Music

I just got back from the gym this morning where I was listening to Blind Guardian's "Somewhere Far Beyond" album. On the album is the 'Bards Song' and it got me thinking of how maybe a thousand years ago songs like these were used to convey important news and also used by soldiers before and after battle. Here, Music is so emotionally charged and important. There is next the invention of instruments and Classical Music evolves and those composers are praised for their brilliance and musicianship. I know I am not historically accurate here I am just going off the cuff to present a very rough outline. Next is orchestra and Big Band, followed by Blues and Jazz. And then we get Rock and Roll and the British Invasion. First Wave of British Heavy Metal and Country/ Southern Rock emerges. Then Disco, Punk, NWOBHM, New Wave, Rap/ Hip Hop. Grunge shows up and then Nu Metal and Pop Country.

I know I missed a few genres like Industrial and post Punk and I apologize to those fans. I am not sure where everything fits so maybe we could do a live symposium some Fri/ Sat nite and create the end all be all HoM musical timeline.

Anyway, the main question is when did it devolve into style over substance? If you indeed believe it has done so. In the Fifties you had single songs being more popular than records and a record company stable of songwriters for their artists. Did it start here? Was it the first time a cover song was allowed? Was it Disco? Or Television with shows like "Solid Gold" in the 70's and "American Idol" in the 2000's? Maybe it was the internet where people felt they were being gouged the price of a CD so it was okay to steal music? Or the wider proliferation of technology and everything becoming smaller so Music became compartmentalized to fit into a neat little box. Where did we lose the emotion and soul and songs became all chorus and no storytelling verses? I really don't know.

Sorry for the long read, but I know there's a ton of knowledge of Music on this board, so I am asking for your input. Thanks.

I'm not sure it's become devalued as much as we're watching the big cosmic wheel spin.

Somewhere, I read a musician pointing out that, 30 years ago, the thing to be was a musician. That was second only to being a movie star or something to really get your "I want attention" rocks off. At this point, you can be a Youtuber and have all the celebrity you could handle and then some... The focus has shifted.

With regard to listening itself, I think the casuals have moved on to other forms of disposable media more than moved on to downloads and the like. The main key for me here is that FANS of bands used to download stuff. Most people now can't really be bothered and do things like Spotify just so they can put something mindless on in the background that they don't need to control. That, to me anyway, signifies that the music could be any noise at all. Seems like now you have more people just sitting in front of the idiot box of their choosing - whether it's Facebook or Netflix or whatever. People have just moved on, media-wise.

As for fans of music, the more casual music fans have gone back to buying the way it was done in the early 60s and prior - singles. You buy the one song you like because it's cost effective and you don't care to own more than that. You could make the argument that this trend is due to the record labels scalping buyers by overcharging for product until downloading/torrenting finally burst the bubble, but the cause doesn't really change the effect. Unfortunately, this dip in the cycle means there's no money to cultivate bands in the way many were (i.e. you have four albums that either suck outright or just do nothing commercially and then you find your voice and break out), so you don't have talent in the way you used to unless you have musicians who are also money savvy (spoiler alert: most aren't).

Getting back to the basic question, I don't know if music has really devalued as much as its worth was kind of artificially inflated during the period of maybe '66 to '98 or thereabouts and the bubble burst.

As for using songs to tell stories, we have radio and TV now. The old bard traditions, at least as far as I was aware, were really just about it being easier to remember factoids if you put them to rhythm and music. The function of music changed and what it meant to society changed to. Seems natural to me.

Granted, I'm hopeful that it'll come around again and ascend, but it's hard to say what that would look like if it happened now.

If I were doing things, I'd focus almost exclusively on singles, like the Japanese market does. They could do it this way: music producers can create two track iTunes releases that are basically the single and the b-side. The b-side is only accessible to those who pay for the whole thing and can't be bought separately, and lastly, the single is more radio friendly while the b-side is the adventurous track to expose people to something different. Maybe it doesn't really work like that on our side of the pond. But they should avoid making filler albums altogether and emphasize on quality singles, then release compilations of all the last ten or so singles for an artist over the years, so then people can have an album worth owning since they know all the songs can be good. They can motivate people who already got them digitally the buy the whole album by making them extended versions or by again, doing what the japanese do, by making the mixes of the single and album versions somewhat different. But I don't want to see more filler on the market. Save the albums themselves for hardcore music listeners. Casual fans are not into that stuff.

The CD era was what artificially inflated the music business. When the general public starts going back and repurchasing their entire catalog on a new format then sales will go through the roof...but that doesn't last forever and when the bottom fell out it proved to be much deeper than the record companies imagined.

Perhaps the music has become too accessible.

How many of us have related stories of our youth when we had to wait for mom to drive us to the mall to get a new KISS record, or sat around on a Saturday night, hoping to hear or actually calling into a radio station and asking the dj to play the new Maiden tune so you could tape it. When you finally saved up enough allowance money to buy that album, you treasured it.

Kids sitting on the couch have a world of free music at their fingertips in an instant. When you have that kind of unlimited access and zero wait-time, you tend not to value it so much.

^ Exactly. And the world is never going back to the way it was when we were kids. Best to just accept things as they are.

I wouldn't be upset if digital "singles" with proper b-sides became the new thing.  I suspect the only way for that format to work though would be if it took a form that wasn't a total throwback to the old 7" 45 RPM singles (i.e. you could have a "side" of any length instead of it being two 3.5 minute songs).

As for the tech side of it, I think S.D. got it on the nose.  Never really thought about the novelty of the CD being the music industry's big bubble, but it does add up.  The only way the industry will have a tech-based resurgence though will be if it can come up with an affordable tech that has the portability of the phone/iPod with audio fidelity that makes even the average person go, "Holy $#%#!  My music never sounded this good!"  Not sure what that would be, but they can shut up and take my money when it comes out.  

MetalGuy, I think you're onto something, but I think it's got two parts. On one side, instant gratification does make it kind of lame. It's like candy to an adult. Yeah, candy is awesome, but it's a hell of a lot less awesome when I'm only limited by my bank account and how much I can eat before I puke. Artificial scarcity kind of does boost the stature of a thing in your mind. On the other side of it though, availability means you have to scrutinize EVERYTHING. Music right now is a tough scene when it comes to signal vs. noise because any doofus with a bedroom studio can "put out an album." While there are probably a ton of great bedroom albums out there, you have to wade through the endless piles of crap to get to it and the really groundbreaking and hungry stuff is being done purely in the independent realm. What the labels tend to back is more put together and like something else that's already out, so you can't really rely on them for "new sounds." So it's a combination of it meaning less to find something and the increased need to go out and find the new and exciting stuff.

I will say that I do still enjoy going to a record store though, it's nostalgia of course but what the hell.  

Last Saturday after I got off work I took the subway up to Hollywood, walked to Amoeba, picked up a copy of The Book of Souls on LP, browsed around the store for awhile and then stood in line to be rung up.  Then the wait time to walk back to the subway, then catch the local bus to my apartment before finally being able to put the LP on the turntable. Still, that anticipation is part of the enjoyment.

Plus, just walking around a real record store feels good...

S.D. wrote:

^ Exactly.  And the world is never going back to the way it was when we were kids.  Best to just accept things as they are.  

And I'd like to point out too that it's not just "kids today and their new fangled smart phones and interwebs" I'm just as guilty in the sense that I have both money and a car, so I went out this morning and got the new Slayer and Alice Cooper albums. No waiting. I wanted them TODAY and within a half hour, I had them in my hands. Will I appreciate them as much as a new tape I bought back in 1989 after riding my bike a few miles to the mall after a week of mowing lawns? Not really.

S.D. wrote:

Plus, just walking around a real record store feels good...

As much as I love ordering just about anything I could want on the internet and having it delivered to my door, this was the gateway to the music addiction for me. 100%

There's something neat about racks of music laid out in front of you and knowing that stuff you've never heard of today is what you'll be hunting for in six months' time.

The funny thing about that picture of Amoeba is the store is so large you can't capture it all in a single shot. This picture is taken from the upper balcony where the DVD/blu-ray section is and it's massive. Plus there is another whole section under the balcony and there is another LARGE room on the other side of that back wall that houses the Jazz, Blues, Classical and Soundtrack sections.

S.D. wrote:

I will say that I do still enjoy going to a record store though, it's nostalgia of course but what the hell.  

Last Saturday after I got off work I took the subway up to Hollywood, walked to Amoeba, picked up a copy of The Book of Souls on LP, browsed around the store for awhile and then stood in line to be rung up.  Then the wait time to walk back to the subway, then catch the local bus to my apartment before finally being able to put the LP on the turntable. Still, that anticipation is part of the enjoyment.

Plus, just walking around a real record store feels good...

The one and only time I was in LA and able to visit Amoeba, me and a buddy of mine spent 4 hours in there. We walked through the door and said "See you back here in an hour." and went our separate ways. We'd come back and say "Another hour? Ok. See ya". 3 times we did that. And it still wasn't enough time.

Some people want to see the Grand Canyon or the Eiffel Tower, f*ck that. Amoeba Records is on my bucket list of places to visit before I die.

S.D. wrote:

I will say that I do still enjoy going to a record store though, it's nostalgia of course but what the hell.  

Last Saturday after I got off work I took the subway up to Hollywood, walked to Amoeba, picked up a copy of The Book of Souls on LP, browsed around the store for awhile and then stood in line to be rung up.  Then the wait time to walk back to the subway, then catch the local bus to my apartment before finally being able to put the LP on the turntable. Still, that anticipation is part of the enjoyment.

Plus, just walking around a real record store feels good...

That is amazing. I'd love to visit that place but seeing as how I'll probably never visit L.A., it's just a pipe dream.

Fat Freddy wrote:

Some people want to see the Grand Canyon or the Eiffel Tower, f*ck that. Amoeba Records is on my bucket list of places to visit before I die.

Next time I am in LA, SD needs to take me there

Do they still hand out maps of the place? I remember the clerk handing me a piece of paper with the different areas mapped out. That's how big the place is. And you'd get a discount off your entire order if you told them it was your first time there.

*sigh*

Here's what I don't get - the TV and Movie industry has figured out how to deal with the illegal downloading (which is what really killed sales.) The latest blockbuster is downloaded before it is released and still makes $100 mil on opening week. Game of Thrones first 5 episodes where on the torrents before they ever hit HBO. Still a big hit for HBO. Something could come along and kill the TV/Movie industry, but they seem to have rode out the storm better than the coked up music execs.

Of course, part of the problem is the fragmentation in the music world in the US - it's far greater than the movie/tv world. It's cool to like dramas, action/adventure, comic book, sci-fi, animation, comedy, documentaries, horror/zombies, etc... but the music world has an almost an expectation that you like one genre (cRap/Hip-Hop, Country, Metal, Rock, Pop) - and it's been sold that way for years.

Even in Europe, where at least the metal scene is much bigger than the US, people will tend to be into more than just one genre.

The exception seems to be south of the boarder - those folks go to any and all shows. Iron Maiden? yep, Kiss? Yep, Along with Madonna, Billy Joel, Roger Waters The Wall, Genesis and what ever big (and sometimes small act) comes to play.

Part of the problem is the crap horse fed to the American people.... the execs pick the "winners" and push them and no longer let artists develop.

My 2 cents.....

Here in Vegas one of the best record stores we have is Zia. We have two locations here and one in Arizona that I've never been too but they're are all pretty awesome.

I listen almost exclusively to Japanese music. Marty Friedman got big into the j-music world and says he can usually find 9 out of 10 songs on the charts there that he likes, but with American music he'd be lucky if he could like any of them. American music is mostly dead creatively; most of my favorites from here in the States are usually veterans or retired/dead. The UK used to be a great source for alternative music but unfortunately is following suit along with other english-speaking countries like Canada and Australia. Korean pop is OK but I often feel like it resembles most US pop too much. They don't have a big counter-culture either for alternative stuff. Most of the stuff that is getting play or charting on the Billboard gives me this really despairing, morbid vibe. In the 90s growing up there was some good music all around, but you'd be hard pressed to find a female singer with half the melody and class of Mariah Carey in her prime and TLC, who had songs much more likeable than Nicki Minaj, Iggy Azalea, or any joke pop singer that gets played today. The worst of all, the indie scene in the west, where individualism is favored and supposedly leads to more innovation, has only given rise to some of the most self-important, superficial, stuffy acts in all of the indie world. I have joked about how many times do I have to see a woman in a rainbow peacock mask or anorexic hipster dudes with beards and tie-dye shirts. It's really repelling musically too and not just the tasteless aesthetics. Indie rock doesn't really rock anymore. I don't think its just the digital trends but the music itself is really questionable. Of course, I don't know what to say about Taylor Swift's album being the first to reach a million copies in sales, but I'm hoping that we're just in a shifting point for music that will eventually lead to something more revolutionary, even if just for brief intervals as it has been throughout music history.

thejokeriv wrote:

Here's what I don't get - the TV and Movie industry has figured out how to deal with the illegal downloading (which is what really killed sales.) The latest blockbuster is downloaded before it is released and still makes $100 mil on opening week. Game of Thrones first 5 episodes where on the torrents before they ever hit HBO. Still a big hit for HBO. Something could come along and kill the TV/Movie industry, but they seem to have rode out the storm better than the coked up music execs.

It's not as widely publicized but there has been significant revenue lost on video rentals and DVD/blu-ray purchases. It used to be that if a film didn't do great in the theater there was still a good chance it could become profitable on home video. Those days are pretty much gone now, which is why you see the multiplex chock full of high concept commercial fare with very little in the way of dramas or more experimental films. By sticking with reboots, sequels, remakes and other derivative fare it better insulates the studios against potential losses because these often come with a built-in audience.

Basically all the dramas (or other films aimed at audiences over the age of 30) have been relegated to the arthouse cinemas and same day theatrical/streaming releases. Not enough potential for profit with those films so the studios don't waste their time on them.

Of course music is devalued. There are seemingly infinite ways to entertain oneself now, rather than a small fewer number of ways in the past. Music is nowhere near as important as it once was because of this. The same is true in all media - film, television, radio, etc... Music is just one more tiny area that has lost its stranglehold on the public. This has nothing to do with the quality of music, but rather the availability of it. Essentially, you can listen to the entirety of recorded music history from your home without any expense or effort. Guess what? This leads to a devaluing of the product. Guess what music is worth when you don't have to pay to hear it? That's right, it's worth nothing.

You could say that it is devalued but in the same sense, people should theoretically be using emulators exclusively to play old games, but the price on physical SNES games is at an all-time high and now Sega Genesis prices are shooting up too.

Me n Spec n Stendy spent an afternoon at Amoeba. We got through about 25% of the place. I guess I need to go back three more times....

The nice thing is Amoeba isn't the only game in town when it comes to record stores. I love Rockaway Records and Vacation Vinyl in Silver Lake, Origami Vinyl in Echo Park, Record Surplus and Angel City Bookstore & Records in Santa Monica, The Last Bookstore and Mount Analog in Downtown, Permanent Records and Gimme Gimmie Records in South Pasadena. Still a bunch I haven't explored yet on this side of the hill and then there are more over in the valley.

Thanks for all the excellent responses guys!

I just got home from a trip to the local Newburys with a friend and we talked music there and back. I told him of the thread I started and he raised the same point as Witchfinder that there is just too much media. He has always been far more of an audio and video phile than me and always had to have the latest and greatest piece of advanced technology out there. I, on the other hand, was always satiated with medium I had and made do.

I am reminded of a commercial that I saw during Sunday NFL games about 12 or so years ago; I think it was Qwest corporation. The girl behind the front desk of a hotel chain tells the customer something along the lines of "our rooms have every movie ever made all of the time."

That's how I feel at times. Like MG said, it's all there at your fingertips. It's literally a screen tap away. My boss is a big music fan and has the Rdio app and downloads complete discographies in moments. If a song comes on our satellite station at work and he doesn't know it he asks me. I tell him who it is and seconds later he has the whole Ramones discography. It's devalued b/c he is never going to go back to it. He didn't go to a brick and mortar store and buy a copy of "Rocket to Russia" to get the one song he heard and liked; but now he has "everything" for the same price as one cheap back catalog CD.

Muckie wrote about the differences in pop music and the artists here in America in the last decade or two. Is the decline in quality b/c, much like television, there is so much space to fill that it has to be filled with something, anything. Like Runicen said about the candy, we are only limited to what our wallets can buy and our heads can hold, and the music becomes interchangeable with any white noise.

MG had a good point about the nostalgia of wanting and waiting for the new song/ album and the means to get it. And S.D. sagely wrote about the simple pleasure of just walking around the record store; especially one as mind blowing as Amoeba, and just talking tunes and bands with the employees and other customers. It's a thrill to get in the car and crack the plastic and crank that new CD and read the liner notes when you get home. Technology has taken this from us.

"There's something neat about racks of music laid out in front of you and knowing that stuff you've never heard of today is what you'll be hunting for in six months' time." Excellent point! Preach it, Brother!

S.D. wrote:

The nice thing is Amoeba isn't the only game in town when it comes to record stores.  I love Rockaway Records and Vacation Vinyl in Silver Lake, Origami Vinyl in Echo Park, Record Surplus and Angel City Bookstore & Records in Santa Monica, The Last Bookstore and Mount Analog in Downtown, Permanent Records and Gimme Gimmie Records in South Pasadena.  Still a bunch I haven't explored yet on this side of the hill and then there are more over in the valley.  

Check out CD Trader on Ventura in Tarzana.