Cinnie said:

Probably more uninspired that they won't be heard in the 2010s.

rubbish ..... the problem with modern artist today is that don't write about the truth, so people don't buy it, can't relate to it ......

Normal people buy music CD's they like / love ...this will never change ...people buy art if it's good or if it makes them feel good FACT ....

Amy Winehouse the album sold so well - worldwide why because people understand where she's coming from they can relate.. to lost love, problems in relationships etc....

real album = Back to Black

Now compare that with Cristina Aguilera ..... who woke up today feeling, made up rubbish don't sell unless you put shit loads of money behind it...

fake album = Bionic ?

Mark my words Britney Spears will soon start running out of money ... her albums are 100% marketing budget, the record industry will drop her very soon - don't expect her to be around as long as madonna

Oh please, sure back in the days there were more artists exposed in mainstream that actually had real talent, but don't ever believe that they wanted to do it for free. If anything they struggled more so now than any artist does today to make ends meet while recording. It's unrealistic to think that even though the music back then was more real than it is now, that artists were just recording...just to record. That's silly.

It has always been about making enough money to make a living with music.

That's how it has always been for 99% of musicians.

The 1% or less get to "make it big"...

You guys are confusing inspiration and the need to make a living.

Artists never want to just do stuff for free. No one ever said that. The point is that the MOTIVATION is either one of two things: Do you make music because you want to make money, or do you make music because it's what you're meant to do? Any artist will sell their work. Of course they want to make a living. It goes back to that saying about "find something you love to do and you'll never work again". Every painter sold their work, or was a work for hire at some point (ie commissioned to do a work - just like a singer or musician is hired to do a soundtrack for a movie, etc).

No one ever said musicians should do it for free because it's their art.

When The Jonas Bros are releasing their face on lunch boxes and jacket pins, it's for the money. There's no art in that anymore. KISS is the same way. Not really anything innovative or interesting musically, but my God if you want to be buried in a KISS coffin, or wipe your ass with KISS toilet paper, then you can do that, all while stuffing Gene Simmons' pockets with more of your hard earned dollars. Music is forever, toilet paper is there for one thing, as is a casket.

I kind of like that Prince never got huge into the merchandising thing like lunch boxes or pencils or purple notebooks, etc. His forays into merchandising have been minimal compared to other artists. Sure he had some t-shirts, pins, and jackets, but really in the big picture, it's been a single digit percentage of time that he's tried doing it. KISS have done it most of their career, and really built their fortune from the merchandise, not the music. Prince's legacy won't be a reality show or car wash with nude girls. It will be the music, the concerts. THAT is the different in "inspiration" between artists. It's a difference well lost on 90% of the acts out there under the age of 30.

violetblues said:

BlaqueKnight said:

Artists and musicians have always struggled to make ends meet this is nothing new, only a tiny percentage have ever made a name for themselves and made a decent living at it no matter how talented you were. This is a profession where you do it because of the love of art dont kid yourself. The only difference now is that even the most famous recording artists are struggling to make money at it. If you want to make money you become a doctor or a plumber.

I have railed against piracy, youtube, and all the internet goodness that makes taking digital content so fast and easy. But whether its Prince or Steve Jobs, people dont like someone tring to to defend their right to make a living and limiting how content is shared. people have a sense of entitlement or have devalued the effort, sweat, inspiration and the money it takes to create the content they enjoy while lounging around. People dont seem to care, they find every reason to justify it taking content without paying for it, we take it for granted now.

You are right, It is a problem with American thinking as a whole, because we dont like taxes or government but want nice schools, roads, fire, health and social services, we demand instant gratification and demand instant cleanup of the environmental, economic and political disasters we create. We love the high but dont want to pay for it, and dont like the consequences.

We have become a nation of spoiled obnoxious unrealistic brats and the last thing you better do is take away our internet connection and our Youtube.

[Edited 6/7/10 6:45am]

Digital piracy came about as a response to corporate greed. Don't get it twisted. You are rallying against the wrong things. As usual, people go for their guns on individuals when corporations go unchecked and unquestioned. If you weren't up-in-arms about CDs when they were damn near $30 a piece at one point, or when the industry passively passed over the opportunities to embrace the digital technology instead of fighting it, then there's no need to get pissed when the world said "f*ck you" and started to download everything. And youtube has helped way more artists than its harmed, so you are way offbase there. Before youtube, indie artists who had the means to make their own music videos had no way of getting them seen. The only route was through the gatekeepers who wouldn't play indie artists unless they were backed by a label with enough payola money.

The problem is that these corporations have successfully devalued music in the eyes of the general public. Pushing shitty music and making "building a brand" the focal point of every artist's career has ruined the business. They ran it into the ground themselves and have convinced the unknowing public that its all the fault of pirates.

IMO, the public has failed artists by not going to concerts. THAT IS FAR MORE IMPORTANT THAN BUYING RECORDS. If you disagree, you don't know jack about the music business.

Breeding a culture of "settling" has made it easier for corporations to sell the artists they want to sell - artists who can be marketed in the way that is most profitable for them - but its also transferred into other aspects and has backfired on them. Buying albums was easy. Cassettes were, too (to a lesser extent). Buying CDs was a m*f* until recently, now that its too little/too late. Another question is how do you get people out of the culture of "settling"? When will a youtube concert just NOT CUT IT? (and I'm NOT blaming youtube but rather the lazy-mindedness of the general public for settling for it rather than going to real shows). When do people start learning to say NO to the mediocre?

With all of the current obstacles, its easy to understand why artists would be uninspired. Back in the day, with good material on the radio, there was a standard. You had to be at least "this good" in order to become successful at your craft. With the material being what it is today, there's no incentive. You must be at least "this young" or "this pretty" to sell. Couple that with the devalued music culture's seeming non-existent interest in making ANYTHING "classic", or rather making "whatever" classic simply by "saying it is" rather than it actually being of substance, there's no reason to want to be great if the bar is so low. If you best student is a C student, why would anyone want to make A's, knowing that even if they did, there's a more than great chance that their work would go underappreciated (see: Van Hunt, Mint Condition, etc.)

Artists now have one choice - scramble to find a fanbase and cater to them. The record industry is almost done.

I get the vibe a lot of people are permanently stuck in the pop/rock mode of listening to music which, when you think about it, is an extremely narrow and small segment of all the music out there -- probably less than 1%. I expect the general listening public to have tastes that narrowed down, but if you love music, sooner or later, you see pop rock as a prison you must break out of. You reach the limit of what can be absorbed, probably after a few decades of listening to it. You find yourself only listening to stuff that reminds you of better stuff you listened to before. It's a dead end of sorts.

So my advice is leave the dead end behind and look elsewhere, because there's great music all over the place. And older music you know nothing about is just as new to you as "new music" is -- it's something you've never heard before and has just as much potential to influence you as a listener. The amount of music that has passed before us at this point in history is enormous -- no one could possibly take it all in. I know I can't.

So my advice is learn to explore if you already haven't. At this point, I have all the old classic rock, alternative stuff from the 70s, 80, 90s and 00s, soul and R&B from the 50s to the 80s (with smatterings of singles thereafter) ... and that's just pop. I'll still listen to new stuff but am a lot more selective with what and how much time I'll spend on it. Because there's so many others genres I don't know about in general, but am learning all the time.

Bulldog said:

So my advice is leave the dead end behind and look elsewhere, because there's great music all over the place. And older music you know nothing about is just as new to you as "new music" is -- it's something you've never heard before and has just as much potential to influence you as a listener. The amount of music that has passed before us at this point in history is enormous -- no one could possibly take it all in. I know I can't.

That's the way I see it too. I've got more "unheard" music in my collection than I've got time to listen to. I'm not one you'll ever hear say: "There's just no good music out there". Every week I have a "new" favorite song. And sometimes my current "new" favorite is a song that was recorded decades ago (...but it's new to ME because I hadn't heard it before).

Money makes the world go around, where the hell have some of you guys been? Yes, there were (and still are) artists out there that make music because they love, but they're fucking people, they have a life, bills, and family to take care of. The problem is that many artists don't want to do something different, instead they want to recycle the same shit from the past and it sucks. People need to move the fuck on and stop trying "bring" back the 80s, the 90s, etc. etc. And to be honest, I can't even blame many artists for not trying if many people continue to illegally download music for free.