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Elton John Says Internet is Destroying Music
Jared writes "Elton John says that the internet is destroying good music and "stopping people from going out and being with each other, creating stuff." He laments the way that the internet and the emerging industry of digital music has created a cold and impersonal world for artists to create new music in."
And Video killed the Radio star too, eh?
"Oh, it's the Internet that sucks, and not you, right? RIGHT?"
It is pitch black. You are likely to be eaten by a grue.
In other news Music has stated that Elton John is destroying it.
Sir Elton may be right, but fundamentally, the Internet is far more valuable than the transient phenomenon of pop music. Most of yesterday's tastes are outdated now, and as for what survives, it's enough to tide us over until the Internet and the creative classes evolve to a more beneficial relationship with each other.
Are we not fawning over "celebs" enough? Not constructing enough temple record stores, to be preached to in a condescending manner if we pick up the wrong album? Are we actually daring to put their music in the same store as a lesser known artist? Or, perhaps his music might even be sharing the same server on itunes as one of us common ruffians?
What's been lost is trivial to what's been gained. I had a grin a mile wide when I realized that some of my favorite artists, talented but not at all well known or mainstream enough to get a label's attention, could be purchased from the same itunes interface as the latest plastic pop idol.
Everything will be taken away from you.
Antisocial people can make music by themselves without the need for the Internet. Sociable people will make music together with or without the Internet and may even use the Internet to help communicate when collaborating on a project. Technology is a convenient scapegoat, as usual.
though i think the riaa has had a pretty good crack at destroying music.
The same thing could have been said about Television decades ago. It is not that the means of information propagation distort content, but it is that the market desires to listen to rap, hip-hop, and all the music that is considered "bad" by some people. Suplpy and demand. Elton, you should try making content that people like.
There's _ALOT_ more out there, and now there is selection where once there was only Elton John and other mass distributed mediocraty. You want to make a change, you do something about it. If you cant, work with it and stop bitching about things you don't improve. Bitching is noise. Progress is beautiful.
Maybe Elton John just doesn't get the new ways to create, play, and distribute music? To be fair, Elton John's generation and those before destroyed live music in the household, as who needs Joe-Fred johnson to strum his banjo when you can hear professionals first on record, then radio, then TV, etc... So why shouldn't we move the music to another "space"?
I wonder if someone were to give Elton John an internet literacy test how he would do. Considering the British judge Justice Opensha had to ask what a website was while presiding over an internet "terrorism" case, I wouldn't be surprised if Elton John considered the internet nothing more than a Kazaa screen.
www.eissq.com/BandP.html Ball and Plate System. Amuse your friends. Crush your enemies.
There's so many bands I wouldn't have started listening to if I hadn't heard samples or web broadcasts of them on the net. It's certainly broadened my musical taste having digital distribution of music so easily available.
Seriously I'm seeing acts both prosper and thrive due to the internet. Even the more established groups like They Might Be Giants have done well thanks to the internet in reaching their fans. If anything there's probably a larger danger of background noise in the amount of chaff produced, but seeing various internet "memes" pop up from time to time I'm confident that the good stuff will always rise to the top.
Taking an even more commercial example, I wouldn't have heard much about pop-artists like Rogue Traders unless I'd seen an excerpt of Dr. Who from the UK which lead me to wiki the Aus act and find more info than a lone single - which is only reaching US market AFTER 2 YEARS - would provide. The single is available from iTunes - but I'll eagerly await the full album.
In the retro column, 80s artist Thomas Dolby released a live set recorded in front of a live audience in San Francisco onto iTunes a while back. He's got several businesses and projects going but it's nice to see him quickly produce and bring to market (thanks to the internet) some new material. This wouldn't have gotten the time of day by the traditional business model.
Good riddance I say.
BTW - check out SeeqPod. It's cooler than snail snot and the mobile client is SWEET. I've not only found hard to finds, and music out of circulation, but excellent mash-ups that would NEVER BE ALLOWED TO BE DISTRIBUTED BY THE CURRENT OUTDATED RIAA BUSINESS MODELS.
That's all well and good if you happen to be in or very near one of the small handful of cities that are 'music centers', but for would-be musicians who aren't in those places and have no reasonable means to get there, the music industry was just as cold before the internet as it is now, if not colder.
Unpleasantries.
Blaming the transmission medium for making the environment "cold and impersonal" is like blaming high HIV transmission rates on semen. fairly silly. The environment is what you make of it.
the two guys who created the Spice Girls that killed good music, and that was before teh Intarweb had gained rampant popularity. It's all been downhill from there.
Cold worlds didn't hurt Rap any.
Wanna fight ? Bend over, stick your head up your ass, and fight for air.
Try creating music that people like
;)
And sadly like most SlashDot nerds, you still sign along to the Lion King even though it makes you want to cry.
Sadly kiddies on SlashDot have no clue of the impact Elton has on Music.
Let's see, hmm, a true music writer with perfect pitch, ya that just doesn't work in today's Britney, lipsync crowd.
Cause that was the last time Elton released anything worthwhile. And if he thinks no one goes to hear music any more, it only means no one goes to his shows.
I am a believer of momentum and curves.
what is he talking about
just because he doesn't understand how to use the internet to meet people, doesn't mean he can make stupid statements like this
I have an entire network of friends who, using only their computers, instruments of choice, and the internet, make great music between each other
we're literally friends, and this is real music
if anything the internet is what will finally set music free
giving everyone an equal chance to put their stuff up
it may dilute it all a bit (an effect I hope for with a lot of genres)
but in the end we'll have more options as listeners
and musicians will have more options for making money
North Carolina-raised MC Phonte, one-third of Little Brother, and Dutch producer Nicolay formed the duo and crafted the ethereally lush hip-hop album without ever meeting face-to-face. Using the marvels of modern technology, the group traded verses and tracks over the Internet.
Your move, Elton.
Next week on slashdot: sculptors suggest we rip out highways so that people can better appreciate sculptures and fountains.
I do think it would be an incredible experiment to shut down the whole internet for five years and see what sort of art is produced over that span.
No need to run experiments like that. I can tell you what kind of art you will get in this case. It's called "cave art". Hell we can use stone axes too. Try figure what art will come out of that.
And what does "I mean, get out there -- communicate." is supposed to mean? I thought communication is all that internet is about.
Actually, Elton's cover of Pinball Wizard is, as far as I can recall, the only cover of a Who song that made the charts in the top ten.
Internet is democratizing the process of making and distributing music.
The former king doesn't like democracy and miss his court.
Yeah, but when you go out to a club to be with people, those really annoying guys get on stage and make so much noise you can't talk to anybody.
It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, ...in short, the period was so far like the present
period, that some of its noisiest authorities insisted on its
being received, for good or for evil, in the superlative degree
of comparison only.
So, this is just another example of someone predicting that the internet is the end of the world. It will be balanced out tomorrow, when someone predicts that Web 2.0 will revolutionize human life for the better.
Hopefully I didn't put any [] around my words.
I think the lad's gone old on us.
Do not mock my vision of impractical footwear
Of course, making the top ten isn't exactly an indicator of "quality material."
Elton's never done anything even remotely of the quality of Tommy; he's an aging pop personality looking for air time, that's all.
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
I wonder if someone were to give Elton John an internet literacy test how he would do.
Maybe he, too, is attracted by viewing the internet as a series of tubes.
theefer
I think he and others in the mainstream music industry are just cranky because they have less power now that the internet has decentralize the hierarchy of music source. Before your only source as on the radio where everything is playlisted. Ever artist is carefully handpicked to appeal to the majority. Basically, the music industry is upset for their lack of control on what to feed to people. Nowadays, people have so many other sources of finding new music. Bands can easily reach more fans without spending so much money. Music lovers know more about how the album they are buying sounds like. People have more tailored tastes. Things like Last.fm are changing the way people find new music and people are finding music that they actually like... and it's probably not Elton John.
Since the rise of filesharing of music as MP3 the CD sales has dropped. On the upside more people than ever are going out to conserts and listen to live music. It makes perfect sense. Music is more available, so people spend more time and money at it. Not just buying CD's, but going out to see the artists. As a results the artist is making more money, the record industry less.
I won't cry for their loss. Even though it has been a demand for buying online music for a decade now, I still can't buy music online without some DRM I have to buypass so I can transfer it to my mp3 player. I've stopped buying music. I don't download illegal music. As a result I have becomed less interested in music, and spend less money on it.
#find
"stopping people from going out and being with each other, creating stuff."
I hung around for meeting with 30+ guildmates in guildmaster's castle for the entire morning; then led a group of mages and archeries to shoot the assholes in dungeon deceit who looted my body earlier; then I created a war hammer of vanquishing on my way home.
Who is going to stop me from going out and being with each other, creating stuff? I'd chop him to death.
(I am so, so sorry)
"It doesn't cost enough, and it makes too much sense."
Right Sir Elton, i'd love to be able to afford to see my bands live, but most of them are assholes like you and charge $150 a ticket, hence it's not possible to see more then a couple a year at best.
If you mod me down, I will become more powerful than you can imagine....
But at the time all I could do to distribute my music was to manually duplicate cassette tapes. I just gave a few to friends and family. CD burners were still horrendously expensive, as were CD-R blanks.
When I got my own website, I offered some free downloads in Sun's old .AU format. I think it's 8-bit, so it didn't sound that good, and the downloads were quite large. But MP3 and psychoacoustic compression was still a ways off.
The copyright on my music said "All rights reserved" at first, and I specifically forbid sharing my songs over the Internet, but instead requested that those who wanted to share my music direct others to my website.
But I had always been a big fan of Richard Stallman and Free Software, and I knew that the right thing to do would be to copyleft my music.
I'm not signed with any record label, not even an indie one. I'm completely on my own. But my music gets downloaded by hundreds of people each month, with the downloads growing over time.
By learning to play by ear, I didn't learn to read sheet music. But for several years now I've been taking piano lessons and learning to read music, with the aim that when I can pass the entrance audition, I will enroll in music school to major in musical composition. I want to compose symphonies someday.
The Internet is, frankly, a miracle to me as it is enabling people throughout the world to get to know me and my music. When the time comes that I play professionally - or hopefully, symphony orchestras play myy compositions - I expect that there will already be a base of fans who will buy tickets to my performances.
Please download, share and enjoy:
- Geometric Visions: The Rough Draft
I call it "The Rough Draft" because I always intended to compose more pieces for at, and when the time came, to re-record it and to have a "glass master" CD pressed.The lot of it is under the Creative Commons Attribution-Sharealike 2.5 license. There are various formats as well as sheet music in PDF and Lilypond (source code) format. (I would be honored if any of you learned to play my music.)
I've been playing at Open Mics for a couple years now. I recently moved to Silicon Valley, and often visit Santa Cruz on the weekends. If you'd like to hear me live, check my live performance schedule. (It presently says I'm in Vancouver, but I'll update that in the next day or so.)
I'm also planning to buy an amp so I can play my keyboard on the street. When I do, I'm going to have a sign hanging off of it advertising "Free Music Downloads", and will have a box of my free music download handbills.
Last weekend I spent four hours walking up and down Santa Cruz' Pacific Garden Mall passing out the handbills. I got many reactions - most people think it's too good to be true, that there is some kind of catch, but most who accept the handbill are quite delighted.
You could really help me out if you shared my music over the Internet.
Request your free CD of my piano music.
Hey, Elton's actually made music that isn't the same canned love-song crap. The songs he writes are autobiographical, about people important to him, about things important to his lyricist, etc. And he's an amazing live performer. Yep, I'm a big fan of his and I'm continually amazed by his live work.
But "close down the internet"? That's just ridiculous. Not happening, and I don't agree. Sure, sometimes you get a lot of "me too" art of all sorts (drawings, music, whatever) but I think the fact that anyone can publish and create anything they want more than makes up for that.
If it weren't for the big name behind this silliness, I doubt anyone would pay it any mind. And I think it's silly and not worth the electrons it's "printed" with.
i am a soviet space shuttle
so his issue is more a demarcation dispute?
Is he still relevant?
Anyone got a light for my sig?
Elton played the Pinball Wizard in Tommy -- all he asked in exchange for doing the role was getting to keep the shoes.
i am a soviet space shuttle
"Sadly kiddies on SlashDot have no clue of the impact Elton has on Music."
I would say had an impact. But today his impact resonates the same message as, "Get off my lawn!".
TLK is some of his best later work. While I don't care for his version of "I Just Can't Wait To Be King", Circle of Life and Can You Feel The Love Tonight are very good -- and the latter is very simple and easy to play but sounds fantastic, especially when he embellishes it in live performances.
i am a soviet space shuttle
Of course it looks that way to him. But how long has it been since he had to hit the street? Promote himself? I'm sure it is terrible for the old guard. Hell, even confusing. Too bad they stick with their old habit instead of listening a little bit more. Not only is music more interesting today, it's more diverse with artists collaborating in ways Elton never could have. Bringing real people together and real bands. Tonight I listen to a collaberation between a singer from Sao Paola and a French musician/producer. It's wonderful, not stale fusion. On my way home it was German glitch pop and another French producer working with a Japanese singer.
I'm sure this globalism goes right over his head. But while our governments are making all these sleazy arraignments another type of globalization is happening. It's created an amazing music scene in Guadalajara and given them the opportunity to be heard the world over.
And I'm not talking about traditional music. Contemporary pop. Like hip-hop from Sweden. The amazing Icelandic music scene. Places you might never even think about. There are so many creative people.
And to think, he laments. Ironic.
I think it's really just sad that he's missing this. There's more energy out there right now probably then ever before. Every day I'm amazed. I work with artists and I tell them this. He needs to sit down with someone who can show him. The styles have changed. But that's always the case. It's the creativity. The emotion. The honesty and heartbreak that goes into it. Even the blemishes.
A day doesn't go by I don't think about this. Makes me laugh a little hearing such a thing. Doesn't surprise me. He's missing the world. Too bad, he has a kind of talent too.
Quack, quack.
today's Britney crowd
In my opinion, the new music world should be about choice The internet creates choice. And if that internet destroys the musicindustry(I'm talking about formatted music like britney's) GOOD: bring on all the new types of music!
Yes, I'm left. You have a problem with that?
People who "try" to commit suicide and fail that badly (can't gas themselves, don't cut their wrist in the right place, whatever) are generally doing it to try to get attention and try to get help with some issue they can't just outright tell people about, not to actually kill themselves.
... so I can't really jeer at it that easily.
Sadly, I've known people who cut themselves up for attention-whore purposes
I like a lot of his newer stuff, but then, musical tastes are very much an individual thing.
i am a soviet space shuttle
Check the Sun article
Now, where did I hear something like that before? Oh, yes: Spider Robinson's 1983 Hugo Winning Short Story, "The Melancholy Elephants"—
Sir Elton John's musical talent may be argued either way, but it doesn't change that he still is an Ignorant Idiot.
//Information does not want to be free; it wants to breed.
Too late Elton, the recording industry already did that.
If someone is passing you on the right, you are an asshole for driving in the wrong lane.
I respect older people who are technologically knowledgeable more and more every time an article like this comes down the pipes. Listening to Dawkins talk about how much fun he had anonymously watching and speaking to people, who were watching a recorded speech from him, online was literally awe inspiring. At a fairly high age as far as what the world was like in his youth, he's still seeing more to it than most of the western world's youth. And then, on the other hand, here we have someone so terrified of the new that he wants to tear it all down rather than figure out ways of letting it serve as a medium to further develop his craft.
Everything will be taken away from you.
They are the guys that fuck people over royally, not the internet, nor the people on it. Try to explain creativity to people who *only* care for the mighty $$$...
/SirEltonJohn ?
The internet has the possibility of setting music free, and for artists to find new nice ways of making a living, without record companies. Is that what old artists and record companies find so horrific about the internet? That they are *gasp* being replaced? Or can it be that the biggest myspace page isn't
It is what people do, not what the "internet" do...
Such is the way things are and the way things always have been. The old giving way for the new is the way the circle of life works.
The RIAA and their way of doing things are also part of the past, not the future. They'll thrash and scream as they're relegated to the past - but they'll go, willing or not, into memory. Much as they'd like to turn back time their fate is already upon them and the final chapter can't be rewritten or altered.
Music is and always has been a part of humanity. It's been performed and distributed in numerous ways over our history and there's strange and mysterious things yet to come. But even in that brave new world, music will still be a part of humanity and it'll resist attempts to subvert it to serve someone's corporate goals.
And 100 years from now some has-been artist will complain that the new technology has killed his golden goose. It'll never cross his mind that the market no longer finds him relevant. It won't matter then, either. The circle of life goes on...
"stopping people from going out and being with each other, creating stuff." All those fresh young boys are staying at home out of reach.
- Quote some random blogger
- who quoted from "some random trashy tabloid" (aka The Sun)
- about "some random music industry has-been" who thinks too much of himself just because he has a knighthood (aka Sir Elton)
And of course it's anybody/anything else's fault that "pop music" today pretty much bites much arse and not due to:Visit CryptoGnome in his home.
Very; he is especially qualified to comment about Internet affairs. Elton demonstrates many hacker type qualities. Especially his code re-use skill. He was able to use the same bit of code for songs about two different celebrities that had almost nothing in common. Brilliant!
In the same way a judge was once ridiculed for asking "Who are the Beatles", but it was necessary because again they were being talked about in a trial, but anybody subsequently reading the trial report would not get a clue what "Beatles" were. Because of the way the British legal system works, on case law and precedent, judges have to assume that a judgement may be brought up many years in the future - when, say, the word "website" will be long gone but the thing itself still exists.
Incidentally, in that case the question did show that the lawyers on both sides were themselves unclear what they were talking about - not unusual in these cases.
Pining for the fjords
You mean Bernie Taupin writes songs that are autobiographical, about people that are important to him. It's Taupin that wrote all those love song lyrics of the past...usually written to his girlfriend at the time. Elton put them all to extremely beautiful music.
I know, you did say "things important to his lyricist"...but I just wanted to make sure Bernie Taupin's name got out there.
"Leo Fender was in a 'state of grace' when he designed the Stratocaster." -- Paul Reed Smith
It just looks cold
to not read the article, jump in with their personal bias as comments, and miss the interesting points that are made.
Though I disagree with the idea that music is being "destroyed" there is some validity to the change in the communication and connection between people. The internet allows us to communicate with many more people, but we do not make the same interpersonal connections that physical proximity promotes. The change in how people relate is what will change music and art.
D6 63 0D 70 89 81 BB 8E 7B 7C 5F 5D 54 EA AB 73
It is time for artists to realize that the RIAA and
,the RIAA et al, can be a member of,
similar organizations exist to steal money from the
artists themselves.
There needs to be a new organization, one which NO member
of , or prior member of
and it should replace all such previous organizations.
The RIAA claim to work towards getting the artists the
royalities from their creations, but the RIAA gets more
than the lions share. They are organized extortion. Pure
and simple.
Suppose the RIAA legitimately catches someone making a
copyrighted work downloadable, or makes copies for some
friends. The RIAA gets a huge judgement for the most part,
and the artist gets his/her $0.07 per copy royality?
What is fair about this? This is a protection racket
and nothing more. Organized and criminal in intent.
The threat is legal action, litigation you cannot possibly
afford, as Joe Average. If you fail to pay the extortion
you are SLAPPED with lawsuits. They will nickle and dime
you to death with court appearances. They will force you
to hire a lawyer to help control the charges and judgement.
They will cost you dearly unless you give in to their
demands. If not extortion, what is it? Blackmail???
Sound about right?
Now let us turn this same racket into something that will
benefit the artist.
Send a simple demand letter to obvious infringers*, you
know who you are, asking for the removal of the material
and $25.00 to this new organization.
The difference would be this, the new organization can
only get $5.00 of the $25.00 as a fee, the remainder
would be disbursed to the copyright owner. Same threats
of lawsuits, just a more reasonable outcome.
This would do several things :
Reimburse artists
Give the new organization the impetus to go after larger
numbers of infringers.
Reduce the money to be made by questionable organizations.
* Obvious Infringer, someone with a ftp site with titles
ending in {Complete Album} or {Full Movie} in the file names.
Doh!
Yep. Sorry about that; I should have credited him outright! You and I know all about him, fortunately.
Some of the songs are from Elton's perspective (Someone Saved My Life Tonight is an example) but yes, many are Bernie's, such as Saturday Night's All Right For Fighting, which is about Bernie's time in bars when he was younger.
Thanks for following up.
i am a soviet space shuttle
If only there was a period in history when the internet didn't exist, so we could make a comparison to it.
I wonder how much Elton John actually know about the subject .Did he ever buy music online , did he ever listen to a song on youtube ?
/.
I fear someone's just telling him that saying ' internet is destroying the music industry ' will give him some attention . And for what i can tell , it's working : it made it to
Slipping shoelaces ?
Two points to make:
Elton John wants people to go out and be with each other and creating things? He should check out http://www.blogotheque.net/takeawayshows/ , a phenomenon that would not be possible were it not for the internet, the very goal of which is to get emerging (or even, in some cases, famous) bands in public performing live in impromptu venues (like elevators) in major cities all over the world. Imagine that... truly creative people finding a way of utilizing their technology to create new things, or perhaps old things in new forms in pace with a changing world. What's that? Oh, the point of much art? Oh yeah.
Which leads to the second point. Marshall McLuhan had a lot to say about the unique nature of artists: "The artist picks up the message of cultural and technological challenge decades before its transforming impact occurs. He, then, builds models or Noah's arks for facing the change that is at hand... The ability of the artist to sidestep the bully blow of new technology of any age, and to parry such violence with full awareness, is age-old." (Understanding Media, 1964)
Elton John as an artist is clearly not of the breed that McLuhan insists "is the man of integral awareness," and "who grasps the implications of his actions and of new knowledge in his own time." This reactionary, Luddite philosophy of his marks him as not only behind the times, but as a man of the most dangerous artistic influence, given his mass appeal and status. Art should not tear down the inexorable technological developments of any age; video may have killed the radio star, but then again, maybe it had the technologies of writing, painting, and sculpture that preceded it that grounded the human mind in a predominantly visual mode, anyway. Who knows. But regardless (anyone notice the guy who agreed with Elton John use 'irregardless'?), the blame game is not for artists of any caliber.
Sir, do not trivialize this. Surely, you must understand that
MUSIC IS GOING DOWN THE INTERTUBES!
Of course Elton John doesn't want things to change, he's done quite well out of the current regime. He can hardly be called a neutral observer.
"A cynic is what an idealist calls a realist" - Sir Humphrey Appleby
Anyone who leanrs to play the piano and sing, like Elton, doesn't exactly look like they are going out of their way to do stuff with other people.
Thanks to the intertubes I'm always listening to albums and seeing shows for small indie bands that I would've never known about before. You're not going to find good music coming out of the TV, the radio, or Elton John anymore, but you will find it on the internet. And the internet will lead you to where that music exists in world where people are made of meat, not 1's and 0's.
Elton John needs to stop partnering with lame top-40 bile during The Durito's Nacho-Cheesier Half Time Specials of the world. He needs to possibly start listening to something like the All Songs Considered podcast, or start using the intertubes to follow the local music scene.
"Things are more moderner than before- bigger, and yet smaller- it's computers-- San Dimas High School football RULES!"
...Time on the 'net could be time spent with you
Clicking on banners, searching for lovers
Sneaking my laptop under the covers
And I guess that's why they call it the blues
Ah, Elton, always on hand with crappy lyrics badly modified for current events...
And by old, I mean, pre-1976
Tiny Dancer
Levon
Madman across the Water
Goodbye Yellow Brick Road
Crocodile Rock
Don't Let the Sun Go Down on Me
Someone Saved My Life Tonight
and I'll take Mona Lisas and Mad Hatters up against any song the Who ever did, period.
This is my sig.
Hear that, Elton? That was the sound of you becoming irrelevant to anything creative musicians are doing.
FTFA:
And there's the problem. He's stuck in his ways, and the internet is a threat to those ways. Lets be clear - the internet is helping new artists make music and distribute it (for free and for money) without requiring a restrictive contract with a record company.
Consider The Boy Lacks Patience. He's an amazing performer, and he is all the things that you said Elton John is. Yet, despite that I lived in the same city as him for about five years, I would never have heard of him if it wasn't for the internet.
These are quotes from the article: Instead they sit at home and make their own records, which is sometimes OK but it doesn't bode well for long-term artistic vision.
It's just a means to an end.
We're talking about things that are going to change the world and change the way people listen to music and that's not going to happen with people blogging on the internet.
I mean, get out there -- communicate.
Hopefully the next movement in music will tear down the internet.
Let's get out in the streets and march and protest instead of sitting at home and blogging.
I do think it would be an incredible experiment to shut down the whole internet for five years and see what sort of art is produced over that span.
There's too much technology available.
I'm sure, as far as music goes, it would be much more interesting than it is today.
I don't have a mobile phone or an iPod or anything.
I am such a Luddite when it comes to making music. All I can do is write at the piano.
How can you make these comments in the form of a forum post??
Anyway, as others have noted, I like how the internet allows little guys to get their music out. One of my friends is an incredibly talented musician. I'd wager myspace has driven his exposure and fanbase far more than his coffee shop gigs.
One more pointless observation... It used to be that the only way to get your music out there was to get really popular, playing bars and other small gigs relentlessly at the expense of your family and/or personal health. Now you can keep playing coffee shops at your leisure while gaining popularity on the internet. As for me, I've played for small groups of friends, and i've played for larger audiences (no more than 1500), and I prefer the smaller groups hands down. For those that seek to distribute their music, they can continue to play smaller venues and let the internet do the footwork. I don't see a problem with that. Pop was getting crappy long before the internet became popular.
I think the Internet is making possible lots of new and wonderful ways of making music. For instance, i happen to be a member of a musician-oriented forum. Once in a while, somebody would compose a drum track or some other backing track and then pass it around to members. Those who were interested to add to it are free to do so, and i've heard a lot of excellent musical ideas from people who otherwise would've had no avenue of expression. Suddenly, you don't even have to have a band living in the same town as you are: your bass player could be living somewhere in Europe while the singer could be in Japan and the rest of the band in other places. Taking it one step further, the really prolific could now create full albums and a website from where they could sell CDs, completely bypassing the greedy record labels.
For me, what IS destroying good music is the empty-v culture of all flash, no substance. Ever sat down to watch for at least 5 minutes or so? It's nothing but the same big name, big production, no talent crap over and over.
"Let's get out in the streets and march and protest instead of sitting at home and blogging." And he said this in his comment he wrote on a webpage, as opposed to saying it in a demonstration in the streets? I rest my case...
Don't get me wrong -Just get me right!
Today's music sucks compared to the best of the mid 1960s through the mid 1970s. It's just true. Artists in that era incorporated a wide range of sounds and styles into their work to create a discography that is often remarkable and most likely impossible to duplicate today. The other thing, too, is that major artists of that era were expected to produce an album at least once a year, and, more often than not, every six months. That's an impressive amount of material. Nowadays, you'll hear new albums from major acts more like every two to three years.
Elton confuses digital music and the internet. Digital technology puts the recording technology that only the Beatles could afford to use onto everyone's PC, and could theoretically be used to make some genuinely great albums. However, the Internet and today's musical delivery methods place such an emphasis on individual songs, that it often makes little sense for an artist to even bother with the concept of an album.
The problem is, ironically, that back in those days, an album was considered a work of art by itself and so it was appropriate to use the latest in studio technology to create sounds and songs that are impossible to play live. When I was a kid, radio stations wouldn't just play songs, they would play entire albums, start to stop. That just doesn't happen but rarely anymore - and then only on college radio.
Nowadays, a major act by a major company doesn't have the artistic freedom to do a good album as a whole - as there's so much emphasis on forcing a band to retain the same "sound" to keep loyal listeners, and, since tours are now big money makers too, the pressure to make an album that is playable live is even more immense.
This is my sig.
A couple of months ago, a freebie brochure-cum-mini magazine fell out listing all of the rock music festivals going on in-and-around Europe over the summer - no lies, but there were *at least* 70 music festivals!
I guess one reason for this is the ludicrous prices of concert tickets and the rip-off sellers like Ticketmaster that charge *extortionate* booking fees simply for putting a couple of tickets in the post - the fact is that a festival is going to give you "more bands for your money".
I don't like a lot of the modern music but I don't see any shortage of live gigs to go to and the whole live music scene is very vibrant - hell, even heroes of mine like Uriah Heep and Magnum, all of them approaching their 60s, are touring quite regularly *and* charging reasonable amounts for tickets.
The sad fact is that Elton John is a "has-been" and has now become more media celebrity than musician - these days, he's more known for his gay marriage to his partner, wild parties & sucking up to Disney to write film soundtracks rather than the classic music he did during the 70s like "Goodbye Yellow Brick Road" and "Captain Fantastic".
Nope, I can't stand music downloads & most modern music either but the fact is that I can still buy CDs at reasonable prices (not in rip-off stores like Virgin or HMV) and there is more than enough live music for me to go and see - so what anyone else does is up to them, I'm in my 40s and well catered for...
Gentoo Linux - another day, another USE flag.
I remember reading an interview of John Felice from the Real Kids where he said their aim was to destroy Elton John.
BTW, as far a Rock'n'roll is concerned, the Real Kids were much closer to the bone than sir Elton.
Goodbye Reggie Dwight,
Though I never liked you at all
You had the technophobia
To lash out at us all.
Or perhaps that should have read: The internet says Elton John is destroying music.
Either way, the guy is one "artist," so I don't give a poop about what he says. He knows nothing of economics or how the music or internet industries work and support each other. He can record all the crap he wants, and morons can buy it, that's fine. But he is not qualified to comment as an expert on this subject, and we should not take his comments as anything more than a flame from one disgruntled salesman who hasn't yet been able to rake in an infinite amount of money.
If Sir Elton and the crap artists he listens to were cleaning-up in regards to their online sales, I doubt we'd hear a peep out of him, other than that the internet is a great, logical new market.
This is a hacked account, for which the owner can not be held responsible.
Too bad, Elton. I guess that's why they call it the blues.
The internet is destroying traditional distribution methods. Nothing will ever destroy music.
But "close down the internet"? That's just ridiculous.
How about we just burn down the mission instead?
Sorry, couldn't resist.
Clearly Elton John hasn't listened to the radio for the past fifteen years. Ignorance is bliss.
But for the internet, I'd never have discovered the amount of music I have that actually has real art value.
in saying that the Internet is destroying good music, but that it "has created a cold and impersonal world for artists to create new music in"? Maybe he has a point.
Then again, this may be good news for fans of 80s electronic pop. Domo aregatu, Mr. Roboto!
- So who did?
- Yes!
(Sorry.)
Let's just all be quiet and hope he goes away.
Don't be too critical of Sir Elton...
Transformative technology doesn't unfold smoothly. The dominant paradigm is shattered, twisted, shocked by the changes inflicted upon it. To the person born to and comfortable with the dominant paradigm, it would look like the death of everything they know and love. They would be quite rightfully frightened and saddened by what they see. But that is born of their devotion to the past, and their inability to see the future. To the catepillar, butterflies look like the end of all things.
In this messy, rattle-trap process of revoltion, evolution, many new things pop into and out of existence overnight and the new stable state, the new paradigm begins to develop. It is not a pretty process, and the along the way, it's easy to become judgemental and lose sight of why people moved down this path to begin with.
I can only imagine what it will be like when great artists can meet together virtually, collaborating with hardly more than a moments notice, anywhere in the world. What amzing art they will make for the ears, and the eyes, and all the senses, and the spirit, and the mind. What will be the possibility of an artist who can sing neural songs of profound thought and experience, and what will be possible for our children's childen when they have access to every beautiful thing ever devised at almost infinite speed and resolution. The internet of today is a tinker toy. It's an externalization of the human brain, still in it's most primative state. Nobody is surprised that a salamander or even a gopher is not sufficiently sophisticated to be a channel of great artistic beauty. Why should it be any any wonder that as amazing as it is, our ability to truly connect is stil l terribly limited, that our ability to "ART" is constrained by this tiny, narrow channel. The possibility however, that is something an artistic soul should rejoice in.
Relenquish nothing, instead we need to push forward faser, harder, we need to stop thinking small. Watching the enterprise of of today's technology wasting precious time and energy polishing turds and calling it business... this is the real trajedy. Let's build something worthy of human artists, worthy of the art of being human. That would be the fulfillment of real transformation. That would be a worthy aspiration for a true network of human beings.
he songs he writes are autobiographical, about people important to him, about things important to his lyricist, etc.
where does Crocodile Rock fit into this, exactly?
The world keeps changing, you have to adapt. My future children won't be able to enjoy 8-bit game systems or home computers the way I did either. Or be able to pick up a Pong console at a garage sale and think it was the coolest thing ever.
I realize now that not everyone has to do things the way I did to have an interesting and enjoyable life. But what kids do these days that is exciting and interesting I have almost no idea.
“Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
Kind of like how the written note destroyed music.
rhY
PS Nice Boots.
I hold very few opinions. I hold information based on observation and fact. If you wish to disagree, please use facts.
Besides, Trent released a couple of tracks in a format that alows anyone (ANYONE) to mix it, remix it, cut it, mash it, to basically get a taste of what it feels like to play with the "source code" of music. Trent even said that the draft of the album was made up while they were touring, with a laptop, on buses and planes and all.
Heck, they even "leaked" selected tracks via USB pen drives on bathrooms on concerts, and I think that the objective was to spread them, using (you guessed!) the internet!
Now, could any of this be possible without the internet? Maybe, but the thing is that the internet is a new "tool", to wich the artists either adapt, or will violently bash against (like in the case of Sir Elton).
5 years without internet... the thing is that a lot of people (like Sir Elton) just don't get it, today the internet is becoming more and more a "essential" service on the civilized world, much like telephone, gas, electricity and the likes.
"A sysadmin is a cross between a detective, a police officer, a gardener, a doctor and a fireman"
> I don't have a mobile phone or an iPod or anything.
You are so free, how I envy you. Wait Elton, doesn't your manager have a mobile phone?
This was pubished by brittains rainbow press. The Sun would write (and has probably written) about a giant mole eating up the whole earth, if necessary to catch readers attention. This article is assembled from quotes that seem to have been properly removed from all irritating context and assembled in such a fashion, that Joe Random will get pissed, before the article is over.
Second, the article states that Elton John does neither own a cellphone, nor an iPod. If this were true (which I doubt to some extend) it would make him almost unqualified to talk about the web, as he lacks all key devices that take modern media out of your home. To me such a statement is symtopmatic for a disconnection with the way young people manage their lifes and how they make and experience music.
So what is the news? "Dead Elvis did't like the new Superman movie."
Yeah, whatever.
When someone like Mr. John here admits he's making an uninformed opinion, "I don't have a mobile phone or an iPod or anything", its kinda hard to give his words any weight no matter how much of an icon he is in the music industry.
Just because he personally doesn't use a tool doesn't mean it needs to be completely done away with. I could point to many uses of the internet as a means for musical collaboration. For applications there's Ninjam for one, FL Studio has Collab, and there's also many online communities of artists working together and feeding off each other's inspiration and creativity.
The candle hasn't burned out long ago, Elton. There's just more sources of light that you haven't bothered noticing.
-2B
True, I discovered all the music CD's I bought this year through internet radio. Before I started listening to internet radio, I didn't buy any CD's anymore because I didn't hear any music I liked. So personally, the internet has done just the opposite.
I haven't bought any Elton John though.
"It's too bad that stupidity isn't painful." - Anton LaVey
Considering the topic, I'm not surprised to see someone advertise their music.
Congratulations. And all the best!
1 + 1 = 3?
Most of the internet says Elton John is also destroying music
The internet has undoubtedly reduced the number (and quality) of superstars and celebrities out there (you can also blame the record industry and clearchannel for the quality plunging through the floor).
On the other hand, music as a whole has benefitted greatly and considerably increased in diversity. Chances are that there are more than a few bands that match your tastes out there, and odds are that they actually have a pretty significant following.
Over the past few years, the indie circuit has become more and more and more diverse to encompass just about every genre, and has even spawned a few genres of its own (or at the very least, greatly popularized previously obscure styles such as Post-Rock and french-influenced funk/electronica a la Justice).
Quite a few artists that have risen up through the indie circuit over the past few years are currently considered to be amongst the most talented popular musicians of our generation -- Sufjan Stevens stands out in particular as being an absolute genius. I have a feeling that Sam Beam of Iron & Wine will likely receive quite a bit of attention once his new album is out.
This past year alone is pretty widely considered to have been one of the best ever for the independent music scene, and has arguably produced as many memorable albums as all of the 90s did. Artists and Albums that have risen through the indie circuit, standing out as being particularly fantastic to my mind include (in no particular order) The Arcade Fire, Death Cab for Cutie, The Decemberists, Of Montreal, Iron & Wine, Sufjan Stevens, Calexico, Spoon, Final Fantasy, Patrick Wolf, Andrew Bird, Feist, The National, Bright Eyes, Okkervil River, Neutral Milk Hotel, 65daysofstatic, Justice, LCD Soundsystem, Jose Gonzalez, Josh Ritter, Elliot Smith, Nick Drake, and the list goes on and on....
The awesome bit is that the above list encompasses almost every genre imaginiable. Apart from the usual Indie Rock, there's some electronica, a few singer-songwriters, a folk musician, a southwestern ensemble, two solo violinists, an instrumental post-rock band, and some electronica.
The music industry seems to have lost the ability to find people these days who make both good celebrities and good musicians. David Bowie stands out as doing a particularly good job of both. Other "superstars" of today have indeed climbed to the top purely on accord of their own talent -- Coldplay and U2 stand out in this regard, and seeing Mark Konpfler perform with a few former members of the Dire Straits a few years back was an absolutely amazing experience. Apart from that, though, the top 10 is more or less absolute garbage.
Elton can say what he wants, but the music scene is the absolute best it's been during my lifetime.
-- If you try to fail and succeed, which have you done? - Uli's moose
The rebirth of music, created by real human beings to be shared with real human beings, music that only represented the minority of content readily available in the 20th century will again become the majority and the only people to miss the parasitic music publishers will be the parasitic publisher executives.
Elton is just isolated by wealth and mass media manufactured fame, and is lamenting his lost ability to share the creative process with the grass roots artists, as he approaches his end of times. The Internet will usher in a new era of live music in preference to dead recordings.
Chaos - everything, everywhere, everywhen
Elton has absolutely NOTHING to do with his lyrics.
They arrive in the post and he writes music for them. There's no discussion and no input at all from Elton.
No sig today...
The fact is that lots of people stay home in front of their computer instead of going out; bars, clubs, theaters, arcades and small record shops suffer from this. Nobody can deny it.
Now, I don't agree about:
the internet is destroying good music".Musicians still can meet on ICQ and setup meetings to create music together. And Internet helps spreading creations. Both good and bad. So if more music tracks reach you, there's a great chance that a bigger part of them is crap. But that doesn't mean there are less good quality songs.
The cause and effect he imagines just isn't there. The 'cold place' he sees was just hidden during the past. He never had the chance to meet the mobs of people out there without the power of the Internet before, except when he traveled on tour. And I am sure he stopped to talk to them all. The new technology merely allowed him to know about the world he never saw before, and any existing problems he never realized.
Yes, the Industry is "colder" today, for him, as that is just in his own frame of mind. The Industry has always been a cutthroat place where contracts rule, not the artist. The "people" don't make it colder, they just make it possible for a sinking artist like him to make a living and get their interviews published on the Internet, and to drive up sales.
For the people who dit not read the article: Elton is saying that people are sitting behind the computer screen alone instead of making music together. This wil kill the music. As a software developer I've made software with people all over the world, thanks to the Internet.
It should be possible for musicians to work together over the Internet. You can contact more musicians over the Internet than ther are in your town. I would assume the collaboration will increase the quantity and the quality of the music.
Is this news? An ageing, and increasingly irrelevant musician is upset that the industry is our pacing his technical understanding and/or taste. I know someone out there is a fan of Mr. John's music, I'm not, none of my friends are. My parents hate his music and are from the generation that launched Elton's career. I've always wondered who was buying his CDs. It's a matter of opinion. I think EJ had done more to make music crap than the Interweb could.
Have not the record companies failure to build a truly kick-ass online business model, combined with there terrible taste in music lead to a decrease in the overall quality of music? I'm not a music geek, but I never listen to top 40 radio. I'm tuned to public (CBC) and college, mostly because of the whole quality thing. I'm not a musician. Maybe that's the problem?
Sure. Mozart had an impact. Then he died when he was thirty five. We'll never know if he was really any good because we'll never know whether the stuff he would have produced when he was fifty or sixty would be just as good.
Elton John is saying something much more interesting than the usual "file sharing is killing the music industry" line, and it's silly to dismiss him because he hasn't moved with the times onto hip-hop or something like that.
What he's saying is that the music industry is in a creative crisis, and that the source of that crisis is a kind of breakdown in communication between artist and artist and artist and audience. This really is a different take on the problem. What makes it an interesting (not necessarily correct) viewpoint is that our tools for communication are better than ever. However the time-shifting convenience of those tools make the communication less immediate, less in the moment. It's like a chess grandmaster who stops playing tournaments and stays at home playing against a computer. He can spend every waking moment now playing chess, but he is no longer contributing to chess culture.
Personally, I'm not sure I buy this. Have artists stopped playing in clubs? Or giving concerts?
I think the biggest problem in music, at least in the US, is the end of independent ownership and management of radio stations. Radio is the most important tool for disseminating musical innovation, and once the distribution channels are centrally controlled, innovation is squashed by corporate gatekeeper. There is less room for individual advocacy, as local management and jobs disappear to be replaced by robot stations playing a predetermined format. Go any place in the country, turn on the radio, and you get just varying proportions of the following formats: Pop hits, oldies, country, sports talk, right wing talk, Christian radio. It's like every restaurant in the country had to be a McDonalds, Red Lobster, KFC, or Chili's.
In this context, the crushing of Internet radio is the worst thing imaginable, because it is crushing the last legitimate outlet for individuality in music distribution. File sharing may be a problem for the music industry, but unauthorized sharing is really the only outlet left for individual music advocacy.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
i daresay he can make all
the stupid statements he wishes
he is as entitled to his opion
as you are to yours
but on to the real reason
for my post: the structure
of your comment made it into
an exotic visual
poetry
He has something right about blogging - the current state of affairs was made possible by the Internet. People think that they protest by expressing thoughts online, commenting and writing. Newsflash - you don't protest by blogging, or commenting, or making videos. You protest in the streets.
The reason why you have less angry people on the streets, protesting and marching against RIAA, against the Wars, against bad leaders, is because the Internet creates an illusion of "we are doing something by getting together and expressing it everywhere". It's just an illusion. People that would otherwise make a huge difference by marching, protesting, suing, find it much more comfortable to Blog, which is just meaningless masturbation.
My Starcraft 2 Blog
I'm tired of whiny (star) musicians being all like "Wah, the internets ate my moniez". If they really loved music, they'd make it even if they had to pay for it, like most of us who like to program/mess with computers and do it even if it costs us money (open source/new gadgets/etc). This just shows me that they're in it for the cash and have no regard for the music they make.
Send email from the afterlife! Write your e-will at Dead Man's Switch.
I have the feeling that good artists are too many and can rise a unwanted competition to the million dollar cows that the industry feeds on.
t ertainment-tech-media-cz_lg_richwomen07_0118womens tars_slide_2.html?thisSpeed=29000
Make a reality check here http://downhillbattle.org/ and read about some of these golden cows here:
http://www.forbes.com/2007/01/17/richest-women-en
What about "My generation" and "Behind blue eyes" by Limp Bizkit?
The Who are great songwriters, it's not hard to make a hit using one of their songs.
He said "impact", not "influence". A genius influences. Roadkill impacts.
Elton has a lot of leather shoes.
--> Insert Funny Sig Here
I don't think for a minute that it's destroying music or the personal feel of it. It's giving people a chance to find their OWN idea of good music instead of being spoon fed packaged stars through the label-to-media system. The UK has definately had a noticable change of taste in the last 5 years and I have to think the internet has had a significant part in this. People have been able to hear things they normally wouldn't. Artists have found platforms that were impossible to stand on before. If anything, I'd say the amount of music people listen to and the time they spent with it is much higher than before because it's so accessable and easy (iPod etc). As far as I know, concerts are also still selling out and a night out to see a band/artist is still as popular as ever. The numbers are spread to more areas than before. Music hasn't been hurt, it's the old dinosaurs with the loud voices and their model of how things should be that has been hurt. Music's evolved, come with us - you might like it! :P
I'd say it's more than just that. The biggest problem in music is the end of independent ownership and management of everything related to music on any kind of large scale. You name it, it's either owned or controlled by the RIAA mob, or it's basically irrelevant to the majority of the industry. Plenty of small-scale stuff happens, all the way down to people just talking to each other about it, but none of it reaches the necessary critical mass for any of the ideas generated to travel far beyond the (social) vicinity of the place where they started.
The root cause of all this is obvious: whenever anything significant starts to happen, people start thinking about how they can make money from it, and then they start thinking about how to maximise their profits from it, and then the RIAA mob makes them an offer.
...Elton John has Destroyed Music
Back that truck up a second.
Ok, so the popular meme is to say "The average slashdot reader this" or "The average slashdot reader that", but seriously, waxing nostalgic to a f#$@ing Disney film soundtrack?
Really?
"The Internet will usher in a new era of live music in preference to dead recordings."
I think that's one of the most ludicrous statements I've heard all day.. while I enjoy live music sometimes, I much prefer spending my money on something that I can listen to over and over again, rather than spending 2 or 3 times as much on a one off performance. I used to be in a band and it was fun being out and hearing other bands play, but if anything the internet just stops me from going out and listening to bands, because I spend time playing games or posting on Slashdot/Bebo instead!
which is totally what she said
Happy Jack
My Generation
Substitute
I Can't Explain
The Kids are Alright
Magic Bus
I Can See for Miles
And these are all before Tommy.
Your only excuse would be if you're female.
You are welcome on my lawn.
I agree - I can browse through and LISTEN to music on Amazon on iTunes and then, if I like anything, either buy the CD or just get the tracks I want from iTunes or similar.
Internet radio offers far more variety than the local radio stations here in the UK - I've lost count of the number of CDs I've bought after hearing them through Pandora or other more traditional online stations. I can easily find a station playing the music styles I want to listen to, rather than .
Maybe Elton should consider the benefits the Internet can offer, rather than concentrating on the negatives such as illegal p2p filesharing that the record companies spoonfeed everyone.
As a musician myself (piano/keys in a jazz quartet and also a corporate/party band) I really appreciate what the internet has done for us: we get lots of our gigs through people finding our website (or being directed there from other sites / recommendations / business cards) and downloading / listening to the live demo tracks. Granted, the site needs a major update, but without the internet I'd be stuck running off demo CDs and leaflets and posting them to agents / venues.
He's just jealous because he's a 900k and therefore got in after it was cool to be on Slashdot. Also, he's not really a nerd of any sort. He's just pretending to be one so all his friends online will think slightly better of him.
SRSLY.
He's not commenting about music distribution, or about music cartels that manufacture awful music and buy radio stations to reduce people's choice.
What he's saying, in his own opinion, is that he thinks musicians are communicating less because the recent technology has been making it so much easier for people to produce things on their own. He thinks this is having a negative effect on the quality of music being produced, because the composition process has changed in such a way that musicians aren't getting as much feedback from each other. Celebrities, temple record stores or more competition between artists really have nothing to do with what he said.
I'm sure he couldn't care less if artists still used the Internet to distribute their work, if they worked together more frequently when producing it in the first place. (Actually I'm sure many already do, but clearly Elton thinks that many aren't.) Saying the Internet should be shut down for five years is just a provocative statement to get attention. It's a random idea to get people to think about how things might change if they ditched some of the technology they're using in their creative process.
You are welcome on my lawn.
You don't have to be particularly clever to be a pop star...
The thing to keep in mind is, the internet is much more important than popular music. The music industry as it is today could suffer a horrible, painful death and we would still be better off than before the internet came around. Music was around long before "the industry", and it'll be around long after.
Nein--Inch Nails!
Get thee glass eyes, and, like a scurvy politician, seem to see things thou dost not.--King Lear
This story reminds me of a BBC panel show I heard a couple of years ago when they played a recording from the '60's (?) of a music expert complaining about what things would happen if cassette tapes became widely available.
I also remember when video players first came out, it was said that people would quit going to movie theaters and that would in turn make people socialize less.
while the internet might be destroying the music industry (thank god), it's also, in a way, doing exactly what elton said. it's killing creativity. the music of the past was created through collaboration, through jam sessions, through actual instruments. the vast majority of the music on the internet is people copying bands they like and never getting better at what they do. getting out and performing in front of people, getting out and meeting others who also play music drives creativity. sitting at home writing songs that emulate what someone else did keeps the status quo.
i have gotten bored with music because since the beginning of the decade, it has gotten boring. very few bands have vision. sure, elton john wrote the music for his songs and didn't write all the lyrics (though he did write some of them), but he had vision. the collaboration that occurred in the 60's and 70's when the bands all knew each other is gone, with the exception of what's left of the jam band scene (one of the more creative scenes at the moment, in large part because of the collaboration).
please me, have no regrets.
Wow, two knighted musicians with completely different views of this new fangled contraption.
Sir Paul McCartney, you might remember him as the one with weird haircut from the Beatles, thinks record companies don't get the internet and are killing music. He's abandoned his label and is pushing forward on his own.
Sure. Mozart had an impact. Then he died when he was thirty five. We'll never know if he was really any good ...
Mozart created a body of music that has survived over 200 years after his death. And you still won't say whether he is any good?
DAMN your tough!!!
Download my free songs!
In soviet russia, the internet destroys Elton John...
Unsure whether I am feeding a troll or not, but I suggest you listen to Moonlight Sonata and then go through your music collection and throw out all the music with repetition. That would leave you some Indian music and .....errrr....? Sure the recording wasn't the finest but the song name Emergence goes very well with the music. Feel free to post some of yours though, and as a special thankyou, I will post some of mine and you can see what bad music is really like :).
I reserve the write to mangle english.
... because we don't have to chop wood to stay warm or run from the saber-tooth tigers.
Research shows that 67% of those who use the term "research shows", are just making shit up.
Nope.
Street marches have the data content of an Atari 2600. You get about 20 signs, 5 leaders who know their stuff, and a whole lot of extraneous violence which requires real police to break up. Then that day's rally is over, and no one cares *any more*.
A sharp, accurate protest blog backed by just a little luck and money can take down titans. Sony is one example. Don Imus is another.
My first Journal Entry ever, in 8 years! http://slashdot.org/journal/365947/aphelion-scifi-fantasy-horror-poetry-webzine
That is all
"The new wave is not value-added; it's garbage-subtracted" - Esther Dyson, Dec 1994
I don't know how reliable the SUN is. Is there a link to original post? If not, I'd be little skeptical....
...richie - It is a good day to code.
What about all the musicians who are now able to communicate and create music in disparate places across the globe? I've lost count of the number of metal bands who now say in interviews, that they only get together to sound check and then tour. Niche music like metal doesn't make the musicians overnight millionaires, they have to keep down regular jobs to pay for the music they make, the internet allows them to feed their families with a regular job and still have a career in music, selling thousands of albums. If Elton just took his f**king head out of his pompous millionaire's arse and actually took a serious look at what real musicians are doing in the real world, perhaps he wouldn't be so quick to mouth off about sh*t he knows nothing about!
Windows guys please stop pissing on everyone and the Linux guys stop pissing in the wind, hoping to hit Windows guys!
My first reaction when I read about that judge was to think 'what a plank' (British English euphemism for the stupid or ignorant).
However the more I thought about it the more I realised it was a very good question. Just think about some boundary cases. A mirrors. Two different domains on the same IP. Two subdomains on the same host or different host machines. Two different domains with different NIC/IP on the same host machine. Two different user domains on the same host. Wiki's, forum, static and dynamic content on the same domain, on different sub-domains, or on different hosts and/or NIC/IPs. A web front end to usenet, chat, aggregator or RSS feeds.
I would moderate the Judges Question insightful.
I've been writing code for 25 years, have a degree in Recording Arts, have built and sold several companies, and do not have an illegitimate song anywhere in my 9,947 song iTunes library. In short, I have a rather qualified viewpoint on this. It is my opinion that all music should be DRM-free.
When it comes right down two it, people make music for only two reasons: "Musicians" make music becuas they want the financial reward (studio musicians, etc.). "Artists" generally make music because of the passion or enjoyment. With that said, if you want to make music for the enjoyment, then do so and stay quiet about the money. However, if you are chasing the dollar than you must conceed that music is a commodity. And, just like anything else affixed with a pricetag, you must create something that the buyer is willing to pay for.
At the end of the day, the fact is simple: NO business, vendor, or manufacturer can continue to pump out the same widget or service and expect for the public to keep paying the same price... or, for that matter, to keep paying at all. Eventually, they will find a cheaper version, one with better quality, or a replacement that they can generate themselves. If you want to keep their business you MUST continue to develop your product in such a way that the customer or client will AGREE that he or she must pay the requested price. Music is no different.
In the end all DRM efforts will always fail. People will always shoplift your music. If you want to keep them paying, then it is the MUSICIAN that must increase the value of the conventional CD or DVD to keep consumers wanting to pay.
(This wisdom came after spending $70k US on a degree in Recording Arts, only to find that the money was better writing software. The school never told me that because THEY are a business as well.)
Music is a form of art - art should not always be what people like. When all that comes out from musical artists is what people want to hear, all we will get is Britney Spears bubblegum pop. We will only hear music out of the latest "American Idol" winner. There will be no more experimentation on the level of "Pink Floyd: The Wall" or "Sgt Peppers Lonely Hearts Band" or Bob Dylan.
http://timcol6.freehostia.com/
Whoa there, grasshopper!
:-)
You seem to be implying that any person here who does not like Eltons music (or recognizes his influence in the same way as you do) is too young to understand him and is probably listening to Britney, Christina and Shakira all day long.
Now that is a bold claim to make. In Eltons haydays, not every single person appreciated his work. And I have a hard time thinking about musical currents that were directly influenced by him. True, he is a true writer, and his pitch is near perfect. But that doesn't mean he is the only one, even now.
Personaly, I don't like his work. But it is way better than the Britney-like lipsync crowd. But there is better music out there, and some of it is even fairly new and quite popular (at least here in Europe. Can't say about the other side of the pool...) Do not, ever, generalize geeks on a non-geeky field
Free beer is never free as in speech. Free speech is always free as in beer.
I understand how he might feel this way. However, with sites like http://www.milwaukeerocks.com/ (if your in WI) for finding musicians and http://netmusicmakers.com/ for collaborating (yes, it's beta and slow sometimes), I've been able to actually find musicians to collaborate with more than ever.
Back in the day, you had to be part of the music "scene", hang at music stores, etc. to find people looking to jam or needing someone for the band. Now, much easier to find musicians or send songs back and forth to my old bandmates for critique or suggestions.
Now if there was an easier way of sharing DAW software files between different packages with the timing and tracks complete....heaven.
I love the sound of distortion in the morning -- webcommando
Bernie Taupin's gf was Marilyn Monroe?
"All great things are simple & expressed in a single word: freedom, justice, honor, duty, mercy, hope." --Churchill
It's an incredible experience to you play with others and to actually build on each other's sound. There is an immediate sense of fulfillment. Also the audience loves to see people struggle to make their sound. It gives a good show. A digital solo at 220 BPM is nothing like a live solo. Nobody cares about the digital solo because nobody sees any skills in that while a guitar player, and even some bass players, can actually show what they are doing while dancing and moving around.
With the current level of technology, you don't need the guitar, bass, drum, orchestras etc. You could have an orchestra of synthesizers and the keyboardists could do the same thing and even more for less money. Yet, I think everybody would be bored and would wonder why they didn't simply listen to it on their computer. Eventually though, all of the instruments might become simple toys to play around a fire. A bit like how the harmonica was quite popular and practical once and now nobody cares about it.
I finished an E.P of my own stuff last year. As a 40ish guy in the US that can't sing, I got some GREAT vocals done by a 16 year old kid in Europe and one 20-something in the UK do vocals for me that I had met on my home recording web site. I never would have found these guys otherwise...and my music would have suffered. The internet gains as much as it looses, it's all how you use it.
dB Masters
Your view is a bit apocalyptic. While it's true radio USED to be most important distribution channel, it no longer is considering the internet's ability to make music available. Crushing internet radio? Only if the music is licensed by ASCAP, BMI or other RIAA sanctioned licensing entities is affected. If a musician chooses not to license through the standard licensing outfits, his/her music can be performed publicly without compensation. There's no income from it, but that model is still being born. It's just not ready to stand on its own yet.
Within a few years, music (or 'record') stores will cease to exist. Hundreds have already closed; more will follow. The internet will be the source and some brilliant person will eventually develop a business model that benefits the artists. It just won't be me 'cause I'm just not that smart.
== First cross river, then insult alligator.
It's not about his music being good or bad. It's about him not understading technology. He's very very far removed from the world younger people live in today.
If your a writer, why take advice about computer use from some famous writer who doesn't use one? Elton doesn't even use a mobile phone or ipod. Can you say irrelevant advice?
The Christian religion has been and still is the principal enemy of moral progress in the world. -- Bertrand Russell
Actually I was being a plain and simple smartass.
I couldn't believe that people were discounting his music abilities because they didn't like his opinion. Either that or they truly are too young or stupid to have any understanding of him or his music. Sadly a lot of people think he only goes back to the Lion King, and yet some of the greatest modern melodies mixed throughout our societies are his creations.
I personally am pretty eclectic when it comes to music, admittedly listening to Britney myself, but I also have some sort of sense of appreciation that goes beyond the latest Gwen or Fergie hit I also enjoy.
I don't necessarily agree with Elton's views, but they really don't impact much and are just his freaking views, and they certainly don't take away from his 'influence' and impact on society through music.
As for the poster above that claims to have been around 'a long time' and thinks Elton has had no influence, they are either lying or really sheltered. My grandfather was a country music star of the 40s and 50s, and even he acknowledges major impacts various non-country artists have had on the entire industry, and Elton is one outside the country industry he would name.
Anyone that thinks Elton sucks at music or is a hack should look up an old episode of Inside the Actor's Studio, where he literally writes brilliant music to words from a textbook, impromptu.
Everything I've seen with him in the media over the past several years shows me he's turned into a bitter old man. He had the immature rant at the airport, had it out with Tina Turner (the dude is called a "diva"), and broke down in public at one point. He's entitled to his opinion, but other classic artists have embraced and revered changes due to the Internet. He's deciding to see the glass half empty, as it appears he's done in general anyhow....
"All great things are simple & expressed in a single word: freedom, justice, honor, duty, mercy, hope." --Churchill
Let me try...
They said Alt+back that Compaq
Better get back to the page on Tiger Woods
Well I quit those days and my p0rn0 ways
And oh the "refresh" is gonna do me good
You better Alt+back that Compaq
Living with a dotcom ain't where it's at
It's like trying to find gold in a T1 line
It's like trying to make millions from a SPAM of mine
eh, not as good as yours...
from:
Internet to Shut Down Following Elton John Complaint
For one thing, he feels that the Web is ruining "good music," though he was later forced to admit that he hadn't made any himself since 1974. Moreover, he worries that the Internet is preventing people from going out and interacting socially. People should walk away from their computers, he advised, and "go out to a cafe" because, as we all know, coffee shops like Starbucks have been suffering mightily since the rising popularity of the Internet forced its customers to stay home.
Worst of all, the Internet makes it easier for people to make their own music. Not only does this DIY material fail to measure up to Elton's high song-smithing standards, it tends to sell better as well, which is all the more galling.
oh yeah! Just like... "home sewing is killing the fashion industry", right?
All that is going on as we speak. If you have not heard lots and lots of `experimentation', well, you need to get out more...
So, I read the article. It seems more like a "kids these days" rant more than anything else. There's nothing about technology that prevents people from actually going to venues and meeting people and making music the old-fashioned way. It's just that technology allows people new ways to do it as well.
As a matter of fact, there are new websites and assorted technologies that allow aspiring singer-songwriters to hook up with session musicians from anywhere on the internet. It actually enables people who wouldn't otherwise be able to afford to produce their single to see it through.
Did you know that, when pencils came into widespread use in schools, teachers and pundits (if they had pundits at the time) were concerned that people would use their pencils to write things down, thus making them less able to practice their memory skills?
I have several hundred CDs in my collection, and I'd say about 90% of them are bands that I first heard about online. Most of these bands I have never seen in a CD store, and so without the internet I would never have even heard of them, let alone bought their stuff. The only people crying about the internet's affect on music are the people who aren't making quite as many millions as they'd like to.
My way back has been erased.
Didn't Apple give him a lot of money for his iPod endorsement. And where would an iPod be without the internet tubes to support it. Artists get hypocrytical in their old age. Good innovative music for his time, but John you're losing touch sorry.
Old-fashioned artist complaining about how music was better back in his day when he was creating it? Say it isn't so!
Seriously, it's all well and good to have your own luddism privately, but this guy is calling for the end of the internet. That's right. If you RTFA, that's exactly what he does. And all because music these days isn't catering to his tastes, and that for some reason, his tastes trump everyone else's. Pathetic.
You know, there is a difference between trolling and pointing out the flaws in your reasoning. Just saying.
Why does Elton John hate America?
when he gated his snare...that was when music was destroyed.
I have nothing clever to put here...
Do not refer to such microscopic and non-influential issues such as Sony rootkit or some radio host's comments as important things. That's another illusion created by the blogosphere - since most bloggers are often media or tech guys, certain issues get massive coverage credit and exposure without having any influence on the real world.
My Starcraft 2 Blog
music industry = wooly mammoth
Let's bitch and whine a lot on online forums about the internet we so clearly loathe!
You know, there is a difference between trolling and pointing out the flaws in your reasoning. Just saying.
The great thing about the internet (ok, one of the great things) is that anyone can put anything they want to online and it is available to the world. This is the reason we have thousands of mySpace kiddies band wanna-bes just regurgitating crap they think is music. But, there are also gems like Jonathan Coulton or some of the higher ranking artists on Garage Band. You just have to look.
i have gotten bored with music because since the beginning of the decade, it has gotten boring. very few bands have vision. Might I suggest the links above?
Really, go out and look for artists. They are out there. You just won't hear them on (non-internet) radio.
The internet is saving the music, but killing off the music industry.
Go internet.
The creator of this post (Jacob Smith) hereby releases it, and all of his other posts, into the public domain.
Music will go on long after industry lackeys like him have quit making money with only mediocre talent.
Promote open source like music copyrights,make money off touring,and FREE THE MUSIC!(kill the industry is a good thought too.)
*Repent!Quit Your Job!Slack Off!The World Ends Tomorrow and You May Die!
If Elton doesn't like the Internet, he is welcome to stay off of it.
Heh, I was just reminded of this...
How can the young music industry be worse in a day when any average Joe can make their music instantly accessible to millions or potential listeners? Gone are the days of making hundreds of demo tapes and hoping one will end up in the right hands
People who want to create still create. People who just want to listen to music (and have no business playing, like myself) can make their own CD's and playlists/mixes from other's work.
Don Imus is another.
Are you claiming that without blogging we'd still have Jimmy The Greek? Oh sorry... Imus had zero chance with or without blogging. Please get over yourself here.
And from where I sit Sony is doing just fine.
Dedicated Cthulhu Cultist since 4523 BC.
so my comment to this is, how is the new digital world worse than the old way of 'bar life', late gigs for $50 a night in smoke filled rooms playing to drunkards? I just happen to be a formerly aspiring musician and the digital age has pulled me right out of the bar sceen. in fact, youtube and p2p file sharing has given me more connections and a more appreciative audience! i certainly dont feel the digital age is a 'cold' play for a new musician.
I guess that the only way I can agree is that if you are an older musician, and computers are intimidating, then it may be disheartening.
That is not the kind of feeding off each other I was talking about, I mean writing songs and recording them *together*.
But to address your point, sampling is very much restricted by law indeed and needs prior written consent from the owner of the recording you are sampling.
But if you want to cover a song, you need no permission. (they just get all the writing royalties) And if you just want to use a guitar riff or baseline someone else came up with and play it yourself in your song, that is fine too and you just have to give part of the writing credit and the part of the royalties they are due because of it.
Funny, Elton... Backpage and Craigslist helped a buddy and me find a bass player, a drummer and a singer. We now have a band with our tunes on MySpace which gives us more exposure than we could ever have without the net. So, find new members, share your music, find the best deals on musical gear, tout your gigs, reach the world, download software to help recording... How is that killing music Sir Platform Heels and Funny Glasses?
Sig Registration Form 34c_766(a) submitted to Ministry of Signature Management. Approval pending.
Making the top 10 used to mean something, back when pinball wizard was popular. Or maybe not. It's the same with having a New York Times best selling book. The fact that your book is on there, doesn't really mean it's top quality literature, just that it has mass appeal. Millions of people buy the newspaper every day. That doesn't mean it's intriguing. A lot of people buy books by Stephen King, Dean Koontz Tom Clancy, Janet Evanovich, J.K. Rowlings, and a bunch of other authors. That doesn't mean that they are literary masterpieces. They are just books that are fun to read, and don't make you think a whole lot. I think the same holds true for music. The stuff at the top 10 is just stuff that most people don't mind hearing on the radio, as background noise, played in malls, with a catchy tune you can humm to yourself.
Anthropic principle: We see the universe the way it is because if it were different we would not be here to see it.
The Internet says Elton John is destroying music.
(Yes, I know he didn't write the lyrics. Still a good song.) (BTW, I don't release Crock Rock into the PD, no matter what my sig says. For obvious reasons.)
The creator of this post (Jacob Smith) hereby releases it, and all of his other posts, into the public domain.
All I heard was, wah wah wah people aren't doing it the way that I did it when I was kid. And the rebels come full circle to being traditionalists.....
Prospecting Stinks. Stop Wasting Time on Cold Calling.
first sentence:
pffffffffft
kind of like driving a Hummer in an environmental awareness protest, eh Mr. John?
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Yes it is about choice. 10 years ago, you'd be really hard pressed to find lots of independent bands in your local record store. Now you can just stroll over to eMusic, and there's more indie music than you can shake a stick at. However, that choice includes Britney Spears. As much as some of us may not like her music, it appears that a lot of people do. There's still room for all kinds of music, more now that ever. The RIAA just has to realize that some people would rather listen to some obscure track by some indie band, then their latest top 10 hit of the week.
Anthropic principle: We see the universe the way it is because if it were different we would not be here to see it.
I can't fault his observations, except that he's not observing everything. Recording companies already took most of the profit for artists out of selling records, so that performing live has been their means of making money. Now free sharing and the splintering of the market has finished record profits off, so that the only means of making money is performing live. So I think that on balance the end result will be more live performances rather than fewer, and in smaller, more intimate venues. What's not to like, unless you're hell bent on becoming a zillionaire? Smaller venues smell more like art to me.
Elton John is going to be taking down the internet.
I have far more music right now than I would have without the internet - and not all of it is pirated. There are plenty of artists who distribute their music through digital channels and can do so for very little cost, and these artists, unlike Sir Elton, are not writing to sell or writing to the masses. They are writing about whatever they like, and often this comes out for the better. Not only that, but a wide range of genres appear - the constant onslaught of "R&B", rap and music which sounds the same as everything else becomes much more diluted when you venture to sites like http://www.jamendo.com/ and http://www.garageband.com/. Artists like Josh Woodward and Kray Van Kirk offer a refreshing change from what the mass market is doing, and they offer it for nothing - for the love of music. The internet has breathed new life into a dusty old motive beyond the record labels and the lawsuits, and if Elton John can't see this then he knows nothing about the internet.
And has Elton John looked at his download sales figures recently?
This is like the dinasours complaining that mammals were ruining life.
They made it all warm and fuzzy, nobody just sat on a warm rock all day anymore.
Wow, sent an e-mail as suggested when clicking on "use classic" banner, and got a fast response that addressed my msg
I guess people creating and sharing music without having to pay the industry, or even worse, people creating, rather than buying music, is wrong.
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/1369118X.2013.808365
He has created music that people like. He has sold more albums than most artists.
/David
Now, I am not an Elton John fan, but I think he has a point. Some of the best music I know was made in the 70s. I am a huge Pink Floyd fan, and a band such as Pink Floyd (or their music) would never come out of todays music reality. The same goes for Elton John, I guess.
Of course it is subjective, a matter of taste, but far more great music and far less bad music was made in the 70s than there has been in the 90s or the 00s (I love a lot of new music too, Radiohead for instance). It has become so easy to produce music and so easy to sell it to drooling morons, compared to then. Back then, it took some skill.
Best music is done by people who just want to play. It may well be destroying it commercially, but who ever said it was good for companies to own our culture?
Limp Bizkit's 'My Generation' wasn't a cover of a Who song. o_O
Have you even heard Limp's version or alternatively The Who's original??
Lyrics: The Who.
Lyrics: Limp Bizkit.
Two artists already have their CDs out :- Produced by, amongst others Tony Platt who worked on a lot of early ACDC :- Produced in the Bennet Studios in NYC by, amongst others, Kiyanu Kim
... and a bunch have theirs in production or nearly ready ... indeed Second Person's CD comes out next week.
Nemesea
Cubworld
Eclectic beats from Leeds, UK
handmadehands.co.uk
Digital Audio Workstations make it too easy for people to polish crap music. So many musicians put a lot of effort into their DAW setup and learning all the 'professional' tool that they forget that making music is a highly emotional experience.
..
..
Ever watched someone use Pro Tools? Its the most boring, utterly ludicrous activity around the process of music-making that you can ever witness. DAW's in general have removed all the need for performance and practice from the modern music-making process; leaving boring, musically un-interesting results to be polished and primped and cut and pasted into place
If you're a modern musician, my advice (been writing or 20 years) is to get rid of the DAW as the main focus in your environment, and do something truly unique in this day and age: Learn to Play Your Instrument Well, first and foremost
A good show is always going to be more interesting than a polished recording. Get the live thing nailed first, and then focus on all the DAW technology; you might be surprised, after you've learned to play well, just how little you really need to invest in the technology side in order to sound good and attract a sufficient following to demonstrate that your music is of interest. Most pro's really don't need Pro Tools.
; -- the corruption of government starts with its secrets. a truly free people keep no secrets. --
the music of the past was created through collaboration, through jam sessions, through actual instruments.
Which was still done "sitting at home" and not "out in the streets" marching and protesting (I mean, I presume that Elton John's piano sits in his home, and not in the street?)
the vast majority of the music on the internet is people copying bands they like and never getting better at what they do.
You've just described the vast majority of music of the 20th Century, and probably everything before that too.
getting out and performing in front of people, getting out and meeting others who also play music drives creativity. sitting at home writing songs that emulate what someone else did keeps the status quo.
I suspect that performers who get out and perform still first wrote their songs at home. And I suspect that those who use the Internet still get out and perform and meet people.
The thing I love most is the way that Elton John uses the Internet to push these views (and apparentely charges $40 for access to his forum). Hey, Elton, how about you stop staying at home blogging, and get out in the street and write some music!
Alternately:
Lyrics: xkcd
The creator of this post (Jacob Smith) hereby releases it, and all of his other posts, into the public domain.
Did Elton have the impact or did his writer? Because, honestly, the man would have never gotten off the ground if he didn't have a great writer.
Wise men say, "Forgiveness is divine, but never pay full price for late pizza."
Sure releasing your music on the Internet might mean that you don't always interact with your fans on a one-by-one local level, but it means that you can interact with many more fans on a national level.
To give an example, I recently purchased two songs from Enter the Haggis on AmieStreet.com. (The Barfly and No More Stones from http://amiestreet.com/enterthehaggis in case anyone's interested.) The band is based in Toronto and I would never have known that they existed had it not been for music fans on Amie Street posting recommendations (RECs) for their songs. I listened to the song previews, loved what I heard, and proceeded to buy a couple of their songs. I'll now be on the lookout for new music that they release and would even consider going to a concert that they played at if they came to my area. (Which, admittedly, is unlikely.)
I could easily take "Enter the Haggis" out of the paragraph above and replace it with any of the 18 other bands whose music I've bought from Amie Street. None of these bands had to go to the major RIAA labels and sell their musical souls in order to get their music to my ears. If that doesn't help music, I don't know what will.
My sci-fi novel, Ghost Thief, is now available from Amazon.com.
I would think shows like american idol are destroying the music industry. They are putting out so many new artists each year of mediocre talent. All the ones that are runner ups have albums, and the winners get albums, etc. And even the winners are questionably deserving. Sure there's been Kelly Clarkson and Carrie Underwood... but to get those two talented people we've seen well over 80+ american idol's being pushed in the market place. This distracts from other musical artists.
Indeed, all these people who sit at home and play the piano - they're destroying music!
They need to get out in the streets, march and protest, and actually meet some real people. You're not going to do that stuck inside on your piano.
(To be fair, I don't think he's actually campaigning to ban the Internet, but suggesting it as a hypothetical experiment: "I do think it would be an incredible experiment to shut down the whole internet for five years and see what sort of art is produced over that span." - he's still a prize turnip of course. Clearly we don't need to do this experiment, because the experiment's already been done: we can simply look at that brief period of time when we didn't have the Internet, you know, almost the entire period of human civilization...)
I think Producer concieved/performed music has done more to ruin music than the internet ever could.
Please sign petition to restore sanity to our banking system!!!
http://financialpetition.org/
I know, you did say "things important to his lyricist"...but I just wanted to make sure Bernie Taupin's name got out there. So who do we blame for "Benny and the Jets?"
Kwisatz Haderach
Sell the spice to CHOAM
This Mahdi took Shaddam's Throne
The Doctor.
Please, for the good of Humanity, vote Obama.
There is a huge difference between copying and emulating. The musicians of the 60's and 70's were emulating. The crap you hear today is copying direct sounds from people. Listen to Jackson Browne's "Running on Empty" album. The whole thing was written and recorded on the road. The musicians in the late 60's and early 70's all played together and collaborated together. When they went down to actually write music and record, you can tell they actually put time and effort into it and found new sounds. Bands like the Grateful Dead, Phish, The Band, The Beatles... they all used sounds they heard from each other and were able to play a multitude of genres well. Bands today just don't seem to be able to do that. They call themselves a pop punk band and never try introducing other elements into their music because "country sucks" or "hip hop sucks" or "folk sucks" or "jazz is boring" or "classical is for old people". Those bands will never make it because they don't understand music. The vast majority of modern bands are exactly this way.
please me, have no regrets.
If Internet collaboration can convince starting musicians that playing with other people is great, then I'd say Internet is a great medium to have people start collaborating in real-life. I think the problem is when your ONLY method of delivering music is through the internet when you are completely capable of playing outside.
Sure, people may e-mail some good comments about your music, but something about it is fundamentally different than the moment when you finish your improv on the keyboard and hear the enthusiastic cheer of the audience. I want as many performers and audiences to experience this kind of interaction, and be mesmerized by the sound being generated in front of them, real-time.
If the performers or the audience won't get any special feeling from it, then they can go back to listening to MP3s or recording tracks in Cubase. That's completely their choice.
The internet is, on the contrary, making it easier to discover and share new music. I'll bet he's never even been online! Get on GigaTribe, Elt, and share some of your tunes with your friends, in an encrypted environment: http://www.gigatribe.com/ ;-)
"...yellow brick road..."
People who "try" to commit suicide and fail that badly (can't gas themselves, don't cut their wrist in the right place, whatever) are generally doing it to try to get attention and try to get help with some issue they can't just outright tell people about, not to actually kill themselves.
Sadly, I've known people who cut themselves up for attention-whore purposes
Really getting off-topic - but self-harm is nothing to do with attempting suicide, nor is it usually about attention-seeking (consider the lengths many go to hide it, and the stigma associated with it - it's usually just assumed that if you don't hide it, you must be attention-seeking). I.e., it's a fallacy to assume that the only two possible motives are "suicide" or "seeking attention".
But what had he done for us lately, other than make canned music for The Rat?
If someone is passing you on the right, you are an asshole for driving in the wrong lane.
That's just not true is it, Elton?
Chocolate rain is original right here.
Hey, Elton's actually made music that isn't the same canned love-song crap.The songs he writes are autobiographical, about people important to him, about things important to his lyricist, etc.
RRRRRRight, like how he changed the lyrics to candle in the wind for Ryan White and Princess Diana. Nothing says your important like a madlib song.
I laughed at the weak who considered themselves good because they lacked claws.
I guess it goes without saying that you can't feel the love tonight, Chris. (It is where we are).
The more we have it "our way," as individuals, the less we need or want to be with others, and so the more we're alone. That's what Elton John is talking about. People are spending time in front of their telescreens, talking about themselves to people they'll never meet, and making dumb chintzy music with MIDI instead of learning to play. We have turned life into Second Life. It's obvious now that George Orwell was wrong. We don't need a master state to force us to monitor ourselves with telescreens. Tell us that it's having it "our way," and we'll do it voluntarily.
technical writing / development
When I first read that comment (was it on digg or fark), I knew people were gonna make a big deal about this. It's been taken way, way out of proportion. He was talking in a 'wouldn't it be nice' sort of way, the kind of way you say "ahh, those were the good old days". It's not like he's running any campaign to shut down the internet, or pushing for it in any shape, way or form. Sometimes, net sites are just like the media, looking for stories where there are none (re: paris hilton).
After all, it's hard to write a song with bitter fingers.
The musicians of the 60's and 70's were emulating. The crap you hear today is copying direct sounds from people. ...
What music are you listening to when you talk about music today?
It sounds like you need to listen to more music - there's plenty I like today which emulates, not copies, and introduces elements from a variety of genres. Some bands write on the road, others write at home - just like happened in the past. If your argument is that writing at home will destroy music, it's not sufficient to show one example of a band writing on the road, you have to show that all music in the past was written on the road (or at least show that music written at home was sufficiently poorer).
I suspect you're doing the fallacy of comparing the greatest bands of the past, to the typical chart rubbish today - ignoring that chart rubbish existed in the 60s today.
And this has nothing to do with the Internet, anyway. The Internet didn't create those rubbish pop bands. This is completely off-topic.
While I disagree with Elton, you guys are completely missing the point of his statements. Its like you never even read what he purportedly said. He is not talking about the market, or sales, etc. He is claiming that with the rise of the internet, people have stopped (reduced) communicating in person. And that will theoretically prevent good bands from forming, because music is created best in groups jamming out together. He is not saying that the internet is killing music because bands cant make money. He is saying that the internet is killing music because there wont be too many bands and/or they wont communicate with each other personally (which would help raise the quality of music) because they are too busy sitting on their computer blogging or creating music alone. Personally, while he may be right in a couple of cases, there are far more cases where a band has improved because of some obscure music they listened to on iTunes which they would never had access to earlier. I agree with other commenters here that the lack of quality music in the airwaves (TV or radio) is the real discouragement for new good music. I personally believe that the internet will actually help music get better for the many reasons stated in this thread. But dont dismiss Elton's (supposedly) comments as a selfish artist's greedy rants, because it is not that at all.
While I disagree that the internet is killing the music industry, I say that the quality of the music is going downhill.
The idea of putting sound on files and then compressing them to a small number of bytes is tearing apart the quality of the sounds that initially produced the music.
Any person who has ever seriously played an instrument know how the notes mixed together from various instruments can reach ranges that no electronic device can capture.
Digital is not always better.
Life takes interesting turns, but the most interest is when you're off the beaten path.
Please, for the good of Humanity, vote Obama.
Internet Says Elton John already Destroyed Music
Alice in Chains is antique?
Please, for the good of Humanity, vote Obama.
Read his remark: "it would be an incredible experiment to shut down the whole internet for five years and see what sort of art is produced over that span." Do you think that's a serious call to shut down the Internet? I don't. I think it's an off-the-cuff call for musicians to interact more with each other and audiences. Do I personally agree that the Internet will turn all musicians into Moby? Nah. Then again, Elton John might just have insight into the musical world that you and I do not.
And I say Elton John is a shill. :P
The internet has not 'destroyed' music, nor will it ever 'destroy' music -- unless the music is bad or the band/artist does something horrendously stupid. The internet allows people to come together to share and create new mediums - exactly the kind of thing he's saying it prevents or limits. Suffice it to say I'm very confused. It may be preventing people from 'going outside' or whatever the hell he said, but we're still mixing creatively and there are definetely more choices now than there ever were.
Then again maybe that's the real problem he has with it. There are more choices and he's worried that his dated styles will be chosen less and less than the newer styles. *shrug*
If you were offended by anything I said... No, I'm not sorry. Please lighten up.
Actually, I would amend this to say "He's stuck in his money-making ways." This isn't about technology, it's about money and a spoiled celebrity who doesn't want his gravy train threatened.
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
Actually, I think it's perfectly natural that he should have written this epitaph for Diana. Who better to write a love song for a spoiled, overrated princess than another spoiled, overrated princess?
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
Yes, funny. I think the title of the article should read "The Internet Says Elton John is Destroying Music"
- dm - The two most common elements in the universe are Hydrogen and stupidity.
The real reason he's pissed at the internet is that he's made so much money through the record companies and has his own label (Rocket) he's a corner-stone of the old "record company" institution so of course he's going to hate whatever they hate.
INTERNET USE IS OPTIONAL. No one is forcing him to use it in connection with making his music.
Actually in his case there is probably much less stopping him than other musicians getting together in person with whoever he wants to make music. He has enough credibility and money to get a bunch of top musicians to fly round the world to come to his home studio. How is the internet ruining that?
i'm talking about the vast majority of bands i've heard on the internet trying to be something they're not because they're not opening their minds to other music, but think they're great because they can just push their music on myspace or garageband or purevolume.
please me, have no regrets.
I think his point is that people are sitting in basements playing with computers to make music, where before, people used to sit in garages get high and play music together and record it on analog tapes. The upshot is artists from all across the world can collaborate easily, the downside is that the "human" touch of that colaboration is lessened because its all just bits on a wire.
I don't agree with him that its killing music, I do agree with him that the human touch is being reduced, but I think its just a growing pains issue and it will eventually work itself out. Sequencing notes on a computer is all grand, but the computer will play it perfectly every time with each note sounding exactly the same. I am going to go ahead and guess that you have never actually played with a band because playing with a group of people is ENTIRELY different...you can feel the music...literally. Drums, Amps, etc put out quite a bit of vibration, there is sweat and strain because you are relying on your eyes and ears and feeling (physical not emotional) to keep all of the music together. So he is 100% correct that the human touch is definetly being reduced by more people doing it online instead of in person, but I don't think its killing it. I don't think what he is saying has anything to do with "his lost ability" to do anything, nor do I think it has anything to do with the industry of recording and publishing and distributing, it has to do with creating.
The only change I can believe in is what I find in my couch cushions.
Yes, I'm left. You have a problem with that?
I couldn't believe that people were discounting his music abilities because they didn't like his opinion.
I could. It's standard operating procedure around here.
First of all, who is going to listen to someone who's real name is Reginald Dwight (look it up if you don't believe me)
Secondly, internet is neutral in music IMHO. Artists are being ripped off because people steal their music (if getting jabbed in the proverbial by a record company isn't bad enough), but it also helps new artists become popular (acid planet, myspace, need I go on?). I make my own music in my little studio in one room of my house. I use a keyboard, a guitar and (OMG) a computer. So Sir Dwight, are you saying my music is not as good as someone who plays live in front of people? Quite a generalization I think.
If anything has killed music (particularly interaction between musicians), I believe TV (Australian/American/Wherever Idol) and record companies (pre-packaged eye candy who can't really perform and have no musical skill whatsoever - you know who you are...) have killed music. And it's sad really. The best bands are out there unheard, unsigned, all because they're not what the record companies want to market. Taking a 'risk' these days is too hard because the pop market is too profitable.
My hope is one day we, as an audience, will break the cycle and start wanting real music again.
You moved your mouse. Please restart Windows for changes to take effect.
Not only did tens of millions of protesters fail to stop the Iraq War, they didn't even stop its authors from being re-elected.
Weblogs and protests share the problem that they are only effective at communicating to people who are already receptive to your cause (and who therefore don't immediately close your webpage or dismiss your marchers as crazies). At least with weblogs you can give those people long, complex arguments linked to supporting evidence. With protests you'd better hope that your message can be effectively conveyed by 20 letters on a cardboard sign.
I could have sworn Indian music had a lot of repetition in it as well.
Please, for the good of Humanity, vote Obama.
"The Postal Service is an American electronic indie pop band featuring singer Ben Gibbard of Death Cab for Cutie and producer Jimmy Tamborello of Dntel, Headset and Figurine
[...]
The name "Postal Service" was chosen due to the way in which the band produced their songs. Jimmy would write the music then send DAT tapes to Ben, who would edit the song as he saw fit, adding his vocals along the way, and send them back to Jimmy via "Postal Service"."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Postal_Service
How do you like that, Elton? Here's a group who's creating new music that's quite well done, and they didn't once meet face to face! The article itself quotes Elton as saying "I am such a Luddite when it comes to making music. All I can do is write at the piano." Sounds like someone's a little upset that this new-fangled technology seems to be becoming more and more ubiquitous, and he's being left in the dust.
Yes, what type of career would Bernie Taupin (songwriter for most of Elton John's songs) have had without someone to sing his songs? It takes both.
This is THE SUN we're talking about. How do we even know Sir Elton said these things? Or said all of them? We don't.
I like lots of Elton's old stuff; I've owned several copies fo Goodbye Yellow Brick Road and can't consider my hard drive operational without that particular collection of FLACs onboard. But even if he said these things I don't see that somehow making these statements any more a reflection of the reality.
Look, I'm almost 45 and I hear LOTS of new music I think is truly great. Yeay Yeah Yeahs, Smashing Pumpkins, Mumyi Troll, Linda, Bjork, Outkast - hell, from what I see there hasn't been a better time for music in this country since the early punk era of the late 1970s.
I have a hard time believing Elton John has never heard any of this stuff, or believes it all to be so much squat. Or maybe he's just sitting home listening to old Billy Joel albums and singing his own stuff at the piano. Or maybe he, too, is as clueless as those others who still think "radio is the most important tool for disseminating musical innovation..."
This old punk says, I hope the internet destroys Elton John's muzak.
Is this why Eltons music has sucked since 1980? He was good in the 70's but since then he has sucked, pardon the pun. Is Sir Elton afraid the some kid in a basement studio will make a better album than his? Talent is talent no matter if it is a full band or some kid with a copy of Cubase or Pro-tools LE playing all the parts himself. Talent does fade in most people, leave just the gimmicks of strange glasses and over the top costumes. Sir Elton, the Vegas strip is calling your name, answer it.
Elton has a bias against technology. He says so in the article. He doesn't use it. So how can he possibly know what its affect on music is? His reputation carries a big weight because of his past brilliance, but we have to be careful that we understand the limits of his insight.
Well.. maybe. Or Maybe not. But Definitely not sort of.
I totally agree with this. Even most of indie labels are partially (and indirectly) controlled by their distributor which is, more often than not, owned by a major. The indies basically become a springboard for bands to get to the majors.
--- these days, what with business and stuff, you gotta get your emails...
I still depend upon broadcast radio because the majority of my day is spent in places that I flat out don't have access to Internet radio. Internet access at work is heavily filtered and is it nonexistent when I'm traveling from place to place through public transit or in my car.
When Internet access becomes ubiquitous, yes, you can say that it is the most important channel for distribution. Until then, however, radio is still the most important (and most accessible) form of access to music.
He will moan about the internet and music but he will praise the Internet when he's hunting for young lads to bugger.
Elton is past his prime and thinks he can actually have a say in the world. he better of sticking to the BBC gay parades that nobody watches.
So Elton if your listening take you candle from the wind and shove it where it fits (and it it needs to be sideways then so be it)
Linux user #349545 (GNU/Linux)iD8DBQBAzWjX+MZAIjBWXGURAmflAKCntuBbuK
The The commercial record already did this in the 20s. Ordinary people slowly went from being performers of music to being consumers of music, ceding control of popular music to the recording industry and its mouth pieces, such as Elton John.
If anything, the internet is bringing us closer to the times when normal people made and shared music together. Just a few minutes on youtube will yield videos of lots of ordinary people playing renditions and variations of their favorites songs. I think this is hundreds of times less "cold and impersonal" than, say, attending an Elton John concert in an arena packed with tens of thousands of people.
>> Yes, I do know Who actually wrote it
>
>
> - So who did?
I don't know.
3rd Bass!
Radio? Damn, I can't remember the last time I turned on my radio to listen to music. Why would I want to? When technology has provided me the means to listen to what I want when I want it, anywhere I choose to, why should I be forced to listen to 90% crap for that lucky ten percent I DO like? Something new?? Maybe, but word of mouth influences what I look into WAY more than suffering through hours of listening hell ever would. The radio paradigm is DEAD.
People who never would have collaborated to make music ARE making music in creative and new ways.
Maybe Elton John isn't seeing this because he's involved in an industry that creates music like it's mac & cheese: pre-packaged, plain, and consistent.
The industry of course is going to use technology to shit out junk faster.
The artists are the ones who use technology to do cool things. There are online jamming applications, forums for people to pool their talents, etc.
Buckle your ROFL belt, we're in for some LOLs.
There was a story on NPR about how the internet is allowing people to find stage musicians without having to be in the same location. A guy wrote the lyrics and the lead guitar for a song and recorded it. He then sent it to someone over 1000 miles away who added drums, another guy to add base, and then to a guy to make sure it all sounded good together. And he found all of this online.
I really don't understand Elton John's issue with the internet here. Is he complaining that musicians choose to communicate via the Internet (whether it be e-mail, blogs, etc) and there's less personal contact between musicians? It sounds like he has an issue with musicians, not the Internet.
What new artists have you taken under your wing? When was the last time you went to a club to see an new artist?
nobody knows if you're a nobody ... or if you have big hair or spandex or wear outrageous outfits (with big glasses). I respect him for some of his music - but the net and easy digital recording has leveled the playing ground for creative people of any age. You don't need to "be outrageous" (and lucky) to be able to get your music out there via some corrupt music company / agent etc.
Rock On !
Its not the years, its the mileage
Perhaps we should all send him emails...
kindly emails wishing him well and commenting gently on his recent work
so he would not feel so all alone.. (oh wait that's another song isn't it..)
I think that Sir Elton has lost touch here. I think he should drop by Ozzie's place and have a nice little chat about the environment he grew up in before joining Black Sabbath. Most relevant artists grew up and thrived creatively in cold and harsh environments. It's part of what seems to drive the creative process. Raging against the cold and heartless machine (meet the new cold and heartless machine, same as the old cold and heartless machine) will give this generation of musicians something to rag about besides drugs, booze, sex, infidelity and gang related crime.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
Elton John has the gall to say there's a breakdown between artist and audience when he's charging $150 per ticket to see him? Fuck the arrogant bastard.
Actually, what's killing music is the death of clubs like CGBG and others like them. Where I live, there used to be a vibrant club scene that had lots of little bars and clubs, many with live acts. Well, for the sake of morality and "think of the children" [TM] they had to "clean up" that area because it was just unsightly to have beer cans and cups on the street on Sat/Sun mornings. So thanks to some regulations and zoning changes, more than half the clubs closed within a 24 month period killing all dynamics of the music scene. Now a metro area of about 5M realizes only bedroom community bliss. My city has become anti-music because there's no place to go see small acts as they begin, there's no place to gather, no place to exchange ideas or have a changing lineup to find something that works.
The cesspool just got a check and balance.
That said, the internet is the future. As others have mentioned, at what point in history have so many musicians, fans, and managers been able to communicate so directly? To attempt to motivate musicians to stay away from the Internet is akin to telling musicians to stay in their garage. So in that respect, Elton John's comments are (IMO) more damaging to the music culture of this world than the Internet.
-Rick
"Most people in the U.S. wouldn't know they live in a tyrannical state if it walked up and grabbed their junk." - MyFirs
What are you talking about? Of /COURSE/ radio is a major distribution channel. Why, without it, my FM transmitter wouldn't work and I'd be forced to listen to my MP3 player (and its load of Internet music and all the new and good artists the Internet brings with it) through uncomfortable and awkward headphones whenever I'm driving.
Calling a sword by a pretty name is no more than adding perfume to poison.
- Yes! No, no... It wasn't Yes, silly. It was the Who!
Guess Who
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
The corporate, bland, image-only crap being "produced" as music these days. It's pretty amazing but real artists and bands are flourishing right now.
What is killing music, and videogames, is the desire to mimic Hollywood, as if that were some sort of holy grail. Hollywood is in the shitter, and so are these other forms of mass-produced, soul-less junk.
Indie films that then become popular rake in cash, while standard crap aims for one or two big opening weekends and could care less about longevity or staying power. Same for current "music." There is a reason Pink Floyd's Dark Side of The Moon is still in top charts, or Bob Marley, or Clapton/Dylan/Zepplin etc.
I seem to have a collection of NOFX CD's from when I was in H.S. until today that I have bought and they have never been on TV, MTV, or Radio. Sigur Ros, Ben Harper, Tinariwen, and on and on.
Look at Jack Johnson, he showed how people today still will buy and can appreciate a solid singer/songwriter beyond just one hit. John Mayer to some extent as well.
The entire system needs a "reset" rather than a guy shouting "This is why I'm hot" over and over or "my lip gloss is hot" and managing to own 4 Bentley's and a "Crib" maybe we could just get back to MUSIC!
http://teasphere.wordpress.com - A little spot of tea
That's what's interesting..uh, funny.
jg
I trust him as much as I trust his taste in women.
- John
http://www.jabcreations.com/
I just LOVE the excerpts from the interview! "There's too much technology available.", and "I am such a Luddite when it comes to making music. All I can do is write at the piano.". Well let's look at this... According to this wikipedia article technology is defined as... "Technology is a broad concept that deals with a species' usage and knowledge of tools and crafts, and how it affects a species' ability to control and adapt to its environment." Music, in particular, is a "craft" that utilizes "tools" (musical instruments). So without technology of any sort, music beyond vocals would simply not exist. Even banging two rocks together rhythmically is using tools for the craft, hence, technology. So is Sir Elton going to give up his paino? I think not. Okay let's assume he is lamenting what would better be defined as digital technology. I doubt he would be willing to go back to the days of analog recording and unreliable vacuum tube amplifiers. He also completely misses the club, and garage scene. Many of us IT geeks that make our bucks at a computer keyboard, like to pick up a guitar, bass, drumsticks, microphone, or whatever floats your boat, and jam with friends after work, and on weekends. I can't even begin to tell you how many of the local bar bands in my area are filled with developers, system administrators, and engineers. Creative expression is not the exclusive domain of the recording industry insiders, and the explosion of cheap, easily available, and easy to use recording and distribution technologies through commodity hardware, software, and internet access has opened up a world of audience to musicians and artists that otherwise would never have had a chance to be seen or heard. Sure many of them are lousy. Some of them are fantastic! So if Elton thinks the internet is killing music so be it. What consequence does a washed up 1970s hack have on modern music anyway?
in destroying music. Why not give the other guys a chance? The whole intarweb couldn't do much more damage than
Reginald Kenneth Dwight has done.
Mr. John, I'm sorry if you haven't figured out how to use the internet to your advantage but I have the internet has completely changed the way I create and distribute my music. It has opened new doors of opportunity and given me idea's I would have never dreamed of. it isn't destroying music it's just that Elton John comes from a generation that doesn't realize it's true potential. Used properly it's an extremely effective tool. if it wasn't for the internet I wouldn't be hosting radio shows and broadcasting my music in other countries. if anything the RIAA is the one destroying music.
Absolutely, record companies used to be run by people who loved music. Now they're multi-million dollar conglomerates and its all marketing. Chess records changed the music seen by introducing the blues to Europe. Sam Phillips brought rockabilly music. Motown etc. Unfortunately those days are history. Now corporations like Sony sell music. And market there crap along with MTV, TV series and Wrestling.
Like many songwriters, I was convinced I could sell CD's and establish a music career online exclusively. Like many songwriters, I read books about getting fans on myspace, marketing your CD online, getting your CD onto iTunes, etc. Like many songwriters, I followed the steps to the letter and yet sold practically nothing.
But my songs were getting downloaded thousands of times where I'd put them up for free downloading.
I finally realized that it was more important to me that people heard my music than for me to try to make money. At that point I started using the Internet to locate places near me to play, and now I'm starting to gig in the Tampa area a bit and I've met lots of really cool musicians. True, I'm playing in coffee houses with my acoustic and there's not much (if any) money involved, but it's a hell of a lot of fun. I still sell CD's via iTunes and at live shows, but once I stopped caring whether they actually sold, I started having a whole lot more fun. And playing in front of 20 people is a lot more satisfying than having 2000 people download one of my songs.
As far as shutting down the Internet, well... that has to be the stupidest thing I've heard in at least the past ten years.
Music - www.richardmac.com
Having been both a college radio DJ and unsigned band member, I have to agree. Independent radio is great, because both the station and the actual DJ's are permitted freedom in format and content of their programming. Our daytime was fairly strictly formatted to college rock, but in the evening, our specialty programs broke the mold (I had a show specializing in industrial for 2 years). I made an effort to get local bands some airtime, as well as lesser known national acts, both by playing their tracks as well as doing interviews (either via phone or live in the booth).
I know of national acts (and I myself have done the same) that collaborate with other musicians across the country to produce some phenomenal music. "I am such a Luddite when it comes to making music. All I can do is write at the piano." I think that speaks for itself...if you're a low tech person, you're not going to be able to collaborate online. But for those of us who can record at home or are programmers, it's not only realistic, it's MUCH more cost effective when you aren't backed by an enormous recording contract. I don't mean to knock his composition method, but it isn't the only one that can produce excellent music. All the music from one project of mine is completely free (shameless plug: http://www.plasmacrash.com), and was all composed at the computer or sequencer deck.
And considering the crap they play on mainstream radio, I'm proud not to be associated with it. I write music because I enjoy doing it for the sake of creating art (and I have an axe to grind)...this is why people should write music...not for sales or fame. I hate pop, but evenso, I recognize the importance and skill of Elton John...but he needs to wake up and smell the coffee of the internet age, where "good music" actually has a chance if it isn't mass-marketable...because niche markets will be so much happier, leading to more diversity and variety than the top 40 bubble-gum bullshit.
Read his remark: "it would be an incredible experiment to shut down the whole internet for five years and see what sort of art is produced over that span." Do you think that's a serious call to shut down the Internet?
It might be a great experiment to remove copyright, makes songs free on the Internet, and have musicians only make money by performing. Musicians would be a lot poorer, but the listeners might find more music to listen to.
(*yeah I know in the book it was 21 and the movie was 30, but what the heck.)"
And in the book, there was no Carousel.
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
See, this is what Microsoft has been TRYING to tell us! Don't be so cold, so lonely. Interact with people! Don't "upload" or "share" your music, squirt it at people! That's warm and human! Eventually, if everyone squirts enough music, we'll all be waist deep in music goo. That's the utopia Microsoft and Elton want for us.
To paraphrase the walrus:
"I hope someday you will buy a Zune, and then the world will squirt as one."
The internet says Elton John is destroying music.
:)
Actually it's just me saying that. I don't really enjoy his stuff
Just goes to show you that most musicians and entertainment people are just full of shit..just because Elton doesn't use a computer or cell phone, I am sure his huge staff is very well connected.
He also shouldn't be talking about the state of music, as others have said, there is too much crap being released. Further more, Bernie Taupin helped or wrote most of his hits, buying talent like that seems to be kinda "cold and impersonal" to me....
The larger picture here is that the famous and rich entertainment types have very little experience in the real world and expect the rest of us to follow them because they can write/sing a song.
The fact that they are usually liberal idiots supports the fact that they have so little real experience.
Sir Reginald is totally displacing here. The Internet is not the problem with modern music; on the contrary, it's the only thing keeping music alive. The large record companies are killing music by providing an endless supply of "marketable" pop claptrap. All of the musical innovation today comes from independent artists who have virtually no chance of ever getting a lucrative record contract. Guess where these indies distribute their music? Guess where they collaborate?
When it comes down to jamming, they still do it in basements and garages, like they've always done, but the sharing of ideas is possible like never before because of the "problem" that Elton is complaining about.
Find environmentally and socially responsible products on http://buy-right.net
It may wind up killing the species of "musician" who get unbelievably filthy rich off a couple of hits and then can sit around the rest of their life commenting on how technology is destroying the vehicle they rode to their destination. But that's a small price to pay for the swell of music now available at humanity's fingertips.
You hit the nail right on the head.
Who has been agitating for more and more protectionism for a small group of tycoon musicians? Why, the tycoon musicians, of course! Most musicians do NOT make it into that small charmed circle in which people like Sir Elton and Sir Cliff live. Most musicians work day jobs and try to sell recordings on merch tables at small clubs.
The Internet and sites like CD Baby are allowing musicians who would otherwise labor in obscurity a bit of international visibility. It might hurt a few who played the game and won the RIAA lottery but the vast majority of musicians actually benefit by the low barriers to entry and possibility of making modest income.
Knowledge is power. Knowledge shared is power multiplied.
Musicians certainly do get together in order to record music. If he's only thinking of the single musicians that work in their studios, he's not really exploring the internet. The band that I'm in has released over 200 songs for a project called Song of the Day. We're releasing one song for every day of 2007. And we've collaborated with over 30 musicians to do it. My band gets together at least a few times a week just to write and record music.
We would never have taken on this project if we didn't have the internet to distribute it. In fact, that's all the internet has done: it has made worldwide distribution possible for every artist. It lets fans decide what they want to hear, rather than music executives.
We released what we think about file sharing and worldwide distribution on our website here, which I am copying below, because it's what I would say to Elton if I had the chance to talk to him.
"And there's the problem. He's stuck in his ways, and the internet is a threat to those ways."
-->Let's be even clearer.
Music has always been about rebelling against the established ways of writing music.
Mr. B. Thoven was rebellious because he wrote music using his thumbs. The church found his music sinful.
It's all the same. Elton should recognize it for what it is.
Obviously the song is allegorical, harking back to days of youth when music was fresh an vibrant. Then:
But the years went by and the rock just diedSuzie went and left us for some foreign guy
Long nights crying by the record machine
dreaming of my Chevy and my old blue jeans
shows how things changed. Suzy obviously left him for her PC and headphones and YouTube/MySpace (the "foreign guy"). Poor Elton no longer has anyone to go out and dance with. He most probably spends his evening alone, by his (expensive) record deck, listening to Crocodile Rock over and over again.
The poor wee soul is left friendless, bitter and twisted with nothing but a wardrobe of wacky clothes and as many pairs of odd specs as you can imagine.
The Internet not only killed music, it devastated his social life. Have some sympathy and respect please. ;-)
I think sometimes Sir Elton is just grumpy and raving, but this time I think he has a point.
Music, especially when it comes to the major record labels, is becoming less and less an art form and more and more a simple factory production process designed to appeal to as many people as possible. The bland, inoffensive song (which is about as poetic as the morning's stock price listings) is written by someone with no name (who often as not is not even credited as such), the "singer" is someone chosen more for looks than talent (singing voice can be adjusted electronically), and much of the music production is done by computer. Where actual instruments are required, they are often recorded separately.
The internet helps this along, but it's really not the Net's fault. The Net, if anything, is fighting against this by giving musicians, consumers, producers, and independent labels a new way to find each other without relying on the recording cartel for distribution. There are real musicians and bands who get together and jam, who write songs together in basement studios, who really try to put the art in their music. There are musicians and bands like that, but you won't find them watching MTV.
Gifts for Geeks - Stuff that really matters!
The Internet has opened up new opportunities that the previous generation does not understand. Pop singer Lilly Allen practically launched her entire career through MySpace. The Internet is leveling the playing field and drowning out all of the "middle men" (i.e. the Labels).
sincerely,
Bud Dickman
... know about good music?!??
// TODO: Insert Cool Sig
Well, I think I remember that his writer only wrote the lyrics and John came up with the music. So it was more a team effort I think.
What ruined music for me, at least in part, and I know it isn't PC but it is true, is that Elton was writing these songs for his male lovers. That just destroys it for me.
You can lead a man with reason but you can't make him think.
- The internet can give you music.
- Music cannot give you internet
So, I pick the internet.Copyright infringement is "piracy" in the same way DRM is "consumer rape"
We have an opportunity for the internet to rid us of the huge corporate media companies that push out music aimed at the lowest common denominator in order to maximize their profits. As publishing and promotion costs decrease more independent musicians and small music labels will be able to take more chances on the niche bands, letting the artists deliver their true visions rather than having some corporate weenie force them to add more cowbell because that's what was on the last big album so now every album must copy it.
I listed bands who toyed with other genres and sounds. Bands who collaborated and worked regularly with other artists and musicians. Sure, the Beatles are the best of the best, but I am not talking about them in that way. I don't want another Beatles, I want bands who just make decent music or strive for it rather than striving to sound like their favorite band du jour.
please me, have no regrets.
Are people with just slightly lower UIDs like you and I cool then? I always thought my UID was high but then I guess there are some 7 digit ones around.
Gee I wonder?
I mean, the biggest act of GenX - Nirvana, was an overrated distortion band built around the central premise that Daddy was too mean in my posh suburb and so I had to go and shoot myself.
[citation needed]
I like to place meaningful quotes in my sig, so people will know that I know what meaningful quotes are.
I happen to agree with him.
In the past, those artists would have direct contact with the public. And I don't mean "I can write in his blog" direct contact. I mean "sitting on the same table". These days you record an mp3 and post it.
Is that the only problem ? Of course not. It that the major problem ? I really can't tell. But it is a problem and should not be minimized.
The Internet is not the only thing that is keeping the artist distant from his audience. The recording labels are doing their share too, trying to create "hit bands" out of the blue, which ends up amounting to the exactly same thing.
"Manufactured artists", be by RIAA or by the easy of _indirect_ communication provided by the Internet is a big issue, and part and parcel of the reason we have so much crap.
morcego
All this comes from a man who's web-forum requires a "$40 fan membership" and who's website features purchase-able ringtone downloads. For someone as opposed to the internet as EJ claims to be, he doesn't seem to mind milking it for all he can.
Have you been touched?
"...around the central premise that Daddy was too mean in my posh suburb..."
I'm not sure where you came up with that. The only member of Nirvana that might have grown up in a "posh suburb" was Dave Grohl, and he just pounded the sticks.
I don't always use unix-like operating systems; but when I do, I prefer FreeBSD.
I went to Jonathan Coulton's website and listened to some of his songs. The songs were ok, but his voice got on my nerves for some reason. I'd rather listen to elton john (at least his old hits anyways).
It's interesting to hear this from the perspective of a very mainstream composer. Fascinating that he feels so disjunct from his listeners. Because for most independent and small artists, the Internet has brought them much CLOSER to their audiences. The increased communication, sense of community, and the niche culture of the Internet has been hailed as a boon by small artists. Suddenly the major label barriers to audience access have fallen down.
Perhaps what Elton is really describing is the disconnect of the artist who does not concertize. Smaller, independents described above make the majority of their income in live performances. Online communities and media all drive these artists' fans towards the concert hall. Elton is still operating in the paradigm where the album is the primary unit of communication with your audience. You do concerts and tours, but really only to promote a new album. Fans' reactions are taken on a per-album basis. There's no question that this model is getting less effective, and that can feel like a disconnect if you're stuck operating that way.
And BTW, Elton may be a real composer, but let's not compare him to Mozart. In his short life, Mozart revolutionized music. A poster here commented that he never got old enough for us to see if he was "really any good." As a classical musician, I can tell you that 600 compositions is MORE THAN ENOUGH to tell if a composer is "really any good". And Mozart was one of the greatest.
**** You never REALLY learn to swear until you own a computer. ****
his own times, were really good musicians meet to share ideas.
It's internet stopping people to share ideas? No, quite the contrary, but then, what's happenning to our society/music lately? It's a very usual opinion that the global quality of actual music is far worse then 50's-90's.
What's in a sig?
That Elton John is destroying good music. Have you heard any of his Beatles covers?!
"He who can destroy a thing, controls a thing." --Paul Atreides, Dune
if it wasn't Elton doing the complaining.
I like my music my way.
Not the way Elton thinks I should be forced to listen to it!
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
"He who can destroy a thing, controls a thing." --Paul Atreides, Dune
I play a certain style of music, which up until the internet started, was very hard to access, since it is European, and in about 1998 the style exploded because of the internet. If it wasn't for the internet , in bringing a previously separated group of people together, this style of music, called Gypsy Jazz, which died in the late 50's, might never have re-emerged from the dark ages. Countless guitar players cite Django as an influence, especially once Django became popular.
-- Betting on the survival of the media industry is a serious risk. I advise investing elsewhere.
If you get any significant number of people to get off their ass and protest something, you get press. Certainly much easier than trying to make the press take interest in your blog, if you're trying to do something locally. No, it's not exactly very high data content, but it's a fairly effective way to broadcast a simple and clear message the press can parrot for you.
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
3rd Bass! 3rd Bass was a rap group. The bit you referenced is actually an Abbot and Costello skit called Who's on First.
Ok maybe that's not entirely true - radio was important in the 50's and 60s. It might even have been important through the 70's and 80s. But where do you find "innovation" on the radio today?
Television isn't going away, the spectrum is just evolving. Radio could go away today and the only people it would really affect are christian shutins and right wing talk radio fanatics.
Sorry but the P has it right. Kurt had stomach pains and couldn't do heroin anymore because Courtney said so. Many would like to believe that he shot himself and is a weak little pussy, the truth is that the only way Courtney would ever achieve the stardom she so desired was to see Kurt dead.
"What he's saying is that the music industry is in a creative crisis"
Oh please. Music sucked just as much in the early 70s as it does now. It's just that people selectively forget all of the utter shite, and then pine for the "good old days."
I've got news for ya. There never were any "good old days."
And people, PLEASE stop exaggerating Elton John's influence on music. I don't recall any band that ever claimed him as an influence. Of course, I think his music is crap, so I don't imagine that I would listen to a band that sounded even remotely like him...
Try giving people a platform to reach millions that doesn't require them to be screened by a record company filter first for corporate music formula approval
A positive attitude may not solve all your problems, but it will annoy enough people to make it worth the effort.
I think the biggest problem with music nowadays is precisely *because* it is an industry, pumping out cheap garbage down consumers throa... err, ears.
Please, let talented musicians make music rather than performers, dancers, top-models or junkies.
I don't feel like it...
I kind of have to agree. If someone really wants to know who makes really great music, one needs to ask their favorite artist who their influences are. Often times, in many different genres, Elton John is brought up as a primary influence. Elton John is revered as one of the greats. I personally do not really like his music, nor do I listen very often. I have played music for most of my life and it is not hard to see who a lot of mainstream artists influences are. I can fully see the value and genius that goes into a lot of Elton John's music, just not my cup of tea. It will be a great day when people can appreciate music for what it is instead of allowing themselves to be dictated to by the industry what they should think is good. If this could happen then the music industry we know today would be a very different thing.
All points of time and space are connected.
What does Sir E.J. have against people putting together their own music? Just because he thinks they should go out and buy somebody's CD sold by a big record company instead? I thought pop music was about entertaining the people (``pop'' meaning popular, of course), not about making somebody else wealthy or wealthier. If people are entertaining themselves with their own music, isn't that more creative not less creative? And if someone is entertained by an amateur's YouTube video how is that necessarily less legitimately enriching than being entertained by a commercial artist?
As for going out and playing with other people, that's great, but who here imagines Sir E.J. goes to a local bar to jam with the average joe as the average joe's equal on Blue Mondays? When he plays with other people they're usually under his direction which, with respect to musical communication, means he's essentially playing by himself. So then he says he doesn't have an iPod or mobile phone as if that means no one else should have or even want them. Well, I don't have a mansion and wouldn't want one even if I could afford it so I don't think he should have one.
As for protesting versus blogging, couldn't you put together a much more coherent argument for your point of view in a blog than you could on a protest sign? And who ever said a blogger is less likely to protest than anyone else?---Oh yeah, Elton John did. That means a lot.
As for the blogger writing to say Sir E.J. has a good point, how many negatives is enough? ``Regardless'' is good enough for me, but if you're going to use ``irregardless'' why not use ``not irregardless'' or better yet ``not hardly irregardless''? Anyway, not hardly never irregardless of whether Sir E.J.'s music is good, bad, or indifferent, after all the attention his music got in the past, I think he's looking to blame something for the relative lack of attention his music gets now.
If they had something brilliant to say then they would be writers. I watched a documentary on a band I like. I realized that as much as I liked the music they produced, I really didn't care how awesome they thought they were. I guess his point is somewhat relevant because he is in the industry, but this has been blown way out of proportion.
Don't listen to popular music! There's plenty of good music available today - Opeth and Dream Theater and Pelican if you like metal, or a million different indie bands if you like that, or Gov't Mule and Phil Lesh & Friends and Widespread Panic if you like jam bands. Most cities also have local blues and jazz bands that you can watch any day of the week if you feel like it. And, a lot of older acts are still going - ZZ Top, Megadeth, Ozzy Osbourne, Heaven and Hell, The Who, Roger Waters, Eric Clapton... the list goes on and on. If you can't find good modern music you're not looking very hard.
ResidntGeek
10-Yes, I do know Who actually wrote it
20- So who did?
30- Yes!
40-I don't think that was a 'yes' song.
50- I wasn't. It was Who.
60-Who?
70-Yes.
80-You're a dick. Do I have to guess who did it?
90-'Guess Who' didn't do it.
100-Who?
110-Yes!
120-What? You said it wasn't them!
130-It definitively wasn't 'Them'.
140-So, who was it?
150-Correct.
160-you actually don't know who wrote that song!
170-go to 10
When "Bennie and the Jets" was all the rage on the air back in the mid-70's, we used to say the same thing about his music, that it was ruining rock. How ironic that Elton should now be worried about his legacy!
The internet is not killing music.
It's only killing corporate dominance of music.
No, it's merely attacking corporate dominance of music -- which will end up stronger or weaker for it.
My current money, based on trends in IP law, IP law enforcement, and the prominence of DRM and industry consolidation is on it ending up stronger for it.
If it's for-profit but free, you're not the customer -- you're the product (e.g., the Slashdot Beta's "audience").
Imho, Michael Crawford is actually fairly good. I mean, if you go in expecting guns & roses or tool or something, you may not be impressed, but the same mathematics(metamathmatics?) that is inherent in his music is the same stuff that makes guys like Bach and Beethoven still worth listening to after all these years. It's Not just repetition. It's pattern with depth.
In my experience some musicians just have natural talent, and you can tell because even before the formal training beats it out of them. They just sound good. Michael is one of those artists. Him and Asenath Waite(sp?) (...by SERVER, I wish I could find her now that she's had a few years to work on her music, but I digress.)
It's a shame he's done so little, but he sounds like a busy guy. I wish I could go back and do more music, too, but life kinda gets in the way
GENERATION 26: The first time you see this, copy it into your sig on any forum and add 1 to the generation.
I know he's on Timbaland's album.
I will agree on one point. Today people are making music and musical careers on a computer without playing an instrument. I'll admit that most of the electronic music I hear I think is horrible. What happened to the days that a bunch of guys/girls could get together and play music, on instruments, and really create something. Even if they are emulating their favorite band of the time, it is WAY better to understand the individual components of what makes the music what it is. Understanding the chord progressions, harmonic major and minors, why one would use a diminished 7th in a certain location to conjure a certain feeling in the listener. I think very few musicians today understand these concepts and music is written generally to keep a melody in your head so that you will buy it.
I am a little bitter but I really wish that people would start creating music for themselves instead of for the crowd. If people would forget for a minute what is selling at the moment, and make music that they truly loved the industry would change, and thus we would have better music.
All points of time and space are connected.
before the internet says elton john is destroying music?
I have found a truly wonderful proof of Fermat's Last Theorem, but unfortunately this sig is too small to contain it.
Sir Elton may be right, but fundamentally, the Internet is far more valuable than the transient phenomenon of pop music.
The choice is false because better communications are providing more and better music than the MAFIAA could ever hope to own. Sir Elton simply has no way to parse the stream and remains ignorant of great work going on. It's not his job anyway, his masters are supposed to do that and have failed.
He's also dead wrong about the internet keeping people apart. It should be pretty obvious to anyone that communications networks bring people together, as we sit here and chat. It's not so obvious that this better communications will not keep people from getting together physically in music clubs, but that's going to keep happening as long as people have spare time. When they do get together, what they will see are acts that are far better informed of wold music trends than ever before. People are co-operating as never before, sharing lyics, melodies, tabs and other things the RIAA would like to shut down.
Sir Elton's stand against the future is not surprising. The past has been good to him and he's surrounded by people who will fill his head with bullshit. Garbage in, garbage out.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
> 3rd Bass was a rap group. The bit you referenced is actually
> an Abbot and Costello skit called Who's on First.
Is there a word for the opposite of satori?
Because whatever it is, I think you just inflicted it on everyone.
I wonder how much $$ he's made from people downloading his songs? I seem to recall that he's had quite a few downloads from the downloading of Goodbye England's Rose (Candle in the wind remake for Diana's funeral).
He's pretty much proved that he doesn't even know what the internet is. Last time I checked, Pro Tools and Sonar weren't internet applications. He might as well suggest that telephones are bad for poetry, because you might read poetry to someone over the phone instead of meeting them in person in a coffee shop.
Gamingmuseum.com: Give your 3D accelerator a rest.
O rly?
People who say "Music is dying" are often:
a) Old, and officially entering curmudgeonhood. The old telling how things were golden in the old days and crap nowdays is itself as old as human civilization. And with three thousand years of such steady descent, we should have reached more of a 'bottom' position today than can actually be observed, doncha think? Or maybe the geezeers (including Sir Reginald here) are guilty of nostalgic romanticization.
3) "Subtly" trying to point out that what everyone ELSE listens to is crap, and only they and their fellows are initiates into the The True School of Cool Music.
vi) Observing change and mistaking it for "death". Frankly, if the music company-dictated winner-take-all star system declines, I for one welcome our new musician overlords. If nobody ever again sells 10 million copies of something, it hardly means music is dead.
Killing music is like destroying water. You can break an ice cube, but there's still water. You can steam it out of pan, but there's still water, and even if it's in a form you can't see, you'd be mistaken to say it's gone.
I tend to listen to 'folk music', which is, I guess, music made by folks. Unamplified instruments sometimes. NOT dependent on record companies, or radio, or the internets. Sure, none of these porch pickers is Bryan Sutton, or Bela Fleck, and none of the fiddlers are Mark O'Connor...but maybe I missed the part of the definition of music that's about 'winning'.
"To be fair, I was left completely unsupervised." ~Anon
What he's saying, in his own opinion, is that he thinks musicians are communicating less because the recent technology has been making it so much easier for people to produce things on their own.
Amazing new communications media keeps people from communicating!
The idea that an increased ability to share knowledge and culture should somehow make us "colder" and less rich is absurd. People are going to take advantage of things and make better music for it.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
from the Beeb: Pop superstar Sir Elton John once spent £30m in just under two years - an average of £1.5m a month, the High Court in London has heard. The singer's lavish lifestyle saw him spend more than£9.6m on property and £293,000 on flowers between January 1996 and September 1997. Time's is hard, 'ay Elton? Flowers and knightships don't come for cheap!
So much commerce is done over the internet now that 'shutting it down' would be the end of our economy. Oh...and I think the military uses the internet too....oh wait...shut down the net and the military can't operate..
Like a candle in the wind? (yes, I went there, and I'm still standing...heh, did it again)
Have you read the moderator guidelines? Well, have you, PUNK? (and I want a Karma: Gnarly option)
The 70s made as much or more terrible music as any other era.
Need I remind you of Disco? The Starland Vocal Band? The Beatles? They all sucked balls in the 70s. It wasn't all Led Zeppelin.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
I think he actually really is that clueless; I run into this kind of thing quite a bit. Lots of people, especially older people in Elton's age range (he just turned 60) didn't grow up with computers in their daily lives and so they don't use them as long as they don't really need them (and he doesn't. He's talented and doesn't need any assistance to write great music). If they are told by someone who they think does "get it", they accept what they are told, pretty much.
So I think that this is an example of "older guy who doesn't get it thinks the internet will be the death of us all" followed by "press goes crazy about anything with a celebrity involved in it" (I mean c'mon, even ABCNews is covering all the celebrity junk these days it's ridiculous) but you have to blame Slashdot, too -- why is this worthy of the front page? Probably because of the "famous person says something ridiculous and we want to point and laugh" angle...
Fortunately, not every older guy doesn't get it; my parents do more than Elton does (Dad really knows how to use computers) and both of them are older than Elton is. So I think it probably is a combination of age, upbringing, personality, and career (Dad's had to work with computers for years; he's a physicist).
i am a soviet space shuttle
COMPLETELY agree. I know a number of other folks have made similar remarks, but this one caught my eye. The internet didn't have nearly the popularity it does today when the boy bands originally surfaced, and I'd say that was largely the beginning of the end. If you wanna blame someone or something for death of musical innovation, blame the folks who want to sell CDs and merchandize, and not art. Most everyone I know locally who is in a band locally got hooked up over the internet. CL ads, forums, mailing lists. It's not like you can go hang out at the local record store to meet music aficionados anymore, and the music gear megastores are too few and far between for younger people to get to & hang out. Internet-distributed indie groups, (dare I say it) MySpace, and internet radio (which is being killed) are what's keeping the good parts of the business alive. In fact, I'd say the internet is the only thing that allows individuals to be competitive anymore in *anything*.
Is there anything necessarily wrong with being stuck in one's ways, in this case, though? Computers have been ingrained so heavily into the process of making music these days that many bands can't perform live because they depend so heavily on postprocessing. Yet Elton's live shows are said by many (including myself) to be even better than what he produces in the studio. Real musical talent is like that -- I'm not saying that you can't make good music with technical help, mind; it's just not absolutely necessary. (Elton also runs his own label; his days of being stuck in a restrictive contract are long over. I've heard the music he did make when he was under the contract, though, and even that is largely great although of course there are some "dud" songs I don't care for, but that happens with any artist due to peoples' varying tastes).
I also agree that the Internet helps us discover new music; I've learned of new artists myself that way. I just don't really think that "stuck in his ways" is really the problem as much as not really "getting it". The guy's 60 years old. Common problem for that age group, unfortunately. Most likely this is due to the resulting misconceptions of what people actually do online.
i am a soviet space shuttle
Mozart may not be on the same level as far as music you'd want to listen to, but Mozart's music is consistently great fun to play. Eine Kleine Nachtmusik is my single favorite song to play on the violin, but I hardly ever listen to it.
It's our only chance of living; take all you need to live inside ... ;)
i am a soviet space shuttle
Nostalgia. Either that or someone had premonition dreams about this crazy guy named Steve Irwin. Crikey!
i am a soviet space shuttle
It's not necessarily a bad thing, it's a change. Never has it been as easy to do it all yourself as it is now. I can produce, record, and master music all by myself. Right now, it is trendy to do it all yourself. Eventually these trends will shift. Music gains depth with multiple contributors, but it is never has the artistic integrity of a work produced by only one person.
What I'm talking about are two different production paradigms: individualistic production and group production. Each produces music of a different sort. To say one is objectively better or worse is asinine. Music is appreciated on a subjective level, not an objective level. I would have thought someone with as much experience behind him as Elton John might realize this. Then again, experience does not necessarily imply wisdom.
True. It does come from seeking attention or crying for help quite often, but by no means was I actually attempting to point out that that's the ONLY cause.
In this particular case, though, that's what it did turn out to be. I don't understand why anyone would resort to that instead of simply calling off an engagement (he was having cold feet about getting married), but since I'm not Elton, I don't think I should try to make a guess. I just don't feel that it's anyone's business other than the person in question regarding this kind of thing; never have.
i am a soviet space shuttle
I thought it was a pretty nice gesture, actually. It was a well-known song when it was originally released, he's a well-known individual, he WAS her friend, and that's how he showed his respect and how he chose to mourn her publicly. Who are we to jeer and say that that's inappropriate? I don't think it's right to be arrogant enough to think we know any better.
Losing friends is hell enough without idiots like us on the internet pointing and laughing.
i am a soviet space shuttle
The point is, you didn't have to look at all a few decades ago. Good music was pervasive. Now the music that is pervasive is Britney Crapola, and the good stuff is underground or Indy. If the likes of Phil Lesh and other good bands were actually what the music industry pushed - then, I doubt people would feel so negatively about a recording industry that really was once held in much higher esteem. Back in the day, you could feel like a record producer was a part of the revolution, and now he or she is just another suit of "the Man".
So basically, RIAA really ticks people off because they've come to represent music that honestly isn't worth paying for anyway. I mean, give Britney Spears money? Heck, I could bore you for a longer time with my lousy game. Give me $15 instead. Or you could just wait a month until I port it to Linux and open source the thing anyway.
So yeah, screw RIAA.
This is my sig.
Naturally, this being Slashdot, anyone who says something like "shut down the internet" is going to be taken way out of proportion. Especially if they're a celebrity.
...
I'm mostly bothered by all the hate Elton seems to be getting. I'm surprised that there aren't lots of anti-gay remarks (although maybe there are; I'm just replying to the replies I got while sleeping, not re-reading the thread) and I don't know why more people can't respect artists they may not listen to. Honestly, if people don't like someone's music, they can just not listen to it. I like his music, I like it a lot (you should see how much of my music library is his work, including live stuff) but I don't hate on other artists.
I know, I know, it's Slashdot, what should I expect?
Eh
i am a soviet space shuttle
Plenty since then, plenty before that, and that "canned music" actually is quite well-liked by his fans. Don't like it? Don't buy it.
i am a soviet space shuttle
What city is this? It might be time to move.
I think the internet is only good for music, and this is another reason: when the music-friendly clubs close down, people stuck in that city can still communicate and form groups on the internet, and meet each other that way.
It's been ages since I listened to Elton John, but I do like him. My point is, why are we giving this any time of day just because he's a celebrity? He has absolutely no power or authority over the internet. Nothing he says or does will likely cause a 'shutdown' of the internet. These are the same people that whine about hwo much Paris Hilton is in the news because she's famous, and they do the same thing with something like this.
Elton John says:
I say, "I do think it would be an incredible experiment to shut down the whole entertainment industry for five years and see what sort of art is produced over that span."
Sounds like the ramblings of a dinosaur to me.
The Internet has the potential to be one of the best things to happen to music, and is already delivering on it's promise - it brings distribution and sharing to the common people in a way undreamed of during Elton John's heyday. He's just pissed because he won't be able to slap crap songs in with a few decent singles and sell the whole package for $17 for much longer; the Internet is bring back the "single" in a big way and helping to cut out the filler and undeserved profits.
Truth is, the Internet is just another tool, albeit a very good one, and for anyone to finger out a tool as being detrimental, rather than the way it's used, is blind stupidity. But I wouldn't expect a lot more than than this coming from the over-hyped queen of yesteryear, though. I mean, I was a young teenager when he was in his heyday, and he was no better or larger than any other performer of the era, like Steely Dan, Carly Simon, or Aerosmith. Why is he treated like a God all of sudden? Is it just because of the gay thing? Heck, he didn't even write his own lyrics.
Look back up at my post, now look back down, you're on the Internet. Now look back up. I'm a signature.
See, posts like that... that's why we need more mod options. Like "Unintentionally funny because the poster is such an obvious dork" and "It would be funny if the poster hadn't revealed such deeply rooted and disturbing psychological problems" or "It would be funny if I hadn't had exactly the same experience with a girl who loved getting stuffed to "Tiny Dancer". Of course, then mods would be forced to choose the best of several options. I suppose the current way is better, after all. Troll it is, then.
If you mod me down, I shall become more powerful than you could possibly imagine.
I don't always use unix-like operating systems; but when I do, I prefer FreeBSD.
whee.
Now if we could just destroy Elton John and get on with the music
Banjo - The more I know about Windoze, the more I love *nix
The internet is saying Elton John is destroying music.
:p
there.. now we're even
I *am* wondering why the heck this got approved AND on the front page, yes.
i am a soviet space shuttle
It's in the same state as SXSW. Actually, there's 3 areas in 2 cities that have suffered the this fate over the past 15-20 years. And they wonder why areas effectively "die".
The cesspool just got a check and balance.
"Elton John says that the internet is destroying good music and "stopping people from going out and being with each other, creating stuff."
So it's impossible for musicians to collaborate over long distances?
i have said over and over again, not that there are no unique bands, but that the vast overwhelming majority of them are not creative. the phenomenon that we are experiencing now is not that bands are trying to emulate something, but rather that the internet is allowing more and more people to spread their music. there are probably more "bands" and "musicians" out there now than in the 70's pushing their music through sites like myspace trying to get a national audience rather than trying to improve themselves by going out and playing shows at local venues. yes, i know there are unique bands out there now, but those are the exceptions. sure, the uncreative bands existed in the 60's and 70's, but there were a lot more bands that were collaborations of artists from other bands (new riders, JGB, derek and the dominos, dylan and the dead, entire concerts performed jointly between multiple bands all playing together rather than one at a time). that doesn't happen as often anymore. the collaboration is not as prevalent.
please me, have no regrets.
I agree with your assessment of modern popular music, but I think your memory's a bit selective. A few dacades ago, the record industry was pushing Niel Sedaka, Styx, Journey, the Eagles, Michael Jackson, and other such pop and corporate-rock acts. Even excellent groups like The Who and the Yardbirds made shamelessly exploitative pop music in the mid-60s, and same for groups like Black Sabbath and Blue Oyster Cult in the '70s and '80s.
ResidntGeek
Perhaps its music that is destroying the Internet.
If you have a business model that can't coexist with an infrastructure/distribution channel that many others find essential to their livelihood, perhaps its your business model that needs to die.
Have gnu, will travel.
The irony of big rock star musician vs his audience was probably best explored via Pink Floyd's The Wall. Roger Waters goes so far as to pain the audience as mindless sheep at a fascist pep rally (run like hell) and the fans at the concerts went nuts for that song. Cognitive dissonance at a macro level...
John Maynard Keynes: "When the facts change, I change my mind. What do you do?"
It's like those old trailers from when they were re-releasing the Star Wars trilogy in '97. Recorded music is kind of like trying to play Star Wars on that puny non-widescreen. You've not really seen Star Wars until you've seen it in all of it's glory on a proper screen with a proper sound system.
Music worth listening to is just like that.
Recordings are engineered to death these days. So even if you got over the technical limitations on music recordings and the fact that you've lost the visceral quality of the crowd and the performance venue and the fact that you could throw a tequilla bottle at the lead singer and throw him off tune, you've still got the problem that all the life has been sucked out of the music in the studio.
One live show of a good band easily is more valuable than their entire recorded works.
You can't really appreciate those overengineered recordings until you've heard the real thing.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
That I've never listened to an entire song of our dear Mr. John. After all, the few clips I've heard him sing on YouTube sucked harder than Enya, and that's going some.
You may not listen to a little nightmusic, but I do. Mozart after 230+ years is still more popular than almost anything you can hear on the pop/rock stations right now will be in 2 years time. Let alone 50 years time. Amadeus is not just better, he's orders of magnitude better.
In his day, he was straining against the standard way of doing things too. If he were alive today he would definitly be releasing over the net.
Everybody knows 3 people with my name.
musicians that came from somewhat different genres is what i meant by derek and the dominos. same goes for traveling wilburys. they all had their own careers that were successful and collaborated to come up with something different.
please me, have no regrets.
You must understand, there is a huge difference between having perfect pitch and being so bad at singing that you have to lipsync. In fact, most people with perfect pitch have a very difficult time singing in tune along with a group, because they base the notes they produce on some absolute standard, and not on the notes being produced around them. For example, let's say Mr. Elton John generally tunes his instruments to A = 440Hz. If it's a particularly humid day out, the pitch of the instruments might sneak a little bit higher after they've been tuned, say to A = 442Hz. Because he has perfect pitch, or so you imply, Elton will have a very difficult time singing A = 442Hz, because that would effectively be out of tune for him. He would probably be so bothered by this discrepancy that he might even consider lip-syncing for his own sanity. It's actually a fairly useless skill for a singer or composer of tonal music to have, and it has no correlation with one's musical talent at all.
There are plenty of good songs that never get played on the radio or can be found in traditional CD retail channels. The internet is changing the way music gets heard. There is a world of great music out there if you turn off the radio and the TV, and LOOK FOR IT!
Last I heard, the automobile was destroying the horse-n-buggy but the world economy didn't collapse. Get with the program, Sir Elton.
Eternity: will that be smoking, or non-smoking? I Corinthians 6:9-10
It is a growth problem, I think computers and the net will allow that. But it is a pretty new way of doing things...until it matures you won't see alot of quality. Suddenly 10,000,000 amatures show up...well over time at least some of those amatures through practice and learning will become professionals, but at day 1 almsot everyone is amature and the products suck :)
The only change I can believe in is what I find in my couch cushions.
- download classical guitar scores written by other guitarrist.
- receive news from the NJ classical guitar society via email. In this way I know when they meet every month for jamming sessions.
- listen recording from other ukulele players and give constructive criticism for their work.
- attend an intimate concert with an independent artist.
yeah, destruction allright...Vi havas e-poston.
No, Artists have not stopped playing in Clubs or giving concerts. And I know that was a rhetorical question, but it deserves to be addressed. The problem for the consumer is that they are charging us an arm and a leg to go see them live because they think everybody is trying to steal their music when they sell it in digital form. Before the Internet age, we could see a Major Caliber Artist for 20 bucks. Now, you can't get in for less than 100.
However, even the smaller name artists are taking advantage and charging us 50-100 to see them. It's only going to get worse. The more they charge, the more people will try to get their music off somebody else, instead of paying for it.
I think the biggest problem in music, at least in the US, is the end of independent ownership and management of radio stations.
Agreed. I'm as strong of a capitalist as they come, and wlecome larger stores like WalMart, Costco and Best Buy. To me, buying deodorant or paper towels isn't some spiritual experience. It is a minor annoyance in my life that I'd like to handle as cheaply and as quickly as possible. I could care less about having some special experience with a mom and pop store when I'm buying commodities. I'm sure others will differ, don't really care to argue the point, I'm just explaining myself in order to make my next point:
I used to live on the east coast, now I live on Kauai... one of the nicest things here is that the radio stations and movie theaters are still privately owned- no Regal, AMC, ClearChannel or other affiliations that I'm aware of. The result? Lets see:
Radio stations play whatever they want, and basically whatever people want to hear. With less commercials. They don't have a requirement to play the latest Fergie or P-Diddy jingle every hour. One station's motto is "We play whatever we want."
Movies? Hell, its like the good old days. You go in, pay your $7, watch a few previews and the movie starts. You're not overrun with advertising while you wait for the previews before the lights go dim, only to learn there will more more commericals before the previews.
The big record labels have screwed stuff up equally as bad. But, things like iTMS have a potential to change this. People may not NEED a huge record label to earn a living anymore. They might not need to have their music at Best Buy and their song played every hour on every station Clear Channel owns.
So, what do good capitalists do? They vote with their dollars. I'm pumping money into an independent theater, listening to independent radio stations, and buy music online that isn't associated with massive record labels. I encourage everyone to vote with their dollars, too, even if you're voting for different stuff than me.
So you don't think the issues are important. That doesn't matter. These are successful counterexamples to your argument and they indeed had influence on the real world despite your claims to the contrary.
When is the last time you think Elton John sat at a table with someone from the random public?
Another poster had it right when they pointed out that the music industry is actually headed back to it's roots, but with so much more potential. Back 'in the old days', actually already up to the early radio days, a bunch of people got together and started playing music. They started in a garage or warehouse somewhere, playing other peoples music that they all knew, and playing stuff that one, or more, of them had written. Then they got local gigs, and started forming a following. Folks in their fan base talked about the great music they were playing, and the fan base grew and more gigs were booked, and to larger audiences. When recording media became prevalent, they would record a couple songs and other parts of the country would get to hear it. Bands, singers, and songs became popular through a gradual gathering of support and a solid fan base.
For decades now, a music executive finds a band he can sign cheap, that he can market into a pop sensation, blasts their music all over, so you have no choice but to listen to it, and most of the 'fan base' occurs simply because the majority don't have any choice or options.
But now the Internet is taking us back to the time that you have to develop your fan base through personal contact and good music. Just getting people together and posting your music to a MySpace page isn't going to get you a fan base. there is too much music available for any appreciable number of people to find and listen to what you are doing. So you fall back on local gigs and developing a following. Then they go on their blogs and talk about your great music and can actually point people to your website and music. So you can develop a much larger, global fan base much faster, but it still requires that you get word of mouth out through personal interaction.
Kelly Clarkson, Justin Timberlake, Brittany Spears, etc. Have never had to do club shows and actually interact with their fans.
Most of the music I listen to now is from bands that I've sent drinks up to on the stage, and usually afterwards had a good social time with when their set was done. And most of them love to hear what those of us sitting in the audience really liked about particular songs, and what we didn't like so much. That is so much easier and more comfortable to convey sitting in the bar talking about it, than making an impersonal comment post on their blog.
"Unheard of means only it's undreamed of yet,
Impossible means not yet done." ~~ Julia Ecklar
When it matted: the first years of his career. Which was kind easy to understand if you paid attention to what I said.
morcego
And gay people destroy humanity.
"
/. readers with mod points?
Sucks to be you, Elton
(Score:-1, Troll)"
Wow. Who knew the Elton John Fanclub had enough members who were
See, Elton, the Internet CAN bring people together!
GROUP HUG!
Guaranteed! This comment 100% Anthrax free!
I haven't heard anyone talk about THEM in ages. What ever happened to THEM?
Someone hates these cans.
i was going to make a post, but then i read yours and it said everything i wanted to with more eloquence.
i think i'm in love... in a totaly non-homoerotic way....
okay, well maybe just a little
unless your a woman... wait this is slashdot.... DOH!
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
This is MY galaxy...go find your OWN!
"Candle in the Tubes" Relevance ran out long before, you bandwidth ever did...
That's funny when you realize Elton writes almost none of his music, just the lyrics. Bernie Taupin is pretty exclusively the music writer.
Doesn't Sir Elton write a lot of his music with a long term friend that which is created together, but not in person and in fact far distances apart? If I am remembered correctly, then his whole arguement appears rubbish to me.
Like Anto Drennan and Keith Duffy of the Corrs and many other artists. I see Anto and Keith logging into their MySpace pages DAILY - unlike some other artists who are computer illiterate and need someone else to do it for them (Andrea, are you listening? - Probably not since you just learned how to use email in 2005!) And these guys are trading comments back and forth with other artists.
Half their friends on any artist's MySpace page are other artists.
So Elton is wrong when he says the Internet is having a negative effect on artists hanging out. Artists hang out all over the world now! It's not just hanging out in a Dublin pub when they happen to be in town.
Richard Steven Hack - This sig is TOO GODDAMN SHORT TO DO ANYTHING USEFUL WITH! MORONS!
Music is not destroyed. We have several centuries of music and not one note of it is at issue here.
Media and money are at issue here. Not music.
nuff said
.
Who could afford the diamond studded butt plug that inspired "Can You Feel the Love Tonight"?
That's funny when you realize Elton writes almost none of his music, just the lyrics. Bernie Taupin is pretty exclusively the music writer.
Are you retarded? You have it exactly opposite.
As another (amateur) classical musician, I never considered that he [hey!] might actually be dissing Mozart. I think he was just being sarcastic, saying you could judge Elton John fairly by everything he did before age 35.
Of course, I'll agree, there's not much comparison, and it sort of forces you to imagine that somehow Mozart would have gone downhill and started writing stuff like Candle in the Wind after Don Giovanni, The Magic Flute, and the Jupiter Symphony. Not bloody likely.
...the future crusty old bastards are already drinking the Kool-Aid.
At the least, we are cooler than the 7-digit ones. The 5-digit guys are way cooler than us though. They got in before it was cool to be on Slashdot.
SRSLY.
seriously
She's made a huge contribution to society - mainly inspiring most women under 40 in the western world to wear less clothing.
I think it's a "bigger than Jesus" style comment that is not meant to be taken literally but is illustrating a point with a bit of exageration.
In a lot of cases he didn't do the lyrics but composed the music to go with them - just like a lot of other bands where one guy is really good at the lyrics and another can compose. I think he wrote it to go with what he felt from the words instead of what is written above.
Gah. I knew that, really. But yeah, I got it back to front. Sucks to be me.
Goodbye yellow brick road.
READY.
PRINT ""+-0
I'd never heard of half my favorite bands. Take that. I've then gone out and bought the majority of said cds (unless they're owned by an RIAA subsidiary - then I just pirate them, and wait for them to play live near me).
"Sure. Mozart had an impact. Then he died when he was thirty five. We'll never know if he was really any good because we'll never know whether the stuff he would have produced when he was fifty or sixty would be just as good."
a rt
Ugh, chances are, you definitely have no idea what you're talking about.
Considering Mozart, I'm assuming you're talking about W.A. Mozart, composed OVER 600 COMPOSITIONS
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wolfgang_Amadeus_Moz
I'm pretty sure people who know what they're talking about have a good idea of his compositional abilities.
I'll attest to that. I've seen him live twice in my life (in the past decade... I'm a bit too young to have seen his 70s performances) and he puts on a terrific show. He plays to the audience, and really gets into the piano. No lip syncing, no flashy dancers... just Elton, his band and the piano. I even caught the Billy Joel Elton John tour, which was fantastic... the two of them played off each other very well. People talk about real musicians and artists... I don't think they come much more genuine than Elton John. Even if he made no money performing shows... I would imagine he would still be composing songs.
Internet couldn't kill Music, even if we all tried very hard. People are social creatures and will always want to play music too. Add these together with internet and it just gives unknown artists a new route to tell about themselves. It allows bands to distribute themselves without enslaving themselves. It allows fans to find out about these newcomers. Even when allowing people to download your music for free, they still want to see you perform live - if you're good and interesting enough.
--When will we people understand that music is a service, not a product?
If all else fails, pull the plug and get out...
The Life is out there...
Let's see if I got this right:
...
1. Learn to play an instrument
2. Give away your songs for free on the internet
3.
4. Profit
I'd work on step 3 before quitting my day job if I were you.
Wow, if I could give you a mod point I would. Rare to see anyone here go, 'oops'.
Take Care...
Where have you been?
:)
Elton has always been a bitter Queen, that is why a lot of people like him.
- And I use the term Queen with lots of respect.
That's the kind of job anyone would be lucky to have -- getting paid to do something they're talented at, and loving it enough to keep doing it even if there was no money to be made from it.
i am a soviet space shuttle
it's more likely that clasic music will not be remembered, or will be seen as something from the past and some freaks
I know you're out there. I can feel you now. I know that you're afraid. You're afraid of us. You're afraid of change.
The internet is not destroying music, the fact that every Elton John song sounds the same is destroying music. D
This is probably the most intelligent discussion of how the Internet and music distribution intertwine that I've seen as text. Thanks for putting this on Slashdot. Now, if we could just get this in front of regular people.
Maybe now. My father hitch hiked down through the middle east in the sixties and ended up becoming a monk in India for a couple of years and one of the things he said to me was that Indian music (traditional) had far less repetition in it than western music. I used to listen to some of the tapes he recorded when I was a child and he seemed to be right. It was a bit like pi, you think you have worked out a theme and then it wandered off into another "almost" theme. That was 25 years ago now, so maybe I would listen to them differently now (the tapes died a long time ago). It really only sticks in my memory because it was one of my assumptions he knocked over (ie; that music had to have repetition ).
I reserve the write to mangle english.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
As the revenue departs from dead music so the focus will shift to live music shared between people having a good time ie, in the digital age, people will endeavour to seek greater personal social contact on their nights out.
Chaos - everything, everywhere, everywhen
The two sides of comparison are live protest to persuade leaders to change a policy, or writing a blog to persuade a leader to change a policy.
The President's Button is a red herring, because that would be a leader SETTING a policy.
My first Journal Entry ever, in 8 years! http://slashdot.org/journal/365947/aphelion-scifi-fantasy-horror-poetry-webzine
These two forms of public response operate in different spheres of influence. Protests have a higher chance of being covered by a local reporter, and have to work to boost the awareness across a larger geographic range.
Blogs cover geography effortlessly, but push against dilution from competing media. The blogger has to network his blog message among other bloggers until the critical mass is reached.
My first Journal Entry ever, in 8 years! http://slashdot.org/journal/365947/aphelion-scifi-fantasy-horror-poetry-webzine
I pretty much agree with that, except I will point out the amusing irony of talking about digital music type folks seeking greater personal social contact on their nights out. I have worked for a few of these people, not just the using the computer to make music with software and maybe a few plugins, but the guys that have invested six figures or more into a wide array of digital whatnots that are all chained together through a computer. Dual screen with edge to edge monitors (the type with no border) so that they can use their editing and sequencing software better, with all manner of strange digital drumsets, samplers, converters, etc. The irony here is that you talk about these people on slashdot of all places like they actually endeavor to have nights out, let alone social contact on those nights out. I realize this is not the case for all of them, but as I said, having worked freelance for a few of these guys maintaining their rigs...well...they are certainly their own brand of geek and do kinda fit with many of the standard geek stereotypes.
The only change I can believe in is what I find in my couch cushions.
Who was talking about the geeks and nerds on slashdot, I was talking about the general populace. Geeks and nerds have a too wildly diversified and spread range of hobbies, pass times, temporary fixations, bar of course, all things computers, to really discuss what they do and do not like, excluding of course pay to post trolls on slashdot and nobody cares what they do as long as they do it else where.
Chaos - everything, everywhere, everywhen
I was a small town DJ back in the early 70's and even then there was more music than we could possibly play in a week. The record companies would send us a huge box of singles every week and we only had time to listen to each record for maybe 5 seconds. We'd go throught stack and drop the needle down in various places. If it wasn't a potential hit or didn't interest one of several DJs it was tossed out the back door.
We didn't have a play list, our sponsors didn't care what was played, only did the listeners call the request line and we played that.
Elton's just an aging prima donna. IMHO he had one good song and he prostituted that to sentimentalism 10 years ago. Who cares what he thinks?
"I hope you like Guinness, Sir. I find it a refreshing substitute for, er... food." Col. Jack O'Neil, SG-1
Artistic movements of any kind become clearly identifiable much later after they occur.
When I was studying music in the 80s it was still unclear if Shostakovitch was the heir to the classical tradition (Bach-Mozart-Beethoven--Wagner-Stravinsky- Shostakovitch?), check dates and you'll see that he wasn't even news anymore.
Similarly it wasn't clear if twelve tone music, random music, minimalism or any of the many other movements would become the one to remember when talking about 20th century music (it may be minimalism, Steve Reich is a genius and desrves its place after Mr Shostakovitch in the queue above).
We are in no position to judge what is worthy culturally and artistically speaking when it comes to the last 15 years or so, we will have for one or two generations more to disintangle that.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
Frankly, what has street protest changed?
In the UK the biggest demonstration ever, against the war in Iraq, changed squat. The idiotic Tony Blair even got a job as peace envoy in West Asia, it would be funny if it wasn't tragic.
Ditto with the loonies defending fox hunting, they managed to gather many thousends of people and thankfully that did not change anything and fox hunting was banned.
Ditto for all the empty headed anti globalization protesters that are not part of the political folklore but that nobody take seriously.
In the other hand blogging may be the catalyst to movilize people in effective ways, and most importantly, to know what some people are complaining about.
If I see a bunch of retards on TV bashing a Macdonalds during an international summit, I have no idea why hey do it and the only thing I want is their sorry ass sent to jail.
If I get to know about their blog or website I can see they are a bunch of retards all the same, but at least I know about their ideas, what they support and if I was brain dead they could gain a sympathizer and use the power of the internet to organize themselves efficient and effective political action.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
When my dad heard for the first time CD he went back home, packaged is vinyl collection (500 disks or so), went to sell it to a second hand dealer and went back to the shop to the shop to buy a CD player and 3 disks :-)
20 something years later it is still working!
IANAL but write like a drunk one.