Does a 'Music Industry Blackout?' Actually Do Anything?
Does a 'Music Industry Blackout?' Actually Do Anything?
Are the giant record labels really doing what they can?
Amid the protests and demonstrations in cities across the U.S. and the world, including my own, there have been plenty of businesses both big and small making statements out of solidarity, empathy, sadness or empty statements full of rhetoric.
One was particularly confusing to me, and I saw it light up with some controversy on my Twitter timeline. It was a movement started by big-name music industry entities like Sony Music Group and Universal Music Group, and guys like Scooter Braun calling for a “music industry blackout” tomorrow.
What exactly that means is fairly opaque. From what I understand, these labels and people have said they’ll stop promoting, creating or marketing music tomorrow. And a few things immediately jumped out at me:
These companies and people running them have more money than god. This is not going to disrupt their business in any way. But it very well could disrupt artists whose work is put out by the label (aka how they make their fortune), and whose income is far less than a guy like David Geffen or whatever.
Why Tuesday? In the past, that’s the day that music was released. But that’s not the case anymore. So what are these companies really sacrificing?
How does this actually help when the nuts and bolts of this “movement” are so unclear?
I wasn’t the only person who thought about this, and multiple smaller labels and artists voiced their concerns on Twitter, usually with far more information about how to be more productive than what feels a lot like Gal Gadot and her friends singing “Imagine” from their mansions.
It is, ostensibly, good for gigantic corporations to show some semblance of a conscience and stand with the oppressed and use their platforms to influence others to look at what they can do in their communities. But there’s still this nagging question of “so, what would you say you do here?” It’s hard to actually believe them (whoever “they” are.)
There was one exchange between Philly artist Kississippi and someone I believe works for Sub Pop Records about how the label is actually using the day to encourage staff to create change.
The long and short of it is that you shouldn’t have to designate a day to help people who need it and shine a light on the myriad fractures in our current system. Is it good that major labels are trying to show good will here? Sure. I guess. Anyone using their platform for good is good. But it’s not some cure-all, and I’m still very unclear what it all actually does and who the “music industry” is. (Taylor Swift is in the music industry, and so is a band that you saw in a basement once. But they are not the same.)
And at a time where the financial aspect of being an artist is even more precarious due to not being able to tour, telling people to stop whatever gears are still turning feels tone deaf. Especially since some of these companies, like Spotify, have even further spit in artists’ faces by paying them hay-pennies for album streams and acting like a tip function on Spotify will solve the problem.
These companies don’t need your money to stay afloat. But small businesses (labels) and artists do to survive. Plenty of artists and labels very regularly donate funds to worthwhile causes without much fanfare. Find the ones that do and support them, rather than retweeting Bieber’s agent or whatever saying he’s taking the day off, albeit for a noble cause.
In lieu of a musical guest this week, here is a helpful link with multiple ways to make a difference tomorrow and any other day this week.