the music industry: victim of the profit motive?

I have said this for years, but imagine if the visual arts allowed self appointed know-it-alls and "experts" to cut and paste all over Van Gogh or Picasso's works, because they knew more than the artist themselves about what the public REALLY appreciated in the world of art. That is the music business in a nutshell. And now they seem to think musicians are totally expendable - have you heard the rythm section in pop music lately? The mechanical drums and bass sound like they were programmed by elementary school students (you no longer hear human drummers or bass players except in rock - it's all cheezy programmed simple beats and simple bass riffs). They are in such a quest to save money, they have brought music down to it's lowest form of prostitution ever. They are strangling the whole art of music.

Your a man after our own hearts.

As Phil pointed out with pirating, this is a moral issue, and when you think about programming cheezy soulless music without the use of musicians is certainly a moral dilemma. it puts people out of work. We've been discussing the idea that each generation has that its music is coming to pass and everything is in decline. By the 1980s, the studio system had started to dry up as more music became programmed, and that was a huge loss for music making here in the states.
 
Of late I've had this sneaking suspicion that I'm becoming a dinosaur. No, more that dinosaurhood snuck up on me while I wasn't looking and now here I am - an ancient, irrelevant relic and grouchy about new-fangled stuff.

I swore it would never happen to me but where to go?

Most techno is painfully repetitious. Metal is dynamics-challenged and designed to help young males get their ya-ya's out. The latest synthetic pop, where even the vocals are treated is dull as dishwater. The rock is formulaic and painfully derivative and predictable. The jazz bands around are playing the same old bop standards - or doing the smooth jazz/fusion thing. A few years ago my then-b/f took me to see an experimental gig. That was intermittently interesting but I could have done without the guy blowing an alto full of water while twiddling knobs on a box to produce feedback noises.

Excuse me while I waddle ponderously off to hunt down Henry Cow.
 
Of late I've had this sneaking suspicion that I'm becoming a dinosaur. No, more that dinosaurhood snuck up on me while I wasn't looking and now here I am - an ancient, irrelevant relic and grouchy about new-fangled stuff.

I swore it would never happen to me but where to go?

Most techno is painfully repetitious. Metal is dynamics-challenged and designed to help young males get their ya-ya's out. The latest synthetic pop, where even the vocals are treated is dull as dishwater. The rock is formulaic and painfully derivative and predictable. The jazz bands around are playing the same old bop standards - or doing the smooth jazz/fusion thing. A few years ago my then-b/f took me to see an experimental gig. That was intermittently interesting but I could have done without the guy blowing an alto full of water while twiddling knobs on a box to produce feedback noises.

Excuse me while I waddle ponderously off to hunt down Henry Cow.

Experimetal music is still out there, but it's as hard to find as ever. Have you tried listening to Jim Black or some projects of Nels Cline (Nels Cline Singers?)?
 
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wS7CZIJVxFY
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZZuTIYEe_p8
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_rn0-f2MQIo
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kols9wQQPzs
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X6hz_k4xua0
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EICkZWEzFGE
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2tn_v7nBbJA
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=69mLJw0g6MQ


just a few random selections. there is nothing wrong with music today. nor the industry. it's so easy to find good music if you know where to look.
one thing that strikes me is that it seems (some) musicians just tend to be pessimistic. there is so much good stuff going on. all the time. be happy. :)
 
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wS7CZIJVxFY
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZZuTIYEe_p8
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_rn0-f2MQIo
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kols9wQQPzs
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X6hz_k4xua0
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EICkZWEzFGE
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2tn_v7nBbJA
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=69mLJw0g6MQ


just a few random selections. there is nothing wrong with music today. nor the industry. it's so easy to find good music if you know where to look.
one thing that strikes me is that it seems (some) musicians just tend to be pessimistic. there is so much good stuff going on. all the time. be happy. :)

Good selection there. I heard Mars Volta haven't been too happy with the big label deal. They are so creative that they make new material faster than what the record company can release, marketting is slow =(. So now we have something like 3 Omar's soloalbums per one mars volta album =P ... I don't care, Omar's solos are sometimes even better than the volta itself. =P Have had some of the best times of my life with that band, and Tool also. Haven't really listened to them recently though.
 
ahaha yeah man. i really think TMV would be better off if they just released everything on their own label but hired different people to do things for them. i.e. promotion, tour management, etc. they have the music/recording down already. and yeah tool are like my favourite band ever, but i don't play so much of that stuff anymore. i mean, i'll usually play a couple of their songs each day, but i'm not constantly doing it. :)

atm i like really simple groovey stuff, like this - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=usigsQfrNyI&feature=fvw

sometimes i just loop that bassline and play along to it for hours on end.
 
just a few random selections. there is nothing wrong with music today. nor the industry. it's so easy to find good music if you know where to look.
one thing that strikes me is that it seems (some) musicians just tend to be pessimistic. there is so much good stuff going on. all the time. be happy. :)

This is true.

The flip side of all these changes is there are so many smaller labels putting out good music, and bands who are able to do what they do without major label support.

Mysapce, youtube and such gives anyone the ability to samples thousands of different bands from all over the world. Where is used to be you had to rely on radio, MTV or a buddies mix tape to hear anything new.

It is very easy to get an unsigned band added to the itunes catalog, where anyone can search for it.

Most of my current favorite bands would never get radio play or be featured on MTV (assuming they played music anyway), but they were there to be discovered, I've bought their albums, and see them when they tour. Some are obscure, some of the are huge in Europe, just not known in the USA.

I don't much care for The Mars Volta, but they fly in the face of every criticism of the current state of the industry by doing everything people complain can't be done anymore.

We may never have another Pink Floyd "Dark Side of the Moon" that sells 45 million copies, but it is replaced by 200 different albums that sell 225,000 copies each.

There are numerous "scenes" where dozens of bands are selling record and touring, and making some money. Maybe no one is rich, but they're doing it. The metal scene is the perhaps most obvious, where there are just so many bands that don't have a gold album, but support themselves on word of mouth, touring and putting out records on small labels.
 
I think that the problem with the capitalism+artistic business thing is that it's easy to have big business involved with it.

Personally, I don't like big business, but I think that's it can be called a necessary evil.

You don't really hear of anyone who doesn't get involved with this, though. There's not a lot of grays as far as I can see.
 
Big business is the reason why it so hard to be an up and coming artist. They control the radio and will play the same stuff over.
 
How different is it than the Beatles and other pop/rock groups in the sixties, where jazz, big band, crooner, and country lovers said basically the same thing about 'that' music?

In hindsight, we realize how indeed wonderful and timeless so much of it remains. Perhaps in 30 years, dance and rap and teen pop will viewed with the same nostalgia.

Bermuda

I don't think that people are going to look back with the same feeling. From what I've seen, the vast majority of people are listening to something just because it's popular, and when it loses it's popularity, they toss it aside like yesterday's garbage. Nowadays when you hear people talk about music from seven or eight years ago that they loved when it was popular they just complain that it's old and they're not interested in it anymore. Maybe if music today was less about image and more about making good music it wouldn't be that way. A lot of people won't even admit they listened to things that were popular 10 or 15 years ago that they were listening to.
 
Big business is the reason why it so hard to be an up and coming artist. They control the radio and will play the same stuff over.
When I was coming up during the 60s and 70s many FM radio stations played almost every track from an album.
Now they only play a limited list of hits!
Like Sting said in the Police song, "Its Music By Numbers"

A good friend is a DJ for WPLR in New Haven CT. WPLR used to play almost every song from every style of Rock. Now, It's a computer generated song list that is based on popularity only. This is all because of the music industry and the way that it is run today.

You used to have to buy an entire album to get the hit song. Now you just buy the single on iTunes! No one ever listens to the whole album anymore. The radio stations just ran with this concept.
Sponsors are not going to buy ads on a station that doesn't play only what are considered hits! Stations aren't going to pay royalties for less than popular music.

Its Just a matter of red and black ink.

The real money today in in touring. The pirating of music has never stopped. The only way that money can be made is through concerts.
The formula, Take a sex cymbal singer, Give them an image, And sell them to the max.

Apple insisted on the single song sale concept when they designed iTunes and sold the idea to the record companies.
Pirating was destroying the record companies at that time so they went along with the 99 cent song deal.
The pirating never stopped! No one has to pay for music today unless they want to!
 
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The real money today in in touring.

Touring has always been where the artists earn a vast majority of their money. I think that's one of the common misconceptions, that artists are making most of their money off of album sales, and that's simply not true. Ask the Rolling Stones what the ratio is of how much of the money they have made throughout their careers in terms of record sales compared to touring. I would bet a good 95% of that money was made touring, maybe more.
 
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It depends on what we're talking about when using the word "capitalism". It's important to specify whether or not you mean state-capitalism (i.e. political entrepreneurs exploiting state-power for profit) or the free market (i.e. market entrepreneurs "doing well by doing good.") They are indeed, opposing definitions...making the word "capitalism" tricky...or even meaningless.

On one hand, which is the current state of the music industry, you've got a system where protectionism guarantees a lack of innovation.

On the other hand, you have a system where consumers are able to truly speak and vote with their dollars, and competition guarantees innovation and creativity.

The "profit motive" is not a bad thing...indeed it is the primary factor for mutually beneficial economic growth and innovation, in the market. All anti-market rhetoric surrounding the "evil profit motive" is based on ignorance and lies.

Profit Motive = competition = innovation, lower prices and more choice. It is economic freedom, sans protectionism.

Add protectionist laws to the mix and you can begin to accurately describe the modern music industry, which is more concerned with maintaining the status quo through fear and intimidation (via protectionist laws.)

There's $0.02 from the Laissez Faire Peanut Gallery. ;)
 
Another thought,

As much as the major labels have screwed things up, and gotten away from artist development and have resorted to pushing bland, mindless tunes on the radio, the flip side is that the art of music is getting away from just being commerce.

Small bands all over the world are creating music and putting it out there that would have never had the chance under the old system. And because they know they won't be accepted by the majors, they don't try, and instead truly do what they want to do, creating art in music, which is why most of use are drawn to music in the first place.

The problem I have is there are so many bands out there now putting out decent to great music, it's tough to find enough time to listen to it all.
 
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