Today's Popular Music
We’ve all asked the question: where has truly good music gone? We’ve heard it all before; “there’s nothing out worth buying”, “there’s nothing on the radio worth listening to” and the most alarming to record companies, “why should I pay for the CD when I can download it for free?” Almost everyone who knows someone, that knows someone and so on, complains about mainstream radio playlists. The radio request lines have long ago been retired in favor of aggressive payola tactics. Local and regional artists don’t stand a chance of getting their cd’s played and find themselves up against industry gangsters who have thousands of dollars to pay for air play. Less than talented artists with record deals are given spins in exchange for money, electronics, sporting event tickets ect. They are even given airplay for something as cheap as a pair of name brand gym shoes. Have radio programmers become an extension of the A&R department for all major record labels, so smug in their dispositions that with the push of a button they possess the ability to make or break an artist’s career? Radio programmers have always been on the payroll, but recent media coverage has exposed the crooked tactic for the whole world to see. A few simple realities can easily explain to all major recording execs that sit in their plush high-rise offices scratching their heads pondering the reasons for the decline in album sales over the past decade.
Sound alike artists are partly to blame. In the past, musical distinction actually meant something. Everyone knew Jackie Wilson, from Sam Cooke, from Otis Redding, from Marvin Gaye. We never once heard Aretha Franklin and thought it was Dionne Warrick, Patti Labelle or Diana Ross. Could anyone confuse the style of Led Zepplin with The Rolling Stones, The Beatles, or The Grateful Dead? Would you say that Aerosmith sounds like Fleetwood Mack, The Eagles, or Pink Floyd? Every artist mentioned has his or her own unique brand or musical style. Today’s artists unknowingly confuse their brand with vocal technique. The most glaring factor is that most recording artists today don’t have a brand to begin with because their musical style is copied from another artist, who copied another artist and so on. In the ever-competitive race for genre specific record sales, major record companies have their own rock, pop, hip-hop R&B and county doppelgangers. In other words company X has the artist Lousy Singer, company Y has its equivalent to Lousy Singer, and so on and so on. It has gotten so bad that, for every artist who establishes a brand, there are at least 15 or 20 knockoffs badly imitating that style. Can the nation with all the tension of the ongoing war, heated debates about race and class, post Katrina finger pointing and an out of control national deficit, survive without one more Britney or Beyonce clone? If we want to hear their music we’ll buy their cd’s instead of Lousy Singers 1-10.
Song quality is another lost treasure in today’s popular music. When was the last time we heard a song that actually made sense and had clear cohesion from start to finish? Granted, we are living in the digital age where outright infringement has been nicely padded down to mean sampling and true musicianship has been thrown overboard to the sharks. Why waste time learning an instrument when with the push of a key, you can almost sound like a cheap imitation of a Julliard graduate? Q. Where are all of the thoughtful talented singer songwriters who can out sing and out perform many if not most of the below average artists that are in heavy rotation today? A. They are being overlooked by major record companies who seek to sign another dozen Lousy Singers in ongoing efforts to milk the cow dry until the next trend comes along.
Nowadays recording an album doesn’t represent creating a masterpiece, a labor of love, a tour de force. Artists today “drop albums” with a couple club bangers, a few mad collabs and a slow cut or two and that’s basically it. Over producing has become the new hottest recording technique for pop music. It’s has gotten so bad that most artists can’t duplicate their studio performances live and lazily rely on lip-syncing. The ears of pop audiences aren’t trained to appreciate live performances. They can only relate to studio performances and often ridicule artists who sing live with comments such as “that doesn’t sound the same way it did on the cd”! This deception is partly the result of artificially trying to make a lousy singer into a good singer. Studio gadgets such as harmonizers and pitch correctors have helped several high profile singers “sound good” on their cd’s.
Artist disenfranchisement has played another big part in declining cd sales. Karma, you could say has finally caught up to major recording labels. A $.30 royalty rate for every cd sold is not a good “deal” even if the artist does sell 5 million cd’s. Record companies are like predatory lenders giving out high interest rate loans (record contracts) to underrepresented artists. When the artists sign their name on the dotted………… they unknowingly become indentured servants to the master who owns them for the duration of the deed. The record companies own them, their publishing, masters, copyrights and whatever else they can get their greedy hands on. Luckily, artists today have educated themselves about the unethical practices of the music business. Modern media has been the greatest medium in giving artists knowledge that they wouldn’t have easily gotten otherwise.
New technology has been for artists what the cotton gin was for slave masters. It represented profits. New technology made available to consumers has changed the game. Savvy artists have become empowered and they are no longer waiting for industry dictators to deem their work worthy of production. Musicians are buying the latest recording software and producing their own CD’s and distributing them on the Internet and out of the trunk of their cars. CD duplication and CD Replication was never thought to be a threat by major studios until artists found ways to capitalize upon it. The movie and music industries will continue to remain in a slump as they are faced with an uprising similar to the Boston Tea Party of long ago, only this time it is considered a “Consumer Tea Party”. In order to stay in the race record companies will have to accept that artists are actually entitled to reap in the fruits of their hard labor. Prince, The Dixie Chicks, Tony Braxton, TLC, Master P, 50 Cent, Russell Simmons… the list goes on. All of these artists have taught us to be empowered. Their struggles for their own artistic rights has shown us that, we don’t have to sell out and accept the Jim Crow, “take it or leave it” contracts all record companies are so graciously handing out.
Payola, soundalikes, and artist disenfranchisement are weighty issues undoubtedly, but there’s another injustice taking place in the industry. Segregation in music is still very prevalent. The color lines still exist in rock and country music. They both have yet to really reflect diversity. Ethnic artists, who are brave enough to tread into either category, are faced with an uneven playing field. They are unfairly pre-judged as being “not good enough” by their peers and often subtly pressured to somehow prove they are qualified to play that genre of music. The ethnicity of an artist or band shouldn’t predetermine the genre of music they play. There are good black rock and country bands but unfortunately, many readers of this article will never have the opportunity to hear their music because most record companies won’t promote it! Is history repeating itself? Are we sending the message to impressionable youth that, if they are non-white, they will have a successful career only if they perform rap, R&B, hip-hop, blues and gospel music, but if they are white, they can walk through open doors and have great careers performing rock, country, rap, R&B, hip-hop, blues, gospel and just about any other genre in which they please? The music industry, time and time again has chosen to perpetuate this sort of type casting. Granted, any ethnic artist who chooses to perform rock and country music can do so at their hearts desire but the chances they’ll actually have the same level of promotion as their white peers is highly unlikely. And just like vultures scouring the land for food waiting for the opportunity to pounce upon their prey, critics will vehemently deny that segregation is present in the industry. “What about Jimi Hendrix, Lenny Kravitz, Tina Turner, Living Colour… if such practices exist, how did those blacks go on to have huge careers in rock music?
Jimi Hendrix, a black man, with wild hair, an odd sense of fashion and an experimental new sound; America to say the least, wasn’t ready for Jimi in the mid 60’s. No one was terribly excited nor saw dollar signs at the prospect of a black rock guitarist. When Jimi was re-imported back into the United States the light bulb was switched on and the cash register rang, “cha-ching”! Jimi’s spirit was passed on to Lenny Kravitz almost twenty years later. Lenny Kravitz, another legend in his own right infused hard rock with funk and soul to create a hybrid style. Even he endured the stigma of being an African American rocker in the early 90’s and saw the divide between blacks and whites in rock music. Tina Turner is the only rock queen who stands tall amongst the kings. Having a proven track record, charted hits and a solid rock connection, helped Tina etch a second page in music history. Who would’ve known a little black girl from Nutbush, TN would grow up to become the greatest female rock singer of all time? Living Colour struggled early on in their career as a black metal band which was tooooootally unheard of at the time. They founded the Black Rock Coalition to help foster diversity and open doors for other black rockers.
The underlying connection between said artists is the presence of acceptable representation. The only way an ethnic artist can break into rock music it seems, is to have the backing of a white representative. It’s almost like someone saying… “Hey guys this one’s okay, you can let him in now but don’t open the door too wide”! Jimi had Linda Keith (who by the way was Mick Jagger’s girlfriend at the time), Lenny Kravitz had social affluence, Tina Turner had Erwin Bach, and Living Colour had Mick Jagger himself vouching for them. The odds of an African American breaking into the genre without an influential white industry connection is not one in a million, it’s not even one in five million, it’s one in never, because record execs, time and time again just don’t “see it”! Three or four mainstream African Americans in rock music doesn’t equate a level playing field and never will!
Diversity, as any businessman knows represents profits. America’s diversity has risen exponentially over the past 30 years but the major labels want to hold on to the shackles even after the emancipation proclamation has been signed freeing the artists. As we’ve looked at the current state of music, does it surprise anyone why cd sales have declined? Mainstream radio represents a handful of type cast artist, while everyone else is (literally) left out in the hurricane. Most hardworking Americans are already under great stress and economic uncertainty… feeling the tidal effects of global disenfranchisement; downsizing, outsourcing, excessive and unnecessary tax breaks for the wealthy, more tax burdens for the working and middle class, excessive CEO compensations, corporate subsidies and welfare, crumbling state budgets across the nation, major cutbacks in school funding… as well as deep cuts in social programs and support systems for the poor and working class. The industry has taken away the one thing all Americans look forward to at some point during their day; sitting back relaxing and listening to GOOD MUSIC!
Source: Vibe Magazine
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