News > Lily Allen
Lily Allen Still Crying About Life Not Being Fair
By Johnny Firecloud
Monday, September 21, 2009
Lily Allen has kicked off a new blog to air her grievances over the file-sharing issue, collecting comments from musicians and fans who are against illegal downloading. The blog, called It’s Not Alright, has collected comments thus far from James Blunt, Matt Bellamy from Muse and Natasha Khan from Bat For Lashes.
Allen has stood in staunch opposition to file-sharing recently, particularly against musicians who are for it – while claiming “I don’t want to promote a divide amongst artists.” In actuality, that’s precisely what she seems to be doing.
“I agree that file sharing is a huge and complicated problem for emerging artists, myself included, and for the future of music,” said Bat For Lashes’ Khan. “I will be taking the time to research this, but if you do have any meetings where we can all get together and discuss (the guy from Muse had some really good points we could take to government), then please let me know.” It’s a level-headed thought, but fails to acknowledge the fact that Kahn wouldn’t be nearly as successful as she is now had her career trajectory been entirely reliant upon her one recognizable single, Daniel.
I’ve personally spoken with dozens of musicians about this very issue, and there are some consistent trends I’ve noticed through all these conversations.
First: the artists who aren’t well-known are eager to get their music heard by anyone they can. They’re happy to be downloaded, traded, offered for free, because they need all the help they can get in standing out among the sea of white noise circulating the payola-laden airwaves.
Second: the more established artists who aren’t that concerned about illegal downloads are confident enough in their own talent and perseverance that they see the distribution benefit, and the increased likelihood that those downloading their songs will actually buy a ticket to their shows, which the artists generally get a much larger cut of.
It seems that those artists whose careers are dependent upon image and PR placement are crying out the loudest. It’s not hard to deduct why that could be.
Name recognition is two-thirds of the game, and the days of blind buys are forever gone. Record labels aren’t trusted anymore, because for more than half a century they’ve run rampant with overcharging fans and underpaying artists. The temple is crumbling, and for once, the music lover is reaping the benefit.
Sure, all music can’t be free, but a sour grapes blog by an artist with little to no artistic merit, who’s known just as much for her drunken stupors, drug binges and bratty behavior as anything she’s put down on wax doesn’t hold nearly as much water as someone with artistic longevity in the cards. New and exciting avenues of legitimate distribution are popping up left and right these days, and while we exist very much in a musical Wild West at the moment, an inferior industry prop whining about kids not buying her album is certainly not helping the cause.
The fact is, people who are only obsessed with artist images and what’s hot on the radio are the ones that aren’t paying for music. The actual music lover will buy music from legitimate artists as well as downloading free. I can account for nearly 500 dollars spent this summer on music and music related products. You probably didn’t hear most of them on the radio, and they are probably having the time of their lives as successful artists. Lily says she’s speaking for the up and coming artists but has so far only posted responses from mostly major succesful artists. But I guess, instead, using her image to start a blog on the internet promoting unknown British artists undermines her own ideals.
for me, this is real, real simple. I’m in the absolute upper tier of music consumers. I buy albums, I buy tshirts. I go to shows, etc. While I don’t know the exact dollar amount I spend on music in the average month, or year, because it varies wildly for a variety of reasons, I bet even more money that I’m in the top 5% of spending by music consumers. If P2P goes away, I stop spending. Not slow down, I stop. I will not spend on a musical product without hearing it first, in it’s entirety. I don’t think I’m the only one who feels this way, and I think it would serve idiots like lily allen, and members of the MPAA, and RIAA wuite well to learn how to fucking read. Every study done on the subject shows that on average, the more a person pirates, the more they also purchase.
But hey, If they want to keep acting like childish brats, and refuse to grow and accept the new realities of the industry and market, while simultaneously ignoring and denying the new markets and new money that the internet and its resources have provided them , then FUCK ‘EM. I don’t NEED to go to the movies, I don’t NEED to own CDs, and I don’t NEED to buy any of their mediocre, overpriced merch. They need to grow up and get a fucking clue, before the sheeple start going indie, which they already are with increasing regularity, then they’ll really have something to cry about from the line at the unemployment office, where they probably belong anyways.
I would never have even bought her first album if it wasn’t for downloading, and I didn’t buy her second album because of downloading. I look at downloading music like trying on pants. If I dl and it is great, I purchase it. If it sucks then it is gone. I can’t even tell you how many albums I have bought from bands I hadn’t even heard of until I read about them somewhere (magazine, blog, etc.)and then dl their stuff to find it be great. Suddenly I am buying their stuff and going to shows.
STFU LILY ALLEN!! drunk biatch!
whoa… The Fear kicks so much ass
I just read an article in my local newspaper about the phenomenon of Sony/BMG not paying royalties to the winners of the Australian Idol franchise over the past couple years. They had some loophole set up so that the cd rush recorded for the Xmas market would directly benefit their coffers and not the artist who recorded it. Peep it.
http://www.news.com.au/entertainment/story/0,28383,26095137-7484,00.html
Lily Allen needs to read this shit and stop whining like a modern day Lars Ulrich. The record cos are her enemy.
really interesting. thanks for the heads up man. it might get me started on a follow-up piece.
Who is Lily Allen?
(See what I did there)
The internet and dling albums has more than doubled the amount of artists i listen to and buy cd’s by, like Mew for instance, dEUS, Drive by Truckers, Deerhunter, Atlas Sound, TVotR, etc, etc, etc, I could go on for a few days listing all the bands I’ve discovered.
The Reason I discovered these bands was through music forums, I heard good stuff about the bands, downloaded an album and then subsequently purchased the bands back catalogues, dvd’s etc.
For instance, Drive By Truckers, I downloaded 3 songs, Lookout Mountain, Women Without Whiskey and Decoration Day, a couple years later and i’ve bought nine albums, a dvd, 2 patterson hood solo albums, 2 jason isbell solo albums, 5 hold steady albums and 2 centro-matic albums, the hold steady and centro-matic albums came due to supporting DBT and Patterson recommending them on the DBT website.
Yes me downloading those 3 songs have really hurt the artist(and a couple of other bands) greatly huh?
Hey, that’s a great idea. A quick look through bands I likely would never have bought albums from without downloading…
Against Me, The Kills, Living Legends, Lamb, Anecdote, Thievery Corporation, Electric Six, Atmosphere, Bat For Lashes, Brother Ali, Builders And The Butchers, Cold War Kids, Cat Power, The Decemberists, Eyedea & Abilities, Jenny Lewis, Mastodon, Peaches, Pete Philly & Perquisite, Animal Collective, Pinback… the list goes on and on.
I’m in work and some sites (Lily’s blog) is blocked. So i haven’t read it, but let me get this straight.
Lily Allen is declaring herself spokesperson for all the new bands out there and wanting a clampdown on free music? Correct me if I’m wrong but isn’t she one of the “starlets” who emerged from the whole myspace music scene a couple of years ago? Fuck knows how many times her songs were streamed for free and she goes and says this?
I have a soft spot for her music but she really is a stupid bitch.
I’d say she doesn’t give a shit about the whole “emerging artists”, that’s just an excuse to cry out for attention.
On the other hand it might be a pathetically desperate move by the music industry, maybe they’re trying to distract people from the new model of marketing displayed by the likes of Trent Reznor. Fuck them anyway.
just in case you’ve been out of the loop… the “taking things is bad” queen, stole the words right out of techdirt’s mouth, I mean page….
the original:
http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20090914/0348436181.shtml
his response to her pirated post:
http://www.techdirt.com/index.php
she should stfu if she has nothing original to say
I just DL her album out of spite, take that, damn she’s stupid and ^^^agreed, she should stfu and quit whinning, so very annoying and she DID come out of the myspace free music streaming, etc. and got recognition through it, so its quite hypocitical as well. so yea she should stfu….
She should be aware that cd industry will diminish with time, as it should. And all that copyrighted sh**. Most of that money goes to major labels anyway….Musicians should and do make most of their money from live gigs and tours
If she’s worried about money, she should do porn. I would totally pay to see that.
@zoopster
whatever, you’d pirate that too
so on top of the obvious ignorance, she’s also a worthless plagiarizing piece of shit.
good lookin’ out sars. i think i got what i need to finish a big rant i’ve had brewing.
Sounds scary, especially after you praised her for the music she’s made.
Lily ain’t that stupid, though. I’m sure, by now, she has a lot more supporters, and whatever they’re planning, it sure ain’t gonna get any more rational. Besides, where did the matter of music appreciation go? Every artist out there talks as if all the reason to making music for them, was just selling it. I always thought it makes them happy when people actually love what they do, and not only when they pay for it. I know they have to make a living somehow, but file sharing isn’t the problem here, music industry is. Each band sells less records now, than it would 10 years ago, but the overall number of records sold sure hasn’t dropped, that’s because there’s shitload of new artists. If we divide the number of records sold by the number of acts out there… And hey, Micheal Jackson, and Pink Floyd are still selling their records. By the way, if you thought Lily was being hypocrite, when she copy-pasted that stuff, then think about this. She’s talking about emerging artists, when in reality, they wouldn’t get no promotion, anyway. I mean, tell me where can I buy some Insert_a_band_name_that_no-one_have_actually_ever_heard_of album? Why should I cope with the terms of marketing music industry forces on me? “There’s freedom of choice, but nothing to choose from”, cause nothing worth listening gets promoted, and idiots buy what they see on MTV, or hear on the radio. On the contrary the Internets allow new artists to have a far better chance to promote themselves, all it takes is some good imagination, an idea to get people to listen to them. That, and also some good music, ’cause there’s no other way to tell apart good acts from the shitty ones, than to actually listening to the music they made.
What a coincidence. After I said she wasn’t getting statements from independent unknowns, she posted one. From a group called Sirens. Maybe I just don’t like this type of music, but I’m pretty sure that piracy isn’t Sirens’ problem: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LDUvAerNkxQ
Those Sirens are, like, soooo independent… Damn! Lily oughta be ashamed for trying to promote shit like that.
i back the porn idea. but she would start moaning about the free stream sites!
[...] this week, we reported on Lily Allen’s new blog, where she has spoken out against P2P trading. Our readers respectfully disagreed in our comments [...]
Well, that was an easy kill if I ever saw one. The blog’s scraped clean, the statements have been removed… and now she’s out of the business entirely? Just like that? Why can’t all idiots go down this easily?
Another interesting note…
To: Bob Lefsets
From: Mike Masnick
Subject: lily allen offering pirated mp3s on her own site
A follow up on the whole Lily Allen thing… While she’s out there screaming about pirates and uploaders harming the industry, she is still offering some free “mixtape” mp3s that she created back when she was first trying to get attention, directly off her EMI-owned site:
http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20090923/1409046297.shtml
There’s music from Jay-Z, Jefferson Airplane, The Kinks, The Specials and more…
Mike
that is pretty funny. totally caved in, it seems…… the mixtape article is very interesting. looks like she really put her foot in her mouth
Honestly, what the fuck?
so she takes down her blog, deleting every post, and claims that she won’t be recording any more music. her publisher clarifies that what she meant is that she’s “still promoting her current album” and “not thinking ahead” to recording another one, yet.
if kanye west is music’s joe wilson, lily allen is sarah palin.
Yeah, I guess we can expect a joke about this from Eminem, 3 years from now. If you ask me, it still looks like she’s crying for attention, and (unfortunately) by now everyone knows who the fuck Lily Allen is, therefore it’s safe to say she’s achieved her goal.
Mike Masnick of Techdirt is undoubtedly the most disgusting, uneducated, and retarded scumbag on the entire internet. He does nothing but spew hatred and filth. His “comments” evidence no research, investigation or analysis whatsoever. He constantly repeats his vile rhetoric in the same manner, no matter who he is dishing. It is all a broken record of the same viciousness and evil. His followers are like the followers of Hitler — nobodies who cannot stand being nobodies and Masnick is their leader. What degenerate slime he evolved from. Dump him now and forever in the pit he crawled out of!
hail godwin. also, this.