OK, so Lily Allen may have quit music before (she announced it to the crowd at Bestival) but this time she really means it because it has gone on an all-new dedicated blog, OK? And the timing could be seen as a protest against the more moderate actions of the Featured Artists Coalition (FAC), which includes members of Blur, Radiohead and Pink Floyd, and whose own response to the problem of illegal music distribution is to call, like, a really urgent meeting, today in London.
The smugly-monikered stadium-filling collective FAC (have these guys never seen Team America?!) have got up the noses of many musicians by adopting what outsiders might regard as a 'realistic' approach to filesharing. They say file-sharing cannot be stopped. They're against punishing individual file-sharers and want to develop a unified, 'legalised' approach. Er, like iTunes but somehow cooler and more nice.
However, they would say that. Major artists get all their money from image rights, airplay and ticket sales. For smaller emerging acts, music sales would represent a significant slice of revenue. Except that most music is illegally downloaded. According to the BBC, more than 80% of under-24s would never pay for music, and that's the target market.
Lily Allen is therefore in the unusual position (for a public school pop-droid) of representing the masses, or rather the gaggles of unkempt aspiring musicians, who are having their major source of revenue cut out from under them. Mind you, she actually built her entire career out of giving away music on her myspace, before quickly selling it to TV and becoming a ubiquitous celebrity.
Not that this invalidates her point. Many musicians are full-square behind Lily in the sense that taking their music for free is not 'inevitable' or 'the reality' but is in fact thieving, from people who you are supposed to like. Unfortunately the only 'musicians' who have publicly backed her on her blog are James Blunt, Mark Ronson, Gary Kemp and Gary Barlow. Maybe this is what's making Lily depressed.
This debate really has split music down the middle: for instance Billy Bragg, man of the people, is on the 'filesharing is inevitable' side of the fence while latter-day folk hero Frank Turner has spent the last month arguing with his fans on his blog about whether stealing is wrong. And reminding them that it affects his ability to live.
The debate will roll on no doubt, and our sympathies are with struggling musicians who watch aghast while the very fans who turn up to support them are unwilling to pay for their tracks. But you know what? They probably can't afford to and if the things were up for sale, and properly protected... they wouldn't spend their money there. Home taping did not kill music, album sales are rising every year, and free distribution has always been the friend of genuinely good music.
Our final thoughts must rest with the people's champion Lily Allen. She was right to kick up a stink. And she's probably right to retire now before the inevitable grime collaboration embarrassment failure. (Although saying that, both of her albums were bloody good so maybe we're a little bit gutted.) Anyway, good luck to Lily in her new acting career! At least this time nobody will accuse her of getting any help from her Dad. He can't act for toffee.
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JH
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