KISS’ GENE SIMMONS SAYS DOWNLOADING, AND FILESHARING, HAS CONTRIBUTED TO THE DECLINE OF THE MUSIC BUSINESS
KISS frontman Gene Simmons spoke with Us Weekly and blamed the decline of the music business on the consumers.
Simmons said (via blabbermouth.net), “”By and large, new artists will never have the chance that we got, because record companies would give us millions of dollars — once we got successful — as an advance, non-recoupable, with a royalty system and all that. And so we didn’t have to work day jobs. Now if you’re a new band, you can’t make a living because all the freckle-faced college kids — who, by the way, hate me — because what I’m saying is it’s robbery. You’re robbing by downloading and filesharing that music. It doesn’t affect me; our band came before, when it was a real business. But the new artists, you’re breaking my heart. It’s like new babies being born without being able to have food. You’re taking food from their mouths so they have to go work for a living and not have enough time for their art.”
Who killed the music business? The fans did,” he continued. “Not a foreign power, not aliens; the fans killed it. And who do I blame? The record companies for not suing that first putz who dared break into the henhouse and steal some eggs and a chicken for free. As soon as you let that first fox into that henhouse to take some eggs without paying for it, the rest of the foxes come along. Likewise, cockroaches — you allow one into the kitchen, you squash that first one, the rest of ’em are gonna go, ‘Uh-oh, we’ve gotta watch out.’
So, Pandora’s box has been opened. There are hundreds of millions of fans around the world that are trained [in their minds] not to pay for music. So what does that do for new bands? It kills them. When you take away the value of something, it becomes by definition worthless.
Imagine being a farmer, and you sell eggs and chickens — that’s what you do. And that first little cute fox comes in and steals an egg. And the farmer is gonna try to shoot the fox, ’cause, ‘Hey, you’re stealing my living.’ And the wife says, ‘Don’t [shoot the fox]. It’s so cute.’ That cute little fox takes the egg back to where all the foxes are: ‘Hey, we’ve got a sucker over here. Let’s go get some chickens and eggs.’ Before you know it, there are no chickens; no eggs’ the farmer’s out of business; the trucks that drove the farmer’s stuff to market are out of business ’cause they don’t have stuff; the supermarkets that sold the stuff are out of business. Everybody’s out of business because that first putz, that first little hole in the Titanic sank the whole ship.”
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I actually agree with Gene on this one, well, except for blaming the fans, I still buy my music, always have, always will. Of course Gene is referring to the young people who just don’t know any better because most of them are idiots, and or just don’t care. He kinda lost me a little bit with the foxes, chickens, and the eggs… but the point is obvious, just like “Video Killed The Radio Star,” the computer killed the rock star.
Same here Doug, I purchase, collect, and own all my music.
And yes, the computer kills rock stars because music is diluted by too many “artists”.
Maybe things would be better if these old bands produced more quality music.
MickeyMan, to complement your comment, I would just like to add that I think bands have gotten into the habit of putting out too much music with each album release. In the old vinyl days, an artist was limited to about 40 minutes or so of music per album. Nowadays, artists put out almost twice that amount cuz CDs are able to hold more music. I think the artist feels compelled to fill up all the available CD space, and that results in poorer song quality. And after a while of listening to the CD play, the listener kinda loses interest cuz the CD never seems to end…
In the vinyl days, I remember putting the needle on the 1st song and enjoying the incredible journey of music that was about to follow…Both side 1 and 2 of albums were compiled in an orderly manner that was meaningful to the journey…..
Wow! Another reason KISS and Gene Simmons are awesome. He is also an expert chicken farmer. Who knew!? Or maybe he was hungry when he did this interview. Anyway, I’m going to listen to my old Napster mp3s of Metallica and make an omelet. Thanks Gene!
If I were a fox who stole Kiss’ chicken & eggs, could I sue Gene for food poisoning?
LOL!!!!
Duh………
Is US Weekly really so far behind in reporting news that it’s no longer news anymore? This interview could’ve been done 15 years ago. Sifting through all of Gene’s analogies and mixed metaphors, he’s not wrong. Hell, I pay $8 monthly for Spotify premium, but I’d be kidding myself if I didn’t think that was a steal – literally and figuratively. My measly $8 is not going to help support the thousands of new bands on Spotify. Not too long ago, Peter Frampton (half) jokingly posted a royalty check he received from one of the streaming services. If memory serves, it was about $48 for a few million streams. So, yeah, streaming and file sharing killed the music business for the artists. Where I disagree with Gene is that I’m not sure that there was anything record companies could’ve done to stop it. Technology and human nature overtook an old business model. In Gene’s language, it’s like coal miners complaining that the internal combustion engine killed their business by making coal-engine trains obsolete and the fickle and unfaithful public moved on to automobiles.
Fans didn’t kill the music business. Rather, technology advancements negatively impacted it. Technology made it such that many of today’s fans consume music via streaming services rather than buying albums. The business model with those streaming services is negatively impacting bands. It’s exactly what RTunes mentions re: technology overtaking an old business model.
I hate Lars Ulrich’s suing of Napster cuz I view him as a hypocrite who tape traded with others around the world, but put his foot down on the issue when he, the artist, was now negatively financially impacted. Napster users were just the new wave of tape traders using current technology to do the exact same thing that young Ulrich did as an old school tape trader.
I remember Venom had the slogan “Home Taping is Killing Music; So are Venom” printed on the back of their “Black Metal” album. I loved that clever slogan….and while I was always thoughtful of it when I recorded music to cassette, it never stopped me from making cassette copies of albums for my friends. I turned on a lot of my friends to NWOBHM in this manner…..
Musicians are fighting a war that others have been trying to fight for decades….The only difference is today’s musicians suffer financially more as fans consume more music through streaming….
Rattle and RTunes,
I agree with both of you, it is very difficult to stop progress, although sometimes I wonder if it is truly productive growth.
Anyway, the days of technoloically advanced, schizophrenic children being interested in purchasing music, let alone, entire albums, has gone the way of the dinosaur. Only us old Velociraptors are still interested in, and loyal enough, to buy albums.
I am so grateful that I lived through, what I consider the Golden Age of rock music.
Same here, I thank God everyday that I grew up in the era of the ’60s, ’70s, and the ’80s, alot of great music in the ’90s as well, but the ’60s, ’70s and ’80s, – those were the days!
Dana, I don’t think today’s young music listeners have the attention span for full albums. So they don’t buy albums… they’d rather buy individual songs, listen to songs on YouTube, or stream music.
Rattle,
I agree, but I think their attention spans are, and were, diminished by the technology.