Links 12/30/08 (Wrapping Up the Year)
This is a great piece about the way marketing is changing the music industry. The writer is obviously displeased with this, but he does a nice job looking at the objective inevitability of the current trend.
Some choice quotes:
The question is: What happens to the music itself when the way to build a career shifts from recording songs that ordinary listeners want to buy to making music that marketers can use? That creates pressure, subtle but genuine, for music to recede: to embrace the element of vacancy that makes a good soundtrack so unobtrusive, to edit a lyric to be less specific or private, to leave blanks for the image or message the music now serves.
Musicians who don't expect immediate mass-market radio play -- maybe they're too old, maybe they're too eccentric -- have gotten their music on the air by selling it to advertisers. That can rev up careers, as Apple ads have done for Feist and for this year's big beneficiary, Yael Naim, whose "New Soul" introduced the MacBook Air. (Sites like findthatsong.net help listeners identify commercial soundtracks.)
Perhaps it's too 20th century to hope that music could stay exempt from multitasking, or that the constant insinuation of marketing into every moment of consciousness would stop when a song begins. But for the moment I'd suggest individual resistance. Put on a song with no commercial attachments. Turn it up. Close your eyes. And listen.
I have to admit to being torn on this subject myself. I think when done thoughtfully, marketed music can be a good thing. Playing games like Guitar Hero and Rock Band has broadened my musical horizons, and I am listening to and supporting artists I might have never discovered without these games. The same is true of the music in some commercials. However, when the songwriter goes into the process trying to write something marketers will grab and exploit, then the music and artistry suffer.
To an extent, selling-out may be a necessary component to success. Even performers like Bob Dylan and Michael Stipe have paid homage to the industry, but they have both done so while retaining those qualities in their music that makes them unique. Other artists merely become carbon copies following a cookie cutter song template. As with most things, balance is key. Music for the sake of music is a great ideal, but it may limit your exposure. On the other hand, sacrificing quality for marketability cheats the artist and the listeners.