Morte on 20/2/2016 at 23:33
Quote Posted by Tony_Tarantula
Entertainment is not unique among the business world. Notice how, for example, the cell phone companies all got ride of unlimited data at the same time and now are all bringing it back at the same time? Or how almost all commercial banks tend to adjust their fees in the same way, at about the same time? That's no different from the same way that EVERY studio started doing largely identical superhero movies within the same short span of time.
They're suits looking at past performance to justify their current decisions. But art and music and movies can't be plugged into spreadsheets like that. People will grow bored with being served up the same shit over and over. The sverve in the wake of Deadpool is going to be an epic facepalm, where everyone will miss that what resonated was that they got something new by enthusiastic, passionate people for the trees of R-rated 4th-wall breaking foulmouthedness. Kanye changed the face of hip-hop by doing new shit that caught on and made tedious middle-managers approve anything similar.
Anyway, Kanye's both absolutely brilliant and utterly retarded. Or maybe an alien communicating to the rest of us from a couple of dimensions removed. It's utterly fascinating to watch, and occasionally results in fucking brilliant music.
Tony_Tarantula on 20/2/2016 at 23:58
Quote Posted by froghawk
Your first paragraph is spot on.
I don't think it's an issue of group think so much as risk management. Large corporations are putting a ton of marketing money behind anything they push, and therefore don't want to take any risks - it's much safer for them to market things that have a defined demographic so they can safely predict sales numbers. Obviously this is also true of the movie and games industries to an extent.
I highly recommend the book 'Ripped' by Greg Kot, even if just for the first few chapters. It talks about how the decline of the music industry actually had nothing to do with piracy and very little to do with technology, and how it was actually caused by corporate consolidation. Big industry bought up all of the record labels, laid people off, then tried running the music industry like you would with any other business, expecting quarterly returns. But artists don't work like that, so that lead to the current risk aversion problem. Plus radio also got consolidated, so the combination of having far less worthwhile music pushed to the public and high CD prices (most new technology falls in price over time - CD prices raised for no reason other than greed) caused the public to buy less music and the industry to crash.
So it's true - 'influencing the mainstream' actually means influencing executives, advertisers and producers at this point, rather than artists.
I'll add that book to my wishlist, thanks for the suggestion. May be a little bit until I get to it since I'm in the middle of recruiting season for my industry.
That said it simply being "risk management" is a common misconception. Just because you're imitating something that someone else has done before does not necessarily make it less risky. For example, how likely is a brand new motorcycle manufacturer to succeed going head to head against Harley Davidson? You'd both be trying to make the same product except that they've got 100+ years of experience as a head start. In order to have any chance of success you would need to offer substantial innovation.
Quote:
The sverve in the wake of Deadpool is going to be an epic facepalm, where everyone will miss that what resonated was that they got something new by enthusiastic, passionate people for the trees of R-rated 4th-wall breaking foulmouthedness. Kanye changed the face of hip-hop by doing new shit that caught on and made tedious middle-managers approve anything similar.
Exactly. Combine that with the commercial and critical success of Force Awakens (nevermind weak consumer reviews), and you'll get something else. I guarantee that as we speak there's some consultant out there running a regression analysis which tells him that make derivative, safe, licensed movies is now the best way to make a good return on a movie.
That's not how it works in the real world though. There's a huge difference between "logic" as academic types think of it and critical thinking skills. Management in almost all large organizations is full of people who excel at the former but are completely clueless when it comes it comes to having the kind of intuition-heavy thinking skills that allow you to understand a market.
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One thing I will add though, is that the music industry has done a very shitty job of adapting to digitization. Since nobody really uses CD's anymore and recording costs are very low there isn't much risk in recording new artists. They could record a huge amount of music, utilize their market research to suggest that music to existing customers, and compensate them almost entirely on commission.
In other words there is a lot that they could learn from Valve, and even the best music storefront are crap compared to what Valve and Steam do for games.
Morte on 21/2/2016 at 00:33
...you do realise you're not arguing against either of us, are you?
froghawk on 21/2/2016 at 03:48
Quote Posted by Tony_Tarantula
That said it simply being "risk management" is a common misconception. Just because you're imitating something that someone else has done before does not necessarily make it less risky. For example, how likely is a brand new motorcycle manufacturer to succeed going head to head against Harley Davidson? You'd both be trying to make the same product except that they've got 100+ years of experience as a head start. In order to have any chance of success you would need to offer substantial innovation.
How is this even remotely comparable? The business model for music and Harleys is completely different. The musical flavor of the week is about promotion money - there's no misconception there.
Jason Moyer on 21/2/2016 at 04:17
Quote Posted by Stitch
Also, if I'm feeling generous, I may return at some point to walk you all through why "Bound 2" is actually absolutely brilliant.
I'd be interested in reading that. I defend Kanye largely because I can appreciate his willingness to experiment and I find his brutal (if embarassing) honesty to be more appealing than the "I'm a serious artist making art here" thing that a lot of people go for (and also because what he does is a lot more difficult than most people seem to recognize), but outside of My Dark Twisted Fantasy I wouldn't actually consider myself a fan of his music. That album though, holy hell.
[video=youtube;HAfFfqiYLp0]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HAfFfqiYLp0[/video]
Tony_Tarantula on 22/2/2016 at 01:22
Quote Posted by froghawk
How is this even remotely comparable? The business model for music and Harleys is completely different. The musical flavor of the week is about promotion money - there's no misconception there.
Deductive logic. If we assume that all strategies that involve imitating a previously successful strategy are less risky, then imitating previous music is also less risky.
If on the other hand the first assumption is incorrect (and there are numerous examples across different industries that indicate that), then you can not assume that imitation is the least risky strategy.
faetal on 22/2/2016 at 07:44
There is still room for artists to be disruptive though and the industry must play to that simply because it also makes money. There is only so much iterative production which can be done before you leave yourself vulnerable to looking outdated when something comes along to shake things up. I'd argue that it's in any facet of the industry's interests to nurture creativity and innovation alongside having some play-it-safe acts. Kind of like having a mixed investment portfolio.
Stitch on 23/2/2016 at 01:04
Quote Posted by froghawk
I think it's worth noting that changing the face of what's trending in the mainstream doesn't actually imply innovation. Kanye did heavily influence the mainstream, that much is undeniable. But was he doing something new? Not necessarily, but that's also not necessarily a bad thing.
Well, I was pressed for specifics. How do you quantify why an artist is important? It seems like looking at the impact Kanye had on popular hiphop is as good a place as any.
Tracking influence in a world as complicated as music is tricky, because nothing happens in a void. Kanye has been at the center of multiple movements in hiphop, but I have little doubt that there were others making similar strides whose music simply never gained enough traction to inspire massive shockwaves. Kanye wasn't the first conflicted sensitive rapper to talk about his feelings--yeah, believe it or not that was once seen as an identifying characteristic of Kanye--but it was <i>The College Dropout</I> that sold 4 million copies in a rap scene previously dominated by the likes of 50 Cent, and the subsequent commercial acceptance of "rappers with feelings" in mainstream hiphop is therefore seen as its legacy (even if the real story is obviously more complicated).
That being said, none of that is really why I like the music of Kanye, or why I think anyone should listen to the guy. It's merely one reason that Kanye is musically important, and part of why I roll my eyes whenever someone discussed him as if he's nothing more than a talentless popstar throwing a tantrum at the wind.
(which isn't something you have done, for the record)
Tony_Tarantula on 24/2/2016 at 15:40
Quote Posted by faetal
There is still room for artists to be disruptive though and the industry must play to that simply because it also makes money. There is only so much iterative production which can be done before you leave yourself vulnerable to looking outdated when something comes along to shake things up. I'd argue that it's in any facet of the industry's interests to nurture creativity and innovation alongside having some play-it-safe acts. Kind of like having a mixed investment portfolio.
Except they're not actually doing it that much, leaving a wide open gap that third parties could easily (and sometimes do) exploit. If you want to carry the investment analogy further, the music industry is the equivalent of a fund which invests only in risk free debt (finance speak for government bonds). Not only are they realizing much shittier returns than they could, but you're left wondering what they hell you're paying them for.
faetal on 24/2/2016 at 20:37
I don't disagree. I can't think of any act in the last 10 years (or more even) in the mainstream who've done much for me (Kings of Leon maybe, possibly some others), but then I am old, so I'm probably just set in my ways.
