Stephen Pate, NJN Network, Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island, Canada, June 16, 2009
In the story, Are downloads really killing the music industry? Or is it something else? Guardian UK reporter Charles Arthur discovered that the electronic software entertainment business has doubled in 10 years while music sales are down. People are spending more money on games, lots more money, and DVDs.
Why are they?
In my opinion, it’s because most of today’s music sucks big time and the technology is too old. People want to be entertained and 99 44/10% of today’s music is not entertaining.
Forget all the 5th rate artists who put out songs: look at the big artists. Madonna? Where is anything close to her 80’s material. U2 is just a pale retread. Bob Dylan is singing blues songs from Chess Records. I love it because I’m a Bob Dylan
Even the best is pathetic. The cult of the singer songwriter has ground itself into the pavement of unlistenable mediocrity. We don’t want to know your every mundane thought and emotion. If your life is that boring, sing someone else’s emotions.
I was brushing my teeth looking into the mirror and the zit on my nose made me think of the time you got herpes.
I was at a recent singer-songwriter concert and my ass was twitching to leave for hours. Every once in awhile someone would sing a tune – yes a real live tune with melody and a hook. It was great! Live music that was interesting.
The rest of the time we had to endure intros like: I just wrote this song on a napkin in the men’s room which would have shown promise if the singer was female. Or the best snoozer of all time: this is a song off my new CD meaning you don’t know it and will forget it after the last guitar chord rings (15 seconds on a good guitar).
There was one song new song that stuck in my mind. I don’t remember the tune but the hook was great. Afterwards I realized I’d seen the guy play it twice before so it had familiarity.
Which is my other point – why are we tortured with music we’ve never heard before. The most entertaining group was a blues quartet who dished up some tasty grooves everyone could follow. And they had the beat and some nice chops.
On my way downtown today they were celebrating a new book on Charlottetown’s history and the CBC host played a song called “Charlottetown” – no tune, throw away lyrics with each line or phrase ending with the unique and poetic word “Charlottetown”. God, does Rainnie have any musical sense? Did the songwriter listen to it and ask himself what he’d done? Perhaps not.
The second problem is 60 year old technology. People are buying DVD’s and games because they are exciting and entertaining and have – wow -surround sound and low frequency effects. 5.1 and now 7.1 with sub woofers and sounds that get inside your chest. Compelling music, games and movies.
A concert is surround sound and there are lots of low bass notes. But not our 1950’s stereo CDs and MP3s. Two channels – boring. Make it come alive with surround sound.
When Bob Dylan remastered his older CD’s in SACD and surround sound, I had to have it. Bob Dylan – Limited Edition Catalog Box Set
I got a new receiver just to decode the sound. It’s awesome. Then Sony said no and the SACD project died. We have DVD Audio now. Why isn’t music release on DVD with better sound and effects. What about Blu-Ray audio with Dolby TrueHD. It sounds fantastic.
Did it dawn on anyone yet that almost everyone with a computer and most people watching DVD’s have surround sound? Get with the modern age musicians and producers. Stop giving us boring stereo music.
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P C Childs
The Music industry is dying not because of piracy, not becasue of mundane music and not becasue of lack of talent. The music industry if dying becasue of it’s own greed. The death of the industry started 25 years ago and has been slowly dieing ever since. The act that started this was the death of the single. When I was young I bought 45rpm singles. I loved them. There were anywhere from 99 cents to 2 dollars. i could buy the one song I liked off an album without wasting all the money for the album. I was buying on average 10 singles a month which was $20 or less, roughly the cost of one CD when they were introuduced.
I stopped buying music the day I could no longer buy a single. It is an extremely rare event to find an album that I like, rather it is one or two songs on it that I want. Since I can no longer buy singles I no longer buy music. And I am not alone. That is why iTunes is so successful. Poeple want to buy the music they like, not the crap the industry forces us to buy. But they refuse to believe that it is their own fault so they blame the consumers and sue them. Great way to build customer loyalty.