Patton Oswalt: The Gatekeepers are not in control anymore

[Josiah]

What's up with him using the word luck. He worked his butt off. People dug his stuff so they (companies) hired him. No luck in that. intelligent and humble guy. Patton is great in the movie Big Fan.

Because no matter how hard you work, you still have to land the connections to demonstrate your craft.

All over the world right now are tons of musicians, drummers, working their tails off to be better and better. The extreme majority of which we will never hear of. It's not because they didn't work hard at their craft. It's just how this game called life works...

[Paul Marangoni]

The Gatekeepers are indeed in control. They're just different Gatekeepers now: Apple, Google, Facebook, ClearChannel.

You want to control how your digital product is disseminated? Impossible. You want to sell your music on your own without using iTunes? You won't even break even. Wanna get your music played on terrestrial radio? Pay up. Think you can make money on YouTube 'cause they claim to share their ad revenue with content creators? Wrong again.

I hope that we see a serious competitor to Apple's iTunes sometime soon. A site that charges less, and gives a bigger share of revenue to the artists. Until that day, Apple has no reason to change how they do business.

[dccollins]

What's up with him using the word luck. He worked his butt off. People dug his stuff so they (companies) hired him. No luck in that. intelligent and humble guy. Patton is great in the movie Big Fan.

Because no matter how hard you work, you still have to land the connections to demonstrate your craft.

All over the world right now are tons of musicians, drummers, working their tails off to be better and better. The extreme majority of which we will never hear of. It's not because they didn't work hard at their craft. It's just how this game called life works...

Musicians, comedians, etc have to be good at sales and networking. The product? Themselves. Some people were never comfortable or good at that. Technology is leveling that playing field as well. Being able to distribute your creation to hundreds or thousands on youtube will get you WAAYYY farther than handing a demo CD to someone who is just going to throw it away.

[Kurtis]

Because no matter how hard you work, you still have to land the connections to demonstrate your craft.

All over the world right now are tons of musicians, drummers, working their tails off to be better and better. The extreme majority of which we will never hear of. It's not because they didn't work hard at their craft. It's just how this game called life works...

Kind of new all of this a bunch of decades ago.

For every action there is a reaction. You don't land connections through luck. You get out there and put the freaking odds in your favor. Right time right place. Another silly phrase. Heck bad luck can end up being good luck. Never cared for the word luck. We adopted a stray doggy recently and called him LUCKY.

[Josiah]

You don't land connections through luck. You get out there and put the freaking odds in your favor. Right time right place.

You do realize that because you substitute the word "odds" for the word "luck", it doesn't change the meaning of the statement right?

It's the luck of the draw. Sure, you can change the odds of that draw. But you can never make the odds 100%. Luck, or randomness, is still the lynch pin.

There is nothing you can do to guarantee success in any industry. You can certainly work hard to tilt the odds in your favor. But it's still just that - ODDS. Odds refer to the statistical probability of an event occurring.

Unless you got a magic way of making the odds full proof, 100%. You're still subject to the random dumb luck of everyday life.

[Paul Marangoni]

Just wondering if a way forward for making music is to just not make recordings at all. Just write and arrange music for a live situation only. If people, apart from a dedicated few, aren't going to pay for music, if recordings aren't going pay for themselves, then why bother making recordings? Maybe just play the music live. If people want to hear it, they come to a concert!

When 1,000,000 You Tube plays generates about £1,000, divided up between the label, the management and the band....how are musicians going to live? Google, Pandora, Spotify, Apple...they're all raking it in, and using the money to lobby politicians to stop musicians getting a fairer share.

Harrumph!

[Julián Fernández]

That´s a pretty cool concept actually. To go back to what it was before. Even if musicians decide to stop recording albums, there´s so many stuff that I would need another life to absorb it all. I won´t be complaining if that´s the future...

The new vynil hype is another way to try stopping piracy. A paradigm shift requires thinking outside the box. I like that.

[Kurtis]

Internet radio is on its way out. Congress is passing new legislation that will put sites like pandora out of business. They are not raking it in either. Say goodbye to Internet radio.

Vinyl? Nope. MP3 players are here to stay and won't go away.

[electrizer]

Vinyl? Nope. MP3 players are here to stay and won't go away.

...and this is a good reason why

http://www.npr.org/blogs/therecord/2012/10/01/162062347/the-cd-at-30-is-feeling-its-age

[littlegrooves]

Having a hardcopy is nice, but not convenient.

Having MP format is convenient, but just remember-- you don't "own" that music in your itunes. That non-transferable stipulation is the silliest thing since the death tax and I'm a liberal.