...and other mysteries of life revealed!
So I've been thinking about this a lot (I even did a math project on it): why is the music business dying? I, and some of my other music-faithful friends, continue to purchase CDs, buy music from iTunes or eMusic, and basically pay for our music whenever we can (keep in mind that we're high school students with limited budgets). So what is happening to cause the downfall of the industry? Why is no one paying for music, just like you might pay $1500 to have an art piece hanging in your house? Sure, the simple answer is to blame Sean Parker and his 'Napster' for spawning a race of pig noises, torrential bits, fruity cables, and weird made up words (what the hell was Kazaa, anyway?) But really the question is why was there a demand for such services?
It seems to me that the primary reasons for people to want services like these are the primary reasons that I hate them. They are not at all album-oriented. They're not even artist-oriented. They're just a bunch of songs. First came the radio, where you never had to hear the same band more than once in a row! Hell, if you listen to Z100 (Portland's top 40 station) you can even jump genres every few minutes! Why commit to an entire album of songs, one that was meant to be listened to as a whole, when you can get just the songs you want for free!
And this is where it ties into de Zengotita. We've already talked about this a bit in class, but basically, people have such short attention spans, we are so overstimulated by everything (see Adam's first blog post) that we can't commit to anything. So no one is willing to buy entire albums anymore, they don't want to spend their money on songs which they might not like or (god!) which might bore them after 2 listens. Even if someone did try to get a whole album off LimeWire or something, each song would be from a different source, they'd be out of order, some would have terrible sound quality, possibly having been recorded by placing a microphone next to the radio, and no one would care! What happened to artist loyalty! No one even knows who plays (sings? lip-syncs? produces the beats for? let alone writes?) the songs they like anymore.
So essentially, we have moved into a song-based era where song-based artists(?) get the most sales, just because people search for their songs on iTunes and ignore the rest. Top 40 radio has overstimulated our minds with pulsating beats, electronified voices, and hypnotic high-pitched hooks (accidental alliteration!) and now all the songs beat as one, and the album as a concept gets kicked to the floor and forgotten. I mean, God forbid that a band should actually make more than one song at a time and put them out together s a cohesive piece of art. Because really, although it's always had that element, music is now just entertainment. One more piece of the Blob.
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4 comments:
Now I understand why you care about all that stuff that I asked you about the other day.
I apologize for misjudging you.
"Treefingers"...that's all I have to say.
mmmhh...tasty, tasty torrents...
In all seriousness, there is the opposite side of this. I use things like Limewire to actually get a taste of the band. I may hear one song that I like by them, and before deciding to download the rest of their records, I'll try a few more of their songs. If I like them enough, I'll go out and try to find their discography through a torrent.
You've probably heard this before, but most musicians don't actually get much money from their records. It's why I don't really feel the need to buy them. However, when I go to concerts, I try to buy some merchandise to actually show my apperication. I also know that the musicians will be getting more of the money than if I were to buy a CD. If people were to completely stop buying CD's, it would just mean the end of record companies, (Something that may actually happen in a few years.)not the end of avaialbe music. I bet more artists would just start taking the route that Radiohead did with their latest album.
Also, another argument. Are all songs on an album really meant to be listend to together? Though with many artists I feel like this is true, I'm not sure if you can just make a blanket statement, or even say that most artists do this. A lot of songs can stand alone as a full piece of art, and do not relate back to the other songs on an album. They don't need to be anaylzed along with the other songs. Again though, this isn't saying that many albums shouldn't be anaylzed together as a whole.
...That comment turned out far longer than expected. WALL OF TEXT.
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