Music Industry - Two words that do not belong in the same sentence.

Once upon a time record companies would hand out a fee to record music they
neither understood nor cared about. They wouldn't pretend to like the music
or the musicians involved and they wouldn't expect too much of a return on
their investment, they just wanted to see what would happen. The reason for
this cavalier approach was simple, it was a reaction to what was being
played in the clubs, halls and venues by the truly creative musicians of
the time. This is how Jimi Hendrix, Can, Faust, Terry Riley, Henry Cow and
The Mothers of Invention (to name but a few) were able to present their
work to the next generation of creative musicians. If the music didn't
sell, the record companies wouldn't part with any more cash, but if it sold
in acceptable quantities (as all of the above did) then a contract would
appear and the music would flourish. That's basically how it worked then,
but it does not work that way now.

If Radiohead approached a major record company for the first time today,
they wouldn't get past the A & R man. This is because the A & R man knows
everything about money and nothing about music. Todays A & R man only has
one goal and that is to satisfy the needs of the many by concentrating on
the lowest common denominator. Todays A & R man doesn't want to hear the
next Radiohead, Jimi Hendrix or Peter Green because he can't tie them in to
the next big Rom com and he can't sell the rights to the highest bidding
advertising agency. If he wanted to sign Hendrix he would first have to
explain that extended guitar solo's and surreal soundscapes won't sell
because the songs are too long and they're not jangly or anthemic enough.
In short, he would explain to the young Jimi that the songs did not fit the
mould he hade created, the mould he'd spent years forcing down the throats
of the masses, the priceless mould endorsed by such great men as Simon
Cowell, Louis Walsh and the guy from Westlife. The A & R man would look
Hendrix in the eye and say, with no sense of irony, "you have no commercial
potential."

Todays A & R man is a complete idiot with no understanding of the
progressive nature of real music. He doesn't know the difference between
Muddy Waters and Michael Karoli and thinks Animal Collective is a terrorist
organisation. The A & R man is an idiot because he is an employee of
something called the Music Industry, an entity that exists purely to
dictate to the masses what we should hear, see and buy; an industry that
manufactures and supplies disposable entertainment, an unimaginative,
repetitive entertainment that it has the audacity to reward with little
golden statuettes. Todays Music Industry works from a very strict template,
a template consisting of two parts RnB, one part Indie, one part Rap, four
parts Dance, four parts gloss and eighty-eight parts sex appeal. The music
endorsed by the Industry must fit into a video mould that is approximately
one millimetre away from the line between promotional video and porn movie.
The actors in these video's must be beautiful, glamorous, highly stylized
drones who are capable of pretending to be musicians long enough to attract
an audience of brain-washed kids, kids who have never heard of Jimi Hendrix
or Peter Green, kids who don't realise that the music they Tweet about
would not be around if it wasn't for the music their grandparents listened
to, the music they laugh at and scorn so readily; and for this they must
thank the modern day A & R man and his single minded paymasters.

The Music Industry is a cancer that continues to spread its message while
stifling the very source of its power. Real music, thinking mans music,
arty music (call it what you will) has been condemned to a lifetime in
cyberspace where it must give itself away if it is to survive. In some ways
this is a good thing because in cyberspace it is free from the clutches of
the Music Industry; but the down side of this existence is that it remains
out of the popular domain and therefore remains underground and under
nourished while the product of the Music Industry continues to infect
everything it comes into contact with...which it does with impunity.
Advertising, video games, movies, fashion, supermarkets, call centres,
elevators, airports, pubs and clubs have all fallen victim to the all
powerful Music Industry and its everyman template. Soon real music played
by real musicians will be a subject studied in history class by a
generation raised on tablet aps that write instant pop tunes to accompany
the instant art and instant videos they have created. Why would these
people need to learn how to play a real instrument when Apple or Microsoft
(using the Music Industry template) can do it all for them?

There are still thousands of real musicians out there and the new Radiohead
are patiently waiting in the wings, but until something is done to bring
the Music Industry down or to widen its insular template, these musicians
will remain hidden within the confines of cyberspace. True, cyberspace is a
vast domain, easily accessible by those who hunger for challenging music,
but who decided that challenging music should remain buried while landfill
music reigned supreme? The Music Industry did.

Paul Weller on X Factor

April 6th 2012

Hiding cigarettes. What a great idea. No longer will our youngsters be exposed to the horrors of spending an absolute fortune on a packet of fags. Granted when they go shopping with mum they can still the lads mags and the celebrity mags and the violent computer games and DVD's and the vast array of brightly coloured alcoholic beverages (which their mummy will tell them are just as unhealthy as cigarettes), but at least they don't have to look at the (soon to be white) brightly coloured fag packets whose very designs will corrupt their juvenile minds into a lifetime of tobacco addiction.

The British government must be feeling mighty proud of itself, knowing they've put the final nail into the advertising markets tobacco coffin. But will they repeat the procedure with alcohol? Will they ban advertising and lean on the producers of our beloved soaps to phase out the use of alcohol in Albert Square and Coronation Street? Will they send our pubs a lifeline by banning supermarkets from selling cut price beer and wine? Will they take a deep look at their blatant double standards and endeavour to redress the balance? Or will they bow down even lower to the alcohol lobbyists whose revenue fills their bulging coffers. You decide, I already have.

March 23rd 2012

Minimum alcohol price could rise above 40p a unit. Home secretary Theresa May refuses to rule out possibility that government could opt for higher minimum figure but refuses to enter into a discussion regarding the banning of alcohol advertising.

March 22nd 2012

Cigarettes went up by 37p a pack from 6pm last night (begging the question: if a price increase becomes effective immediately, why do we have to wait a year for the tax cuts) but there was no change to duty rates on alcohol.
Experts have warned that “as many as a quarter of a million people will die from alcohol abuse over the next two decades unless the government takes the problem as seriously as it did smoking.” Deaths in the UK from liver disease have doubled in recent years, while countries such as France have seen major reductions after introducing strict marketing regulations for alcohol.

(http://www.nhs.uk/news/2011/02February/Pages/doctors-predict-uk-alcohol-deaths.aspx)

What kind of stranglehold do the alcohol lobby have over the British government and whose pockets are being lined at the expense of the nations health?

And when can we expect to see a banning of all alcohol related products?

19th March 2012

David Cameron obviously enjoys a few hours on SimCity. His latest half-baked idea to privatise the roads sounds like it's come straight from the SimCity instruction manual. Does he not realise that privatisation would lead to a massive increase in new road building (done in weeks instead of months) in order to earn the right to charge motorists to use them? No construction company in the land is going to buy a road unless it can make money out of it, and the easiest way to do that is to build toll roads. And they won't care where they build them either. Do they drive cars in SimCity or have the simulated government priced the population out of their vehicles the way Cameron's about to?

Cameron said: "We are falling behind our competitors, and falling behind the great, world-beating, pioneering tradition set by those who came before us. There is now an urgent need to repair the decades-long degradation of our national infrastructure and to build for the future with as much confidence and ambition as the Victorians once did. Our national heroes include men of iron and steam like Brunel, Stephenson and Telford – all commemorated in Westminster Abbey alongside former prime ministers and great authors like Charles Dickens. Our inheritance includes daring bridges and soaring stations – structures built with Victorian swagger and intended to last like Norman castles." But he neglected to mention which foreign companies would be getting the contracts.

15th March 2012

Owning a mobile phone that tells you what the weather's like or makes the occassional decision can't be a good thing for those with few friends. Such an app could become more than just a clever gadget, it could become your most trusted companion; and when the people with the power get wind of this phenomenon, how long will it be before they're using it to tell you exactly what they want you to hear? Trusted companion says buy latest landfill pop song or superficial romcom and off you go to the store. Continue in this fashion until you're completely at your phones mercy and before you know it you're voting for the wrong political party.

14th March 2012

Water canon and CS gas for the police? Sounds like somebody's expecting another riot or two.

Olympic Paranoia strikes the heart of government and paves the way for a temporary police state. Okay, apart from the police state bit, it was in the Daily Mail (famous for fear mongering and exageration) but it just might be true. We're already being told what to like by a media obsessed with disposable entertainment, so it stands to reason that the government will use the same medium to tell us what to be afraid of.

The Olympic Games (which I'm sick of already) is going to cost the country upwards of £553m so it stands to reason that they're expecting trouble. They say the extra security is for the good of the country and those attending the Games, but with the high levels of unemployment making social unrest a real possibility it just might be on their minds to make wider use of the men in security uniforms. Partial privatisation of the Police ring any bells?

Pyramidworks policy is Keep Britain Tidy