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There is good and bad in every genre, there is some very good rap I enjoy Kanaan but what is disturbing to me is the formula bands(boy bands)
Dead Balz on it. I've played in bands that should have made it, bottomed or headlines with dozens of bands that should have made it . Elvis Costello was blackballed for playing " Radio" on SNL for a few years because he called them out in it.Oh dear Lucky... you just gave me a license to rant mate!
I think part of the problem is that modern pop is mass-produced (as it has been since the Motown days). However, the process today, especially in the UK, is incredibly stale and cynical. A few very powerful figures have dominated the scene for thirty years or so, starting with Pete Waterman, and moving on to Fuller and Cowell. It's just a stream of 'artists', increasingly plucked from TV reality shows, churning out formulaic songs or covers of formulaic songs, which are then marketed to TV audiences whose taste is entirely dictated by commercial radio and the aforementioned TV shows. Any new style which appears is co-opted (garage and grime, for example, have been diluted into radio-friendly formats and lumped in with radio-friendly R'n'B). If no new style is immediately available, an old one is wheeled out and tarted up - think La Roux's pastiche of 80s styles which achieved chart dominance last summer. Even rock music has been diluted down to radio-rock like Nickleback or radio-indie like Coldplay.
Outside of this arena, there is a massive amount of original music in a huge range of styles, but it is excluded from mainstream media and even mainstream retail, and so remains a niche product. Ironically, the best outlet for this stuff is now iTunes, firstly because the 'Genius' software is actually quite smart at introducing new music once you have a few non-standard albums in your library, and secondly because online stores selling hardcopy CD's like Amazon or Barnes Noble now carry very little outside the Top 40 and a few 'classic' titles in other genres. This situation is made worse by the steady demise of independent record stores, which for me when I was a teen, were the number one way of being introduced to new music, usually by the staff.
So basically, we need to get shot of Cowell and the commercial radio stations which play his pap on rotation, and bring back the little pokey independent record stores. And here endeth the rant
I may as well extrapolate now I have weighed in.
There is no formula for success in the "Industry of human happiness", otherwise known as the Entertainment business. Were it so one could buy it on ebay.
As for the sound of music, not the film, ? Times and sounds, or experiments, come and go from day to day. The sound of abrecording is not the music. The music is what it is. A g is g, regardless of reverb.
So what happens in the studio? Allow me to picture a session I did yesterday.
A young band had won a talent contest. The prize was a recording session in a first class studio. I was hired as a drum tech to supply a vintage kit and first class hand hammered cymbals from Turkey. In reality I was the back up drummer. There to sit in at the last moment to save the session.
The 16 year old drummer was a very nice kid. Things went astray at first and the engineer wanted me to just cut the track. However, I had been in the control room listening to the young bandmates lose confidence in their drummer. Something that was unwarranted, considering the relative skill of the players.
I had a quiet word with the young drummer. Fixed his kit so it sounded great, and he cut the track.
No one knows if this will be a hit. Good luck to them if it is. Ry Cooder did not expect the Buena vista social club to be a hit.
There is no formula. Seriously.
I may as well extrapolate now I have weighed in.
There is no formula for success in the "Industry of human happiness", otherwise known as the Entertainment business. Were it so one could buy it on ebay.
As for the sound of music, not the film, ? Times and sounds, or experiments, come and go from day to day. The sound of abrecording is not the music. The music is what it is. A g is g, regardless of reverb.
So what happens in the studio? Allow me to picture a session I did yesterday.
A young band had won a talent contest. The prize was a recording session in a first class studio. I was hired as a drum tech to supply a vintage kit and first class hand hammered cymbals from Turkey. In reality I was the back up drummer. There to sit in at the last moment to save the session.
The 16 year old drummer was a very nice kid. Things went astray at first and the engineer wanted me to just cut the track. However, I had been in the control room listening to the young bandmates lose confidence in their drummer. Something that was unwarranted, considering the relative skill of the players.
I had a quiet word with the young drummer. Fixed his kit so it sounded great, and he cut the track.
No one knows if this will be a hit. Good luck to them if it is. Ry Cooder did not expect the Buena vista social club to be a hit.
There is no formula. Seriously.
