dear all,
i want to start a boycott against all Warner Records. i am asking all of you who:
1.care about music
2.are tired of idol singers dominating the market
3.are sick of racism in the taiwan record industry
to join with me in boycotting ALL Warner Records products.why should you join in with me in my beef against them? isn’t this ran the man’s business? we all benefit by letting these companies know that we’re sick of this crap. we deserve better music than what’s forced on our ears. we deserve better than payola. please sign the poll/pledge and i willpass it on to warner (at a higher level than most of you have ever contacted).it will get to the upper ears in the organization. let’s make a difference!
With all due respect, I doubt forumosan’s are buying large enough quantities of WB Taiwan products for a boycott to have any sort of effect.
If you are really unhappy about the music industry here and the way it works (which is the way it works almost everywhere), then either give up your plan of working in the industry or adapt to its demands as best you can. Other foreigners have made a career in Taiwan entertainment. Why shouldn’t you?
You might not end up selling Pepsi and necklaces on the side, as the franchise-friendly girl/boy “bands” are, but you could at least do some gigs, try to get media attention, etc…
Boycotts only work if a real consumer base stops buying.
Warner also have some pretty creditable artists under contract:
Eric ‘slow hand’ Clapton. (Must be the biggest!)
Bare Naked Ladies
Goo Goo Dolls
REM
Lou Reed
Tom Petty
Mark Knopfler
Neil Young
Red Hot Chili Peppers
10 ) Chris Isaac
K.D. Lang.
To name but a few. I’d say that WB has a pretty diverse list of artists. In Taiwan isn’t it a case of the audience actually want to idolize local stars? WB are giving their target audience what they want. The demand is for crap, so they supply crap.
Personally I have nothing against mindless pop. It’s like the musical equivalent of an Arnie movie; every once in a while a bit of switching the brain off and just letting the nonsense drift over you can be nice. I really do think that these kinds of “all bubblegum pop is evil” things are just as stupid as the pop itself. It’s elitism, pure and simple. There’s a place for all kinds of music in the world, and just because you don’t like it and it doesn’t fit your criteria for what music “should be” is no reason for it to be smooshed out of existence. If people want to listen to music made by computers and proxy artists while some addle-brained muppet lipsyncs along on the TV, they’ve got every right to. Just as much right as you have to not listen.
I’m having a similar problem with the Taiwan fashion industry. They have their own preconceived notion of beauty and aren’t open to anything new. Too bad if you’re a Westerner. Particularly male. Just try to get the cover of Vogue or Elle. Cosmo said okay, but it was like as if.
Racism? How? Could it possibly be practical considerations, ie the fact that 99.9999999% of their audience in Taiwan is Chinese, and thus prefer to listen to songs in Chinese, or songs of a type that foreign artists here either don’t play or play in a way they can already get from artists they’ve already got? Or could it just be that it wasn’t racism that motivated them, but the fact you don’t provide what they think they can sell? They’re a business, not a charity.
That’s it exactly. Rantheman, provide them with something and persuade them they can sell it and they’ll give you your deal in a New York minute. Does you music appeal to Taiwanese teenagers? That’s what it needs to do.
thank you all for yopur comments. but first of all: the public didn’t demand mindless idol pop singers. that market demanded was created by narrowing the scope of what’s heard and available. second thst taiwan public does buy foreign artists. 3rd, the only foreigners making it inpop music here are ASS LICKERS who say “yes suh yes suh. i’s happy to be yo house nigga and do what you yellow masta tell me to” ‘i’ll be yo lil’ ole foerigner singin them cute songs masta". just like the ones on the fucking TV shows with no fucking backbone.
wake people! and i didn’t say all idol pop is bad. but the whole iundustry has been HIJACKED by the needs of cell phone, cosmetics, and tampon companies to the point that people who have something to offer musically (tw or foriegner) have no input whatso ever because taiwan da guh da needs a ling dz ling or similar to be its singing model.
no industry should be hijacked away from what it was meant to be. the music industry is the music industry, not a collection of pretty faces to sell cosmetics and what not.
fuck mayday, SHE and the rest.
again thank all of your for responding. i hope i wasn’t unkind. no unkindness or disrespect intended.
Wrong. That’s exactly what it is. Same in the UK for the big labels. Difference is, in the UK and probably the states, there are smaller labels that pick up the “real” music and make a little money. If an artist makes enough, the big label will pick them up, but they won’t spend any money promoting a band that has “ability to play good music” as its only selling point. It’s just not profitable.
And sorry, but in Taiwan, the VAST majority of teens DO want cute, and if the Taiwan labels don’t produce, they’ll spend their money on Japanese or Korean cute instead – I mean, shit, in Taipei the market for non-mainstream is comfortably filled by the Wall and Underground, both of which are tiny. If there was demand, there would be venues. Simple as that. And of course, businessmen looking to make a buck.
Your problem Ran is that you don’t seem to understand how the industry works.
First of all: Bullshit. If that were true, we wouldn’t be in the middle of a continuing onslaught of barely talented but good looking pop idols that has gone on for decades. And before that, we had good looking and debatably talented movie idols, theatre idols, and so on and so forth back through the ages. Secondly, yes, the Taiwanese public does buy foreign artists - like Britney Spears, Justin Timberlake, Eminem, and various other largely interchangable pop stars and rappers. And even the rappers are largely just the ones with marketable faces and images rather than good music. The foreign artists that sell big here are basically exactly the same as the Taiwanese artists that sell big, just performing in a different language and sporting different skin colors.
It’s the music industry. “Industry” as in “a distinct group of productive or profit-making enterprises” (see Merriam-Webster). The key word here being profit-making. The industry and the art are virtually entirely seperate things.
well its an industry that’s gonna end. cause when i can get a way to sell downloads on my site (hear me sophia? get my site up…talking to my webmaster there, sorry) me and others can generate our own income and get gigs from our sites. who needs a record company anyway?
The music industry won’t end. Vinyl and Tape may be dead, but sound quality is the listeners choice. Burn off the internet = listening to me gran singing it.
Dream on. Downloads won’t kill the industry - they’ll eventually find a way to work with that (see iTunes). You may well succeed through online sales, gigs, and word of mouth - I hope you do, and many others have already - but it’s not going to kill the industry. They’ve moved through storage media in the past, they’ve taken different approaches - it’s only a matter of time before they finally face the music and take the next evolutionary step. And even if the industry as we know it crashes, you know what’s going to happen? Exactly the same as what’s happened with most other industries that’ve crashed in recent memory - it’ll come back, albeit in a slightly (or maybe wildly) different form.
Really, I do hope you succeed doing it your way - others have, and it’s good to see people still willing to stick to their principles. But you’re not going to kill off the music industry doing it. You’ll just be in a different sector of it. You need to realize that even though you hate it, there are plenty, plenty of people who don’t, and as long as they’re ponying up the cash, the monster will continue to breathe.
thanks tom hill, tetsuo, sand, and everybody. first of all i want to apologize for ranting. as tom asked “is it personal?”…yeah… it’s personal.
i’m really put off by the immature unprofessionalism at these companies. did you know ROCK hired A&R from one of their little teen to 20s bands one time? can you image guys Sand’s age and mine being decided on by kids who haven’t even ba da bing yet?maybe i’m wrong, but just because they’re kids doesn’t mean they can take a pulse correctly.
you can ask if you can send your material, but actually it’s already been decided that YOU won’t get in. ROCK has signed agreements with production companies to ONLY ACCEPT what those companies provide them. a guy at Rock was nice enough to whisper this to me. so your sending your CDs to ROCK is merely a formality in wasted time!
music is not what these companies do, as i think sand was getting at. they provide models that can sing and use them to sell products. they’ve said very clearly about my music 'that’s not what we do". do they scoop new talent? no. they have lots of"talent." they know what they’re doing.
what gets me most is how all these books and classes in the west tell you how to do it (get in the business) but it means nothing here. absolutely NOTHING in these manuals applies here. i’ve spent my whole life polishing what i do, only to end up THE MOST HATED person in the the taiwan music circles. maybe that’s cause i slug back, but they drew first blood. they’ve doen it time and time agian.
look when i’m scheduled to be on first, i’m on first. you can’t ask me that 5 minutes before going on to switch. you can’t tell the boss of XX pub to not let me play there.you can’t intro me as lao wai ah doah gah. you can’t get up and shake hand with ithers during my performance (as a bunch of politicians did one time) you can’t offer me contracts to leave.( i still can’t figure this one out). you don’t have to treat me like jason borne when i go to ask about submitting a CD. what 's the big secret. you don’t have to threaten me with jail (a cop did that) for seeking a recoding contract. is the taiwan record industry connected to the government? you bet. they don’t want guys like me who don’t ha la ha la and play along with the inferior foreigner image that they need to project to boost the morale of the taiwanese people.
shit i got verbally attacked on shr jieh da bu tong. 2 on 1 is not fair. they were prepared.
like i said, i’m not mickey mantle. i’m not li hai. i just know where i’m going musically.
thanks for listening to the rant.
Nice rant, rantheman. You should have put all that info in your first post!
I can accept all your points. At the risk of a tongue lashing though… Maybe you just aren’t their cup of tea. (I know, if you were twenty, taiwanese and buff they be kissing your ass.)
Rantheman, you are trying to do something incredibly difficult. It took me nearly 2 years to get any kind of serious (I.E. PAID) drama work here, but I got there in the end by doing freebies at bigger schools, until someone, (Thankyou Kenneth) saw fit to give me a shot, and I think that’s cos he saw I was genuine about my wish to teach drama. Now my foot is in the door, and I totally love my job.
Do independent labels exist here? Could you start your own? If your music is good enough then won’t you gather a following? Even Phoebe on ‘Friends’ had a following!
why would i tongue lash you? that’d be rude especially considering that you’ve listened to my rant when you didn’t have to. thanks for taking the time out of your schedule!
on getting a following: it’s hard because i always get pushed out of gigs.
i get upset because i need a new Virus Indigo 2 to do what i wanna do. i can save up for it of course, but then i spend 60,000 on it and nowhere to play. i can’t go to this and that pub. they’ll say we need a band. but i don’t really want to do bands, though i’m rehearsing one now. i’m synth, guitar, and looper. nobody understand that. that’s all i wanna do.
i can offer to play for" nani nani festival" dakara, we need a band, sumimasen!" they don’t get it. i can’t explain a thing to them. i’m synth guitar and looper. do you know how much sound comes from a synth? not a yamaha keyboard. a SYNTHESIZER? they have no concept. do you know what an arppegiator is? no they don’t. even though my wife writes this stuff down in my promos they still have no idea. no concept of what a looper is. it won’t be exciting enough.only bands are exciting. one person could not be exciting. therefore it must be rejected.
A friend of mine had a similar problem in Japan. His solution was to ask local high school girls if they’d like to create a ‘performance dance’ to go along with his music. Ta Da. He got himself a ‘band of performers’ and he was they only one who played an instrument (Guitar + Synth). The girls danced away merrily, and the audience had something to look at besides his big nosed mug. It won’t get you that contract yet, but it will get you gigs. BTW there are few solo artists these days. Even the terminally boring yet obviously talent David Grey took 4 (?) years to get a deal, in his home country! (Only recent example I can think of, sorry.) There is no such thing as a ‘lucky break.’ Unless you are Paris Hilton.
So, advertise for dancers (not the baggy pants hip hop variety who CANNOT find the beat for the life of them) and start practicing. You are an artist, go make some art. Leave the suited friggers to play by themselves. When they want you you will be in a position to say Feck Off.
BTW George Michael and Prince may have something to say about the coveted ‘contract!’
yeah, george michael got stuck when he was 18 by Sony and even now he can’t get out of it, or so i hear.
yeah no more contract seeking for me. i want to use my site to get gigs. thanks for the ideas. i will work up a new promo.
by the way i’m opening a food stand in Ji Ji so i’ll probably do some performing after i close in the evenings. also i’m gonna do shi men ding one day on a spur til they run me off.
Who really gives a flying f**k about all this music industry tripe? Rantheman, you don’t actually believe you are eliciting any sympathy with your rants, are you? So big record companies in Taiwan and elsewhere put out pap, and you can’t get a record deal, and we should get better music than all this shite they put out, blah blah blah…
Good music wills out. Eventually people will beat a path to your door if you make good music, and that will mean either that you become a multi-millionaire, or you make a living with modest tours through the midwest, or your bi-weekly hobby gig at the local pub draws a dedicated cache of locals and you get mentioned once in the entertainment section of the local newspaper.
Why do you want fame? If you get the fame by being good, then great. If you get the fame by simply trying to be famous then you have to be an airhead like the guys in Motley Crue or something, or else it will be so soul-crushingly empty that you won’t be able to bear it no matter how much cash you have. Why do you think thousands of B-list Hollywood actors spend half their lives on a psychiatrist’s couch having their sordid egos coddled in order to get through another week? Would it have something to do with the fact that in those quiet moments before they fall asleep their rare moments of introspection torment and taunt them with the uncomfortable truth that their incomes are premised upon a nice figure, the right dimple, and having sucked the right dick at the right time? Ah, you will snort, better to be rich and miserable than poor and miserable. But, I would retort, what about doing something you like and being comfortably middle class? Why do so many lottery winners commit suicide?
Which brings me to this–maybe not that many people like your music. Is that a possibility? So you play as a hobbyist. Is that so bad?
the kind of rejection i’ve faced at the hands of the taiwan “music” industry is not professional rejection. that i can handle.i would say that nothing i’ve encountered here in this industry could be what you’d call professional. it’s a petty system that had better not compare itself to the one in place in the states, corrupt though that one may be.
the fact is lots of contracts are given out, some to foriegners. what kind of foreigner is the problem. this one forigner even admitted on Tv that he was doing what they want so he could be famous.