Sometime in the nineties, around when Mariah Carey ascended in the
marketplace, the criterion for quality became sales.\u00c2\u00a0 And not only does that
suck, it’s inaccurate.<\/p>\n
Not that it’s the music business’ fault.\u00c2\u00a0 It started with the movie business.<\/p>\n
Grosses were always known by the insiders, they were published in the trades.
\u00c2\u00a0But then, the weekend’s grosses made it to television, to print, to radio.\u00c2\u00a0
A mania was created.\u00c2\u00a0 THAT was the story.\u00c2\u00a0 How "Independence Day"
had the best Fourth Of July opening.\u00c2\u00a0 How this film set this record or that.<\/p>\n
The big story this summer is how movie GROSSES are down.\u00c2\u00a0 It wasn’t until
deep into the slump that anyone questioned the movies’ QUALITY.<\/p>\n
Now, unlike grosses, quality is subjective.<\/p>\n
Then again, isn’t art?\u00c2\u00a0 Isn’t art supposed to be a creation that provokes,
makes one think, that you have a reaction to?\u00c2\u00a0 Too many Hollywood films elicit
NO reaction.\u00c2\u00a0 What would be your response to "Bewitched"?\u00c2\u00a0 Other than Elizabeth
Montgomery was a better Samantha!<\/p>\n
We’ve moved towards a quantified society.\u00c2\u00a0 No Child Behind is about testing.\u00c2\u00a0
If you’re learning for the test, you’re learning very little.\u00c2\u00a0 Education is
about learning how to THINK!<\/p>\n
But thinking is no longer revered.\u00c2\u00a0 You go to college to learn a trade.\u00c2\u00a0
English majors are laughed at.\u00c2\u00a0 It’s all about getting ahead, acquiring things.\u00c2\u00a0
Hell, Washington, D.C. has everybody up in arms over the estate tax.\u00c2\u00a0 You don’t
want to take anything AWAY from people.<\/p>\n
But, you can’t take away someone’s identity.\u00c2\u00a0 Oh, you can steal all their
money, their car, but you can’t take who they are.<\/p>\n
But it no longer matters who you are.\u00c2\u00a0 If you’re nice, you’re a shmo, to be
taken advantage of by someone else.\u00c2\u00a0 If you’re compassionate, you’re too
ignorant to realize you’re giving but not getting.\u00c2\u00a0 As if that’s how it worked, that
you should help for twelve hours for twelve hours of help in return.\u00c2\u00a0 Maybe
reading to an underprivileged child for hours gets paid back by one smile.\u00c2\u00a0
THAT smile you can reflect upon, you can treasure in your brain.\u00c2\u00a0 The dollar in
your wallet?\u00c2\u00a0 How good does that make you feel?<\/p>\n
We live in a country of winners and losers.\u00c2\u00a0 And you win by making money,
acquiring things.<\/p>\n
I guess art reflects life.\u00c2\u00a0 With the soulless, money-grubbing society that
now exists, we’ve got soulless money-grubbing art.<\/p>\n
If you’re a critic, and you say something financially successful sucks,
everyone shouts you down, saying the show\/movie\/music made people happy,
it did a lot of business.\u00c2\u00a0 I ask you, does this make anything GOOD!<\/p>\n
I’m not saying that the critics are always right.\u00c2\u00a0 But a good critic will
give you insight into art, help you to understand it, evaluate it for yourself.\u00c2\u00a0
Great criticism will EDUCATE you.<\/p>\n
But in topsy-turvy America being dumb is a badge of honor.\u00c2\u00a0 Dumb and rich.<\/p>\n
SoundScan fucked up the music business.\u00c2\u00a0 The goal became to create an album
that would debut at number one, and to spend enough money to insure this.\u00c2\u00a0 If
you didn’t make music that fit this paradigm, you weren’t signed, or weren’t
promoted.<\/p>\n
The light was shone on the big sellers.\u00c2\u00a0 The small sellers somehow didn’t
even count.<\/p>\n
Hell, that’s become the story with Arcade Fire.\u00c2\u00a0 Not how good or bad the
music is, but how many albums they’re selling, the grosses, HOW MUCH MONEY THEY’RE LEAVING ON THE TABLE!<\/p>\n
For longevity, to be remembered, to have a career, you’ve got to be good.<\/p>\n
All those old bands touring today.\u00c2\u00a0 It’s their high quality songs that are
drawing people in.<\/p>\n
U2 made some great albums and sold a ton of them.<\/p>\n
But that doesn’t put their last two albums in the category of "Boy".<\/p>\n
I only wish the focus was on great.\u00c2\u00a0 That there was a big debate in society
on quality.<\/p>\n
Then again, can anybody read anymore?\u00c2\u00a0 Can anybody analyze?\u00c2\u00a0 We’re making all
this money, but our culture is empty.<\/p>\n
<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Sometime in the nineties, around when Mariah Carey ascended in the marketplace, the criterion for quality became sales.\u00c2\u00a0 And not only does thatsuck, it’s inaccurate. Not that it’s the music business’ fault.\u00c2\u00a0 It started with the movie business. Grosses were always known by the insiders, they were published in the trades. \u00c2\u00a0But then, the weekend’s […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[2,6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-126","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-music-business","category-the-music"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p96vPs-22","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/126","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=126"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/126\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=126"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=126"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=126"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}