- Music
- 07 Jul 15
alt-J and Everything Everything seem to think so...
Social media was full of praise for Taylor Swift when she posted an open letter – the fairly chummily-titled To Apple, Love Taylor, to take umbrage with the fact that writers, producers and artists would not be paid during the three month free trial of the new Apple Music platform. Apple's Eddy Cue subsequently took to Twitter to confirm that the company were reversing the decision, to widespread delight.
Talking in our forthcoming Longitude special, two of the artists playing the Marlay Park festival have suggested that the entire thing was a publicity stunt for Apple.
Gus Unger-Hamilton, of Saturday headliners alt-J, tells Craig Fitzpatrick:
"I can't help but wonder whether it was a whole big publicity stunt. It's certainly given Apple a boost, hasn't it? The deal Apple was offering to independent labels was really shit and at least they've fixed that now. I don't follow it all too closely. "The music industry now? Nobody really knows what's going on. Everybody's making it up as they go along. I'm thinking about buying a record player and just fucking off digital music! I can't be bothered to watch this fighting like cats in a bag, that's also being chucked in a river. It's just a bit tragic."
Echoing these sentiments is Jonathan Higgs, frontman for Sunday performers Everything Everything.
“I agreed with her, but I’ve since believed that the whole thing might be just a set-up,” he proffers.
“Wildly controversial or not, I think lots of people think it might have been a setup.
My problem with it was that I went from thinking that streaming destroyed artists and then thought, ‘Oh my god Apple! Those cunts! Fuck Apple!’ And then that happened and I thought streaming is ok and then I thought, ‘Well, hang on – two weeks ago I did not think streaming was ok’ and felt it had been quite manipulated to be honest.
“Anyway, I think it’s all gone, there’s no real music industry like there used to be. No one will pay for it anymore and no consumers seem to realise what that’s going to do, what that’s already done to music.”
For much, much more from the delightfully opinionated alt-J and Everything Everything, pick up the next issue of Hot Press (Longitude cover), on sale Thursday July 9.