As a musician who writes, records, and performs live, this helps sum up what I’ve been observing lately. My bandmates and I along with our producer - all people that I consider to be very, VERY talented and creative - work very hard to perfect our songs and our live performances. And the audiences we do get consistently shower is with praise for what they’ve just heard or seek from us. But sometimes releasing a ew song feels a bit like adding one drop of water to the ocean. Who cares?
There were far more jazz groups back in 1959. The obstacles to making your own record were far greater back then. Had to have a monied sponsor or be signed to a label willing to pay for the studio, marketing, the whole enchilada. That's without mentioning shelf space. Doesn't matter how good your ketchup was, companies like Heinz wouldn't let the stores carry it. If you got lucky, it would be on the bottom shelf. It's just far cheaper these days.
It's everything, and it's everywhere. Self-published digital books? Remember what a big deal home movies were 50 years ago? How expensive it used to be purchasing film and then paying for the developing? You didn't want to waste pictures because they charged you for the bad ones too.
Even back in the day when far fewer bands released albums? I don't care how much you think you listened to, there are always bands you never heard of that were damn good. I briefly worked for Bill Graham before starting med school, and we talk as much about the awesome bands that didn't make it as we do the ones you've heard about. Everything had to go just right, and even then it was right place right time. I don't even think Hendrix gets anywhere today, we could hope that he would and scare the bejeezus out of all the song and dance acts who turned live music into some glorified Broadway musical that's more visual and thumping bass than actual music.
I don't know that any of it is good or bad, or more importantly, that we can do a damn thing about it. Everyone knows what dumbphones are doing to us, and they're not going away.
Creative expression is satisfying on its own. Seeking an audience of any sort addresses different and important needs (social, recognition, income, etc), but doing so shouldn't be viewed as a requirement or the only goal of being creative.
Very good post on the state of things. We as writers or content creators are being trivialised also. The internet tends to trivialise all creative expression. I am privileged to know artists who do write literally hundreds of very good songs. But between the trivialisation and the mechanics of recording and releasing and promoting great material is a long journey. Agree going local and live is a great prospect. Never have we needed more great music!
Yes, connectedness means we now live in The Age of Simultaneity. History truly is dead . . .
All musical artists today compete with every musical artist in history. And the result is the necessity to feed the gaping maw with quirkiness of every imaginable stripe (and tripe), e.g. TikTok, where the slightest aberration "goes viral," or engage the Swiftian Corporate Culture–and I don't mean Jonathan.
The most powerful things one can do with a computer remain when it is not connected to anything except A.C. Like writing a symphony, creating an artwork, crafting a novel, etc. None of these things require the dreaded "crowd," but the need for humans to stay "connected" is evident everywhere.
The most important (and safest) thing Timothy Leary opined was "drop out." Stop playing the connectedness game. Hey, I'm playing that game right now! Now what was I saying . . . oh it probably doesn't matter . . . Tik Tok Tik Tok Tik Tok Tik Tok . . . seems Mother Nature will have the final say anyway!
I like the idea of music as a way of people communing and as a means of self-expression. In this day and age, is commercial success still really possible? I guess so, but it's likely a function of how one would measure their "success" and being in the right place at the right time with the right thing. The former is something the artist can do something about, managing one's expectations around what can be realistically achieved at any given point in time. What about the latter? Likely has similar odds to winning the PowerBall jackpot
I actually made an album about the futility of releasing albums. One of the songs is about the audacity of thinking the world needs my new songs. Needless to say, the album didn't generate any income.
I have now questioned the role music plays in society. The pursuit of fame is not working. As you say, local social connections are the key. The line between musician and audience needs to be blurred. Participatory music communities are where it's at.
Mostly, I listen to classical music. Fifty years ago even I knew who the best conductors, violinists, pianists were. Now, it’s impossible to keep up with even the cellists, much less all the contemporary composers. It may be that people record because they have nowhere else to perform. There are fewer concerts in churches, local recital halls and schools than there used to be.
Also, many classical musicians are technically very good, but I have yet to find a pianist who can replace Vladimir Horowitz for original interpretation of classical works.
I think the idea of making a living as an artist is dissolving. There will always be very interesting art. But it may not always be a viable career path, if it ever was for the vast majority of artists.
Of all of the thousands of new songs being released each day, undoubtedly the vast majority of them are based on three chords and lyrics about love gone bad (to paraphrase Mr. Zappa). Interestingly, it is also the three-chord bad-love songs that are (and always have been) in the highest demand. So what made or makes a very few of them successful, and the multitudes of the rest of them ignored or forgotten? Multi-media marketing--and a lot of being-in-the-right-place-at-the-right-time kind of luck.
As a gigging cover band musician, what is the most heartbreaking to me is when playing with a local artist who has some good original songs to mix in with all of the old classics--but as soon as he announces that we will be playing an original, instantly a significant number of people will shamelessly get up to go to the bathroom or make a phone call. So, the sad irony is that it's better not to announce that you wrote the song you are about to play. Just play it and see how the audience reacts.
It is disheartening that so many musicians are struggling to be heard, and it seems like the numbers just keep growing! I think your suggestions for how to fix this issue are spot on. It's important that we focus on creating an infrastructure to help support and promote the music of these talented individuals
You made me think of the days when I went to coffeehouses for music, or enjoyed buskers on the street, picking up their tapes and playing them for friends - that was distribution!
This discussion brought to mind a couple quotes I remembered from 'The Kids Are Alright,' the great 1979 rocumentary of The Who, both by Pete Townshend. It took me a while to find them and transcribe them. (The whole film is available on the Internet Archive at
“You have to resign yourself to the fact that a large part of the audience is sort of…thick…y’know. And, uh, don’t appreciate quality, however much you try and put over. The fact is that our group, uh, hasn’t got any quality; it’s just musical sensationalism. You do something big on the stage and a thousand geezers sort of go, ‘AHHH!’” If you steer clear of quality, you’re alright, y’know. (laughter) No, really, this is the truth.
AND
“One of the reasons for having music and things particularly loud is you get so many people just turning deaf ears to what you’re doing, y’know what I mean; they just…won’t listen to what you’re doing. It doesn't matter how good or bad it is. The fact is, the bigger it is, normally, the more they’ll close their ears to it. And so the louder it is you gotta work, y’know. Volume is a fantastically powerful thing. Power and volume, power and volume.”
I think these points can be extrapolated both before and after The Who, and far outside the realm of rock or popular music into almost any art form. Both of these quotes recall to mind Flannery O'Connor's famous statement:
“When you can assume that your audience holds the same beliefs you do, you can relax and use more normal means of talking to it; when you have to assume that it does not, then you have to make your vision apparent by shock -- to the hard of hearing you shout, and for the almost-blind you draw large and startling figures.”
In order to stand out among the crowds, artists and creators have to work harder, and if Pete is correct, quality isn't necessarily part of the equation. And, given the amount of dreck that rises to the top, I have to say, I can't argue with him there.
“every field of creative expression is drowning in an over-abundance of offerings. “
So True!
It would be interesting to see the number of publications in any scientific discipline in one year.
We are drowning in information, yet we are starving for knowledge.
As a musician who writes, records, and performs live, this helps sum up what I’ve been observing lately. My bandmates and I along with our producer - all people that I consider to be very, VERY talented and creative - work very hard to perfect our songs and our live performances. And the audiences we do get consistently shower is with praise for what they’ve just heard or seek from us. But sometimes releasing a ew song feels a bit like adding one drop of water to the ocean. Who cares?
There were far more jazz groups back in 1959. The obstacles to making your own record were far greater back then. Had to have a monied sponsor or be signed to a label willing to pay for the studio, marketing, the whole enchilada. That's without mentioning shelf space. Doesn't matter how good your ketchup was, companies like Heinz wouldn't let the stores carry it. If you got lucky, it would be on the bottom shelf. It's just far cheaper these days.
It's everything, and it's everywhere. Self-published digital books? Remember what a big deal home movies were 50 years ago? How expensive it used to be purchasing film and then paying for the developing? You didn't want to waste pictures because they charged you for the bad ones too.
Even back in the day when far fewer bands released albums? I don't care how much you think you listened to, there are always bands you never heard of that were damn good. I briefly worked for Bill Graham before starting med school, and we talk as much about the awesome bands that didn't make it as we do the ones you've heard about. Everything had to go just right, and even then it was right place right time. I don't even think Hendrix gets anywhere today, we could hope that he would and scare the bejeezus out of all the song and dance acts who turned live music into some glorified Broadway musical that's more visual and thumping bass than actual music.
I don't know that any of it is good or bad, or more importantly, that we can do a damn thing about it. Everyone knows what dumbphones are doing to us, and they're not going away.
What gets my goat are these "influencers."
Creative expression is satisfying on its own. Seeking an audience of any sort addresses different and important needs (social, recognition, income, etc), but doing so shouldn't be viewed as a requirement or the only goal of being creative.
Creative Deluge, thy name (one of a multitude) is Substack!
Very good post on the state of things. We as writers or content creators are being trivialised also. The internet tends to trivialise all creative expression. I am privileged to know artists who do write literally hundreds of very good songs. But between the trivialisation and the mechanics of recording and releasing and promoting great material is a long journey. Agree going local and live is a great prospect. Never have we needed more great music!
Yes, connectedness means we now live in The Age of Simultaneity. History truly is dead . . .
All musical artists today compete with every musical artist in history. And the result is the necessity to feed the gaping maw with quirkiness of every imaginable stripe (and tripe), e.g. TikTok, where the slightest aberration "goes viral," or engage the Swiftian Corporate Culture–and I don't mean Jonathan.
The most powerful things one can do with a computer remain when it is not connected to anything except A.C. Like writing a symphony, creating an artwork, crafting a novel, etc. None of these things require the dreaded "crowd," but the need for humans to stay "connected" is evident everywhere.
The most important (and safest) thing Timothy Leary opined was "drop out." Stop playing the connectedness game. Hey, I'm playing that game right now! Now what was I saying . . . oh it probably doesn't matter . . . Tik Tok Tik Tok Tik Tok Tik Tok . . . seems Mother Nature will have the final say anyway!
I like the idea of music as a way of people communing and as a means of self-expression. In this day and age, is commercial success still really possible? I guess so, but it's likely a function of how one would measure their "success" and being in the right place at the right time with the right thing. The former is something the artist can do something about, managing one's expectations around what can be realistically achieved at any given point in time. What about the latter? Likely has similar odds to winning the PowerBall jackpot
1959 top five is probably unimpeachable in jazz but 1965 is also quite high-profile (with very different “flavors”)
A Love Supreme
Maiden Voyage
JuJu
Point of Departure
Charlie Brown Christmas
I actually made an album about the futility of releasing albums. One of the songs is about the audacity of thinking the world needs my new songs. Needless to say, the album didn't generate any income.
I have now questioned the role music plays in society. The pursuit of fame is not working. As you say, local social connections are the key. The line between musician and audience needs to be blurred. Participatory music communities are where it's at.
Mostly, I listen to classical music. Fifty years ago even I knew who the best conductors, violinists, pianists were. Now, it’s impossible to keep up with even the cellists, much less all the contemporary composers. It may be that people record because they have nowhere else to perform. There are fewer concerts in churches, local recital halls and schools than there used to be.
Also, many classical musicians are technically very good, but I have yet to find a pianist who can replace Vladimir Horowitz for original interpretation of classical works.
I think the idea of making a living as an artist is dissolving. There will always be very interesting art. But it may not always be a viable career path, if it ever was for the vast majority of artists.
Of all of the thousands of new songs being released each day, undoubtedly the vast majority of them are based on three chords and lyrics about love gone bad (to paraphrase Mr. Zappa). Interestingly, it is also the three-chord bad-love songs that are (and always have been) in the highest demand. So what made or makes a very few of them successful, and the multitudes of the rest of them ignored or forgotten? Multi-media marketing--and a lot of being-in-the-right-place-at-the-right-time kind of luck.
As a gigging cover band musician, what is the most heartbreaking to me is when playing with a local artist who has some good original songs to mix in with all of the old classics--but as soon as he announces that we will be playing an original, instantly a significant number of people will shamelessly get up to go to the bathroom or make a phone call. So, the sad irony is that it's better not to announce that you wrote the song you are about to play. Just play it and see how the audience reacts.
It is disheartening that so many musicians are struggling to be heard, and it seems like the numbers just keep growing! I think your suggestions for how to fix this issue are spot on. It's important that we focus on creating an infrastructure to help support and promote the music of these talented individuals
You made me think of the days when I went to coffeehouses for music, or enjoyed buskers on the street, picking up their tapes and playing them for friends - that was distribution!
That "picture" of the Spotify warehouse...Heh.
This discussion brought to mind a couple quotes I remembered from 'The Kids Are Alright,' the great 1979 rocumentary of The Who, both by Pete Townshend. It took me a while to find them and transcribe them. (The whole film is available on the Internet Archive at
https://archive.org/details/TheWhotheKids_are_alrightfilm1979
“You have to resign yourself to the fact that a large part of the audience is sort of…thick…y’know. And, uh, don’t appreciate quality, however much you try and put over. The fact is that our group, uh, hasn’t got any quality; it’s just musical sensationalism. You do something big on the stage and a thousand geezers sort of go, ‘AHHH!’” If you steer clear of quality, you’re alright, y’know. (laughter) No, really, this is the truth.
AND
“One of the reasons for having music and things particularly loud is you get so many people just turning deaf ears to what you’re doing, y’know what I mean; they just…won’t listen to what you’re doing. It doesn't matter how good or bad it is. The fact is, the bigger it is, normally, the more they’ll close their ears to it. And so the louder it is you gotta work, y’know. Volume is a fantastically powerful thing. Power and volume, power and volume.”
I think these points can be extrapolated both before and after The Who, and far outside the realm of rock or popular music into almost any art form. Both of these quotes recall to mind Flannery O'Connor's famous statement:
“When you can assume that your audience holds the same beliefs you do, you can relax and use more normal means of talking to it; when you have to assume that it does not, then you have to make your vision apparent by shock -- to the hard of hearing you shout, and for the almost-blind you draw large and startling figures.”
In order to stand out among the crowds, artists and creators have to work harder, and if Pete is correct, quality isn't necessarily part of the equation. And, given the amount of dreck that rises to the top, I have to say, I can't argue with him there.