I’m not interested.<\/p>\n
And neither is the public.<\/p>\n
Good enough just doesn’t cut it.<\/p>\n
Has anybody competed and won against the iPod?\u00c2\u00a0 Can you name an act today as good as the Beatles?<\/p>\n
Somehow, in the last few decades, artistic quality has become irrelevant.\u00c2\u00a0 In the dash for cash, it’s all about shooting low, to the sweet spot, where most people live, so the purveyors can make money.<\/p>\n
It’s worst in the movies.\u00c2\u00a0 Where pictures are made for worldwide audiences.\u00c2\u00a0 You can’t do comedies because they don’t understand the jokes everywhere else.\u00c2\u00a0 Instead of originality, we get endless recycled dreck, like "Pirates Of The Caribbean: On Stranger Tides".\u00c2\u00a0 Don’t point to the grosses.\u00c2\u00a0 No one says it’s good.\u00c2\u00a0 And it ain’t that much different in music.<\/p>\n
Which is why we find the same people making the same records over and over again.\u00c2\u00a0 There are go-to guys and gals who write and produce and that’s just the way the purveyors want it.\u00c2\u00a0 The fact that some people buy it does not undercut the point that most people do not.\u00c2\u00a0 Sales are anemic.\u00c2\u00a0 We’ve got endless hype, and yet almost nothing sells in excess of a million copies, in a country of three hundred million.<\/p>\n
If you want someone to encourage you to pick up your instrument and play, to try to make it in music, you’ve got the wrong guy.\u00c2\u00a0 I’ve got no problem with you going down to Guitar Center, buying an axe and working up some tunes in GarageBand. But just don’t expect me to get excited, just don’t expect me to want to hear it!<\/p>\n
I know, I know, you don’t like this.\u00c2\u00a0 Not in a country where you get a trophy for participating and your mother says you’re the best musician she’s ever heard.<\/p>\n
Bollocks.<\/p>\n
A great musician has practiced, is familiar with his instrument and has something to say.\u00c2\u00a0 And if the music is truly great, we’ll all pay attention.<\/p>\n
Isn’t this how Apple made it?<\/p>\n
Because Steve Jobs is all about excellence.\u00c2\u00a0 From top to bottom.\u00c2\u00a0 If you were to buy an Apple product and be dissatisfied you’d be stunned.\u00c2\u00a0 You marvel at the design, you’re wowed by the usability.\u00c2\u00a0 You’re happy.\u00c2\u00a0 When were you this happy about music?<\/p>\n
Now this is a specialized audience.\u00c2\u00a0 So many of my readers live for music.\u00c2\u00a0 But most of the public does not.\u00c2\u00a0 Music is just background noise.\u00c2\u00a0 Something you listen to as you play video games, or do your homework.\u00c2\u00a0 The concept that someone will create something so great that you’ve got to stop doing everything else and pay attention is unknown.<\/p>\n
Don’t blame the audience.\u00c2\u00a0 The audience will embrace anything great.\u00c2\u00a0 Blame the artists and the companies themselves.<\/p>\n
Instead of risking an organic experience, something fully alive, with peaks and mistakes, big acts play to tape.\u00c2\u00a0 They don’t want to risk failing.\u00c2\u00a0 But we’re truly enamored of those who play without a net.<\/p>\n
Acts give the public what they think it wants.\u00c2\u00a0 Used to be acts led.<\/p>\n
Now I’m not saying there are no great acts.<\/p>\n
But I am saying that usually the great ones take years to make it.\u00c2\u00a0 They’re new, and innovative, and it takes a while for the public to come around to the sound.\u00c2\u00a0 And it takes a while for the creators to perfect that sound.<\/p>\n
What we’ve got on television is commerce.\u00c2\u00a0 People with good voices singing someone else’s songs, in most cases, blue chips. As for the songs they do themselves…\u00c2\u00a0 Kelly Clarkson had a great one by Dr. Luke, but no one wants to see her now, because it was all about the performance, they knew it wasn’t HER!<\/p>\n
Whereas we knew it was Bob Dylan.\u00c2\u00a0 Even though people criticized his voice.<\/p>\n
Those testing limits, doing something different, are always lambasted at first, assuming anybody even cares.\u00c2\u00a0 But eventually, the public comes around.\u00c2\u00a0 Used to be, record labels and radio assisted in this process.\u00c2\u00a0 Labels found the best and radio exhibited it.\u00c2\u00a0 Now, what’s the record company cliche?\u00c2\u00a0 "I don’t hear a single?"\u00c2\u00a0 Hell, that was positively last century!\u00c2\u00a0 Now the record label says "I can’t get it on the radio."\u00c2\u00a0 You don’t make Top Forty music, they wouldn’t know what to do with you.\u00c2\u00a0 Does that make you bad?<\/p>\n
No.<\/p>\n
But it does make nitwits try to fill the formula.\u00c2\u00a0 Try to give the labels what they want, and then inane disc jockeys play this crap and if it sells at all, it’s illegal for someone to cry foul, to say it’s no good.<\/p>\n
But it’s not.<\/p>\n
Of course there are exceptions to the rule.<\/p>\n
But generally speaking, we’re in a low point for art.\u00c2\u00a0 Because it’s all about the money.\u00c2\u00a0 About playing it safe.<\/p>\n
As for those who tell those who suck that they’re doing it right, to keep at it…\u00c2\u00a0 They don’t want to rain on your parade, be the first person to tell you you suck.\u00c2\u00a0 That’s why we loved Simon Cowell, he spoke the truth we all knew.\u00c2\u00a0 As for those encouraging the wannabes, they’re just parasites, trying to make a buck off your dream.<\/p>\n
There’s very little great stuff out there.\u00c2\u00a0 But if you can deliver greatness, people will find you, they’ll notice, you’ll make it.\u00c2\u00a0 Next time you’re wondering whether you should tweet, or mail more CDs, or work your Facebook page, frustrated that you’re nowhere, look in the mirror and ask yourself HOW GOOD AM I?<\/p>\n
In most cases, not that good.<\/p>\n
<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I’m not interested. And neither is the public. Good enough just doesn’t cut it. Has anybody competed and won against the iPod?\u00c2\u00a0 Can you name an act today as good as the Beatles? Somehow, in the last few decades, artistic quality has become irrelevant.\u00c2\u00a0 In the dash for cash, it’s all about shooting low, to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","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],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4195","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-music-business"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p96vPs-15F","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4195","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\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4195"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4195\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4196,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4195\/revisions\/4196"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4195"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4195"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4195"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}