faetal on 25/4/2016 at 17:42
They're not born often no, but when they are and they get near the music industry, they're either getting packaged or chewed up. I can't see the level of free reign and fostering that you saw in the '60s - '80s going on, largely because supply has far outstripped demand, so the industry holds all of the cards. Don't want to sign this contract and spend your career in stirrups getting reamed by the man? We'll find someone who does.
bjack on 25/4/2016 at 19:23
It's been that way since the beginning, at least in the USA. Look into Badfinger, if you don't already know of them. Super sad story. "Just a Chance" is a great tune, but was almost never played due to the lawsuit between Apple and Warner.
But, I see a lot on indie stuff out in the market today. Self published. Great stuff. Is it Bowie quality? Well, no. Not in the sense of his persona and having a potential to be the next "it" person. There's probably a new Prince and a Bowie out there now, but I do agree it is hard for them to cut a deal for a record. The whole idea of a record deal is sort of antiquated. Full on piracy in the form of free streaming has put an end to that. 10 years ago I bought my niece what I thought was a nice present for her birthday, a $50 iTunes card. She laughed at me and said she gets all the tunes she wants for free and only idiots pay for anything anymore. She stopped getting anything but birthday cards from that point on. The little smart ass ;)
faetal on 26/4/2016 at 08:25
No, it's got worse. I know this not only from my own work in the music industry but also from that of many friends. The number of bands in existence per $ spent on music has increased exponentially since the '60s, largely due to affordability and the feedback (no pun intended) generated by the rise of rock and pop. Being in a band used to be seen as a basic profession as bands just played in dance halls, at parties etc... then gradually, you had bands / musicians becoming massive cultural icons. Over time, more and more people realised that "hey, I can make it big too" and some did, but each year, the number increased exponentially, until the phrase "I'm in a band" was not such a rare thing to hear any more. The industry has run with this and they hold more of the cards, because whereas in the '60s, you'd have maybe had 50-100 bands at any one time trying to crack a particular market, now it's more like tens to hundreds of thousands and most of them are horse-shit and the ones which get the contract tend to be (a) the most marketable (read, attractive and willing to do exactly what they are told) (b) the ones who are willing to swim the trench of shit detailed in the article above. The rest is more of less done by producers and there are only very rare exceptions. The industry is a factory.
That isn't to say that hugely talented artists aren't out there making their career in music, it's just that the chances of them becoming long-term global stars is orders of magnitude lower because the industry controls the whole thing and their favoured model is to squeeze 1-4 albums out of an act and then move on to something fresh. If you read the details of how David Bowie and Prince ascended, you'll notice a far, far more lenient industry environment. Individual case studies of bands who had a hard time way back when doesn't disprove an overall trend.
froghawk on 27/4/2016 at 14:18
Kolya - if you think Purple Rain is bad, try watching Graffiti Bridge.
bjack - this isn't the faulty of technology/streaming/piracy, it's actually the direct result of a 1996 US bill that removed the limits on how many radio stations you could own and lead to massive corporate consolidation of labels and stations. On the label front, tons of people got fired and artists got dropped, and on the radio front, all of the local radio stations cultivating their local scenes were bought out and replaced by the corporate programming that was being pushed nationally. Combine that with the fact that CDs were the only new technology which increased in price over time (simply because the labels felt they could get away with it) and the fact that labels refused to modernize and take advantage of the digital sphere early on despite getting many offers because they were too lazy to rewrite all of their artists contracts to cover digital licenses... and that's why the music industry collapsed. And because of that collapse, and the fact that the suits are trying to run a creative industry like any other business, expecting quarterly returns, it's much harder for risk-taking artists like Price and Bowie to get signed.
heywood on 27/4/2016 at 23:27
Prince was playing late-70s contemporary soul, writing love songs, and singing falsetto when he was signed, the risk taking didn't come until his third album, after his second album had gone gold.
Anyway, one good thing that has happened is that it's possible now for independent artists to get heard. Not that it's easy to build a following and make a living off it, but the internet & social media has at least made it possible to do without getting signed. One artist who made it big this way is Sufjan Stevens.
bjack on 28/4/2016 at 02:21
I had an exceptionally long response... read through it, and decided to delete it. Good bye Prince. I am sad that you are not getting played as much as I thought you would be. Even Purple Rain is not on cable yet, at least around me. Must be that it would cost some asshole some money. Oh well.
