Jermaine Dupri is a total ass clown…
Jermaine Dupri, or as I like to call him, Mr. Janet Jackson, has decided to share his thoughts on the music business in a blog post. Unfortunately, I expect this kind of nonsense rambling to come from the likes of Clive Davis, not J.D..
From the article:
“All it’ll take is for Warner Music to say, “You know what, I’m with you,” for us to shut ‘em down. No more iPods! They won’t have nothin’ to play on their players! We can take back the power if we’re willing to sacrifice some sales to make our point.”
Oh, really Jermaine? Is that because the only music on iPods comes from iTunes Music Store? Please, do your research. The amount of music on the average iPod that comes from the ITMS is a tiny, itty-bitty little fraction. (Single digit small.)
“But at what point does any business care when consumer complains about the money?”
Huh?! Way to use proper English JD. If I’m deciphering this correctly, are you saying that the majors have to stop caring how the customers want to spend their money? If so, they haven’t cared at all, because if they did, they would’ve embraced a service like Napster and tried to monetize it correctly before shutting it down and suing fans. Major labels have been raping consumers for years and never gave two shits about what they, the customers, thought. Now, the balance of power has shifted and we not longer need to pony up their scurrilous fees for a couple good tracks.
“Why do people not care how we - the people who make music - eat? If they just want the single, they gotta get the album. That was how life was.”
That’s funny, because my parents have hundreds of 7″ singles from the 60’s and 70’s at their house. The single has always been a big part of the industry until the 90’s when most US labels felt it wasn’t cost-effective. In fact, the very first days of the music business were built on the selling of printed music singles. School yourself on history you ignorant fool.
“I’m not saying that music can’t ever be sold as singles. Not every album is equal and consumers are always going to try to cherry pick the songs they like. But that doesn’t mean the people who investing their time, money and sweat into a record shouldn’t have the right to decide how it’s gonna be sold, whether that’s in single units or as a whole.”
Really? Then what ARE you saying? Who the fuck are you to say that not all albums are made equal and some can be cherry picked? Hell, half of the hip-hop albums have bullshit “skit” tracks. Is this your way of forcing people to buy that crap when the truth is there’s many times only about half an album there anyway?
I do agree that an artist should have the right to sell their music as “album only” if they want. If an artist is big enough (or foolish enough) to do that, I have no problem with that, but if I only want one track off it and I’m forced to buy the whole record…I will pirate it and you will lose ANY bit of $ you would’ve made in the first place.
Lastly, who gave you a book deal? Did they ever read anything you’ve written because you have the grammar skills of a six-year-old.
November 20th, 2007 at 2:55 pm
“If they just want the single, they gotta get the album. That was how life was.”
The best part about that is the “That was how life was.” statement, the key word being WAS. And it’s also good to know was can’t be used like a double negative.
The Music Industry (and people like JD) need to learn how to adapt and evolve or they’ll die. It’s Darwinism at its finest. If you try to fight and resist the technology someone else will embrace it, and when you’re still thinking about ways to stop people from enjoying their music, other people (Apple, MySpace, etc.) will think of ways to embrace it and make it easier for people to enjoy and discover.