Discobelle.net

Comments (27)

• David. says:

  January 8, 2007 at 21:51

  good thing i got that discussion going this morning! holla martin!

• Martin says:

  January 8, 2007 at 21:58

  David: Yeah, that was great! Thanks alot! Holla!

• Casper C (fluokids) says:

  January 9, 2007 at 06:08

  I think this is a little too early this time… But it’s a great track, and people will enjoy it, if that’s what you’re hoping for.

• Martin says:

  January 9, 2007 at 08:15

  Casper: We enjoy it tremendously and hope others will too. About posting it too early, it’s already floating around so that shouldn’t be a problem. But maybe we should have a discussion about leaking things although to be frank i’m not really sure about what you mean with that comment.

• papat says:

  January 9, 2007 at 15:02

  But why even post it at all? It’s not as if either of the artists involved need your help in promotion at this point, they both have well developed names that blogs have been integral in blowing up over the last year (or few years in Erol’s case). What is the “story” being broken here? People already are aware of the track’s existence, so it seems to me that a post such as this (especially a repost from a relatively small internet forum) is little more than an attempt at increasing/maintaining traffic numbers. Perhaps this is not your original and immediate intent (I assume that would the desire to share good music that you like), but it is a reason for posting nonetheless.

  Martin, I’m really not trying to have a go at you here – Discobelle is an amzing forum for DJs to get their music heard and you have introduced me to more than a handful of new artists. But the fact remains that many blogs, mine included, are guilty of this. I think we need to take a step back and take a look at why we post tracks like this instead of seeking out new and relatively unknown artists that really need the promotional help. Well, that or reflecting on older, perhaps not well-known songs. Of course Discobelle does this as well from time to time, along with the great digital mixtapes. There just seems to be this growing trend of blogs rushing to be the first to “break” particular well-anticipated remixes by particular hot producers, and I think we need to take a hard look at that.

• Casi G says:

  January 9, 2007 at 16:56

  Papat thats some Real Speak.

• blah says:

  January 9, 2007 at 17:35

  post up whatever you want. its just jealoso dee jays that want to be the only ones that have that song. i’ll tell you what the real point is its that there are still tons of fans to be made by both of these groups in america. getting music to kids that otherwise wouldnt have heard it.

• papat says:

  January 9, 2007 at 20:07

  Blah, I think you’re kind of missing the point here. First off, I am by no means a DJ and honestly could care less if five people have a track or five thousand. Couldn’t the same level of promotion be made by announcing a particular remix and by providing quality examples of previously existing released work? And seriously, I’m not claiming to have any solutions here. Hell, I’m not even sure that I’ve come to a solid conclusion on the whole matter.

  Here’s another point. Record labels commission popular producers to remix tracks for a couple of reasons. An optimistic (and very real) reason is to allow for the creation of (sometimes distanced, sometimes not) collaborations that allow for a different perspective on an original work. Another very real and perhaps more evident reason is to increase the visibility and therefore salability of a release. If the record label and artist wanted to use a remix such as this a purely promotional tool they would offer it for free. For most remixes this is simply not the case.

  The main reason I chose to voice these developing views in this particular post is because the instrumental for this track (not to be released and provided, I assume, for aforementioned promotional purposes) was posted by Casper C on Fluokids. If a blog such as Discobelle purely wanted to promote the release in the hopes of “getting music to kids that otherwise wouldnt have heard it” they could have easily thrown up a link instead.

  Martin, once again I want to be clear that I am not attempting to make any personal criticisms here and would appreciate your thoughts on this. This practice is endemic in blogs right now and simply needs to be examined. This particular situation was just a particularly clear example on one of the larger blogs at the moment.

• pollen says:

  January 9, 2007 at 20:58

  I found the track on a google search and I posted it on the thread David started. Really anyone could have found the track if they just searched it’s full name.

• Martin says:

  January 9, 2007 at 22:02

  Papat,

  No personal criticism taken.

  Well, i posted the track because i really liked it and wanted to share, that was my immediate intent. Of course, the advantages of posting a sought after track were not overlooked, i would be lying to say otherwise. But this also means that more people coming here which in the end is a good thing since they will hopefully return and find new music/new mixes from dj’s they haven’t heard of before etc etc.

  Your arguments are thoughtworthy and i do understand the need for a discussion like this.

• papat says:

  January 10, 2007 at 05:05

  OK, let’s get discussing!

• Casper C (fluokids) says:

  January 10, 2007 at 06:46

  I was a little perturbed on this occasion, because we decided to go through the right channels on this post (ie Erol!), and he gave us the all clear to post the dub, which is not to be commercially released. We waited until it had already reached DJs before our post too. I actually had the vocal version before the dub, but tried to follow procedure… Noone else was to know that, but it just seemed a little like a case of oneupsmanship to post the vocal, when the two of us are the most read blogs of our kind… But fair enough, it leaked, so you posted it. I am sure we have occasionally offended people, or jumped the gun too… There’s no harm in having a littlde debate between ourselves sometimes, I think.

  x

• Martin says:

  January 10, 2007 at 13:18

  Casper: Maybe i did jump the gun with this one, tried to contact Erol but then decided to post it anyway. I never intended on offending anyone, neither you nor Erol.

• Bombardier says:

  January 10, 2007 at 17:12

  Casper, why do you even care? Pissed your exclusive handout got spoiled?

  ‘oh erol gave me this track and i had it for a while before he said i could post it, disco belle on the other hand….’

  look at me i’m fluokid and creddy artists send me stuff!!!!!!!1

  pathetic

  Martin, you guys did the right thing.

• troy. says:

  January 10, 2007 at 17:14

  Great discussion from two respected bloggers. I appreciate your honesty and that inner craving to do what is right.

  And not that this makes it right or anything (esp. as to timing of posts), but don’t forget that there are kids like me in tiny cities in America (like Harrisburg, PA) that don’t have any local (or even semi-local) venues to hear music like this. So I’m never gonna hear a DJ play this stuff.

  And I can’t justify buying every 12″ that comes out w/ hot tracks b/c I don’t DJ and this music doesn’t have an eternal shelf-life (although the vocal re-work has a much longer one than most of the stuff coming out these days). I’d be happy to buy this stuff off of iTunes (or a label’s web page) if it were available there.

  And the SebastiAn rework (via fluokids) = Oh. My. Goodness. That intro…

• papat says:

  January 10, 2007 at 18:10

  Troy: you say that you would buy the track if was available for sale?

  Let’s say that you love the track, and in a month or so it becomes available for digital purchase at the same bitrate as it is here through the record label (straight mp3 w/ no DRM bullshit). Are you going to buy it then, despite already “owning” the product? Somehow I doubt it.

  And Bombardier, you’re being reactionary and quite frankly coming across as small minded. Casper isn’t really boasting about having a connection to Erol, he’s merely pointing out that when posting a leak such as this there is some element of courtesy that suggests one contact the involved people and receive their blessing. Martin acknowledges that he attempted to contact Erol, but the fact that he posted without receiving a reply suggests a lapse fo judgement, albeit one that is easy to make and forgivable.

  The fact that the record label(s?) involved with the release have not asked that the track be removed indicates that they are not particularly concerned with any of this. Well, it’s either that or they don’t want to be seen as making a move that could be construed as somewhat assholish.

• slutty fringe says:

  January 10, 2007 at 20:06

  Has to be said I fink I prefer the dub version, the vocals are a bit weak in my opinion

• Martin says:

  January 10, 2007 at 20:33

  Papat. Yeah, i guess i should have waited for the response from the people concerned. My bad. The last thing i wanted to do was upset someone whose music i appreciate a whole lot.

  Oh yeah, that Sebastian remix. That’s the bomb right there.

• acid girls says:

  January 10, 2007 at 22:23

  i completely understand jumping the gun and not waiting for erol’s permission because it’s often pretty hard to get permission to post a track. for most labels and artists, blogs are still an underacknowledged promotional tool (the redheaded stepchild who gives your work away for free? not a very enticing argument, on the surface). everyone here can acknowledge that there is a bit of a race to post a much anticipated track (even if there’s not necessarily a promotional need to do so), and i personally don’t feel that there’s anything wrong with it. after all, how many people know or, ultimately, care or remember where a leak came from? the fact is, if the bloggers are in the (by my own evaluation, admittedly) right frame of mind, then posting a new erol mix of klaxons or the new justice, is often done in the same spirit as the posting of a lesser known track. it’s based on the excitement of hearing new things. we’re all neophiles, that’s why we care. but this whole emphasis on the relative freshness or newness of a track that’s been plaguing blog comment sections the last year or so is a moot point when you remove it from the context of the internet. when i dj, even if i’m playing a track that’s a month or so leaked, it often hasn’t come out yet, and mostly doesn’t sound ‘old’ to anyone but dedicated internet seekers or frequent clubbers. it’s just that sites like discobelle and fluo, and even ours, often get more hits per day than a label might even produce in the lifetime of a given release, so because the industry hasn’t come anywhere near complete collapse, i feel that as of right now it’s unnecessary to worry about the scale of damage being done to the indie record industry, as i imagine it’s proportionate to a general shift in attitudes regarding what it means to purchase, consume or own a work of art. blogging (and specifically mp3 blogs), in and of itself, offers or hinders credibility only to those who visit blogs (in addition to small number of press, artists & labels).

  i think people should post whatever they feel alright, ethically, to post, so long as they’re willing to accept the ramificiations and potential consequences (and , it should be noted, potential rewards) of their actions. you might piss an artist off that one day you’ll dj with, you might never get comissioned to do a remix from a certain label, or have trouble getting someone to participate in an event that you’re putting together. the opposite effect could be just as likely. after all, klaxons seem like some playfully strange bastards, maybe they’d be into all this.

• shimmy shimmy ya says:

  January 11, 2007 at 20:59

  well put…

  “this whole emphasis on the relative freshness or newness of a track that’s been plaguing blog comment sections the last year or so is a moot point when you remove it from the context of the internet.”

  im with acid girls on this one

• Casper C (fluokids) says:

  January 11, 2007 at 21:14

  My opinion here is more to do with the fact that there is a bit of an axis of readership when it comes to blogs, of which ourselves and Discobelle (as well as Acid Girls, etc) are clearly a part of, and we shouldn;t be posting alternative remixes or tracks from the same release between us, as that really does negate the need for the general public to buy the track.

  The argument for low bitrate blog posting is a good one, but that isn;t something we would particularly support as it takes away the possibility of DJing tracks out, which is something we want to be ableto support… But I felt that once we had posted the dub (what did you think, we didn’t have the vocal? I even mentioned it in the post!), and invited people to buy the full release, the vocal probably shouldn;t have been posted, especially by another blog as influential, and well read as Discobelle.

  Furthermore, I wasn;t name-dropping Erol because I think it is cool- I would have said the same of any artist. The fact is that my channel of communication is stronger than it is with most small artists, and it is they whom often get posted without permission, and some detractors would say, potentially suffer the most (although this is very much a moot point!).

  But I am in no way having a go at Discobelle. This is one of my favourite blogs, and I love what you do, it just made me cringe a little to see something posted when, perhaps for once, we had tried to do the ‘right’ thing… But as I said before, you weren;t to know that!

  But yeah, keep up the good work… And you know where to go for these kind of tracks Martin ;)

• Casi G says:

  January 11, 2007 at 22:16

  I think this is the most interesting blog post I have ever read.

  But I don’t really think that you guys posting mp3′s on here are gonna impact record sales that much especialy of singles. If people are gonna buy a record they are gonna buy a record. If people are gonna down load a record they are gonna download a record. I think I hear more artists especially dj/producers who say people come up to them at gigs trying to give them money since they downloaded there album and then came to like it and showed up to there concert (which is the goal since this is where the artist really does get to see some money). So keep posting away. But ethically I think you should try to get clearance of what ever you post if its going to be released offically by a label. But if its not and its just some random remix by a random remixer then post away.

• papat says:

  January 12, 2007 at 00:00

  It’s really impossible to tell whether or not posting on blogs causes people to buy less records b/c they already have the tracks. In fact, the opposite could also be said. The blog audience might not necessarily be the record buying audience. It’s possible that the people who are actually paying for the music are doing so based on buzz from those who have downloaded the tracks (or collect records etc).

  I don’t think there is anything straight-up “wrong” with this race to post remixes – it just seems a little, well, crass.

  If it doesn’t matter which blog posts a remix first then why does there need to be a race at all?

• callmemickey says:

  January 12, 2007 at 01:06

  fuck it. ill chime in too. as you know i run callmemickey… and i try to keep it close to home and focus on shit coming out of philly and unknown shit that people haven’t heard of… and it would be nice if i could keep it that way all the time.. but damnit if people wouldnt come to your blog to hear the great unknown shit you have unless they see that you are the first on hype.machine to post something that every blog in the world is going to post.. its a fucking shame.. cause then the bigger labels come at you like woah to pull down the popular stuff

• mc ren says:

  January 12, 2007 at 07:50

  quite the post-modern crisis right here. a pickle, if you will.

• Martin says:

  January 12, 2007 at 11:52

  Casper: Yeah as i said, sorry about that. But at least maybe someting good came out of this with the whole discussion.

• Cousin Cole says:

  January 7, 2008 at 08:17

  YUUUUUUUUUUUUAAAAAAA!!