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The Devaluation of Music: It’s Worse Than You Think


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The author makes some great points, and I generally agree with what he said. In my teens and twenties, listening to music was an activity unto itself. Plop an LP on the stereo, and kick back for 20 or 40 minutes LISTENING to the album, gazing at the album jacket and maybe read the liner notes.

 

Contrast this to my teenage stepdaughter... even though we've bought her TWO stereo systems, she's never used them. Instead, she listens to music on her smartphone, either through earbuds but often through her phone's horrible, tinny built in speakers! All this modern technology, but the quality is worse than a 60's vintage AM transistor radio, it's maddening. But then, to her, music is just like wallpaper or perfume, it's just there. Apparently it just exists to distract, her favorite times to listen is when she's doing chores (cleaning, putting up the dishes) or when she's getting ready to go outside and putting on her makeup and fixing her hair. You wouldn't sit down in a room to stare at wallpaper or sniff perfume, why would you do that for music?

 

Radio has changed too, when I was younger, all kinds of music was played on "pop" radio. You could hear folk, country/country crossover type stuff, rock, pop, jazz even humorous novelty songs and the occasional instrumental. Now radio, at least in the 'big city' where I live stations are dedicated to their genre and only play music within certain time period, OR ELSE. Which is why you can hear Led Zepplin or Cream on the classic rock station but you'll never, ever hear a Yardbirds song on that station, because they're from the 'wrong' decade.

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Man, you don't even want to get me started, but for a taste of the hostility I feel against the devaluation of musicians: Why don't they pay athletes half what they are paid (and truly what they are really worth) and pay musician's the justified difference and true value of what they produce?

 

Why do the high school and college football teams get new uniforms and shoes for EVERY game, and yet the Band has to sell fruit or candy to be able to afford new uniform pants?

 

Imagine for a moment your favorite movie void of any music. Your favorite restaurant completely void of any music. Your automobile without music. Heck, even a Monday NIGHT Football game void of any music (pre, post, or during the game).

 

And Nashville is one of the worst offenders. So many musicians in town trying to make it that they don't have to pay much, because they know that there are people here who would play for free for the opportunity for exposure. And in that case it is the Musician who is devaluing him/her self.

 

D

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Musicians are passe in an industry that has discovered cheap new talent in technology and the hands - salaried - that can disguise it as music. We hasten to our logic circuit futures and then complain about the distastefulness of its fruit that smells, sounds, looks and tastes like electrons.

 

Personally, I don't care much because my time was way back then and I got what I wanted from it. This latest generation is largely comprised of music stoics who do not have the passion their parents had for life. By that game, their parents don't have the passion for life their parents had. Succeeding generations will see even greater degradation of the human spirit for living life based directly upon the advancement of technology removing real life experiences with their virtual placebos.

 

Everything is as it should be.

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Radio has changed too, when I was younger, all kinds of music was played on "pop" radio. You could hear folk, country/country crossover type stuff, rock, pop, jazz even humorous novelty songs and the occasional instrumental. Now radio, at least in the 'big city' where I live stations are dedicated to their genre and only play music within certain time period, OR ELSE. Which is why you can hear Led Zepplin or Cream on the classic rock station but you'll never, ever hear a Yardbirds song on that station, because they're from the 'wrong' decade.

 

Top forty radio seems to be "much more" narrowly focused on a specific teen pop type formula than when I was growing up. That's not to say there's not some decent songs on the charts but over all I feel pop radio has been really dumbed down in the last decade or so. I still listen to it but I find myself flipping the stations much more than I ever have.

 

Rock radio is almost nonexistent where I live. We have an alternative type rock station and I like a good bit of what I hear but most of the bands I hear can only sell out small theaters when they come to town. No more big rock stars selling out sports arenas.

 

The R&B station hasn't played anything resembling R&B for at least twenty years or so..

 

Even the classic rock station has become programed into irrelevance. Only about 150 "approved songs" that get played over and over day after day, week after week, month after month with absolutely no variation.

 

 

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It's a good article with some good examples. I agree with the premise, but what needs to be remembered is he is talking specifically about "mainstream" radio and media. I personally don't know anybody who listens to commercial radio. It's all talk radio in the car, community type radio stations, cds, spotify, or pandora. I know a few people who have been cultivating specific pandora stations for years and happily share them with there friends. I also know alot of people who will hear a song they like on a station like this and then, get this, go buy it. There's plenty of folks from the younger demographic who listen to vinyl for the exact reasons you guys are talking about.

 

I'm just as cynical as the rest of you jokers, but the difference is I don't give a flying f*** about the mainstream and if they want to devalue music. It will never loose its value to me and I know plenty of people who feel the same way. I'll keep making music regardless. I don't need $2000 sunglasses or a limo to pick me up at the airport. I've had the same pair of dollar store sunglasses for ~5 years now. They work fine. I got an old van that'll get me and the band where we need to go. I also haven't starved yet.

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Nothing new here.

 

Music as we once knew it is gone. We are in the stages of change and the old ways that were knew and somewhat loved, especially the money part are gone for 99.9% of us. The small portion of $$$ is going to music producers like Max Martin, Dr. Luke, etc… these guys have production teams that write and write nothing but the teen pop we have had to endure since the late 90s.

 

Even that style has turned to even more edgier sound now with more rap/hip hop influences thrown in but don`t be fooled, its still the same people producing it and that group is a tight knit group. They are making the $$$. Radio hits drive crowds to live shows because that is the only venue now that artists are making $$$ in.

 

An interesting book I just read is called "The Song Machine: Inside the Hit Factory" by John Seabrook.

 

Its worth reading but its not going to leave you very optimistic about the future of music.

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Top forty radio seems to be "much more" narrowly focused on a specific teen pop type formula than when I was growing up. That's not to say there's not some decent songs on the charts but over all I feel pop radio has been really dumbed down in the last decade or so. I still listen to it but I find myself flipping the stations much more than I ever have.

 

Rock radio is almost nonexistent where I live. We have an alternative type rock station and I like a good bit of what I hear but most of the bands I hear can only sell out small theaters when they come to town. No more big rock stars selling out sports arenas.

 

The R&B station hasn't played anything resembling R&B for at least twenty years or so..

 

Even the classic rock station has become programed into irrelevance. Only about 150 "approved songs" that get played over and over day after day, week after week, month after month with absolutely no variation.

 

 

Strange, Classic Rock stations still play "Sweet Home Alabama" to death, while Lynyrd Skynyrd still tours and releases new music and those CR stations don't play their new music.

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