#186

The average salary for a musician in the UK (according to Payscale.com) is £24,000. So, if that’s the average, assuming they’re including the big hitters and the fact that there’s a long tail of far less successful people, it’s going to be a way below that. A lot of those folks at the bottom end will be on releases stocked in HMV.

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#187

Nah Theo no one wants to read anything long on their phone

Also most people read to relax and the blue light is a stimulant so

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#188

that’s sad :frowning:

Would imagine you’d get a better cut as a musician if people bought your stuff direct on bandcamp than through HMV though

#189

Disagree with this point as it’s surely not a negative for the second hand book shops it keeps in business or the money it makes for Oxfam and other charities.

I get why people want less stuff though, every time I move house I see all the benefits of going fully digital very starkly indeed

#190

Better cut, but of what size pie? If you’re distributing on Bandcamp your reach is probably not as large as someone who’s stocked in HMV, and also you lose the high street browsing trade which is not as important as it used to be, but still a key driver of a sector of purchasing that’s hard to replicate on BC. You get more on BC per sale, but how do you get those sales?

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#191

This reminded me of this article about Field Music. Not exactly a ‘big’ band, but widely (and very positively) reviewed in the music press. Definitely stocked in HMV.

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#192

This is pretty rude and unnecessary imho. I’m just disagreeing with you, you don’t need to talk down to me.

To the rest of your post: literally all I said (and all I’ve been saying here) was that people shouldn’t pretend there’s no waste from digital consumption. There is. Even if you only replace your device every few years, there’s tonnes of background waste in the distribution and storage. Like keeping physical objects or not, ultimately it’s a personal choice.

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#193

Shifting units and being visible, radio play, touring et cetera, is not in any way a guarantee of income. Being a session musician generally pays better than being an artist working the same hours. If my kid wanted to be a musician I’d support her but also tell her to train in something else alongside, or network hard and do a lot of session stuff, because at least union rate is predictable.

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#194

Planning to transfer my entire existence to virtual reality - less stuff, less waste

#195

It’s rude and unnessary to say I’m claiming my personal choice is better than yours. Maybe you should read over your own posts first before you start with that kind of stuff!

No one is pretending there is no waste from digital stuff but it’s simple maths. One person may have 1, 2 or 3 devices over a year or two vs 50/100s of items. I’m not sure why everyone’s going mad over plastic waste but cds and dvds and games are expempt from that?

#196

But eventually things aren’t going to sell if people aren’t buying CDs anymore. Is the reason HMV is going under because it’s too expensive or that there isn’t a market for people buying CDs any more?

#197

I didn’t do that - I was responding to your claims that’s it’s “undeniable” that digital-only involves less waste. I don’t think it’s undeniable.

Again, though, it isn’t about the individual, it’s about all the background stuff.

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#198

Oh alright never mind.

#199

make better music? :wink:

don’t know the answer really, I always just assume I’d get more money if my stuff was better

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#200

Figured out the only place to buy new records (that I am aware of) in Belfast is… URBAN OUTFITTERS :no_mouth:

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#201

Thought John Robb on BBC breakfast made a great point when he said they need to specialise AND diversify.

Thanks John, useful that.

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#202

Not really sure what we’re arguing about, but I think one of the reasons physical books are prevailing when other media isn’t, is just that for a lot of people, digital books aren’t that much more convenient.

Obviously if you’re travelling or something like that then a kindle is handy, but if you’re just reading at home or on the commute, you probably don’t need access to multiple books at once. People might listen to music from 10 different albums on their commute one morning, they’re not reading from 10 different books.

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#203

Preface: I’m not entirely on the meo or guntrip side here. It’s an interesting angle on the HMV story, though…

I won’t deny that many CDs etc will end up in landfill sober rather than later. But I think there’s a valid case for acknowledging that single use plastic packaging etc is, in many ways, a different debate to the one around plastic artefacts/possessions/tools.

It’s not a completely separate issue, obv. Probably just boils down to timescale in the end. But unrecyclable single use coffee cups and plastic food trays seem like a more fundamental part of the ‘plastic debate’ than music collections that people will tend to get much more use out of. I could, of course, be taking bollocks, and the wall of CDs I have is every bit as destructive as all the plastic bags I’ve ever used.

Plastic kids toys maybe fall somewhere inbetween the two cases. It’s something that has become a bugbear now I’ve got a toddler. And I’m developing (privacy completely unfounded) prejudices with that about what’s. Like, if its Lego, that’s ‘OK plastic’, but the big placcy tractor she hardly touches is ‘bad’. In reality there’s probably not much to choose between them.

The hidden stuff behind digital is definitely a legit factor. As is the savings on food waste made by using plastic packaging that may not otherwise have arisen if a less ingenious, recyclable, packaging were used.

's complicated, yo.

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#204

You cannot make a little animation of a stick figure getting an errection by drawing the frames across the bottom corners of the pages and then flicking through on an e-book, for this reason they are doomed to always be a second rate immitation of their paper counterparts.

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#205

Yup. You’ve gotta be an utterly voracious fiction reader to get benefits from a Kindle. And only then, it’ll be in limited scenarios like a holiday.

Or wanting access to loads of weighty reference books (but my understanding of kindles is that they’re not really suited to that application).

1 Like