When I first started critiquing Earache president Digby Pearson’s Ask Earache blog over a year ago I pegged Digyby / Earache as an out-of-touch label with all its eggs in one basket. My, how things have changed over the course of a year-plus. The Internet is a funny thing; it encourages discussion, and in some cases can actually produce change. I’m not patting myself on the back for turning Earache into a Fortune 500 company, but I am saying that the discourse I generated may have contributed in some small way to Digby taking a long hard look at the current music industry landscape and tweaking his approach. I know for a fact that Digby reads these blogs.

Dig’s latest move: capitalizing on the Century Media / Spotify backlash by issuing a press release essentially stating, “We love Spotify! All of our artists are on it!”

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If Don Robertson, Brian Slagel, Jonas Nachsin etc wrote candid blogs about their label operations I’d probably pick apart their opinions too, but it just so happens Earache’s Digby Pearson is the only metal label head honcho to do so… so, here we go, once again.

The latest Ask Earache entry is the first time I can recall hearing the head of a metal record label publicly endorse Spotify, or any all-you-can-eat music streaming service. Spotify, for those unaware, is a highly successful streaming service currently available in Europe that’s been trying to break into the U.S. market for years; with licensing deals now in place with three of the four majors and a big integration with Facebook on the horizon, it looks like that may finally happen very soon. The basic service is available for free and is supported by ads, while those who pay $10/month have ads lifted (and I believe some extra premium features too). It works on your computer, your phone, streams from the cloud in high quality, etc etc.

Digby’s public stance is significant; while the world moves ahead towards digital consumption and the demand for all-you-can-eat music streaming services grows, metal labels remain doggedly stuck to the archaic CD. Even Ash Avildsen, whose Sumerian / Outerloop / Pantheon axis business model is very forward-thinking, is head-scratchingly an ardent supporter of CDs.

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I may spend a lot of time bagging on head honcho Digby Pearson, but I gotta hand it to Earache Records: they’re definitely willing to experiment with the power of the Internet more than any other metal label. Exhibit A) Dig’s Ask Earache blog. Exhibit B) That free Gama Bomb album download experiment. Exhibit C) The Stagediving iPhone app. Exhibit D) They’re giving away Wormrot’s unreleased album Dirge away for free over a month ahead of its official release.

Wait, what? Dirge isn’t supposed to be released until May 3rd (May 23rd in Europe) and they’re giving it away for free download now? Zuh???

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If I were in a metal band on EMI or any of their affiliated labels I’d be running for the hills. Metal Insider is reporting that the label group — one of the remaining “Big Four” major labels — has been purchased by Citibank. Yes, a label has been purchased by a bank. Too fitting in the dire record industry times and dire financial times of 2011.

On the surface this transaction doesn’t seem like it would have much impact on metal, but any major move involving one of the biggest label groups in the world, regardless of genre, is going to have a “trickle-down effect” on all segments of the industry, to borrow a term from my good friend Ronald Reagan. Many metal labels we know and love are distributed by EMI — Century, Season of Mist, Earache, and Willowtip among them — although I don’t expect this deal to really have much impact on those businesses; if shit hits the fan with EMI, I’m sure those labels can find other distributors for as long as distributors remain necessary (which isn’t very long). Moreso I’d worry that the absence of a major source of investment in music on the whole would just result in… less music.

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Earache head-honcho Digby Pearson recently penned a column on his “straight talk” blog Ask Earache about why labels put out so many re-issues. If you’re at all familiar with Earache you know full well that they’ve been completely re-issue crazy over the past several years, putting out what seems like a dozen re-issues each of albums by At the Gates, Godflesh, Carcass, etc, so an explanation from the man behind the curtain himself is quite telling:

The truth is that re-issues offer labels a quick and relatively risk-free boost to their income. They do pretty good business, and we don’t really know why- maybe its because the casual fan always wants great value before they spend their hard earned money, which is fair enough. In our experience, the diehard fan buys it for the music, the casual fan waits for a 2xCD great value package to appear. Over the course of an album’s release cycle, we try to cater to both.

Candor! Of course there are some other added benefits that you might not have thought of:

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As much crap as I’ve given Earache head honcho Digby Pearson in the past for topics such as signing generic re-thrash bands and poo-pooing the effect of Facebook and the Internet on local metal scenes, I really do appreciate that he’s letting it all hang out on his Ask Earache blog in an honest fashion even if I don’t always agree with the guy. I seriously doubt the founder of one of the most well-known metal labels in the world gives a shit what some Jewish blogger in Brooklyn thinks, but for what it’s worth I actually agree with Dig’s latest rant.

A reader question posed to Pearson asks Earache’s founder what he thinks of the idea of heavily discounting CDs to £l each [remember Earache is based in the U.K.] to boost lagging sales, and positions that idea against investing in trying to get customers to embace streaming services like Spotify. Since Spotify isn’t available in the States yet, a quick synopsis: any music you could ever want streaming from your computer or mobile device without any file ownership for a low monthly fee. I’ve tested a preview of it and it is AMAZING; it works flawlessly. Where does Pearson stand in the streaming service vs. ownership debate?

Pearson is surprisingly unattached to physical music formats — a rare thing for ANY label executive to admit — and goes on record as saying CDs and even vinyls are outdated:

People who use Spotify, like yourself, have made the culturally significant transition from the old download & ownership model to listening to music streaming from the “Cloud”. This is an important distinction. Many of my friends still insist on owning something, be it the Vinyl LP, CD or even Mp3 files on a hard drive. If its not firmly in their possession, showed off in their collection, then they don’t really feel like a proper music fan. Personally, my Cd & LP collection just collects dust now.

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Welcome to “Question of the Week,” a (sometimes) weekly debate amongst the MetalSucks staff regarding a recent hot button issue.

Inspired this week by Vince’s response to Earache head honcho Digby Pearson’s assertion that the effects that social networking sites like MySpace and Facebook have been detrimental to metal, we decided to ask the rest of our writers:

HAVE SOCIAL NETWORKING SITES ALTERED THE METAL SCENE FOR THE WORSE?

The MS staff’s answers after the jump.

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In the latest entry on Ask Earache – the blog on which Earache head honcho Digby Pearson opens himself up to reader questions and promises “straight answers… without the bullshit” and defends re-thrash as a forward-pushing genre – Dig takes a stab at quantifying the effects that social networking sites like MySpace and Facebook have had on the metal scene. His argument is that the social networks have changed what it means to be a fan from going to the show and hanging around for all the bands to simply pressing the “like” button, and as a result the metal scene is suffering. As with the past Ask Earache blog posts I’ve read, Dig’s premise is sound but his logic leads to a false conclusion. Check it out as Professor Neilstein dissects his argument one point at a time.

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If I’d known about the Ask Earache blog — in which Earache founder Digby Pearson offers “GET STRAIGHT ANSWERS ON ANY EARACHE-RELATED TOPIC WITHOUT THE BULLSHIT” — I’d surely have been reading it by now (thanks, Ian, for sending in the link). It should go without saying that any president, CEO or even employee of any company has to realize that it’s impossible to give truly straight answers about something you’re so involved with and invested in. It’d be like if I proclaimed myself an authority on straight answers for all things Axl Rosenberg-related, you’d all cry bullshit (and rightly so) since not only is he my business partner and friend but I’ve known the guy since we were 5 years old and I’d defend him to the nines. Still, you could at least expect well thought out and cohesive articles, and I gotta give Dig credit here doing a good job with Ask Earache and at least offering some level of transparency with regards to a record label’s operations.

But you’re reading this article because you wanna know how he defends the gobs of new wave thrash bands he’s signed. Earache, perhaps more than any metal label, has been at the forefront of the thrash revival with bands such as Municipal Waste, Evile, Gama Bomb and Bonded by Blood. So, what are Dig’s thoughts on the movement, the bands, and how re-thrash fits into the ever-evolving pantheon of modern metal?

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We generally try to keep the local content we post to a minimum so everything we write about can be enjoyed by all (except the suckers in Florida who never get to see the tours we sponsor), but from time to time we participate in special events in NYC. Tomorrow, on 4/20 (!), we’ll be at the Smell the Glove party at St. Jerome’s on the Lower East Side — you know we love to party, you know we love metal, and you know we love celebrating weed. Come on down and hang with us!

Here’s what you need to know:

• Starts at 9pm
• Free PBR until it runs out
• This is also a listening party for Ratt’s new album Infestation!
• St. Jerome’s is at 155 Rivingson St. between Suffolk and Clinton.
• The event is hosted by Nicks & Dimes and Brooklyn Ski Club, while Noisecreep, MetalSucks (duh), Earache Records, Kill Shop Dance and Eight of Swords Tattoo are also involved.
• Plenty of giveaways by the aforementioned sponsors.

In short: this is going to be quite the party. Come hang.

- VN & AR

Our email inboxes have been flooded with links to a leaked version of the new Burzum album, Varg Vikernes’ first after 16 years of imprisonment, and the near unanimous opinion is that it sucks. But it seems like our readers aren’t the only ones sharing these behaviors and sentiments; Earache boss Digby Pearson posted the above from his Twitter account yesterday, as noticed by Second Period and re-posted by Invisible Oranges. Props to his hilarious use of hashtags!

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Metal Insider tells us that brand new music streaming service MOG went live yesterday morning. MOG promises a deep library at a $5 monthly fee, and boasts a service “better than Rhapsody, iTunes and Pandora…combined.” [Full disclosure: MOG's advertising arm sells some ad space on this site.] With all four major labels signed on (those being Warner, EMI, Sony and Universal), a $5/month unlimited streaming service is a tantalizing proposition indeed. But the million dollar question on our minds (and undoubtedly yours as well) is: do they have metal?

Without having tested the service yet I’m inclined to say that, surprisingly, the answer is actually “yes.” Century Media, Nuclear Blast, Earache, Willowtip and a few other metal labels are distributed digitally through EMI, so those ought to be covered. Warner holds a majority stake in Roadrunner so that oughtta be a no-brainer. Relapse, Metal Blade and Victory releases are distributed by Red, which is owned by Sony. Those are all the labels at the proverbial metal big kids table right there. Obviously there are plenty of other smaller metal labels, but I’m guessing most of them also have major distribution.

This new MOG service is interesting indeed. If anyone here has tested it out, please let us know in the comments how it fares metal-wise. How does it stack up against the much simpler, sleeker Spotify? Watch a brief description of some of the service’s key features in the video below.

-VN

The winner to last week’s funny photo caption contest was a no-brainer:

Nick Muffins Hochmuth: “I present a new breed of disgrace to humanity… The Joggalo.”

Well done sir! You’ll be receiving a Katatonia prize pack in the mail. This week we’re giving away 5 prize packages courtesy of Earache Records. Three 1st place winners will receive a Heavy Metal Killers compilation vinyl and a Heavy Metal Killers scarf (pictured here). Two runners-up will just receive a scarf. Yup, a scarf. Scarves are metal. They keep you warm! And it’s getting cold out there, kids. No one wants to be that dude at the show wearing shorts when it’s below freezing outside… that dude is such an asshole. Being warm is metal. There’s even a band called Scarve and they’re pretty rad.

So, just come up with a caption to the below photo [sent in by kenneth szidar] and they shall be yours.

I understand that the music industry as we’ve known it is in somewhat of a bind. The ease of “illegal” downloading coupled with a crappy economy has cut off much of the flow of income a record label is built to generate. In this position, any sensible business would find a way to adapt in order to survive.

Last week I read about a certain metal label trying out something called a 360 deal, where instead of mainly collecting revenue from record sales or other intellectual property rights (publishing, licensing, etc.), the record label takes an agreed-upon cut of merchandise, concert ticket sales, and I suppose just about anything else having to do with the band. Actually I’m sure deals like this already existed, but this label got even more “WTF” with it and announced they would be giving this new band’s album out as a free download. I honestly think this is a great idea. Giving away the music for free since it holds little value to consumers, then sending the band on tour and collecting a decent percentage off nightly guarantees and t-shirt sales since people still pay full price for those – going where the money is. Sure, it’s a business.

What confuses me is how any band would be ok with this. They signed to a record label who isn’t actually putting out or distributing a record. They’re promoting intangible recorded material so that there’s a reason for the band to tour and sell stuff for them, while the band makes even less money on the things they would have been sustaining themselves on in an old school record deal. So, why do you need a record label then?

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Tomorrow is Halloween. This is great news, because it means that come Sunday (or Monday) people will finally fucking stop talking about Halloween. So sick of it already. When did I become so curmudgeonly? I’m gonna make a hell of an old man. Here’s what went down this week:

• Danzig drummer Chuck Biscuits died. Oh wait, no he didn’t.
• We debuted a new Mudvayne track and we posted live photos from Satyricon and Goatwhore/Eyehategod shows.
• We analyzed the business models of Earache and Roadrunner Records.
• The Boner Tour 2010 has been announced.
• Bison B.C.’s Dan And wrote two tour blogs for us while Horse the Band’s Lord Gold told us about women in diners.
• We spoke with Jucifer’s Amber Valentine and James Plodkin from Jodis.
• We’re giving away a buncha BTBAM shit and celebrating the release of their new album.
• We got all creative writing on your ass.

Our very own Corey Mitchell is gonna be on TV this weekend; he’ll be appearing on E!’s “20 Most Horrifying Hollywood Murders” on Saturday night at 6:00pm EST/5:00PM CST. In addition to his duties as the resident Mansion old fart, Corey writes books about true crime and is a respected authority on the matter so it should be an interesting (and br00tal) watch. Have a good weekend everyone.