Music for the Courts of Nobility is NOT the music we hear today. We hear the major works for the masters, which was commissioned by nobility and religious leaders, the latter which obviously had wide distribution, but the former also was used to appease the "masses" at least the much lesser nobles, merchants, etc. There was little music for the masses at all then.
YOU may want to learn a little about say "Mozart" and what a patronage meant back then. Today's equivalent is employee with a rather defined salary whether for nobleman or religious leader, the definition of "commercial". He eventually struck out on his own .... again commercial ... and then went back to employment. It was called "patronage" back then, as unlike say a blacksmith, there was no inherent value or output you were being paid for, a frivolity so to speak, but absolutely his commercial paid career was making music, complete with the influence of his "patron".
@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.”
This was a very strange article.
With the massive wave of aging music lovers, these pieces, and my Lord! How many YT videos on how today’s music totally sucks. And the “good old days” with music history divided between BA and AA. (Before Auto tune and after Auto Tune).
reminder..there’s always something..EQ, Compression, Auto Tune or Melodyne! Kind of an engineers (record companies) are screwing with mother nature case.
The simple truth is right now, it is an amazing time to be into music. Better than ever. Pick your medium, records, CD’s, streaming. Etc etc etc!
You have more options available than ever.
There are far more niches available, categories and sub categories. There are more avenues for artists to get their music recorded and out. You can have an entire studio in your laptop.
Record companies have always been easy targets. Some deserved. They have served and continue to serve a valuable function.
Finally, it is becoming a bit tiresome when top ten list comparisons are made. Overlooked is all the lame or poorly recorded pop peppering the charts..1953? “ “ “How much is that doggie in the Window”…number three selling record. Comparing Led Zeppelin with Justin Bieber is hardly apples to apples.
Why are there so many "oldies" stations these days? Because the 60’s and 70’s were the golden age of popular music. It’s not nostalgia, it’s that the music was just that great.
Good music certainly does last.
People all over the world are still enjoying music written hundreds of years ago. Virtually all of the classical genre that has survived was written before we had any means of playing it back at home for ourselves.
That’s quite impressive, isn’t it?
Even from our own lifetimes, we can be fairly certain that some pieces of music will last as long as the human race does.
The 1960s in particular remains endlessly fascinating. That miraculous decade more or less featured everything that followed since.
On the other hand, if you take away the recency effect it’s hard to see which albums from the last 20 years will make the cut a century from now.
But then you could also argue the same for other art forms such as painting, sculpture, literature, television, film etc.
It would appear that human creativity has now moved on to other equally profitable areas of endeavour.
There’s already millions of attention seeking YouTube channels for example and new computer games coming out every week.
Then there’s the worlds of business, politics and finance...
That old Warhol comment about fame has never seemed more true and making money has never seemed so glamourous.
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.
Small minded article from a small minded author. Alas, there has never been a time with more musical creativity and new artists then the present. But if you don't know, you don't know. Time to venture out away from confines of SiriusXM and FM radio.
I recently saw a fantastic new singer/songwriter at the LA Times Book Faire and there's so many more to discover, but you have to look in new places new mediums and beyond international borders. Its a big world full of wonderful things waiting to be discovered.
Now about that article; best thing about it is the volume of responses it triggered
@cd318- I wouldn't negate the nostalgia factor; there's still a lot of older people around, and most of them are not going to be listening to much of anything newer than the 70's or 80's. You can see that on a lot of forums....
Music for the Courts of Nobility is NOT the music we hear today. We hear the major works for the masters, which was commissioned by nobility and religious leaders, the latter which obviously had wide distribution, but the former also was used to appease the "masses" at least the much lesser nobles, merchants, etc. There was little music for the masses at all then.
YOU may want to learn a little about say "Mozart" and what a patronage meant back then. Today's equivalent is employee with a rather defined salary whether for nobleman or religious leader, the definition of "commercial". He eventually struck out on his own .... again commercial ... and then went back to employment. It was called "patronage" back then, as unlike say a blacksmith, there was no inherent value or output you were being paid for, a frivolity so to speak, but absolutely his commercial paid career was making music, complete with the influence of his "patron".
@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.”
This was a very strange article.
With the massive wave of aging music lovers, these pieces, and my Lord! How many YT videos on how today’s music totally sucks. And the “good old days” with music history divided between BA and AA. (Before Auto tune and after Auto Tune).
reminder..there’s always something..EQ, Compression, Auto Tune or Melodyne! Kind of an engineers (record companies) are screwing with mother nature case.
The simple truth is right now, it is an amazing time to be into music. Better than ever. Pick your medium, records, CD’s, streaming. Etc etc etc!
You have more options available than ever.
There are far more niches available, categories and sub categories. There are more avenues for artists to get their music recorded and out. You can have an entire studio in your laptop.
Record companies have always been easy targets. Some deserved. They have served and continue to serve a valuable function.
Finally, it is becoming a bit tiresome when top ten list comparisons are made. Overlooked is all the lame or poorly recorded pop peppering the charts..1953? “ “ “How much is that doggie in the Window”…number three selling record. Comparing Led Zeppelin with Justin Bieber is hardly apples to apples.
Why are there so many "oldies" stations these days? Because the 60’s and 70’s were the golden age of popular music. It’s not nostalgia, it’s that the music was just that great.
Good music certainly does last.
People all over the world are still enjoying music written hundreds of years ago. Virtually all of the classical genre that has survived was written before we had any means of playing it back at home for ourselves.
That’s quite impressive, isn’t it?
Even from our own lifetimes, we can be fairly certain that some pieces of music will last as long as the human race does.
The 1960s in particular remains endlessly fascinating. That miraculous decade more or less featured everything that followed since.
On the other hand, if you take away the recency effect it’s hard to see which albums from the last 20 years will make the cut a century from now.
But then you could also argue the same for other art forms such as painting, sculpture, literature, television, film etc.
It would appear that human creativity has now moved on to other equally profitable areas of endeavour.
There’s already millions of attention seeking YouTube channels for example and new computer games coming out every week.
Then there’s the worlds of business, politics and finance...
That old Warhol comment about fame has never seemed more true and making money has never seemed so glamourous.
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.
Small minded article from a small minded author. Totally agree....Every generation has their "own music"....that they relate to. this differentiates them from their parents....and grand parents etc. etc. This was the authors "opinion" and you know what they say about opinions.
Again, mahgister, sheet music was around way before Edison. Commercially available sheet music...hit songs of the time..
Again.... 😁😊
Sheet music was not ONLY and MAINLY a "commercial" business, it was a cultural necessity first to make playing family and musical education a general societal fact... The commercial aspect here are subordinated to the musical activity....
The fact that i will buy a wedding ring and a dress, does not make love a business, or a commercial sex enterprise...Internet will do it on s scale so great that it will make old prostitution business a primitive economical game ....
Like recording and vinyl albums will make music an "object" to sell more than an event...We can buy a violin or sell it too this does not make music a "commercial" affair...And someone claiming sheet music make music a business is not wrong but it extend and distort the meaning of the activity out of his limits... Music begun to be a business after recording invention...And after the development of modern marketing technique many aspects of music begin to be a consumers objects instead of being mainly a spiritual activity...
With Edison and the marketing of music playback with recording, music begin to be a product itself, an no more mainly a spiritual event ....
The musical activity here became subordinated to the commercial goals...
Much of the music from the 60's is long lost in our memories (ditto the 70's). We remember the good stuff, or more specifically, we remember the stuff that generates the highest emotional engagement, which does not need to be the highest emotional engagement in everyone, but a high enough emotional engagement in enough people to keep the memory alive:
On the other hand, if you take away the recency effect it’s hard to see which albums from the last 20 years will make the cut a century from now.
I copied a list from Wikipedia of the top songs of 1969. How many of those do you remember clearly? "I can't get next to you" by the Temptations I had no memory of. Same for "I'll never fall in love again". "Sugar Sugar", "Everyday People" .... will never forgot those songs, and can sing word for word. They generate strong positive emotions. It was a particularly good year though. Go to a bar and watch what songs younger people are emotionally engaging with when played. Those will last.
Much of the music from the 60’s is long lost in our memories (ditto the 70’s). We remember the good stuff, or more specifically, we remember the stuff that generates the highest emotional engagement, which does not need to be the highest emotional engagement in everyone, but a high enough emotional engagement in enough people to keep the memory alive:
There exist great musicians and singers more than ever today, but they are marginalized by bad commercial products...
We have access to great Chinese music, Indian one, Persian, one Nordic Jazz, etc...
Music today is stronger than ever....
But medias are owned by few people....Publicity and marketing , fabrication of products, polluted official mediums...
We will remember great music in decades to come , not because we will listen to it on radio like in the 50 or 60, but because we will stumble on it using peripheral channels to access it...It is my case....
Commercial music of today is horrible... Uglier than possible...
But there is more great music and musicians now than ever...
Wow, this guy sure has a lot of time to have listened to all 'commercial music of today', whatever that is - I guess the music he likes is not intended to be sold - and make a blanket condemnation of all of it.
Or is it more "I don't like it so it's horrible and ugly!!!". Never seen that attitude before....🤣
If is is great music, why are none of those awful media people trying to promote it and make money off of it?
Because the more higher the music qualities, the more cultutrally different the music qualities, the more it ask for an educative process which is not the task of big musical corprations controlling official medias like radio...
Some little business musical company do it, or the musicians themselves do it publishing themselves and recording themselves ...
Not the general big broadcasting company...
Do you think american radio broadcasters promote the sarangi or the ehru or the talking yoruba drum music? Or even some unknown nordic jazzmen? All these music are very popular somewhere around the world...They are not very good commercial product in North America...
As music is nothing ever more than a personal experience, this is your opinion, not fact.
For sure music is a personal experience so what?
Did i negate this common place fact?
But commercial music is not synonym with popular music...
Bob Dylan being popular is not commercial musak music... And this is a FACT.... Popular dont equal commercial here...
Wow, this guy sure has a lot of time to have listened to all ’commercial music of today’, whatever that is - I guess the music he likes is not intended to be sold - and make a blanket condemnation of all of it.Or is it more "I don’t like it so it’s horrible and ugly!!!". Never seen that attitude before....🤣
First you distorted what i was speaking about...
It is not the first time you do that...
I was speaking about the differences between POPULAR music and COMMERCIAL music in general...This disctinction exist and it is not born from my sole opinion...
Popular music in general may be very good, commercial music is rarely good...
I dont condemn anything, i said that commercial music is uglier than ever...
You assimilate my observation with a condemnation of popular music. to make your ugly point insulting me..
All popular music is not commercial music, only a part of popular music is commercial fabricated junk...But this junk nowadays is on the air more than in the golden age of popular music..
Then before insulting people pratice your brain about reading their post...
And dont imitate your poster guru here, the one you give always +1, speaking to me like him at the third person like an appeal to the crowd and like if i was not there... Grow an individualized brain...
By the way this article if someone read it, is not about a nostagic old dude complaining...it is an objective description of the business power over music...
The reduction of a part of popular music to commercial means and goals...This make "commercial" music product completely new product for the consumers, where music play a secondary role and is often ugly...
It make sense to me...
«The reality today is that the music industry makes money off of everything other than the music, if it makes money at all. Concert tickets, tour revenue, product tie-ins and licenses, and swag at all the events are the real money makers. The corporate suits and conglomerate clowns who came to own and operate the major music businesses were not only musically deaf and dumb, but also greedy, lazy, and unwilling to change.
The music business has always been about the business first and the music as an afterthought, but the industry didn’t really take care of either one for many years. The music execs made three main mistakes, which are just as likely to cause problems in your business if you’re not careful....
--- First, much like the movie business -- with its franchises and tentpole films -- the labels constantly pushed the talent for more and more of the same.
---Second, the head honchos were completely risk averse and unwilling to invest in anything other than the very sure thing that their current catalog of music represented. New delivery methods, new production technologies, new channels to reach their users were all available, but none of the old-line traditional players stepped up. Instead, they left the field wide open for Apple and other tech companies to develop innovative and attractive new solutions.
----And finally, with the emergence of streaming and fixed algorithmic systems for radio play, the industry bean counters discovered a fundamental truth: They were being paid exactly the same amount per song whether the song was brand new or 50 years old. They quickly concluded that if their customers (stations and streamers) were indifferent to the age of the content and the end users were actually looking for the older music, there was little or no reason to rock the boat and push for new material. Investing in new talent turned out to be an incremental cost which they chose to avoid. »
I will add to that the ethical and esthetical imperative to educate people about music, were no more supported by corporations and way less so by radio and TV ... We must educated ourselves...It is possible more than ever with internet for example ... But we are alone here....
There is more better musical choices possible than ever in the past, but there is less musical education in media and in school than ever...
And popular music was vampirized by commercial musical marketing and productions tools in the hand of non musicians but businessmen... For sure...
Here an exemple of a popular piece of the highest quality which had nothing to do with commercial music chain ugly meaningless production...
Here an example of popular music which is not a commercial product first and last...Never played on any radio and TV in US...Or in Canada... Why?
a clue: the power of a business of conditioning the mind to buy meaningless products.to make them "popular" Commercial crap for everyone with no soul nor traditional roots...
She is the Russian Joan Baez or Joni Mitchell, all two great popular artists that never compromised their souls to create "commercial" music ....
Popular poets and musicians are not commercial objects created for the masses entertainment by business...Corporations can sell them yes but they never created them....It is not the case for many "commercial" "artists"....
The fact that the border between popular high quality music and commercial product is not a clear line, dont means that the distinction is not there and useless...
It probably has to do with the limited market for foreign language elevator music though with that shrieking in the middle it could have people reaching for the stop button.
It probably has to do with the limited market for foreign language elevator music though with that shrieking in the middle it could have people reaching for the stop button.
Is it sarcasm?
Or is it a serious attempt to make a cheap point?
Place an icon to mark inoffensive sarcasm...
I think you are too intelligent to consider this post your best...
Making movies or making music has nearly always been about primarily making money.
Lasting works of art in these fields tend to be more accidental than planned in my opinion. Especially when you consider how the business side of them both work. It’s no exaggeration to add that sometimes the business side becomes more interesting than the product side.
How could it not when you have characters such as Louis B Mayer, Harry Cohn, Howard Hughes etc all involved?
And it was little different when Stan Lee was ordered by Marvel Comics publisher (his uncle Martin Goodman) to try to come up with something to match DCs Justice League of America.
A swift change of direction saw Marvel move from churning out westerns, romances, horrors into churning out superheroes.
At no point was Lee instructed to produce great works of art.
Here’s comics historian Barry Pearl writing on the matter for the Crivens! Comics & Stuff! website.
"No matter what fans want to think, producing comics is a business - the art and story come second. Stan’s job was to make money for Marvel, produce comics on time, and increase sales, something which he did very well.
Even Jack Kirby said that his job was to "sell magazines" - not necessarily to create good ones, but to sell them.
In 1960 Marvel was selling 16,000,000 copies a year. By 1966, Steve Ditko had left and, even though he was no longer on Spider-Man and Dr. Strange, Marvel was selling 35,000,000 comics a year."
Crocodile call "art" the way they put a corpse to decay under water for some weeks before eating it...
They say this is their "taste"...
Music is about art and beauty and spiritual experience.... Entertainment also...But when entertainment is the only value, and change of sound the only meter for popularity we have a problem...
If we are only interested by entertainment, corporations will be happy to give us the necessary varieties of rotten meat...
Music need education like any sciences or any other arts...
Are we crocodile who are only happy with our "tastes" and stuck with it till our death ?
@cd318There’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.
@jbhillerBarriers to entry much less today than ever, I agree may be more difficult to find the cream only due to much larger catalog to choose from. On the other hand, easier than ever to find the cream with streaming, one can sample great number of releases in relatively little time. Prior to streaming the only place I discovered less commercial music was University student radios stations and a few independents,
How do we know the cream easily rose to the top from 30's-70's with oligopolies controlling music business. There was exclusive cadre of A&R guys, vast majority looking for profit generating artists, perfect climate for domination of commercial music.
I agree far more distractions and entertainment venues exist for young folks today, music as anything more than background noise is minority pursuit. But then, hasn't music always served that purpose for the vast majority.
My perception of those who can't find quality music from recent times. I observe many use music to reminisce and/or hear familiar themes from the decades they more relate to. I understand the nostalgia and reminiscing, don't understand the mental block for more recent music, plenty of newer music and artists with retro sound and themes. The other thing I don't understand is avoidance of newer genres and lack of curiosity, arguments as to lack of musicianship is just a weak rationalization for chosen ignorance and closed mind. Music, just like everything changes over time, sometimes for the best, sometimes for the worse, never only for the worst or best.
If you are on the web, an older individual (I consider myself somewhat in that vein) wasting both time and mental energy to rant about the quality of music made today, while extolling the virtues of your personally favourite time and genre, then ...... oh heck, if you can't figure out the conclusion to this sentence, nothing I say is going to change anything :-)
We can let the reader attain his own conclusion without imposing it or we can suggest it... 😁😊
Music is not first about taste or only entertainment...Sorry...
We are not crocodiles arguing for our rotten corpse taste freedom right here...
We dont need "a flag to be proud of " to unite all those who, like larsman because they never had any musical education and evolution, think that their apparent "freedom" to choose the only musical world that they know is not unbeknownst to them, an direct expression of their own mental chains....
Music and sound is not about "tastes" freedom first and last ... Music is about cultural education and sound is about acoustic / psycho-acoustic knowledge...
But nowadays it is a bad, very bad thing to say the simple truth...
Even elementary one...
Everybody ask for the freedom to sniff HIS shit...
Are we a society of tribal apes arguing about evidences?
"Freedom" is for mature citizen when they act, not for children in school waiting to be educated...The music teacher is not in the obligation to serve them and their freedom with the usual commercial shit and justify and approve their ignorance...Teachers are free mature citizens...They are not the slave worker of the pupil’parents money...
And by the way all " popular" music is not "commercial" shit music...I say that for the idiots who will confuse the two categories to destroy my argument...I like many popular music pieces for musical reason..
But we must distinguish the two and learn how to do so with a musical education....
And if we own an audio system, we must learn how to listen with an acoustic education...Marketing brand name "taste" choices express often only complete ignorance even when they are justified by sound design science ...Acoustic basic fact are not "tastes" categories about brand name products even when they are good products sorry ...Learning how to listen is NOT BUYING a piece of gear, even a good one...
I’m almost 71, I don’t like jazz and am not much into classical, so I am proud to have listened to just junk and have no idea what good music is!! 🤣🤣🤣
The fact that we are free to listen to anything, dont implicate that our own "taste" rule...
You dont know what music is ,then why attacking simple elementary fact:
Admit that you have no idea of what music really is...
How can you?
i myself appreciate and like ALL music on earth, with the exception of "commercial" music ....It is not my "taste" here, it is my musical education which rule...
Dont promote your "taste" to be knowledge... You dont know anything, being proud of it, dont make it right and will never did....
Then if an old man say that if people dont appreciate jazz nor classical, nor any cultural classical music of any countries, save "commercially" produced music, they dont know what music is, this old man is not a diplomat for sure,😊 but he is right....
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.
-------
I've seen that documentary a couple of times and it's certainly well put together.
Nevertheless, wasn't there an awful lot of frantic improvisation and rewriting required after Marlon Brando turned up in an unexpected physical condition?
When you also consider that Martin Sheen suffered a minor heart attack during the making of Apocalypse Now, there's no doubting the seriousness of its director's intentions.
The fact that Coppola somehow made it all work out and still pull in a healthy profit just shows the unpredictable power of art that can sometimes transcend the intentions of its creator.
The real trick facing all artists, whatever their medium, is how to create something of artistic merit that also succeeds commercially.
Remember the old 10cc line?
"Art for arts sake
Money for Gods sake"
I believe some of us certainly can distinguish between a sincere artistic effort and a purely calculating commercial one.
Unfortunately, for us at least, it seems as if far too many people cynically opt for the second part.
Either way, whichever one is more important to the creator will be difficult enough to achieve alone.
@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…
Returning to present streaming business model, and my statement "nothing inherently wrong with it".
Streaming business model could be many things, supply and demand are but one imposition on it, another important component would be artists leverage. In society where masses value artists highly, artists could pursue association, backed by masses, and demand higher remuneration. This leverage would be in the form of threatened or actively pursued strike by artists and/or boycotts by consumers. As things stand, owners of streaming services hold all the cards, and if not them record companies, distributors, etc.
Artists supply the content, based on how money presently distributed, you'd think many artists don't exist, like giving away one's labor for free while others profit. True upside down world! Value I receive from music is far more than my costs, and I give to my local student and university radio stations, and attend live concerts. I doubt physical media going to be future of music distribution, streaming business models will only change for betterment of artists if society values them more highly.
I'm 57, I laugh at this author just as I do with everyone else that believes this. The rate of good quality music being produced hasn't changed. The medium that brings it to our ears has, and it fills them with crap if we just turn on a radio or SiriusXM as our choices of content.
I like classic rock, if somebody decides that's what they want to listen to, I'm perfectly fine with it. I grow tired of listening to familiar music, so, I choose whatever fits my mood.
I believe pop music has been ruined by Streaming and satellite radio due to the lack of fidelity in their modes of transport. When XM appeared in the stores as an accessory for your car, I was walking around Manhattan playing home recorded cassettes through a decent walkman and Koss PortaPro headphones. I came upon a Sony XM unit in a store, working, with a headphone jack, hmmm. I plugged in my headphones, found a music channel and "meh", tried another, and another, "Are they joking?!" The music quality was somewhere between AM and FM playing through a 9 volt handheld. Like mp3 recordings, weren't any better. I also discovered my wife and kids didn't care if XM or mp3s didn't sound as good as a CD.
On the road, the satellite radio is acceptable quality, but, I haven't found a single station I can tolerate for even an hour. The playlists are either boring or irritating.
I've had a Pandora subscription for a few years. Their "Nusic Genome Project" provided decent playlists to start from. The player lets me look back on what played, vote yay or nay to tailor the list and also search out an artist for more music and more artists. They also added a stream quality option. I have it set to high and it's noticeably better than standard. When I use Bluetooth in my truck, it's better sound quality than SiriusXM. At home, my Yamaha receiver came with an external Bluetooth adapter, I've since upgraded the adapter to a unit with LDAC and it streams 96K/24 from my Samsung S22 Ultra to my receiver, which I set to direct (processing bypassed) to drive a Parasound A21 to AR303s. I also have music I purchased, stored on my phone, in flac 96K/24, that I can stream as well.
I've noticed the music quality streaming from Pandora is generally good, but the sound quality varies, from sounding like a low bandwidth mp3 that my daughter found on BearShare, to sounding as good as the 96K/24 Hi Res works that I bought from HDtracks. Since the Hi Res streaming services have made it to prime time, I decided to check them out. I discovered the same problem. It isn't the bandwidth limiting the sonic quality of the music anymore it's the engineering applied to the recording. I imagine it boils down to how much control an artist has while producing a record and how much they care about the playback quality delivered to the public.
Since I've discovered Internet and streaming, I've listened to many genres of artists, old and new, that I haven't heard before, and I really enjoy what's out there. I've been enlightened by vocals, Jazz, Blues, roots rock, Americana, folk, rockabilly, swing, and fusions of whatever. I haven't searched for classical (maybe someday). Most of what I listen to isn't played on the radio or SiriusXM.
So, if you think nobody makes good music anymore, you haven't really looked.
@robones54Agree with you on Sirius radio sound quality. However, streaming sound quality extremely variable depending on source and streaming equipment. I've had high end cd transports in past, my present streaming setup exceeds any cd playback I had, also exceeds pretty nice present vinyl setup. One can have both vast music selection and highest sound quality with streaming
. I also find it odd that some claim they have greater selection with physical media vs. streaming, I have at least 2500 cds and 3500 lp's, extremely rare any of this physical media not available with streaming. Much more likely, streams not available on any physical media, many releases will never be available on physical media, either due to being cut outs or having never been released on physical media.
I observe a lot of disdain for more contemporary artists and releases due to disdain for streaming technology and perhaps the entire zeitgeist of contemporary society. There is a burgeoning 'culture of complaint' out there, many turn away, or purposely choose ignorance to avoid having to interface with new artists they assume are part of a culture/society they don't like. Too bad, so many wonderful messages and feelings evoked by many contemporary artists! On streaming front, no media is perfect, avoiding streaming for unjustified prejudicial reasons denies one a wonderful musical experience.
We dont need "a flag to be proud of " to unite all those who, like larsman because they never had any musical education and evolution, think that their apparent "freedom" to choose the only musical world that they know is not unbeknownst to them, an direct expression of their own mental chains....
knows nothing about me but sure knows how to write long-winded, boring posts.
A non commercially motivated piece of music can be a popular one and often is...
All commercial pieces did not have some artistic value though...And this junk dominate many communication chanels...
The writer of these article wrote about the ratio Popular music versus purely commercially motivated music, this ratio resembling more nowadays to a slippery slope toward mediocrity...In the sixties for example he was right, the ratio commercially motivated and musical quality was very good and better than today ON OFFICIAL MEDIAS ... He did not claim that there exist no more good musicians... They are marginalized...And anyway the musical education standard is lower in all scools for money reason and anyway music is perceived to be useless for most people...
This writer will never negateand he did not that the quantity of true great artists all over the world surpass anything in the past...it is a demographical fact....But there is no musical education in general and a total ignorance of any different musical instruments or different cultural styles out of traditional modern popular and/or commercial one in North America... Most young are not exposed to higher quality music, dont listen it first, and dont even know jazz or classical, they have no idea about Chinese, Indian , Persian, Turkisch music too etc...
They dont understand music, they "taste" it like a Macdo burger asking for a Macdo burger till their death...Trump is very rich, guest what he eat?
Music must be learned....
But in the North American medias and channels, no education, no publicity for world great musicians... Have you ever listen to the marvellous sarangi in north america ?
Where and when ?
Dont project your prejudices on the writer of this article try to understand his point....
Yes we are lucky those of us who appreciate music high spiritual meaning to listen now to more great musicians living than in all the past...yes...It is a demographical fact...
But north American masses are keep in chains and in conditioned slavery by marketing and schooling methods of the corporate empire, in all fields of life, and in music too...
We are on the verge of self destruction and some will claim that this is their "taste" and they are free to want it...
We dont need "a flag to be proud of " to unite all those who, like larsman because they never had any musical education and evolution, think that their apparent "freedom" to choose the only musical world that they know is not unbeknownst to them, an direct expression of their own mental chains....
knows nothing about me but sure knows how to write long-winded, boring posts.
You wrote this yourself:
I’m almost 71, I don’t like jazz and am not much into classical,
Then you listen to what, african traditional music, for example pygmies polyphony? they are marvellous..
You listen to Yoruba drum, one of the most astonishing drumming masters on earth?
Do you listen the poetical Erhu?
Do you listen the Rudra Veena ?
Do you listen sufi music?
Do you know anything about North-african music?
I think you listen mainly "commercial" music which sometimes can be very good, and popular, but at least half is pure junk...You say it yourself....
Then why answering a thread about music quality listening declining for market conditioning reason , you spoke like if your right of tasting junk food like others taste high culinary dishes must be written in the American Constitution like arms right are?
You are "free" indeed...
The constitution dont protect people against corporation indoctrination of mases methods sorry if you dont know that...
But dont claim you know what music is.... You dont...
Simple.... Sorry...
Go on with your empty content post and i will go on with my "boring" one ...
Do your own research. Try to find every place in your area where music is actually being played and go listen. Bars, parks, churches, nightclubs, community centers, concert halls, college campuses, don't stop there! One of the towns near us has free concerts inside City Hall in the winter & on the lawn outside in the summer. There are summer concerts on an island, a ferry ride away.
My experience is that it is still all there. Not just music that charms, but music that entrances, music that makes you laugh, music that makes you cry, music that overwhelms, music that changes your life...
Do your own research. Try to find every place in your area where music is actually being played and go listen. Bars, parks, churches, nightclubs, community centers, concert halls, college campuses, don’t stop there! One of the towns near us has free concerts inside City Hall in the winter & on the lawn outside in the summer. There are summer concerts on an island, a ferry ride away.
My experience is that it is still all there. Not just music that charms, but music that entrances, music that makes you laugh, music that makes you cry, music that overwhelms, music that changes your life...
For sure you are right, but this is not the point at debate at all...
For sure there are plenty of living musical events all around North America...
Each months...Many in each cities...
The great musicians must played somewhere...No ?
No one contested that...
The Author of the article dont contest that neither me...
He spoke about the industrialization of music in official channels and media...
Corporations never killed PHYSICALLY the great crowds of musicians 😁😊 which exist nowadays in greater number than ever... They enslaved some and marginalized the others...They control distributions and the way the products will be market... Why do you think that there is a huge boom all around the earth with an indefinite numbers of homemade small self recording labels ?
This is the point...
Too much people listen to horrible commercial music, and many dont even know jazz nor classical, neither any of the numerous musical cultures on earth...They are even proud of it and wrote it in their post... Stupendous ignorance pride... And they will call me a snob jerk for sure... 😁😊
This is the point...
But there is also, it is the good news access , thanks to internet, to all great artists on earth....And there is more great musicians than ever... We are 8 billions people...
Those who remain deaf and never listen to jazz, nor classical, nor to any of the musical cultural traditions are in great numbers too and lack an education...
We lack education in music it is evident....
Then dont put in my mouth what i never said, i never claim that all great musicians are dead, or rare, or dying... They are more numerous than ever... But how did they get a chance to be listen to and make a living?
Popular music is half of it pure junk, half of it roughly....But this junk take most of the official visible space in the news...
How do we cure the industry?
By education, and by pointing to the stupid economical working of corporate deaf powers....like the author ofthis article did....
Musicians must decide about music not businessman....
Art is not a business nor a democracy....
Then do your own research too...
I myself discover a genius in music almost each week...
I know excatly like you that great music has never been so easy to access...
In recorded format or in living event...
But never before, the radio, and Tv and the crowds of consumers plug on their telephone ever listen to the most horrible musical trash ever created... This is a fact too...
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