Maybe THIS is why CD sales are down...

[Anderton]

I think the New York Times got it right as to why we're not getting what we want from record companies...

 

"[Norah] Jones's numbers and the fact that she's selling mainly to grown-ups make record executives hopeful that a recovery in their troubled business is just around the corner. They are going to need to keep hoping. Their business seems to be structured against steady, long-term success. The psychology of the recording industry, like that of book publishing, is now so dependent on blockbuster sales that the idea of profitability based on modest sales across a diverse catalog has nearly vanished. The business depends on the hundred-year flood, not a steady rain."

 

And yes, sure, I know there's good music out there and it's not being promoted and blah blah blah. But that's ALWAYS been true, just ask Danny Gatton (if you could) or Roy Buchanan (if you could).

 

What has NOT always been the case is that the music being thrust on the public is so devoid of human content. I think a lot of people still hear some charm in the hits of decades ago, despite being naive or in some cases, just plain lame. But at least they represented a real musical experience.

[LiveMusic]

Originally posted by Bonedog:

I've had people come up to me (I play in a band that has put out 3 indie discs) and say how much they like the new disc. When I say "thanks for picking it up" I have actually gotten, "oh no, I just burned it from my friend". It's fucking insane!

Yup. Fucking clueless. Let's only hope they pay a cover charge to see you.

[Confusionator]

I blame two factors:

 

1. Everybody who wants lower taxes. Lower taxes over the past couple of decades led to worsened education, and arts/music classes were the first to go. Now we have raised a generation that hasn't learned how to play music or listen to music. We see the results in the porn actresses whom the public mistakes for musicians. We hear the results in the songs that anyone with just a smidge of musical education would recognize as vapid or fraudulent.

 

2. The recorded legacy. Why buy Ravi Coltrane when you can buy his dad? Why buy Korn when you can buy Zeppelin? A similar thing has happened regarding the visual arts. Books, CD's, and other artifacts raise the bar and make it more difficult for the current generation to make art unencumbered.

 

Great topic...

[pseudonym]

I saw this new thread earlier today and then started thinking about what everyone was talking about. It looks like you'all have most of the points and analysis going-on, but the "root-cause" is dismissed most of the time.

 

and that is..............................

That the people whom have taken control of you're "art", "culture", and "life", really hate you. They hate any form of free-thinking, expression of emotion and art-form? Sorry, maybe someone can convince me other-wise?

[m2]

Originally posted by Anderton:

But at least they represented a real musical experience.

Can you really blame any one thing? Perhaps there's a little truth in all the guesses everyone is always making.

 

There are lots of real musical experiences happening, both old and new, and even being thrust down everybody's throats. When Christina Aguilera sings that Beautiful song with just a piano and live band and strings, you can't say that is not an "old school" musical experience, whether you like it or not .

 

I just wish I could download some gas for my car. Everytime I fill up the tank, that's 2 CDS I have to steal .

[Groovepusher Sly]

I just read this whole thread. It's late and I don't have enough wind to be long winded.

The problem is that the "business" (record companies & radio) isn't run by musicians.

If this forum was a record company, we'd all be rich.

Record companies try to release CD's that are going to be hits. That's the old model of how to run a record company. The object should be, (with today's technology) to, release as many CD's as possible and see what "hits".

If the tunes in Craig's "Is Your Music Any Good" thread, were available at the (for example) iTunes Music Store, and we all had stock (in Craig's record company), we'd all be rich. The cream of the crop would go to the top, and sell the most, and the other tunes would sort themselves out, by not selling. Especially if there was limit on how many songs could be available at a time, say 250 to 500. Craig could set up a thread with a poll in it, to vote songs in. Just a thought.

Live music is making a come back. Evidence, the number of rappers using real musicians. True they aren't playing but two notes, but the trend is moving away from track dates. They may be musical idiots, but they're realizing a loop played by a real drummer sounds better than a sampler playing, or guy with a turntable playing it. Plus they are realizing that their show is more flexible with real musicians.

Everybody's already said most of what's wrong; why CD sales are flat, etc. So it's all about the new paradigm. whether we find, and execute it together or individually, it's changing.

Will the "companies" continue to exploit the product, or will the Mom & Pop's (us) collectively keep them from running a roughshod monopoly. Time will only tell. And I'm getting tired of trying to break into the monopoly.

 

Sly

[skipclone 1]

I think Craig deserves a big bravo and also, that while doing a good job of informing people of what`s new and cool on the technological front, it`s nice to see him post something like this too, where he`s telling it like it is-technology has teeth. If it gets out of control or falls into the wrong hands, kinda like now-we`re the ones who get bitten.

[FULLREFUSAL]

Originally posted by Anderton:

I think the New York Times got it right as to why we're not getting what we want from record companies...

 

"[Norah] Jones's numbers and the fact that she's selling mainly to grown-ups make record executives hopeful that a recovery in their troubled business is just around the corner. They are going to need to keep hoping. Their business seems to be structured against steady, long-term success. The psychology of the recording industry, like that of book publishing, is now so dependent on blockbuster sales that the idea of profitability based on modest sales across a diverse catalog has nearly vanished. The business depends on the hundred-year flood, not a steady rain."

 

And yes, sure, I know there's good music out there and it's not being promoted and blah blah blah. But that's ALWAYS been true, just ask Danny Gatton (if you could) or Roy Buchanan (if you could).

 

What has NOT always been the case is that the music being thrust on the public is so devoid of human content. I think a lot of people still hear some charm in the hits of decades ago, despite being naive or in some cases, just plain lame. But at least they represented a real musical experience.

Right on Craig....You hit the nail on the head, man! I too, am hopefull though.

[alfonso]

Reading this discussion has been interesting as many arguments show different approaches, and in all of them there is a bit of truth, so maybe there is room for another point of view.

 

First thing, if I make a comparison of how was the music felt in the 70's by all the young listeners and the way it is now, I see a huge difference. In the 70's it was a cultural revolution, a new language, where all the young people were experimenting the excitement of exploration of new aspects of life. The way of making music was exactly fed by the same urge, there was a sort of spiritual link between performers and consumers.

 

I remember occasions in the 70's were I was a young schoolboy, with a crappy electric guitar, playing in improvised experiments for 8-10 hours, in occupied schools for political reasons, in circular situations, with 20-30 young musicians alternating on the instruments produced a sort of mega-session snakeing through several soundscapes, rock, jazz, raw electric noise, percussive tribalism....with moments of great quality and moments of total mess, but with a central idea all over the happening: expression of the depths of everyone as a joyful moment of brotherhood.

 

Everything was admitted, there were good musicians and absolute beginners, but the spirit of research and expression was common to everyone.

 

That was the spirit moving people to music, as listeners too.

 

On the professional side this spirit lead to an incredible amount of truly innovative and original things. I remember that it took one bar only to understand from the sound wich was the group playing.

 

In the progressive or hard rock or jazz-rock or whatever, each artist had a real personality,and was doing something new, unheard before.

 

That's the difference. I don't know now how is the market, how many cd's...etc., I don't really care, but that excitement has been replaced by conformism.

 

Today nothing is really new. Nothing that is pushed by the industry of course, I'm sure that there are great ideas and musicians that have that excitement, but is not in the shelves generally.

 

Somebody here said that the level of the bands in the clubs is low, P.A. is bad, CD sound is cold....nothing of this is really wrong, but it's not relevant.

 

The drama is in the fact that if you go out today, in 2004, you get "them" broken by the same old stuff, jazz, blues, rap, all serialized, a copy of a copy, everyone trying to sound as this one or that one, because everyone wants to find his place in the business.

 

It's a triumph of the "maniera". And the U.S. industry is leading in this.

 

That's my point of view.

[EXAGON]

I agree with you Craig.

[Tedly Nightshade]

Originally posted by Confusionator:

I blame two factors:

 

1. Everybody who wants lower taxes. Lower taxes over the past couple of decades led to worsened education, and arts/music classes were the first to go. Now we have raised a generation that hasn't learned how to play music or listen to music. We see the results in the porn actresses whom the public mistakes for musicians. We hear the results in the songs that anyone with just a smidge of musical education would recognize as vapid or fraudulent.

 

2. The recorded legacy. Why buy Ravi Coltrane when you can buy his dad? Why buy Korn when you can buy Zeppelin? A similar thing has happened regarding the visual arts. Books, CD's, and other artifacts raise the bar and make it more difficult for the current generation to make art unencumbered.

 

Great topic...

I knew plenty of people in band in school who listened to the worst kind of crap... Still, music education is very valuable at least for musicians.

 

I don't know about Ravi Coltrane, but try Anoushka Shankar- she's red hot, bringing some serious funkiness and fire into traditional Indian music- her sister Norah Jones is the most trifling of talents in comparison.

[Anderton]

<>

 

Yes, it's a complex issue and there ARE many reasons. In starting this thread I was trying to shine a spotlight one another possible factor.

 

<>

 

There's room for plenty of views, that's what makes this all so interesting. I see this as calculus -- first approximation, second approximation, etc. Viewpoints become modified as more viewpoints become known.

 

<>

 

The "focus group" approach to music making!

[YourMotherShouldKnow]

What about this theory: there's a Nietzsche aphorism that goes,

 

The educational system. The educational system in large countries will always be mediocre at best, for the same reason that the cooking in large kitchens is at best mediocre.

 

- Human, All-Too Human #467

 

The market is so big (angry teens, ditzy teens, jocks, nerds, gays, ghetto, druggies, etc) and when an artist tries to please as many of these groups as possible, it comes out laughable. But perhaps it will sell in spite of that.

 

It's like a chef preparing the perfect dish for arch-bishops, autoworkers, politicians, poets and supermodels. And on this board specifially, it's like a chef preparing the perfect dish for other chefs. If the chef tries to please everyone, he has to keep it simple and mediocre.

[m2]

Originally posted by Anderton:

<>

 

Yes, it's a complex issue and there ARE many reasons. In starting this thread I was trying to shine a spotlight one another possible factor.

Oh. Then I don't think that's really it. Technology may be a huge distraction for a lot of musicians, but there are still tons doing it the old fashioned way.

[m2]

Originally posted by LanceMo:

[QB]What about this theory: there's a Nietzsche aphorism that goes,

 

The educational system. The educational system in large countries will always be mediocre at best, for the same reason that the cooking in large kitchens is at best mediocre.

 

- Human, All-Too Human #467

 

The market is so big (angry teens, ditzy teens, jocks, nerds, gays, ghetto, druggies, etc) and when an artist tries to please as many of these groups as possible, it comes out laughable. But perhaps it will sell in spite of that.

 

It's like a chef preparing the perfect dish for arch-bishops, autoworkers, politicians, poets and supermodels.

Then the chef sucks. A true chef can do it. It's been done. I'll give you one obvious example: Lennon and McCartney

[skipclone 1]

Originally posted by m2:

Originally posted by LanceMo:

[QB]What about this theory: there's a Nietzsche aphorism that goes,

 

The educational system. The educational system in large countries will always be mediocre at best, for the same reason that the cooking in large kitchens is at best mediocre.

 

- Human, All-Too Human #467

 

The market is so big (angry teens, ditzy teens, jocks, nerds, gays, ghetto, druggies, etc) and when an artist tries to please as many of these groups as possible, it comes out laughable. But perhaps it will sell in spite of that.

 

It's like a chef preparing the perfect dish for arch-bishops, autoworkers, politicians, poets and supermodels.

Then the chef sucks. A true chef can do it. It's been done. I'll give you one obvious example: Lennon and McCartney

If Lennon and McCartney were around today their record company would drop them as soon as they tried to get out of the old rock & soul covers phase.

[fantasticsound]

Then the chef sucks. A true chef can do it. It's been done. I'll give you one obvious example: Lennon and McCartney

One only needs search for threads on the Beatles to know this is patently false. There are lots of people (although I'm certainly not one of them) who are not only dissatisfied with Lennon & McCartney, but who hate their music.

 

I believe Lance Mo's assertions are correct, in some part. They appear to suggest that a great cook cannot please a vast majority of the customers with truly great food, and that, in cooking or music, I don't believe to be true.

 

But since this is the aim of the record companies (if not the artists they produce), the overall quality of any major record label will lean heavily toward the mediocre. That's sad.

[m2]

Patently false? The Beatles weren't good and popular with all sorts of people from all walks of life? I say patently true!!

 

Just because someone doesn't like them doesn't mean anything. If you're going to have a mediocre, you're going to need a good (and a bad), and the general consensus is The Beatles were good. And very popular. And no record company today would drop them, that's ridiculous.

 

There've been many other chefs that were good and popular, from Gershwin to Dylan, and countless others. There could be a new one tomorrow .

[Gulliver]

I think I figured out that "DOWN" are only the sales of pop/crap CDs! I, for instance, buy a lot of CDs on pretty regular basis these days (4-5 or even 6 CDs in a month! ). And they are all but pop/crap stuff. And I'm not the only one... For the proof - check out the Spock\'s Beard message board , look into "General Music" and there is the thread "Your Most Recent CD Purchases". I think you'll be suprised...

So my theory is that the album oriented styles, such as prog, fusion, jazz (etc.) are doing relatively well regarding CD sales.

[3D Audio]

Originally posted by Anderton:

A lot of music sounds like there's a hole in the middle of it where's something's missing. And people don't like that.

The hole in the middle is emotion. That's what's gone from most music today. It's processed, canned and packaged like SPAM.

 

(Bring on the Lumberjacks!

Spam, spam, spam, spam....)

 

Toss in a few of the right ingredients and churn it out.

 

Music with heart and soul is what the world needs now.

[skipclone 1]

Originally posted by m2:

If you're going to have a mediocre, you're going to need a good (and a bad), and the general consensus is The Beatles were good. And very popular. And no record company today would drop them, that's ridiculous.

.

It`s not ridiculous at all. You`re looking at The Beatles in hindsight, after they made amazing music that was totally different from their origins. Record contracts have always included the `right of first refusal` on the part of record companies. They can reject an impending release by an artist or group on their label for basically any reason. One of the things that freaks the suits out as much as anything is the prospect of a group losing their `core audience`, the fans that made them popular to begin with and not finding another equally dedicated segment of the listeners. Chomp on this-The Beatles went from singing `wooo` harmonies to screaming teenagers, to getting tripped out, hanging with Indian gurus and writing lines like `happiness is a warm gun`-ridiculous-yeah right.

[skipclone 1]

I`ll go a little further with this-in the past, as long as most releases were selling at at profit

the mentality at the labels was, `go for it guys, give `em all you got-long as it sells`. Fast forward to now, most releases DON`T make a profit, certainly not for the artists. The companies hire much fewer acts and like any other company, the ones that are hired have to make up for the shortfall. Ergo, any risk-taking is met with a boatload of resistance, ergo the multitude of releases with songs that all sound the same as the single. A major release may require the artists(s) to record dozens-dozens of songs, even after they thought it was done. The label the typically chooses the singles, followups and so on. I don`t think a group like The Beatles could get away with it now, not on a major label.

[Wewus432]

The reason CD Sales are down, and I'm not even sure that is true, but if it is true, then the reason sales are down is.......drum roll please...........A lot of the music they're trying to sell SUCCCCCCCCCCKKKKKKKKKS!!!!!! You may quote me on that.

[strat0124]

Well you don't hear things the same at over 40 as you do when you're 18. Remember listening to Master of Reality so F@#$ing loud in your car when you were in your teens? To me CD's are tedious at times to listen to, whereas vinyl is somehow more pleasing. I dunno, maybe its age...

[philbo_Tangent]

Originally posted by TheWewus:

The reason CD Sales are down, and I'm not even sure that is true, but if it is true, then the reason sales are down is.......drum roll please...........A lot of the music they're trying to sell SUCCCCCCCCCCKKKKKKKKKS!!!!!! You may quote me on that.

Let's shout it loud! AAAAMMMEEENNNN!

The brightest and best talents of commercial music today are mediocre to just simply unlistenable.

 

The people know it, and they don't care - the radio is just for background noise anyway.

 

The record companies know it - they're losing their asses financially, and rightly so. All dinosaurs eventually go extinct.

 

The music distribution and music press industry (MTV, Rolling Stone, VH1, Clearchannel, ad nauseum) don't know it. They never had a clue, and never will. For them, it's about selling ads, not distributing quality product. That's their bottom line.

 

Bottoms are not always pleasant to look at, huh?

[m2]

Originally posted by skipclone 1:

Originally posted by m2:

If you're going to have a mediocre, you're going to need a good (and a bad), and the general consensus is The Beatles were good. And very popular. And no record company today would drop them, that's ridiculous.

.

It`s not ridiculous at all. You`re looking at The Beatles in hindsight, after they made amazing music that was totally different from their origins. Record contracts have always included the `right of first refusal` on the part of record companies. They can reject an impending release by an artist or group on their label for basically any reason. One of the things that freaks the suits out as much as anything is the prospect of a group losing their `core audience`, the fans that made them popular to begin with and not finding another equally dedicated segment of the listeners. Chomp on this-The Beatles went from singing `wooo` harmonies to screaming teenagers, to getting tripped out, hanging with Indian gurus and writing lines like `happiness is a warm gun`-ridiculous-yeah right.

As long as The Beatles sold , they wouldn't get dropped, then, now, or fifty years from now.

 

As experimental as they got, they also remained incredibly trendy and commercial. In fact being experimental was trendy, and added to their cache and commercialism.

 

At around the time of Happiness..., they had incredibly commercial and popular singles like Lady Madonna, Hey Jude, Hello Goodbye, and Get Back.

 

The Beatles were always interested in making money, selling pop music as best they could, and being #1, and they did it pretty darn well. No label would drop them, then, or now, or tomorrow.