Music Industry Worried About CD-Burning

[hayley]

Originally Posted by David

Of course. It's totally obvious. I don't think the record industry would be making such a stink over CD burning if sales were up. It's because sales are down year after year that you hear all this pissing & moaning. I think the labels are reaping what they have sown, & I am highly amused by all of it. They have spent ten or fifteen years now promoting garbage from top to bottom, stuff targeting the 9- to 14-year-olds, & have not helped build careers for artists that may have longer-lived appeal. Let's face it: when that 9-year-old who loves Britney Aguilera or Christina Spears or whatever the latest flavor is gets to be 15 or so, that's it. Bye-bye, Britney. Back when the labels were a *little* smarter, they signed bands that generated a more lasting appeal -- like the band we're devoted to here on this forum.

The related aspect is that Spears/Aguilar et al. aren't the kind of music that compels fans to buy albums -- hearing that stuff on the radio or in a club is sufficient for those fans. They don't camp out at the record stores waiting for the newest release the way kids used to twenty-five or thirty-five years ago. Albums have no allure for kids any more, & that's probably because the pop stars' entire careers these days are geared so specifically to the danceable radio hit single as just a sort of droning background noise for one's clubbing or one's grind experience. You don't hear a "song" these days & think, "I'd like to hear the whole album of that artist!" You don't get excited about the lyrics, either, about reading the lyrics insert the way we used to. There's some interest in lyrics with some rap music, I guess, but the omnipresent dance music doesn't generate any interest in reading & interpreting words.

The other thing that has probably hurt sales enormously is MTV's slow & steady veering away from music (videos, concerts, etc.) to "reality" nonsense 24 hours a day.

I hope the entire industry comes crashing down or implodes from its own stupidity, but I'm a bit of an anarchist.

I actually completely agree with you, but for this one point- is today's explosion of teen pop crap like the Britneys and Christinas of the world really all that different from the pop of years ago like your Bay City Rollers, Partridge Family, and Osmonds of the world? To me it's the same phenomenon, but worse in the way that all of pop culture is today. It's a disgusting trend that doesn't just include pop music- it's crappy movies, tabloid media, crappy television, crappy role models- girls wearing thongs at 9 years old, etc. Pop music has just become less quality, more quantity like everything else. Is Britney the cause of the excess of our times or just a symptom?