I
have a friend who says that things from the past cycle back and become
popular again. I'm a fan of music, and of course I love my 70s and 80s
music. I was just enjoying the new Dennis DeYoung single called Isle of
Misanthrope. It's a good song.
Dennis is in his '70s, and he can still
bring it. It feels very much like a song that would have fit in on the
Styx album The Grand Illusion or maybe even Equinox. It has a Suite
Madame Blue quality to it. Fans of Styx and Dennis will know what I
mean.
I am not a snob when it comes to music. I
do believe those older bands are popular today and are
touring heavily for a reason. Their music was good,
and they were good musicians. However, I don't think that necessarily
means that today's music sucks. I don't believe there isn't good music
being made today. I'm not just talking about the popular music, because
there are bands out there making extraordinary music that people have
never heard before.
For decades, people heard
their music on the radio. We have radio today. The industry has
completely changed. It's more focus tested. There's a lot of good music
that gets focused tested off of the radio entirely, and that's a shame.
They play the music based on focus testing, but back in the old days,
you had DJs who could pick out the music they wanted to play.
People
could call in and make requests, and the local DJ would play that song.
If it was a rock station, the DJ could pick out music in that genre that
they liked. In that way, there are many stories in which a DJ helped
create a hit because they liked that song. That's gone. For a good
reference to what I'm talking about, listen to The Last DJ by Tom Petty.
The
other thing that made a big difference in music was MTV. I know people
are going to talk about the negative of the music network. There's that
element of them picking people that looked good versus people who could
play their music well. However, to completely dismiss MTV as just visual
and no style completely misses the mark.
The network had a big impact
on the music industry, and there was plenty of positive to go with the
negative. People could still get discovered and become popular after
being played on MTV. MTV exposure helped to sell records.
Technology
affected the music industry. By the time it went to CD, the technology
was there to allow the music buyer to rip the music right off of the CD
and share it on the internet. The industry didn't realize that they were
creating their own demise.
People stopped buying the music and would
just get it for free on the internet. Another component to that was that with
every new music medium, the cost to get it went up. From records to
cassettes, it became more expensive. From cassettes to CDs, they gouged
us even more.
To explain what really changed
the music industry for the worst would take more than I went to get into
in this column. People didn't want to pay $18 for a CD of new music
that only had the one song they wanted to hear. MTV stopped playing
music and became a Reality TV channel. Radio stations became
corporatized and formulaic.
The popular bands
of my day didn't make records for the same reason anymore. They would
make a record to tour behind back in the day. The record sold the more
they got radio play and toured. It's to a point where they record new
music to sell to their hardcore fans, and the band made that record just
because they wanted to create new music. They know they won't sell many copies or
make much money, which further reduces their desire to make new music.
I
think the music industry needs to cycle back. Somehow we have to get
back to the radio playing all sorts of music in whatever genre is being
represented, not just the material that's been focused tested. I also
understand that the internet is a part of things now. Satellite radio is
a thing, and there are also streaming music sites.
There has to be a
way to make that more organic. A person walking down the street with
their cell phone could tap into a streaming station that has a DJ
playing whatever music they choose. This would be a vehicle for other
bands to get discovered.
If MTV isn't going to
play music anymore, a new music television network needs to be created
that will. At the very least, a music show should become a thing, even
if it's 2 hours a day of the VJ playing whatever selected videos.
Music
needs to be put back into pop culture in a way that it was for
years. Developing bands out there need to be seen so that they are
encouraged to keep creating. Those bands need to evolve in the way that
the older bands did.
I also think that the
industry needs to figure out a way to get new music singles out to the
people again. There has to be a way. Vinyl is making a comeback, so why
not the 45 record? Obviously, they need to distribute the music with
technology compatible with the times, but the idea is to encourage
people to buy new music and give new songs a chance.
All of these things
are factors. There's no reason why a person couldn't buy a new single
for $3 at a kiosk at the store. In this way, the artists get something
for their creativity, and they are encouraged to create.
Maybe
you can't put the genie back in the bottle. Technology has not helped
the music industry, because people have gotten used to the fact that
they can get on sites like YouTube and get the new songs for free. That
will probably still be a factor, but there's no reason why the industry
can't evolve and bring things around to the way they were done in the
past.
Those same ways of the past are why the older bands with musicians
in their late 60s or early '70s are still relevant today. Repetition of
their music made them popular. Will people remember the artists of
today 40 years from now in the way that those older artists are
remembered now?
