![]() ![]() “Record companies’ budgets seem to get smaller and smaller each year… I think that’s really quite a worrying thing because at some point it’ll mean that it starts to affect the quality of the music that’s created because you simply can’t make music for free, I mean it’s just not possible”, Chaplin concedes.īands have repeatedly tried to combat the illegal downloading of their art form. ![]() “If people get into your music having downloaded it for free, but they come and pay to see you live, I guess there’s some kind of recompense there. You know I think it’s the kind of life blood of musicians now to get out on the road, and you have to be good at performing and you have to be able to play your music live.” “I suppose it means that maybe you get more people coming to see you live and obviously the live element of being a band is definitely something that is more important these days than it used to be. There also exists the counter argument that bands may benefit from greater exposure due to fans being able to access records that are financially beyond their reach. Of course the reality is that the average fan can only afford to spend so much of their income on music. It’s a realistic amount of money to pay for music, and then it allows bands to continue to get to studios to make new albums, to be able to afford the process of doing what they do, which is obviously vital to the state of the music industry.” “But that said, I do think music is a fair price these days. When it comes to that question of ‘shall I or shan’t I pay for it’, people are still kind of aware of having being ripped off in the past”, Chaplin suggests. “The record companies have got a lot to answer for with the amount of money they were charging for CDs… I think people still feel a little bit cheated by the amount of money that they had to spend in the past on records. Then there are going to be unscrupulous people who put that record up on the Internet for free.” One of those forms will be the original way it’s been sold as a record, which is the way it should be. “I think it does boil down ultimately to a moral question because the fact is that once music is released digitally, it’s going to be available in different forms. Most music listeners wouldn’t have the inclination nor be brazen enough to shoplift a physical record from a store, but many will quite readily download a torrent free from repercussions.įor Chaplin this phenomenon is not so much an issue of commerce but rather a moral question about the value of art. It’s like attention spans are diminishing by the day, so it’s kind of a weird thing.”Īnother consequence of music’s increased accessibility is the ease with which it can be acquired for free. ![]() I go to parties and people put a song on for about a minute-and-a-half and then they what to skip on to the next track. “I think it’s probably sort of helped to create this culture of music becoming more throwaway. I mean I’m quite a tactile person so I do love to have the proper artwork and be able to thumb through the inlay card it’s part of my makeup as a music listener”, Chaplin accedes. “I think you are missing out if you don’t get that experience. It’s a sub-cultural tradition that younger generations of music lovers will probably experience less and less. There no longer exists the need to purposely explore the racks and flip through album after album, carefully selecting which band will occupy your stereo for the next few months. The days of getting up off your couch to specifically head down to the local record store are all but extinct. ![]() It kind of seemed to me like it might be a better gauge of what good music is out there.” I remember one of the things I was saying onstage is that they should do a chart based on what people are buying in independent record stores as opposed to what people are buying online or what’s popular on MTV. We all lived in quite a small town sort of out in the middle of nowhere in England…and it was just lovely to have a couple of local record shops that you could go and kind of peruse and find out what was cool and what was interesting”, Chaplin reflects. “It really kind of reminded me of how important record stores have been for me over the years, especially growing up. Playing amongst the pressed vinyl and CD cases, Chaplin was taken back to a time when being a music fan meant committing to a tangible piece of plastic. Last month on April 21, better known as Record Store Day, Chaplin and Keane pianist Tim Rice-Oxley performed an acoustic set at Rough Trade East in London in the lead-up to Strangeland’s release. It has already reached #1 in the UK, a feat that Keane has achieved with each one of their LPs so far. Their latest record Strangeland, which was released in Australia on May 11, is the band’s fourth full-length studio album. ![]()
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