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Homogenized Music
Mansing writes "The connections between broadcast radio and music industry are well known. In the old days, payola was the method to increase a song's (or album's) exposure. But now, the same "free market" corporate music that infects the music industry is also infecting the broadcast radio industry as well. What makes the article so informative is not the business angles, but how business has changed what is broadcast. Seeing the parallels between the recording industry's force fed music and Clear Channel's "nothing is left to whim or chance" programming, I now understand how hard it is for any non-corporate sanctioned music to become widely heard."
The market is working just fine. The problem is that the majority are willing to listen to the homogeneous crap that CCU broadcasts. You can argue all you want that the airwaves are a "public good" and not just another form of property, but in the end of the day, someone is going to be arbitrarily choosing what goes on the airwaves no matter how the power to choose is apportioned. And if it's the public (read: majority) choosing how to use that good, you can be assured they're not going to waste that bandwidth on indie rock, metal, big-band music, or African tongue-clicking.
Instead of complaining, choose one of the alternatives: listen to satellite radio, internet radio, listen to CD's (the real ones, not those phony pseudo-CD's), etc. If CCU truly isn't performing a service that people want, advertisers will stop buying airtime and it will go bankrupt. I'm guessing that isn't about to happen anytime soon.
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Capitalism does tend towards monopoly. But the monopolistic trend is countered by some things Marx never considered. Inventers, developers, people who just think outside the business box, they then provide more competition. Of course, the Monopolies will try to eat them up, but they can and do fail at that, and get washed up and forgotten.
While Communism, that's the Monopoly of the state, with no chance for competition, after all the State KNOWS what you need and want. Even if it's true for the majority, the Tyranny of the Majority is not something to be desired either.
So Monopoly, from Communism or Capitalism is bad. But at least with Capitalism, we have a chance against it.
Bill
OK Tired of radio and MTV? Me too! Who the heck decided that bad Eddie Vedder impressions would be popular this year?
Here's some bands worth checking out: (reply and post your own)
Neutral Milk Hotel
The Microphones
The Shins
The Dismemberment Plan
Need New Body
The Mountain Goats
Boards of Canada
... and You Will Know Us by the Trail of Dead
Sparklehorse
Belle & Sebastian
Brighteyes
Matmos
The Hot Snakes
The White Stripes (yeah, they've got a video, but they rock harder than anything since Zepplin)
music has always been comercial and pandering to trends, but in the past five years or so it has gotten *much* worse. There has not been a single innovative band to make it to the popular stage, music hasn't seen anything like this since the dark ages of the late 50s/early 60s. Think about it, what was the last novelty hit? What was the last song that got popular just because some DJ thought it was amusing? It's been quite a while. The early 90s saw innovative acts like Nirvana, Beck, and Liz Phair getting tons of airplay, and now we just have 1001 Pearl Jam/Creed rip-off acts. I won't comment on the R&B teen pop, that's obviously commercial fluff, and it wouldn't bother me if there were good things elsewhere. When we had the New Kids on the Block, we also had U2 and REM. Rap is, thankfully, still going strong, it probably has a good 10 or 15 years of life left in it.
Rock and Roll is approaching death. It will soon be as dead as Jazz. It will still be made. There will still be people doing amazing and creative things with it. But it's period of cultural relevancy is nearing the end.
Maybe I'm wrong. Maybe the Strokes/White Stripes garage/blues punk thing will take off. That would be cool.
In Capitalist America, bank robs you!
I'm convinced that the Internet is what will lead to the demise of the recording industry and the broadcast industry.
As it is today, radio and record sales are the two main ways for an artist to become popular, sell out their shows, and make money. However, there is a high barrier to entry; the recording and broadcast industries want to profit, and so they only support music that will make them money--regardless of quality.
But the Internet allows all artists to be heard, by all people, with no strings attached but the size of your pipeline. Since artists never get paid for record sales to begin with, it hardly matters whether their music gets copied online--so long as it's good, they'll still sell out their concerts.
Ten to twenty years from now, the recording industry will be a crumbling colossus. People will get sick of being force-fed their music, of having to pick between identical blonde models with equally bad style, of seeing the same old stuff on the charts every week. By then, the Internet will have become powerful enough that any artist who wants to be heard, will be.
I have to say at this point that DJ's do nothing but get my dander up anymore.
I'm only 28, so this is before my time, but it seems like the days of the Golden Age of Radio Music (50's and 60's) focussed as much on the music that the DJ played by choice as they did on the personality of the DJ. Nowadays, DJs are handed lists of scheduled tunes to spit out, leaving them completely removed from the decision-making process.
What's the upshot? You can't listen to what the DJ likes to listen to anymore. There's no musical connection to them for the audience to resonate with. Particular DJs don't have particular styles anymore. There's no recognition of individual DJs and styles, no loyalty, and no sense that (*here's the important bit*) the DJ is sharing music with you that he or she thinks is really worth listening to.
(Whoops -- there's that "sharing music" idea again.)
DJs are therefore distinguished by their chatter between songs. Which is not music. I turn on the radio to listen to music or news, not chatter. Hence, I hate DJs. They're cookie-cutter gibbering monkeys to me, failed stand-up comedians who couldn't muster enough journalistic skills to become bona fide reporters.
I listen to my local university-driven NPR affiliate, and that's all. That station has a vast library of out-of-the-way music from every conceivable genre, and the DJs get to pick and chose what they'd like to play. Sometime I hate what they chose. Other times, I'm pleasantly surprised.
Imay not know their names, but I know their styles. I love that.
GMFTatsujin