- Young Rock Star writes a song. It's good. Record executive (a.k.a., "The Man") puts it on the radio.
- Young Rock Star goes on tour to promote the song.
- Teenage hipsters download the song for free - refusing to pay in an effort to stick it to "The Man."
- The song is no longer cool after ten days. The Young Rock Star endeavors to make enough money in tips to afford the bus trip home.
- "The Man" sits in his office smoking a cigar and wondering what it would be like to own a second blimp. (Maybe his interns could get in them and race?)
- Young Rock Star, while sleeping in a bus station, hears his song being used as a ring tone. The excitement is almost enough to make him forget his hunger.
- Teenagers flood 4Chan discussion boards demanding more free music. Studio execs, who don't know 4Chan from 4 wheel drive, never hear the message. (Also, they are considered better off for not knowing about 4chan.)
The albums weren't just collections of singles; the individual songs and tracks were each written and orchestrated so that they would point in the same artistic direction. The colors and photos on the album would
communicate the theme to us even further. In short, the album, as a whole, could communicate something that a song could not.I don't mind paying for albums any more than I mind paying for good books. To spend time listening to a well composed album was a privilege and I'm happy to support the musicians and even their agents and producers for giving us this form of art.
But it's dead. Rarely does a band put out an album that is intended to be received in its entirety. No longer do we put on albums and lay on the floor listening and soaking up the emotions of that unique experience. (In fact, some of you don't even know what I'm talking about.)
And, if you haven't noticed, music has taken a real hit. Avril is considered "punk" and Kelly Clarkson (who seems really cool) is considered "rock." (No one would say this if Sponge and STP were on the radio.) Few songwriters of any note can be found in today's music and even fewer musicians who can give us virtuosic guitar solos or sweeping orchestrations. Sure, I can name a few - but there used to be so many more.
Until someone figures out a real solution to this problem we will continue to see the slow death of music. I don't care about copyrights and anti-consumerism - I care about music and it has become a casualty of an ideological war. Do we realize what we are taking away from ourselves when we fight this battle?
5 comments:
It might help if the industry wasn't so focused on finding "new talent" that they've been throwing up crap for many years now under the guise of "new talent" and trying to tell us what we like. Between The Jonas Brothrs and The Backstreet Boys, is their any doubt they're attempting to manipulate the youth in what can only be described as capitalism at it's worst? Couple that with many lackluster bands putting out albums with one cool song (and all of the rest sucking), and you basically have an industry oversaturated with crap. People don't want to pay for a whole album when they only care about one song. I can't count how many albums I bought as a teen where it turned out that I was buying the album because of one song, and I felt like I had totally wasted my money. These one hit wonders have been crammed fown our throat by the industry, too. So, frankly, I have no sympathy concerning the song vs. whole album model. I think it's much more fair to the consumer. The copyrights and downloading issues are mostly separate though. Although, many would cite the above as part of a larger argument for free music, most of these will be either ignorant fools or Richard Stallman type rebels. I want artists to get paid for good work. I just don't like being gyped all the time.
The single release of a hit song was usually available - there was no need to buy an entire album if only one song was good. That's how I ended up with the Verve Pipe recording of Freshmen.
That depends on finding the single. In my experience (when I was younger), that was not always easy. Especially in the world of Christian music, which is what I preferred to listen to most of the time. And, besides, the radio stations don't play the whole album, so how do you even judge it without sitting in the music store listening to the whole thing? My experiences with the music industry in this regard has seemed very much like a bait and switch scheme. I really hate it when bands put out several albums with one (sometimes two) good song(s) each. You say you lament the days of people buying whole albums. I lament the days of people being able to buy whole GOOD albums. The industry right now is saturated with cheap, disposable talent aimed at youth with disposable income and easily manipulated tastes. (Which really fits your Young Rock Star story, btw)
I don't think you've listened to them, so I would like to recommend a couple of whole albums you might enjoy: PFR: Pray for Rain, PFR: Goldies Last Day, and PFR: Great Lengths. PFR is one of my favorite Christian bands. While probably a bit overrated in this regard, they were being compared quite favorably to the Beatles at one point. (so, you might like them. Just don't expect the Beatles)
Peace out
I believe these bands are poor because the industry is only able to support "studio" music and can't take the financial risk of signing on a more complex and risky group. When business was booming we saw a lot of variety and new things were being done in music.
Coldplay's newest album is freakin' brilliant and one of the best albums ever. They just had to be Coldplay to have that kind of studio investment.
I think the bands were already bad when the music industry was enjoying several years of "booming" in the mid to late 90's. CD sales were at their highest ever during the time of Napster, and it wasn't until the music industry started going after file sharing legally that it started really dropping. (ironically (and hard for the industry to believe), services like Napster encouraged many people to buy more CDs. I know many people who bought way more because they could find the music they liked on Napster, and they wanted to pay those artists. The music industry passed up a golden opportunity to get involved in creating a new and wonderfully successful business model when they went after Napster and file sharers. They've been paying for it ever since.)
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