anonymous music productions

why do you think producers who aren't trying to wiggle around their contracts with major labels need to release things anonymously etc?

whats the theory there? why is it cool?

for the same reason why people cheat on their gf/bf

  On 8/24/2013 at 9:03 PM, skibby said:

why do you think producers who aren't trying to wiggle around their contracts with major labels need to release things anonymously etc?

 

whats the theory there? why is it cool?

I'm not sure I understand your question.

Do you mean major label artists releasing music under another name on a smaller label or fully independently? Usually, from what I remember, major labels ask for a certain amount of albums under a certain amount of years. They can't own all compositions an artist creates within a certain amount of years. As long as the artist presents an amount of songs for an album for the major label to release, they are fulfilling their contract. If the artist has some songs they enjoy but don't feel like they would fit for their major label release or the major label doesn't want to release them, there shouldn't be anything stopping them from releasing them under another name. However, releasing it under their 'major label' name would be breach of contract.

Why do they do it? Mo' money, yo!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Covert_operation

For one thing, people associate brands with a certain style, and more generally, once they're used to seeing someone in a certain light, it's difficult for them to accept a different facet of who they are.

For example, The Prodigy were a fun rave act, then wrote a more serious track, One Love. They released it as an anonymous white label so that people who thought they could only write silly rave tunes wouldn't automatically dismiss it.

Similarly, there's a Malcolm Gladwell book (I forget which offhand) in which he talks about some people auditioning classically trained musicians in such a way that they couldn't tell the race, gender, age or any other irrelevant attribute of them. They were surprised by the person they deemed the best, primarily because she was someone who they already knew. They couldn't imagine this person really was a world class musician, but it turned out she was.

For these kinds of reasons, it's useful to use a different alias for each style. The problem then becomes either that you write something half way between styles and have to decide which alias to use, or worse, you write to specific genres, employing tropes, whether your own or already established ones, in order to fit certain expectations.

Or maybe you want people to judge the music on its own merits, not automatically liking it or disliking it just because you wrote it.

On a related note, putting food in more expensive packaging can make it neurologically taste better.

  On 8/24/2013 at 9:03 PM, skibby said:

why do you think producers who aren't trying to wiggle around their contracts with major labels need to release things anonymously etc?

 

whats the theory there? why is it cool?

I'm not Afx! ...if that's what you meant. Nor Squarepusher's bass guitar, nor Trent Reznor's neck BTW.

they just do it to piss you off skibby, specifically you.