I love music. Most of the time. I love pop music, classical music, music made with vocal chords, music made with electricity, music created with ancient instruments, music hardly made...music you can mime to, you can dance to, can cry to and can take you to places you've never been or haven't been to for a long time. Music, as a time machine. Even when I hate music, I love hating it, be it the Mercury Music Prize's annual masturbation ceremony to the tabloid media's (i.e. the N.M.E) Oasis soap opera. I love 'not getting' whichever sub-genre of dubstep is popular this week. I love being snobby and being shameless about music that's naff. There's love everywhere. Passion as well. Not everyone has it. I love how this record excites me, for example...
And this was what this series has been about essentially. Passion. Optimism. Wanting the best for music, cherishing how it makes us feel and not allowing the future to fuck it up. In this final episode I will share a few of my passions with you, since this series is really about music, and I'll try and conclude on what could/should be done to save and refine the industry. It may be gullible of me, and I don't have figures and statistics to back me up. I leave that to those who do but...it can work. Here's another record for you. I don't listen to these guys enough. When I do, this is one favourite.
I started this series just wanting to express, in my own pompous, obnoxious way, what was on my mind, what was worrying me about it, what I did or didn't understand. It couldn't have been me just getting old and bitter, could it? What else was happening? Was there a drop in quality? Were sales so bad? Why? File-sharing alone can't have contributed to popular culture's devaluation of music could it? I understand that quality is subjective but a casual look at The Top Tens of the past decades really tells you a lot about our culture, history and, I guess, our technology and future. So I wanted to assess, at least try and assess, what else was going on. To be honest I haven't researched the shit out of these areas beyond engaging in forum debate, reading the odd newspaper/online article and deciding some of it made sense and some of it sounded like bullshit. So, over the course of my feature what conclusions have I reached or rather, what solutions do I have? Answers following the next record...
SOME PROPOSALS
1. INVESTMENT
More investment is needed in retail outlets that sell recorded music, especially independent record shops. Record 'store' Day, or whatever it's called shouldn't just be a one day event every year. More record companies and artists should promote and support more independent record shop only releases, or put one format of their music out at every indie venue (if they haven't already). Hell, can't even concert venues, if they have the room, carve out a mini record shop selling CD's, vinyls and exclusives of the acts that are playing, that they book, etc? If music venues are struggling, let's invest in them as well. Open its doors every night to give opportunities to artists who don't have hype or promoters behind them. 'Merch' stalls are all very well but they can be a bit disappointing and over-expensive. Venues support artists, artists support venues. Invest in manufacturing record players, music playing devices. Don't assume Apple has the monopoly. 'Um...gee, where will this investment come from, Smirnov?' Well in the short term it can come from anywhere, rich people, rich artists, big and small record companies, businesses, the BBC (who we pay for) and many sectors. Then the funding will eventually come from the consumers. But the support must come from...
2. THE MEDIA/QUALITY/VALUE
Music does sell. Many artists have lucrative careers. The music itself isn't necessarily genre-defying, innovative stuff. It's quite banal mostly but, but, it is supported by the media. It's promoted. It's used for trailers, put onto playlists and has programmes/features dedicated to its artists. Most of them are rubbish of course but the records and downloads sell millions. I often wonder why, for example Radio 1 or ITV don't focus their energies and resources on promoting not just more forward-thinking music but the culture and passion of music consumption. As it stands Radio 1 seems to exist to feed and manufacture the frenzy for US-lead processed Guetta/Pitbull/sub-N-Dubz-Black Eyes Peas shite and pander to X Factor banality, under the guise of railing against it...seemingly at the expense of better things. Seriously if you had a choice would you play Black Eyed Peas or say...this...
You might be clever and say, 'hmm why not both?' Radio 1/X-Factor apologists/young producer/ probably say 'We give people what they want!' To both observations- bollocks. You don't have to play both records. Just play and promote music that doesn't sound like it's made for the brainless, and actually means something. You decide what the public want. You always did. You more or less make and break careers. Choices! You don't have to be cheap and easy. It's no less cheaper or easier to support quality in music and to enhance its value. The public has lost respect for music because, it appears, the media has. If the media isn't promoting banal or piss poor voices it's like a Primrose Hill style column. You can't win! Let's just let Jools Holland have it. His show Later... seems to have the right balance. It isn't boring and it isn't cool.
In my fantasy Radio 1 would be taken over by BBC 6 music. Radio 1 would exist in a CBeebies type of netherworld playing stuff for tots and mentally challenged adults, while 6 Music (now called Radio 1), once you've shaved and toned down a few guest presenters (No names, Guy), would slowy introduce Captain Beefheart, Aphex Twin, Rustie, Fucked Up, Fuck Buttons, Aeroplane and The Advisory Circle into its daytime slots/playlists. There'd be no reason for this boring stuff like 'Get Nirvana' to No.1 every bloody year as Erik Satie or Can would be sitting pretty. In my dream, by law, the major television channels would have a dedicated show which wasn't geared towards making money from stupid phone-in votes. They would take the novel step of actually promoting and supporting new music/music videos and eventually, I hope, record and CD manufacturers would spring up everywhere. The industry would feel valued again. Everyone would have self-respect. Even single artwork would look beautiful or suitable and not be a token of 'will this do?' cheap and smug, generic vomit. We'd have a society that would no longer grow up being influenced to make music that sounds like a soundtrack to updating your Facebook status. Phew! Here's another record...
3. CUT THIS SHIT! STOP THE HYPE! PLEASE STOP!
There is another challenge as well. There's too many artists like 'King Krule' or 'Totally Enormous Extinct Dinosaurs' being hyped by the hipster press as radical, new voices, blah blah when they really aren't. I'm not suggesting that they shouldn't get support or airplay but the idea of hype is that often if the stuff being hyped really doesn't cross over or if it isn't much cop, or if it does cross over for a while before people drop it like a brick, it just makes those who have done the hyping lose credibility, thus devaluing music, taking respect out of it. There's a difference between hype and championing something you enjoy. In rare cases the hype may be justified but usually it isn't really. It really isn't. The sensible artists will ignore the hype. The daft ones will believe in it, and feel that they don't have to make so much of an effort, and then they'll fail to live up to the hype or have any longevity. You really can't win. No-one wins. It's fucked up.
The BBC Sound of...series is another example. It's essentially not about new artists. It's self-serving. It's about generating more listeners in the belief that they are serving the public interest. It's bollocks. Who takes it seriously, apart from Jessie J!? Always be suspicious about the term 'tastemakers'. It's bullshit. Yeah, some people have influence but do they have taste? Or class? I recall an interview with Talvin Singh, a couple of years after he won the Mercury Music Prize. He referred to himself as a tastemaker. He came across as deluded and a lonely figure. I have no idea what he's doing now or what he's influenced. So trust your audience. You can't refine them, not really. You can educate them and inform them but telling them how 'cool' something is won't help anyone. Music isn't about being 'cool', no matter what advertisers will claim. It's about beats. Emotions. Meaning. But beats. Hype is not only demoralising but it's damaging. Now another record...
4. RESPECT AND CULTURE
We have to value recorded music again. We lost respect somewhere down the line , partly because of the shit pushed onto us but also because we were told it was our fault that the industry is dying. Music feels more about being a soundtrack to fast food restaurants or whisky drinks. It's not a lifestyle. We need to rediscover the passion and romance one used to get going through the ritual of buying a record at an actual record shop, to taking it out of its sleeve and dropping it on the turntable. We have to learn to swoon again at sexy record players. And records, of course, and CD's and even high quality, high bitrate mp3's. But you don't get quite the same pleasure unpacking a .rare file as you do slipping 5" plastic into the CD tray or dropping 12"'s onto the slip mat. (Sorry, I don't mean to sound like a dick.) Let's listen to some more music and I'll elaborate a little.
It's no good now moaning about how it felt to buy the cassette of Tango In The Night by Fleetwood Mac or Very/Relentless by Pet Shop Boys, without prior listening, having only read about the releases in the Melody Maker/Record Mirror/Smash Hits, or looking at the artwork and track-listing, imagining what it will sound like. The anticipation. No point now. But it would be great to get back to that. These feelings of anticipation really do seem to add value and respect to the music. Finally...
5. THE FUTURE
The pop single, or the album as a whole, are kind of limited concepts now. It's cheaper to push digital downloads. It saves manufacturing costs as well. They might not actually sell much but it doesn't matter. To the mindset of the industry and subscription based models like Spotify (who are looking at things in the long term) it's all good. Bands and artists have a need to make music. Most know it won't sell anything or even get many plays. For some artists it isn't about the music but being 'hip'. Maybe singles and albums will disappear in twenty years, maybe another variation of the EP (Extended Play) record will evolve. Who knows? The industry isn't sustainable. Will music be owned or subscribed to? Will the same thing happen between Blu-Ray and a high definition digital alternative? Will everything be inside a cloud? For industry, it all depends what is the cheapest thing to sell and promote, which is why we could still make the recording industry last longer if we offer the above alternatives. It doesn't have to be cheap and devalued. If people used to buy music in their multi-millions and are capable of still doing so, there's no reason why we can't accept many other options. There's no reason why we have to compromise on quality. Imagination and quality costs nothing. So far. Let's have another video. And I'll wrap this series up...
And what of the music itself? Will there be strange new genres, like Crabstep or BugCore? DogRock? In 1975 Kraftwerk were the future of music but, you know, it still goes through fads...only the 80s fad is lasting longer than the 70s fad in the 90s. I'm not looking forward to the late 90s/early 2000s fad. Especially if it goes on for thirty years. There's a fad now for reforming of course. It probably forms part of the manifesto for new bands. 1. Form a band. 2. Release an album. 3. Split up. 4. Reform/tour. The internet has been a good playground however for discovering popular music from different cultures/time periods, for opening up old genres to new audiences, often obscure genres like library music. Perhaps the 'new' thing will be to be like composers of old. Music isn't 'officially' recorded and released but performed, maybe sold as sheet music. As we are told that the live circuit flourishes, perhaps music as a recorded medium will become so redundant, as it's replaced by unique performances. After all there'll come a time where people won't have the time to wade through everything new. Would this be a good thing or a bad thing? Or would we be saved from this from record shops of the future?
And what of policing the internet, making sure people pay for music? You know. It can be done. I've said before that people can be employed to visit torrents and file-sharing websites/services and take down illegal files. The question is, is the music still of good enough quality that people would want to buy it, if they can't get it for free? Or is this a cultural issue that can be ironed out? We'll see.
Thank you for reading, and for those who have been following these pieces. I'll leave you with a classic.
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