From our overstocked archives
Sam Smith, 2010- No one in the major media or
at RIAA is going to admit it, but the remarkable decline in music buying
provides more evidence that when you turn a creative task over to a bunch of
lawyers and greedy executives, everyone loses.
The music industry has been killing itself for sometime. And
not just by the RIAA suing pre-teens for illegal downloading. The entire
environment for music has been overwhelmed by restrictions that have undermined
the way music has spread since the beginning of time: namely by sharing it.
Although I can't find any data on this, it seems clear, for
example, that ordinary people just don't sing as much as they used to. And when
they do, they don't have as many people who know what they're singing. One
reason for this is undoubtedly the compartmentalizing of the music industry so
punk rock fans don't care about country and vice versa, but it seems that a
major part of the problem is also that it is hard to find the music to share.
For example, the juke box - with its implicit assertion of containing the 50
best tunes - peaked in the mid-sixties. In the late 1940s three quarters of all
records made in the U.S. were for juke boxes. But by the 1980s, audience
selected music had largely been replaced by computer driven selection.
Musicians today also write their own music to a much greater
degree than in the past, in part to avoid copyright problems.
The term "cover" - used to describe the playing of
something someone else recorded - helps to explain the problem.
Writes Wikipedia: "In popular music, a cover version,
or simply cover, is a new rendition (performance or recording) of a previously
recorded, commercially released song or popular song. In its current use, it
can sometimes have a pejorative meaning-implying that the original recording
should be regarded as the definitive version, usually in the sense of an
"authentic" rendition, and all others are merely lesser competitors,
alternatives or tributes (no matter how popular). However, Billboard-and other
magazines recording the popularity of the musical artists and hit
tunes-originally measured the sales success of the published tune, not just
recordings of it, or later the airplay that it also managed to achieve. In that
context, the greater the number of cover versions, the more successful the
song."
In other words, we are literally disparaging the thing that
made popular music popular. After all, without covers we have little in common.
The term "cover version" wasn't even coined until
1966.
Noted Wiki: "Prior to the mid-20th century the notion
of an original version of a popular tune would, of course, have seemed slightly
odd - the production of musical entertainment being seen essentially as a live
event, even if one that was reproduced at home via a copy of the sheet music,
learned by heart, or captured on a shellac recording disc."
There may be some legal reasons for this. For example, a bar
that doesn't play cover tunes is less likely be attacked by the attorneys for
the industry corporados, another way in which lawyers are killing popular
music.
Before the 1960s, a musician dropped by a local music store,
handed over 25 bucks, and got an under the counter 'fake book' that contained
the chords, melody and lyrics of all the tunes a musician was meant to know.
One effect of this was to contribute to a common culture of music that has now
largely disappeared.
People just don't react to music the way a lot recording
executives, lawyers and even musicians think they do. For example, as late as
2002, an ABC poll found that 38% of Americans considered Elvis Presley the
greatest rock star ever. Jimi Hendrix came in second at four percent and
Michael Jackson tied Lennon, Jagger, Springsteen, McCartney, and Clapton at 2%.
In all, pollees list 128 different names. Even among 18-34 year olds, Presley
beat Hendrix 2 to 1, albeit getting only 19% of the votes.
In other words, we love what the industry considers the
past. One reason: it is something we can, as a culture, share.
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