This was posted by luna-C
Below are my thoughts about my new website, and the opinions are mine alone!
I would like to make a few observations about the Kniteforce Revolution project and about putting the entire back catalogue online for free!
Firstly, I have been lucky enough to have a great deal of support from many people over the years who have paid for my releases, firstly on vinyl back in the day, right up to when I was selling CDs and the complete collection as MP3s.
In some ways, it could be seen as a betrayal for me to give away the music that people had spent money on. But the truth is, the industry has changed, and I have decided to change with it rather than fight the inevitable. Its little comfort to those who paid for the back catalogue, I know. But if those people hadn't done that at that time, I wouldn't have been able to reach this point in the first place. And I am forever grateful to those who paid. Sadly, though, it is the nature of things to lose value, and the music business is no exception.
The music industry is damaged beyond repair in my humble opinion. This doesn't mean its time to give up - rather, it means its time to look at the whole industry from a different perspective. To wax lyrical, the phoenix rises from the ashes - but first, you have to have the ashes. The whole music scene has been burning itself to death for years, as many cling to an old way that no longer works. Right now, we are all kicking the last embers of an old fire that has burned the same way for nearly 100 years. Change has come.
I would love for music to still be on vinyl. I would love for selling MP3's to be as exciting and profitable as vinyl used to be. It would be excellent if people didn't file share.
But I choose to live with what is, not what I wish for. And so, I choose to move forward in a riskier direction. And its a big risk - I can't take this back or change my mind, even if I wanted to (which I don't). On the other hand, with things being the way they are, the value of music has dropped in a very large way. This is simply the truth. People who argue it are clinging to the old model of the music industry, hiding from reality, and are in for a rude awakening eventually.
And its okay that things have changed. In this, there is freedom. The very fact that the old way is dead means that a new way can live. No longer is the record label the king of the artist. Acts like Nine Inch Nails and Radiohead have already dispensed with the need for a record label, and they are just a few of many. These 2 examples may be world famous acts, but the facts remain the same regardless of the size of the artist.
We are at a turning point, the past and the future balanced. But the weight is moving in one direction only.
It used to be that the Dj or the live performance promoted the music. Bands and Djs would tour the country promoting their music in their sets, to get high sales of their albums and singles.
Now, the music promotes the live performance. The live performance cannot be copied, or shared, except by the people that paid to see it. This is why Nine Inch Nails can give away an album for free, yet charge $100.00 for a ticket to see them live.
For the last few years, I have seen this in shift in value in my own tiny sphere of influence. KFA vinyl sales are okay - but they barely cover costs. I am not the only one. A big tune is, what? 1000 units? When I started Kniteforce, a big tune was 20,000. Kniteforce pressed 5000 units as a first run from KF025 (Piano Progression) up to around KF040. And before Kniteforce, the sales were even higher.
Now, 300 units is to be expected. In the meantime, Supaset 7 had tens of thousands downloads in the year or so it was up on my Kniteforce Revolution holder page. How can that many people download my set, and record sales be 300 copies? Think about that. Thats a lot of people listening to me, and not buying my records ha ha.
For years, like many in the industry, I moaned and cried about file sharing. I tried to enhance record sales. I was as protective of my music as I could be. The results were that..err...well, nothing changed. Record sales continued to drop, and will continue to do so. I meet Djs who have never owned a record. Djs who mix on laptops.
I love vinyl, but vinyl is dead. I will still release vinyl, but I will do so because I like releasing vinyl. Its a selfish act, done for my own pleasure and for the pleasure of those that love vinyl as much as I do.
However, I recognise that things have changed, and I am moving to embrace those changes instead of fighting what cannot be fought, or burying my head in the sand.
I intend Kniteforcerevolution to become a hub for the legal sharing of hardcore music, both Kniteforce related and other labels. Not just the music either - I am already putting up the samples from my tunes as well. A time will come when I can work on a projects, get halfway, then post it for others to finish. And vice versa.
These are just possibilities, just a few thoughts as I sit here and type. But its exciting to think of what could happen, rather than what is not working.
The internet has levelled the playing field. Making and releasing music is not about who you know, its about what you know. And about what you will do. I don't know what I will do yet, or what the future holds for Kniteforce or Hardcore in general. But I know it wont be what I did before - its new, exciting, and there are endless possibilities. And that, my friends, is a very good thing.
http://www.kniteforcerevolution.com/music