14 DAY TRIAL // Just recently, Lily Allen joined the fight against illegal downloads of music, saying that artists had all to come together and do something to stop them until things really got out of control. In a new interview with the British media, cited by DigitalSpy, fellow singer Joss Stone lashes out at Allen, saying only someone who is not a real singer cannot understand that this is a fight that cannot be won.
According to Stone, also an artist known for being excessively outspoken on all matters, regardless of whether she offends anyone in doing so or not, Allen is not a real singer, which is why she’s so bitter against those who download music illegally. If she were a singer and not just a performer as she is, she would understand that real artists know from the very start that they don’t stand to make money out of record sales but of shows. But she doesn’t, Stone says.
“She needs to sell records because she’s not a singer, and that’s not an offence to her because I think that she knows that too,” Stone says in a recent interview. “I think she’s a performer and she’s more of a personality than she is a singer. But I think when musicians are really making real music people come to the show and that’s what we make our money from, from playing live,” the singer further explains.
Since Allen doesn’t have what it takes to sell tickets for live gigs, she relies on album sales. In this context, it’s understandable why she wants illegal downloads of music to be cut down to the best of possibilities, since she’s basically bleeding money because of them. Unlike Allen, Stone is a singer, therefore she doesn’t care if she can’t sell records because she’ll always have the live shows to fall back on, she believes.
Joss Stone concludes by saying, “I think it’s probably harder for an artist like Lily and any other pop acts. It’s really about the track and about their personality and their celebrity and that’s how they make their money is selling those records. So the downloads – she;s not going to win that fight. None of us will win that fight. So let’s just accept it and let’s see it as something that can be beautiful and it might change music for the better. It might sort the weeds from the flowers.”