Art vs. Industry (and Art is on the ropes)

Today I'd like to talk a little bit about music. Music used to be an extremely vital part of my life. I made it the number one priority for most of my high school and college years. I even went so far as to shirk some very important responsibilities in order to follow a certain traveling band around for a short while. I spent many hours just sitting in my room or my car or wherever I could listening to music. I mean really listening, dissecting the songs in my head and hearing the subtle nuances of each part and each instrument. I knew every word to every song on every CD I owned and, at that time there were a lot of them. I think at one point my CD collection was around 700 discs. I know some of you have more, or know someone who has more, but I was proud of that collection. I even custom built a rack myself to hold it all. Music is an extremely powerful thing. It can evoke just about any emotion you'd like just by sending some moving air into your ear. Weird, huh? If you think about it, music has intertwined itself into just about every facet of life that you could think of. It is, perhaps, the most prevalent form of art the world has ever known. So what the hell happened to it? When did music become the toilet bowl of the art world? I used to think it was a pretty recent phenomenon, but now I think it happened a very long time ago and it's just taken us forever to notice. The point when music took a nose dive was when corporate influence took the reins and turned music into an industry rather than an art form. People used to make music for the sake of making music. If they happened to be able to make a living doing it, bonus. But if not, they'd continue on with their day jobs and make music when they could. They did it because they loved it. Now people make music for the sake of making money. If they happen to make a good song while doing it, bonus. Unfortunately, those good songs seem to be few and far between these days. There was a small, brief resurgence of music for music's sake in the 1960's and 70's but it didn't last long. Luckily that movement produced some of the greatest rock music you'll ever want to hear. Led Zeppelin was recently named the greatest rock band of all time by VH1, and I happen to agree whole-heartedly. A lot of people think that music has gone down the toilet since the 70's, but the truth is that music was already in the toilet when the 70's came along. It was just a high spot, a blip on the radar, so to speak. Think back to the cheery pop music of the 40's and 50's. It's really not that much different than the pop music we have today. Sure the beats are a little more aggressive now and it's more blatant in almost every way, but essentially the formula is the same. Pretty people sing songs they didn't write in order to make a buck for themselves and someone else who's name you may or may not ever hear. That someone is whoever it is that heads up the record label that supports the "artist." So now we have this gargantuan entity that is the music industry and it supports a lot of people. It has become a necessary part of our modern economy, but really, what would Mozart think? Something tells me he wouldn't approve. The industry is so worked up over music theft, music sharing, music piracy, whatever you want to call it, and yeah, it's a bit of a problem I guess, but I think there's a much much bigger problem than that. The problem with music sharing (theft, piracy, et al) is that it robs the artist of money that they deserve for making their music. The bigger problem than that is, the artist only gets about 8-12 cents for every dollar that is spent on their music. The rest goes to the label and all the other people who were involved in turing that music into a product. So I ask you, who's really ripping the artists off? The kid who downloads a song and costs the artist 8-12 cents? Or the label that's bastardizing music and robbing the artists of 88-92 cents? Of course, this is all a result of the even bigger problem of music being turned into something the value of which is measured only in dollar signs. I had all this in my head today because I bought the new System of a Down CD. This is a band, that up until now I had considered one of the modern greats. Ok, so it was nothing especially earth-shattering or ground breaking, but it was a refreshing, intelligent take on a notoriously dodgy genre of music. It was honest, it was political, it was pertinent, it was passionate, and it was bloody good. Just a few Armenian guys thrashing their balls off and having a blast doing it. The new album, Mezmerize, is not quite up to scratch. "Here's a new album from a band who's music has been consistently good," thought I. "I've heard a few songs from this album and they are also good. I think I'd like to have the whole album so I can hear more of their good songs." Solid reasoning, if you ask me. So I actually went out and bought the CD instead of downloading it (legally, of course). A real CD in a real package, designed by real people. Because I was so sure it would be worth it. Oops. I should have bought the good songs from the iTunes music store and left the rest alone. It would have saved me twelve bucks. There's the two good songs I had already heard and there are maybe two or three other pretty good songs, but the rest of it sounds like music from a band who's falling victim the industry. It sounds like the band is being over-produced to sound more like itself. I know that may not make sense, but I think I can explain it, just give me a minute. This is the band's third release on a major label. (Their first album was on a semi-big label.) Being their fourth album, they were, understandably, making some changes in their style of music. Nothing too major, just a progression of style like any good band will go through. The label, hearing the change, panics. Labels hate change from a formula that's proven to sell, especially if it's an artist that's still sort of new. (In other words, if the band has been around forever like, say, oh, U2, they can make whatever crap music they want and the label doesn't care because they know it will sell anyway.) Oh, no! We might not make as much money off this new style as we did off the old one. Never mind that fact that this is how the band wants their music to sound. Fuck the band. It's all about the Benjamin's, see? So they send in a producer to make the band sound like they did on their last album that sold a gazillion copies. And it comes out sounding fake, weak, and unsatisfying. So I weep once again for the fate of modern music. And I take a lesson from this experience; Don't waste my money on the songs that suck, just download the good ones. The industry is shooting itself in the foot and they don't even notice.