Elvis Costello – HuffPost 11.25.13

Mike Ragogna: Elvis, what advice do you have for new artists?

Elvis Costello: I wouldn’t really presume to tell them anything. I think that their experience has got to be very different from the one that I had. I look at my beginnings. I ended up having myself come from just working out of one shop front, and it seemed that we knew everybody who was working there, from the designer to the people that put up the posters around town. It was really a cottage industry, and I think the company seems much more a face in which you could hide. But compare them to the modern corporations, impersonal multi-product corporations that doesn’t have music as its main purpose, it can be intimidating for young musicians. I think that’s why you see so many people taking the direct route to the public. I have no smart advice, but don’t give up anything for a short-term gain. People give up the rights to the tour and the t-shirts for the privilege of recording and it’s no different than becoming a prostitute. People have bought the copyrights to songs for sixty dollars and then the people who had nothing to do with writing the songs put their names on the song credit. That went on from the forties to the fifties and then it died out a little, but you see a similar kind of impulse because it’s so difficult for people to make the volume of profit that they saw their predecessors make. It’s changed, and there’s nothing that’s going to change it back. If you really believe in what you’re doing, you have to really remain resolute about it and think of the way to get to people. Think of a show that nobody else can copy. If anything, it encourages originality and that’s what I see in the best of it. That’s an argument for the young artist, not for the music player. I have no smart solution. I don’t think anybody does. The worst mistake made was to let the industry standards drop, that was the crucial mistake. I think sonically, it will be judged that way. From 78s to 45s to long play, radio over records, film over radio, television over film, they’ve all offered different possibilities for music and musical comedy and it was covered really well with that, but it was inevitable that it would eventually have a new easily transmittable form of music–digital. And at the same time as it opened it up, you literally couldn’t basically protect the copyright anymore. I think that was the mistake. I think a lot of people will accept the fact that it was a mistake, and whatever benefits it brought… Those who actually make the content of the Apples and the Spotifys and subscriptions… Obviously, the deal’s done with the copyright holders who are the record companies and sometimes, they’re not paying the artists and sometimes, they need an income just to keep the band going. Think about being a young artist trying to start on that foundation. How are they supposed to do that? That’s why so many people make music and stick it on YouTube or Facebook. It’s the only way they can try to have a music career.