Do We Really Need A Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame?

The ballots have been counted and it’s been announced that this year’s Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductees will be Nirvana, KISS, Hall & Oats, Peter Gabriel, Linda Ronstadt and Cat Stevens. While it’s hard to argue with the quality of work of these fine artists (they’re all well deserving of recognition), I still keep coming back to the same question - Do we really need a rock and roll hall of fame?

For one thing, the merits of the arts are nearly impossible to quantify. Many a movie, television show, album or piece of artwork that does big sales numbers may not have what’s widely believed to be much in the way of artistic merit, but then again, who’s to say? As the proverb goes, “One man’s treasure is another man’s trash.” What I might see as art might have you shouting it down as crass hackmanship, or vice versa. And when it comes to affecting the art of others, what influences you might have absolutely no effect on me.

So if you can’t quantify it or judge it by the moving target of influence, how about longevity? Here again, just because you’ve managed to survive in the business for 25 years (as is the requirement of all Rock and Roll Hall of Fame nominees) doesn’t necessarily mean that you were great, only good enough to survive. You may wind up being an influence based on a volume of work and the fact that you’ve grown or maintained your visibility over time, but does that qualify someone for any kind of hall of fame?

Actually hall of fames in general are fraught with problems and all are filled with controversy. Perhaps sports is best equipped to handle a hall of fame since induction can be based on performance statistics. In baseball, for instance, if a pitcher has 300 wins or a batter has 500 home runs in his career, his entrance into the Baseball Hall of Fame used to be automatic before the steroid era skewed the numbers. Can you do the same with music? Not as easily. Read more on Forbes.

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Spotify Begins Original Music Series

Spotify may soon find itself under siege thanks to the introduction of iTunes Radio the other day, but an initial response might bring at least some music fans into the fold. Yesterday the streaming service launched an original documentary series called Spotify Landmark which will feature significant moments in music history, and is built along the lines of Behind The Music.

The first episode is "The Real Story of Nirvana's In Utero," and it debuts on the 20th anniversary of the album and a week before the album's deluxe reissue. The audio-only program features lots of behind the scenes stories from Nirvana bassist Krist Novoselic, producer Steve Albini, Curt Kirkwood from The Meat Puppets (who toured with the band), and comedian Bobcat Goldthwait (who opened for the band).

The site doesn't require membership, but it does require that you sign in to Spotify to hear it. It launches the series of smaller clips that play sequentially.

One of the things that both smaller cable channels and Netflix discovered is that they can compete with the big guys if they have compelling original programming. Landmark probably won't cause a major shift to Spotify, but it's a start in their fight against Apple.

Nirvana's Original Contract

Here's a great piece of music history. It's part of the original recording agreement between Nirvana and the indie label Sub Pop. There are a number of interesting things here if you take the time to read it:

1. There are 4 people on the agreement, and drummer Dave Grohl isn't one of them, since he didn't join the band until a year after the deal was signed. Jason Everman had originally paid for the sessions for the band's first album Bleach (a grand total of $606.17), and was kindly included on the deal.

2. The deal is only for one year with two option years, which is pretty short when compared to a major label deal, who usually try to hold onto an artist for at least 5 to 7 years.

3. The advance for the first year was $600! The first option year was $12,000 and the the second was $24,000. The option year advances turned out to be blessing and a curse. Bleach sold about 40,000 copies the first year (a pretty good amount for an indie), but Kurt Cobain was dissatisfied with Sub Pop's promotion of the album and wanted off the label. The advance amount for the second year was too much for most indie labels to absorb, so they were forced to look for a larger record label, which turned out to be David Geffen's DGC, a label that was distributed by Warner Bros at the time.

The rest, as they say, was history, as the band's second album Nevermind blew up and sold 25 million.

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Help support this blog. Any purchases made through our Amazon links help support this website with no cost to you.

Follow me on Forbes for some insights on the new music business.

You should follow me on Twitter for daily news and updates on production and the music business.

Check out my Big Picture blog for discussion on common music, engineering and production tips and tricks.