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Kiki

Just saw the article on the nme called 'Thom Yorke tells students the music business will fold within 'months'' - link: http://www.nme.com/news/thom-yorke/51422

The nme have also put a nice picture of him with a grin and his eyes closed next to it.

He claims it will be"no great loss to the world". Well it won't be if you think of other problems in the world. What Thom hadn't bargained on though, is the deluge of apathy we will get if everyone were to take up this myth of "grass roots". No one will say anything any more, everything will be taken up for a few weeks before thrown away for the next "in" thing. Music will become the name of an artist which you use to impress friends like an new beret. No one will think any more because no music is made to inspire any more. As a result no one is going to complain when democracy is taken away. The power's that be will know. Much of the big powers will be authoritarian as a result. No one will care. It will be a strange mix of 1984 and Brave New World forever and ever and ever and ever.

So Thom Guevara doesn't know/care about this. As long as he gets the status of being the one which destroyed it he will be regraded as the revolutionary and legend he has been hoping to be since god knows when. It's almost like he wishes it's all over.

Any thoughts? Confused

Bork

Executive Hillbilly

Location: Vinson Mountain, GA

That's a lot of things happening from one comment in a magazine with a world-wide 40,000 circulation.

cartoken

The Seer

Gender: Male

Age: 40

Location: Paris

'Thom Yorke. do good music and shut up ! Confused

Charicature

Age: 50

Location: Vermont

an_outlaw wrote:

He claims it will be"no great loss to the world". Well it won't be if you think of other problems in the world. What Thom hadn't bargained on though, is the deluge of apathy we will get if everyone were to take up this myth of "grass roots". No one will say anything any more, everything will be taken up for a few weeks before thrown away for the next "in" thing. Music will become the name of an artist which you use to impress friends like an new beret. No one will think any more because no music is made to inspire any more. As a result no one is going to complain when democracy is taken away. The power's that be will know. Much of the big powers will be authoritarian as a result. No one will care. It will be a strange mix of 1984 and Brave New World forever and ever and ever and ever.

So Thom Guevara doesn't know/care about this. As long as he gets the status of being the one which destroyed it he will be regraded as the revolutionary and legend he has been hoping to be since god knows when. It's almost like he wishes it's all over.

Any thoughts? Confused

I'm thinking this is a topic more suited to The Lounge as it's barely relevant to music, at least as you present it Wink

And democracy is an overused and overrated concept. The United States, for instance, was designed not as a democracy but as a representative Republic - democracy is an element of electing leaders, but the leaders then seek to represent. The problem is the leaders stopped being moral about 100 years later and started realizing they could buy votes by giving away public money. They also gave the vote to people who didn't have any stake in the country who don't care if taxes go up because they don't realize that it's also increasing their cost of living, and to people who didn't pay much attention to current events and voted in their own self-interest against the common interest. And look where we are now - true capitalism is a thing of the past, massive corporations get their way by their directors schmoozing with big ticket politicians to rake in more money while squeezing out smaller competition with higher taxes and more regulation (this is not to include those businesses that get large by their own competitive effort and squeeze out the little guy because they're so hard to compete with on the level of quality - I've no problem with that). And, ultimately, as all true democracies will over time, we're moving closer to authoritarianism. People will on average vote for security over liberty, leaving those interested in freedom to be yoked to their society against their will. We already have just a fraction of the freedoms we enjoyed 50 years ago (with the exception of minorities who were legally discriminated against then, but that's a separate issue having nothing to do with democracy, but with morality).

As for the music industry, though - I'll say that they could still make a go of it. Yorke is rather stupid, to be honest, and I wouldn't put too much weight in what he says. But I'm reading a biography of Depeche Mode right now and it's got a lot of insight to the recording industry. The band wanted control over their music when that just wasn't the normal way of doing business back in 1981. So they went with Daniel Miller and Mute Records, a small start-up recording firm where their contract was verbal and a handshake sealed the deal (they liked him, for their part, because they liked a couple bands he already had on his label, including Fad Gadget). It took them longer to get ahead because Mute didn't have the wherewithal to promote them too well at first - but because Miller was willing to produce any band he liked and left creative control to them, he managed to find some gems. By 1982 he had Depeche Mode gaining attention despite the separation with their leader Vince Clarke, and Mute further hit it big time by keeping Clarke on when he formed Yazoo with Alison Moyet and later when he and Andy Bell formed Erasure.

So ultimately, the real problem with the recording industry today that's sinking them isn't that they're not keeping up with the times technologically, it's the opposite - one of their "modernizations" was to take fewer risks on unknown artists with different sounds or approaches. Mute didn't have to pay out a lot to Depeche Mode - the deal was a 50-50 profit sharing deal with none of the advances that major labels would give to bands only to have their records flop and not cover the expense. Band and label both made out well and have continued their relationship to this day. Same with Erasure - Bell and Clarke have released 5 albums in the last 10 years with the same label. The prominence of both bands has declined due to the fact of their age and being somewhat of a niche (though DM I can personally vouch can still fill arenas when on tour), but you have to figure that Mute, due to their business model running somewhat on the cheap, is still turning a profit since it was never swallowed by the "big boys" of music. It's outlasted a number of them, in fact. So really, it's the normal music business model, not the business itself, that's failing.

EDIT: well, I stand corrected on one thing - on doing some added research I see Mute was sold to EMI in 2002. Doesn't say why, as Daniel Miller is still the executive chairman.
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teodor_matz

Location: Sweden

Thom Yorke is a douche.

40footwolf

Gender: Male

Age: 34

an_outlaw wrote:

Just saw the article on the nme called 'Thom Yorke tells students the music business will fold within 'months'' - link: http://www.nme.com/news/thom-yorke/51422

The nme have also put a nice picture of him with a grin and his eyes closed next to it.

He claims it will be"no great loss to the world". Well it won't be if you think of other problems in the world. What Thom hadn't bargained on though, is the deluge of apathy we will get if everyone were to take up this myth of "grass roots". No one will say anything any more, everything will be taken up for a few weeks before thrown away for the next "in" thing. Music will become the name of an artist which you use to impress friends like an new beret. No one will think any more because no music is made to inspire any more. As a result no one is going to complain when democracy is taken away. The power's that be will know. Much of the big powers will be authoritarian as a result. No one will care. It will be a strange mix of 1984 and Brave New World forever and ever and ever and ever.

So Thom Guevara doesn't know/care about this. As long as he gets the status of being the one which destroyed it he will be regraded as the revolutionary and legend he has been hoping to be since god knows when. It's almost like he wishes it's all over.

Any thoughts? Confused

...What?
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I love all music. It makes you feel like living. Silence is death.

-John Cassavettes

maxperenchio

Location: Chicago

In the next few years, large corporations like Coca Cola, Pepsi, Apple, Google etc will launch music departments, begin to sign artists, give them re$ources like the glory days of the music industry, and just cut out the middle man altogether. Beyonce can just sign straight to Volvo, and while things will still be about money, companies can try to build artistic credibility through their artist clientele. I know, I know, corporations like Starbucks have already started that, but I can guarantee it will get much, much bigger. Some huge company will sign a huge artist and trailblaze the fuck out of the industry, just watch.