Stop complaining about music already! Unless you are an agent of change.
September 13 2009
The music you hear nowadays is crap...
I can't stand the [insert music format here- pop, jazz, whatever] you hear nowadays...
Right. Trite. Mass market music has all the nutrition and integrity of processed, refined, genetically modified, generically hormoneified, test-tube McFood.
Digital nano-editing, pitch correction, telephoned performances, formula lyrics, formula tunes, formula formulas- lots has contributed to a music soundscape that, like a fast food meal, appeals on contact, but leaves a quease-inducing filmy after-yuk. And it contributes to mental obesity. Fat on the brain. Ear grease.
None of this is a secret. The Pianobabbler hears the complaints all the time. And yet.
Stadium concerts. Arena rockouts. Symphony hall jazz nights. Pricey nights of the very music people decry. There is no shortage of them.
For how much longer are we going to have it both ways? Either we stop tuning into crap, or we break down and confess our love for it.
I know. I know. Change is a'comin'. And the agent of change is the Internet. No doubt. Some smaller indie artists have broken on the Net.
But the Net is also an agent of conservation. Mass market budgets allow for lots of Net leverage. Ashton Kucher has over a million Twitter followers. Say no more.
I don't know where the answer lies. Needless to say, the Pianobabbler would like to consider himself an agent of change. Yeah. As a pianist, I am waging a battle for one change: the return of instrumental music as a popular music.
The bigger music market today looks only at vocal. Until recently, instrumental music reigned, or at least was part of a coalition government. From the earliest days of classical music, until the 1970's, there was room on the charts for instrumental non-vocal music. Classical Gas, Watermelon Man, The Entertainer were top 50 in the 60's and 70's.
Now? It's sing or die.
Why? Lazy marketing. A complacent public. Unimaginative programmers.
It need not be so. The Pianobabbler and may others have entertained millions of listeners with pure instrumental music. Audiences are all around us. They're waiting to pay for something other than a Big Mac with vocals.
Surely there is more to renewing music thanks making room again for instrumentals.
But:If you all buy my recordings and go to my shows, music will change. We will be saved.
No pressure.
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