Murder Most Cowell – or, Why the RATM Christmas campaign is a big load of nonsense

By Mat Morrisroe of Culture Karma

You either love or hate The X Factor. I love it. It gets me booing like I’m at a pantomime, extolling my “expert” views on A&R much more fluidly than in the pub and swearing more when I stub a toe. I also have to admit that Simon Cowell is one of my heroes. In my first day in my first proper job, I had to take some photocopies into his office. Noticing that he hadn’t met me before, Simon invited me in, told me to sit down and chatted to me. I was a nervous wreck on my first day and very much appreciated this – not everyone was as supportive or as welcoming. It may have been cheesy but he ended the conversation by telling me that “I started in the post room and you’re already a level above that. You’ll be my boss in 10 years time.”

Thirteen years later I’m clearly not his boss, but I’ve followed his work and tried to apply some of his thinking to mine, with some success (I think anyway). Simon doesn’t care about cool and he always seems to know what he doesn’t know. This allows him to operate in areas that the music industry as a whole wouldn’t consider, and to think about different ways to reach his audience. Now that both musicians and critics have been forced to take a more realistic view of forming partnerships with brands, you could argue that the music business is coming round to Simon’s way of thinking. Hallelujah! I tell you all this so you know my biases before I get into the point of today’s blog.

You may have noticed a Facebook campaign to make Rage Against The Machine’s Killing In The Name this year’s Christmas Number One. This is their mission, as taken from Facebook:

“Fed up of Simon Cowell’s latest karaoke act being Christmas No.1? Me too… So who’s up for a mass-purchase of the track KILLING IN THE NAME from December 13th (DON’T BUY IT YET!) as a protest to the X-Factor monotony?”

Now, I can see why many may think this is Karma-positive. Obviously an artist with such passion performing alternative rock and, you know, using the actual ‘F’ word must be superior culturally than someone who has just won a talent competition? Well guess what? I reckon it’s an epic Karma fail.

For a brave brand somewhere, Spotify is an open goal

By Andrew Harrison

It will be no surprise to anyone who has ever read the music magazine I write for, or looked at its website or followed it on Twitter, that hardcore music fans love Spotify to the point where it bores everyone else around them. Endless music on tap in a conscience-warming legal environment, an interface so slick and simple it shames all the other streaming services, and the occasional C.o.I. advert to convince you that you’re actually paying (with a small sliver of your attention) for what you’re listening to… it appears to be the very model of Culture Karma in action. Do something loveable and people will love you for it.

Where next for the generation that grew up without paying for their entertainment?

By David Hepworth – this piece first appeared in the August 2009 issue of The Word Magazine

The music industry knows it already. The newspaper industry suspects it. The BBC fears it. The thing that keeps them all awake at night is the dawning realisation that a generation is coming to maturity who want the things they provide but has no intention of paying for them.

Teenagers are just as keen on The Ting Tings as you might have been on The Stone Roses at their age. What makes them different from your generation is that they’ve grown up with virtual juke boxes like YouTube at their fingertips. They haven’t once needed to reach for even a single thin coin to access the music of their choice.

Why the post strike is an epic Karma fail

by Mat Morrisroe of Culture Karma

This is not a political blog, much less a party political blog. But if companies and brands are part of society then so are other types of organisations – so I don’t think it’s going too far for us to talk about the Communications Workers Union and the postal strike and why, in my opinion it’s an epic Karma fail.

Orange Rock Corps: a textbook example of good Culture Karma

By Mat Morrisroe of Culture Karma

I’m going to start off my contributions to this blog in probably the very worst fashion, by writing about something that’s actually not currently in the news. I’m sure it’s blog suicide, but it’s one of the reasons that I was so interested in starting the blog as I think it expresses at least part of the essence of what this blog is all about. The topic non du jour is Orange Rock Corps. As a brand, Orange have always (seemingly at least) been a ‘nice’ brand, from the pre-FT days when they featured Stephen Fry’s vocal talents in their advertising before his ubiquity and even their Geordie call centre staff seem warm and a bit reassuring. However, many brands manage to say one thing in their communications whilst not delivering on their promise. Just like a predatory guy at a party telling his target that he’s “not like other guys” they throw around buzz words like ‘community’ all the while wilfully behaving like rogues.

C&binet, filesharing and why the Thomas Jefferson candle analogy doesn’t work

By Andrew Harrison, Associate Editor of The Word Magazine

Today’s Twitter-frenzy around Lord Mandelson’s appearance at the C&binetforum bigwigs’ retreat – the “Creative Davos”, as we are being urged not to call it – proves that nothing puts virtual bums on digital seats like a proper star turn. I was on C&binet panel about filesharing on Monday night and the hashtags did not fly at anywhere near the same velocity. I got the feeling that the audience was rather disappointed that they didn’t get an entertaining ding-dong between copyright absolutists (representatives of the Featured Artists Coalition, UK Music, Virgin Media, the BBC and Warner Music) and a music journo (me) who would surely call for the end of copyright, the Man to be burnt in effigy and the reign of sweet anarchy.

Unfortunately, we all seemed to agree on the main points – that it’s not unreasonable for artists to decide whether or not their work should be shared, and that three-strikes-and-you’re-choked is about as reasonable a sanction against persistent uploading as can be imagined – leaving the panel a conference organiser’s nightmare: one where nobody got irate and the fur did not fly. Maybe they should have put Nick Griffin on instead.

The nearest we got to sparks came in audience questions, specifically from delegate Anita Ondine Smith of  Seize The Media. She questioned the panel’s diversity – and yes, we were all white males, although I think she was getting at the fact that the other panelists represented large media interests and there was no-one from the Pirate Party/Copyleft brigade to be seen (at least I hope she was. I’m not sure that race or gender qualify or disqualify one from taking a position on filesharing). She also raised one of the favourite touchstones of copyright liberationists, that quote about candles from Thomas Jefferson: “He who receives an idea from me receives [it] without lessening [me], as he who lights his [candle] at mine receives light without darkening me.” (I wasn’t taking notes so this is pinched from here).

Why our love affair with “free” is going to leave us all poor

By Andrew Harrison. This first appeared in the October 2009 issue of The Word Magazine.

Free. Free. Free. Free. The word is everywhere and it doesn’t sound as cheerful as it used to. “Free” used to extend the promise of a life-enhancing little extra to brighten your day. Years ago, when I was learning the magazine huckster’s trade, I was told that you could secure an interview with Kurt Cobain or Kylie Minogue or the Risen Christ if you liked, but none of them would be as good on the cover as the word FREE in bright red on a bright yellow background – even if the cassette you were giving away only had Hothouse Flowers and the Paris Angels on it. It didn’t matter. Free was fun. Free was your friend.

Now free has turned nasty. Never mind the burden of encumbering crap you’re faced with in the course of your day (farewell, thelondonpaper, we hardly knew ye). Free is now lapping around all our ankles like a rising flood. It carries not the promise of a nice little something for nothing, but the threat of working for nothing, at least for those of us in what are now called (pretty generously when you think about it) the “culture industries”. What happened to the music business is now happening to everyone else – “they came for the A&R men, and I did nothing…” – and worse, it’s got influential cheerleaders.

This Is Culture Karma

Hello, we are Culture Karma, a collective comprising journalists and media and marketing executives who believe that business and organisations are part of society too.  We believe that businesses should be judged not only on their bottom line, but also what they do to support and enrich the arts, culture and society.

This blog exists to praise the good work of organisations, heralding organisations and executives who show genuine support.  We want to be positive, so it’s more about applauding the good than criticising the bad.

If you want to get involved, or know of work that deserves the credit (it could be someone else’s it could even be your own), then get in touch.