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Grex > Music2 > #112: Changes in the Music Business | |
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| Author |
Message |
| 25 new of 189 responses total. |
krj
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response 77 of 189:
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Apr 27 03:31 UTC 1999 |
USA Today ran a big feature on Friday: "Is Rock Dead?"
RIAA sales figures indicate that rock's share of the market place
shrank again in 1998:
1988: 46.2% share of sales is rock music
...
1997: 32.5%
1998: 25.7%
Lots of quotes from old geezers like Jimmy Page and Tom Scholz, and
young geezers like Billy Corgan and members of R.E.M.
The article points out that the industry is no longer willing to nurture
budding careers. Mike Mills said that if R.E.M. began its career
in the 1990's, "we would never have made it. Our first record
would have been put out there by someone expecting it to sell a
million copies. And when it didn't, we'd be out."
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mcnally
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response 78 of 189:
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Apr 27 07:10 UTC 1999 |
Who decides what counts as "rock"? Are there things like "alternative"
that are now counted seperately from "rock" that would've been counted
together in 1988?
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krj
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response 79 of 189:
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Apr 27 14:29 UTC 1999 |
As far as I can tell from the article, "alternative" sales are lumped
in with rock. The article talks about those high numbers from about
a decade ago as representing the commercial success of Nirvana.
Country and rap sales have grown strongly in the decade while rock
sales have been declining.
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lumen
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response 80 of 189:
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May 28 05:15 UTC 1999 |
All I can say is that SUCKS, especially as I see unoriginal rap material
being very popular-- i.e., Puff Daddy-- just a step away from
encouraging his acts to do nothing but cover tunes..
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carson
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response 81 of 189:
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May 30 06:20 UTC 1999 |
(maybe people like oldies.)
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cloud
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response 82 of 189:
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May 31 22:20 UTC 1999 |
I recently read an interesting passage by a musicologist named Edward Macan
which speculated that rock as a whole is going into decline. "the power of
rock, after all," he says, "stemmed from the power of the cultural revolution
that spawned it, a cultural revolution the likes of which we have seen only
one other time in this century-- in the early 1920s, with the birth of the
jazz age." Wouldn't it be interesting to see rock and roll go the way of
classical music?
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cyklone
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response 83 of 189:
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Jun 1 11:57 UTC 1999 |
We are DEVO!
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lumen
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response 84 of 189:
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Jun 2 01:43 UTC 1999 |
It would seem that urban/rap music may be the next thing, since I can
definitely see cultural undercurrents that the music expresses moving
through society. Black America seems to be making a push to move to
front and center.
However, I would not discount the idea that contributions from Latin
America will be making an even stronger presence in the future.
Jennifer Lopez, Ricky Martin, and Gloria Estefan seem to be reaching a
peak (or very soon) in the mainstream.
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orinoco
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response 85 of 189:
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Jun 3 22:22 UTC 1999 |
I would hardly say that there has _never_ been a cultural revolution of that
sort except during the 20's and the 60's. Culture is changing all the time.
It's easy to look back on the 1700s and lump them all together as "Classical
Music", but I imagine that back then, the 1760s and the 1790s seemed just as
musically different as the 1960s and the 1990s do today.
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carson
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response 86 of 189:
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Jun 4 01:04 UTC 1999 |
(uh, it wouldn't be the first time that "black" music captured the
nation's imagination. gospel... blues... jazz... rock 'n roll... etc.)
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cloud
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response 87 of 189:
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Jun 4 01:09 UTC 1999 |
I'd like to draw your attention, Daniel, to the bit of the quote that reads
"one other time in this century".
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lumen
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response 88 of 189:
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Jun 4 06:34 UTC 1999 |
resp:86 But it seems to be true now probably more than ever. I could
be wrong.
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carson
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response 89 of 189:
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Jun 5 06:34 UTC 1999 |
(it's only true for us now because we're living now. the blues were
*BIG*, even while being performed by the original artists. ditto jazz:
there were clubs in Harlem that catered exclusively to "whites";
"blacks" weren't allowed in, except to perform. of my short list, rock
is the only one that "needed" peformers of a Caucasian origin in order
to become a mainstream hit.)
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orinoco
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response 90 of 189:
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Jun 6 22:36 UTC 1999 |
Thank you, cloud, you're right. I missed that.
Carson - really? I was under the impression that jazz only really took off
when white performers got into the act as well, in terms of popularity at
least - but I don't remember where I heard that, and it might well be wrong.
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carson
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response 91 of 189:
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Jun 7 02:39 UTC 1999 |
(hmm... are you thinking of the Rat Pack singing? I can't think of
anyone else myself.)
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krj
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response 92 of 189:
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Jun 8 22:23 UTC 1999 |
Orinoco may have missed the bit about cultural revolutions "in this
century" in resp:82.
The history of jazz is murkier than it should be to me.
From the 1920's, the only white name which leaps out from my foggy
brain as important is Paul Whiteman. But this was also the beginning
of the era of mass culture, so it's not clear to me that any
individual jazz musician had a star performer's following in this
period. Jazz as a style seems to have been a big part of urban
culture in this period, though.
When you get to the swing/big band era, white bandleaders dominated the
market: Tommy Dorsey, Glenn Miller, Artie Shaw, Woody Herman.
The only major black bandleaders I can think of from the period
are Duke Ellington and Count Basie.
The swing era is what we would recognize even today as
popular music with a mass market, the star system, etc.
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dbratman
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response 93 of 189:
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Jun 24 22:59 UTC 1999 |
I find the history of jazz to be tremendously confusing, partly because
I have no real understanding of the various kinds of jazz. Terms like
"be-bop" are just words to me. I've probably heard some, but I
wouldn't know that that's what I've heard.
Although I have no taste for jazz at all, I'd be willing to invest in
a good CD historical survey of the field if I could find one, just for
the sake of my cultural education. So far all I've found is the one
sold by BBC Music Magazine, which divides into two parts: the pre-WW2
stuff, which all sounds alike to me, and the post-WW2 stuff, which also
all sounds alike to me (but different from the pre-WW2 stuff). This
didn't help much.
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krj
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response 94 of 189:
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Jun 27 19:52 UTC 1999 |
I think the Smithsonian Collection of Classic Jazz is still in print.
This was a five LP set; I think it's been reissued on 3 CDs.
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krj
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response 95 of 189:
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Jul 13 19:42 UTC 1999 |
News item: Columbia House, the music "club" owned by Sony and Time-Warner,
is merging with online retailer CDNow. The new entity will be 37% owned
by the two major labels. Columbia House and CDNow will do extensive
cross-promotion on their websites, and CDNow will get lowest-cost access
to the Sony and Time-Warner CDs.
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mcnally
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response 96 of 189:
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Jul 14 00:41 UTC 1999 |
Can anyone say "anti-competitive"? I knew you could.. So much easier
to buy up a competitor than to squash them like a bug and run a much
higher risk of antitrust scrutiny..
Sony & Time-Warner don't quite make up a monopoly but put them together
with Bertelsmann and you come pretty close. I don't like seeing the
giants swallow up their potential competition. CDNow already merged
with MusicBlvd.. At least even Sony & Time-Warner don't have enough
money to casually swallow Amazon (at least not at current valuation!)
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krj
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response 97 of 189:
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Nov 1 23:15 UTC 1999 |
News item: The RealJukebox software program collects data on what
music the user is playing and recording, and it reports this data
to Real Networks along with the user's identity. One person interviewed
in the article states this information could be subpoenaed under the
Digital Millenium Copyright Act.
Every CD played on the computer is reported. Songs found on the hard drive
are reported. Any portable music player connected is reported.
Source: New York Times, 11/1/1999.
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orinoco
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response 98 of 189:
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Nov 2 00:10 UTC 1999 |
What is the Digital Millenium Copyright Act?
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mcnally
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response 99 of 189:
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Nov 2 00:37 UTC 1999 |
Recent (last year) legislation that substantially increases criminal
penalties for low-level software piracy and other intellectual property
violations. I'd summarize, but my recollection of it is so dire that
I myself am convinced that I must be making it up and that nobody would
pass such an outrageous law..
It's about time RealMedia got slapped for the obnoxious behavior of
their software. I uninstalled an early version of RealPlayer when it
became clear to me that it was sending packets back to the company
every time I used it -- this isn't just a new feature they added to
their latest product (although it does sound like they're both collecting
more information now and being even less sensitive to privacy concerns.)
Real Networks apparently claim that their software isn't violating users'
privacy because they don't store [all of] the information or share it with
other companies. I'd like to ask them exactly where they believe their
product's behavior *does* lie on the privacy spectrum..
At any rate I think this is an excellent example of why closed standards
for streaming audio and video formats are a terrible idea. Unfortunately
the muscle behind proprietary standards in those areas of computing is
very strong -- you have Real[Audio/Video], Microsoft Media Player, the
DVD formats, etc..
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goose
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response 100 of 189:
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Nov 2 16:08 UTC 1999 |
As soon as I get home any product by real is getting axed from my machines.
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orinoco
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response 101 of 189:
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Nov 2 21:17 UTC 1999 |
I guess I'm missing the point. Why should I feel the need to hide what music
I listen to?
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