If you’re hypersensitive about the modern music industry and like to argue that Justin Bieber and Miley Cyrus are actually creating art and not just nonsense that makes them millions; and how that any song released before the year 2000 is too old to even bother with and can’t possibly be any good, then you are going to want to look away now. I’m not going to argue that all music after 2000 is bad, because that would make me as stupid as the people whom I just mentioned. There has been some incredible music and artists since 2000; however the industry itself has simply lost its magic, which it only really had during the 60s and 70s.
This is what they call an opinion piece, so feel free to have wildly different opinions to me on this matter.
The Advertising Machine
Fame has changed and with it advertising. Sometimes advertising works incredible well, for example takeaway pizza restaurants and online bingo sites have seen rocketing numbers of paying customers since they started their relatively recent marketing push, however these are companies, as when artists start doing it, it changes how they are seen and why they make music. It is no longer about artistry and more about money, which is why the massively popular artists get to nestle in this mass delusion that they are somehow superior to the (much more talented) ‘indie’ artists that stay under the radar as they solely want to make art and not fame and money. Led Zeppelin survived on pure word of mouth for they didn’t advertise and they never even released a single, much to the chagrin of their record label. They were still one of the most popular bands of all time, but I can guarantee they wouldn’t be if they tried to make it today.
X-Factor and Insta-Fame
I’m not going to bash the X-Factor because it’s an entertaining Saturday night show with interesting judges (Sharon Osbourne will always be the Queen of tele). The show itself is fine, however in the past decade it has changed the way people view celebrity and musical artistry. It has almost created a culture whereby anyone can become a famous, million selling artists from singing one song on TV with little to no prior experience. In the 60s and 70s (although I know this is a cliché) artists and bands had to work really hard for many years to build a name for themselves. Bob Dylan was practically homeless on the streets of New York as he played small folk and rock clubs. The Beatles toiled for thousands of hours practicing and playing in venues across Liverpool and Germany before they got some recognition. Bieber sings a few songs on YouTube and he’s a massive success, even though it would seem from the media that everyone hates him?
Media Training
Media training is the phrase used to describe the process where famous people are taught what to say, how to say it, how to act, etc., on television and in public. It has created media monsters that have stolen the very essence of rock and roll and the rebelliousness of music. Yes, Bieber gets into trouble off screen, but it’s briefly in the papers and then swept away again, whilst on TV he’s a quiet unassuming little teen popstar. If you go back and watch old interviews with the Beatles, they were hilariously irreverent. They made fun of the TV presenters, the shows they were on, and the world they found themselves in. You shouldn’t be able to media train a popstar … it’s just wrong.
So not all modern music is bad, but the popular stuff that everyone is feasting on has lost its souland it’s magic. It used to be about the music, the soul, happiness, love, and life and now it’s only about money and fame for the vast majority and the people are hoovering it up. That’s not to say that there wasn’t bad music throughout the ages, either, but the bulk of the output was simply ‘good’ and the same is true now that there is still ‘good’ music being made, it’s just being eclipsed by the escapades of the Twitter obsessed famous elite. Someone could quite easily argue that music lost its soul when pop music game along, put we’ll let those Classic FM weirdos keep their delusion.
