Will the real music industry please stand up?
“If not for every taste, his music-making has the mark of originality and inspiration,” writes Robert Shelton in The New York Times following a show at Gerde’s Folk City music venue, “all the more noteworthy for his youth” he continues. The performer on stage has a cherubic look, with a mop of tousled hair poking through a black corduroy cap, apparently resembling Huckleberry Finn – or so writes Mr. Shelton. “His clothes may need a bit of tailoring,” he says, “but there is no doubt that he is bursting at the seams with talent.” Would you be so shocked to be told the performer in question is none other than Canadian heart-throb and serial pop-crooner, Justin Bieber? Well, place that self-doubt back in its box, for you were probably correct the first time when you uttered the words “surely not” to yourself in your mind, caught up in a cluster of despair and disbelief that bieber and talent could actually be muddled up together in the same sentence.
The folk music venue played host to a young Bob Dylan that night. The positive review written by Robert Shelton helped push him into the eyes of the public, emerging onto the scene in September 1961 at the tender age of twenty. A month later, he had been signed to Columbia Records by an American record producer named John H. Hammond. By contrast, and some fourty-seven years later, Justin Bieber was signed by a newly formed record label after a talent manager accidentally clicked on an online video of him singing, and a few months later at the age of thirteen, his debut single was released. The pathways to success of these two artists could not be any more different, with one having noticeably been sculpted by modern day media. Yet to what extent has media shaped the way we view the music industry?
Since the days when Bob Dylan first appeared on the music scene, ways of attaining copies of your favourite songs have markedly increased, as have ways of discovering new music. Specifically, the internet has played a large role in how music is consumed, with free music downloads and peer-to-peer file sharing networks widely available at the single click of a button. It is becoming common practice for music-goers to take advantage of the online facilities at their disposal, as shown by nineteen year old student, Oliver Quinn.
Oliver is sat comfortably on a train journey taking him to the town centre, in search of Christmas presents for his family. The air is cold and crisp outside, but he has prepared himself by wrapping in several layers of thick clothing, a scarf flung around his neck, and a wooly bobble hat to keep his head warm. He has also brought some money along with him in his back pocket, which counts up to thirty pounds. Like many other students in further education, he has found university fees and the costs of living away from home to be rather taxing, thus takes extra care in what he spends his money on. So much so in fact, that he sees the buying of music as an unnecessary commodity, and is more than willing to break the law in order to obtain his music.
“I don’t see it as breaking the law,” he says rather bluntly. “There are plenty of people throughout the country, and world in fact, that do it, so why should I have to pay for the music I listen to, when nobody else does anyway?” He glances out of the train window and highlights its convenience and simplicity as to further reasons behind the illegal file downloading, before moving onto the subject of money. “I would be more inclined to buy music if there was enough money in my wallet to allow me to do so, but with things as tight as they are it really doesn’t seem worth the hassle.”
This line of thought seems to be shared by many younger consumers in particular who have grown up in a world where music is fast becoming a free service. Take last year for example, where research from the British Phonographic Industry, who stand as the music industry’s representative body, announced figures that showed around 1.2bn digital music tracks were illegally downloaded in the UK alone. On top of this, the same figures show that for the sixth year running, album sales were also decreasing, and in particular, sales on compact discs had dropped by 12.4% on the previous year. There is a real fear that music in disc format will fall victim of the growing download age, and eighties singer-songwriter Kate Bush, shares that fear.
“A lot of people in the industry are very depressed because record sales are very low, and a lot of us fear the death of the album as an art form,” she said in an interview with John Wilson, on Radio 4’s late evening show, Front Row. “I understand that people want to just listen to a track and put it on their iPod, and that’s fine, there’s nothing wrong with that, but why can’t that exist hand in hand with an album? They are such different experiences. It is a collection of songs, not just a song or a track; it’s a completely different experience.” It is with this that Kate Bush believes the music industry has approached a point where in the near future, artists may struggle to produce their music in record studios, as the process of illegal file-sharing leaves the music industry with no remuneration for the work produced. “The music industry is in such poor shape, it’s in a really bad way,” speaks Kate. “The worst case scenario is that people would actually get to a point where they can’t afford to make what they want to make creatively. The industry is collapsing.”
But the internet has not been all bad for the music industry, surely? Well, through its vast stream of global networks and cyberspace vacuums, the internet allows everybody from all scopes of the world to view anything that is hosted on a website address, providing, of course, that they have access to the world wide web in the first place. This has enabled aspiring musicians to connect to an unlimited number of people via video sites or other social networking media, and such can be seen in the careers of both Lily Allen and Justin Bieber, who rose to fame from the sites MySpace and YouTube respectively. Yet in the eyes of some onlookers, these artists have been given a seemingly easy ticket to the elusive recording contract, in comparison to musicians that precede them, and as such, create an unhealthy music industry.
Reflect back on the emergence of Bob Dylan for example. Following the creation of several bands with his friends whilst at High School, he then went on to play at various clubs and shows as a solo artist, covering tracks of well known performers and as well as his own compositions, to help receive recognition. In many ways, the old methods of breaking into the music industry acted as a filter where hard work and the mark of originality separated those who stood out from those who would not make it. Those years could be considered a throwback to a bygone era, when musicians were musicians, and the ability to play an instrument was an essential ingredient in earning a recording contract. Now, as we enter a twenty first century increasingly in love with the phenomenon of celebrity culture, the ability to sell an image or a face, has in many ways become the spearhead of what makes a potential artist an artist worth investing money into. This can be seen none more so than in the production of television talent shows such as The X Factor.
Commonly known to be the birthchild of television mogul Simon Cowell, The X Factor is one of a number of talent shows that aims to find new music talent through a series of public auditions. Whilst it remains a key clog in ITV’s winter entertainment, it has faced its fair share of critisism from viewers and people in the music industry alike. Former Oasis frontman Noel Gallagher believes it can be counted in the bracket of winter entertainment but nothing more, claiming the show “has absolutely nothing to do with music and everything to do with television”, and later bemoaned its ability to offer instant fame.
The latter point in particular has been highlighted by a number of other musicians in the industry such as Damon Albarn. He believes celebrity culture as a whole should be “dismantled” as it “sends out the wrong messages”; whilst singer-songwriter Vanessa Brown criticised the show for “making kids think that they can get really famous easily, rather than working really hard to achieve something”. This again relates back to the assessment that many musicians bred from the expansion of modern day media are given an easy ride to stardom without having to work their way through the previously necessary steps, creating an unhealthy and unbalanced music industry. This view is echoed by Sting, who believes the show has “put music back decades.”
“The real shop floor for musical talent is pubs and clubs - that is where the original work is,” he said three years years ago, in the year that Joe McElderry was chosen as winner of the contest. “None of those kids are going to go anywhere,” he further went on to say, which is justified particularly in the context of McElderry’s triumphant year, who was subsequently dropped from his record contract just sixteen months later. “How appalling for a young person to feel that rejection,” he said. “It is a soap opera which has nothing to do with music.”
Sting’s greatest qualm with the show is it’s obsession with re-modelling the young hopefuls who dream of becoming musicians, telling them “what to wear and how to look”, thus stripping any originality or identity away. “They are either Mariah Carey or Whitney Houston or Boyzone and are not encouraged to create any real unique signature or fingerprint,” he continues, in a rather frank, and in truth, fair interview, particularly if you have come across the very limited yet repetitive judging comments which remind viewers they are witnessing ‘the next big thing’, or indeed, ‘a young Whitney Houston’.
The process of shows like these is in many ways much like a cattle auction: ‘All livestock which is going to slaughter must have the x factor’ should say a sign above the entrance to auditions, as the hoards of young wannabees shuffle closer to the entrance sign, before marked with a number and placed in a small room. Little do they realise the ‘x factor’ only counts for possessing a face worth spreading on posters and annual calendars.
The music industry has changed and has expanded into something far greater and powerful than most people could have possibly imagined, yet at what price? Perhaps the Bob Dylan and Justin Bieber case - where one artist has penned his own lyrics, written about war, integrity, civil-rights and peace; whilst another has had his songs written for him, with each verse carefully selected to help fabricate a sellable image to the flock of young and naive female adorers – is the way forward for the music industry? Perhaps the death of the album as an art-form is the next natural progression for music, as was vinyl and cassette players before them? Perhaps its cause - the process of illegally downloading files – will benefit the music industry in the future, at a time when the industry is stagnant and set in its ways? Perhaps Kate Bush was right the first time when she stated that the music industry is collapsing?
Or perhaps we should take a leaf from Bob Dylan and come gather ‘round people, wherever we roam, and admit that the waters around us have grown. The old road is rapidly agin’, so get out of the new one if we can’t lend a hand, for the times are most certainly a-changin’.
