxey Lady, Purple Haze etc. Capitalism is fucked; it no longer brings us even the few benefits it used to.

 

[SpookyFrank]

Hard to top this

Martin Shkreli Made Copies of His $2 Million Wu-Tang Album—and Hid Them in ‘Safes All Around the World’

The one-of-a-kind album is apparently now anything but.

www.wired.com

Imagine working for months on a record that nobody would ever hear, just as a stunt/grift. What a colossal fuck you that is to the fan base who put you in a position to do something so tacky in the first place.

Yeah, Shkreli is a cunt but I blame Wu Tang themselves for unleashing this fresh strain of late capitalist insanity on the world.

 

[SpookyFrank]

The recorded music business has become so unprofitable for most artists, and the distribution of wealth in society so unequal, that it has become more profitable to sell a rare recording like this to individual wealthy collectors than to put it on Spotify (and spend money publicising it) and wait for it to get a few hundred million listens. Foxey Lady has earned about 344,000 off Spotify but that's over the lifespan of Spotify so far, plus the new songs would be up against Foxey Lady, Purple Haze etc. Capitalism is fucked; it no longer brings us even the few benefits it used to.

I doubt Jimi will make a single penny from this, him having been dead for fifty years and all.

 

[maomao]

I doubt Jimi will make a single penny from this, him having been dead for fifty years and all.

No shit Sherlock. Where did I suggest he might?

 

[SpookyFrank]

No shit Sherlock. Where did I suggest he might?

You were talking about artists making money from their work. That ship has sailed in this case.

 

[stethoscope]

Hopefully whomever wins it will work with Hendrix estate and look to get them cleaned up and remastered and released in some form. Shame when these things sit in private collections and never made available, worse just sat in a box.

Frustrating enough over the years with some incredible dance tunes that have never seen it past acetate. And producers sitting on stuff that lots of fans would love to see the light of day.

 

[maomao]

You were talking about artists making money from their work. That ship has sailed in this case.

Clearly dead artists don't make money from their recordings. I'm not sure these boards will be improved by stating the bleeding obvious as often as you seem to require.

 

[SpookyFrank]

Clearly dead artists don't make money from their recordings.

So why go on about poor artists can't make money, reduced to doing stunts like this instead? When the only people who could pull off this kind of stunt are either so famous they're already minted, or dead and don't need the money.

 

[maomao]

So why go on about poor artists can't make money, reduced to doing stunts like this instead? When the only people who could pull off this kind of stunt are either so famous they're already minted, or dead and don't need the money.

Because in the past the most profitable thing for the owner of the tape to do would be to go to the estate and get it put on a record or cd.

 

[ska invita]

I doubt Jimi will make a single penny from this, him having been dead for fifty years and all.

He didnt make much when alive from what I understand...mafia and management took it

 

[NoXion]

Imagine working for months on a record that nobody would ever hear, just as a stunt/grift. What a colossal fuck you that is to the fan base who put you in a position to do something so tacky in the first place.

Yeah, Shkreli is a cunt but I blame Wu Tang themselves for unleashing this fresh strain of late capitalist insanity on the world.

Which is odd to me, because all of the public statements I've seen from the Wu Tang lot indicate that they've generally got a sound head on their shoulders. Surely they have must have had some awareness that a "one of a kind" album would inevitably become some kind of expensive financial football for rich pricks? Is that part of the art in this case?

 

[SpookyFrank]

Is that part of the art in this case?

Who cares? Their job is to make music, not to huff their own farts doing ironic performance art or whatever the fuck.

 

[NoXion]

Who cares? Their job is to make music, not to huff their own farts doing ironic performance art or whatever the fuck.

Well, I'm curious. Also I'm aware that people with artistic tendencies don't always "stay in their lane". Must be to do with having creativity or something.

 

[ska invita]

Which is odd to me, because all of the public statements I've seen from the Wu Tang lot indicate that they've generally got a sound head on their shoulders. Surely they have must have had some awareness that a "one of a kind" album would inevitably become some kind of expensive financial football for rich pricks? Is that part of the art in this case?

Yes they made the case that they were making a statement about the (de)valuing of music in the internet age. How cynical/honest they were being about that is up to you to decide. A big part of music is business, spectacle and stunt, so its all good by me, another anecdote for the music history books. It'll probably leak one day.

On our album of the year 1994 thread we had the Aphex Twin album Caustic Window of which 5 copies were pressed and given to his friends. 20 years later it got a release. I think the logic of that was that he considered it minor material, which is absolutely for him to decide. Many musicians are prolific and produce endless music that never gets out.

Then you've got people like Wiley who gave out over 100 tunes IIRC for free as it was sitting on his hard drive and would never get released. Actually a smiliar thing happened with Aphex.

Ultimately I find it hard to care too much, we're facing environmental collapse and a new age of extinction, we'll be lucky if you can hear any Jimi Hendrix tunes in a couple of hundred years, never mind this one.

 

[SpookyFrank]

Well, I'm curious. Also I'm aware that people with artistic tendencies don't always "stay in their lane". Must be to do with having creativity or something.

This shit is marketing, not creativity.