@sns + 1
131 responses Add your response
@jbhiller Barriers to entry much less today than ever, I agree may be more difficult to find the cream only due to much larger catalog to choose from. On the other hand, easier than ever to find the cream with streaming, one can sample great number of releases in relatively little time. Prior to streaming the only place I discovered less commercial music was University student radios stations and a few independents,
How do we know the cream easily rose to the top from 30's-70's with oligopolies controlling music business. There was exclusive cadre of A&R guys, vast majority looking for profit generating artists, perfect climate for domination of commercial music.
I agree far more distractions and entertainment venues exist for young folks today, music as anything more than background noise is minority pursuit. But then, hasn't music always served that purpose for the vast majority.
My perception of those who can't find quality music from recent times. I observe many use music to reminisce and/or hear familiar themes from the decades they more relate to. I understand the nostalgia and reminiscing, don't understand the mental block for more recent music, plenty of newer music and artists with retro sound and themes. The other thing I don't understand is avoidance of newer genres and lack of curiosity, arguments as to lack of musicianship is just a weak rationalization for chosen ignorance and closed mind. Music, just like everything changes over time, sometimes for the best, sometimes for the worse, never only for the worst or best. | ||||||||
@cd318 There’s an intention to make art and do so in a viable fashion. Then there’s an intention to simply produce a viable commodity. These are two different things. Justin Bieber is not losing sleep fretting over whether his art is too vacuous, formulaic and unoriginal. Radiohead is. Michael Bay doesn’t lose sleep over such things. Martin Scorsese does. The wonderful documentary, “Heart’s of Darkness: A Filmmaker’s Apocalypse” features recorded conversations of Francis Ford Coppola with his wife, Eleanor. These conversations feature Mr. Coppola expressing enormous anxiety about whether he is making a “sh***y, pompous, bad movie.” He had assets, set pieces, clout, bankable stars, plenty of stuff that could have caused him to be content, rest on his laurels, and get away with an unscrupulous attention to detail, emotional resonance, truthful social commentary and truthful examination of human nature. He didn’t. These concerns drive him to the brink of madness because he cared about them deeply. I think we can recognize when artists care in this way, and when they do not. | ||||||||
Crocodile call "art" the way they put a corpse to decay under water for some weeks before eating it... They say this is their "taste"... Music is about art and beauty and spiritual experience.... Entertainment also...But when entertainment is the only value, and change of sound the only meter for popularity we have a problem... If we are only interested by entertainment, corporations will be happy to give us the necessary varieties of rotten meat... Music need education like any sciences or any other arts... Are we crocodile who are only happy with our "tastes" and stuck with it till our death ?
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Murder Most Foul (+Tempest) are 2 obvious candidates for recent songs that will endure for a very long time to come.
Making movies or making music has nearly always been about primarily making money. Lasting works of art in these fields tend to be more accidental than planned in my opinion. Especially when you consider how the business side of them both work. It’s no exaggeration to add that sometimes the business side becomes more interesting than the product side. How could it not when you have characters such as Louis B Mayer, Harry Cohn, Howard Hughes etc all involved? And it was little different when Stan Lee was ordered by Marvel Comics publisher (his uncle Martin Goodman) to try to come up with something to match DCs Justice League of America. A swift change of direction saw Marvel move from churning out westerns, romances, horrors into churning out superheroes. At no point was Lee instructed to produce great works of art.
Here’s comics historian Barry Pearl writing on the matter for the Crivens! Comics & Stuff! website.
"No matter what fans want to think, producing comics is a business - the art and story come second. Stan’s job was to make money for Marvel, produce comics on time, and increase sales, something which he did very well. Even Jack Kirby said that his job was to "sell magazines" - not necessarily to create good ones, but to sell them. In 1960 Marvel was selling 16,000,000 copies a year. By 1966, Steve Ditko had left and, even though he was no longer on Spider-Man and Dr. Strange, Marvel was selling 35,000,000 comics a year."
https://kidr77.blogspot.com/?m=1
Is any of it art?
Well, that’s usually down to the eye and ear of the beholder, isn’t it? | ||||||||
Is it sarcasm? Or is it a serious attempt to make a cheap point? Place an icon to mark inoffensive sarcasm... I think you are too intelligent to consider this post your best... 😊 | ||||||||
Here an example of popular music which is not a commercial product first and last...Never played on any radio and TV in US...Or in Canada... Why? a clue: the power of a business of conditioning the mind to buy meaningless products.to make them "popular" Commercial crap for everyone with no soul nor traditional roots... She is the Russian Joan Baez or Joni Mitchell, all two great popular artists that never compromised their souls to create "commercial" music .... Popular poets and musicians are not commercial objects created for the masses entertainment by business...Corporations can sell them yes but they never created them....It is not the case for many "commercial" "artists".... The fact that the border between popular high quality music and commercial product is not a clear line, dont means that the distinction is not there and useless...
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By the way this article if someone read it, is not about a nostagic old dude complaining...it is an objective description of the business power over music... The reduction of a part of popular music to commercial means and goals...This make "commercial" music product completely new product for the consumers, where music play a secondary role and is often ugly... It make sense to me...
«The reality today is that the music industry makes money off of everything other than the music, if it makes money at all. Concert tickets, tour revenue, product tie-ins and licenses, and swag at all the events are the real money makers. The corporate suits and conglomerate clowns who came to own and operate the major music businesses were not only musically deaf and dumb, but also greedy, lazy, and unwilling to change. The music business has always been about the business first and the music as an afterthought, but the industry didn’t really take care of either one for many years. The music execs made three main mistakes, which are just as likely to cause problems in your business if you’re not careful.... --- First, much like the movie business -- with its franchises and tentpole films -- the labels constantly pushed the talent for more and more of the same. ---Second, the head honchos were completely risk averse and unwilling to invest in anything other than the very sure thing that their current catalog of music represented. New delivery methods, new production technologies, new channels to reach their users were all available, but none of the old-line traditional players stepped up. Instead, they left the field wide open for Apple and other tech companies to develop innovative and attractive new solutions. ----And finally, with the emergence of streaming and fixed algorithmic systems for radio play, the industry bean counters discovered a fundamental truth: They were being paid exactly the same amount per song whether the song was brand new or 50 years old. They quickly concluded that if their customers (stations and streamers) were indifferent to the age of the content and the end users were actually looking for the older music, there was little or no reason to rock the boat and push for new material. Investing in new talent turned out to be an incremental cost which they chose to avoid. »
I will add to that the ethical and esthetical imperative to educate people about music, were no more supported by corporations and way less so by radio and TV ... We must educated ourselves...It is possible more than ever with internet for example ... But we are alone here.... There is more better musical choices possible than ever in the past, but there is less musical education in media and in school than ever... And popular music was vampirized by commercial musical marketing and productions tools in the hand of non musicians but businessmen... For sure...
Here an exemple of a popular piece of the highest quality which had nothing to do with commercial music chain ugly meaningless production...
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First you distorted what i was speaking about... It is not the first time you do that... I was speaking about the differences between POPULAR music and COMMERCIAL music in general...This disctinction exist and it is not born from my sole opinion... Popular music in general may be very good, commercial music is rarely good... I dont condemn anything, i said that commercial music is uglier than ever... You assimilate my observation with a condemnation of popular music. to make your ugly point insulting me.. All popular music is not commercial music, only a part of popular music is commercial fabricated junk...But this junk nowadays is on the air more than in the golden age of popular music.. Then before insulting people pratice your brain about reading their post...
And dont imitate your poster guru here, the one you give always +1, speaking to me like him at the third person like an appeal to the crowd and like if i was not there... Grow an individualized brain...
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Because the more higher the music qualities, the more cultutrally different the music qualities, the more it ask for an educative process which is not the task of big musical corprations controlling official medias like radio... Some little business musical company do it, or the musicians themselves do it publishing themselves and recording themselves ... Not the general big broadcasting company... Do you think american radio broadcasters promote the sarangi or the ehru or the talking yoruba drum music? Or even some unknown nordic jazzmen? All these music are very popular somewhere around the world...They are not very good commercial product in North America...
For sure music is a personal experience so what? Did i negate this common place fact? But commercial music is not synonym with popular music... Bob Dylan being popular is not commercial musak music... And this is a FACT.... Popular dont equal commercial here...
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Wow, this guy sure has a lot of time to have listened to all 'commercial music of today', whatever that is - I guess the music he likes is not intended to be sold - and make a blanket condemnation of all of it. Or is it more "I don't like it so it's horrible and ugly!!!". Never seen that attitude before....🤣 | ||||||||
Great remarks...
There exist great musicians and singers more than ever today, but they are marginalized by bad commercial products... We have access to great Chinese music, Indian one, Persian, one Nordic Jazz, etc... Music today is stronger than ever.... But medias are owned by few people....Publicity and marketing , fabrication of products, polluted official mediums... We will remember great music in decades to come , not because we will listen to it on radio like in the 50 or 60, but because we will stumble on it using peripheral channels to access it...It is my case.... Commercial music of today is horrible... Uglier than possible... But there is more great music and musicians now than ever... | ||||||||
Much of the music from the 60's is long lost in our memories (ditto the 70's). We remember the good stuff, or more specifically, we remember the stuff that generates the highest emotional engagement, which does not need to be the highest emotional engagement in everyone, but a high enough emotional engagement in enough people to keep the memory alive:
On the other hand, if you take away the recency effect it’s hard to see which albums from the last 20 years will make the cut a century from now. I copied a list from Wikipedia of the top songs of 1969. How many of those do you remember clearly? "I can't get next to you" by the Temptations I had no memory of. Same for "I'll never fall in love again". "Sugar Sugar", "Everyday People" .... will never forgot those songs, and can sing word for word. They generate strong positive emotions. It was a particularly good year though. Go to a bar and watch what songs younger people are emotionally engaging with when played. Those will last.
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Again.... 😁😊 Sheet music was not ONLY and MAINLY a "commercial" business, it was a cultural necessity first to make playing family and musical education a general societal fact... The commercial aspect here are subordinated to the musical activity.... The fact that i will buy a wedding ring and a dress, does not make love a business, or a commercial sex enterprise...Internet will do it on s scale so great that it will make old prostitution business a primitive economical game .... Like recording and vinyl albums will make music an "object" to sell more than an event...We can buy a violin or sell it too this does not make music a "commercial" affair...And someone claiming sheet music make music a business is not wrong but it extend and distort the meaning of the activity out of his limits... Music begun to be a business after recording invention...And after the development of modern marketing technique many aspects of music begin to be a consumers objects instead of being mainly a spiritual activity...
With Edison and the marketing of music playback with recording, music begin to be a product itself, an no more mainly a spiritual event .... The musical activity here became subordinated to the commercial goals...
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@cd318 - I wouldn't negate the nostalgia factor; there's still a lot of older people around, and most of them are not going to be listening to much of anything newer than the 70's or 80's. You can see that on a lot of forums.... | ||||||||
Small minded article from a small minded author. Alas, there has never been a time with more musical creativity and new artists then the present. But if you don't know, you don't know. Time to venture out away from confines of SiriusXM and FM radio. I recently saw a fantastic new singer/songwriter at the LA Times Book Faire and there's so many more to discover, but you have to look in new places new mediums and beyond international borders. Its a big world full of wonderful things waiting to be discovered. Now about that article; best thing about it is the volume of responses it triggered
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I personally find those that unapologetically produce lowest-common-denominator schlock with no pretense less offensive than those who do the same but endeavor to (and unfortunately succeed at) convincing the public they are “serious artists.” I consider the likes of, say, Justin Bieber (music) and Michael Bay (film) less offensive than the likes of say, Jon Batiste or James Gunn. Batiste makes insipid, formulaic music, delivered with his trademark smile and “joyfulness” that panders to the lowest-common-denominator music fan. James Gunn makes movies based off of comic books (no further description needed). Wolves in sheep’s clothing. If they were honest, I wouldn’t really care either way. But Baptiste loads his music and image with hollow and vapid signifiers like, “freedom,” somehow getting shoehorned into the arena of “socially conscious artists.” James Gunn refuses to acknowledge that comic book movies, under no circumstances, can be considered “art” in the same way Bergman, Fellini, Scorsese etc. can. Instead, he publicly bristles at an innocuous, uncontroversial statement by Scorsese, tries to convince us that these comic book movies are, “cinema.” If he wants to make comic book movies, it’s a free country. I would hope then that such a person would have the self-awareness, maturity, and lack of pretension to accept this choice for what it is: profit-driven, not art-driven. No more, no less. Take this lyric from Batiste’s 2021 song “I NEED YOU, the 2nd single off his 2022 Album of the Year Grammy-winning album, “WE ARE:” ”In this world with a lot of problems/All we need is a little loving” There you have it, folks. All the moral courage, artistic bravery, poetic brilliance and subversive energy of an episode of “The Lawerence Welk Show.” This is the one that gets me, from the same song: ”We working overtime / don’t need another million / you got that goldmine / I love the way you’re livin’ / ‘cause you’re so genuine” How “genuine” was Mr. Batiste, how devoid of “need for another million” was he when he co-opted Billy Ocean to carry the water for Amazon Prime in his brand new commercial he just filmed? A real social justice warrior. Earning more millions to be a shill for one of the least just corporations in the world.
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Good music lasts. Why are there so many "oldies" stations these days? Because the 60’s and 70’s were the golden age of popular music. It’s not nostalgia, it’s that the music was just that great.
Good music certainly does last. People all over the world are still enjoying music written hundreds of years ago. Virtually all of the classical genre that has survived was written before we had any means of playing it back at home for ourselves. That’s quite impressive, isn’t it? Even from our own lifetimes, we can be fairly certain that some pieces of music will last as long as the human race does. The 1960s in particular remains endlessly fascinating. That miraculous decade more or less featured everything that followed since. On the other hand, if you take away the recency effect it’s hard to see which albums from the last 20 years will make the cut a century from now. But then you could also argue the same for other art forms such as painting, sculpture, literature, television, film etc.
It would appear that human creativity has now moved on to other equally profitable areas of endeavour. There’s already millions of attention seeking YouTube channels for example and new computer games coming out every week. Then there’s the worlds of business, politics and finance...
That old Warhol comment about fame has never seemed more true and making money has never seemed so glamourous. | ||||||||
@deludedaudiophile Just go and read some Horkheimer and Adorno and educate yourself. | ||||||||
For sure, i can listen to any indian master or any Nordic jazz i wanted too... Commercial industrial music is bad, but we have access now also to the best artists there is in the world... | ||||||||
This was a very strange article. reminder..there’s always something..EQ, Compression, Auto Tune or Melodyne! Kind of an engineers (record companies) are screwing with mother nature case. The simple truth is right now, it is an amazing time to be into music. Better than ever. Pick your medium, records, CD’s, streaming. Etc etc etc! You have more options available than ever. There are far more niches available, categories and sub categories. There are more avenues for artists to get their music recorded and out. You can have an entire studio in your laptop. Finally, it is becoming a bit tiresome when top ten list comparisons are made. Overlooked is all the lame or poorly recorded pop peppering the charts..1953? “ “ “How much is that doggie in the Window”…number three selling record. Comparing Led Zeppelin with Justin Bieber is hardly apples to apples. There needs to be some context!
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@sns I agree we don’t value artists. As a musician, I am quite aware as to how devalued artists’ contributions to society are. It couldn’t be more apparent. I’m not sure a business model that requires artists to receive 100,000 “plays” before they make $400, especially during inflation and a live-show-limiting global pandemic, has “nothing inherently wrong with it.” | ||||||||
Music for the Courts of Nobility is NOT the music we hear today. We hear the major works for the masters, which was commissioned by nobility and religious leaders, the latter which obviously had wide distribution, but the former also was used to appease the "masses" at least the much lesser nobles, merchants, etc. There was little music for the masses at all then. YOU may want to learn a little about say "Mozart" and what a patronage meant back then. Today's equivalent is employee with a rather defined salary whether for nobleman or religious leader, the definition of "commercial". He eventually struck out on his own .... again commercial ... and then went back to employment. It was called "patronage" back then, as unlike say a blacksmith, there was no inherent value or output you were being paid for, a frivolity so to speak, but absolutely his commercial paid career was making music, complete with the influence of his "patron".
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Best not to post about things you apparently know next to nothing. Ever heard of patronage and the patron system? Patronage isn't commerce or commercialism, nothing close. And to say music for the courts of the nobility was consumed by the masses is so self-evidently wrong it isn't even funny.
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Great post! It is this radio or other media most of the times crap i called "commercial" music... Very good popular music all across the world is unknown in traditional media... Artists are boycotted .... They are not enough usable "commercial" products.. There is more artist creators in music today than ever, but corporations rules not art... | ||||||||
@parker65310"There is an incredible variety of great music still being created all the time. One just has to keep an open mind and be curious and willing to put the time in to search it out." The fact that we have to search it out rather than have it presented to us on the radio or some other medium is the problem in a nutshell. It's the people who are choosing what to present to us on the radio or some other medium who are the problem because they aren't willing to expand their searches and fall back on the simplistic, routine, and boring garbage that makes it onto the radio today. I have no problem saying there is likely great music being created today. I also have no problem saying that most of what makes it onto the radio or onto other media today is drivel. | ||||||||
Thanks for your always kind words... Yes there is parallels between popular music now and then... But "commercial" music exist only with Edison invention... And popular crowds reaction deont change with time, what changed for the worst in " commercial music" is the diffrence between a "product" to sell, the performer itself, and the artist status and creative talent... For sure art and beauty is participated by a minority in every ciltures at any times... But "commercial" music is recent... And most of the time "ugly"...And i speak about commercial music here being ugly, not popular music... Bob Dylan is a poet and great musician ....So are many others popular artists...A popular artist can be and is also a commercial produt for sure, but not all commercial products are real creative artists...
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Great thread! I think popular music suffers today and has for about 20 years, give or take. One of the problems is barriers to entry. Every artist can make their own album on a laptop. With the increase in artists, it’s harder to find the musical standouts. In the 1930s through 1970s, for instance, the cream easily rose to the top. Lack of physical media doesn’t help. On the one hand, it’s great to stream and have access to nearly everything. On the other hand, young folks don’t have as many memories about music partly due to quality and the diminishing importance of music in their lives, and partly due to the fact that they listen not even on Spotify/Tidal, etc., but on Youtube. My daughter and her buddies do this. Such a far cry from my collection of 45s, making mix tapes, and collecting albums. Public taste has changed too. While their are certainly tons of live shows/events, in the "old days" people used to go out to hear music frequently. People used to listen to music more on a regular basis. There was no Netflix, Amazon Prime, binge TV watching, on demand, etc. Who remembers having 3-4 VHF channels and a couple of UHF? On average, I personally believe people just don’t care or value music in the same way they did 40+ years ago. What’s interesting to me is that the ability of those who play instruments has increased. I’m leaving creativity aside. Just physical ability. There are so many exceptionally skilled instrumentalists out there. I have personally met a bunch. Most of these folks though aren’t on the radio or playing key roles in major bands. While I generally agree that the more things change, the more they stay the same, I do think we are in a different popular music landscape than we saw in the 20th century. Sometimes when I hear someone or a group who I think is pretty talented and has something musical going on I think, Man, I wish T Bone Burnette would produce your next album. Sorry for the rambling... | ||||||||
@deadhead1000 + 1 | ||||||||
Hard to face the fact the type of music we grew up with and love is not the most popular music any more. That does not mean that new music in that genre is no longer created, it just is not the dominant mainstream any more. If you grew up and loved rock, you should at least be able to appreciate the likes of Twenty One Pilots, One Republic, even Imagine Dragons. People forget that the Beatles came on the scene only 15 year after the release of the LP. Having recorded music in the home was not even common place till well into the 50's. | ||||||||
I think we have heard this lament time and time again, as others have said. | ||||||||
The article author is described above as 'myopic'. That's about right. All he is saying is that he doesn't 'get' current music. Nor do I, but that's no reason for spilling ink. Fact is that current music appears to be just as popular as old music. The author's opinion is his opinion and I for one found reading his bigoted article a waste of time. Roll over Beethoven, as has been said. | ||||||||
Music is fine and more than enough, you choose the genre and era. Whatever pleases you. What changes is style, labels, musicians, production, media, management. Still love the music i grew up but anything new is refreshing. Music has not lost its charm but the myths around it (are we growing older?). | ||||||||
I’ve been involved in music for many decades as a pro musician and live sound mixer and so much of that article (and the responses here) is such nonsense it makes my head spin. By the way, "commercial" music has been around since way before recorded music in the form of sheet music for the millions of pianos out there. Look it up...and these days you can find singer-songwriters in "folkie" clubs who are astonishingly good and will not likely ever be as famous as Beiber but still get out there, the jazz world that seemingly few around here care about is utterly teeming with brilliant musicians, etc. Pop music has always sucked with a few exceptions, but so what? I listen to exactly zero pop music due to personal taste, and it’s really easy to ignore it these days...my collection of stuff, great streaming services...man...get over it. | ||||||||
A long time ago, music was very simple; then it became more complex (and therefore more expressive). Now it’s become less expressive again, which some interpret as "it sucks." Up until the year 1000 AD music was only played with the seven natural notes (e.g., the white keys on a piano). The Bb note was "discovered" in 1025 AD in Italy. By 1450 AD, our 12 note scale was fully available on a piano keyboard and in some church organs. 7 white keys and 5 black keys that could be sharps or flats depending on the song’s musical key. By 1700-ish, Bach was composing all sorts of inventive things in new keys, including resolved dissonant suspensions. Stravinsky and others extended this to use dissonance without resolution. Erik Satie wrote a whole song composed of tritones ("the devil’s interval"). Each generation pushed the envelop. The music of the 1920’s-1940’s used resolved dissonance, diminished chords to link key changes, etc. Think of anything by Hoagy Carmichael, like "Georgia on My Mind." Jazz just mixed all of this with the blues of Black Americans (which came from African microtonal music, which is why trills are used on the piano to approximate these microtones). Early rock and roll simplified things again, mostly to just three chords. It was considered by many derivative and trite compared to big band music, classical or jazz, but by the 1960’s (Beach Boys "Warmth of the Sun", Beatles "Because") musicians were introducing augmented and diminished chords, and changing keys. Jazz got experimental (Miles Davis, Dave Brubeck), rock got experimental (Yes, ELP); jazz-rock got experimental (Frank Zappa). All this exention of music was "inspired" more than "copied blatantly" (some things crossed the line, like "Here Comes the Sun" vs. "He’s So Fine", even if subconsciously). There are a number folk-rock songs based on classical songes ("Blackbird" is based on Johann Sebastian Bach’s "Bourrée in E minor", Paul Simon’s "American Tune" based on Christian passion hymm "O Sacred Head, Now Wounded".) Rap began in the 1970’s and the Sugar Hill Gang got the first #1 single ("Rapper’s Delight") in the genre in 1979. A lot of that music uses samples, which changed what it meant to copy someone’s song. Nowadays, many pop songs are assembled rather than composed. Songs like "Fantasy" by Mariah Carey are just a melody line added to a sample of the Tom Tom Club’s "Genius of Love". The "original" songs of the modern pop genre don’t have more than 3, or at most 4 chords in a song. There’s no tension, no resolution; just the same hook repeating throught the song... Drum samples ensure there is no variation in the beat, also contributing to the monotony. The ears of 50 and 60-year olds remember that "golden age of rock" where songs were much richer from chord / key change perspective, or jazz. They appreciate that Guitar George knows all the chords. But to hear those strange chords, strange time signatures, etc., you have to go off the beaten track of listening. There are gems to be found, but they’re not in the industry’s factory of 3-note songs, samples, and other rubbish. Luckily, streaming provides access to a good fraction of those people who are just trying to make good music, rather than "be famous." With so much music out there, I listen to what I like, and I always try to find time to understand some music that’s outside my realm of experience. Sometimes I like the new stuff... a lot of times, I don't... | ||||||||
(...rather than waste space: The Hives, Hate to Say I Told You So) @mahgister ...If ever in your company, I will happily listen to your setup and your music. Even if it happens to be here than there.... Just made a typo, 'hear' for 'here'....interesting, that... ;) Classical forms were supported by the 1%'ers of those times and places. I listen to what sounds good to me, and repeat and mark what and where it is. Sofar reminds me of the Roches...who reminded me of the Andrews Sisters, the Everly Bros., and other harmonic groups even back into classics... Big Band I grew up to, along with polkas (which remind me of mariachi ), the crooners Crosby, Sinatra, Spike Jones.... I found the 'bubble gum music' of the white guys kept me initially from the Beatles...Fortunately. The later stuff had some intelligence behind it... ;) Jazz for awhile....listened to the LA stations, too early to own my own at the time. That changed, didn't it...the late 60's > 90's gear was a blizzard of available means to make music sound 'real'...more or less, just like now. (Interlude) Currently: Classics thru NOW. EDM, Trance, Chemical Bros.(The Test), Prodigy (Narayan), Sound Cloud, Spotify, and billiard balling through YT following my eyes for the ears. Hi, @mapman ....Down with you on it....following my arc... ;)
It's either where music goes, or it's back to the logs 'n rocks by the fire... *L* ;)
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He's wrong, same old garbage that was said about music in the 1920's, 1940's and then the 50's , 60's , 60's , 70's etc. And as for RAP, I heard the same complaints about Bob Dylan lyrics back int he 70's, the older folks thought he was deranged talking about laying across my big brass bed (Sex!), act just like a little girl (underage sex!), blowing in the wind (drugs of course!), Weathermen, a name taken later by a terrorist group (See! He wants to kill cops!), crazy and disgusting music, never last they said..... My older sister and brother-in-law hate any music that isn't 1950's type rock and roll. Which means many of the artists this author points out in the article that he says are great and classic, they can't stand listening to and think of it as garbage. It's tan opinion not fact. So just because he doesn't like Rap, it's not good music. That's an opinion, not fact. Hell, Bach would have hated Tchaikovsky. My Dad was in WWII listening to 40's music and couldn't stand 1950's or later music. And made fun of music from the 1920's as "My Dad's type of music. Horrible." What will be classic and still listened to in 50, 100, 500 years? Who knows. Especially this guy. ' Because you may not like what some music says or is about, or understand what it's actually trying to say, doesn't make it bad, it means you don't like it, Which is fine. Which is why I listen to every type of music and consider value in all of it. I obviously have favorites and ones I don't listen to often, but I'll try and understand any music. And I'll try more then once also.
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@tylermunns While I understand the attachment to physical media, I have well over 3500 vinyl. Isn't the true intrinsic value of recordings the music itself?
As far as the business model of streaming, don't blame it on streaming, nothing inherent to streaming that makes it unfair to artist's renumeration. Blame this on a society/culture that doesn't value artists in general, mass taste means only a few artist reap vast majority of rewards, the rest are lucky to make a living salary or do it expecting little or no income.
For those who think the golden age of music all in the past, music business models existent in those days were far worse for vast majority of artists. Extremely limited number of labels controlled entire music business, percentage of artists getting studio time for recording miniscule. I often think about how many great artists were never recorded, what a waste. Funny how people often remember things with rose colored glasses. | ||||||||
"You haven't become your father" I am 67 as well and when I was in my teens, I not only listened to popular music, but also to old blues guys like Howlin' Wolf, Otis Spann and John Mayall & The Bluesbreakers. I listened to the Mills Brothers, Al Jolson and Patsy Cline. You know why I listened to them. Because they were great artists and what made them popular in their day, still resonated with me. Good music lasts. Why are there so many "oldies" stations these days? Because the 60's and 70's were the golden age of popular music. It's not nostalgia, it's that the music was just that great.
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There is an incredible variety of great music still being created all the time. One just has to keep an open mind and be curious and willing to put the time in to search it out. I find great new music literally almost every day. I also don’t limit myself to a narrow scope of genres. For me there is truly only two types of music - good and bad. I just saw Damien Jurado (incredible acoustic show in a small converted church in Fayetteville, AR), saw Jimmy Buffet in Rogers, AR recently, I’m seeing Ray Wylie Hubbard at Cains Ballroom in Tulsa this Friday, Kaleo in Tulsa soon, followed by Marty Stuart and Junior Brown in Eureka Springs, then War on Drugs again here in Bentonville, followed by Dave Mason & Saucerful of Secrets at The Tulsa Theater in October. May even see Boz Scaggs in VA in early August. I’m all over the place in terms of genres because there is great music to be found all over the map. There are older musicians in the concert mix for me currently, but it’s not always this way for me. I’m just not interested in the mainstream corporate music, but that’s not a new phenomenon. There will always be the Budweiser of music playing in arenas and stadium with crappy acoustics (although I have to say I enjoyed Garth Brooks at Razorback Stadium earlier this year). Anyone that says there is no good music any more isn’t making the effort. | ||||||||
@sns Yeah, I agree. The access we have today to music from any era is amazing. It’s awesome. I wish I had it in my 20s. I agree with those that find the popular mode of modern music consumption unceremonious and utilitarian, just an endless, homogeneous matrix of files. However, no one twists our arm to only stream and only listen to digital files. One can still listen to music in any format. I would just like to see something where this more immediate, fluid music commerce of today could also provide artists with better pay! |