Electronic Musician M83 Broke Union Rules to Keep New Album Under Budget
by Ezra DulisLast weekend at New York Comic Con, during a panel on the anime series Robotech, speaker Kevin McKeever played a clip from a new documentary on the making of the groundbreaking show, mostly culled from interviews with the series’ American producers and voice actors. One anecdote that stuck out at me was that the voice actors constantly used pseudonyms in the credits because they were breaking union labor rules–the hours they worked, the pay received, it was all in violation of their actors’ guild’s regulations.
Stories like that always bring a tear to my eye. There’s nothing quite as stifling to art and creativity than arbitrary rules placed on artists by disinterested third parties, and labor unions are a major offender. Thus, it’s heartwarming to see union members rebel against their leaders because of the passion they have for a project–going the extra mile to make it an outstanding product and to make it feasible by charging less than their standard pay.
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That documentary’s story also stuck out to me because a recent Pitchfork interview with Anthony Gonzalez, frontman for the French electronica group M83, revealed a similar story, this time involving his newly-released double album “Hurry Up, We’re Dreaming”:
Pitchfork: When I spoke with you last year, you said you were worried about having enough money to make a double album.
AG: We had a good budget to make a 10-track album with good sound, so we had to find ways [to stretch that out]. It was difficult. But [producer] Justin [Meldal-Johnsen] did an amazing job putting a lot of artists together who worked for no money, just because they were in love with the project. I always wanted to play with strings and brass, and Joseph Trapanese, who did the arrangements for the album, didn’t get paid. We didn’t put the real names of the string and brass players on the album because they’re part of a union, and it’s illegal to work for shitty money. They’re credited, but with fake names. [emphasis added]







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