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MUSICAL_DAMAGE
October 25, 2003
One more time:
Same as it ever was,
or deep decadent decline?
I don't think there's much question that
popular music is in bad shape... in fact,
isn't it interesting that there isn't
that much question that something *has*
been lost?
You might take a line like
"it's all just a matter of
taste, if you like it you
like it, what right have we
to judge?"
But whenever we're confronted
with the hit of the moment, we
know immediately that we're
not looking at another
Doors, Who, or Airplane let Or even a
alone another Beatles. Talking Heads. Or a Billie
Holiday
Clearly some things
are very different.
The music industry is now capable
of manufacturing pre-fab megahits
(Britany, etc)... *but* these have
no staying power. No one cares about
"New Kids on the
But the recording labels make Block" now that
most of their money on their they're old.
back catalog, and their
current mega-hits will never
be worth anything in later
decades.
They've dug themselves into
a serious hole: they can make
a lot of money, but they need
to spend a lot of money to do
it, and *all* of their return
on that investment has to happen
quickly.
This is their central trouble:
internet file-trading is just
not having that big an effect on
their bottom line -- at least
not yet.
Walking around in (Note: written in 2003.)
public, I hear a lot
of very retro-music:
20 to 30 years old.
It really wasn't like
[his back when that
music was new. If
you went out to a bar
in 1975, you did not Caveat: there *was* the
hear Frank Sinatra on musak plague of the
the jukebox. 70s. For those of you
who are uninitiated,
In the 60s, (and to Musak was a company
*some extent* in the that claimed to have
70s and 80s) it was scientifically designed
possible* for a format of You couldn't
authentic, creative easy-listening go out to a
music to get a major wallpaper in the form supermarket in
label contract. of symphonic versions the 70s
of popular songs. without
Major labels were willing drowning in
to experiment with Though I guess in Musak. Now
different trends in the these post-"Kronos you're more
hopes of *discovering* the Quartet" days this likely to hear
next big thing (rather is standard procedure a "light rock"
than manufacturing it). in the "classical" station.
world, e.g. symphonic
"tributes" to Black
Disco, 70s punk, and new Sabbath.
wave were *all* picked up and
pushed by the majors though I'm skeptical of
sometimes -- often? -- this trend, but
without much in the way of still, the worst
return on their investment. of these are much
better than Musak
So they gave up. was.
Columbia is not going
to be discovering any
more Leonard Cohens.
It looks like something is
fundamentally broken in
our culture.
The music sucks because most people really
don't care about it very much, which in
itself might not be much of a problem, but
they don't seem to care a lot about much of
anything else either.
Of course, this is the
standard geezer lament:
Gee, back in our day were we really as
stupid as the kids are now? We were
certainly pretty stupid, but aren't
they even worse now?
Call me self-deluded if you like,
but I think they've finally
achieved perma-stupid.
But then there's a possibility that
future decades will look back on
this era as a passing phase, a "New
Fifties": Lost in xenophobia; a
dangerous lack of respect for core
civic values (freedom, democracy);
pop culture stagnant, creativity
driven way underground... Thank god
decades are only ten years long, eh?
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