well Mr Hill, have you considered your arguement?
when we were kids, TOTP related about 40% to kids and 60% to adults... every factory you worked in, every workshop & garage had Radio1 blasting out in glorious AM all day long, and pop music helped the day go by in the place... If you've ever spent day after day cutting steel on a machine, or welding frames on a press, it's just repetitive work, the same actions over and over... Apart from the odd conversation and breaks the Radio was a godsend, it kept you sane.... so it was equaly for adults then, you'd be in a factory with a few guys your age (late teens early 20's) and a whole bunch of older people, especialy women in their 40's & 50's... But the radio appealed equaly to all... Sure, you might have listened to whoever at home but the radio content wasn't so bad in terms of it's broad appeal.
Now, TOTP is exclusively for 5-12 year olds... and that is that, end of story.. You cant keep something like TOTP going on such a reduced audience... The BUYING of 'POP' music has also changed... whereas the majority of 'pop' records were bought by working adults before, now they are bought by childrens' parents...
Also there was a massively healthy business in cover-versions of the chart hits in the UK back then... every year in Britain, you'd get 12 TOTP albums released per year, one each month featuring chart hits from the previous month recorded as faithfully as possible as cover versions... those albums sold f*cking MILLIONS.
I think that say something about the value of the material as opposed to simply marketting a GROUP/image, which is immaterial because the children, like with breakfast cereal or happy meals, only want to support the conditioning they are exposed to... SO, as long as the record is 'by' the group on TV, it doesnt matter what it is like...
Probably Brit-pop was the last bastion of the old style.. OASIS at least (rip-off or otherwise) released reasonably well crafted well arranged & produced commercial pop songs... Now and again you get a good track in the 90's but not often.
Anyways, as a consequence we've seen Radio1 and ToTP flop down in support... That's what comes of specialisation I guess. I think British music has reduced it's market to a safer and safer place, we now try to release acts that will sell in the UK, and that's all, if they happen to sell outside the Uk it's a bonus. As a consequence we get bands like The Darkness... all over every show on Tv, yet their songs are TOTALY un-memorable... I have listened to The Darkness alot, and still cannot remember a single track in my head... it's banal shite songwriting, and this act is being plugged simply because what?... because they are slightly different?
I say they will never crack the states because their material is utter shite. Good band imagewise (and ONLY because everything else is identical), but totaly & utterly crap songs!!
Also they are about as 'Dark' as a WI meeting imo lol!
Anyways, who cares?.. I don't...
The whole industry is ed imo
we have NO network of local venues to support acts as they develop unless they play covers or Blues
We buy tickets to main venue gigs which always are way more than the face value on the ticket when they arrive, so pretty much ALL tickets are now a trade-able commodity forcing up the price.
I have to say it's this british attitude which makes me puke...
"Oh deary us... people aren't going to the cinema anymore" - er... and a handful of popcorn costs £3.85 & a coke is £2.99 and the cinema has a screen often only slightly larger than your widescreen at home.
"Oh dear, sales in pubs are falling!" - but er it costs 60 quid for two people to go out and even get drunk!!! - 1 x double-vodka & orange & 1 Becks in the Intrepid Fox in Soho costs £8 pounds f*cking 60 pence last time I was in there!!!
I went to the pictures with a mate last week... 60 f*cking quid for 2 x pictures, 1 popcorn, a coke and 4 drinks in the pub!!!!!!! - but oh dear, sales in pubs are falling!... I'm not bloody surprised!!
And now it's: "Oh dear, pop music sales are falling!" - er... but the people who work in the labels know jack-shit about music and mostly come from 'marketting' backgrounds... I swear to you I spent dinner opposite a toss-pot from Warners recently who was trying to tell me how good Gareth Gates is!!... and how 'great' Coldplay are when I ask for an example of a band which does well & flies the flag for the UK!!... it's nonsense. I can tell you un-equivocally, this girl had absolutely NO knowledge of music & simply talked marketting drivel all the time.
Downloading is killing music sales??... ABSOLUTELY 101% NO WAY!
i can say without ANY fear of contradiction, there's not a single person I know who downloads that would buy that music if it wasn't online.. NO WAY!!!... they still buy EXACTLY as much music as they ever did before & if they buy LESS it's simply because they have less money
Example: I =have a japanese freind who when I met them bought alot of Cd's and had a good collection of interesting guitar band music... They just had a pay-cut at work, their rent has doubled, their fares to work have skyrocketted etc etc... they simply cannot afford to buy Cd's now!!
Remember we live is a piss-poor country where the MAJORITY of the population live BELOW the official UN poverty level, & the USA is similar with a small middle-class and a huge poverty-trapped working (or not working) class... how on EARTH do they think people can afford to buy a couple of CD's or DVD's per week (30 -40 quid!!!) when after their rent/mortgage & bills the cost of those goods would be about all they have left to go to work with & buy their food for f*cks sake!
Hence music or rather POP music has been gradualy shifted to be a middle-class kids commodity, sold to middle-income families of the type who's PARENTS will and CAN afford to spend quite a substantial annual income on DVD's & merchandising etc for all the popular kids films & of course their little kiddiwinks fav' pop-groups.
um... and that is why I cannot agree with this scenario, because frankly everyone I know with young kids at school, their kids all come home with the latest DVD bootleg which is going round the schoolyard... Monsters Inc, Spiderman, Hulk, Harry Potter etc... every single film get's round the schoolyard as soon as it's gone to post production.. BUT, 100% those same families DO SPEND tons of money on the authentic DVD or video, and tons of merchandising when released...
Their kids wont be satisfied with a lousey bad-image DVD bootleg!.. No!... they want the REAL DVD, the Harry Potter lunchbox, the Mosters Inc Toothbrush set, the Spiderman Duvet & Pillowcase set, The Hulk Chocolate Yogurts etc etc... and they damn well get it!!
compare that to the old days when those same families mebbe bought a record token at christmas or birthdays, mebbe a Football scarf etc and that was IT!!..
Imo these families spend WAY WAY more NOW on merchandising than they ever did before.. so the arguement simply does NOT hold water imo!
So, those middle class families are gradualy being reduced.. in capitalist countries in this recession, poverty is increasing and we see a marked trend of a huge widening between the affluent middle-classes & the poor... So naturaly sales of junk have decreased IN ALL MARKETS!!... if the gap widens between poor and affluent, you reduce your market as poor families get poorer, they can afford less consumable un-neccessary goods.
Then there is another arguement.. I'd REALLY like to see this one answered or even POSED by some journalsist but never have heard it asked
WHY do record companies & film companies insist that of ALL the worlds industries, of EVERY SINGLE industry in the world which is in recession, THEY ALONE are un-affected!!?
ALL other industries are down, but OH NO!... NOT record companies or film companies.. oh no!.. in THEIR case they have somehow bypassed the effect of a finacial recession completely and singlehandedly, and if it were not for file-sharing THEIR PROFITS ALONE would be continuing to rise or at least remain the same!!!
Sounds logical?.... DOES IT F*CK!!... Simply we are in a recession and sales of UN-NEEDED goods always suffer first.
So... In a nutshell, they've reduced music sales or rather filtered them down to rely on the middle-classes buying for their schoolkids & removed the adult market almost by refusing to release material in that sector in the 'commercial music' area... then the recession has reduced the middle-class - end of story. What on earth could happen apart from a decline in sales?
Video's too have taken their toll, by making the image of the band the primary thing, (but it's a plastic image in most cases), we end up with 'marketting-data' styled 'pop-groups' which lets face it, are mostly just white limp immitations of American black RnB groups - By making the bands look the primary thing it follows that you can manufacture that look and more and more bands & artists NOT fitting into that format are rejected and ignored... Hence you get NOTHING new and pop ALWAYS needs something new
i find it quite strange for example that this period in late C20th history as far as I can see is marked by fashion standing still... we get subtle changes, but have you for example ever seen a period where for example guys haircut style has remained identical for so long?... Nothings moving anymore, there's no sweep, no changes, no new breath!...
And besides that, for every 1 'made-up' band that you see on TOTP or CDUK, 10 others have flopped, going down & taking with them a 1, 2 or 3 million 'marketting' budgets which COULD fund 10 new 'genuine' groups... but without a network of venues for these bands to develop, and with Melody maker now having a policy of NOT reviewing un-signed bands, what else can happen?
bands are now created as a 'product' by yuppie middle-class marketting tossers for yuppie middle class kids, but the market has shrunk due to the economy.
Anyways, who cares I say!... who really gives a shit?.. no-one that's who... this crap doesnt effect peoples daily lives like food transport or whatever, so in the end the media giants imo are fighting a battle they cannot win because it's not relevent to peoples real lives anymore, Westerners are NOT the majority, and even here in the west people have OTHER worries... Music?... Video's?.. who gives a shit!!... it's irrelevent to the basic's of life...
In the factory NOW those potential record buying adults tune in to Virgin or Capital Gold or whatever Local FM 'oldies' station and simply sing along all day at work to old hits, there is nothing out there for them to buy now.
Same with TV... endless cheap 'real life' crap... sattelite tV had bumped ad's to every 12 minutes breaking up the flow so badly that even SKY-owning freinds I have are getting to the point they watch it less & less now... no wonder TV advertising is down 70%.
Anyways... "at the end of the day" (to quote a TRisha-ism) Capitalism is flawed and is unsustainable unless people are genuinely deluded into beleiveing that somehow profits can always rise for all eternity... we're just putting off the inevitable imo.
One thing about marketting you cannot escape is that fashion & taste changes... if you setup a world where every high street has the same stores, where every Tv station shows the same content, where every pop band is the same, eventualy style & taste changes... THEN WHAT!!! - all your eggs are in one basket & you're f*cked that's what! (imo)
Dance music at least can survive on a local level, but it's not about making tons of money is it... never was... people run labels, do some stuff on the scene, have a laugh, then either get lucky or drop out in their 30's and new blood comes in... You shouldn't be in this biz if it's money you want anyways imo.
If you think that you'll get ed because like in football or sport or movies, only 1 in a million become wealthy and are at 'the top' - You gotta be more realistic, branch out & find your niche in this industry/hobby feild... Often the 'niche' find you anyways, so be flexible... If you end up with a decent studio turning over enuff cash annualy so that you are making the same as someone working in an office, then fine!... you do something you love, you dont have to get up and go to work in the same way an office worker does... you can evolve do something creative, have a life.. whatever...
Imo this is where partly the media biz fails in that it's own expectations are too high, wages are too high, expense accounts & top-peoples perks in the companies are too high, people fling money around like it's going out of fashion... which leads or relates to my final point.
all these companies whining about losing sales mysteriously don't seem to have any problems hiking their board's pay packets by HUGE amounts... The RIAA is the same, 'protecting us poor musicians' while they & their buddies reap in the huge wages, perks & dividends...
F*ck 'em all I say... I'd be QUITE happy to play my guitar or bass or do live dance sets if I could earn a wage doing it if venues were run properly & paid musicians properly, it's enuff for me anyways.
How about you?... why is it we have this whole scare going round about falling music sales?... does it effect you or I?.. not a bit! - All it means is that 4 major labels own everything and a bunch of fat old c*nts in suits wont make so much share dividends...
Boo f*cking Hoo!! - I can hear the worlds smallest violin playing somewhere in the world...
At the other end you have all these wannabe pretentious hit 'musicians' who spout crap on the SoS forums... All this crap, pretentious crap it is.. people posturing around trying to pretend that this 'downloading effecting sales' is STEALING!! & might effect THIER chance to be rich and famous! lol!! - how bloody arrogant & stupid can you get!!
"Oh I would be famous and selling my tunes if only downloading was stopped because it's robbing us poor hard-done-by musicians!!" - BOLLOCKS!.. I never heard such a load of arrogant crap in all my life. If you beleive that then your life will be one long miserable dissapointment imo - what do you want after all?... fame?.. people grovelling to you?.. power?... All people should want is a roof over their heads they can afford, and to do something they enjoy & that stimulates them mentaly at least most of the time... in this world if you can get that you are lucky enuff imo, because in case people didn't notice, MOST of the population of this planet is simply trying to find food & water or hoping they wont be tortured or bombed or shot or have a hand chopped off with a machete that day or whatever, while we in the west sit around whining because industries WE have might not deliver enuff money to a small handful of individuals this year which would sustain a small country elsewhere.
heyup!.. I can hear that violin again!...