Danny Danzi

foxwolfen


Dean has generally been a rational and objective fellow here. The thing of it is, if a person wants to find a way to pick apart an argument, they can. While I agree with most of the counter-arguments made, I feel they were generally nit picking while ignoring the underlaying intent. I do not fault Dean for frustrated replies.

That's how I feel as well. I think everyone has had some great points in this thread. Some, more passionate than others to where maybe that passion could have gotten the best of them. I know how that can be though as it happens to me all the time. And we all know how easy it is for words to get mangled into an arguement. Lots of opinions here, but quite a bit of truth as well in all of them.
 
-Danny

+1


Well said.

Danny Danzi

Bristol_Jonesey

We're just stuck in a rut of sex appeal, singing and marketing to one general audience where people in their 40's on up have nothing they would like showing up on air or being considered "popular". That part, I think is sad because people 40+ would buy music too if they just had something worth spending their money on. :)

It might come as no shock to you Danny, or anyone else, but I've only bought one music CD this year (I don't do downloads or mp3's).

I'll give you a clue about what I bought - it begins and ends with a 'D'

I'm in the same boat, Jonesey! The last CD I bought was Van Halen with Gary Cherone singing on it. The last digital media album I bought was this year...notnat's album from this forum. Most things I listen to are on Youtube or if a friend shares something with me. The record labels I deal with send me loads of stuff each month as well, so that's a cool fringe benefit to have. Some bands I never even heard of, others are well known. It's a nice mixture of both and I always look forward to when that package comes through in the mail. :)
 
-Danny

I will have to dig up the source for this, and its a few years out of date, but I recall reading an industry report that showed a trend toward an increase in the age demographic of the buying public. IRRC, the majority of sales though the '00s were driven by the 35 to 55 year old age group. But... the caveat here is that music sales are down about 50% from the 90's, while live productions are way up, and is now the main money maker for the industry and artist. CDs and downloads are now the supporting medium.

foxwolfen

Danny Danzi

Bristol_Jonesey

We're just stuck in a rut of sex appeal, singing and marketing to one general audience where people in their 40's on up have nothing they would like showing up on air or being considered "popular". That part, I think is sad because people 40+ would buy music too if they just had something worth spending their money on. :)

It might come as no shock to you Danny, or anyone else, but I've only bought one music CD this year (I don't do downloads or mp3's).

I'll give you a clue about what I bought - it begins and ends with a 'D'

I'm in the same boat, Jonesey! The last CD I bought was Van Halen with Gary Cherone singing on it. The last digital media album I bought was this year...notnat's album from this forum. Most things I listen to are on Youtube or if a friend shares something with me. The record labels I deal with send me loads of stuff each month as well, so that's a cool fringe benefit to have. Some bands I never even heard of, others are well known. It's a nice mixture of both and I always look forward to when that package comes through in the mail. :)

-Danny

I will have to dig up the source for this, and its a few years out of date, but I recall reading an industry report that showed a trend toward an increase in the age demographic of the buying public. IRRC, the majority of sales though the '00s were driven by the 35 to 55 year old age group. But... the caveat here is that music sales are down about 50% from the 90's, while live productions are way up, and is now the main money maker for the industry and artist. CDs and downloads are now the supporting medium.

I think I read that same thing. But if I'm not mistaken, the majority of the sales were for country music and rap for the adults, right? Man I can't remember, but I THINK that's how I read it if it's the same one. Amazing live performances are up with the prices they charge for tickets these days, ya know? :)
 
-Danny

 Not so much do I have a problem with Dean's views, this topic was started by Dave about a recovering an old performance if I recall..I'm befuddled as to why he chooses this thread to beat that drum. Same amount of clicks to just start a new thread?

 Sorry to our CHB member Dave for my involvement this derailment. 
 Every profession and craft has development breakthroughs and folks that resist those breakthroughs. John Henry thought the steam drill was cheating. Al Jolson thought amplification was cheating in his day singers had to really project over the band. He said Frank Sentara would never make it because he sang like a sissy. 
  A hobbyist can afford to have all the prejudices and artistic integrity they want but tools like A.S. and auto-tune have been out for some time, that genie is out of the bottle and not likely to go back soon. Spamming Dave's thread with those views will certainly have no effect.  
 I choose to learn and use every tool I can. If that makes me a cheater in anyones view, I can live with that. I know what I got under the hood.

ohgrant


 Not so much do I have a problem with Dean's views, this topic was started by Dave about a recovering an old performance if I recall..I'm befuddled as to why he chooses this thread to beat that drum. Same amount of clicks to just start a new thread? 

It looks like it has been something that has been eating at him for a while. 


For myself, (and where I agree with Dean) I have a certain dissatisfaction with the industry as a whole... the protectionism, the lobby groups, the law suits of children which actually amount to extortion... all to foist what is arguably complete saccharine crap upon the consuming public. 


When I combine all these pieces, I find myself at times also disgusted when I hear a song climb the charts that I know is by somebody with marginal (or absent) talent. But then, I have to remind myself.. that is the way it is and nothing I can do will change it in any but the smallest of ways. But maybe talking about it will get others to think about it.


For myself, I am hopeful that the last ten years will fade into something far greater than what we have seen in music since the mid sixties to mid seventies. I have come across so much young and amazing talent the last couple of years, I think the current paradigm will be shifted. It is also interesting to note that there has been a trend by young folks for much better sound than what is currently the "standard" (iPod and ear buds). It seems the number of young audiophiles is on the rise. That might force a change in the way we produce music.

Well, if going by what I saw at the high school I was conducting a workshop at is any indication there are a lot of students who are not so shy about what their likes and dislikes are..and a lot are not liking the stuff getting airplay around here...

When I combine all these pieces, I find myself at times also disgusted when I hear a song climb the charts that I know is by somebody with marginal (or absent) talent.

Thing is, someone there does have the talent. It's not like these hit songs don't have talent involved, it's just that the person/people with the talent aren't necessarily well represented. Just because they may not be a gifted and talented musician, doesn't mean they don't have other talents such as being able to market themselves or having a song vision. Even the most lame, terrible sounding pop song which makes the charts usually (unless they got lucky) has had someone with lots of talent involved in it. It just may not be traditional 'musician' type talent, but they made a hit song, so there is some sort of talent there regardless.


But it's true that a lot of the big names out there are having great catchy songs written for them and they just 'sing' it and perform it. Their talent lies in their ability to be marketable. It's a talent regardless, although not necessarily a musical one.

Cant argue with that.

By the way, great song Dave, and I would not be able to tell if the drums were real or not. Outstanding work.

foxwolfen

ohgrant


Not so much do I have a problem with Dean's views, this topic was started by Dave about a recovering an old performance if I recall..I'm befuddled as to why he chooses this thread to beat that drum. Same amount of clicks to just start a new thread? 

For myself, (and where I agree with Dean) I have a certain dissatisfaction with the industry as a whole... the protectionism, the lobby groups, the law suits of children which actually amount to extortion... all to foist what is arguably complete saccharine crap upon the consuming public. 
 

Ultimately, you can't blame the industry. It's not their job really to tell people what to like. It's their job to sell people what they like. Yeh, they should try to throw more things at the wall to see what sticks. But the problem is that 9/10ths of it doesn't stick and costs a lot of money. Back before people were stealing music like crazy, there was more money available for that kind of thing. Now the situation is a lot more one of taking fewer chances.
 

For myself, I am hopeful that the last ten years will fade into something far greater than what we have seen in music since the mid sixties to mid seventies. I have come across so much young and amazing talent the last couple of years, I think the current paradigm will be shifted. It is also interesting to note that there has been a trend by young folks for much better sound than what is currently the "standard" (iPod and ear buds). It seems the number of young audiophiles is on the rise. That might force a change in the way we produce music.

I think it was previously discussed on this thread, but maybe it was some other. Traditionally, at least for the last four or five decades, there's been a cycle of back to basics, which catches on, then of course more and more people get into it and it becomes watered down and commercialized and becomes what the next generation of kids hate, so they go back to the basics again, and it starts all over again.

I'm sure that the music industry prefers the more commercialized portion of that cycle, with more created acts that are easier to control, more interested in career than art (in a lot of cases) which makes them probably easier to do business with and so on. But, ultimately, their job is to make money for their share holders, and if the kids want something else, and that's where the money goes, then they will have no choice but to throw some nihilistic, anti-corporate, wrist cutting kids out there, as strange bedfellows at they make.
 
But, in order for that to work, the money has to be there to force them to do so. Given the tendancy these days to just steal music instead of buying it, kids have I think necessarily lost a lot of their ability to redirect the music industry back to its roots again for the next round. As the only way to make money moves towards licensing music for commercials and movies and such, that leaves the consumer with less and less influence. That's the price you pay for stealing, the person you are stealing from doesn't have to give a crap about you anymore since you aren't putting food on the table. Obviously it's not as cut and dry as that, but still, clearly in this country the wallet vote is the important one and if you are stealing instead of buying, the you are not voting with your wallet.
 
The other thing is that, so far seemingly, the next wave has started in some place where it had time to grow completely out of the spotlight, and to develop a local sound, which then is kind of exploded out onto the public when some band finally gets it out there. But, in this day and age, with the internet and with marketing being now much more of a science than it used to be, how can any such local scene develop in isolation? It would immediately be sniffed out by some hipster record exec who decides to get a jump on the competitio for the next big thing, and it would probably be destroyed before it could have time to gestate. Again, not cut and dry, but it seems a lot more likely to me to go that direction these days than before, when you could have scenes in Atlanta or Detroit or Seattle have years to start to grow into something without the vultures circling.
 
So, I'm just not sure that the traditional cycle will continue. It's certainly time according to the general time table for the next Ramones or White Stripes or Nirvana. But I'm not sure it's going to happen.