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Until this month, Death Metal Invasion was just another illegal download blog, with traffic far in excess of that of this site. Then it admirably switched to featuring only legal, band/label-approved downloads. Its readers revolted. People up in arms over not being able to download illegally — when the rest of the Internet is available for that! What has the world come to?
Now Death Metal Invasion is actually an interesting site. It’s doing work that I don’t want to do. Bands often approach me about putting up their demos, but quality is the first consideration for this site. By default, signed bands are usually better than unsigned ones because they’ve already undergone screening by labels. I’m drowning in signed releases, so I’m not eager to feature unsigned ones now. By doing the dirty work of featuring unknown quantities, Death Metal Invasion could become a resource for labels scouting for talent.
Putting free demos online is becoming increasingly commonplace. It is also becoming increasingly necessary. The more bands do it, the more prices will drop for all demos. As I’ve said before, it’s nonsensical to charge money for demos now. People don’t want to pay for albums by established artists, so why would they pay for unknown quantities? If one’s competitors — and all unsigned bands are in competition to get the attention of listeners with limited bandwidth — are lowering prices to zero, one had better do so also.
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Photo by Kris Arnold |
One result of this trend is that the Internet will be even more awash in crap. It will be interesting to see what kind of filtering, if any, Death Metal Invasion will apply. If it hosts too much crap, interest may drop. But it must balance quality against its open-arms policy towards bands and labels. Perhaps a pure market approach would work: putting everything up and letting listeners sort it all out.
Coffinworm – The Inner Caligula
Predictably, there’s a fair amount of noise on Death Metal Invasion. But I’ve found some gems. Germany’s Depravity is enjoyable, if unoriginal (think Blood Red Throne). Face of Ruin, whose demo I reviewed for Decibel, could be on Unique Leader in due time. Coffinworm, whose demo I also reviewed for Decibel, is my big recommendation. They’re not death metal, but blackened sludge metal. (I likened them to a combination of Eyehategod and Deathspell Omega. Chicago’s Lord Mantis also comes to mind.) Their demo is downloadable for free here. A full-length, recorded by Sanford Parker, will come out on Profound Lore early next year. It will rule.
Good call on that Coffinworm. I really appreciate your "business model" posts here. Keep it up!
Hells yes Coffinworm. Van sent me that demo a little while after it came out and it's amazing.
New wave of blackened sludge metal! Lord Mantis is also awesome.
I have never been interested in demos. I'm too swamped absorbing missed classics and filtering through the deluge of new music. In theory, I like the idea of helping new and unestablished artists, but in practice, I just don't have time. Further, I think a part of me resents all of the upstarts horning in on the action of struggling, but established artists. It's confusing to know how to handle this situation.
That said, I think this is a terrific way to channel the popularity of the recently enlightened DMI. It might be just the thing for getting me interested in demos. That Coffinworm is one of a handful of demos I've ever deliberatly exposed myself to and it sounds very good indeed.
Like Robert, I love your articles addressing music distribution. Please keep them coming. It's a fascinating subject.
In response to the paragraph following the photo by Kris Arnold: Maybe a rating system could be implemented to allow the perceived cream to rise to the top. These results could be combined with numbers of downloads. The resultant folksonomy could be a useful way
to measure quality. This technique would probably put too much emphasis on popular opinion. Perhaps it could be combined with the opinions of established/ prominent music journalists (alla Rotten Tomatoes). If only there were an established metal peer review process…
Nice find. Again.
Best metal blog on the net.
As I thought in 1999 while downloading songs to learn for an audition – things are going to change and with record companies screwing bands, why not just put out music for free – the money [if any] is made from merch/live fees/endorsements.
Bands need to have more business savvy to protect their interests in the first place. With the Internet, a marketing plan and a budget, oh yeah…and a fuck load of work, a band can get ahead.
Nice to see Indy metal get some props….also check out Gates of Slumber and Demiricous!
Coffinworm is indeed great. I like what DMI has done– since there are so many places to download scene rips of everything on a label, it's nice to have a big name (relatively speaking) blog featuring exclusively unsigned or free (like Cephalectomy) acts.
I actually like checking out demos b/c the stakes are so much lower. At worst, they wasted a few minutes of my time. At best, they're a great new find. Unlike signed releases, my expectations are nil for demos, so I'm never disappointed.
The line between "demo band" and "established but struggling artist" has become blurrier thanks to things like downloading.
In a way it troubles me how often people are willing to dismiss 'downloading' as an acceptable means of distribution. It's like a huge fucking black sheep these days. There seems to be this absurd myth permeating the mainstream that suggests that before it was feasible to download an album, everyone just ran out to the nearest mom'n'pop record or CD shop and purchased anything and everything they could, and bands and labels lived happily ever after. No one seems to want to recall how many albums they shared with their friends or their friends shared with them through mixtapes and cassette bootlegs.
When I was growing up, particularly once I got into metal, if I went out and bought an album you could expect that most of my friends would soon be hearing a copy. If they liked it too, they would, in turn, purchase the album for themselves. If I purchased an album and found it was shit, it would promptly be sold to the nearest used-CD shop. The collection of CDs I've kept is nowhere near the number of albums I've purchased or listened to. That was all we had though. None of my friends could afford to waste money on random bands we'd never heard of unless we had a chance to listen to it ahead of time. But, if we dug a band, we'd head out across several states just to see them play.
Fast forward to modern day. Now we, fortunately, can check out a band we've never heard of without fear of wasting money and having to hope to resell a crappy CD. There's much less risk involved, and word-of-mouth spreads much further than a local fanzine. It seems apparent to me, then, that most bands have immensely more potential of reaching success than they would have a decade ago.
I have to suppose I might be a little biased, since well, just about all of the bands I used to listen to and buy albums from are still in business, in addition to hundreds or thousands of musicians who I would have never discovered if I didn't have these digital resources. I spend the same amount of money, if not more, than I did before, only this time I can spend it on live shows and merchandise instead of gambling it on CDs of which I've only heard one song.
It's unfortunate that so many people in the 'music industry' are so ignorant about the medium available today. Although I am happy that many of the musicians I support are considerably more savvy.
good call on the coffinworm.
"It seems apparent to me, then, that most bands have immensely more potential of reaching success than they would have a decade ago."
not success – ears. it's far easier to get heard, and far harder to find ways to get paid. if anything margins for even established acts in many genres and scenes have been drastically slashed.
well, as long i'm visiting DMI, i don't have bougth that much music since the 90s.
keep up!
there's nothing illegal!!
Have you heard about Bunalti.com???
It's not only metal blog – you can find all the genres, it's similar to deathmetalinvasion.com 'cuz it has a wide metal section…
You better check it!