Who Stole the Record Industry?

Earlier this week, Roger Daltrey revealed that The Who have no plans to make a new album any time soon:

"We've talked about it, but it's not going to be easy. There's no record industry anymore. Why would I make a record? I would have to pay to make a record. There's no royalties so I can't see that ever happening...How do you get the money to make the records? I don't know. I'm certainly not going to pay money to give my music away free. I can't afford to do that. I've got other things I could waste the money on."

Let's ignore for a moment the fact that Roger Daltrey is a multi-millionaire who could easily come up with the money to make a record if he wanted to; as @metaboatchris correctly pointed out on Twitter the other day, the point isn't that The Who can't afford to make an album, it's that they probably wouldn't sell enough copies to recoup the costs.

So why is that, exactly? Daltrey clearly blames the rise of Spotify and other music streaming services that allow listeners to consume entire albums without actually having to purchase them. To be fair, there are a couple of good points lurking in the singer's tirade: I do agree that musicians deserve to be paid for their work, and it's no secret that artists make very little from Spotify streams unless they're racking up literally millions of them.

But Daltrey's insistence that the internet has "stolen" the record industry is kind of bizarre. There's plenty of evidence that albums sell in spite of Spotify et al, from the stampeding success of Adele's 25 late last year (it's been certified platinum nine times over) to the little music consumption survey that I conducted myself last month (in which the majority of respondents said that buying a physical copy is still the first thing they do when their favourite artist releases a new album). Believe it or not, some people even buy albums via the internet. The Who are a pretty well-known band - they headlined Glastonbury last year, for God's sake - so why is Daltrey worried that his fans wouldn't support a new release?

Election Special (or, The Enemy is Still Everywhere)

So the third and final Glastonbury headliner has been revealed, and it's...*yawn*...The Who. At least the brie-eating dinosaurs who whinged about Kanye West getting his black all over the line-up might stop complaining now; I bet those guys can imagine no better weekend than one that culminates in hearing the two members of The Who who haven't died yet play an extended version of Won't Get Fooled Again.

That was *going* to be the first paragraph of today's blog post. I was *going* to write a slightly angry but ultimately inconsequential little rant about Glastonbury, and then maybe list some bands who I personally think would make good headliners for next time.

Sadly, though, there's another - much bigger - bit of news that I'd like to address today. You see, The Who's Pyramid Stage headline slot isn't the only reason why this has been a good week for old, conservative white men.

That, friends, is what a Conservative majority looks like. In case you've been living under a rock (or, y'know, in a different country), the United Kingdom had a general election yesterday, and it's now been confirmed that David Cameron will be our Prime Minister for another five years.

Knees Up!

To be honest, today's blog is going to be a bit quick and rubbish because I'm preparing to hit the Knee Deep Festival for the second consecutive year (I'll be playing the drums for Scriber, just one of the many brilliant people mentioned on my new 'Friends of This Blog' page).