It's not as if there is any shortage of talent out there- it's just that the only music you're ever going to hear is the mass-produced garbage that record execs think is trendy. Listen to any radio station in america and you'll notice they're playing a loop of the same 10 or 12 songs, over and over, day and night, for weeks on end. The radio stations are told what to play by the record labels. Recording equipment is cheap enough that any band who wants to record can do so, for at most a few thousand dollars. What the industry provides is *promotion*. TV ads, time on MTV, radio time- these are the things only industry insiders can get. Since they only pick a few acts every year in a genre for the royal treatment, they have to have a guarantee that every one will be a hit, which means they can't take chances on music that is different from the mainstream. So the music on the radio gets more inoffensive, unoriginal, and boring every year.
If the record industry were to collapse tomorrow, it be would cause for celebration. It would certainly not affect the average touring band, and it wouldn't mean that musical innovation would suffer- the streets of america are flooded with good music and talented acts, and the big labels are simply not interested. What the world needs is more local labels, more promotion for the music that is out there and not being heard. MP3 and digital music formats are an excellent way to accomplish this. I say let the big labels burn! It's long overdue.
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It's not as if there is any shortage of talent out there- it's just that the only music you're ever going to hear is the mass-produced garbage that record execs think is trendy. Listen to any radio station in america and you'll notice they're playing a loop of the same 10 or 12 songs, over and over, day and night, for weeks on end. The radio stations are told what to play by the record labels. Recording equipment is cheap enough that any band who wants to record can do so, for at most a few thousand dollars. What the industry provides is *promotion*. TV ads, time on MTV, radio time- these are the things only industry insiders can get. Since they only pick a few acts every year in a genre for the royal treatment, they have to have a guarantee that every one will be a hit, which means they can't take chances on music that is different from the mainstream. So the music on the radio gets more inoffensive, unoriginal, and boring every year. If the record industry were to collapse tomorrow, it be would cause for celebration. It would certainly not affect the average touring band, and it wouldn't mean that musical innovation would suffer- the streets of america are flooded with good music and talented acts, and the big labels are simply not interested. What the world needs is more local labels, more promotion for the music that is out there and not being heard. MP3 and digital music formats are an excellent way to accomplish this. I say let the big labels burn! It's long overdue.