Are You An Artist or Entertainer?

I’m happy to bring you a thoughtful guest post from Primus Luta ,who posed on Twitter a juicy question ripe for discussion concerning the difference between artists and entertainers. I whole-heartedly agree that this is a real-world question that eventually every creative-type must ask himself. There’s obviously a lot to say on the subject (more than 140 characters), and this article ensued…Please share your own thoughts and opinions below - I’d love to know how you’ve dealt with this question in your own life/career….

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Artist Or Entertainer

by Primus Luta

This stems from an off-beat twitterlogue referencing a recent debate over on hypebot about the new free economy of the music industry.  I know, oxymoron right, a free economy?  Or is the oxymoron a music industry?

Lets put this all into perspective.  RECORD LABELS HAVE HISTORICALLY BEEN BAD BUSINESS INVESTMENTS (great for laundering money though, but that’s another story).  The labels didn’t all get eaten up by media conglomerates because they were making oh so much money.  They were investments to complete the totalitarian vision of the ‘media conglomerate’, with the added bonus of being able to write a good portion of it off as a loss come tax season.

Okay, you’re going to argue, “but they were making hand over fist with multiple multi-platinum artists and incredible sales records only a decade ago.”  And you are right, but what happened in the process?  There was the shift from artist development revolving around the development of the artist’s talent, to the development of the artist’s marketability, which isn’t to say there wasn’t marketing before, but now the market came before the music.

The line between art and entertainment has always been blurry, particularly with the rise of “popular music” but I think where we are today is a crossroads where every musician is going to have to ask the question of themselves - am I an artist or an entertainer, and from that determine how or even if they fit into the industry.

For the entertainer, they must accept the fact that they are the product.  Not the music, the entertainer.  A CD is like the schwag (as opposed to swag) you get for joining the fan club.  The true ‘fan’ wants you the entertainer in every conceivable way.  So you better be prepared to put yourself in as many places as that fan can consume you as possible.  

The best way to get  maximum exposure, is going through one of those media conglomerate owned major labels.  Unfortunately this means losing a good percentage of the money you could earn through your brand, but truth of the matter is you likely wouldn’t have access to a tenth of those outlets if it weren’t for signing that deal.  Just make sure when you do your lawyers have ensured you’re at least getting 10%.  It’s a hard road, and ultimately every year less than a hundred new artists will reach a major label, and out of those, ninety-five percent of them will probably fail.

On the other hand if you’re an artist, your art is the product, and in the digital age you’ve got to start rethinking the way you present that art.  Squabbling about the profits you can make selling cheap MP3’s of your music is a waste of time.  Compared to the CD you get for joining the fan club, the MP3 is like the flyer someone handed you at the concert.  Imagine if they gave it to you and asked you for a dollar?

MP3’s are here to stay, but are they the medium?  About a month ago I wrote an article calling the MP3 an advertisement.  If that’s the case then what is the medium of the music industry?  To rephrase a currently popular meme, the media is the massage.  Okay that only kind of works, but the message is this: you have to use the media as a part of the art.  If the art is a song, extend that songs reach with a video of equal artistic value.   If it’s an album, wrap that album in an interactive experience which engages the fan directly with the art.  Give them access to the session files.  Hold a remix contest.  Create a game for the single.  All of these things done in support of the art as a whole project, and that is what you sell your fans, both physically and digitally.  The whole package as art.

So how are small indy labels or the diy artist supposed to afford all of this?  Well, remember I began this with the proclamation that record labels historically aren’t good investments?  You don’t go into the label business without realizing the odds are against you, especially if you’re promoting art over entertainment, as such hopefully your motivation is the art itself.  If that is the case you don’t really have a choice in the matter.  You can opt to remain a ‘classic indy label’ and just put out music, but the trend for those right now is closing up shop.  If you want to stay afloat you have to recognize that the album format is changing into its rich media cousin, and as such you’re no longer a record label you’re a rich media music label.

Think I’m just speculating, that’s fine, but the major labels are already starting to pick up on it. They’ll do it in an entertainment package.  It’s up to us to do it for art.

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Primus Luta is an art evangelist who maintains his web presence at AvantUrb, while working on his current Heads Project (#plpheads).  When he’s not prosteletyzing art or making it himself you can often find him in the Twitterverse.