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A number of thoughts about the current state of music
14 years ago
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This is something that's been going round and round in the back of my head to such a point that I've decided "I need to get it out of my head into a tangible format, to make room for something else."
The seed for this little rant was planted a while back, when I read about a meeting of the big-shots in the current music industry, who basically all got together, held a conference, and made speeches to each other about how all their current woes were caused by "audio pirates" and what could possibly be done to stomp them out, thereby protecting the bottom line.
Now, the obvious response to that is, no - people will pay for something if it's worth it. Keep putting out crap nobody wants to buy, and see how your sales go.
But, there's more to it than that.
Several weeks ago, a friend of mine purchased a used ipod from a teenager, off craigslist. Upon taking possession of it, he realized that all of said teenager's music was still on there. And almost none of it was what you might call "new." As a peek into the musical interests of your average teen, it was a bit of an eye-opener. A lot of the songs listed were ones I owned myself. And I'm over 40.
Now, think about this:
the 40's and 50's collectively gave us
Swing
Jazz
Honky-Tonk
Blues
Bebop
Soul
Doo-Wop
Rock N' Roll
R&B
Rockabilly
Country & Western
the 60's gave us
Surf rock
Drag rock
The British Invasion (beatles!)
Folk Rock
Twist songs
Psychadellia
Funk
Bubblegum
the 70's gave us
Punk Rock
Prog Rock
Hard Rock
Heavy Metal
Glam Rock
Dub
Disco
Album Rock
Rap
The 80's gave us
New Wave
Hair Metal
Europop
Italo
Synth Pop
Electropop
Hip-Hop
The 90's gave us:
Grunge
Techno
House
Ibiza
Ambient
Alternative
Nu metal
Indie Rock
and then along comes the 2000's.... and that's it.
An entire ten year span - a whole DECADE during which nothing new happened musically.
Now, I'm not saying nobody put out any new music, but every single note of it falls right under the category of "more of the same."
There were no new genres. At least not to be found anywhere in pop culture - not unless "overuse of auto-tune" counts as a genre.
Even wikipedia's page on musical trends in the 2000s has to admit:
"In the First World, pop music, hip hop music, contemporary R&B, new wave, country and alternative rock dominated and defined the decade's music with electropop, synthpop and dance music becoming dominant by end of the decade."
In other words, more of the same.
There is no "NOW" sound. There is no current musical trend. It's all rehashes, retreads, and remakes.
Is it any wonder sales are slumping? Music is supposed to be a form of expression, and nobody in the music industry appears to have anything to say!
And really, it's not that big a surprise, either. It's now reasonably-well known, that signing onto a record company is akin to begging to be raped. They will end up owning your songs, they may even end up owning your name and likeness. You will do all the work, and they will make all the money. You will get paid about the same as a fry-jockey at the corner burger-bar, when all's said and done. You're better off not even bothering.
So really, if anyone out there has poured their very soul into a song, it would be insane for them to let the recording industry anywhere near it. I have no doubt that the next Beatles, the next Rolling Stones, even the next DEVO may be out there somewhere, but I don't think you're going to be hearing them on the radio.
And that brings me to my next point. The radio.
It can't come as any shock that the dearth of new musical frontiers dried up around the same time that Clear Channel got their stranglehold on the airwaves, assigned everybody a format, and told them which twelve songs they were to play, and in what order.
Where's a new genre supposed to go? All the stations are programmed. If it doesn't fit the current format, it's not getting played.
What we are witnessing is the strangulation of not just a culture, but an entire industry by a bunch of middlemen, who have carved it up, divided it equally amongst themselves, and allowed no room for expansion in any manner at all, because MINE MINE MINE.
They've taken the golden goose and slit it's throat. And now they want to sue somebody, anybody, because the resulting mess couldn't possibly be their fault.
As for the next Bob Dylan, he'll likely be selling his songs off his website, making all the money, and keeping all the rights.
And I hope that thought makes those record company bastards squirm.
Why is your industry dying, boys?
Because you're killing it.
Congratulations on a job well done.
The seed for this little rant was planted a while back, when I read about a meeting of the big-shots in the current music industry, who basically all got together, held a conference, and made speeches to each other about how all their current woes were caused by "audio pirates" and what could possibly be done to stomp them out, thereby protecting the bottom line.
Now, the obvious response to that is, no - people will pay for something if it's worth it. Keep putting out crap nobody wants to buy, and see how your sales go.
But, there's more to it than that.
Several weeks ago, a friend of mine purchased a used ipod from a teenager, off craigslist. Upon taking possession of it, he realized that all of said teenager's music was still on there. And almost none of it was what you might call "new." As a peek into the musical interests of your average teen, it was a bit of an eye-opener. A lot of the songs listed were ones I owned myself. And I'm over 40.
Now, think about this:
the 40's and 50's collectively gave us
Swing
Jazz
Honky-Tonk
Blues
Bebop
Soul
Doo-Wop
Rock N' Roll
R&B
Rockabilly
Country & Western
the 60's gave us
Surf rock
Drag rock
The British Invasion (beatles!)
Folk Rock
Twist songs
Psychadellia
Funk
Bubblegum
the 70's gave us
Punk Rock
Prog Rock
Hard Rock
Heavy Metal
Glam Rock
Dub
Disco
Album Rock
Rap
The 80's gave us
New Wave
Hair Metal
Europop
Italo
Synth Pop
Electropop
Hip-Hop
The 90's gave us:
Grunge
Techno
House
Ibiza
Ambient
Alternative
Nu metal
Indie Rock
and then along comes the 2000's.... and that's it.
An entire ten year span - a whole DECADE during which nothing new happened musically.
Now, I'm not saying nobody put out any new music, but every single note of it falls right under the category of "more of the same."
There were no new genres. At least not to be found anywhere in pop culture - not unless "overuse of auto-tune" counts as a genre.
Even wikipedia's page on musical trends in the 2000s has to admit:
"In the First World, pop music, hip hop music, contemporary R&B, new wave, country and alternative rock dominated and defined the decade's music with electropop, synthpop and dance music becoming dominant by end of the decade."
In other words, more of the same.
There is no "NOW" sound. There is no current musical trend. It's all rehashes, retreads, and remakes.
Is it any wonder sales are slumping? Music is supposed to be a form of expression, and nobody in the music industry appears to have anything to say!
And really, it's not that big a surprise, either. It's now reasonably-well known, that signing onto a record company is akin to begging to be raped. They will end up owning your songs, they may even end up owning your name and likeness. You will do all the work, and they will make all the money. You will get paid about the same as a fry-jockey at the corner burger-bar, when all's said and done. You're better off not even bothering.
So really, if anyone out there has poured their very soul into a song, it would be insane for them to let the recording industry anywhere near it. I have no doubt that the next Beatles, the next Rolling Stones, even the next DEVO may be out there somewhere, but I don't think you're going to be hearing them on the radio.
And that brings me to my next point. The radio.
It can't come as any shock that the dearth of new musical frontiers dried up around the same time that Clear Channel got their stranglehold on the airwaves, assigned everybody a format, and told them which twelve songs they were to play, and in what order.
Where's a new genre supposed to go? All the stations are programmed. If it doesn't fit the current format, it's not getting played.
What we are witnessing is the strangulation of not just a culture, but an entire industry by a bunch of middlemen, who have carved it up, divided it equally amongst themselves, and allowed no room for expansion in any manner at all, because MINE MINE MINE.
They've taken the golden goose and slit it's throat. And now they want to sue somebody, anybody, because the resulting mess couldn't possibly be their fault.
As for the next Bob Dylan, he'll likely be selling his songs off his website, making all the money, and keeping all the rights.
And I hope that thought makes those record company bastards squirm.
Why is your industry dying, boys?
Because you're killing it.
Congratulations on a job well done.
http://www.spiderrobinson.com/melan.....elephants.html
Tl;dr: The pleasing combinations of music have, largely, already been discovered and used...
And that isn't really the point I was making anyway. It's not that the "pleasing combinations" of music have been discovered, used and re-used, it's that a whole decade went by without a single new genre inserting itself into pop culture.
Not only might be eye-opening but impressive to me... especially for me, being.. well... you know...
"Psychobilly gained underground popularity in Europe beginning in the early 1980s, but remained largely unknown in the United States until the late 1990s."
On the subject of genres, what I've observed happening is that there is practically a sea of subgenres now. Things seem to have moved away from clear-cut genres, which are easier for the big music corporations to manage and market, and into a model wherein there is an insane diversity, total and complete diversity, but nothing really takes root and catapults itself into prominence simply because there are so many genres and subgenres.
Without the music industry in place to section everything into simple, clear-cut genres, market those genres (and eventually blandize them to death), things have become much more diverse and complex, but with no really clear, easily defined genres presenting themselves.
I hope you don't mind a bit of 'spamming' but I've been championing this obscure yet incredible band, called Shaolin Death Squad. I let myself do this because I think they're a perfect example of what's happening now. They're a band that, while incredible, in my opinion they deserve to be all over metal stations and MTV, they're virtually impossible to easily categorize. Mixing elements of traditional metal with classic prog rock, progressive metal, RIO (rock in opposition), new wave and sometimes ska, with traditional Asian sounds. It's possible that they're the only band of an as-yet, unnamed new genre, but the issue becomes, that with so many existing genres and subgenres, do we try and find a subgenre that suits them? Or where's the line between that, and a whole new genre being created?
http://www.shaolindeathsquad.com/