The State Of Things

I’ve just been reading a pretty fascinating ‘open letter’ from OK GO on the problems they’ve been having with their recent video (above) and their label, EMI. The video is actually pretty awesome.

Essentially, OK Go got famous for their clever videos (like this one) that got spanked around the web – served up via You Tube. Now however, EMI won’t let anyone embed their artist’s videos on other sites from You Tube because EMI only get paid if people watch the video on You Tube. In fact if you look at the video liked above you’ll see that embedding is “disabled by request”. Ouch.

Good luck going viral!

OK Go do a good job explaining the situation and, while it might be the sweet treacle of a PR person, they seem pretty sympathetic to EMI. Here’s a little quote from the article.

“Fifteen years ago, when the terms of contracts like ours were dreamt up, a major label could record two cats fighting in a bag and three months later they’d have a hit. No more. People of the world, there has been a revolution. You no longer give a shit what major labels want you to listen to (good job, world!), and you no longer spend money actually buying the music you listen to (perhaps not so good job, world). So the money that used to flow through the music business has slowed to a trickle, and every label, large or small, is scrambling to catch every last drop.”

Essentially how this reads to me is a band that has become totally soft after suckling at the teat of a major label for a few years! Surely of any band that would have a great shot at making a success of themselves without a label, OK Go would be near the top of the list. Without the millstone of a major label they would be in the perfect position to do some great direct to fan marketing (offering to have a fan feature in a music video for example). Instead though, here they are bemoaning the fact that we’re not buying enough music to keep the mothership afloat and ultimately, attempting to justify totally ridiculous policies and behaviors on the part of EMI!

The whole article could probably have been summed up by saying, “On balance, we value the safety and security of a major label deal that lets us do this full time and have a sweet lifestyle over the freedom to do what we want, when we want, with who we want. So, even though what made you love us in the first place no long exists, if you could all stop hating on us and keep forking out cash for our records that would be lovely”.

Maybe I’m being too hard on them. Maybe they’re locked into a contract and can’t wait to be free. Maybe a lucrative deal with a big advance is pretty tough to turn down compared to the uncertainty of ‘making it’ alone. Maybe they are actually really really angry and this was passed through a heavy PR filter before being released.

Either way, this is an absolutely classic example of all the stuff that is going wrong in the music industry: Indie band makes some cool videos which they put on You Tube. Public goes crazy sharing and embedding the videos on blogs and websites around the world creating a massive buzz. Record label thinks it can capitalise on all the great publicity and offers them a big record deal. Band release new video to promote the new album. Record label stops all embedding and sharing to conserve/maximise profits!

Genius!

Here’s the link to the full article from OK Go. It’s well worth the read.

UPDATE: You can read more about it in this Mashable interview with front man Damian Kulash.