Beato - Music is Too Easy to Make

[AROIOS]

On 6/28/2024 at 1:29 PM, Tusker said:

...Let's stand back a bit using two big-picture lenses: Economics and History...

Love your take from an Economics angle. Sunlight and air are just as important and enjoyable to us as music. Yet because of the simple rules of supply and demand, they are infinitely cheaper than even the music today.
 

The problem with Beato's argument is: "music getting cheaper" doesn't automatically translate or lead to "music getting worse". The free air I breathe in my backyard is no worse than the canned air this snake oil company charges a price for.
 

The "real" reason many folks feel like they've been breathing increasingly worse air, is because 1) the gatekeepers kept saturating our atmosphere with fart; 2) growing up surrounded by fart, the average listener can't tell fart from fresh air.
 

As multiple fellow members have mentioned already, there are plenty of air connoisseurs planting trees and producing fresh air around us. It's just that they aren't favored by the gatekeepers anymore, and their fresh air usually gets drowned in the ocean of fart released by the gatekeepers.
 

So unless Beato and his cohort become gatekeepers themselves and put a stop to fart, we'll see their same ole whining pop up every few months with no meaningful changes in the foreseeable future.

[Anderton]

On 6/28/2024 at 3:30 PM, ProfD said:

Being MOM (Musically Open Minded) is the best cure for those "music has gotten worse" blues.😎

 

...if you can couple it with huge amounts of time to either find it for yourself, or can associate with like-minded people. For example, I've heard a lot of new music I like from some of the threads on SSS. I doubt that I would ever have found that music on my own, though.

[Anderton]

3 hours ago, AROIOS said:

The "real" reason many folks feel like they've been breathing increasingly worse air, is because 1) the gatekeepers kept saturating our atmosphere with fart;

 

Ironically, I feel the lack of quality gatekeepers is a big part of the problem. If you wanted your music to be heard in the 60s, the first gatekeeper was a club where you could get a gig. The next was finding an A&R person who would come to the gig, and may or may not like you. The next was the label itself, the producer, then the DJs, distributors, and whether you could get past the "tour support gate." By the time a group came out the other side, they had to convince a lot of gatekeepers that they were a) worth it, and the b) the public would like it. 

 

You also had "themed" labels, like Island Records, Mango Records, Peter Gabriel's Real World, Windham Hill, etc. If you liked one album from those labels, you'd probably like the other ones because they made it past the same gatekeepers. 

 

[AROIOS]

9 minutes ago, Anderton said:

Ironically, I feel the lack of quality gatekeepers is a big part of the problem...

 

Agree with you 100%, we're just wording the same problem differently.

[Anderton]

16 hours ago, AROIOS said:

Agree with you 100%, we're just wording the same problem differently.

 

BTW I totally agree with you about the gatekeepers of today. Perhaps the reason I think of the older model as having "quality" gatekeepers was because so many of them were huge music fans. Being in the record industry was the closest they could come to being musicians. All the ones I knew genuinely enjoyed hanging out with musicians. 

 

The highest quality gatekeepers I'm finding these days are in these forums. I'm much more likely check out music that other forum members mention than music I see talked about online in other contexts.

[AROIOS]

34 minutes ago, Anderton said:

...the older model as having "quality" gatekeepers was because so many of them were huge music fans. Being in the record industry was the closest they could come to being musicians. All the ones I knew genuinely enjoyed hanging out with musicians...

That was exactly what I hypothesized in a similar discussion here a few years ago: Consolidation of power, earnings pressure from Wall street and private equity gradually replaced good A&Rs with bean counters.
 

Some folks argued that greed and bean counters have always been there since the dawn of music biz. But that failed to take into account phase transitions. The same hydrogen and oxygen atoms are always there, but water does turn to steam at 100°C/200°F.

[J.F.N.]

56 minutes ago, AROIOS said:

That was exactly what I hypothesized in a similar discussion here a few years ago: Consolidation of power, earnings pressure from Wall street and private equity gradually replaced good A&Rs with bean counters.
 

Some folks argued that greed and bean counters have always been there since the dawn of music biz. But that failed to take into account phase transitions. The same hydrogen and oxygen atoms are always there, but water does turn to steam at 100°C/200°F.

 

And the main take home on music today is for the investors and other shareholders of tech companies im Silicon Valley...

 

Lovely development!