Are you a fan of music or stars?\u00c2\u00a0 If you’re a fan of stars, despite the celebrity culture we seemingly inhabit, your legion is diminishing, music is returning.<\/p>\n
Music is a bellwether.\u00c2\u00a0 Music leads the way.\u00c2\u00a0 Despite the capitulation of the industry, despite the endless polishing of vapid turds, music is the most vibrant medium, the one that we look to for truth.\u00c2\u00a0 You can write and record a song in minutes, you don’t have to ask anyone for permission, you don’t have to hit up your parents for production fees, never mind a movie studio.\u00c2\u00a0 There’s a direct connection from you to your listener’s heart.\u00c2\u00a0 Assuming someone’s paying attention.<\/p>\n
While the film industry grapples with declining disc sales, and tries to establish another physical format, the music world knows that the disc is dead and that online is king.\u00c2\u00a0 After all, Napster hit at the end of 1999.<\/p>\n
Like I said, music is first.<\/p>\n
Sure, there are ninnies interested in popular culture, who want to wear the badge of major industry hypes, but music, real music, the kind that touches people, not the momentary stop traffic hit, has gone underground.\u00c2\u00a0 All that you lament has been gone from the game, everything from songwriting to mistakes…it’s back.\u00c2\u00a0 Despite the major media being clueless.<\/p>\n
You don’t follow the music industry anymore, you don’t listen to the radio and you don’t really care who’s number one, you’re a fan of an act.\u00c2\u00a0 And those not interested in your act don’t give a shit.\u00c2\u00a0 It’s not about crossing over, it’s about the great divide.<\/p>\n
Don’t feel bad if you don’t like the records reviewed in the newspaper, the ones talked about by the hipsters.\u00c2\u00a0 They think there’s a mainstream scene.\u00c2\u00a0 But that’s gone.\u00c2\u00a0 Propped up to a degree by touring dinosaurs and what’s left of over the air radio, but it just doesn’t count.<\/p>\n
I was about to write about an Ian Matthews song, a cover of Jules Shear’s "Shadows Break", from "Walking A Changing Line", one of my favorite albums.\u00c2\u00a0 And I found out that the now monikered "Iain" released a live album, you can hear the samples here: <\/p>\n
\nArtist: Iain Matthews
Album Title: Nights In Manhattan (And Points West)
Label: ItsAboutMusic.com<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\nyou can even buy the MP3s on Amazon.\u00c2\u00a0 And thinking of that long ago decade known as the eighties my mind stumbled upon John Kilzer, whose first album slayed me.\u00c2\u00a0 It didn’t break through, but that was back when being signed counted, when it gave you a hand in the game, a shot at stardom, before the game imploded and it all became meaningless.\u00c2\u00a0 And I learned that you can hear Kilzer’s "classic", "Memory In The Making", on MySpace, on a page a fan established for him: <\/p>\n
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