This About Covers It:

Sad. Truly, truly sad.
The music industry itself, though, needs to stand up and take part of the blame. The entertainment industry as a whole can take part of the blame.
Canned music, formula hits, sound-alike songs and singers, catering to the questionably talented "artists", using the word "artists", and the relentless pursuit of quantity over quality... not to mention putting the prices of retail-bought music far out of the reach of the masses, and keeping it there even when sales begin to slide.

There is no doubt pretty much everything in the article is true, but the blame cannot be placed solely at the feet of the public, as this article seems to want to do.
When the entire entertainment industry is telling people how great "artists" like Beiber, Taylor Swift, Kanye, etc, are, or how we should be paying rapt attention to the Kardashians, or The Voice, or any of the other dumb-assed products out there... well, you know the industry is spiraling the drain. When the emphasis is on pretty instead of talent... :(

It's sad to think that we'll likely never get another Johnny Cash or The Beatles, or Led Zepelin or Janis Joplin ever again. No more Bogarts, Lemons, or Stewarts.
Originality, individualism and quality is gone from the entertainment industry and the industry itself is complicit in the disappearance.

My $.02 worth...
 
I agree. I haven't heard any music in the last few years that I thought enough of to go purchase.

Most of my music selections end around the early 1990's, most of it in the late 60's to the early 70's.
 
restoman said:
Sad. Truly, truly sad.
The music industry itself, though, needs to stand up and take part of the blame. The entertainment industry as a whole can take part of the blame.
Canned music, formula hits, sound-alike songs and singers, catering to the questionably talented "artists", using the word "artists", and the relentless pursuit of quantity over quality... not to mention putting the prices of retail-bought music far out of the reach of the masses, and keeping it there even when sales begin to slide.

There is no doubt pretty much everything in the article is true, but the blame cannot be placed solely at the feet of the public, as this article seems to want to do.
When the entire entertainment industry is telling people how great "artists" like Beiber, Taylor Swift, Kanye, etc, are, or how we should be paying rapt attention to the Kardashians, or The Voice, or any of the other dumb-assed products out there... well, you know the industry is spiraling the drain. When the emphasis is on pretty instead of talent... :(

It's sad to think that we'll likely never get another Johnny Cash or The Beatles, or Led Zepelin or Janis Joplin ever again. No more Bogarts, Lemons, or Stewarts.
Originality, individualism and quality is gone from the entertainment industry and the industry itself is complicit in the disappearance.

My $.02 worth...
Click to expand...

ill second ALL of that..fact is..its been going to shit since "pop" came into play..when the companys in charge could grab young faces digitaly make them sound "better" and pump out piles of shit after shit......

since the mid 90s there has been a steady decline of music....with the notability list being 1 in 50...to the 2k's which declined that to somewhere in teh 1 in 100...enter 2010..1 in 1k...thats not to say that there isnt talent out there ...but..they get un-noticed by the cash scramble of the big guns cattering to children who wouldnt know "quality" even if they were trapped in it

ive watched my fav stations go corupt to the shit..my digital stations have even all vanished...quality DJ's have even gone missing....the music "industry"...which i seem to remember being coined or atleast used perminantly in the 80s has killed itself....prices, quantity over quality.....

i know of a few bands just starting up doing full tours doing well...quite well..but i wont name them...so...dead..no just corupted under its own filth...and needs to burn out and be re-born...i simply see this as a means to getting to that point
 
Ticket companies haven't helped by the ridiculous prices they charge for live shows. They sell over priced tickets to the scalpers before the public release who bump up the prices even more. The "artist" gets a small slice but the middleman like Ticket Master and others run away laughing at the foolish wanting public with their pockets bulging. Who can in reality afford these prices in todays market place without going overboard in debt.
 
restoman said:
Sad. Truly, truly sad.
The music industry itself, though, needs to stand up and take part of the blame. The entertainment industry as a whole can take part of the blame.
Canned music, formula hits, sound-alike songs and singers, catering to the questionably talented "artists", using the word "artists", and the relentless pursuit of quantity over quality... not to mention putting the prices of retail-bought music far out of the reach of the masses, and keeping it there even when sales begin to slide.

There is no doubt pretty much everything in the article is true, but the blame cannot be placed solely at the feet of the public, as this article seems to want to do.
When the entire entertainment industry is telling people how great "artists" like Beiber, Taylor Swift, Kanye, etc, are, or how we should be paying rapt attention to the Kardashians, or The Voice, or any of the other dumb-assed products out there... well, you know the industry is spiraling the drain. When the emphasis is on pretty instead of talent... :(

It's sad to think that we'll likely never get another Johnny Cash or The Beatles, or Led Zepelin or Janis Joplin ever again. No more Bogarts, Lemons, or Stewarts.
Originality, individualism and quality is gone from the entertainment industry and the industry itself is complicit in the disappearance.

My $.02 worth...
Click to expand...

Mmmmmm - 'fraid I lay the bulk of the blame at the feet of those who chose to steal music rather than buy it. Every time I hear someone use the big, bad, evil record companies as an excuse I am obliged to point out that if a person doesn't like something, be that quality or price they have every right to choose not to buy it. But not liking the price of something does not entitle one to take it without paying for it....and that's the root of it: Societies overall sense of entitlement. We do not have a RIGHT to be entertained for free.

There was certainly plenty of greed and commercialization within the music industry of the time....but the primary point of the attached article is that situation has only been made worse by the current state of affairs. All of those shitty "artists" you named are post digital age. And there is a reason for that: No businessman in his right mind is going to take a risk on something like Tool, Motorhead, Rush, Dream Theater or Dire Straits if there is absolutely no chance of making a profit on it. The mega artists of the past bankrolled the less "sure things" that labels would take a chance on. For every Rolling Stones there were hundreds of failed British wannabe blues bands that never got past their first single. ....But no more...if it's not bankable "product" that can be marketed in the manner described in the article it's not going to get heard. There are still plenty of good bands and songwriters still out there. But they are not getting paid for their efforts in any meaningful fashion, so they eventually give up living on ichiban noodles and go find a job selling used cars.

The industry is not spiraling the drain. It went down it years ago....
 
71dusterman said:
Ticket companies haven't helped by the ridiculous prices they charge for live shows. They sell over priced tickets to the scalpers before the public release who bump up the prices even more. The "artist" gets a small slice but the middleman like Ticket Master and others run away laughing at the foolish wanting public with their pockets bulging. Who can in reality afford these prices in todays market place without going overboard in debt.
Click to expand...

Don't buy in to the conspiricy theories: Certainly concert promoters and ticket agencies do very well from the tours they promote, (and take all the risk on BTW) but most "real" artists do quite well from the tours they do. They have some very astute lawyers and management companies making sure of that, because since everybody chose to steal their recorded music via the internet, live performance is the only revenue stream left. Tours used to be a way to market the latest album and often showed a loss or at best broke even. Now they are expected to show a handsome profit....so that people actually get paid.

Ticket prices are also directly related to the cost of producing a show. The more "bling" expected by the audience, the pricier production costs can be. Also - the technology involved means that the "roadie" who was paid peanuts has been replaced by educated and competent creative/technical staff who demand and get top dollar. Add to this the fact that things like occupational health & safety and other "real" business costs have caught up with the touring industry and has pushed costs well past where they used to be.

It all adds to what you pay for a ticket.
 
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Not A Duster said:
Mmmmmm - 'fraid I lay the bulk of the blame at the feet of those who chose to steal music rather than buy it. Every time I hear someone use the big, bad, evil record companies as an excuse I am obliged to point out that if a person doesn't like something, be that quality or price they have every right to choose not to buy it. But not liking the price of something does not entitle one to take it without paying for it....and that's the root of it: Societies overall sense of entitlement. We do not have a RIGHT to be entertained for free.

There was certainly plenty of greed and commercialization within the music industry of the time....but the primary point of the attached article is that situation has only been made worse by the current state of affairs. All of those shitty "artists" you named are post digital age. And there is a reason for that: No businessman in his right mind is going to take a risk on something like Tool, Motorhead, Rush, Dream Theater or Dire Straits if there is absolutely no chance of making a profit on it. The mega artists of the past bankrolled the less "sure things" that labels would take a chance on. For every Rolling Stones there were hundreds of failed British wannabe blues bands that never got past their first single. ....But no more...if it's not bankable "product" that can be marketed in the manner described in the article it's not going to get heard. There are still plenty of good bands and songwriters still out there. But they are not getting paid for their efforts in any meaningful fashion, so they eventually give up living on ichiban noodles and go find a job selling used cars.

The industry is not spiraling the drain. It went down it years ago....
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I wasn't disagreeing with the article. I'm not an insider by any means, just an average Joe, but I don't doubt it's all true.
I was, however, attempting to say that the industry itself needs to step up and take part of the blame. Force feeding the garbage that they tell us is good stuff just because they can package it exactly the way they want to is a sure-fire way to cut your own throat. Create your own market and ignore the existing one and pretty soon yours is the only one around. It's brilliant but it's destined to fail.
Music, tv, movies... the formula is all the same.
... But, theft is theft, no doubt about it.
 
Nodda. I agree that most of the people involved need to paid a decent wage, but where I draw the line is the companies like Ticketmaster that add a large profit margin into their prices and will sell to the scalper companies before the general public even have a chance at a ticket.
 
Tom Waits, Primus, and Zappa.. I think that the pirated losses of my musical tastes are minimal.. I don't mean me, I own most of their albums. Just that nobody cares enough to pirate their stuff in the first place
 
This has been somewhat interesting reading, different people with different opinions of why the music industry is failing. In my opinion the music industry is only one of many industries that is being taken over by the internet. You can include the movie industry, every form of media, newspapers, books, etc., store closing or down-sizeings are happening daily. Just like the big "corporate" quick marts and "big box" stores helped kill a lot of mom & pop corner gas stations and grocery stores. Now the internet is putting a hurt to these corporate big box stores. I'm sorry if I don't show much pity for their losses, they showed no pity for all of the mom & pop's that they destroyed.

The internet has just become the next step in a transition. What will follow, I don't know. But I do know that fighting the transition is fruitless. Your choices are to either adapt, or die a slow death. :(
 
TheIronSausage said:
Tom Waits, Primus, and Zappa.. I think that the pirated losses of my musical tastes are minimal.. I don't mean me, I own most of their albums. Just that nobody cares enough to pirate their stuff in the first place
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Actually, it's artists like that who are hurt most by piracy. (except Zappa, who is of course dead....)

Those artists cater to smaller fan bases, and are far less likely to make up their losses touring, being unable to fill larger venues or charge higher ticket prices. Merchandise sales tend to be lesser as well.

I would guess it's particularily tough for someone like Waits, who is has been prolific in writing songs for other artists. Unfortunately, songwriters are also paid based on units sold.... a percentage of the profits. Hard to get paid when there are no profits.
 
Waits is actually pretty good about suing the pants off of anybody that even steals a bar of his music for movies, tv, ads, etc. Both Waits and Primus are career musicians at this point, with Waits showing up in movies, and playing for forty or more years. Les has been playing for thirty. While I doubt they make enough money to do blow off of a hooker's ass every night, my guess is they've got decent royalty checks coming in and are pretty comfortable. They both still tour, and put out albums. I'm not writing off piracy, I think that the ones hardest hit are younger and more mainstream, is all. On the other hand, this has always happened since the cassette tape was invented. The difference is a cassette only holds up to 120 minutes of music, not two terabytes.
 
68R/T said:
Your choices are to either adapt, or die a slow death. :(
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Nothing slow about it in this case. There is no adapting to not being paid, you can only get out and do something else.

That is what the original article I linked was bemoaning: There are few good new musical artists because people who are good at something expect to be paid for it, and they just are not being paid.

Consumers expect to pay top dollar for people who excel in many fields.... except for creative people, who`s work we expect to get for free...

Ya get what you pay for. :huh:
 
TheIronSausage said:
Waits is actually pretty good about suing the pants off of anybody that even steals a bar of his music for movies, tv, ads, etc. Both Waits and Primus are career musicians at this point, with Waits showing up in movies, and playing for forty or more years. Les has been playing for thirty. While I doubt they make enough money to do blow off of a hooker's ass every night, my guess is they've got decent royalty checks coming in and are pretty comfortable.
Click to expand...

Nope. No sales = no royalties

TheIronSausage said:
They both still tour, and put out albums. I'm not writing off piracy, I think that the ones hardest hit are younger and more mainstream, is all.
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If there is some commercial value you MIGHT stand a chance. The influential, excellent new artists you will never hear of are the real tragedy. Nobody to pick up the torch. All you are going to hear is prefab garbage.

TheIronSausage said:
On the other hand, this has always happened since the cassette tape was invented. The difference is a cassette only holds up to 120 minutes of music, not two terabytes.
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it`s a whole lot more than that. read the second article I posted. File "sharing" was a lie.

*Edit* AND..... fact is, it`s often the fans of less commercial, "alternative" (gawd I hate that term....) artists who feel the most entitled to access their favorite music without paying for it. They tend to be more along the lines of left wing social-justice types who want to bring about the end of capitalism so they feel perfectly justified sticking it to the big corporate machine. (Not saying that describes you .... but it is true of much of that crowd. Go hang out at a Folk festival for a couple days.)

Whether or not it bothers Waits or Claypool wasn't the point of the original article. The point was that there will be precious few new artists like them to replace them.
 
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restoman said:
I was, however, attempting to say that the industry itself needs to step up and take part of the blame. Force feeding the garbage that they tell us is good stuff just because they can package it exactly the way they want to is a sure-fire way to cut your own throat.
Click to expand...

No argument there. I'm not defending the corruption & stupidity of the labels at the time.

But the reality is and what the article was trying to point out is that it has gotten much worse post-downloading. No label or other distribution entity is going to take a risk on anything but a sure thing pre-packaged megahit product when only 20% of the people accessing it these days are going to pay for it.

At least in the old days the success of the prepackaged "megastars" helped bankroll the risks taken on the lesser-known artists we all loved so much. Some of whom became stars in their own right based on their skills & talent.
 
in this day n age..you dont even need to "snag" music...you can pull up any number of "radio stations" be them streaming or otherwise and listen to your choice of music.....much the way you could listen to descent radio stations back in the day..add to that the price of the "shit" the put on the shelves....i remember the days of going into record stores and picking up a few tapes or cd's off the "cheep rack" and taking a chance ...even the "free singles".....i cant remember the last tim i heard of anything worth buying...let alone snagging......these days i typicly get tossed music from the dj circles of hand crafted stuffs that will NEVER actualy be sold or marketed....its better than anything "mainstream" in the past 15+ years...and im actualy totaly find with that..more variaty and diversity ..more "soul" back in the music(if you get the right sources that your into)....this aint no pillaged shit from recording labels...tho some of these artists do get picked up...tho...ive yet to see any get picked up and stay true to what they were..they typicly get warped and molded into shit...."hey ocean" comes to mind..shes got one hell of a voice in person..and i was hearing her voice back when she was FREE...hell i LOVED zztop...and listened to them die


the net has made the world a very small overcrowded rock.....
 
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