Lamb Of God frontman Randy Blythe launched into some rather poignant and colorful rants/analogies regarding the state of the music industry via his Twitter today (September 19th.) You can find the main two pieces he wrote below.
After reading them you should head over to his Twitter to check out the ensuing aftermath. Many metal musicians have chimed in there, making for a lot of interesting commentary on the state of today’s music industry.
Yes, I realize I may be booshed again by Blythe for posting this, but I swear I am not trying to piss the guy off. Rather I’d merely like to shed some light on some of the more rather interesting things he has to say.
Speaking on the topic downloading music, he offered:
“While on the topic of down loading leaks, aside from the fact that it has killed record sales (well, that & music industry GREED), the FACT OF THE MATTER IS- leaked stuff off the Internet DOES NOT HAVE THE SOUND QUALITY OF A RECORD/CD. Musicians, engineers, producers, masterers-we all put in A LOT of time trying to get a record to sound AS KICK-ASS as possible.
Then it gets dumped on the Internet, leaked through a million different sites, some of which compromise the quality exponentially- a record gets FUCKED UP. I LOVE my iPod, but listening to a cd always seems to sound better to me. Why? Crappy bit rate encoding, ect. Call me a nerd, but I wanna hear what THE BAND wants me to hear.”
After receiving numerous replies regarding the above viewpoint, he further went to explain his viewpoint with the following:
“Jesus Christ. I tried to go into just the music QUALITY aspect of buying vs downloading & now it’s the whole ethics/financial aspect AGAIN. So, I didn’t want to do this, AGAIN, but I will. I’m sure what I’m about to post will PISS OFF a lot of people, BUT I DON’T FUCKING CARE. Y’all can get mad, call me a rock star, tell me I’m a greedy fuck, a sell out, a money grubbing child rapist who lives only to destroy music. You can EVEN call me Lars Ulrich. I think he’s kinda cute for a short, balding, Danish man. IT WON’T BOTHER ME. SO FIRE AWAY. I WILL LAUGH.
What I am about to say is the cold, naked, HARD TRUTH: illegally downloading music is STEALING. YES, I SAID IT. And AS SUCH, it is UNETHICAL. If it wasn’t STEALING, then it would just be called “down loading”, NOT “ILLEGALLY downloading”. WHY this is such a HARD CONCEPT to grasp? Let’s put it this way- I work for McDonalds. My job is to make burgers. McDonalds (a giant, evil corporation) has to pay for the labor (me) to assemble their product (burgers). I don’t sit around & make burgers all day for free. People LOVE burgers. Burgers SHOULD indeed be free!
BUT- it COSTS $ to make burgers. And the burgers WERE over priced for a long time- old Ronald had gotten greedy. He was RICH AS FUCK in fact. But despite the fact that Ron was rich from over priced burgers, me & the rest of the burger cooks (not to mention the janitor, the cashier, the manager, the delivery truck drivers, & whoever else) could STILL make a decent living IF WE WERE GOOD AT OUR JOBS working at McDonalds.
Then, one day, someone gets a key to the backdoor of McD’s & it goes STRAIGHT to the kitchen. He SNEAKS IN LIKE ALL GOOD THIEVES DO, and he starts eating all the burgers he wants, FOR FREE. Then he makes a key for his buddy, who makes one for his pal who makes one for his pal ect. Soon everybody has a key & it’s a fucking burger bonanza. The burgers WERE overpriced, right? And Ronald & A FEW of his cooks were just rich money grubbing assholes anyway, right? SO FUCK ‘EM! EAT AWAY! So that goes on a while then good old Ronald looks at his checkbook- WTF?!?!?
Suddenly things aren’t looking so peachy for Ronald. So he starts firing motherfuckers left & right, & a TON of McDonalds close down. BUT… PEOPLE STILL WANT BURGERS, right? Ronald starts trying all sortsa shit to keep McD’s open- marketing schemes, different wrappers for the burgers, burger TASTINGS- but NOTHING is working. WHY? LITERALLY MILLIONS of people have a key to McDonald’s & are GORGING THEMSELVES 4 FREE
Some of the cooks open their own burger joints because McDs is failing. They charge fair prices & do I ALL themselves. They fail too- WHY? FREE BURGERS STILL. Only a few pay for the burgers. Hell, a WHOLE GENERATION of burger eaters grow up NEVER HAVING BOUGHT A SINGLE BURGER.
Finally, the whole burger business is FUCKED UP. Me, I’m an older burger cook who manages save up some $ from the old days, & a lot of folks will still pay for me to whip up a burger for em. But the young guys who have dreams of being a successful burger cook? FORGET IT. ITS ALL BECAUSE the key that opens McD’s opens ALL burger joints. So all the Indy burger shops go down too- WHY? BECAUSE PEOPLE ARE WALKING OUT WITH FREE NOW. Burgers should be free, RIGHT? I WANT MY BURGER I WANT MY BURGER I WANT MY BURGER- FUCK Ronald & FUCK his cooks- I’m TAKING EM!
Eventually it all goes up in flames. Fuck it. I got my burger. I TOOK IT. And when I, as a burger cook complain about people KILLING THE BURGER BUSINESS by stealing from McDonalds? I’m called A GREEDY ASSHOLE. Burgers SHOULD be free. BUT THEY ARE NOT FREE TO MAKE. Neither is music. Like it or not, there IS NO MORAL GRAY AREA HERE. STOP STEALING.”
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