We Really Do Need Major Music Labels (Part One)
When was the last time you heard a song you knew would become an instant classic? When I ask myself this question I think back to the summer of 2006 and the Kooks’ hit anthem ‘Naive’, a song which resonated with my hormonal teen desires. Or perhaps something from Radiohead’s latest effort, ‘In Rainbows’, a masterpiece that ushered in a new philosophy around distribution: the ‘pay what you want’ model. I saw the band in concert the next year and it was a truly mind-blowing performance. Since that show, though, I have seen only The Chemical Brothers in concert at Kensington Olympia – that’s one show in almost two years. From somebody who once loved music and embroiled himself in its culture I have rather begun to seep away into the bathroom rug and there stagnate. So evidently something has changed. But just what exactly?
My love of music is accompanied with love for the artists who produced it. They go hand in hand, the music and those who breathe life into it. In today’s market, there seems to be so little pressure on bands to produce albums of true quality beyond the first two hits that I just can’t find something substantial enough to dig my teeth into. In high school I taught myself to play guitar, an experience I feel has given me a genuine appreciation for what I call ‘real music’ and the hard work of artists everywhere. But you see, children don’t play guitar anymore, they play the abominable Guitar Hero video game, in which that majestic instrument is broken down to
five brightly coloured buttons on a plastic frame. As a direct result of this coupled with the rise of electronically produced music, I believe there is a real lack of skilled musicians with innovative ideas among our youth right now. The Arctic Monkeys continue to buck the trend, creating rich music that only gets better with repeat listens, yet they have met with increasingly hostile responses from critics and fans alike. The brooding poetry of ‘Humbug’, their latest effort, was a solid and enjoyable piece of work as a collective of tracks that interweave and harmoniously complement one another but are obviously less effective when broken down into snappy tunes for your iPod or Spotify playlists. Nor did it possess a dancey drum beat – a must in the current musical climate of club night outs and carbon fibre import tuner Fiats. Thus we sadly confine them to the scrapheap. Old news.
A wise friend now tells me real music can no longer be found in the charts and it is to the underground minor labels that we must look to satiate our appetites. Well frankly this seems like a little too much effort for me. I don’t want to search the underground and every obscure low-fi Shoreditch ‘artist’ who can barely string together a major G but gets by on the discordant ramblings of his broken soul and flogging you his EP. I will not scour the sewer to find the gem floating in the filth! I feel the need to bring back elitism, to sieve out the lumpy rubbish that we might soon distill some purer music. It is to the record labels; it is to them that we must once again go and plead “we were wrong!” Left to our own devices, the garbage has begun to mount up on our doorsteps with no waste disposal men to take it away. The labels, whether we respected their almighty corporate power or not, told us what was good, what was cool, and what was bad once. Now the power has been handed back to us, the consumers, and with a resounding sigh of indifference we have squandered the opportunity. There is simply too much out there on MySpace and beyond for us to effectively seek out and evaluate the quality, and with no direction from a producer the music never matures to a point where I can really appreciate the growth. This is what made the whole process of bands sending endless promo CDs to labels so important. Making an impact in the first five seconds meant all the trash never made it past the first ears it befouled. Now, people with no real instinct for commercial success are picking and choosing the future of music. Is this what we want? With great power indeed comes the great responsibility. And if I have to hear one more Lady Gaga wannabe, I’ll throttle you all.
Part two will appear tomorrow.
