DAY 24 GRAMMY CHASE: OK GO

Day 24 of the Grammy Chase, I really tried to take it easy today. We had 3 hours without our puppy as he had his first Grooming visit, so I thought there would be a little less noise, but…FAIL!! My children have caught the Table Tennis bug so there are paddles and ping pong balls flying all around the house, knees and elbows hitting the floor trying to chase the scrambling balls and shove matches for wall-time for which to smash the ball against.  Good times on an easy Sunday nonetheless.

Well, while doing research today, I came across an interesting Open Letter written by Damian Kulash, lead vocalist and guitarist for the group OK GO, that was very revealing, earnest and apologetic to their dedicated fans. Damian expressed the groups contractual agreement with its label EMI and how handcuffed they felt in not being able to allow their fans to fully support, share and spread the work that they were doing. Ok Go won a Grammy in 2007 for a song called “Here it Goes Again.” The song earned them an award for Best Short-Form Music Video which spread virally, due in large part to the videos low-budget yet innovative concept, and fans couldn’t get enough. Ok Go’s music, style and creativity made music fans happy to share and spread a good idea and make it a contagious online hit. But their record label has put the clamps on the bands fans and their enthusiasm to participate in the bands success.

Have you ever noticed a music video on youtube that you wanted to share or post on a site or blog but the is disabled? Well, you can thank greedy, grimy record labels for putting that into effect. It appears that record labels have made a deal with youtube that enables the labels to make a small profit off the video each time it is played, only on youtube. Videos are made even more popular by bloggers and tastemakers as they would embed the videos on their site to be viewed by their respective readers, but that is no longer the case, which hinders the viral potential of any cool video that artists push out.

I’m curiously watching for what the outcome will be for artist signed to labels that disable the embedding code of their videos. The same thing that propels a group’s success, the sharing power of the fans, is now being stripped away in an attempt to monetize by any means at the hands of the record label. A terrible time to be signed to a major. Power to the Indies. Once again. Open Letter (read).
I’d POST the video like I normally do, but you’d have to talk to EMI and Youtube.