Wednesday, August 11, 2010

dismiss this as looking for silver linings around dark clouds (it might be dismissable anyway because i have done no fact checking) but i was remarking to belle that someone had tweeted that arcade fire is the number one record in america. maybe it was pitchfork. not sure. either way, she thought it remarkable that a band of obvious quality had the top spot. that is remarkable, i believe. but i also wondered if that wasnt a symptom of the fact that less people are buying records these days. one might think that the quality of bestsellers would rise as sales dropped. dont know if they have or even how you could measure that but...i figured that if less people are buying, then a larger proportion of them will be real music fans. those of us left are really here because we love music. are we distilling better taste out of smaller quantities of buyers? separating the wheat from the musical chaff? i dont know. does it matter? it might. i dont know that either but thats what i was wondering as i was waiting in line for my afternoon caffeine bump.

10 comments:

Bret said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Unknown said...

I'd agree with you and your wife's logic, downside to the cream rising to the crop means less money going to the artists, though. Then again, less money going to the labels and more attention being paid to quality may see the suits signing better acts, thus blessing us artsy folk with the temporary death of shitty music.

Ken Vandre said...

Rock/pop music trends seem to run in cycles. Something new, wild and powerful comes along, the music industry figures out how to monetize it (commercialize it, turn it into a formula), the life goes out of it, and then another new, creative force comes along to start the cycle all over again. The current trend of autotuned models seems to have gone on far too long, and it was starting to get me worried. I thought that the industry had finally succeeded in turning people into permanently mindless consumer robots. Your news about Arcade Fire gives me some hope.

Unknown said...

Eric,

Maybe your right,but I think the setup is no different now, like it was before in the early 1980´s, labels release crappy bands and a few respectable ones and the "indy" bands release their own with the DYI asthetic.

Only now unlike the 1980´s you´ve got the websites, downloadable files, a music business that´s going down cause of that so you got high prices for tickets...and no real fans of music..only song fans....and of course no Black Flag.

I think the AF thing is a one time deal and not a tendencie.

Unknown said...

"DIY" Do it yourself.

-ea. said...

does anyone know why posts are so often "removed by the author"? i mean, do lots of folks come on here shitfaced, post, and then awake from a blackout, get embarrassed by what they wrote and then delete their own comments? im really curious. enlighten me.

Bret said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Bret said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Ryan Parr said...

Over the years I've posted a thing or two only to remove it the next day. Usually I feel that it sounds like an idiot wrote it. So your guess seems accurate.

Phoenix said...

Hi Eric, just wanted to say hello.
Just keep on working in your own house. Don't care about the music industry.. what do they know!? It's like the bike-seller... filling in gaps with rubbish..:-)
A few weeks ago I got hold of the Deconstruction album... YES!! It's majestic!!! Love your bass playing, songwriting and narrative voice!! Enjoy life + YOU are the only authority on YOURSELF, the rest is just opinions, opinions, opinions... Truth is, all is One, every thought in fact is a division or simplyfication. It's all atoms (light) so every THIS or THAT (pointing something out) is in essence not true. That doesn't have to keep us from discussing for enjoyment.. ;-)