Fuck Off To Corporate Rock

WARNING! X RATED RANT AHEAD!

I am not prone to rants. Unless I am. 

What prompted this one is something we have all run up against: The limiting of how we can use music we have already paid for.

So here we go. I hope you can hear your own voice in this.

Hey, greedy-ass-uber-succesful-rock bands. I’ve paid for your music at least five times over. I bought your albums (even the “Greatest Hits” jobs that were just duplicate compilations of music I already had); I bought your CD’s when the medium changed over; I even bought some of your MP3’s when that became the way of the world. I went to your concerts, shelled out big bucks for the tickets, and paid ridiculous sums for your insanely over-priced-sweat-shop-made flimsy t-shirts. Without regret, or complaint. I did it happily and willingly. Because I’m a fan. Because I support you.

But now you have become what you most loathed when you made your best music. You have become greedy, penny-pinching, disengaged, out of touch corporate shill fuckwads. 

And don’t give me this shit that “You don’t understand what it’s like being this successful”, or that “We have to protect our art”. I’m not talking about taking advantage of your music that we haven’t already paid for. I’m not taking about making money off of your music. I’m talking about being free to enjoy, and create (remember that word?) from music we’ve already bought. 

That doesn’t seem okay with you. You want to limit how we enjoy it. You want to limit how we listen to it.

So fucking what if a guy from DeMoines, Iowa makes a video for his wife and uses your music? He’s not making a nickel off of it. He’s using it to enhance lives. And so fucking what if he even sells 25 copies of it to friends and family who were moved by it? Yeah, maybe he ends up making $100, gross, over his expenses, but your music just got more exposure. Guess what? You just sold a few more copies of that song on iTunes. Or you just made a few more CD or album sales; and you made that coin by doing absolutely nothing but allowing a true fan to honor your music. 

And, as far as his “profit” of one-hundred beans goes, I’m not even talking about the time he put into it. That, he did out of true love. Oh, wait, you probably don't understand that four letter word. You lost that when you stopped being artists making money and became just making money. Go back to bean counting. Because that’s all you guys give a fuck about now. And, by the way, if your current music sucks, it’s precisely because of everything I just talked about.

The same argument for “Protecting Our Music” was made in the 1970’s when it became possible to record albums on cassettes. The industry cried “This is the death of music! Nobody is going to buy albums anymore! Woe is us!”. Guess what happened? An explosion of the industry, not the death of it. Your music got more exposure. Which translated into sales, into longevity; into more albums, into more opportunities, more tours, more groupies, more money; into the birth of classics rock stations, which has given you second, third, and fourth winds. As it should. That is what you reaped because that is what you sowed. Good for you. 

The bottom line is that, more exposure to your music means more to your bottom line. Maybe not this quarter, but certainly in the long run. And even in the not so long run. But since you one time creative musicians have now become simply corporate drones churning out passionless, half-assed elevator worthy tripe, all you give a rat’s ass about is this quarter. 

You’ve paid your dues. You’ve bled for your music. You’ve toured non-stop, endured the hardships of the road, become addicts, recvovered, and spent your own money arduously creating your craft. We applaud thee. We supported thee. We love thee. If you don’t have it in you anymore to make it the way you made it, we don’t blame you. Thank you for all your years of creating music that enriched our lives. But for fucks sake, stop sticking it up our fucking ass in your golden years.  

I’m not referring to up and coming bands who haven’t yet reached the status that, no matter what they put out, it’s gonna go platinum. Those new comer bands need every nickel. And I will gladly give it to them, just like I did to you. I’m talking about established, multi-million dollar acts who make money whenever they fart. Acts like, not to name names, but I will; Metallica. The Eagles. 

Cut the shit, assholes. Your children’s children’s children are going to live fat off the hog because of what you’ve already done. And that’s great. They deserve it. You deserve it.

And your fans deserve a break from your rapaxcious bullshit regarding music we’ve already fucking paid for.

Please, go make some music as passionate as this writing. Or go back to bean counting. And we’ll find a way rip you off, because it's your own mindless attitude that creates that paradigm.

Well now. That felt good. 

© 2018 Clint Piatelli, MuscleHeart LLC, and Red F Publishing. All rights reserved (assholes).