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Monday, December 10, 2007
Albini, you're so right yet so wrong
If you haven't listened to Jesse's interview with Steve Albini yet I highly recommend you do so. First of all becuase it's a great interview as only Jesse can do and second becuase it is the inspiration for this post.
It's not a surprise that Albini spends a lot of the interview commenting on the music industry. Nor is it a surprise that those are the comments that really interested me. Albini is came from the world of '80s American DIY punk rock and that informs his take on the music industry today. He is more than happy to see so much of the major label infrastructure fall. He brings up a good point, one I don't think a lot of people notice. There are so many middlemen and excess in both the music industry and the entertainment industry in general. When record companies talk of falling profit a lot of that could mean whereas a high level official used to be able get three idiot nephews cushy jobs now he can only reward one idiot nephew. Albini calls them "the parasitic parts" of the music industry. To see major labels lose the monopoly they have on distributing music to an audience is a positive sigh to Albini. I must admit my sympathies are no too dissimilar.
Albini says this is the best time to start a band. He says anyone can start a MySpace page for their music and achieve an international following. Which I suppose is true. But hearing that I'm reminded, as odd as it may sound, the 2004 Brad Bird film The Incredibles. Syndrome, the villain voiced by Jason Lee, describes his big evil plan as thus "I'll give them the most spectacular heroics the world has ever seen! And when I'm old and I've had my fun, I'll sell my inventions so that everyone can have powers. Everyone can be super! And when everyone's super...no one will be." If every artist is on the same level than nothing sticks out. The onslaught of bands just becomes kind of a wash.
As great as it might be that traditional radio and MTV are dying the fact is we need some people to have discriminating tastes to discover new music for us. I can't imagine many people are saying to themselves "finally, I don't have to worry about the man telling me what to listen to. I'm just going to sift through the countless number of MySpace and YouTube pages to find my next favorite artists. It will only take me all day and I'll have to listen to a lot of crap but man, does it feel good to no longer have the wool over my eyes."
It may sound odd but music listeners need some kind of elitism in their musical tastes. Perhaps that's why we are seeing a greater amount of energy devoted to "scenesterism." There's a greater need for something to be special in a world where any band can achieve a certain level of fame before ever playing a gig.
There's a lot more to be said, I haven't even touched on the question Jesse brings up that being where will the money come from, but I do have one observation. With radio and MTV receding in their importance it doesn't feel like any kid of great revolution is happening. Now most people seem to discover new music from TV commercials (ugh...) and unreality shows (aaarrrgh...). Christ's sake can you imagine if this was happening fifteen years ago and all the pundits would be talking about how Star Search was the most important place for new music and that Ed McMahon was the important man in the music industry. Not to mention, does anybody remember when it used to be controversial for an artist to let their music be used in commercials? People just accept the fact that to make it as a musician your work has to be appropriated by some fucking corporation to sell more crap to idiots. Wow, it's so great that the giants have been slain and we're all free to discover new ways of getting music to the folks. Hey, maybe Apple will come up with another device that no one really needs but infuses the culture with materialistic mania all the same and they'll come up with a neat-o advertising campaign for it and they'll pick thirty seconds of your song to be in the ad! Now excuse me, I have to go be disappointed by that new bland-as-fuck Feist record. Gee, where did I hear about that?
This is just another reason why I so often find myself sighing and wishing that I lived in a perpetual 1974.
Permanent Link: 6:57 PM |
2 comments
Comments:
I hear ya, Ian. The need to sell music to commercials for exposure doesn't anger me in terms of bands sacrificing credibility for fame. It saddens me that is the only way they'll get exposure.
Ditto for soundtracks.
Recently a girl on my dorm floor was looking at my CD collection and saw the new Go! Team album.
She said, "Oh hey! The Go! Team!"
I said, "Are you a fan?"
She replied, "Well, I just have one song by them. It was on a soundtrack..."
Ah well, at least she listened to them.
# posted by AaronM : 10:11 PM
I dont know. the recording of music in general is, in terms of history, a new way of spreading music. Losing out of MTV and Clear Channel radio stations would be a good thing in that the control would be returned to the artist. that being said, what is wrong with going through lots of myspace pages and records stores and trying out something you havent heard on the tv/corporate radio? on the money issue, non-signed punk bands/hardcore bands/jazz/pop,etc bands have been making music outside of the industry for ages and with the advent of file sharing, cheaper cds, vinyl still being around anyone can make music. No one should be shut out of making music because no one wants to hear it. making any form of "art" even for yourself, to me, is a good thing.
sorry if a little long or makes no sense. chalk that up to being tired before finals.
# posted by Weston : 11:01 PM
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