Music consumers are as much to blame for the state of the music industry

[username]

Couldn't agree more! I love my 500+ hardcopies and I love everything you described about going to a record store.

[magisme]

I like Kanye and JT a lot. Can't think of any other mainstream artists off the top of my head.

[Bono]

Yes, I got war and peace and frankenstein, dracula free.

By free, i dont mean free, you just pay a subscription and get access to a lot of stuff. Youve got netflix, amazon, just bundle it up like phone packages, people love that shit. Im saying music industry has to grow with the consumer not make them criminals. What do you want?

I want acess, i want it all in one place, its all over the place, i need to buy hulu, get stuff on amazon, maybe get blu rays somewhere else.

Warner music aol whoever solve the problem or people will just download everything.

You're missing my point. Having access to things is great. How you obtain things will play a factor in how much you appreciate it. The music industry has to grow no doubt and I know things are changing. All I'm saying is the appreciation for music is not what it once was. The ease in which people get music plays a part and the ease in which they can move onto the next thing plays a huge part in it. It's to a point now where people won't even give things a chance. One listen and done. Like Amir said about not even having time to get more than a few listens in. In the past that wasn't even a possibility because people would buy an album and be forced to either listen to it or waste their money. Nowadays people just download something give a whirl and if it catches their attention cool if not download something else. No attempt to get to know the music is made.

If you like the way things are going that's cool but I don't see how anyone could argue that when it comes to the general public appreciation for music is at an all time low and music as a form of art is taken for granted to the point that most people just don't care about it anymore. It's viewed as background noise more than anything.

[Rdeyahlxp]

Culture has ended though, nobody has anything to say. Its all about the past now, especially rock and movies.

This is also why most songs nowadays are so shit. Everything that can be said, has pretty much been said already. Nobody will be able to write a second Comfortably Numb.

[Bono]

Culture has ended though, nobody has anything to say. Its all about the past now, especially rock and movies.

There are artist that have something to say. Those artists are shoved aside though in 2013 in favour of products. That wasn't always the case. Again my point is people have stopped caring about music. I've given one reason I think it's happened. There's a reason mainstream music used to be littered with legit, quality bands and musicians whereas today it is not. If people cared about music this wouldn't be the case.

[sweetness]

You guys are missing the point, I've said it a million times on this forum but fuck it I'll say it again: the internet is the greatest thing to happen to music.

It isn't that people in general are losing interest in music all together, that hasn't diminished at all. It's the overwhelming access to so many different artists that has been brought to the consumer by the internet that has changed, people are no longer limited to what is played on the radio and MTV or whatever bootleg tapes are being passed around, they can find literally anything that appeals to them if they look for it online. This hurts big business in the music industry, sure, but it has given new life to the "underground", and thousands of artists spanning across all kinds of genres are now capable of touring and releasing albums without being multi platinum recording artists signed to major labels. Why is this so good for music in general? Because it forces the product to be more original, more honest, and more challenging amidst the inevitable sea of mediocre and unremarkable shit.

No, we'll probably never see anything that takes the world by storm like the Beatles or Elvis ever again, and thank god. Fact is, our individual taste in music is a whole lot more diverse than we could have imagined, and thanks to the internet we can now indulge ourselves with more media than ever before.

Edited November 7, 2013 by sweetness

[wasted]

Once you enter hyper reality theres no way back. Its not the artists, its just humans in general. Its a postmodernistic bullshit culture. There are adavantages just not soul and singing about it. Shame about that.

[Gordon Comstock]

I just checked my mail and a new CD I ordered has arrived. Yes a CD, you know those little discs that play music. Some of you may have forgotten what those are. Take away the music stores and I'll just order CDs online(Please don't take away that option). The next best thing to walking into a music store and seeing the album you want on the shelf, picking it up, looking at it, buying it and then going out to your car to listen to it for the first time, is walking up to your mail box and finding a parcel inside containing that special album you've been waiting patiently for. People who have abandoned the practice of buying hard copy albums are seriously robbing themselves(and eventually others) of a major part of loving music. It's more than just a file you download. It's a piece of art that should be treated as such. Sure sometimes after a closer look(listen) the art you've purchased isn't what you hoped it would be but at least you've made the connection with it. It's more personal this way. I appreciate bands making the effort to produce something of value and I think it's going to be a sad day when the only option for purchasing music is downloading a file only. Take the new Pearl Jam album for example. Aside from the music the packaging is a piece of art in itself. Now why would anyone want to dismiss that in favour of an mp3 file or itune file? Would you prefer that painting on your wall to be a simple jpeg file? Something you download? Book enthusiasts, would you want to eliminate all book stores and have the experience of buying a new book limited to clicking a button to download the file? No? Then why have we accepted this when it comes to music?

Music is as much or more so a part of our lives as anything there is. We listen to it over and over again and it creates soundtracks to our lives more so than books or movies. It inspires, it triggers memories. It heals, it hurts, it saves lives, it brings people together, it creates atmosphere, it changes things. Maybe I'm just old school when it comes to my attitude towards buying/obtaining music but to be honest I don't think that's it. I know for a fact that what I felt today when seeing that parcel in the mailbox is ten times better than what the person who downloaded the same album felt. There's merit to what I'm saying and sadly I think people have stopped caring about music for God knows why. Sure they listen to it but it doesn't mean anything to people anymore. Albums have become an after thought, replaced by mp3 playlists of singles. Often times by a mix of "artists" who's only talent is looking good(allegedly). The songs are forgettable not only because they aren't that good but because they're so easily dismissed by people in favour of the next click of a button.

As I'm writing this I'm listening to a new album I have never heard before. I'm not listening to a single song by an artist, I'm listening to his entire album. Why would I waste my time doing that? Because I appreciate the joy of discovering new music for myself and I enjoy the concept of an album. If an artist has one good song they might have two but how would I ever know that unless I listen to all they have to offer rather than one song? I wouldn't but that is the norm these days. People being fans of artists they know nothing about when it comes to their music. You don't need to know a single thing about them as people but I cringe when I hear someone say "Oh I love so and so" yet they can't name you more than one or two songs they've heard on radio. If you're a fan why wouldn't you want to hear the songs the artist spent the last 2-3 years of their lives writing and recording and putting it all together as one collection to make an album? Nothing bugs me more than going to see a band I love and having "fans" shout out the name of the single all show long because said fans don't know any other song and can't be bothered with the other 12 songs being played because they never took the time to appreciate what else the artist might have to offer.

I went for Thanksgiving dinner a few weeks ago at a friend of my dad's place. He had on display in his living room about 150 cd's on a stand. It instantly stood out to me because you don't see that anymore. In the five minutes I spent looking at his cd's I knew more about him than I did 5 minutes earlier. It's not much but I knew what kind of music he liked and that in turn gave me a glimpse into his personality. But what most people do nowadays is hide their music on their lap top for nobody to see and if someone does happen to see it, nobody actually enjoys going through someone's music on a computer. Well at least I don't. There's nothing interesting about a bunch of songs that look exactly the same. I do enjoy going through someone's cd collection though. If it's vinyl even better. It's like looking at the books on someone's book shelf. That's cool. That's a glimpse into not only who they are but into the artists who have created the music on those albums.

20 years ago something like this would have never popped into my head because the fun of buying albums wasn't slowly(or quickly) being fazed out of society. I guess if the appreciation for music was still there it wouldn't bug me so much but in my opinion the fazing out of hard copy albums and the diminishing importance of actual albums themselves is a sign of people's unappreciation for music these days. People's disinterest in music is slowly taking something I enjoy away from me so I have a right to be bothered by it. I used to think the music labels were responsible for the decline of the music industry. More and more I'm starting to think the consumer is responsible. It's probably both but it's the consumers who have lost interest and have made the choice to buy into the crap they're being fed and it's the consumers who have lost interest in real art. I wish people would appreciate music the way they once did. It would force music labels to once again focus on real artists rather than disposable distractions. It might also bring back for a new generation, the joy, fun and appreciation that past generations experienced when buying albums. Something this generation is obviously missing out on.

Great post. I agree with all of it but I'll comment on certain things that stuck out to me:

In regards to "all those 'fans' at concerts", I definitely agree, I hate it. For example, I saw the Deftones and Slipknot back in 2009. I used to be a really big Slipknot fan, and though 2009 was near the end of my "Slipknot phase" I was still incredibly excited to see them for the first time. I'd heard of the Deftones but didn't really know any of their songs. I went to the show with my friend, and he brought one of his friends who was "really into metal". This kid stood beside me for the entire Deftones set shouting "Minerva!!!!" after every song, to the point where people around us were like "Dude, shut the fuck up already!". Meanwhile I was just taking in their set, watching, enjoying what they were playing, and I left the show a bigger Deftones fan than I was before.

I understand "the death of the album", but it's still kind of a hard concept to wrap my head around. People are presented (or bombarded) with "the latest music" all the time. Smartphone apps, itunes, last.fm, YouTube; they're all singles-oriented services. A lot of people in my age group don't buy albums, they download them and even then only do so for a handful of tracks at the most.

Like Russ said, a lot of artists are just so blatantly manufactured that it's hard for people to make a real connection. And those artists are told to write singles, and work albums around them; the Nickelback formula, if you will. But that's how all the "big names" are, no matter the genre. "Chart music" has become more corporate through the services I mentioned above (it's always been corporate, but not at the same level). That plays a huge part in the "itunes generation" not caring for albums as a whole, I think.

[highvoltage]

You guys are missing the point, I've said it a million times on this forum but fuck it I'll say it again: the internet is the greatest thing to happen to music.

It isn't that people in general are losing interest in music all together, that hasn't diminished at all. It's the overwhelming access to so many different artists that has been brought to the consumer by the internet that has changed, people are no longer limited to what is played on the radio and MTV or whatever bootleg tapes are being passed around, they can find literally anything that appeals to them if they look for it online. This hurts big business in the music industry, sure, but it has given new life to the "underground", and thousands of artists spanning across all kinds of genres are now capable of touring and releasing albums without being multi platinum recording artists signed to major labels. Why is this so good for music in general? Because it forces the product to be more original, more honest, and more challenging amidst the inevitable sea of mediocre and unremarkable shit.

No, we'll probably never see anything that takes the world by storm like the Beatles or Elvis ever again, and thank god. Fact is, our individual taste in music is a whole lot more diverse than we could have imagined, and thanks to the internet we can now indulge ourselves with more media than ever before.

What I was trying to say, but you put it better and raised some additional points. Completely agree.

[Amir]

When you say you have barely enough time for a couple play throughs is that really because you don't have enough time or is it because your interest or appreciation for what you're listening to isn't all that great? Just an honest question and maybe something to look at.

I don't watch TV and music has replaced film as my greatest love. Funnily enough, the shortened attention span means I have more time for music than for films, but that's also because I just got tired of seeing the same shitty movies over and over again (even "indie" is a hackneyed genre itself). When I say I'd have listened to an album like MMLP2 more often, it's because I'd have shelled out the money for it, and in this case, an album that I give it a 3/5, I'd probably try to convince myself it was a masterpiece for a couple of weeks. Whereas albums I genuinely do love, like CD and AFD, I still listen to all the time. Last night I sat down and closed my eyes and just listened to CD all the way through (apart from SOD which I don't like, though I did listen to Riad properly for the first time in ages). I also listened on my Sennheiser over-the-ear headphones (never realised how amazing the drums are on Riad, shame about the rest of the song) as opposed to the shitty in-ear ones I'm listening to Meat Loaf to right now. Really made a difference; I guess an effort was made to get people to appreciate audio fidelity with Beats, but they're too bass-heavy for rock; let's see how Neil Young's Pono takes off, but I doubt people will buy a standalone portable music player ever again.

Edited November 7, 2013 by Amir

[wasted]

Diversity might be wearing people thin. I dont think people can afford their identities.

[bacardimayne]

You guys are missing the point, I've said it a million times on this forum but fuck it I'll say it again: the internet is the greatest thing to happen to music.

It isn't that people in general are losing interest in music all together, that hasn't diminished at all. It's the overwhelming access to so many different artists that has been brought to the consumer by the internet that has changed, people are no longer limited to what is played on the radio and MTV or whatever bootleg tapes are being passed around, they can find literally anything that appeals to them if they look for it online. This hurts big business in the music industry, sure, but it has given new life to the "underground", and thousands of artists spanning across all kinds of genres are now capable of touring and releasing albums without being multi platinum recording artists signed to major labels. Why is this so good for music in general? Because it forces the product to be more original, more honest, and more challenging amidst the inevitable sea of mediocre and unremarkable shit.

No, we'll probably never see anything that takes the world by storm like the Beatles or Elvis ever again, and thank god. Fact is, our individual taste in music is a whole lot more diverse than we could have imagined, and thanks to the internet we can now indulge ourselves with more media than ever before.

This right here. Everyone else is wrong.

[bran]

i love the physical copy, having the artwork, notes and the whole packaging. it is awesome going to the mailbox and seeing 2 or 3 new albums in their ready to listen to. i do miss going into a music store to buy albums though.

[Bono]

You guys are missing the point, I've said it a million times on this forum but fuck it I'll say it again: the internet is the greatest thing to happen to music.

It isn't that people in general are losing interest in music all together, that hasn't diminished at all. It's the overwhelming access to so many different artists that has been brought to the consumer by the internet that has changed, people are no longer limited to what is played on the radio and MTV or whatever bootleg tapes are being passed around, they can find literally anything that appeals to them if they look for it online. This hurts big business in the music industry, sure, but it has given new life to the "underground", and thousands of artists spanning across all kinds of genres are now capable of touring and releasing albums without being multi platinum recording artists signed to major labels. Why is this so good for music in general? Because it forces the product to be more original, more honest, and more challenging amidst the inevitable sea of mediocre and unremarkable shit.

No, we'll probably never see anything that takes the world by storm like the Beatles or Elvis ever again, and thank god. Fact is, our individual taste in music is a whole lot more diverse than we could have imagined, and thanks to the internet we can now indulge ourselves with more media than ever before.

I don't agree with this at all. yes the internet is a great tool for discovering music but it's also a major reason why quality isn't pushed to the forefront the way it once was. The ease in which people can find something new, then move on to something new and then again onto something new has lowered their attention spans and has hinderd their ability to really appreciate what they are listening to. People may be discovering more music now than ever but they are not appreciating it the way they once did. In fact the internet is responsible for giving us people like Justin Bieber. The internet is partially responsible for trash music becoming so popular. I love youtube but let's not act like youtube hasn't benefited shit artists in a way radio never could have. Let's not pretend that at the click of a button people can have the shitty artists n their playlists instantly thus breeding and entire generation of vapid music listeners. The internet hasn't forced any originality on anyone. If anything it discourages originality because if you're unique you get lost in a sea of mediocre shit. It's the mediocre paint by numbers shit that has mass appeal these days because nobody wants to take the time to hear anything original. Look at radio. It wants nothing to do with originality. People want what they had yesterday and if they don't get that CLICK onto the next thing that is that.

You have to remember those of us who post online on a music site on a regular basis are TRUE music fans. We are different. We're not the normal person. the internet has beena great tool for people like us but for the average person it's imply given them a means to gain the shittiest music possible so that they can be part of the "in crowd" and have the flavour of the month on their ipod only to delete it and replace it a month later with the new flavour. The general public wasn't able to do this back in the day so instead they'd invest in quality music that was worth their time and money. They don't have to do that now and they don't have the desire to seek it out.

[Randy Lahey]

I think the internet has yet to pay dividends when it comes to new music and movies. I believe that some interesting music and movies will come out in the next 20 years when the kids who grew up with unlimited access to music and movies rise to prominence.

Edited November 8, 2013 by Randy Lahey

[MEXzilla]

The internet gave an oppurtunity for everyone to showcase their talent for better or worse and that's the draw back real bad artist will pop up from the net. Still I don't get what your saying since to me good music will always be that good music. I don't think that buying a case will make the songs or singer or anything better or different than downloading it online. If you can't listen to an album from start to finish is probably because it sucks or you just didn't get into it, is not about having a cd.

[wasted]

I think it was Coppola who said he was looking forward to the first 16 year old kid who makes the best movie ever with his phone camera. the problem is you need teams of people searching through youtube to find this stuff. there's bands on facebook etc. but it's out the labels hands, so it never gets packaged up for the masses. Maybe it flies for 6 months but then people move on.

[Bono]

The internet gave an oppurtunity for everyone to showcase their talent for better or worse and that's the draw back real bad artist will pop up from the net. Still I don't get what your saying since to me good music will always be that good music. I don't think that buying a case will make the songs or singer or anything better or different than downloading it online. If you can't listen to an album from start to finish is probably because it sucks or you just didn't get into it, is not about having a cd.

Who at any point said buying cd makes an artist or songs better? I'm saying those who buy the albums tend to appreciate the music more and it means more to them than those who download an album. It's just a natural thing. When you buy a physical copy of something there is a personal connection to it. Not only through the music but through the physical item itself. Also when someone buys a physical copy of an album there is a very blatant agenda to buy the album and play the album and often times the people who buy physical albums pull out the linear notes and read the lyrics, once again making a much bigger connection to the piece of art they just purchased. I understand that when someone downloads an album they still play it but the whole process is different. It's disconnected. It's click, click done. It's just a fact. I never said anything about buying the album makes the songs better though. That doesn't even make sense. And of course good music will always be good music. What I'm saying is the average person doesn't care about music the way they once did. They've stopped spending their money on actual albums, they have instant access to whatever they hear on radio now and there's no need for these average listeners to go out and experience full albums anymore. In the past if someone loved November Rain your option was to go out and buy Use Your Illusion 1 and discover the entire album thus creating more legit fans. In 2013 you simply download the one song and that's that. I don't think what I'm saying is that hard to understand. Technology has made it so the vast majority of people now take music for granted big time. It doesn't mean as much and it's not as appreciated the way it once was. What passes as quality music in top 40 these days reflects this.

[sweetness]

You guys are missing the point, I've said it a million times on this forum but fuck it I'll say it again: the internet is the greatest thing to happen to music.

It isn't that people in general are losing interest in music all together, that hasn't diminished at all. It's the overwhelming access to so many different artists that has been brought to the consumer by the internet that has changed, people are no longer limited to what is played on the radio and MTV or whatever bootleg tapes are being passed around, they can find literally anything that appeals to them if they look for it online. This hurts big business in the music industry, sure, but it has given new life to the "underground", and thousands of artists spanning across all kinds of genres are now capable of touring and releasing albums without being multi platinum recording artists signed to major labels. Why is this so good for music in general? Because it forces the product to be more original, more honest, and more challenging amidst the inevitable sea of mediocre and unremarkable shit.

No, we'll probably never see anything that takes the world by storm like the Beatles or Elvis ever again, and thank god. Fact is, our individual taste in music is a whole lot more diverse than we could have imagined, and thanks to the internet we can now indulge ourselves with more media than ever before.

I don't agree with this at all. yes the internet is a great tool for discovering music but it's also a major reason why quality isn't pushed to the forefront the way it once was. The ease in which people can find something new, then move on to something new and then again onto something new has lowered their attention spans and has hinderd their ability to really appreciate what they are listening to. People may be discovering more music now than ever but they are not appreciating it the way they once did. In fact the internet is responsible for giving us people like Justin Bieber. The internet is partially responsible for trash music becoming so popular. I love youtube but let's not act like youtube hasn't benefited shit artists in a way radio never could have. Let's not pretend that at the click of a button people can have the shitty artists n their playlists instantly thus breeding and entire generation of vapid music listeners. The internet hasn't forced any originality on anyone. If anything it discourages originality because if you're unique you get lost in a sea of mediocre shit. It's the mediocre paint by numbers shit that has mass appeal these days because nobody wants to take the time to hear anything original. Look at radio. It wants nothing to do with originality. People want what they had yesterday and if they don't get that CLICK onto the next thing that is that.

You have to remember those of us who post online on a music site on a regular basis are TRUE music fans. We are different. We're not the normal person. the internet has beena great tool for people like us but for the average person it's imply given them a means to gain the shittiest music possible so that they can be part of the "in crowd" and have the flavour of the month on their ipod only to delete it and replace it a month later with the new flavour. The general public wasn't able to do this back in the day so instead they'd invest in quality music that was worth their time and money. They don't have to do that now and they don't have the desire to seek it out.

There's truth to some of the things you're saying but overall I think you're pretty far off.

Quality isn't pushed to the forefront because unfortunately the masses aren't all well rounded music snobs like you and I, they're people with a more lukewarm appreciation of music, and thats fine, some people have other hobbies, who gives a shit? So whats at the forefront is whats marketbale, and frankly thats the way it should be. Let them have everything presented to them through the same avenues over and over again, they can shell out 50+ dollars to go see their favorite artist, I'm perfectly happy with paying 10 to 20 bucks to see mine, and also maybe have a chance to have a conversation with them before the show without paying for some ridiculously over priced and awkward VIP package, fuck the "forefront", lets keep the quality to ourselves!

I don't think you're giving music fans enough credit. Individuals have varying degrees of appreciation for the music they listen to, to say "people just don't appreciate music like they use to because of the internet, they're just going from one thing to the next" is trying to paint an entire population of individual tastes in one stroke, it just isn't that simple. Some people are really into music, some people just kinda like music, and some people couldn't care less. That boy band you see in commercials and hear on the radio sounds pretty shitty to you, probably sounds like generic pedestrian songwriting, which it probably is, but to however many millions of teenage girls they're the hottest shit out there, they're marketable, and there isn't necessarily anything wrong with that.

Shitty popular music? Yeah, I'm really not a fan of anything I hear on the radio these days, or the music videos I see people post on popular social media pages or whatever, so I just don't pay any attention to it, and I certainly don't focus on it. It's not for me, and it's as simple as that. However I have found a great deal of forums, smaller publications, and share sites where I have discovered a lot of my favorite artists over the past 10 years, and that's all I really care about. No, it isn't the most popular music in the world, but it has a strong community of likeminded folks who attend the shows and buy the records, and none of that would exist to the extent that it does without the internet, I don't know how anybody could possibly argue otherwise.

The thing about all the shitty popular stuff; just because its there doesn't mean you need to pay any attention to it. Fact of the matter is there are a lot of people who are into it, thats not changing, it has always been like that even long before the internet came into the picture. The only thing that's changed is just about everybody has an incredibly powerful resource to find what they like, its all there, influencing and inspiring people as it always has, how that could possibly be detrimental to the art form itself is beyond me.

Edited November 8, 2013 by sweetness

[wasted]

You guys are missing the point, I've said it a million times on this forum but fuck it I'll say it again: the internet is the greatest thing to happen to music.

It isn't that people in general are losing interest in music all together, that hasn't diminished at all. It's the overwhelming access to so many different artists that has been brought to the consumer by the internet that has changed, people are no longer limited to what is played on the radio and MTV or whatever bootleg tapes are being passed around, they can find literally anything that appeals to them if they look for it online. This hurts big business in the music industry, sure, but it has given new life to the "underground", and thousands of artists spanning across all kinds of genres are now capable of touring and releasing albums without being multi platinum recording artists signed to major labels. Why is this so good for music in general? Because it forces the product to be more original, more honest, and more challenging amidst the inevitable sea of mediocre and unremarkable shit.

No, we'll probably never see anything that takes the world by storm like the Beatles or Elvis ever again, and thank god. Fact is, our individual taste in music is a whole lot more diverse than we could have imagined, and thanks to the internet we can now indulge ourselves with more media than ever before.

This right here. Everyone else is wrong.

But can we afford to pay for this stuff, or is it the luxury of the illegal download. So really we are saying let it die. Well just get different lower budget music without the marketing.

[wasted]

You guys are missing the point, I've said it a million times on this forum but fuck it I'll say it again: the internet is the greatest thing to happen to music.

It isn't that people in general are losing interest in music all together, that hasn't diminished at all. It's the overwhelming access to so many different artists that has been brought to the consumer by the internet that has changed, people are no longer limited to what is played on the radio and MTV or whatever bootleg tapes are being passed around, they can find literally anything that appeals to them if they look for it online. This hurts big business in the music industry, sure, but it has given new life to the "underground", and thousands of artists spanning across all kinds of genres are now capable of touring and releasing albums without being multi platinum recording artists signed to major labels. Why is this so good for music in general? Because it forces the product to be more original, more honest, and more challenging amidst the inevitable sea of mediocre and unremarkable shit.

No, we'll probably never see anything that takes the world by storm like the Beatles or Elvis ever again, and thank god. Fact is, our individual taste in music is a whole lot more diverse than we could have imagined, and thanks to the internet we can now indulge ourselves with more media than ever before.

I don't agree with this at all. yes the internet is a great tool for discovering music but it's also a major reason why quality isn't pushed to the forefront the way it once was. The ease in which people can find something new, then move on to something new and then again onto something new has lowered their attention spans and has hinderd their ability to really appreciate what they are listening to. People may be discovering more music now than ever but they are not appreciating it the way they once did. In fact the internet is responsible for giving us people like Justin Bieber. The internet is partially responsible for trash music becoming so popular. I love youtube but let's not act like youtube hasn't benefited shit artists in a way radio never could have. Let's not pretend that at the click of a button people can have the shitty artists n their playlists instantly thus breeding and entire generation of vapid music listeners. The internet hasn't forced any originality on anyone. If anything it discourages originality because if you're unique you get lost in a sea of mediocre shit. It's the mediocre paint by numbers shit that has mass appeal these days because nobody wants to take the time to hear anything original. Look at radio. It wants nothing to do with originality. People want what they had yesterday and if they don't get that CLICK onto the next thing that is that.

You have to remember those of us who post online on a music site on a regular basis are TRUE music fans. We are different. We're not the normal person. the internet has beena great tool for people like us but for the average person it's imply given them a means to gain the shittiest music possible so that they can be part of the "in crowd" and have the flavour of the month on their ipod only to delete it and replace it a month later with the new flavour. The general public wasn't able to do this back in the day so instead they'd invest in quality music that was worth their time and money. They don't have to do that now and they don't have the desire to seek it out.

There's truth to some of the things you're saying but overall I think you're pretty far off.

Quality isn't pushed to the forefront because unfortunately the masses aren't all well rounded music snobs like you and I, they're people with a more lukewarm appreciation of music, and thats fine, some people have other hobbies, who gives a shit? So whats at the forefront is whats marketbale, and frankly thats the way it should be. Let them have everything presented to them through the same avenues over and over again, they can shell out 50+ dollars to go see their favorite artist, I'm perfectly happy with paying 10 to 20 bucks to see mine, and also maybe have a chance to have a conversation with them before the show without paying for some ridiculously over priced and awkward VIP package, fuck the "forefront", lets keep the quality to ourselves!

I don't think you're giving music fans enough credit. Individuals have varying degrees of appreciation for the music they listen to, to say "people just don't appreciate music like they use to because of the internet, they're just going from one thing to the next" is trying to paint an entire population of individual tastes in one stroke, it just isn't that simple. Some people are really into music, some people just kinda like music, and some people couldn't care less. That boy band you see in commercials and hear on the radio sounds pretty shitty to you, probably sounds like generic pedestrian songwriting, which it probably is, but to however many millions of teenage girls they're the hottest shit out there, they're marketable, and there isn't necessarily anything wrong with that.

Shitty popular music? Yeah, I'm really not a fan of anything I hear on the radio these days, or the music videos I see people post on popular social media pages or whatever, so I just don't pay any attention to it, and I certainly don't focus on it. It's not for me, and it's as simple as that. However I have found a great deal of forums, smaller publications, and share sites where I have discovered a lot of my favorite artists over the past 10 years, and that's all I really care about. No, it isn't the most popular music in the world, but it has a strong community of likeminded folks who attend the shows and buy the records, and none of that would exist to the extent that it does without the internet, I don't know how anybody could possibly argue otherwise.

The thing about all the shitty popular stuff; just because its there doesn't mean you need to pay any attention to it. Fact of the matter is there are a lot of people who are into it, thats not changing, it has always been like that even long before the internet came into the picture. The only thing that's changed is just about everybody has an incredibly powerful resource to find what they like, its all there, influencing and inspiring people as it always has, how that could possibly be detrimental to the art form itself is beyond me.

As long as we pay for it, music will keep coming. But if we just get everything free, it will stop. The internet as a delivery tool is great, almost too good.

But maybe the industry needs cleansing so that only real music gets made and the more maunfactured stuff will die with out sales to drive it. Maybe thats why shows are more important than videos these days.

[Guest Len B'stard]

You guys are missing the point, I've said it a million times on this forum but fuck it I'll say it again: the internet is the greatest thing to happen to music.

It isn't that people in general are losing interest in music all together, that hasn't diminished at all. It's the overwhelming access to so many different artists that has been brought to the consumer by the internet that has changed, people are no longer limited to what is played on the radio and MTV or whatever bootleg tapes are being passed around, they can find literally anything that appeals to them if they look for it online. This hurts big business in the music industry, sure, but it has given new life to the "underground", and thousands of artists spanning across all kinds of genres are now capable of touring and releasing albums without being multi platinum recording artists signed to major labels. Why is this so good for music in general? Because it forces the product to be more original, more honest, and more challenging amidst the inevitable sea of mediocre and unremarkable shit.

No, we'll probably never see anything that takes the world by storm like the Beatles or Elvis ever again, and thank god. Fact is, our individual taste in music is a whole lot more diverse than we could have imagined, and thanks to the internet we can now indulge ourselves with more media than ever before.

In a way that makes it less accessible though, don't you think?

[Amir]

You guys are missing the point, I've said it a million times on this forum but fuck it I'll say it again: the internet is the greatest thing to happen to music.

It isn't that people in general are losing interest in music all together, that hasn't diminished at all. It's the overwhelming access to so many different artists that has been brought to the consumer by the internet that has changed, people are no longer limited to what is played on the radio and MTV or whatever bootleg tapes are being passed around, they can find literally anything that appeals to them if they look for it online. This hurts big business in the music industry, sure, but it has given new life to the "underground", and thousands of artists spanning across all kinds of genres are now capable of touring and releasing albums without being multi platinum recording artists signed to major labels. Why is this so good for music in general? Because it forces the product to be more original, more honest, and more challenging amidst the inevitable sea of mediocre and unremarkable shit.

No, we'll probably never see anything that takes the world by storm like the Beatles or Elvis ever again, and thank god. Fact is, our individual taste in music is a whole lot more diverse than we could have imagined, and thanks to the internet we can now indulge ourselves with more media than ever before.

In a way that makes it less accessible though, don't you think?

The big problem of the Internet is having a filter. Peter Gabriel even invested in some company called The Filter, still not sure exactly what they do. Some guy wrote a book called The Cult of the Amateur all about how the Internet has given rise to mediocre 'talents' gaining fame and glory, but I don't think that's completely true. Does anyone remember Chocolate Rain? Nope. People have almost forgotten Rebecca Black. Try naming all The X Factor winners.

People still remember Axl Rose, Slash, Jimmy Page, Mick Jagger, etc., because these guys are talents. The others will get their 15 minutes more easily because of the Internet, but true talent, with proper promotion, will shine through.

[Guest Len B'stard]

You guys are missing the point, I've said it a million times on this forum but fuck it I'll say it again: the internet is the greatest thing to happen to music.

It isn't that people in general are losing interest in music all together, that hasn't diminished at all. It's the overwhelming access to so many different artists that has been brought to the consumer by the internet that has changed, people are no longer limited to what is played on the radio and MTV or whatever bootleg tapes are being passed around, they can find literally anything that appeals to them if they look for it online. This hurts big business in the music industry, sure, but it has given new life to the "underground", and thousands of artists spanning across all kinds of genres are now capable of touring and releasing albums without being multi platinum recording artists signed to major labels. Why is this so good for music in general? Because it forces the product to be more original, more honest, and more challenging amidst the inevitable sea of mediocre and unremarkable shit.

No, we'll probably never see anything that takes the world by storm like the Beatles or Elvis ever again, and thank god. Fact is, our individual taste in music is a whole lot more diverse than we could have imagined, and thanks to the internet we can now indulge ourselves with more media than ever before.

In a way that makes it less accessible though, don't you think?

The big problem of the Internet is having a filter. Peter Gabriel even invested in some company called The Filter, still not sure exactly what they do. Some guy wrote a book called The Cult of the Amateur all about how the Internet has given rise to mediocre 'talents' gaining fame and glory, but I don't think that's completely true. Does anyone remember Chocolate Rain? Nope. People have almost forgotten Rebecca Black. Try naming all The X Factor winners.

People still remember Axl Rose, Slash, Jimmy Page, Mick Jagger, etc., because these guys are talents. The others will get their 15 minutes more easily because of the Internet, but true talent, with proper promotion, will shine through.

But see the popular music framework made it so you had to develop good songs and put them out and recognition was response based, without that you just have a lot of may or may nots in terms of talent because they're not really forced into creating in the same way, it's more 'free' but what good is that, i mean i've seen umpteen very talented guitarists on the internet or youtube but that doesn't mean to say they'll ever be able to create something akin to the aforementioned established talents, simply because those talents were sort of pushed into a direction by circumstance, if you're free to 'play what you want' it promotes the idea of freedom without structure and structure is important for lots of reasons, firstly because it gives you something to subvert and secondly because it's just practical.

I think the internet fragments and niche-ifies and ghettoises music to its detriment in some instances. I'm not saying it's all negative, far from it but I'm not entirely sold on this idea of it being a viable replacement for the pre-existing structure, not without some serious tweaking anyway. Music will never inform culture in the way it used to if this continues, it'll just become like a trainspotters thing. Pop music is important, a broad platform from where one can shove ones ideas down peoples throats is important because thats how you turn people on to things, you can't settle for it being this 'well it's there if you want it' kinda thing.

[Amir]

I look at Random Access Memories as proof that truly great music can still make a huge impact. When the world expected conventional EDM and perhaps even dubstep from Daft Punk, they went disco, and the sales numbers are exceptional. It's probably the best disco album ever made, and while it is 'retro' in many aspects, it also pushes disco to new places.

Will we ever get another "Chinese Democracy", where an artist is given millions and free reign? Never say never. I know I've brought up CD in a similar debate before, but it is the zenith (or nadir, depending on your perspective) of what the old label system could accomplish in many aspects, but not all; Axl complained about not getting more studio input beyond "it's not good enough" and the EQ on one drum part, which at first surprised me, seeing as I thought he'd want freedom. But you can see how people like Iovine really helped out artists like Springsteen to properly get their statements out. Lady Gaga's Artpop is what it says on the tin: an attempt to being art in pop form, and I believe it succeeds, I was really impressed by it compared to all that Ke$ha/Katy Perry cack. We'll see how it sells.

Also, people forget about the likes of the Bay City Rollers and how The Beatles started off as pop before going on to Sgt Pepper's and The White Album, etc. There's always been "bubblegum pop" since labels have been around.

Edited November 8, 2013 by Amir