Arguing about the Music Industry

How about a break from the Rove follies for a minute...

I have been getting a lot of email about a previous music post where I said that the true, number one reason that the so-called "Real" Music Biz (read Big Gigantic corporations) is in a slump is that it is managed by business men and women who don't seem to be music fans. I wonder if they know what it feels like to be moved by music so hard and so intense that you could not escape the sound?

When a trend setting artist comes along, some of these business types have the ability to find or groom other acts that are close in style to the trend setting artist. Then they flood the market with a bunch of soul-sucking, mediocre-to-poor imitations of the same thing, and it goes on for five to ten years until some other innovative artist breaks some new ground.

And of course this is not to glamorize the workings of the independents or major labels. We cannot deny the "golden" years of the '50s and '60s, when the mob ran the record business! And when every other band was a mediocre-to-poor imitation of the Beatles or whatever was popular at the time.

We also can't deny what happened in the 1980s and 1990s when mega-corporations like Sony and Matsushita took over and when every other band was a mediocre-to-poor imitation of color me badd or the grunge sound of the moment? At least that is what we heard on corporate radio.

Am I trying to argue that what's really good for the music
business is even further corporate consolidation and slavish copying of the backstreet boys and the spice girls? Because that's exactly what was going on when the "real" music biz was at its absolute peak, in the late 1990s and early 2000s.

God have mercy no! That is not what I am saying at all.

I'd say the pop biz is in the middle of a golden era right now,
artistically speaking it is just that not enough money is coming in to make the lawyers and business managers happy, well, too bad for them, I say!

I really think that 95-percent of the good music, today, is coming from bands on independent labels. One could argue that many of these bands should be on major labels, if artistic merit had anything to do with how big of a promotion and advertising budget that you got to put behind your band.

Other than an odd exception or two, I think that most of what the major labels are putting out is pretty dire. They seem more concerned with how attractive or controversial their artists are, rather than if they can make good music or have anything interesting, inspiring, or unique to say.

Not saying that there's ever been a particularly fantastic era for major labels, but I think that this one is particularly bad.

...

Ok, back to waiting for Rove to be fired or resign. I would put my money on a resignation. Hell, anything that slows down the Bush Religious Right agenda is a good thing, right?