Quote:
Originally Posted by SilentKnight
No simple answer.
Ask yourself what demographic these days has the disposable cash to buy music. The answer is what record execs target - mostly kids/youngsters/teens.
A few thoughts:
Think about how the old-school radio audience was fractured and diversified by music video (MTV) and the internet (Napster, Kazaa, Morpheus, Limewire).
Album and CD sales declined for various reasons. P2P was putting a big bite on sales, and I think consumers were tired of paying top dollar for releases that only had one or two decent songs amongst the filler junk.
Consumer dissatisfaction. How many billions of consumer dollars were spent on shit-quality cassette tapes, low quality vinyl...or CDs that were mass-manufactured and rushed out the door to store shelves. People I've talked with over the years got tired of paying premium bucks for inferior or mediocre audio quality that wore out fairly quick.
And face it - our favorite bands and musicians of yesteryear...are old now (or dead). They've had their day in the spotlight, made their coin, burned a few braincells with wild lifestyles...can't hit the high notes any longer...and are now sittin' around collecting dwindling royalties. A few try and re-visit their former glories and release a song or two, maybe a full album - to lacklustre sales and interest. They've lost their chops...or don't have the big marketing machine behind them to promote distribution.
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Your analysis is spot on. I understand how the Music Industry dwindled and also cut its' own throat by allowing individual song downloads vs. full albums. It's like selling a monthly Membership to a paysite via individual scenes. (And yes I know many desperate companies are thinking of going this route, always a mistake IMHO.) People may have complained about an album filled with shit filler but at least they were gathering a record (or CD) collection. And many gems were buried within that 'filler' that went overlooked and unnoticed.
But the real problem is the devaluation of music itself over the past two decades (not just economically). Music used to be THE avenue for artistic expression and communication to a generation. But music also has the power to unite and stir up the masses and well, we can't have that '60's hippie shit anymore now can we? So the 'greying' (or blandness or uniformity) of music began in the nineties full-time and now it's the norm. Very sad really but I'm hopeful fifty years from now a smarter, hipper generation will re-discover the power of music and view it as the instrument of change it is and not just background noise.
They say I'm a dreamer
But I'm not the only one....