The music 'industry' in 2013
- Started
- Last post
- 17 Responses
- benfal99
That discussion deserve its own thread, iam curious to read what QBNers think of this, i wrote that in the 'best album of 2013' thread
- -
The worst year since decades.
Bands having a long career is now very rare, we're at the age of temporary or disposable bands, internet has change the way we consume every cultural products; we want new stuff all the time.
A band last only a couple months or a few years now.
And the democratisation of music publishing (anyone can produce and publish music for a few dollars now) is flooding the "market" with hundreds of crappy bands manking super boring music. Every weeks dozens of new albums appears here and there. We look at music blogs and they dump us a truck load of informations about so many bands, we can't go with the flow.
The music "business" has changed.
Albums that will become classics are now very very rare; almost all your "albums of the year" will fade into time and no one will listen to them in 20 years.
- utopian0
Everything is a remix!
- bogue0
I think everybody listens to music in different ways. Any album that i listen to enough to learn the lyrics i have a good feeling i'll still enjoy a long time from now. But you and I and everybody else are different.
I don't disagree that music is more disposable now.. but i wouldn't say that's a reflection of the creativity of today's artists. Musicians are still creating innovative beautiful things there's just alot more of it.
- ORAZAL0
What are the albums of 1993 that we listen to now?
- dude... Siamese Dream, In utero... Wu tang Klan, Bjork's Debut....benfal99
- Now to prove your theory name albums from 1983 that are "better" than those of 1993ORAZAL
- why should they be better? But 83 is Kille em all, U2' War ...benfal99
- They should be better because you are claiming that the quality of the music is degradingORAZAL
- 93: Verve-Storm in Heaven, U2-Zooropa, Tribe-MidnightMaraud... Pablo Honey, Porno for Pyros, Rid of Me, In Utero, James-Laid, Frank Black, Depeche Mode, Blur,CyBrainX
- 83: Violent Femmes, REM Murmur, Synchronicity, New Order, Cramps,CyBrainX
- Well my point was...
nevermind!ORAZAL - i never said that anywaysbenfal99
- ideaist0
In Canada, we have an awards called Polaris. Recently a underdog band (who's actually been in the scene for 20+ years) won a prize against some of the heaviest hitters in Canadian music; the winner was actually announced by Feist (Canadian Indie sweetheart):
"A FEW WORDS REGARDING THIS POLARIS PRIZE THING
hello kanada.
hello kanadian music-writers.thanks for the nomination thanks for the prize- it feels nice to be acknowledged by the Troubled Motherland when we so often feel orphaned here. and much respect for all y’all who write about local bands, who blow that horn loudly- because that trumpeting is crucial and necessary and important.
and much respect to the freelancers especially, because freelancing is a hard fucking gig, and almost all of us are freelancers now, right? falling and scrambling and hustling through these difficult times?
so yes, we are grateful, and yes we are humble and we are shy to complain when we’ve been acknowledged thusly- BUT HOLY SHIT AND HOLY COW- we’ve been plowing our field on the margins of weird culture for almost 20 years now, and “this scene is pretty cool but what it really fucking needs is an awards show” is not a thought that’s ever crossed our minds.
3 quick bullet-points that almost anybody could agree on maybe=
-holding a gala during a time of austerity and normalized decline is a weird thing to do.
-organizing a gala just so musicians can compete against each other for a novelty-sized cheque doesn’t serve the cause of righteous music at all.
-asking the toyota motor company to help cover the tab for that gala, during a summer where the melting northern ice caps are live-streaming on the internet, IS FUCKING INSANE, and comes across as tone-deaf to the current horrifying malaise.
these are hard times for everybody. and musicians’ blues are pretty low on the list of things in need of urgent correction BUT AND BUT if the point of this prize and party is acknowledging music-labor performed in the name of something other than quick money, well then maybe the next celebration should happen in a cruddier hall, without the corporate banners and culture overlords. and maybe a party thusly is long overdue- it would be truly nice to enjoy that hang, somewhere sometime where the point wasn’t just lazy money patting itself on the back.
give the money to the kids let ‘em put on their own goddamn parties, give the money to the olds and let them try to write opuses in spite of, but let the muchmusic videostars fight it out in the inconsequential middle, without gov’t. culture-money in their pockets.
us we’re gonna use the money to try to set up a program so that prisoners in quebec have musical instruments if they need them...
amen and amen.
apologies for being such bores,
we love you so much / our country is fucked,
xoxoxox
godspeed you! black emperor"http://cstrecords.com/statement-…
The music industry is on its way out. The internet allows for underdogs, like the band who issued the statement above to have a larger voice BUT never too large.
Quality will always rise to the top in due time.
Trend is fleeing; always has been and always will be.
- prophetone0
i will be listening to 2012/13 choons in 20 years. almost every day i listen to tunes like renegade snares foul play rmx, peter piper, terminator, metropolis, t.r.o.y., etc... golden age shit but it's been many years, more than 20, fml.
- ORAZAL0
Like bogue said even though we don't consume music the same way that doesn't mean that the "quality" of the music has lowered.
If you're not finding stuff to enjoy maybe it's just a sign that you are getting old.
- bogue0
oh.. and one last thing. Maybe this is more of a reflection of pop culture. In the past talented musicians were the mainstream of music. The masses liked things like Zepplin, Hendrix, The Beatles etc... Unfortunately now its Miley Cyrus and PSY that have 2 billion views on youtube. Just another reason why the true artists might fade into obscurity. Again its not a reflection of the music itself... just where this generations interest lies.
If anything i think we live in an age of rampant creativity with more people then ever trying to create new sounds, art etc... We're just all cynical as hell.
- That's a little revisionist history though, the masses always liked superficial pop musicukit2
- ukit's right... ever hear of the Monkees and The Eagles?monospaced
- it's been a long night and i hate the fuckin' eagles.bogue
- good point fellas.bogue
- And the Monkees were pretty decent. Most of the bad stuff from those eras has simply been forgottenukit2
- monospaced0
- an infographic I put together last year that illustrates how this happened over the decadesmonospaced
- really cool!benfal99
- ESKEMA0
First, I think that you should prooread, it is best practice to always proofread what you write. :)
Secondly, I think that we have that opinion about everything, but it is not a true statement. There is a lot more disposable music/whatever available but that doesn't mean there aren't good stuff also, it's still here, but buried beneath the bad stuff.
The consumer needs to up their search for good goods. And that applies to everything. The corporations and mediocre artist will always be on a more prominent display.- prooreadmonospaced
- also, English isn't his first languagemonospaced
- neither mine. ahaha @ prooread. had to happen. I put a smile because it wasn't supposed to be harsh.ESKEMA
- iam a fuckin french-canadian yo! ;)benfal99
- and I'm portuguese! :DESKEMA
- and learned english here on QBN. so thats your fault all of you! ;)benfal99
- prophetone0
i don't buy into the fade into obscurity thing, not now. if anything, there is a massive advantage for indie artists nowadays with bandcamp, forums, itunes, social channels, youtube, vimeo, blogs, etc.
i discover new stuff all the time, like the belle game (yesterday)...
- so many ways to diffuse, so much ways to be lost...benfal99
- ...into the ocean of data published every seconds on the WWWbenfal99
- we are the music finders. the music will be found. in the 90s, if the cd/12" was staring at me then it was truly lostprophetone
- this belle game tune was in grays anatomy a few days ago, googled it, bought it with 5 min. i'm a fan now.prophetone
- haha, "if it WASN'T" staring at me i mean...prophetone
- i found out about new artists thru mags mostly. not the best considering how many i never knew about and discover now, years laterprophetone
- Years laterprophetone
- the ocean is bigger now, yes, but the tools to navigate it are better too imo. i like it nowadays.prophetone
- plus! i can buy direct from indie lables like stones throw, hospital, and support their asses. feels good.prophetone
- beatport is also a big one for me, i folllow the suggestions and find new tunes often, tops!prophetone
- hans_glib0
as eskema and others have said there's good music out there, but it's buried under a ton of other crap. in the olden days it was harder for people to make music so only the committed bothered.
it's easier now so every arse with a notion of being a musician can make noise with little effort.
all this extra noise makes it harder to find the good stuff, but it's still out there. you just need to find a few good filters that work for you. podcasts, mixes, whatever. when i find something i like (eg "hedonist" on mixcloud) i use that to help filter out the good stuff.
- CALLES0
Music industry is dead. Music will prevail and live on
music should be music and not just purely the people that get idolize by playing it
- I wish the same would happen with sportsmonospaced
- exactamundo telemunderos callesprophetone
- it's not dead yet unfortunately.winnie_the_shit
- if not dead, at least a sad shadow of its former selfprophetone
- ukit20
If you look at something like this site: http://14tracks.com/selections you can see there are lots of interesting trends going on in different obscure genres of music. But for people who expect the "big important album" that bands like Pink Floyd, U2 or (later on) Radiohead used to release, I can see how they might be disappointed. I would say that music is more about experimentation these days, and evolution of different sounds and ideas.
- winnie_the_shit0
If by "music industry", you mean that boomer owned thing that puts out Paul McCartney's bullshit.. then no. Those people will all be dead in 20 years.
I'll be listening to "The Suburbs" and "Funeral" in 20 years probably. Of course, I thought the same thing about "I care because you do" and "Go Plastic" and I can hardly stand that now.
I'm loving this innervisions stuff right now.
- prophetone0
Yes, gone are the days of waltzing into Sam the Record Man and discovering a new Portishead lp just dropped. That was magic.