{"id":9200,"date":"2015-10-19T22:09:32","date_gmt":"2015-10-20T01:09:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/culturedarm.com\/?p=9200"},"modified":"2015-10-19T22:11:28","modified_gmt":"2015-10-20T01:11:28","slug":"cultureteca-18-10-15","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/culturedarm.com\/staging\/5793\/cultureteca-18-10-15\/","title":{"rendered":"Cultureteca 18.10.15"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Cultureteca<\/a><\/p>\n

On this week’s Cultureteca, Joanna Newsom becomes another preeminent artist to criticse\u00a0Spotify; Beasts of No Nation<\/em>, directed by\u00a0Cary Fukunaga and starring\u00a0Idris Elba and Abraham Attah, is released as Netflix’s first original feature; the 2015 Wildlife Photographer of the Year is announced; and the first Democratic presidential debate becomes the\u00a0subject for Saturday Night Live<\/em>.<\/p>\n

* * *<\/p>\n

Joanna Newsom on the ‘Garbage System’ of Spotify<\/strong><\/p>\n

Joanna Newsom’s Divers<\/em><\/a>\u00a0is due out on Friday, featuring the songs ‘Sapokanikan’<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0‘Leaving The City’<\/a>.\u00a0The video for the album’s title track\u00a0– like ‘Sapokanikan’, directed by Paul Thomas Anderson<\/a>, and featuring the work of New York City artist Kim Keever, who also provides the album art – is currently showing at cinemas throughout the United States, soon to extend to the United Kingdom and across Europe<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile ahead of the release of Divers<\/em>, Newsom has been speaking to major news outlets, including The New York Times<\/em> (‘With “Divers,” Joanna Newsom Is Clinging to Her Every Word’<\/a>),\u00a0The Guardian<\/em> (‘Joanna Newsom: “It was a tonic to know I’m not insane”‘<\/a>), the Chicago Tribune<\/em> (‘Joanna Newsom’s world in clearer focus on “Divers”‘<\/a>), and the Los Angeles Times<\/em> (‘Joanna Newsom calls Spotify “a villainous cabal” and “a garbage system”‘<\/a>).<\/p>\n

\"Credit:<\/a><\/p>\n

As the title of the last piece makes plain, Newsom has emerged as the latest major artist to criticise\u00a0Spotify’s business model and its manner of treating artists. She says:<\/p>\n

‘Spotify is like a villainous cabal of major labels. The business is built from the ground up as a way to circumvent the idea of paying their artists. The major labels were not particularly happy with the fact that as the royalty money dwindled more and more, their portion of the percentage split agreed upon in their licensing agreement got smaller and smaller.<\/em><\/p>\n

So someone came up with a great idea that if they start a streaming company, they can make those percentages even smaller. Infinitesimal, because they can make their money from advertising and subscription, and they don\u2019t have to pay their artists anything for that. So it\u2019s set up in a way that they can just rob their artists, and most of their artists have no way to fight it because they\u2019re contractually obligated to stay with the label for x amount of time and you can\u2019t really opt out. It\u2019s a garbage system.<\/em><\/p>\n

If it wasn\u2019t such a cynical and musician-hating system, I would be all for it. If there was some way they could divide the money they make from advertising and the money they make from subscriptions and actually give it to artists, I would have a completely different opinion about it.<\/em><\/p>\n

I mean, for all of its what seem to be many flaws that the Tidal system \u2013 I shouldn\u2019t say “many flaws” because I haven\u2019t researched Tidal enough. But I know it was kind of roundly made fun of because of the way in which it was unveiled to the world, but from what I gather they were trying to address the issues that make Spotify so very evil. I don\u2019t know if they successfully did it. I should look into it. I understand why Spotify is great. I wish there was a way to provide the service they provide and have nobody lose, nobody be victimized by that.’<\/em><\/p>\n

Spotify continues to assert that it pays 70% of all its revenue – from advertising as well as from subscriptions – to artists in the form of royalties. However the service continues to earn criticism for\u00a0its lack of transparency<\/a>, with the claim that it fails to keep track of payments<\/a>, and works with major labels to circumvent artists’ contracts<\/a>; for\u00a0an intrusive privacy policy<\/a>; and for\u00a0paying less than competing music streaming services Deezer and TIDAL<\/a>.<\/p>\n

After\u00a0writing an op-ed piece in The Wall Street Journal<\/em> in July entitled \u2018The Future of Music Is a Love Story\u2019, last November Taylor Swift<\/a> pulled her catalogue from Spotify, explaining in an interview with Yahoo<\/a>:<\/p>\n

‘I\u2019m not willing to contribute my life\u2019s work to an experiment that I don\u2019t feel fairly compensates the writers, producers, artists and creators of this music. And I just don\u2019t agree with perpetuating the perception that music has no value and should be free.<\/em><\/p>\n

[Spotify] didn’t feel right to me. I felt like I was saying to my fans, “If you create music someday, if you create a painting someday, someone can just walk into a museum, take it off the wall, rip off a corner off it, and it’s theirs now and they don’t have to pay for it.” I didn’t like the perception that it was putting forth. And so I decided to change the way I was doing things.’<\/em><\/p>\n

And in a February interview with Fast Company<\/a>, Bj\u00f6rk commented on her decision to initially keep\u00a0Vulnicura<\/a><\/em>\u00a0off Spotify, saying:<\/p>\n

‘We\u2019re all making it up as it goes, to be honest. I would like to say there\u2019s some master plan going on, but there isn\u2019t. But a few months ago I emailed my manager and said, “Guess what? This streaming thing just does not feel right. I don\u2019t know why, but it just seems insane.”<\/em><\/p>\n

To work on something for two or three years and then just, Oh, here it is for free. It\u2019s not about the money; it\u2019s about respect, you know? Respect for the craft and the amount of work you put into it. But maybe Netflix is a good model. You go first to the cinema and after a while it will come on \u00adNetflix. Maybe that\u2019s the way to go with streaming. It\u2019s first physical and then maybe you can stream it later.’<\/em><\/p>\n

Swift’s music remains absent from Spotify, while Bj\u00f6rk’s Vulnicura<\/em> was added to the service in early July. Beyonc\u00e9<\/a> and Coldplay are among other artists who have withheld new music\u00a0from Spotify for months following its release. And among Spotify’s fiercest critics are\u00a0Thom Yorke<\/a>, who has described the endeavour as ‘the last desperate fart of a dying corpse’, stating:<\/p>\n

‘When we did the In Rainbows thing what was most exciting was the idea you could have a direct connection between you as a musician and your audience. You cut all of it out, it’s just that and that. And then all these fuckers get in a way, like Spotify suddenly trying to become the gatekeepers to the whole process<\/em><\/p>\n

We don’t need you to do it. No artists needs you to do it. We can build the shit ourselves, so fuck off. But because they’re using old music, because they’re using the majors…the majors are all over it because they see a way of re-selling all their old stuff for free, make a fortune, and not die.’<\/em><\/p>\n

And The Black Keys, whose drummer\u00a0Patrick Carney<\/a> has said:<\/p>\n

‘My whole thing about music is: if somebody\u2019s making money then the artist should be getting a fair cut of it. The owner of Spotify is worth something like 3 billion dollars…he\u2019s richer than Paul McCartney and he\u2019s 30 and he\u2019s never written a song.’<\/em><\/p>\n

* * *<\/p>\n

Beasts of No Nation<\/em> and the Netflix\u00a0Model for Film<\/strong><\/p>\n

On a related theme, as the film industry contends\u00a0with its own issues of financing and distribution, Friday saw the release of Beasts of No Nation<\/em>. Directed by\u00a0Cary Fukunaga –\u00a0the director of the acclaimed first season of True Detective<\/em> – and starring Idris Elba and the debuting Abraham Attah, the film is based on the 2005 novel of the same name by Uzodinma Iweala. It depicts the breakout of civil war in an unspecified African country, and the experiences of a child soldier who falls under the fierce Commandant of a rebel battalion.<\/p>\n