Social Movements in Context Project
my project:
Artist Statement:
This art piece depicts the part the people played during the war in Vietnam. The man on the left is an American civilian protesting the Vietnam war. The sign he is holding says “Save our Troops” showing that he is in fact a protestor of the Vietnam war. The man in the green outfit is
a soldier who fought in the Vietnam war shown by the green outfit supposed to be a camo outfit that Vietnam soldiers wore during the war. And on the right is a jungle in Vietnam with a Vietcong Soldier hiding in the bushes and shooting at the civilian and the soldier, depicted by the firing AK-47 protruding out of one of the bushes. The civilian is pulling the soldier away from the jungle and they are both running from the vietcong soldier shooting at them. This shows the whole premise of this painting which is that the people helped save the troops who would have died fighting in the jungles in Vietnam, showing how big of a part the people had a role in the Vietnam war by protesting the war and ensuring our troops got out of Vietnam safely and got to get back home to their families. I chose to do the people’s place in the Vietnam war because I thought about it and decided it is something I am interested in working on.
This art piece depicts the part the people played during the war in Vietnam. The man on the left is an American civilian protesting the Vietnam war. The sign he is holding says “Save our Troops” showing that he is in fact a protestor of the Vietnam war. The man in the green outfit is
a soldier who fought in the Vietnam war shown by the green outfit supposed to be a camo outfit that Vietnam soldiers wore during the war. And on the right is a jungle in Vietnam with a Vietcong Soldier hiding in the bushes and shooting at the civilian and the soldier, depicted by the firing AK-47 protruding out of one of the bushes. The civilian is pulling the soldier away from the jungle and they are both running from the vietcong soldier shooting at them. This shows the whole premise of this painting which is that the people helped save the troops who would have died fighting in the jungles in Vietnam, showing how big of a part the people had a role in the Vietnam war by protesting the war and ensuring our troops got out of Vietnam safely and got to get back home to their families. I chose to do the people’s place in the Vietnam war because I thought about it and decided it is something I am interested in working on.
Open ed I wrote about the music business
How Can You Rap About How Much Bling You Have When Your Record Label Takes Most of it?
By Zander Albers
Many people think they can make a living as a musician. However, many musicians make very little from their music. This is because of the rise of streaming services such as Spotify. Usually, streaming services like Spotify only pay $0.01 every time a song is played. However, record labels take advantage of streaming services by licensing their catalogs and now make billions of dollars from the streaming services. The artists are not getting paid that much at all by the labels.
In my opinion, this is unjust because many artists work very hard on crafting their music to be their own just for the label to take most of the royalties so they can make most of the profit and only give the artist a small portion of the revenue.
However, there is a solution. By releasing your music yourself, you earn 100% of your earnings. A good example of self-released material is In Rainbows by Radiohead, which was actually released for free at first and offered people to donate to support the band rather than sell their album. It nearly made $3,000,000 after its launch in 2007. Several artists even as big as Rihanna, who has over 60 million listeners on Spotify and has a networth of over a billion dollars, own their own music.
You can do this very easily. There are plenty of services that allow you to do this. One of these services is Distrokid. Which has popular artists using it such as rapper 21 savage. Distrokid also gives you 100% of your royalties and just depends on its $20 a year subscription to make a profit.
Releasing your own music also gives you total control of your music. This is important because you can control the copyright of your music. This means if you want to use your own music in a youtube video, or even make it Copyright free, you can do that. You also get 100% of the revenue from your merchandise and touring revenues.
Although with the benefits, there are some drawbacks. For example, without a label, you cannot really have any kind of a budget supplied to you by a label. So you have a much more limited budget than if you were to sign with a label. Plus you do not have much to go off of in terms of the music business. You also have much less time to write your music and record than if you were to sign with a label due to all the other things you need to get done in order to release your own music.
There are many things you cannot get without a label and if you do not mind less pay and ownership over your music, you might as well just sign with a label and sacrifice the benefits, but if you really want to do your own thing and be able to take all the credit for it. There are multiple reasons why you should release your own music. Yeah, you are still sacrificing many things you would get if you were signed with a label. But if you do not care about those things, then I highly suggest you release your own music and embrace the benefits with all the drawbacks. Because if you do not like what the labels are doing with streaming, might as well boycott them entirely and do all of it yourself.
In conclusion, self releasing your own music seems to be the way to go for many artists, so if you want to make and release music, it is a good path to consider.
Works cited:
Conover, A. (2019, September 12). Adam ruins everything - why musicians are forced to sell out | trutv. YouTube. Retrieved November 11, 2022, from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I6ynyxmHCkY
Jace, E. (2021, April 28). The 5 most significant self-released albums. Independent Music Promotions. Retrieved November 11, 2022, from https://independentmusicpromotions.com/5-significant-self-released-albums/
Fenty, R. R. (2006, April 23). Rihanna. Spotify. Retrieved November 11, 2022, from https://open.spotify.com/artist/5pKCCKE2ajJHZ9KAiaK11H?si=ec7jxkm_QpS0ZAgxwjocvw&utm_source=copy-link
Berg, M. (2021, August 6). Fenty's fortune: Rihanna is now officially a Billionaire. Forbes. Retrieved November 11, 2022, from https://www.forbes.com/sites/maddieberg/2021/08/04/fentys-fortune-rihanna-is-now-officially-a-billionaire/
PQ, R. (2020, May 27). Being an independent artist vs. signing to a record label: Icon collective. Icon Collective College of Music. Retrieved November 11, 2022, from https://iconcollective.edu/independent-artist-vs-signed-artist/
Garland, E. (2009, November 17). The 'in rainbows' experiment: Did it work? NPR. Retrieved November 11, 2022, from https://www.npr.org/sections/monitormix/2009/11/the_in_rainbows_experiment_did.html
Distrokid. (n.d.). Instant spotify verification with Distrokid. Distrokid. Retrieved November 14, 2022, from https://distrokid.com/spotify/
How Can You Rap About How Much Bling You Have When Your Record Label Takes Most of it?
By Zander Albers
Many people think they can make a living as a musician. However, many musicians make very little from their music. This is because of the rise of streaming services such as Spotify. Usually, streaming services like Spotify only pay $0.01 every time a song is played. However, record labels take advantage of streaming services by licensing their catalogs and now make billions of dollars from the streaming services. The artists are not getting paid that much at all by the labels.
In my opinion, this is unjust because many artists work very hard on crafting their music to be their own just for the label to take most of the royalties so they can make most of the profit and only give the artist a small portion of the revenue.
However, there is a solution. By releasing your music yourself, you earn 100% of your earnings. A good example of self-released material is In Rainbows by Radiohead, which was actually released for free at first and offered people to donate to support the band rather than sell their album. It nearly made $3,000,000 after its launch in 2007. Several artists even as big as Rihanna, who has over 60 million listeners on Spotify and has a networth of over a billion dollars, own their own music.
You can do this very easily. There are plenty of services that allow you to do this. One of these services is Distrokid. Which has popular artists using it such as rapper 21 savage. Distrokid also gives you 100% of your royalties and just depends on its $20 a year subscription to make a profit.
Releasing your own music also gives you total control of your music. This is important because you can control the copyright of your music. This means if you want to use your own music in a youtube video, or even make it Copyright free, you can do that. You also get 100% of the revenue from your merchandise and touring revenues.
Although with the benefits, there are some drawbacks. For example, without a label, you cannot really have any kind of a budget supplied to you by a label. So you have a much more limited budget than if you were to sign with a label. Plus you do not have much to go off of in terms of the music business. You also have much less time to write your music and record than if you were to sign with a label due to all the other things you need to get done in order to release your own music.
There are many things you cannot get without a label and if you do not mind less pay and ownership over your music, you might as well just sign with a label and sacrifice the benefits, but if you really want to do your own thing and be able to take all the credit for it. There are multiple reasons why you should release your own music. Yeah, you are still sacrificing many things you would get if you were signed with a label. But if you do not care about those things, then I highly suggest you release your own music and embrace the benefits with all the drawbacks. Because if you do not like what the labels are doing with streaming, might as well boycott them entirely and do all of it yourself.
In conclusion, self releasing your own music seems to be the way to go for many artists, so if you want to make and release music, it is a good path to consider.
Works cited:
Conover, A. (2019, September 12). Adam ruins everything - why musicians are forced to sell out | trutv. YouTube. Retrieved November 11, 2022, from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I6ynyxmHCkY
Jace, E. (2021, April 28). The 5 most significant self-released albums. Independent Music Promotions. Retrieved November 11, 2022, from https://independentmusicpromotions.com/5-significant-self-released-albums/
Fenty, R. R. (2006, April 23). Rihanna. Spotify. Retrieved November 11, 2022, from https://open.spotify.com/artist/5pKCCKE2ajJHZ9KAiaK11H?si=ec7jxkm_QpS0ZAgxwjocvw&utm_source=copy-link
Berg, M. (2021, August 6). Fenty's fortune: Rihanna is now officially a Billionaire. Forbes. Retrieved November 11, 2022, from https://www.forbes.com/sites/maddieberg/2021/08/04/fentys-fortune-rihanna-is-now-officially-a-billionaire/
PQ, R. (2020, May 27). Being an independent artist vs. signing to a record label: Icon collective. Icon Collective College of Music. Retrieved November 11, 2022, from https://iconcollective.edu/independent-artist-vs-signed-artist/
Garland, E. (2009, November 17). The 'in rainbows' experiment: Did it work? NPR. Retrieved November 11, 2022, from https://www.npr.org/sections/monitormix/2009/11/the_in_rainbows_experiment_did.html
Distrokid. (n.d.). Instant spotify verification with Distrokid. Distrokid. Retrieved November 14, 2022, from https://distrokid.com/spotify/