fluffy wrote:This is a suggestion that's come up a few times before but it poses several major logistical problems:
1. How do we select the best songs in a way that shows a reasonable cross-section of what Song Fight is capable of without being exclusionary?
The fact that people will always complain about the editorial choices is not a very compelling reason to avoid making editorial choices.
2. These songs are copyright to their creators. Getting permission for the songs which are selected might be pretty difficult, especially for a lot of the artists who have disappeared long ago.
Then we'll only include songs from people who a.) we can contact, and b.) give their permission. Several Songfighters from the site's early years (Collin, drew, MC Frontalot, and, uh,
you) are easily reachable because they still have a pretty big online presence. And of course there are many who maintain active presence on the site. Even if we select songs from among currently active (as in, at least one entry since January 2011) fighters, that still gives us access to a pretty rich archive of stuff going back to about 2002. And if it's "exclusionary" to only include songs from the community's most engaged members, then so be it, but those folks are representative of the community, because we
are the community.
3. There will always be a very vocal part of the community that isn't happy that X was included over Y, for countless combinations of X and Y.
See my answer to #1. Yes, people will always complain. So what?
I'd prefer to decide based on an assessment of cost vs. benefit.
Cost: What would the Songfight community at-large need to contribute to make this happen? If we wanted to do a physical run of CDs, the pressing could get expensive really fast. If we wanted to do digital only, then the licenses to appear in the various online retailers would be reasonably cheap one-time investments, right? Whose pocket would that come out of?
Benefit: What would the Songfight community gain from having a compilation album available at major retailers? Honestly, I'm not sure how to answer this one. I guess it depends on who takes the profit (assuming there is any). I would suggest that it be split among whichever artists have songs on the album, but realistically, the profits from the album are likely to be meager enough that splitting them 15+ ways wouldn't really make a difference in anyone's pockets. So maybe the proceeds could just be paid directly to the Fightmasters, for the purposes of maintaining upkeep on the site? I know it's pretty high-traffic, and the archive keeps growing. My current understanding is that JB fronts the bill, and he's never asked for donations, nor has he ever publicly indicated that his site might be a long-term financial liability, but that doesn't mean he'd necessarily turn down the offer for potential free money towards the site's maintence, if offered. I'm curious what he thinks about this.
The other benefit, as touched upon by wickedcripple, is that it would give Songfight "more exposure."
Those of us who've been around here for a long time know that exposure can be a double-edged sword. More exposure does mean that more outsiders will come to the site and listen to our stuff, which is nice - especially for the few Songfighters who still entertain notions of "getting discovered" and either making a living from their music or supplementing their income with it. However, there have been periods in Songfight's history when we've had ample exposure, and, at the risk of sounding snobbish, I think there's a level of population above which this community's value to its members experiences diminishing returns. In other words, no one wants Songfight to be a ghost town, but when there's 40-some-odd songs per week and hundreds of users to keep track of, Songfight has difficulty maintaining its close-knit community.
It might still be a fun project, especially if the initial investment is minimal. But using it as a promotional tool for Songfight doesn't strike me as a good idea, in the long run, and I wouldn't expect to profit directly from the album. This probably rules out a physical CD and limits the project to online distribution only, but if you can keep the initial investment small enough, then why the heck not?
Is anyone here familiar with the process of getting a compilation on iTunes, Amazon, and the major music sellers? How expensive is it?
