Why Music Has Lost it’s Charms (Article)

@sns Yeah, I agree.  The access we have today to music from any era is amazing.  It’s awesome.  I wish I had it in my 20s.

I agree with those that find the popular mode of modern music consumption unceremonious and utilitarian, just an endless, homogeneous matrix of files.

However, no one twists our arm to only stream and only listen to digital files.  One can still listen to music in any format.  I would just like to see something where this more immediate, fluid music commerce of today could also provide artists with better pay!

I feel the current model potentially can yield a further “democratization” of music commerce.  I’m not sad to see the old model (get signed by a major label, hopefully become famous) die.  The improvement to the current model would be to more fairly compensate the artists that are on streaming platforms.

The doom-and-gloom take is more applicable to film, in my opinion.  It’s easier for artists to get their music “out there” these days.  Artists in film seem to be toast.  No one wants to fund interesting films.  There’s no corollary to modern music distribution in modern film that I can see.  Unless you are lucky to live somewhere where you can hound art house theaters or have access to modern independent films, you’re stuck with the contemporary drivel that passes for cinema.

@sns I agree we don’t value artists.  As a musician, I am quite aware as to how devalued artists’ contributions to society are.  It couldn’t be more apparent.

I’m not sure a business model that requires artists to receive 100,000 “plays” before they make $400, especially during inflation and a live-show-limiting global pandemic, has “nothing inherently wrong with it.”

I personally find those that unapologetically produce lowest-common-denominator schlock with no pretense less offensive than those who do the same but endeavor to (and unfortunately succeed at) convincing the public they are “serious artists.”

I consider the likes of, say, Justin Bieber (music) and Michael Bay (film) less offensive than the likes of say, Jon Batiste or James Gunn.  
Bieber and Bay tell you what they are, and then show you they indeed are that thing.  At least they’re honest and unpretentious.  A wolf in wolf’s clothing.

Batiste makes insipid, formulaic music, delivered with his trademark smile and “joyfulness” that panders to the lowest-common-denominator music fan.  James Gunn makes movies based off of comic books (no further description needed).  Wolves in sheep’s clothing.

If they were honest, I wouldn’t really care either way.  But Baptiste loads his music and image with hollow and vapid signifiers like, “freedom,” somehow getting shoehorned into the arena of “socially conscious artists.”  James Gunn refuses to acknowledge that comic book movies, under no circumstances, can be considered “art” in the same way Bergman, Fellini, Scorsese etc. can. Instead, he publicly bristles at an innocuous, uncontroversial statement by Scorsese, tries to convince us that these comic book movies are, “cinema.”  If he wants to make comic book movies, it’s a free country.  I would hope then that such a person would have the self-awareness, maturity, and lack of pretension to accept this choice for what it is: profit-driven, not art-driven.  No more, no less.

Take this lyric from Batiste’s 2021 song “I NEED YOU, the 2nd single off his 2022 Album of the Year Grammy-winning album, “WE ARE:”

”In this world with a lot of problems/All we need is a little loving”

There you have it, folks.  All the moral courage, artistic bravery, poetic brilliance and subversive energy of an episode of “The Lawerence Welk Show.”

This is the one that gets me, from the same song:

”We working overtime / don’t need another million / you got that goldmine / I love the way you’re livin’ / ‘cause you’re so genuine”

How “genuine” was Mr. Batiste, how devoid of “need for another million” was he when he co-opted Billy Ocean to carry the water for Amazon Prime in his brand new commercial he just filmed?  A real social justice warrior.  Earning more millions to be a shill for one of the least just corporations in the world.

@cd318 There’s an intention to make art and do so in a viable fashion.  Then there’s an intention to simply produce a viable commodity.  These are two different things.  Justin Bieber is not losing sleep fretting over whether his art is too vacuous, formulaic and unoriginal.  Radiohead is.  Michael Bay doesn’t lose sleep over such things.  Martin Scorsese does.  

The wonderful documentary, “Heart’s of Darkness: A Filmmaker’s Apocalypse” features recorded conversations of Francis Ford Coppola with his wife, Eleanor.  These conversations feature Mr. Coppola expressing enormous anxiety about whether he is making a “sh***y, pompous, bad movie.”  He had assets, set pieces, clout, bankable stars, plenty of stuff that could have caused him to be content, rest on his laurels, and get away with an unscrupulous attention to detail, emotional resonance, truthful social commentary and truthful examination of human nature.

He didn’t.  These concerns drive him to the brink of madness because he cared about them deeply.  

I think we can recognize when artists care in this way, and when they do not.

@jim5559 ”Unless they listen to Jazz or Classical (capitol letters, huh? Interesting…) people under 70 listen to junk and have no idea what good music is.”

Where to begin with a statement like this. Ay yi yi…

@mahgister I appreciate the data relating to the 432 vs. 440 Hz thing.

I have not given the issue much time.  I usually tune my instruments to 440 as that is the common standard, and may look into a conscious effort to at least try tuning my guitars (I’m bot a piano tuner, so that bad boy will have to stay “as is” for now) to 440 Hz, see what happens.