The Democratization of the Music Industry (Part 9)
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.
The self sufficient ‘rock band’, the Beatles’ shameful legacy, can be defined as a group of white guys with a limited degree of formal training, who forge a career out of liberally quoting from the songbook of black popular music. After the Golden Age had been sufficiently eroded by black innovations (harmonic simplicity, rhythmic rigidity,) white guys found themselves able to plagiarise their way into thinking they were songwriters.
Other commercially successful examples of the rock band are the Rolling Stones, Led Zeppelin, the Bee Gees and the Police, (Gee, all British bands!)
With the further integration of black people into American society and black people being increasingly capable of selling their stuff to white audiences themselves, the ‘rock band’ is being divested of its raison d’etre. One might have expected the phenomenon to have died out, if it were not for the unfortunate circumstance that their legacy is by now so widely regarded as rather magnificent in its own right, that ‘rock bands’ can build a career on quoting from their own buccaneering tradition. This is an absurd situation. The Beatles were an end-stop: a summary and convenient index at the back of a reference book. To use them as a starting point is the death of creativity.
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.
The self sufficient ‘rock band’, the Beatles’ shameful legacy, can be defined as a group of white guys with a limited degree of formal training, who forge a career out of liberally quoting from the songbook of black popular music. After the Golden Age had been sufficiently eroded by black innovations (harmonic simplicity, rhythmic rigidity,) white guys found themselves able to plagiarise their way into thinking they were songwriters.
Other commercially successful examples of the rock band are the Rolling Stones, Led Zeppelin, the Bee Gees and the Police, (Gee, all British bands!)
With the further integration of black people into American society and black people being increasingly capable of selling their stuff to white audiences themselves, the ‘rock band’ is being divested of its raison d’etre. One might have expected the phenomenon to have died out, if it were not for the unfortunate circumstance that their legacy is by now so widely regarded as rather magnificent in its own right, that ‘rock bands’ can build a career on quoting from their own buccaneering tradition. This is an absurd situation. The Beatles were an end-stop: a summary and convenient index at the back of a reference book. To use them as a starting point is the death of creativity.