Paper ideas/thoughts

[tobinownlife]

I'm writing this paper for my social psychology class. It just has to be about a particular human behavior. I was thinking about using the rise/fall/enjoyment/greed of bands/music industry as examples of intrinsic and extrinsic motivation. Intrinsic motivation is when we are doing something because we genuinely enjoy it and think it is worthwhile. Extrinsic is when we are doing something because we are supposed to or get paid for it. For example, a band might start with intrinsic motivation and get better and better. Then when a major label signs them and promises them exorbitant amounts of cash to do what they love, over time the new extrinsic element could dull performance or caring. Perhaps this is what leads to the whole "bands suck when they sign to big labels" theory, or part of it. On the other hand many bands know they won't make money for a while, so maybe that would make the motivation less extrinsic. I was curious about other examples of this in music. Any thoughts, particularly on how piracy could play into this?

[rtw88]

I have nothing to say on the subject that hasn't been said before, but to expand on piracy/downloading, read up on some Radiohead and Trent Reznor stuff, obviously, and also smaller bands like My Heart to Joy who are a touring band and have physical releases, but still put up their music for free download. You could also focus on labels that put out releases by bands they love at sustainable prices as opposed to highly profitable ones, such as Plan-it-X on No Idea.

It all seems highly debatable though. You've got bands like Against Me! who move to the majors and have major stylistic shifts in the music, but who's to say whether it was just a shift that accompanied their shift in attitude towards major labels or whether they were trying to make their music more profitable.