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The Way the Music Died
segfaultcoredump writes "Frontline just released a show entitled The Way the Music Died, an in-depth look at all that is wrong with the music industry. The show will be available for online viewing on May 29th. Their website includes the full text of all of the interviews done during the show, including a very interesting one with musical legend David Crosby, where he hits the reason the industry is having problems right on the head." Reader robl adds "This is a good sequel to the 2001 Frontline episode, The Merchants of Cool which showed how the music industry markets its wares to teenagers and how it hypes artists."
Treat ALL your customers like criminals = You fail.
Music is magic. It's been mankind's magic since the first caveman danced around his fire going "Ugga bugga, hugga bugga!" That was music, and he was happy. And we're still doing it, and it makes us happy.
;-)
I think he means European dance music is still doing that
iTunes is a good idea. It delivers the music to you cheap, pays us, doesn't cheat anybody, and it cuts out all middlemen -- very good
I don't think so, Mr. Crosby! Cuts out all middlemen? The RIAA are still there taking their fat chunk. The artists get a tiny chunk. Of course, if you're smart enough to release tracks directly to Apple (like Ben Folds has been doing lately), then you can get a lot more.. but most RIAA-promoted artists can't do this.
The music "industry" is a temporary phenomenon brought about by the original expense and difficulty of fabricating and distributing recorded music. As this expense drops to zero, we *should* go back to the way things used to be - professional musicians making a modest income providing live entertainment for live audiences. Unfortunately, people don't go out that much anymore (except to the mall) but electronic distribution can compensate. The music industry is dead; long live the music profession!
I was always wondering when somebody respectable and intelligent would note what the majority of America can't see: music today is CRAP. I don't care what my friends tell me, or what the TV tells me, there's no way around it. You don't get the studio mastery of the Beatles, nor do you get the sheer energy and excitement of Zeppelin.
That's right, I hate to say it, but recording killed music as it existed. Now, we have 2-3 minute soundbites that are played over and over in replication on thousands of cd players and computers. Gone are the complexities of performance. We've abandoned a culture of performers for a culture of listners.
Quid festinatio swallonis est aetherfuga inonusti?
Africus aut Europaeus?
Most everyone I talk to thinks that top 40 music on the radio sucks. I happen to agree (except for 50 cent, haha)
I think I'm one of the few lucky enough to have lived by and grown up with an excellent college music station. Through their various shows and DJs, I've been able to find out what type(s) of music I'm really into, rather than having the Big 5 tell me what I like.
The moral of the story is that if you dig a little deeper than what's on the surface, you can find the real gold. I believe Indie bands always prove to have much more talent and creativity than the producer-molded garbage you hear on top 40 stations.
That said, Epitonic is a great site to listen to cool songs and figure out how to break away from that mainstream cycle.
'When the going gets weird, the weird turn pro.' -HST
Music will always live.
What is dying is the way big record companies make business (I know.. it's not disappeating any time soon, but anyways, it's dying slowly).
But around the world there will always be people willing to make music, perform music and freely share music.
I suspect that there will be a "sea change" in the music industry as well as big paradigm shift. Things do tend to find their way even through the tumbles to the extreme. In the meantime, I'm glad I'm 46 because I grew up when great music, by and large, made it to the radio (yeah,yeah, I know, I'm a cranky old fart).
Keep smiling!
Erick
http://www.busyweather.com/
1) I am encouraged by the amount and quality of home-recording equipment around these days. For $500 or less you can get decent microphones, and for another $500 you can get decent editing and processing software which surpasses last decade's state-of-the-art. To my mind, this gives me as a musician a whole lot of freedom to make music the way I want to.
... like government, or ethics?
2) However, I couldn't make a living like that, unless I were to be picked up by someone. And the point of the Frontline show is that the "someones" willing to pick up new artists are diminishing in number. In the long run, I believe that the problem will be solved by a shift in the market; after all, musicians receiving patronage has a long and glorious tradition.
3) But, in the short run, the situation stinks. What is interesting here is that we have gotten exactly what we wanted, so to speak. Music marketers discovered what types of music people were willing to pay for. The majority of us said "Yes" to 3 minute singles with catchy choruses repeated ad nauseum, sung on video by sexy-looking stars, and we said "No" to 20 minute explorations created by groups like Yes, Kansas, or Rush. Which raises an interesting point: if majority rule and utilitarian thought produces such obvious garbage in the music realm, what garbage can it produce in other areas
/ramble
Human being (n.): A genetically human, genetically distinct, functioning organism.
Actually if it is pre-packed, it will sound exactly the same since its played off the album in the back...
for example a live artist will typically not run around the stage full tilt while singing...the pre-packed stuff will perform a double backflip in the middle of a verse and not miss a note.
Food not Bombs is a nice platitude but it breaks down when you notice that the Bombees are usually well fed
Also, a good way to support the small artists is to pay attention to the local scene. Sure a lot of it is crap, (the same with the big-name clear channel bands, by the way) but a lot of these guys are really good. Listen to your local college radio (or go to www.wruw.org and listen to mine) and keep abreast of local bands and local concerts. Go to a hole in the wall bar and listen to whoever is playing there, what could it hurt?
Some artists, such as Dar Williams, and Ruth Gerson, got their start in "living room gigs." Average people arrange a concert in their homes for artists they believe in. Something like $10 or $20 donation at the door, and give the procedes to the performer. Be a Patron, not just a "consumer."
Thanks. And listen to WRUW FM 91.1 (I am not affiliated with them, but I do donate $n annually where n is in the set of whole numbers.)
More music, fewer hits
In order for people to buy the music, the music has to be good.
No, see, that's where you're wrong. The music doesn't have to be good. If you read the quotes from the people in the "article" then you would have seen first-hand that all it takes is a good body, a great video, and some money plunked down by the conglomorates to get you in.
Read the article. He really does hit it right on the head.
"You know, you'd go to a meeting with a record company and it wouldn't be a guy there who knew that you had written a new song and thought that was cool. It would be a guy who knew that he had moved 40,000 pieces out of Dallas this month, and he had no idea, pieces of what? None."
"Look at it this way. A couple of years ago, somewhere between a fourth and a third of the record business was owned by a whiskey company, who shall remain nameless, but were notably inept at running a record company. And they sold it to a French water company, who shall also remain nameless, but knew even less. Now, those guys haven't a clue! [laughter] They haven't a clue. And they don't care about having a clue. They are trying to run it as if they're selling widgets, plastic-wrapped widgets that they can sell more of. And they want easily definable, easily accessible, easily creatable, controllable product that has a built-in die-out, so that they can create some more."
"It doesn't matter that Britney Spears has nothing to say and is about as deep as a birdbath. It matters that she has cute tits, and that's all that matters."
"Now they're going in the tank, because the world has changed, and they did not change with it. They bit the poison pill, without realizing it, when they went digital. Once a thing is in digital domain, it can be copied as many times as you want. And there is no system that can keep it from being copied. You can devise the most clever one you want, and I will bring some little geek with a pen protector in his pocket into the room and he will fix it in a minute."
-- David Fucking Crosby
Or perhaps we could flash-mob (or would that be slash-mob) teeni-bopper radio stations and request her single.
The problem with this is that I think most slashdotters don't bother listening to the radio when you can listen to MP3s/Ogg/AAC/whatever on your PC and not have to deal with ads and annoying DJ's.
Until music is considered and treated as an artform first and foremost, the commercial music industry will remain permanently broken as their priorities are transposed.
The early masters like Mozart and Beethoven were supported/sponsored by patrons thus freeing them to indulge their creativity and create truly legendary music that has outlasted their mortal lives and should last long after the members of commercial music industry sponsored music acts meet a similar fate....
I've got news for ya buddy - Prince lost that war and gave up after years of trying to win on his own.
It's like the old Dire Straights tune - The Man's Too Strong.
I can tell you the way the music died... It died when the musicians became the money-grubbing motherfuckers that most of them were told to become. They want to make millions of dollars and they have the conglomerates brainwash their fans into thinking that it is acceptable!
I don't know about all that... I think there's certainly some musicians that became money-grubbing scum, the problem is the music industry latched onto the ones that did what they told them. I put the blame for the decline of music squarely on the industry who's interested in short term profits at the cost of the long term. They market everything toward 15-19 year olds, and aren't willing to take any risks. The radio is just an extension of the same "play it safe, stick to the format" media giants.
AccountKiller
If David Crosby is calling you an idiot and a criminal, then you know you have problems.
You are less cynical than I then, Aphex Twin was hugely promoted from the very beginning. CMJ, SXSW, college radio have a huge interest in promoting certain "alterna" bands and its the same marketing machine that brought you the really annoying "all good music got started at CBGB's VH1 love fests (aka blondie, talking heads, ramones etc" In fact you may have noticed aphex will show as background music in a lot of MTV slots (aka real world). Similarly in this day and age autechre, fischer spooner ladytron miss kitten all get the appropriate plugs in all the right places (and the MTV background slots) w/out any clear channel play. You may not be wearing phat raver tennis shoes but i'm sure you'll buy another "26 mixes for cash" :)
This article is all the more reason to support independent labels that actually care about their artists. There are labels that actually care about getting quality music out there, because the survival of their business depends on it. They care about building a loyal fan base, signing quality groups, and giving them the resources to develop into the group's vision, not the label's.
--
Using GNU/Linux - Windows-free zone!
You ignore the fact that in order to make the money they are making they have to "please the people that enjoy music." Just because you don't like the music doesn't mean the rest of us can't enjoy it.
I didn't ignore anything. People aren't enjoying music. They are enjoying what is fed to them. Let's not be confused here. The conglomorates control everything. Remember who controls 98% of radio (there is *1* major station here that isn't owned by Infinity or ClearChannel). Remember who controls TV. Remember who controls music.
CONGLOMORATES are telling you what you like and not the other way around.
sure, if you insist on prepackaged starlets or angsty-white-boys with guitars, then innovation is pretty much dead. You should try to listen to the only progressive american music genres, Hip-Hop and R&B.
Exactly. I hate the elitest attitude toward music so many people have. Even though YOU may not like the latest pop star, there are obviously millions of people who do, otherwise they wouldn't be popular.
Some people just don't seem to grasp that.
Yes, he's been putting out music and touring since the 70's. How does this not mean he's MORE qualified to talk about how the music industry has changed than an up-and-coming 'musician' (The very musician the Frontline episode is saying has changed for the worse because of the industry)? You do realize that's what the Frontline show is about, right?
As for the drug busts comment -- nice work on being the last one to criticize him for it...
I'll be the last one to criticize him for smoking dope
Looks like you're the first in this forum at least. I don't see how his personal habits have anything to do with his credibility as an expert on the music industry.
Why don't you come up with some counter-points to his arguments, rather than just saying "He smokes dope, so he must be hallucinating all this stuff about the music industry..."
Probably more damaging is the fact that the music industry he's most familiar with is that of the 1970s, not that of the contemporary industry. Sure, he's involved, but as a veteran/player, not as an up-and-coming musician.
Quite the opposite, as a veteran he is in a perfect position to comment on how the industry has changed over the last 35 years. See, older people often accumulate, through experience, this thing called "wisdom".
that everyone is posting :
....
:-D
"the one reason the music industry died is . period." ??
and ALL of them are different reasons?
maybe its a combination of shitty music, greedy record companies, greedy musicians, drugs, cmdrtaco, drm, napster, filesharing in its many forms, mtv, britney spears, lack of innovation, disney, lawyers, riaa,
get the point? there's no 1 reason the recording industry is in the current state that it is.
and think about this...
Recording... INDUSTRY...
one more time...
Recording... INDUSTRY...
notice that second word:
INDUSTRY
They operate like a business would because they are a business and their main purpose is to make money. They may do it the sleazy way but hey thats BUSINESS.
Besides, there are plenty of indie bands (the mindset, not the genre) that work their ass off and distribute their own music and such. You just have to look harder because all that is advertised is the hot product from the Recording INDUSTRY.
Hey theres that word again...
rant over.. sorry for the caffeine overdose
Get paid to code OSS
The reason music is dead is very simple. There is no innovation.
Music is not dead. What a stupid sound bite. Music will never die. Perhaps the way the Big 5 get it to us might change.. perhaps their pricing model might change.. perhaps the Big 5 will dissolve themselves in a fit of greed. But on thing is for sure.. as long as there are humans, there will be music.
And yes, there still is GOOD music out there, but the Big 5 is not hocking that kind of music. Indie labels are tho. If you don't like Big 5's music, then stop caring and stop complaining and go figure out what the hell you DO like.
'When the going gets weird, the weird turn pro.' -HST
Could a song like "Inna-Gadda-Da-Vida" be released today?
And is that a good thing or a bad thing?
Music is music whether you like it or not. Both Pink and Eminem are musical geniuses not only in their respective genres but to the music world as a whole.
Mac OS X and Windows XP working side by side to fight back the night.
"is it kind of thin? I mean, multiple drug busts, the last one involving a firearm? I'll be the last one to criticize him for smoking dope, but it's not like it helps his credibility."
You sir just defined an ad hominem argument.
So what's preventing some of the big names (like Crosby) who "get it" from starting an iTunes-like service where they cut out the middlemen, and give 80% of the proceeds to fellow (up and coming) musicians?
I see a lot of posts saying the music industry is dying because today's music sucks and has no innovation. But if you actually look at history, that has always been the case. What has been the most popular has always been fairly tame, shallow music. The "good stuff" that is always remembered is rarely on the top of the charts. Go back and look at the actual music charts for the 60s, 70s and 80s. You'll find a huge amount of crap (in fact it is almost exclusively crap). That is because the most popular music is almost always easily digested pop songs. Today is no different. The most popular music is simple, easily digested, and easily forgettable, just like the "great music days" of whatever decade you want to pick. Today's music isn't any worse than yesterdays music, we just remember the good stuff from yesterday and see the crap of today.
"Information wants to be expensive" - Stewart Brand, the same guy who said "Information wants to be free"
I think its the difference between a "Show" and a "concert". People go to see Britney dancing an inticately correographed show, to the music of her album. People go to hear artists like Bob Dylan sing. People go to see Jimmy Buffet and the dead for the crowds. In the 70's we saw a rise of artists who wished to add "show" elements to their performances, Genesis, Pink Floyd, the Who, and probably reached its zenith with David Bowie. At which point it sort of broke, and acts that were as much about appearance, heavy metal pyrotechnics, hair bands, as they were about music, probably feuled by MTV tying images to music.
So give up your whining about it, realize your tastes are not the same as a 13 year old girls, and your fighting the same battle that a gourmet would convincing a 13 year old that great blue cheese is really better than Kraft individually wrapped slices.
You are in a maze of twisted little posts, all alike.
I'm 33 and have newphews and nieces that are 16-22. We're basically a generation apart, but the sad thing is that I listen to the exact same music they do. Do I listen to the same music my parents do? No. Why? Because the music I listen to is very different.
But music hasn't evolved much since the 70's, so bands today sound like they did then. If it had evolved I'd hate the music my nieces and newphews like and they'd lament that I just didn't understand it.
A new video game I bought, Battlefield Vietnam, featured select tracks from songs from the early 70's. While playing it I was shocked at how good those songs were, not because I could recognize good music when I heard it(even though it was good), but because you could drop any one of those tracks on a modern alt/rock music station and it'd sound like any other song on the radio today. Music just hasn't evolved much in the past 30 years.
> The reason music is dead is very simple. There is no innovation.
You are so mistaken due to a limited listening vocabulary. There's innovative music out there but for the most part you won't find it on the major labels. You have to dig for it, but it's out there, and thus the music is not dead. It's alive and well and in many forms-- new forms, old forms made anew.
Check out the records coming out from labels like Thrilljockey (Tortoise, Mouse on Mars, The Sea and Cake), Strange Attractors (Yume Bitsu, SubArachnoid Space, Kinksi, Landing, Surface of Eceyon), Constellation Records (Godspeed You! Black Emperor, Do Make Say Think) and Elephant 6 and Cloud Recordings (Olivia Tremor Control, Circulatory System, Of Montreal, Neutral Milk Hotel) -- they've been doing something different with the music in the last few years.
The open horizons continue to be in music that could be classified as psychedelic, anything else ends up just being more of the same. The new musical horizons are best found at the point where music can make our brains do different things than we are used to.
If you can't find music with innovation and quality then you simply aren't looking hard enough.
d. Taylor Singletary,
reality technician techra.el
1. Buy technics turntable + phono amp
2. Go to used record store and buy albums with oh-so-80s lookng covers
3. (optonal) rip to MP3
4. Enjoy music that has been forgotten and never ripped to cd.
I never paid more than $4 for a record, being exposed to all sorts of music I've never even heard of before! Mind you, it's all 80s, but it's good!
Our problem is that because our music is independent music generally no one has heard it before. Because we only give away 30 seconds of the song in high quality our sales are fairly low.
:o) try to develop into some sort of social network; maybe in addition to simply listing by genre, allow people to 'rate' songs (a simple 'like' or 'dislike'), and use this to create recommended songlists (by listing songs that people who have similar tastes have rated 'like'.)
Here's the problem.
When I go looking for stuff, I wanna hear the whole song - doesn't matter if the quality sucks, but if I'm gonna buy it, I wanna hear more than a couple of riffs.
Instead of (or perhaps in addition to) high-quality 30-second bits, put out low-quality full-length songs (56K mono should be good enough quality that the listener can enjoy the song without being distracted by compression artifacts.)
Second - most people who are passionate about the music they like will want to get other people to listen to it. Encourage (with the artists' permission) people to share these low-quality files - put your site in the ID3 tags, and encourage listeners to share them on their favourite P2P site, or deep-link from their own website/blog (provide deep-linking instructions, for example.)
Third - (much more work that the other two
Now labels are expected to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars producing music videos for all of their major artists.
Really? Everybody I know says the artist pays for the music videos - the labels simply front them the money.
I think the OP wants someone to sack up, make music with passion, soul and emotion, not formulae, and take their chances.
GTRacer
- If I had a gun, I'd need new stereos every day or so...
Defending IP by destroying access to it? That makes sense, RIAA/MPAA. Go to the corner until you can play nice!
You just have to look a bit harder if you want to turn yourself on. (I won't link to audioscrobbler because they're having server problems atm and that would just be mean if I got modded up!). Most of my favourite music now is coming out of non-english speaking parts of the world - south america and the basque region are particularly juicy atm imho, and there's many more places producing great innovative music. speaking multiple languages is optional :) you just haven't heard any of it, most likely.. what i find incredible is if you go to these places you can buy "our" (usa/uk) music everywhere, and yet the most you get in a music store here is a pathetic little "world" section, that in no way reflects what the people there are actually listening to. why is this? are we (as a race of white caucasion middle class brits/americans) so close minded? what the %*^%& has gone wrong?! I was utterly bored with music until I discovered this. Seriously recommend others do the same. none of it would have been possible with free (in both senses) P2P networks. Right, i'm really tired and it took ages to write this but hope it inspires someone to go hunting.. listen to Cafe Tacuba, listen to Fermin Muguruza, heh well that's just where i started i dont' want to get into specific bands 'cos it's all a matter of taste but there's something for everyone with an open mind i swear :)
This is my Sig, this is my Gun. One is for Slashdot and one is for Fun.
>CONGLOMORATES are telling you what you like and not the other way around.
Its not that bad. They can only lead or propose types of music, but in the end its the people who have the last say.
Example: Grateful Dead. Only one music video, very little top X radio play. Pretty sucessful group but very little radio conglomorate support.
Example: There are lot of European music I like. How did ClearChannel tell me I like them?
If you don't like what McDonalds is selling don't buy from McDonalds.
The surprise isn't how often we make bad choices; the surprise is how seldom they defeat us.
I think it's safer to say that mainstream music hasn't evolved as much in the past 30. There are lots of new or different styles of music, it's just that unless you listen to certain stations you probably aren't going to hear them above your regular rock/alternative stuff.
What this means is that it is the business of recording companies to engage in somewhat risky behavior - they bring in artists that may become a big hit and sponsor them. It doesn't always work out that way, but enough do that it covers the costs for everything they do.
This is essentially how a venture capital fund works as well - not everything may be a hit, but enough works out that it keeps everything going.
This does mean that there are a lot of expenses going through the system that need to be paid for. So, the one "hit" that they get pays for the other 9 that didn't quite make it but a lot of promotion was done for.
One big problem today is that such strategies aren't very well thought of. The executives are looking at this in a more risk-adverse way and this leads to not wanting to take chances. So, we have endless copies of things that have been a hit with the hope that this is less risky and more of a sure thing. This sort of thinking almost always leads to failure, and I think there are precedents for saying so.
he said: The reason music is dead is very simple. There is no innovation.
well, now thats where you are wrong, see. In the past 10 years I can name numerous styles of music that have developed
nu-jazz - which is a uptempo jazzy take on danceable jazz, with some house elements thrown in
broken beat - still uptempo, still housey, but not 4 on the floor. emphasis on super funky syncopated rhythms
drum and bass - you never heard anything like this 20 years ago.
Neo Soul - not so much a new style but a backlash from pop rnb, a back to basics approach with new production techniques.
trip-hop - I was listening to hip hop, but then I got high..
two-step aka uk garage - a very british fusion of rnb melodies, funky drum patterns and reggae sensibilites. rnb on e's
and not to mention the whole IDM movement. Remember, many of us gave up on the majors years and years ago. That shit is for mass appeal.
david crosby (who sounds like he is shilling for itunes) sez:
Two different issues. Me, personally -- I didn't do this to make money. When I joined the team here, when I became a musician, there was no money to be made. We were folk singers, playing in coffeehouses. There was no money, and there never would be any money. The only people I knew who had ever even made a record was Peter, Paul and Mary, okay?
Well, David Crosby is way way way out of touch. There are literally thousands of independent labels, eeking by on sales of 5000 - 50000 units. I am a big critic of the music industry as well, but the majors are not the only way to make a record. Master P self produced and sold albums out of the trunk of his car when he began. I know guys that will produce a track and press 500 copies on vinyl and that is IT, the project is done, no looking back lamenting its lack of position on the hot 100 chart.
Every week I see guys piling out of a beat up van carrying their gear into continental, think they sell any records or make money, Crosby? They have a fuckload of fun though I bet.
The majors only want artists that can break gold, but Indys will put out record after record selling only 10 - 20 k units.
Prince said fuck them all and is now giving away his latest CD at his (sold out) concerts.
music lover since 1969
Come on, dude.
Enough with listing the most obscure stuff you can think of. I mean, I can play that game, too. I could tell you everything you listed is bullshit because the only record company out there that's releasing *important* music -- as opposed to pretentious indie music ("My band's more obscure than yours -- ergo, I understand more of what music really is.") -- is Fat Possum.
If you've heard T-Model Ford or Junior Kimbrough, then you've heard real American modern blues -- and not the pretentious crap played out across the prairie on 110 watt college radio stations. (And no, I'm not gonna launch into some pretentious rant about how fortunate I was to actually DJ at a couple of these college stations and how I tried -- really, really tried boo-hoo, boo-hoo, to make a difference in my listener's aural landscape by, you know, dude, mixing a little Montrose with Black Sabbath and then heading into the mellow-yellow middle ground with a little Joe Walsh playing slide guitar and then be-bop-a-loo-doo smoothing mah eve-in-ing out with a little funk from Mr. Funk Machine himself, George Clinton.
Whatever. I had maybe three listeners, two of whom were stoned and the other one was maybe twelve and probably making out with his sister's best friend and the radio just *happened* to be on in the background.
I could give a shit about indie music either. "CloudNine Records makes some of the best music you've never heard of."
Whatever. Didn't hear of it because it most likely appeals to a pretty limited audience, not because my tastes are limited or my brain is somehow defective because my chilly-willy is not as cool as your chilly-willy.
Here's a dime, pal. Call a wanker, talk about Heidegger, and pretend everyone else is stupid. If you want music, you're not gonna find it with a couple Mormon-turned-rock-singers doing a slow-fi version of 'Down by the River. Or a bunch of tools from the heartland who used to do punk but started listening to Hank Williams Sr. one night because their daddy's van ran out of gas on I-80 and they had nothing to do but sit in an Iowa corn patch, listen to Hank, and try to perfect their own honky-tonk warble.
There's enough taste to go around. La, la, la.
I can tell you the way the music died... It died when the musicians became the money-grubbing motherfuckers that most of them were told to become.
And sports died when athletes started to get million dollar contracts
And movies died when actors started to get million dollar contracts
And television died (was it alive?) when actors started to get million dollar contracts
And literature died when writers started to get million dollar advances
And... you get the picture
I'm tired of your whine. Adapt or die, this is called progress. I'll admit, I work in the music business as recording engineer and I am getting out because it just wasn't the business it was 17 years ago when I started. But I can tell you music does not need to be free in order for an artist to be sincere in his art. On the contrary, what you suggest would actually kill the music business.
The point you seem to miss, that David Crosby so ineptly tried to make, is that the record companies of yore existed to make money off of musicians because musicians weren't savvy enough to both make good music and pay their rent. It's just that simple. The musicians needed a good record company and the record companies needed good musicians. But the industry has grown into a very large and powerful congolomerate. And as we know, when a company has to think about it's shareholders first people tend to get greedy.
Can I say it again? I am so tired of non-musicians saying that musicians are millionaires and musicians that aren't shouldn't care about money
The majority of consumers don't have the taste to tell good music from overproduced soft core porn, but they still move quickly from act to act looking for the quality they don't quite realize is missing.
[Set Cain on fire and steal his lute.]
"But even so, what about Evanescence?"
I understand what you're saying, and I somewhat agree. The example of Evanescence proves the point about a lack of innovation, because they're just a cheesy ripoff of a band called Lacuna Coil.
Then again, Lacuna Coil would never make it in the mainstream. Put a pretty face to the same music and you have Hot Topic kids screaming for more.
Here in Europe, it is truly heartbreaking. As I travel around, I find out how every european country has some great hits. But these are, at best, exported to a few neighbouring countries, e.g. inside scandinavia, or Germany-Austria etc. Instead, we get Bronx-rapper 'hits' shoveled down our throats with which we have absolutely NO cultural link. The chinese probably have great musicians, but if I forced you to listen to chinese music all day long... It just shows how the big labels put all their money on a few big cannons, and everything else just gets pushed aside. Listening on the net is great and all, but not everybody has time to do research and until I get ADSL in my car....
10 ?"Hello World" life was simple then
Now while I don't think Evanessence is a bad band. Taking what's popular and tacking a female vocalist onto it is not innovation.
For some really great ambient metal with a female vocalist check out The Gathering they've been around for years and every album they add new dynamic elements that makes them that much better.
SMOKE... are ya smokin yet?
Evanescence is a mediocre version of Nightwish.
HAL 7000, fewer features than the HAL 9000, but just as homicidal!
You got it. On the head. Last night i downloaded two full length albums, legally, in ogg vobis format, for nearly half the price of what amazon was selling the CD's for. Definately worth it.
The thing is, I think, people these days don't want to go and FIND innovation. They want it fed to them. They want to turn on the radio, tune it to whatever radio station is most convenient, and hear good, intersting, complex music. That's not going to happen, though. People's tastes are way too varied and eclectic to all enjoy the same kind of interesting music. I happen to like hardcore and klezmer/persian/greek music the best. A lot of my friends can't stand hardcore, and find the latter boring as all get-out. This is why bad music is so pervasive in our culture. It's not interesting, complex, or even musical by any means (since so much of it is canned in the case of pop superstars, or just down right simple in the case of blink 182 and all their sound alikes) because interesting and musically complex doesn't appeal to a wide audience.
Unfortunately, though, when the indy revolution hit hard a few years ago, the "Big 5" picked that up and repackaged it under spiffy new subsidiaries to stave off the perception of a monolithic record company. Now the term "Indy" is starting to apply to a particular sound, not as whiney as emo, but just as annoying, and with the same volumetric crap content.
If you ask me, the only answer to the music problem is a decentralized means of producing music, like ardour or, for the not-so-hungry college student, protools, and a centralized means of conveyance like CD Baby or audiolunchbox. Artists know how they want their music to sound. Record company hired slag producers do not.
The bottom line - in this day and age you can't be lazy when it comes to music. You have to be pro-active, seek out new genres and sounds, listen, enjoy, repeat. And support organizations that are trying to break out of the recording industry's mold. Buy from independent artists, and refuse to buy from major labels. Buy from local, family owned-and-operated record stores. OK, i'm done. I gotta gets to school.
cheese.
Example: Grateful Dead. Only one music video, very little top X radio play. Pretty sucessful group but very little radio conglomorate support.
You've proven my point that free music is the way to go.
Example: There are lot of European music I like. How did ClearChannel tell me I like them?
It's called European music because it's not mainstream here. You've again proven my point.
Often when I see things like this I feel a real sorrow for people that are so caught up in the system they deride that they are caught completely unawares.
Recording didn't killed music as it existed, recording allowed music to expand into whole new horizons. Because you have chosen to limit yourself to "easily packaged" music your experience with all that is out there is solely lacking. While I dislike analogies this is very much akin to eating fast food all the time and complaining that there is no great food out there anymore. There is a ton of amazing, inspiring music out there with more if it being made everyday. Is it all handed to you? No. Of course not it requires the same amount of effort it does to find a new author you click with or a new favourite show, or strange meal that makes you mouth water.
You are kidding yourself if you think there ever was a culture of performers in any higher percentages than what exists today. Stop living in overly romanticized versions of the past.
--- I do not moderate.
should read WITHOUT of course! stupid typo sorry. i rely on soulseek, emule and other free networks where people from all over the world can come together and browse each other's music. and it just seems so right to do that for your own pleasure. no paid service can offer anything like this. damn i need sleep :/. i've actually tried to buy some of this music and failed to find the albums i love in shops... i should try harder or complain to the industry or something..
This is my Sig, this is my Gun. One is for Slashdot and one is for Fun.
He may be selling some stuff direct, but according to RIAA Radar , his CDs are still being released through the RIAA.
Go to your local bars at about 9pm-11pm (and today is Friday -- Friday is great for this) and see some bands. (Obviously, not all bars have live music, so ask around if you don't know.) Some of them are pretty lame, but overall, they tend to be better than you'd expect, if you haven't done it before. They're almost always better than radio stuff.
Are they dying? I don't think so. Attendence does vary (at least here in ABQ). Sometimes a show will get flyered and well-publicized and there will be a couple hundred people there and the fire marshall will make the bar turn people away. And sometimes on a Tuesday night, once you exclude the band members and their girlfriends and the bartender, you'll see there's only three extra people there to drink and see the band. Most the time, it's somewhere in between.
Most of them are not making money, and they know it. They're doing it for fun. I've seen a few bands come and go, and the breakups seem to never be about, "Well, our marketing just wasn't successful." When I ask 'em why they broke up, it tends to be about the personal relationships. I get answers like, "Because Heather [the guitarist] has her head up her ass!" Okaaay.
There's a lot of variety (at least in my town). I still have just barely scratched the surface. I tend to just concentrate on one genre (metal) but even I sometimes get distracted. There's this one band I saw, that at first thought was a Rolling Stones tribute band. Then I realized the songs were original, so I decided they were a Rolling Stones parody. I snickered with amusement. Then I realized they were serious. About the third time I saw them, the true horror of the situation dawned on me: I was starting to get into 'em. D'oh! ;-)
Music will always be around, because some people enjoy making music and they don't care if they make money at it. They would like to, sure, but they have their day jobs. You can't kill something like that. It can be defeated in a market, but that doesn't really stop it. Just ask Microsoft about GNU/Linux developers...
As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
Music is dead for EXACTLY the same reason so many other industries that require thought and creativity (engineering, software, TV shows...) are dying, corporate greed. Plain and simple. Nobody and nothing good comes from a profit first mind set. How many good products (or good anything for that matter) came from a group of people that said "OK, firstly, how do we make as much money as possible, then lets make our product."
We're grossly greedy and it shows. Quality is just something you do to get sales back up. Once you've got the sales you get rid of those damned expensive innovative, creative thinkers and hire the lowest cost workers possible. If you want to do good work that may not be the most profitable work, GOOD LUCK around here bub.
Comes from letting accountants and lawyers run the world (consumers) rather than producers.
Just turn the fucking thing off, and music becomes enjoyable.
As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
No, the music doesn't have to be good, but that's not new. The reason most people think older music was so much better is because they don't reminise over the old stuff that happend to be crap. In 20 years, when people are playing 'oldies from the dawn of the 21st century' they'll only be playing the cream of this era and our musicians will look like geniuses too.
Furthermore, a lot of the musicians that are used as examples of how crappy this era is aren't really as crappy as people make them out to be. I think a lot of people confuse "I don't like it" with "it's crap". They're not the same thing. Pop music has never been about high art, it's about having catchy tunes that young people like to listen to and dance to. The BackStreet Boys actually deliver on that. I'm no great fan of them, but I know their music is catchy and a lot of 14 year-old girls genuinly liked the sound. That just make them "not my taste" rather than "the death of good music."
TW
Metallica never got much airplay in the 1980s when they were at their peak. Black Sabbath never really got any at all. When hip-hop was in its truly rebellious stage, it existed solely as traded tapes. That's still how the best of the underground gets passed along.
The only thing ClearChannel has a say in is what music gets on ClearChannel stations, what bands play at ClearChannel venues. Who needs them? When Aesop Rock can sell 100,000 copies of an Indie record with nothing but college airplay and nineteen out of twenty true music fans not knowing him from Adam, where's the problem? It's not like popularity is going to make your favorite band any better!
Hey freaks: now you're ju
Even though modern pop/boyband music follows pretty much the same recipe as yesteryear - chorus tease, verse, verse, chorus, verse/bridge, chorus chorus repeat to fade (+ small variations) - pop music from the '60s and '70s had a lot more soul!
In the local music scene (I call the entire Norwegian country's scene "local" what with our staggering population of 4,5 million) there are the big companies spewing out the usual hit, but also a quite large number of artists with varied musical expressions getting a fair bit of mainstream attention. And the indie scene is really growing in these days of record-company hatred.
Surely, your local town/county/country must have its fair share of white labels and small waiting-to-get-noticed bands? Support them! Go to their gigs, buy their T-shirts, spread the music to radio stations (oops... no-one will play unknown groups? get a decent station), let people know how good they are. As a last resort, I've found locking ignorant teenager relatives/aquaintances(sp?) in my room with a 24-hour playlist of CSN&Y, Phish, Metallica, Grateful Dead, Sibelius, Strauss etc fixes the nu-metal/boyband fixation
Yep, and Internet killed the video star.
To call the music obscure is very limiting. Most of the stuff I listed is not obscure at all. Obscure to the clueless, sure, but to anyone with a thirst in music -- they are finding this music, listening to it, supporting it, going to the shows.
The bands really aren't that obscure. Your kind of elitist anti-elitist attitude is actually a kind of psychlogical disorder prevalent among American males these days.
To even begin to assume that one listens to such bands because they are obscure is so incredibly stupid. I, and those others who listen, listen because the music speaks to them beyond the base-level psychology of the standard moronic fare presented to the majority.
I've said it before and I'll say it again, prentiousness in art is a buzzkill concept initiated by the unimaginative and emotional-conceptualy bankrupt who aren't willing to stretch their minds and hearts beyond the chickenshit coops they were born into.
d. Taylor Singletary,
reality technician techra.el
It's interesting that the complaints people are voicing here - corporate control, "only the shallow survive" artists, etc. are echoes of the complaints that were happening in the late 1950's and early 1960's, when a relative few record companies controlled most pop music. "Tin Pan Alley" in NYC spewed out buckets of pablum for the masses. FM radio was nothing but classical music, and the industry owned AM radio.
A relative few independent souls (on the west coast) listened to Wolfman Jack after midnight on XERB, a 50,000 watt station out of Tijuana - the equivalent of a pirate radio station - and/or black stations playing R&B, Soul, etc. As late as 1965 or thereabout I saw James Brown in a club that held a total of under 100 people, packed to the gills - I was the only white guy in there.
When the new stereo FM standard came out, a pioneering group of music lovers started pure music-oriented stations playing the acid rock, blues, etc. Often they were, like 100 watt stations that couldn't be heard more than a few miles away. They were the original venue for the whole San Francisco music scene - Airplane, the Dead, the Byrds, Charlie Musselwhite, the Blues Project, Buffalo Springfield, etc. Some of these bands also had AM radio play but many of these bands were never heard outside these independent stations. Without those stations, it's quite possible these bands would never have made it to the 'big time'. Many of these bands never got a big record deal, but made their money touring.
Their success encouraged new business-oriented folks, who invested in automated playing systems (new at the time), and combined the new "Rock" format with tech efficiency, leading to the modern "classic rock" format. And now, here we are, back where we were back then. This time, the FCC has worked to effectively block any avenues for independent artists to 'make it' via the new tech, the internet.
The solution will be a new "network effect" - a way for independent musicians and bands (and even poets!) to 'make it' via the new internet filesharing model. Perhaps a music rating system for indie artists who are depending on internet file sharing would help the better bands get more publicity and ear time, generating live gigs. Success will require musicians who have something new to say, and an audience who want to hear it. Somehow, people on the net need to provide concentrated support for one target after another to build some momentum.
Probably, some form of 'new music form for a new culture' synergy between artist and audience will have to occur to energize the path. So if you're really tired of Britney (nice girl, but gone 'way wrong), are you prepared to hear something newer and deeper? What might that be?
It's easier to be a result of the past, but more fun to be a cause of the future! http://www.spacefinancegroup.com/
. To someone who grew up in the 1960's, there has never existed innovation in any meaningful sense in music ever after.
,Epic Trance, Psy-Trance, Goa Trance, Acid Trance, Acid, Hard Acid, Acid Core, Hard Acid Core, Acid Techno, Acid House, House, Progressive House, Hard House, Future Hard House,, Happy House, House, Chicago House, NY House, Ghetto House, Booty House, Latin House, Oriental House, Amyl House, Deep House, Dub House,, Ambient House, Ambient, Illbient, Sombient, Ambient Techno, Ambient Trance,, Ambient Jungle, Ambient Dub, Dub, Goa Dub, Intelligent Dance Music, Electronic Listening Music, Nu-NRG, Techno NRG, High Energy, Hardcore, Bouncy Hardcore, Happy Hardcore, Happycore, Trancecore\, Terrorcore, Deathcore, Noizecore, Speedcore, Partycore, Punkcore, Breakcore, Electro, Electro Breaks, Big Room Electro, Big Beat, Rave, Progressive Rave Tribal, Tribal House, Tribal Techno, Tribal Funk, Space Funk, Jazz Funk, Rave Funk, Acid Jazz, Acid Jivez, Trip Hop, Brit Hop, Hard Hop, Hardstep, Hardbag, Handbag, Breakbeat, Breakbeat Ballad, California Breaks, Funky Breaks, New School Breaks, Florida Breaks, Intelligent Breaks, Trance Breaks, Jungle, Jump Up, Tech Step, Tech House, Ghetto Tech, Intelligent Jungle, Future Jungle, Scottish Rave, Gabber, Classic Gabba, New Style Gabber, Gabbercore, Gabber House, Acid Gabba, Rotterdam, Drum & Bass, Darkside, Downtempo, Sombient, Minimal, Elemental, Ibiza, 4beat, Anthem, Ragga, Garage, Speedgarage, UK Garage, 2 Step Garage, Nu Step, Breakstep, DISCO!, Tripsco, Lo-Fi, Bounce, Chopped and Screwed, Crunk, Down-Souf Hip Hop, Booty Bass, Rio Funk, Glitch, JPop, Electroclash
ok fine, your list is longer, that is only because I didn't want to go on ad nauseum. My point is that music is constantly evolving, and not money, not lawyers, and not music downloads can stop it. As someone who grew up in the 60's, maybe you aren't very plugged in to the cutting edge of new music. I could go on naming new styles, for the record, there are more than ever, partly because there are more sub genre's nowadays. Also a very US centric list, as there has been much development outside of the soul and rock category, reggae, zouk, soca, meringue, salsa, spanish reggae, calypso, all have evolved over time. but here, I will bite:
Techno,Techno-rave,Techno House,Hardcore Techno,Old School Techno,Proto Techno,Psychedelic Techno, Bubblegum Techno,Industrial Techno, Detroit Techno, Techno Trance, Tech Trance, Trance,Hard Trance, Progressive Trance, Deep Trance
and that is the short list.
As someone that did not grow up in the 60's, I appreciate the cultural revolution that happened, but here are a few MAJOR musical innovations that have occured since your glory days:
Hip Hop, like it or not.
Electronic Dance Music, like it or not.
Disco, like it or not, was the force behind both hip hop, house, and many modern dance music styles.
music lover since 1969
They were bad mouthing the record industry back in 1975-- before it was cool "Come in here, dear boy, have a cigar. You're gonna go far, You're gonna fly high, You're never gonna die, You're gonna make it if you try; They're gonna love you. Well I've always had a deep respect, And I mean that most sincerely. The band is just fantastic, that is really what I think. Oh by the way, which one's Pink? And did we tell you the name of the game, boy, We call it Riding the Gravy Train. We're just knocked out. We heard about the sell out. You gotta get an album out. You owe it to the people. We're so happy we can hardly count. Everybody else is just green, Have you seen the chart? It's a helluva start, It could be made into a monster If we all pull together as a team. And did we tell you the name of the game, boy, We call it Riding the Gravy Train."
Then wonder why the radio plays nothing they like. Here's a hint: you wouldn't listen to it even if they did!
I'm very lucky to have a good idependent radio station (WEQX). However, I understand that there's a huge army of listeners who don't want to hear them play the obscure cuts off of Blood Sugar Sex Magic or Armed Forces...they just want to hear Stacy's Mom or I Believe in a Thing Called Love.
Good radio stations are those that have the gaul to play something other than what you want to hear -- and other than what the Industry pays them to play -- while still playing what you want 80% of the time. Bad radio stations play whatever they feel like. It's why I can't listen to college radio all the time...I'm sick of shows where some pretentious twit plays thirty sucky songs in a row and I'm supposed to like it just because it's independent. Hey, I like indie rock too. I just don't feel the need to like the thousands of really shitty indie rock bands who seem to think that quality production, good lyrics and melody are institutions to be rebelled against.
Hey freaks: now you're ju
No, see, that's where you're wrong. The music doesn't have to be good. If you read the quotes from the people in the "article" then you would have seen first-hand that all it takes is a good body, a great video, and some money plunked down by the conglomorates to get you in.
Well, then, I guess that's what the people want, now, isn't it? And shouldn't the people get what they want? Or are you one of those elitists who thinks that you know what's good for everyone?
Downmodding is the refuge of the weak. Don't downmod, make a better argument!
It's hard to feel all sorry for musicians when all that's happened to them is that they've entered the industrial age. Welcome to how the rest of the world's been earning a living for a century now.
Every now and then a company is founded and succeeds upon the fervor of the founders, but success insures that when these businesses become corporations, the visions, cultures and interests of the founders are all subverted. The bigger question this topic begs, is why is society rewarding the mediocre over the exceptional and how could this be reversed?
Politicus
I am so tired of non-musicians saying that musicians are millionaires and musicians that aren't shouldn't care about money
To be fair, a lot of the people here on slashdot are channeling their creative efforts into software that is freely given away. They think it is philosophically a good idea, and they're putting their talent where their mouth is. I think those people have some standing to offer their opinion on the music business from their own perspective.
Whether those are the same people who are bitching about musicians is, of course, another question entirely. For the record, I am regrettably not one of these people, from lack of expertise. ("I may not have the tunic, but I have the heart of a musketeer!") I like to think I'm good at explaining different perspectives, though, so try this:
One argument you hear is that recording is what made the music industry rich; before recording there was only live performance. Smaller audiences, smaller profits, very few rich musicians out of many that played, very few middlemen. Now that digital recording and distribution is available, the argument goes, the flow of music from musicians to listeners will inevitably jump its previous channel and find a new path. What that path will be is up for debate.
Digital recording and distribution is analagous to the advent of FOSS. Software originally was produced one-off for particular applications, in an analogue to live performances. Someone realized that software could be "recorded" and "played" on machines worldwide, and the software biz was born and made zillions of dollars. Scads of middlemen and a few programmers got rich, many others make a living. Now, some hackers are electing to give away their "recordings" for free, and perhaps charge for custom services... or in the analogy, for live performances.
The analogy has some flaws: Software is a lot more reusable than music, although with sampling I guess that's changing. Software typically involves a lot more man-hours in the actual production. (Although if you count practice time maybe the musicians use more overall.) Software is a lot more combinable over many contributors... it's hard to get hundreds of musicians in a simultaneous work. It's a lot harder to objectively define good music than good software. The list goes on.
But even with the flaws, the analogy seems pretty strong to me. Unless the government steps in to preserve the status quo, live performance and custom services seem likely to once again become the bread-and-butter for the artists in question. Occasionally one will produce something so popular that it can be profitably distributed, but that will be the exception, not the norm.
With reasonable men I will reason; with humane men I will plead; but to tyrants I will give no quarter. -- William Lloyd
True, but you have to have local stations. Many markets do not. My local radio is ruled by the majors. We've got the corporate top 40 station, the corporate country station, the corporate classic rock station, the corporate religious station and PBS.
I don't even listen to the radio anymore. All I hear from it is the same old crap over and over again.
And this is a damned shame. I grew up in the era of the independant FM radio stations that let the DJs play what they wanted. The era when you listened to a DJ not because he was some "morning zoo" asshole, but because you enjoyed his musical tastes. To me, that's the way radio should work.
I find music through internet radio and the advice of friends.
Boobies never hurt anyone. - Sherry Glaser.
Ok, instead of commenting on your individual comments, I will comment in general and I forgot to mention my points are with respect to the mainstream.
I am going out on a limb here and thinking that you and I belong to the five percent club. I call it the five percent club because it means that we like things that five percent of the mainstream population likes. This does not mean that you and I like the same thing.
The five percent club is a sad club because you will always be an outsider and not of interest to the marketeer. The problem of our society is that marketing for the mainstream has been too successful. There is only so much consumption of the mainstream and in the music industry it has been saturated. The downside to mainstream marketing is that people do not look for options anymore. People do not want variety.
So while *YOU* do all of these things, the masses do not. Until that cycle is broken nothing will change.
"You can't make a race horse of a pig"
"No," said Samuel, "but you can make very fast pig"
As a performing musician and someone who's worked in the business managing bands and promoting shows and running web sites for major label acts, I can't honestly say I feel the industry has fundamentally changed in the last 10-20 years. It has changed, but this industry has *always been based on exploitation*. The nature of that exploitation has traditionally revolved around institutions exploiting artists. The only thing that's different nowadays is that the labels and the media have merged into one and are working as a single unit, whereas in the past, they were more disparate.
What's wrong with the business can be summed up in three words:
Clear Channel
Ticketmaster
These two entities have almost single-handedly tied up the lion's share of performance and marketing of music. There's not any more exploitation or screwing over of musicians than they're used to be, but now the companies wield so much power & influence they can shut down popular acts that don't jive with their operating plan, and now they're more actively in the business of actually manufacturing formulaic product to foist on consumers.
Some things have changed in the business. Artists tend to make even less money proportionally and they have a harder time trying to find venues to play and promote their music. Monsters like Clear Channel won't put any controversial art in rotation, opting for shallow, characterless "boy bands" and "cute chicks". It appears your average person seems to eat the gruel they're feeding 'em but this undoubtedly is having an effect on music sales. People aren't excited about the art like they used to because there's very little art to it any more.
But there are still a lot of great bands out there. The problem is nobody knows about them because they have no radio stations to play their music and no decent clubs to book them. Without any means to promote their music, it's very hard to get started.
One equalizer to this problem could be the Internet, but as of yet, it hasn't matured as a competitive medium to the traditional music outlets. I'm one of those who really thinks that iTunes is overrated and a sham. Why pay the same price for more restrictive, lower-quality music? This is the same old business model that's been dumped on consumers: we'll give you what we think you want, not what you really want.
One good thing that's come out of all this is that in the last decade artists have come to accept that it's a necessity for them to control their own marketing and product distribution. The more artists that bypass traditional outlets, the more likely there can be some alternative to the totally boring product that corporate America is trying to force feed consumers.
But what's going on is just a symptom of a much larger sociological issue of art and creativity being considered unimportant, or secondary to the financial value of practicing such art.
Case in point: the other day CNN did a story on Madonna's new tour. The topic wasn't about her work. It was about how much money it's estimated she'll net from her tour and how powerful she is as a woman. The mainstream media seems to measure everything in dollars and this is undermining the basis of what art is really about. Even if you don't like Madonna, you have to cringe when you see the major media qualify artists exclusively in terms of their ability to make money.
A very interesting article in this week's Stranger (a Seattle alternative newsweekly, quality can be hit or miss, but this particular article was very good) touched on this subject in a different way. They were comparing cover bands (and one local one in particular, the Beatniks) to original bands, and basically realizing that cover bands tend to last longer, make more money, and have more manageable lives.
To oversimplify their conclusions, you could say this: with a cover band, the audience actually knows what they're getting into, and they can dance and enjoy the music without having to 'figure it out'. With an original band, you will by definition have a narrower audience, and the audience has to think more during the show, and thereby have less 'fun'. TO piggyback this onto your point, I would suggest that a cover band is something of a hybrid--mixing the familiarity of a DJ with the energy of a live band.
This is true of any medium though. Genre fiction (romance, or mystery, say) always sells better than mainstream. Formulaic blockbusters do better at the movies. Or just look at TV. (Or video games.) It's not really an indictment of quality (people want to watch crap), because you can do an excellent job at any of those things. It's because people want something predictable, that they already understand. So for innovation to sell, you have to package it into a package of predicatablity.
No, that's not how everybody's tastes run (mine don't, for instance), but that's how it is for most people, most of the time.
Anyway, the article I mentioned is here if anyone is interested.
http://www.thestranger.com/current/feature.html
He decided to just watch the government, and kind of scale it down to size, and run his life that way. --Laurie Anderson
I find it highly ironic that PBS, which is related to NPR by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, is presenting a documentary about how music is dying. The article mentions radio consolidation and they're part of the problem. NPR lobbied against low-power FM stations. Just something to remember when they start the next pledge drive...
I must comment on the "music video is bad" part of the interview.
I started to hate "music videos" about 6 weeks after the MTV craze started.
When the whole MTV phenomenon started all my friends would spend hours in front of it, so I watched too.
After 6 weeks, I realized that some groups I used to hate for their stupid lyrics and insipid musical talents, now appealed to me. They made me laugh with clownish numbers or better yet, showed me beautiful women with huge knockers (I was about 14 when MTV started, these things where recently very appealing for me).
On the other hands, some groups I used to love for their musical originality and lyrics that made me think about my social surroundings and life in general where showed to me as long haired, drinking, smoking, dirty bums sitting down playing the guitar or drums. I started to hate them.
That was it, I did not understand what all this was about, why I reacted like that, but I stopped watching music videos from that point on. About 20 years later, I feel good about it, and generally know more than "Average Joe" how bad music is today, and why!
It often makes me realize how easy it is to "manipulate the masses" from 1 hour everyday at mass (or 5 prayers a day), or worst constant political pitch or violence showed every night on the news.
The backside of LeftOverture was pretty nice. And La Villa Strangiato (from Hemispheres) is still an all-time favorite. Almost anything off of The Yes Album or Fragile was a gem.
The important thing about those groups is that they inspired me and thousands of others like me to pick up a guitar and really learn to play. In that sense, they did significant art.
Human being (n.): A genetically human, genetically distinct, functioning organism.
There are many reasons the recording 'industry' is failing. Not the least of which is cost. Even at iTunes prices of $1/song, it would cost $1300 (assuming 3MB/song) to fill it. A fully loaded iPod with a 40 GB disk would be $13,000! So that's about 5 PCs, 1/2 a car, almost the cost of 1 year room/board/tuition for in state residents at UMass. That's not sane.
But look at it from the record company's perspective. Sell 1 million 40GB iPods, assume they are 1/2 full. That translates to $6.5 billion, gross.
It's all about the $$$. They can't see past that.
r
Umm, got news for you - just about no one nowadays ever listens to New Kids on the Block (pre-cursors to the BackStreet Boys) and no one will care about the BBs in about another 3 years either. Just like Debbie Gibson (remember her?) or Tiffany (even hear of her?) vanished. Will the be played in the future? I'm guessing someone somewhere in 10-20 years will stroll down memory lane, go wow, haven't heard this in years, then go "crap, now I rememeber why" and won't ever do it again.
Piles of today's music should never have seen the light of day, being more akin to a bad idol episode than anything else. What kills me is that lots of good music that was also critically acclaimed never sees the light of day anymore, unless you get a paid satellite feed, which curiously appears to lack the majority of songs plaguing the airwaves (ie, RIAA sponsored crap)
The cesspool just got a check and balance.
You sir, are most enlightened indeed!
:-)
Aside from your Sony/Europe comments....I've been reading this thread for a while and you are the first one who noticed that MANY OF US LISTEN TO MUSIC IN OUR CARS. While I appreciate a good hour's worth of "new" music research every now and again, I just don't have the time to sit and "surf" for new music, much less to do it in my car. Also, if I did have that kind of time, something tells me that I'd spend more time FINDING the music than actually LISTENING to the music. Sorry, not my cup of tea. Before you go off on my lack of effort, let me also say that I *would* find the time if the "payoff" (ie: success ratio) were better. Unfortunately, we aren't at that point quite yet...
Almost every other post on this thread seems to assume a few things:
a) if I don't listen to (insert obscure band or indy label here), then I don't know anything about music.
b) that I have all day to sit around and "sample" new music, which obviously will lead me to the promised land of great music
c) that I actually enjoy a "success" ratio of around 10%. Yep - I go to the same websites everyone else does and yes, there is an occasional good artist that I find. However, that's usually AFTER I've spend a good 55 minutes listening to shit band record/song after shit band record/song.
So there you have it. That pretty much sums up why I'm jaded. How about you?
My experience here stems from black metal and old school industrial. Seems that the past 10-15 years have produced little in such burgeoning genres.
Many people in the underground seem to believe that you can create truly awesome / creative music through:
1. hybridization. Just take two related genres (rock and jazz to fusion,
2. randomly hybridizing unrelated genres in an alchemic fashion with some artistic sense. Few succeed here (mainly Mr. Bungle, Ulver,
They seem to forget that sometimes you just need to do something that, while based upon earlier material, takes a wholly different approach that distinguishes it from the influences - a mutation. Led Zeppelin and Black Sabbath were both groundbreaking acts that could be linked to their forefathers, but there was something truly "special." We could say the same for Glenn Miller and his generation. So many people hated it from the classical community, but then it caught on with others. Darkthrone's first album was considered totally awful by the label and they were horrified at the production, but it clicked and Darkthrone clones have been spewed out for over 10 years now. Kraftwerk was hated and considered "musically vacuous" by many established music critics back then. Then came Throbbing Gristle, Psychic TV, and eventually Skinny Puppy. Has anyone seriously taken industrial to a new level (as opposed to simplification like NIN or Razed in Black) in the past 10 years? Nah, not really.
Nobody comes up with a BRAND NEW genre or subgenre like that so much anymore it seems. What has been "new" in the underground for the past 10 years? Oh wow, emo, screamo, grindcore? There's still a handful of truly innovative bands and everyone copies there.
So we need completely new genres for the real innovation it seems. And this is where real musicians will always shine and appreciated by those who still listen to music, not "audio entertainment" like the industry has done.
My point is that it doesn't matter if it's an "industry" - the underground can suffer from clones, lack of imagination, and commoditization just as much as mainstream. Real artists that innovate, are inspired, and have no need to "please" anyone but themselves will continue to do far more than those who simply follow in the shadow of others.
The fact that a music "industry" exists at all is enough to tell what's wrong. Music should not be an industry.
I believe musicians should be compensated for their work, but the way we're going about it is all wrong. Just listen to what the "industry approach" has produced. And every year that goes by it gets worse.
Yes, every once in a while good music makes it out, but that is in spite of the industry, not because of it.