The Democratisation of Music

I know what you’re thinking… “its a big fucking subject”. But for those of you who are about to capture the gist of it, allow me to elaborate.

The majors are pissed. Hell, even John Butler is screaming like Moses. As the heat dies down on “illegal” downloads and networking sites such as Myspace and FB continue to grow, downloading your favourite track the instant you hear it streaming is back. It never left, but don’t ya just love it when Sony BMG et al. chucks a hissi-fit, again?

Now don’t get it twisted. There are pros and cons about the democratisation of music. On one hand, you have talented unsigned artists empowered by various network utilities, and on the other you have a ridiculous amount of bedroom producers and garage bands flooding cyberspace with their experimental bullshit… with no governing body to screen the millions of pipe dreamers. Well you see, that was the job of Major recording labels. Now that the power has been breeched by the people, Majors are finding it harder to shut-down shop… like the saying goes, “You cant kill all of us!”

But what if a few million of you should perish for the good of the industry? The reason why we have Majors is so actual talented artists can have a chance at the sky with massive touring and marketing budgets. But thats exactly where the Majors so blatantly fucked up. Unlike the singer/songwriters age, the 90’s saw Majors releasing an onslaught of unbearable POP music and Boy Bands. Invariably the people lost respect for the Majors. While the trend started to shift, so did the behavioral patterns of the average consumer – thanks to the internet of course.

The internet has given the masses a break from TV hits and Radio stars. If you don’t want to hear it, easy, just close the damn window. And with the widespread availability of broadband, downloads have increased at an exponential rate. The truth is, only idiots listen to popular music and that is an actual fact. The only people impervious to my heinous statement would be teenie-boppers… C’mon guys, you cant blame the little shits, they know nothing but their fenced institutions and the dramas that go along with it.

So what is a multi-national corporation to do with such a bleak outlook? Easy… fire all your A&R’s and try to remember what the fuck Music was supposed to be about in the first place. Good music will eventually lead to an impressive “bottom-line”. Fuck what you know about manufactured sex-icons and overproduced albums; the people can see through it. If Majors continue to feed us this shit, all they’ll be left with is a stack of retro-jiggling soccer moms and a replenishing generation of teenie-boppers. While the rest of us are stuck with 2 billion experimentalists who know little to nothing about side-chaining and compression. Nobody wins.

But if the Majors were to take it back and consolidate their budgets to a manageable roster of artists, then… wait a fucking minute… why the fuck would I leak my ideas out in the open like this…

Fuck democratisation. Get your own ideas you vultures, this one is mine