November 18, 2011
More and more, I’m letting Chelle rant about doings in and around the music industry. Be sure to click on her category over there and check out how her voice has evolved and see which of her rants are based on real life. I’ll be honest about this one: it is. You may say it’s hypocritical of me, who is scarily dependent on her satellite radio, to let Chelle have this view, but c’mon. Chelle is fictional. Go with it.
Now, Chelle here don’t know what flavor Kool-Aid them peeps over at that big ole radio conglomerate must’ve drank to think this was some good idea to hitch their wagons to. It sure ain’t any Kool-Aid Chelle be wantin’ a taste of.
It don’t pass muster. Part of what makes this here music business so amazing is the way it regionalizes itself. That means, boys and girls not as savvy as Chelle here, that when you get off that airplane and move about the country and turn on the radio in whatever city you done wound up in, you hear different music. Different songs from them bands you know and love. Even better, you get to hear bands you never heard of. You get to bring it home and spread the love.
This is important stuff. It’s what gives each city its character, like the way jazz defines this fair city, and how jazz defines Chicago but in both places, jazz is an entirely different creature.
And metal. We got grunge outta Seattle, we got the Bay Area sound, we got LA and Hair Metal, we got Riverview and my ShapeShifter boys. You think all them individual sounds woulda come about if every single one-a them boys who listened to the radio back in the good old days heard the same old, same old?
That’s what we’re facin’, boys and girls. Everyone hearin’ the same music at the same time. Same bands. Same songs. Same, same, same.
And then all you music lovers go and complain how every band sounds ‘xactly the same.
Well, here’s some news for y’all! They do! That’s ’cause they all bein’ influenced by the same other bands and the same other songs out there. There’s nothin’ in anybody’s ears that sets them apart no more.
Even worse, there’s now hundreds and thousands of good folk who love music and who tried to devote their entire lives to it, who now gotta go find jobs. How many-a ’em gonna get further than Wal-Mart? They be music lovers, just like you and me. And they out in the cold, which ain’t doin’ nobody no good. Especially the rest of us music lovers. You get what I’m sayin’?
You heard it first, and you heard it here: firin’ all them DJs only done a bad turn to a music world already hurtin’. There ain’t no music fans at that big corporation. If there are, they done sold their souls to the almighty dollar.
Ann (bunnygirl)
November 18, 2011 10:41 am
This is how I feel about our local stations, actually, since nearly all of them are owned by corporations and broadcast corporate crap. At least on satellite I can find stations that don’t play the same old songs over and over.
Speaking more broadly, I find it interesting that it’s easier than ever before to get books, music, art, and other creative ventures out in front of people, but it’s harder than ever before to find a dedicated audience.