Archive for December, 2007
hope & anchor
Sunday, December 30th, 2007be singing away 
Happy New Year everyone and thanks to all of you who have downloaded the album, I hope that Riding High will be a worthy soundtrack to your 2008. x
The Democratization of the Music Industry (Final Part)
Thursday, December 20th, 2007Connecting people
The notion that the Internet connects people is a dreadful error. Only great art, carrying universal truth across the ages, is capable of that. When a culture no longer has the strength for universal aesthetics, it seeks refuge in the niche. Society divides itself into segments. People withdraw into zones: small cliques of apparently like-minded individuals, continually splintering into ever smaller sections, and becoming more and more alienated from one another, until finally the world is made up of segments, each containing only one totally disconnected self. The Internet is just another agent of this disintegration process, this - democratization. (more…)
The Democratization of the Music Industry (Part 12)
Tuesday, December 18th, 2007Niche art vs. universal art.
Great music markets itself. The only reason why marketing considerations are so important these days is because product is so bad. It has by now become even impossible to write a hit. Our pop tradition is so weak that even a genius will struggle to shape something memorable and universal out of the refuse to which the public is currently attuned.
In their desperate attempts to create brand recognition, our mundane and anaemic artists/marketers are forced to think up increasingly absurd niches for themselves. On the Internet these wretches have discovered their natural home. (more…)
The Democratization of the Music Industry (Part 11)
Monday, December 17th, 2007Only in it for the money
Record companies have always promoted the hit. As such they were vanguards of popular culture. Now popular music is losing its value. Britain's ‘Top of the Pops' was discontinued because it was no longer possible to turn a handful of our era's pop songs into a culturally significant television programme. Nowadays, people consume music, rather than listen to it. Music provides background noise for mundane activities: jogging, driving, dishwashing. This is music's new purpose, and as such it still carries huge economic force, but its cultural relevance is none. Even financially viable pop songs are mercifully forgotten one, maybe two, month after their release. The BBC all but admitted that ‘Top of the Pops' was axed because today's pop music was rubbish. (more…)
The Democratization of the Music Industry (Part 10)
Monday, December 17th, 2007Zombie music
Imagine it: a random teenager, having been a fan of white rock music for much of his life, picks up a guitar and manages somehow to write a song. In light of the fact that record companies expect to receive a return on only 5% (sic) of their signings, it is not wholly unimaginable that some A’n’R guy somewhere decides to put the marketing department behind precisely this song and turn it into a hit. Perhaps the teenager is good looking and speaks in a northern accent, who knows? In any case: he has a hit. (more…)
The Democratization of the Music Industry (Part 9)
Thursday, December 6th, 2007
Plagiarism is easy
Well, those who try to follow in the Beatles’ footsteps, seduced by their public image, rather then the evidence of their talent and phenomenal work ethic, predictably manoeuvre themselves quickly into a tight corner. Having never received anything but the most basic musical training, these ordinary boys can not help but be of the opinion that experimentation fosters great art and habitually claim they write with the aim to break rules. Ironically, since they are unschooled and have no instinctive grasp of the rules, they are incapable of breaking any and end up writing extremely derivative and unoriginal material.
(more…)
Plagiarism is easy
Well, those who try to follow in the Beatles’ footsteps, seduced by their public image, rather then the evidence of their talent and phenomenal work ethic, predictably manoeuvre themselves quickly into a tight corner. Having never received anything but the most basic musical training, these ordinary boys can not help but be of the opinion that experimentation fosters great art and habitually claim they write with the aim to break rules. Ironically, since they are unschooled and have no instinctive grasp of the rules, they are incapable of breaking any and end up writing extremely derivative and unoriginal material.
(more…)
The Democratization of the Music Industry (Part 8)
Wednesday, December 5th, 2007Artists are freaks
The unification of the various musical developments that informed the Beatles’ early song writing was underpinned by a rigorous unity of theme in their lyrics. Their songs ranged in subject from love, heartache and friendship, to work, money troubles and paying taxes, but can all be categorised under the collective heading: the glorification of working-class life.
Artists have always been viewed by the people as rather freakish. Indeed, to possess a talent is still something of which the common man is naturally in awe and at the same time highly suspicious. Traditionally, talent is viewed as a gift from God or something one acquires through haggling with the Devil. A poet is a travelling visionary who is everywhere a welcome guest, but who is never invited to stay indefinitely. (more…)