Gene Simmons: college kids killed music biz

by mtippett | November 14, 2007 at 09:24 pm
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I've always been kind of creeped out by Gene Simmons ever since my babysitter let me stay up to watch Kiss Meets Phantom of the Park but the man has outdone himself with his latest tirade.  Gene, give it up man.  You're a has been.  You're not a rockstar if you measure yourself against Disney.  This is what he had to say about the kids who made him a star:

The record industry is in such a mess. I called for what it was when college kids first started download music for free -- that they were crooks. I told every record label I spoke with that they just lit the fuse to their own bomb that was going to explode from under them and put them on the street.

There is nothing in me that wants to go in there and do new music. How are you going to deliver it? How are you going to get paid for it if people can just get it for free? I will be putting out a Gene Simmons box set called "Monster" -- a collection of 150 unreleased songs. KISS will have another box set of unreleased music in the next year.

The record industry doesn't have a f---ing clue how to make money. It's only their fault for letting foxes get into the henhouse and then wondering why there's no eggs or chickens. Every little college kid, every freshly-scrubbed little kid's face should have been sued off the face of the earth. They should have taken their houses and cars and nipped it right there in the beginning. Those kids are putting 100,000 to a million people out of work. How can you pick on them? They've got freckles. That's a crook. He may as well be wearing a bandit's mask.

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Jordan Yerman
Jordan Yerman
flagged this story as Good Stuff

at 05:15 on November 15th, 2007

Gene is wrong. The real enemy isn't downloading-- peer-to-peer is simply another avenue of distribution. The real enemy to the status quo is choice, which the mainstream music industry has never really been any good at. Successfully marketed acts are still getting rich, but nobody ever mentions that when they rail against "those darn kids". Meanwhile, up-and-coming bands are finding that they can live the rock'n'roll dream without signing their souls away, and that's ultimately what the major labels need to focus on if they want to survive.

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