This is a great article (thanks for passing it along, Katonah).

http://www.hypebot.com/hypebot/2009/09/the-high-cost-of-going-negative.html#more

You can scroll all the way to the bottom to see my comments, or read it here, below:

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Excellent article.

The problem is that in the past it has been easy for artists, and the industry behind them, to take their fans for granted. It’s simply shifted the other way: fans take the artists for granted.

I agree that the best spokespersons for a real movement need to be credible artists - ones that don’t simply appear to have eaten sour grapes.

I’ve been working with a few associates to design a new model. We’re in the US, we’re called Weathervane Music, and in a nutshell, we’re a non-profit, member supported artist development organization. We produce a series of high-end audio and video called the Project Series . Through the series a select set of sophisticated independent musicians have a unique opportunity to make recordings they can use and/or license to other for-profit companies, while the creative process is documented in video for purposes of exposure for the artists, and promotion of Weathervane’s mission. 2010’s series will include special guest curators, well known, well respected musicians, who have a chance to expand the significance of their taste in music, by selecting OTHER great artists for the series. You can see the projects at http://weathervanemusic.org/projects.

We can look at this era as a period of Natural Selection for the fittest business models, but I don’t think we can simply expect that the industry and consumer will naturally do what is best for the future of music in our culture. Just like the environmental movement required education and a shift in attitude throughout society to get started, music needs to be saved in the same way: by fans, artists and industry TOGETHER.