Emm Gryner Interview

REBECCA LAURIE IS THE NEWEST member of the Downhill Battle team and we are psyched to have her on board. Her first contribution to the site is an interview with Emm Gryner, a prominent Canadian singer-songwriter who runs her own independent record label and records hits in her own bedroom. As she points out in the interview, things are generally more hospitable to independent music up north, though the major labels are certainly a dominating force. Emm was on a major label for one album before deciding to go indie. As she says:

“There’s been such a spread between what the record companies are trying to do and what artists are trying to do. I’m sure those goals were aligned originally, but now they aren’t and it was bound to implode.”

If you’ve been following filesharing news (and we sure have been!) you may have seen that Canada’s equivalent of the RIAA, the Canadian Recording Industry Association (CRIA), recently decided to begin suing music fans, dispelling the hope that they would take a more enlightened approach. With all the attention that the RIAA has received, it can be easy to forget that the 5 major record labels are transnational corporations; the United States accounts for less than half of their total sales. We hope the interview will Emm Gryner will be the beginning of a more international focus for Downhill Battle; there’s been a lot of interest in the site from folks outside of the United States, and we’re working to get some of our articles and features translated. The Emm Gryner Interview.

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The same Kansas City team that brought us photos of their stickering adventure a few weeks ago is back in a big, big way. Take a look. Definitely watch this video that they posted. And if that looks like fun, you can get your own stickers right here. Informing consumers about where their music dollars go is crucial if we’re going to succeed at changing the music industry.

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This is practically obscene: lawsuit victims in a Pepsi ad. We certainly don’t blame the kids for taking the money (we would), but the whole thing is a filthy cycle of putting people in debt and then forcing them to shill to get out of it. Sure, Pepsi didn’t do the suing, but their promotion depends on the lawsuits being in place. (Related to this, we’re cooking up a project related to the bottlecap promotion, so stay tuned.)