The world famous UK/USA music industry, which once glimmered as one of the brightest beacons of our culture, is disappearing. Just like every great bureaucratic empire it is becoming arrogant and languid. Some of the most important faculties of our musical culture have been lost.
Take the radio for example; independent radio used to be a decisive force in feeding new talent into the public ear. But try calling your local radio station and asking them to play a favourite song of yours; if it hasn’t already been on an unstoppable loop for the past week, then they will almost certainly say no. Maybe they will refuse to justify this, but they might just tell you that ‘we couldn’t play your music, even if we wanted to’. Today, play list selection is usually done by big media companies. Big business wants big money, and the big money is in the mainstream market, whose agenda is set by big business; it’s circular. And we, on the receiving end, are being told repeatedly what to like.
In times gone by, musicians and artists might justify radio airtime by selling well in record stores, or maybe just by creating a local buzz. There was a stronger sense of importance in buying records and going to gigs to support an artist on their path to success. The result was a meritocratic ascension; the people genuinely interested in music as a progressive art would fuel and guide the industry. The retrograde system of today means that money comes first, always. The radio in the United States, though it has improved, is in a state far worse than our own. Media giants like Clear Channel operate over 800 radio stations. Such companies have been accused of using market research programs which involve playing new music to random people from the street, in exchange for a tasty pizza treat, and asking them what they would do if they heard it on the radio. Answers such as ‘turn it down’, ‘change station’ or even ‘turn it up’ are considered negative, since they suggest that a listener is being made to think actively. The thinking listener is more likely to later change the radio station, resulting in lower ratings and consequential advertisement revenue loss for the company. The favourable response to a candidate song would be “do nothing”. Such blatant profiteering and lack of artistic integrity by such powerful media companies has been damaging to American music and consequentially our own.
The UK does tend to follow the US. Huge UK success was enjoyed, for example, by the Disney bubble: artificial acts like the Jonas Brothers and Miley Cyrus. How do their simple songs manage to be so successful? It’s as if they’ve been manufactured to a template. Our mainstream popular music is getting plainer, and it’s partly been driven by the changes in how we listen. Music is talked about less in a critical sense, and it becomes easier for everyone to accept that what the charts tell us is popular, is the best music around.
But precious few of today’s ‘big acts’ are even close to rivalling the longevity of John Lennon and Freddie Mercury. We really need to assert considerable independence if we’re to explore the best music being produced today. The charts are becoming of decreasing significance to the enlightened; websites such as Pitchfork appear to be taking their place as the best music guides, offering sincere, intelligent recommendations. There are so many exciting new acts waiting in the wings that the mainstream music industry seems unwilling to gamble on.
The sense of artistic responsibility and integrity is fading, and the mainstream music industry is starting to be seen by many as an irresponsible money maker. The attitude seems increasingly to be that it’s hardly worth changing things too much, once we know ‘what sells’. We’re being sold the musical equivalent of Mr Whippy: it’s cheap, it’s everywhere, and it’s full of added sugar.
Take a quick listen to ‘Four Chords’ by The Axis of Awesome. It’s a parody of mainstream writing, and exposes 50 modern pop songs as all having exactly the same basic chord loop, including modern classics such as Paparazzi and Poker Face by Lady Gaga and MGMT’s Kids. It’s one of those things that maybe you didn’t want to know about, like finding out that the clouds on Mario were identical to the bushes in every aspect but colour. That’s how it is now.
The criterion of talent has diminished to the point of transparent superficiality. The major labels invest in sex, shunning musical brilliance. Young musicians clamour for the support of the Big 4 (Sony, EMI, Universal, Warner), but the few that may attain it are often hastily railroaded into writing music which ‘will sell’. Mr Hudson is a fine example of this in recent times. His melodic indie-pop album ‘A Tale of Two Cities’ from 2007 is so unlike his 2010 R’n’B coops with Jay-Z and Kanye West that it’s hard to believe that he’s the same human being.
Despite all of this, there is a silver lining. Today, record labels are facing the digital download revolution. Money is moving away from album sales and you’ll find that many new laptops don’t even come with built-in CD drives anymore. The growing internet is allowing bands to self publish, and promote themselves, and music is being shared more between friends online. It’s a chance for music to shed its industrial bonds a little again. Hopefully people will begin to think more about music, as business loses its control over what it is that we hear, allowing more innovative artists to come to the fore. These artists will need our support.
Consider this about the current situation: the creative process undergone in composing a piece of music is little different to that in writing a poem. But poems are approached critically and thoughtfully by any reader, inspiring colourful opinions. When presented with a piece of music, it seems acceptable to consider in it an extremely shallow sense; to hear it but not to really listen.
