Is piracy killing live music in BCN?

This was the intriguing question posed by Ben Cardew in an English language blog that appears in Spain's left-of-centre El País daily. His thesis, roughly speaking was that as Spaniards buy so little music, there is little commercial incentive for record labels to tour their bands in the country (to promote sales), unless they can put on massive stadium events that rake in the dough. As a result, Barcelona - he asserts - has a pretty dire gig scene for a city of its size and standing, where only electronic and/or club-based acts (with low overheads) and local talent gets a look-in. Ben also states that Manchester - and even his home town of Norwich could give the Catalan venues a run for their money.

Well I'm not so sure. Firstly, his theory is only that. Despite making a vague comment about the Barcelonese missing out on bands "on the cusp of success," he does not identify which sorts of acts don't come to BCN. He even contradicts himself somewhat, by stating the the Cuidad Condal has a "vibrant music scene" - a statement I think is truer now than a few years ago. So I've invited Ben to tell me which bands we're not seeing due to profligate downloading. I pointed out to him that in the last few weeks I've seen a huge variety of bands, from Elbow to John Maus to The Sonics, plus local acts like Furguson and Vilaroel. We also get much more commercial fare at the Palau St Jordi, if that's more your bag (and you have a bag full of money). 

Anyway, here's my reply to Ben in full, which I have to say he addressed with scrupulous honesty and courtesy: 

Hi Ben - thanks for getting back so quickly. Sounds like we have fairly similar musical tastes. I saw Wild Beasts and Odd Future at PS, plus Deerhunter, who believe are Atlas-related. I have a number of points to make in reply, so apologies for the mammoth post.

Firstly regarding spending on music. Spaniards have far less money for this than many other Europeans, as they are simply poorer. As you probably know the majority of wage earners are inframileuristas, (i.e. make less than 1000 Euros per month), plus we have a ridiculously high level of unemployment, especially amongst the young, at 40-odd percent. This might account for Spaniards not buying much music, rather than a national addiction to piracy (yes, I’m addressing Alex’s post here).

In fact, where is the hard-and-fast evidence that the Spanish are a nation of downloaders, anyway? All the studies I’ve seen are by the music industry, with a vested interest in exaggerating the stats in order to push for tougher legislation. Is there any independent data from a non-biased source (not Warner’s, Sony or Promusicae)?

On a related point, have you seen this posting about a Swiss government study into downloads?  it found that in Switzerland, at least, downloading did not affect overall spend on musical entertainment, but was complementary to it, and thus the Swiss government chose not to outlaw downloads for personal use.

Irrespective of whether the industry stats do stand up or not, another big factor for low music sales must be the supremacy of - totally legal - Spotify in the country - which pays artists peanuts.

In addition, the costs of getting on a plane and coming to Spain where cities are pretty spread out and distant from one another are much higher than going to the UK or, say Germany (with cities just down the road from each other) from the US, for example, so you have another barrier to foreign bands touring that has nothing to do with downloading.

As regards sweaty venues, we have quite a few to choose from - Apolo 2, Razz 3, SideCar, Moog, L’Heliogabàl, and City Hall, for example, where I’ve seen a number of great bands.

Barcelona is certainly much more reliant on festivals than in the UK, for example, and let’s not forget the freebies such as BAM (Rita Indiana, WU-LIF, Little Scream, Man Man) and Nits de Montjuïc. These take advantage of the balmy summer nights we enjoy here, and perhaps reflect a cultural difference between Spain and the UK music audiences.

On that note, I think its wrong to expect to see exactly the same sorts of bands in Catalonia as in the Midlands - or anywhere else for that matter. Hip hop for example is not as popular as in the UK, so there are less reasons for a rap act to tour here (although artists such as Ari Puello have enjoyed some success, and appeared at Nits de Montjuïc this summer).

On the positive side, after years of the dreary Cantautors, and cookie-cutter Ska and Jevi bands dominating much of the local talent, we have some great acts emerging in Barcelona. I’ve had a great time in the aforementioned sweaty dives listening to Odio Paris, Lion’s Constellation, Furguson and Mujeres, for example.

Finally, to address your point about gig-goers being entirely at the mercy of the legal drug pushers (the alcohol companies). As traditional mass-media advertising becomes more difficult due to channel fragmentation, sponsorship is an increasingly attractive option for any brand interested in a youthful demographic, and these will seize the opportunity to jump on the back of any bandwagon (excuse the pun) that happens along.

For that reason I think we can expect corporate sponsorship to continue, even if it means a shift to other market areas, such as apparel, and Levi’s have already sponsored smaller events here.  Of course, with economic Armageddon just around the corner, all bets may be off in any case.

All the best - and I hope to bump into you at a BCN gig some day!

BB