The sporting goods company Converse might just be ushering in a new artistic renaissance. Converse is opening a recording studio in north Brooklyn where studio time is absolutely free. Let a struggling musician tell you what their most prohibitive cost is and they will tell you about all the money they are spending for studio recording sessions.
To earn the chips needed to get into a decent studio, artists used to work at retail stores like Tower Records, Virgin Megastore or the recently shuttered FatBeats. Since no one is buying CDs any longer those stores don’t need employees, but musicians still need money to record their music.
In steps Converse as a patron of the arts. Sort of. Converse’s Chuck Taylors has been the singular shoe of musicians from punk rockers like Sid Vicious and the Ramones to pop music gangbanging rappers like Snoop Dogg and The Game. It makes me wonder if Converse is spending all of this money in order to create an anthem on the level of Run-DMC’s ‘My adidas’.
The truth is that the music industry has migrated into businesses that make money in this recession because they sell things that people are still interested in paying for. Basically everything BUT music. Converse, McDonald’s, Nike and Starbucks are the new record labels and distributors. That is, until I figure a way to download a pair of SB Dunks and a quarter pounder with cheese.
