Lily Allen has kicked off a new blog to air her grievances over the file-sharing issue, collecting comments from musicians and fans who are against illegal downloading. The blog, called It's Not Alright, has collected comments thus far from James Blunt, Matt Bellamy from Muse and Natasha Khan from Bat for Lashes.
Allen has stood in staunch opposition to file-sharing recently, particularly against musicians who are for it - while claiming "I don’t want to promote a divide amongst artists." In actuality, that's precisely what she seems to be doing.
"I agree that file sharing is a huge and complicated problem for emerging artists, myself included, and for the future of music," said Khan. "I will be taking the time to research this, but if you do have any meetings where we can all get together and discuss, (the guy from Muse had some really good points we could take to government), then please let me know." It's a level-headed thought from the Bat For Lashes centerpiece, but fails to acknowledge the fact that Kahn wouldn't be nearly as successful as she is now had her career trajectory been entirely reliant upon her one recognizable single, "Daniel".
I've personally spoken with dozens of musicians about this very issue, and there's two consistent trends I've noticed through all these conversations. First: the artists who aren't well-known are eager to get their music heard by anyone they can. They're happy to be downloaded, traded, offered for free, because they need all the help they can get in standing out among the sea of white noise circulating the payola-laden airwaves.
Second: the more established artists who aren't that concerned about illegal downloads are confident enough in their own talent and perseverance that they see the distribution benefit, and the increased likelihood that those downloading their songs will actually buy a ticket to their shows, which the artists generally get a much larger cut of. It seems that those artists whose careers are dependent upon image and PR placement are crying out the loudest. It's not hard to deduct why that could be.
Name recognition is two-thirds of the game, and the days of blind buys are forever gone. Record labels aren't trusted anymore, because for more than half a century they've run rampant with overcharging fans and underpaying artists. The temple is crumbling, and for once, the music lover is reaping the benefit.
Sure, all music can't be free, but a sour grapes blog by an artist with little to no artistic merit, who's known just as much for her drunken stupors, drug binges and bratty behavior as anything she's put down on wax doesn't hold nearly as much water as someone with artistic longevity in the cards. New and exciting avenues of legitimate distribution are popping up left and right these days, and while we exist very much in a musical Wild West at the moment, an inferior industry prop whining about kids not buying her album is certainly not helping the cause.
