In a recent video interview with Super Pop Interviews, which you'll find below, Kiss bassist Gene Simmons was asked how he thinks illegal downloading and reality TV are affecting new artists.
His answer is super honest in that he's basically telling the interviewer to a big band like his, it hardly matters because they've already made it. Yet, for a band that's just trying to start off their career it's going to be much more difficult because the labels aren't there as much as they have been in the past. He mentions TV shows like American Idol as chance for a band to get out there, but I feel like that's much more solo-artist oriented than it is for an entire band to get out there. Same goes for stuff like The Voice, X Factor, whatever… so between there being no label support like there used to be, according to Simmons, and thievery of music, things don't seem to great in his eyes!
You can check out Simmons' statement here:
"I think it's all good, because the record companies are in chaos, downloading is in chaos. The foxes have been led into the hen house, so people wonder why there's so few chickens. It's because you allowed your kids to go in there and steal the stuff for free, so record companies are dying and new bands don't have a chance. And new bands should get every chance in the world, and if it means 'The X Factor' or 'American Idol' or any other kind of [outlet], give them a chance. Few of them will survive, if any. But the old-fashioned model of a record company that cares about you and spends a lot of money to try to promote you, that's gone. It doesn't affect the big bands. It doesn't affect my living. We do a hundred shows, and there's more money there than some Third-World countries. But it does intrinsically hurt new bands. You know, the next Elvis [Presley], or the next Beatles, is gonna have a very hard time starting out today."
We could spend the day pointing out how piracy has helped exposed music fans to artists they would most likely not listen to, and in turn makes those fans go to the artist's shows, and become those artists' consumers for life, but it's a holiday today and we don't want to get too confrontational.
