Death Grips is Amusing, Maybe Very Clever

Some of you might be mystified by the record business, although I don't know why since it hardly exists at this point. But you might think that it's glamorous. You might be thinking, "Why? As 99% of the garbage out there proves, I don't even need talent. I can auto-tune my way to shitting huge chunks of gold every morning, which I can trade for sports cars , underage groupies and cocaine!"

If you believe this, you're wrong for two reasons.

First, record companies are among the most evil constructs in human history. Unless you're the luckiest of the lucky, the major labels will fuck you in the ass until you bleed from your eyes. Want to be in debt for the rest of your life? Being on a label gives you pretty good odds of pulling it off.

The industry has one of the most unique business models that I've ever heard. Let's say some A&;R hack hears you in some karaoke bar in Phoenix and "loves your sound, man!" You sign a deal with him and receive the "big advance" that Springsteen sang about in "Rosalita." That's great news, ain't it?

Not exactly. See, an "advance" is just that. It's a loan. The term is "advance against royalties," which means the label collects that back before they pay you a dime from your record sales. And to make a record in the first place, you need to go to a big time studio, mostly because the label insists on it. That'll cost you anywhere between a hundred and fifty thousand and half a million dollars, which you also pay back from your royalties. The there's promotion, distribution and tour support, all of which will come out of your pocket. The legendary Steve Albini describes the situation  far better than I ever could. At the end of the day, you're fucked. And that's if you have a moderate hit! This is what happens to artists who make a profit for the label!

Let's say that you're the 1% of the 1% that gets really big! Looka you, you're Taylor Swift or Green Day! Congratulations! But the the label owns your master tapes (which is an art fag term for your record) in perpetuity, even though you busted your balls paying those bastards their advances back and got around accounting that makes even the government's look good. Look at this way, the label is a bank and your album is a house. The analogy falls apart when you learn that the bank still owns your house after you pay your mortgage, though.

If somebody approaches you and says, "I'm from Sony Records and we really love you," you should drive a stake through his fucking heart before he drives one through yours.

The second reason you're wrong is that, because if you're an artist, the overwhelming likelihood is that you're a moron. You really think that you're going to be Taylor Swift or Green Day in a market that's going to shit faster than can properly measured.

That being the case, you'll sign pretty much anything that the soulless and congenitally evil record company puts in front of you. You won't just sign away your publishing (which is where musicians make the real money,) you'll also give away your merchandising, which is another huge cash cow. Always remember that you're a fucking moron with auto-tune software. If the Beatles signed monstrously shitty deals, you will, too. God knows, you're probably stupid enough that you'll hire a lawyer that the label recommends to you without wondering why the label would recommend a lawyer to you.

In the interim, you probably bought Moms a huge house that neither of you can afford and blew the rest of your advance on cocaine and underage groupies. I'd do that and I actually know better. You don't.

Congratulations, shithead! You're no longer singing karaoke in Phoenix, but you're in the worst possible place in life: You're famous and broke! Yes, you're MC Hammer.

That's why I generally applaud anything that fucks over the music industry, including illegally downloading their shitty product. They want you to believe that you're ripping off the artist, but you're really ripping off the labels before they get a chance to. Fuck them.

And that's why I became interested in the strange and savage saga of Death Grips this week. Death Grips makes something called "noise rap" that I can only imagine is terrible, although I'm downloading some of it as I write this. But they did something unimaginably cool, which is why I'm writing something this long about it.

You see, Death Grips was recently signed to Epic records (which is owned by Sony and made Michael Jackson the galactic superstar that he was before he went insane and destroyed himself.) They were recording their sophomore major label release, No Love Deep Web, when they had a brilliant idea.

They decided to leak No Love Deep Web themselves on the internet. For free. With highly NSFW cover art (trust me before you click the link. I warned you. Okay, it's a huge, hard cock with the title written on it with a Sharpie. Please don't go there. ) In a statement they said that we'd hear the album for the first time at the same time that Epic did. Epic, of course, went batshit fucking crazy. One of their VP swine sent this tersely-worded e-mail to the band's manager;

Peter —

As you are aware from our several conversations today, Epic is extremely upset and disappointed that the artist decided to release an album without Epic's knowledge or involvement. As you know, the artist has not only blatantly breached a number of provisions in the applicable recording agreement, it has also willfully infringed Epic's copyright rights with respect to these masters. Equally important, without provocation, the artist has made false and disparaging statements on various websites about Epic. All this, despite the fact that Epic has done nothing except wholeheartedly support the band, even though the band has made certain decisions that have financially damaged Epic.

Given the situation in which Epic finds itself, please immediately pull the album from all websites on which it is currently being distributed. In addition, please promptly provide the masters (which Epic owns) to us. Once we have cleared the tracks, we intend to quickly put the album up for sale.

This album will not count towards the Recording Commitment. As I am sure you understand, Epic will not pay for an album that thousands of people have already downloaded. Any royalties on sales will be accounted and paid pursuant to the terms of the recording agreement.

Please confirm that you will comply with what is set forth in this e-mail, and that we are in agreement on how the parties will move forward with respect to this album.

Epic reserves all of its rights and remedies.

Heath

Of course, Epic dropped Death Grips yesterday.

Now you might think that this was a really dumb thing for Death Grips to do, right? But remember, you're an idiot. You think that you're going to Taylor Swift or Green Day.

For years, I've been hearing that the Internet was going to make musicians rich and famous. And it actually has a pretty good track record doing that ... for musicians that are already rich and famous. If you're Radiohead, Prince or the Nine Inch Nails guy, the Internet is a boon to your bottom line.

When you're in that position, you don't need to sell many records to get rich. The biggest acts on the world only get a 25% royalty on the wholesale cost of each album they sell. But if they self-release on the Internet, they get over 80% of retail after production costs. Let's say that you need to sell 2 million units to make decent money off of a major label album. If you self-release, absent manufacturing and distribution, you can start doing that at around 100,000 units. Pretty sweet!

The problem with that business model is that it only works if you're already famous. If you're not, you're just another asshole in the basement competing with every other asshole with an auto-tune program that thinks that they're going to be Taylor Swift or Green Day, too. The Internet really doesn't have much of a marketing department.

In a roundabout way, this brings me to the story of the Sex Pistols. The Pistols became famous before they released a full-length album because their antics got them dropped by EMI. Never Mind the Bollocks ... Here's the Sex Pistols went on to become a legendary album after it was released by Virgin. The Sex Pistols subsequently became very famous and, if the band is to be believed, stayed broke.

But imagine what they could have made if there was no Virgin Records to release it on after they were shit-canned by EMI, but there was an Internet. Messers Rotten, Jones, Cook and Matlock wouldn't be living in shitty apartments today.

Long story short, Death Grips signed to a label that paid to make their record. Then they got themselves dropped in a way that made them reasonably well-known in the process. And now they're free to self-release, unencumbered by the record company horseshit that turns everyone that has ever touched a guitar into a junkie asshole.

This might be the smartest thing I've ever seen musicians do.