John Mellencamp recently gave his perception of how the recording industry has slowly dissasembled itself over the years in an essay published on Huffington Post. He argues that the downfall started with the introduction of SoundScan and Broadcast Data Systems (BDS). These two new Neilsen monitoring systems, in a nutshell, allowed the labels to see exactly how many plays a song was getting on the radio, how many units it has sold and where it all happened. This essentially caused the labels to focus on certain cities and ignore the rest of the country. According to Mellencamp, this caused #1 hits that most of the country had never heard and was the catalyst for the self-destruction of the industry. He goes on to say this business transformation from music-centric to the Wall Street mentality stripped the artist of the creative process of recording music and has forced commercialized marketing tools out of the artists instead of songs. He uses the example of Mariah Carey..."Nothing against Mariah, she's a brilliantly gifted vocalist, but the point here is the way that the songs were built -- mine from the ground up, hers from the top down. "
I agree that the shift to a Wall Street mentality by the record labels in the late 80s and early 90s did cause music to be 'commercial,' but it didn't completely rob the artist of the creative process. Although the majority of music recorded and released by the major labels falls within the 'commercial' category because it was created simply to make money and keep stockholders happy, artists can still have creativity and time to develop their music. Granted, it may never see radio play or mass distribution, but people can still take the time to create what they want and feel they should without some suit force feeding them concepts of what people will like.
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I think i understand what you're saying, and I think it doesn't necessarily rob the artist either. Essentially the artist can create whatever music they desire, and perhaps that this music will be a great hit in a certain location, causing it to be number one there. While the rest of the country may not have heard of it, there will always be another artist who's music is popular in those places that the other music wasn't. You can't expect to get the same things everywhere you go, just like you would expect pizza made like up north to the pizza made in the south. The same goes with movies, in some cities certain movies aren't shown because they won't be a hit there, it's highly tactical, not really discriminatory. If it was your product then wouldn't you want to tweak it to make the most money possible?
ReplyDeleteIt's sad to think that the rich and famous pop stars that are idolized by the masses don't even write their own songs half the time. They're just a pretty face or body that people will want to resemble. The suits dress them up and write their catchy songs then watch the cash roll in. Many times I've seen a band before and after the industry has taken them over. Once they become famous they have no need to actually put their hearts into making good music. They can just start a clothing line and start singing catchy songs that exhibit no creativity whatsoever.
ReplyDeleteIt's amazing how different radio station playlists are in each city. Gainesville and Tampa (FL) are a mere two hours apart, yet the radio stations in each city play different music; if two nearly neighboring cities have unique playlists, then the difference in playlists between states must be profound. I agree that a lot of music today is a degression. However, I don't think the industry is much worse now than it was in the 90's.
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