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Post by Earl Purple on Apr 12, 2011 20:52:11 GMT 1
"Real" bands who write their own songs and play their own instruments have an advantage though that enables them to get by selling less music. Firstly, they get to keep more of the royalties, as they get all the performing royalties and songwriting royalties. If their music is self-financed and self-produced they get to keep an even higher amount. Furthermore, and perhaps significantly, they are more likely to make a living from live performance.
I am not sure that the music industry is dying as such. They have said that several times when we have had low sales, and sales are higher than they were a few years ago.
Pop culture has presumably changed. I am not sure downloading has made a significant difference, as it would most likely have an equal effect on all music, i.e. the more popular the music the more likely it is to get downloaded. In any case I used to home-tape and would very rarely buy singles when I was younger, although I did buy albums.
With regards to promoting a band, that often means just getting them onto some pop culture show to perform their song. and ideally an interview so they are seen to have a "face". Not sure how they could be made to appeal more to the younger generation.
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vastar iner
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Post by vastar iner on Apr 12, 2011 22:42:42 GMT 1
I am not sure that the music industry is dying as such. They have said that several times when we have had low sales, and sales are higher than they were a few years ago. It's costing more to get those sales though. Nobody seems to have costed out the true costs of FiX Factor. Take into account the free advertising...suddenly the record sales look pathetic. The whole model in the past was about getting half-a-dozen income streams from the same session; 7", 12", album, tape, CD, 8 track, minidisc, whatever new came along. Digital now is the ultimate, never deteriorating, never bettered. So now there's only 1 income stream. Model is bust. So it's moved to a new model. One where a label wants all the income and doles out pocket money to its puppets. So, sign up staff songwriters to churn out tripe for fixed salaries. Give said songs to desperate working class kids who will do anything to get out of their hellholes, or give them to their mates' posh offspring and throw a few awards at them before they even start. Either way, it keeps the royalty stream in the pockets of the majors. When I was growing up, everyone watched TOTP. Everyone at school, mums, dads, grandparents even. And at school we all liked stuff that would NEVER get played now. When was the last time you heard ska on a mainstream channel? Back then we had Madness, Bad Manners, The Specials and so on. How about punk? Pistols, Buzzcocks, Sham 69. Synth experimentalism? Kraftwerk, Numan, OMD, Human League. New wave? Boomtown Rats, Toyah, Kim Wilde. Rockabilly? Shakin Stevens, Rocky Sharpe. Metal? Motorhead, Iron Maiden. Reggae? UB40. World fusion? Monsoon, Sylvian/Sakamoto, even Adam Ant could be considered part of that movement. All of these got mainstream airplay and so did hundreds of others. All very different sounding, all from different genres. And that's without considering the appalling stuff from Iglesias or Goombay that also made the chart which had its own audience. There is not a single snowball's chance in Hell that anything from any of those genres will ever be heard by a mainstream audience now. Not one. And it's not as if those genres are unpopular. They all spawned massive, massive hits. Sometimes out of absolutely nowhere. They would do so again if people got to hear them. And note the artists. They all did their own thing. Other than Shaky and Kim - and even she sang her brothers' songs.
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Post by evansabove on Apr 13, 2011 7:25:45 GMT 1
evansabove: this is certainly not "depressing indie": Thank you for that. I hadnt heard that before and enjoyed it, itwas very uplifting. It's certainly not all indie music that I do not like-i love Noah & The Whale's recent song and there is no doubt similar songs which i would like but wont ever hear due to them not getting any promotion. However there is still a very snobbish attitude to current music to be found. I don;t see why not playing your own instruments instantly condems a song as no good. Some people also appear to be living in the past stuck in a 70s/80s timewarp. Time has moved on and so must we all.
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vastar iner
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Post by vastar iner on Apr 13, 2011 7:38:53 GMT 1
However there is still a very snobbish attitude to current music to be found. I don;t see why not playing your own instruments instantly condems a song as no good. It doesn't. Look at the truly great singers in the past; Elvis, Aretha, Little Miss Dynamite, Dusty, Wilson Pickett and so on. They could interpret a song, make it their own. What's more, they had to nail it pretty quickly. There wasn't the studio time or trickery available to have retake after retake. Same applies to all the girl groups of the era - they were genuine singers. Nowadays though it's plug and play. FiX Factor proves it; literally anyone could have a hit with the right promotion. There's nothing that many modern acts do that anyone randomly plucked from a karaoke bar couldn't. Some people also appear to be living in the past stuck in a 70s/80s timewarp. Time has moved on and so must we all. Ironic, given the biggest "band" around at the moment, Take That, got their break from covering a 1970s track. And constantly went back there for further covers. Usually parents hate their kids' music because it's too loud, difficult, raucous, challenging. This generation's parents hate their kids' music because it's the exact opposite. Indeed, it's their OWN parents' music...
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Post by Earl Purple on Apr 13, 2011 8:34:21 GMT 1
To be fair to Shaky he had been trying since about 1968 and took about 12 years to gain any success, and he had written quite a few of his own songs, "Oh Julie" was his own composition and "It's Raining" and I think possibly "Marie Marie" although I'm not totally certain about that one. Of course he didn't write "This Ole House" or "Green Door" but it was very common at the time for artists to do partly their own music and partly covers, even Blondie did.
In general though, yes, there was always some very poor music making the chart but and some in genres that were not so appealing, but it was all there, and sometimes things did get to grow on you because you were exposed to it.
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Post by evansabove on Apr 13, 2011 10:10:13 GMT 1
In general though, yes, there was always some very poor music making the chart but and some in genres that were not so appealing, but it was all there, and sometimes things did get to grow on you because you were exposed to it. I think I would probably get back more into indie music if i was exposed to it more. I find it takes a long more listening to to fully appreciate it however.
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vastar iner
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Post by vastar iner on Apr 13, 2011 16:46:37 GMT 1
I’m not knocking Shaky, a tremendous performer with a reputation for positively incendiary live shows with the Sunsets and the archetypal overnight success that had been years in the making. Indeed the very opposite. You can tell one of his records a mile off through his distinctive voice; compare an autocutie like Rihanna, you could have a listening test with 10 random records and even Rihanna herself could not tell which one was hers.
Someone like Stevens would never get the sniff of a chance nowadays because of the narrow-mindedness of the promoters. As Jasper Carrott pointed out, the music industry is never looking for the next big thing. It’s always looking for the LAST big thing.
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Post by evansabove on Apr 13, 2011 17:21:38 GMT 1
I’m not knocking Shaky, a tremendous performer with a reputation for positively incendiary live shows with the Sunsets and the archetypal overnight success that had been years in the making. Indeed the very opposite. You can tell one of his records a mile off through his distinctive voice; compare an autocutie like Rihanna, you could have a listening test with 10 random records and even Rihanna herself could not tell which one was hers. Someone like Stevens would never get the sniff of a chance nowadays because of the narrow-mindedness of the promoters. As Jasper Carrott pointed out, the music industry is never looking for the next big thing. It’s always looking for the LAST big thing. Sorry but that is rubbish. Whether you like it or hate it Rihanna has a very distinctive voice and you can instantly tell when she is on a recording. I suspect you never listen to her music hence this glaring error
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vastar iner
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Post by vastar iner on Apr 13, 2011 19:30:24 GMT 1
No she doesn't. Listen to Only Girl In The World for a start. Which is Rihanna, and which is the autotune? Poor man's Rozalla.
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Post by raliverpool on Apr 13, 2011 21:28:50 GMT 1
No she doesn't. Listen to Only Girl In The World for a start. Which is Rihanna, and which is the autotune? Poor man's Rozalla. I completely agree. Rozalla was a great live singer Only this week's NME singles reviews remarked how the now ruined chorus to Kate Bush's Deeper Understanding where she stupidly used an actual computer to get those noises when she should have used either of those androids Rihanna or Britney (in reference to the remix of S&M) sums things up perfectly. Again, that brings up another point why music is in decline. Back in the post punk / pre SAW era late 1970s/early 1980s it was important that acts were "self contained" units and not manufactured. Stock Aitken & Waterman and much later Louis Walsh & Simon Cowell ruined that, so now a generation of teenagers don't give a $h!t whether an act is doing a Milli Vanilli; whether they have an involvement in their own music or not. (* using that early 1980s chart example: Kim Wilde's brother and dad co wrote/played on and co produced a lot of her material; and Shakin Stevens was largely produced by an old 1960s pop star pal of his Stuart Colman; and Shaky did pen a number of his own original songs including the chart topping "Oh Julie"). Getting back to Rihanna, she should have took a leaf out of Kylie's book and pulled out of the BRITs this year (because she was ill and could not sing live), instead Rihanna went ahead and both mimed and lip-synched over a very loud backing track and then gave the excuse for doing it was because she was poorly with a very sore throat. Yet most teenagers today don't give two $h!ts about doing that. In fact I go along with the music critics David Hepworth, Alan McGee, Brian Eno, Jarvis Cocker "AbFab Saffron" theory, that the reason why eXcrement Factor and mimed acts are so popular is a form of rebelling against their post/punk/new wave teenage parents who are appalled by the concept of these acts being successful. Hence another reason why the music industry is dying because it is being debased and devalued.
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Post by Earl Purple on Apr 21, 2011 13:43:26 GMT 1
Funny but even in the days of S/A/W, many of the artists themselves wanted to break away afterwards and do their own thing, in particular Kylie who has had a very long career post-S/A/W. Rick Astley left S/A/W as early as 1988 to write some of his own material, and S/A/W gave "Nothing Can Divide Us" to Jason Donovan to sing instead, given Rick no longer wanted to sing it.
With regards Jason Donovan I think he always felt acting was his main career anyway, and whilst he had a fair amount of success singing, he probably never cared that much about his reputation as a singer.
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