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.
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