Re: [ARSCLIST] Record Business vs. Music Business: The Shakeout Continues.

["Steven C. Barr(x)" <stevenc@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

see end...
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Bob Olhsson" <olh@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
> -----Original Message-----
> >From Dismuke: "... My guess is the artists themselves will 
> be the ones who will finance their own recordings and
> they will basically beg people to take/and or listen
> to them in the exact same way that companies today are
> eager to pay for and hand out their brochures,
> business cards and advertisements to as many people as
> possible."
> >
> And where exactly do you propose that artists are likely to get this money
> not to mention enough experience to learn how to communicate effectively? My
> guess is that most will choose a different career except for the few who can
> attract corporate patronage. To a great extent this has already happened and
> the result is the new music that nobody considers worth buying we hear on
> commercial radio.
> 
> Once you get past all of their flowery, romantic populist sounding
> propaganda about the internet, the Silicon Valley investment banking
> community has killed the goose that laid the golden egg in order to float a
> few more initial public offerings fueled by offering yesterday's music for
> free. The biggest losers are tomorrows music fans and the next generation of
> gifted performers.
> 
In spite of this discouraging forecast...there still exist two vital realities!

First, with each new group of "youth," there will be...in fact, MUST be...
a new genre of music! This may be, like to-days, a "new" genre essentially
based on what has gone before...or it COULD be, as it was in 1916-18,
1935-36, and c. 1955, a COMPLETELY different style of music, rendering
virtually all of its musical predecessors effectively obsolete and
"passe!"

Second, each new generation has to move on from the previous generation!
The fact that we loathed the music of our parents (regardless of whether
or not we eventually accepted it...) is a built-in "given" which ensures
that our species will continue to develop and move forward!

The "brand-new" music of the 1990's and 2000's turned out to be a tired
rehash of music done better the first time around (see under "James Brown!"

I am still waiting for a TOTALLY new approach to music (i.e. the difference
between "Rock Around the Clock" and "Doggie In the Window"...).

If we are going to continue recycling a musical "same old, same old..."
we are musically "spinning our wheels" and thus wasting our efforts!

So...?!?!

Steven C. Barr